What is Tim Duncan's religion?

[redzero]

You're premise is flawed and without merit. God is perfect, omnipotent and anything else that is good. He made man independent, autonomous and with free will.

Yeah, God made them imperfect.

Because man is not perfect, its reasonable to believe man will make mistakes.

So God knowingly made something that would make mistakes?

[tmtcsc]

tmtcsc... you won't ever be taken seriously. One reason is that you base your knowledge on one source. Two, you display your 14 year old age by using an edited picture of s as your avatar and use the word "owned."

You believe in God because you either grew up that way and never attained a reasonable level of intelligence to see how flawed and obviously fake dogma is, and/or you're terrified of your mortality because in all brutal honesty, you're just a coward that can't except things for how they really are.

Hey look its Proxy! The answer to the question no one asked. The geek with a cartoon character for an avatar calling me juvenile. Comical.

You reek of a pampered Trinity punk who thinks because he's taken a few philosophy classes that he can trot on these boards and sling and parrot what his professor taught him last week.

You're whole existence is cliche. One day you're going to have to get a job. You know that right? You're going to have to shelve the chuck Taylor's and cut that scraggly ass.beard your sporting. Unless of course your Mommy and Daddy leave you enough $ to sling BS from your ipad at Starbucks.

Mental midget.

[all_heart]

Yeah, God made them imperfect.



So God knowingly made something that would make mistakes?

Only God knows this, only He knows his plan for us and the world. I think part of that plan is for life not to easy for us, we all have tough choices to make and survive hard times which hopefully makes us better people.

Other than that........ GO SPURS GO!!

[Budkin]

Why does he have to have a religion?

[Proxy]

Hey look its Proxy! The answer to the question no one asked. The geek with a cartoon character for an avatar calling me juvenile. Comical.

You reek of a pampered Trinity punk who thinks because he's taken a few philosophy classes that he can trot on these boards and sling and parrot what his professor taught him last week.

You're whole existence is cliche. One day you're going to have to get a job. You know that right? You're going to have to shelve the chuck Taylor's and cut that scraggly ass.beard your sporting. Unless of course your Mommy and Daddy leave you enough $ to sling BS from your ipad at Starbucks.

Mental midget.

I find it humorous that I am assumed to be a psychology/philosophy major. I guess I'll take it as a compliment that you think that. It's funny that you try to use intellectualism as some kind of insult.

To address your question in a more direct manner: You're a fool trying to hang on to whatever petty argument you have by addressing what science has admittedly said it has no answer for... yet. Read up on fallacies and you'll find your arguments littered with them.

To quote an interview of someone (Neil Degrasse Tyson) much smarter than me:

...mean that if you don't understand and the community of physicists doesn't understand, then god did it? Is that how you want to play this game? Because if it is, here is a list of things from the past that physicists at the time didn’t understand… and a talk show you might have conducted 200 years ago would have said, "The planets do retrograde? Can't understand that, must be a God." [Physicists] would say,"You know, you're right we can't explain that," but then ten years later we understand it... then what do you do? If that is how you want to invoke your evidence of God, then God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. So that's just simply the 'God of the gaps' argument.

[Blake]

God has always been. If you start with the "what or who came first" line of questioning, it will continue forever. For example, who created the person who created God ? etc. etc.

Even if you say the Universe has always been, we know that it isn't a bunch of nothingness. There are planets, stars, gasses..Who put all that there ? What caused it ?

Our Universe started with God's creation. Nothingness was prevalent. No time, no dark matter of outer space, nothing.

interesting that you have no problem with a God that has "always been" but seem to have issue with space and time always existing randomly in some form or another.

[Blake]

There are hundreds of religious and creationist sites with ready-made answers for all such questions which people could simply copy and paste, but it's obvious he's too green for such debates yet. I could defend his position better than him.

all of those ready-made answers from religious or creationist sites I've seen end up failing, imo.

If you've found an answer that doesn't fail, let me know please.

[Blake]

If you're going to bring up a contradiction, it helps to look at the whole context of the chapter - Jesus was telling his listeners to not make their giving a public spectacle like some were doing because they wanted public recognition for their good deed and therefore performing the good deed for the wrong reason (Matt 6:5). As far as letting God's light shine throught the believer - 2 Corinthians 4:6 is a better comparison for Matt 5:16.

It's pretty simple folks

Jesus says to let your good deeds be known before saying just one chapter later to hide your good deeds.

The contradiction is pretty simple to see, imo.

[Leetonidas]

Religious people logic:

"God has always been!"

"The universe cannot have always been! That doesn't make sense!"

[Blake]

You're premise is flawed and without merit. God is perfect, omnipotent and anything else that is good. He made man independent, autonomous and with free will. Because man is not perfect, its reasonable to believe man will make mistakes.

Was it reasonable to believe man would sin? If God is omniscient, he would have know that man would sin and up.

Proverbs 6:16-19

King James Version (KJV)

16These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
17A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
19A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

God hates sin, yet in his omniscience, he created man knowing that he would sin......in essence purposely creating something that he hates.

Pretty ed up, imo.

You seem to want God to return and fix that which man has ed up. Pretty lazy on your part tbh.

Why didn't God create a man with free will that wouldn't up?

Why dangle that apple?

[BG_Spurs_Fan]

all of those ready-made answers from religious or creationist sites I've seen end up failing, imo.

If you've found an answer that doesn't fail, let me know please.

To the best of my knowledge, no, there aren't any, but then again I'm the science type.

Anyway, I'm not into the God vs Big Bang debate, people can believe whatever they want, I have no problem with this. My beef was with the 'something can't come out of nothing' line, which is incorrect, unless you believe such a thing as 'nothing' does not exist.

[tmtcsc]

I find it humorous that I am assumed to be a psychology/philosophy major. I guess I'll take it as a compliment that you think that. It's funny that you try to use intellectualism as some kind of insult.

To address your question in a more direct manner: You're a fool trying to hang on to whatever petty argument you have by addressing what science has admittedly said it has no answer for... yet. Read up on fallacies and you'll find your arguments littered wit them.

Easy now. No one claimed you were a philosophy major or an intellectual. I believed in God before I ever cared to know how he created the Universe. I still don't care. Science and technology will continue to evolve and provide more answers to how he did it. But there should be no mistaking I believe God is the reason. There are No gaps with God.

[Blake]

There are No gaps with God.

/caveman

[tmtcsc]

So, if I get you correctly, such a thing as 'nothing' does not exist anywhere, right, as even vacuum is something, black matter is something, etc. Is this correct?

Yep

[tmtcsc]

Yeah, God made them imperfect.



So God knowingly made something that would make mistakes?

Yes

[pgardn]

tmtcsc

There are 4 useful words that you might want to use in this sequence:


I do not know.

Then try: it is beyond my capability, I am only human, not God. Im sure your God enjoys the fact you are just shooting randomly from the hip.

[tmtcsc]

To the best of my knowledge, no, there aren't any, but then again I'm the science type.

Anyway, I'm not into the God vs Big Bang debate, people can believe whatever they want, I have no problem with this. My beef was with the 'something can't come out of nothing' line, which is incorrect, unless you believe such a thing as 'nothing' does not exist.

Something can't come out of nothing unless your definition of Nothing allows it to have some sort of value. Then, Nothing really is something.

[tmtcsc]

tmtcsc

There are 4 useful words that you might want to use in this sequence:


I do not know.

Then try: it is beyond my capability, I am only human, not God. Im sure your God enjoys the fact you are just shooting randomly from the hip.

Sure, I do not know. There you go. I don't have all the answers but I have the one that works for me. Does my answer make science junkies happy ? No. They need closure. They need proof. They need it to make sense with formulas and equations. That's why they will continue to search for it, denying (somehow) that a deity was not responsible for it. Never being able to offer an ounce of proof that God doesn't exist.

By the way, my God is the same as yours whether you choose to believe or not. From the hip.

I like your Avatar by the way. Good stuff.

[redzero]

and now he brought up the old "you can't prove that God doesn't exist" argument.

You can't prove that Zeus doesn't exist, so why dont you believe in him? Face it, your belief is illogical.

[BG_Spurs_Fan]

Something can't come out of nothing unless your definition of Nothing allows it to have some sort of value. Then, Nothing really is something.

So, by your own stance, you admit that the big bang, and consequently the universe, did not come out of absolute nothingness? I thought your argument against the big bang was that it couldn't have come out of nothing - well there you go - you've said yourself that such a thing as nothing does not exist and by extrapolation - has never existed, thus the big bang did not come out of nothing.

[benefactor]

More fruitless religion discussion. ibtl tbh.

[Magua]

So, by your own stance, you admit that the big bang, and consequently the universe, did not come out of absolute nothingness? I thought your argument against the big bang was that it couldn't have come out of nothing - well there you go - you've said yourself that such a thing as nothing does not exist and by extrapolation - has never existed, thus the big bang did not come out of nothing.

[Magua]

Real talk tho, it's pretty ing frightening that there are some people in positions of power who think as tmtcsc does.

One of these days the entire country will join us in the 21st century

[Arcadian]

Easy now. No one claimed you were a philosophy major or an intellectual. I believed in God before I ever cared to know how he created the Universe. I still don't care. Science and technology will continue to evolve and provide more answers to how he did it. But there should be no mistaking I believe God is the reason. There are No gaps with God.

Please try to view your statement from another perspective.

Suppose I believe the universe was created in a super-duper-alien laboratory in the seventeenth dimension. (As absurd as you may think this is, I could easily create a religion based on it if I wanted to.) If such a hypothesis were true, it would be impossible to disprove because humans are merely three-dimensional beings capable of understanding three-dimensional concepts. In other words, my hypothesis is totally unfalsifiable. When challenged for the details about how it happened, I respond by saying it doesn't matter, I don't care, I believed in it long before you started asking. Whenever an alternative hypothesis is proposed, I claim that X hypothesis still fails to explain Y phenomena, so the 17th dimension alien hypothesis must be true. Simply by virtue of the robustness of my belief, you are expected to be convinced.

How would you feel about me if I thought this way? How do we typically feel about people who believe things on insufficient evidence in ordinary life? To take an example from Sam Harris, you would demand evidence if someone claimed that your lover was cheating on you, but you have no qualms with believing in a supernatural creator of the universe. You would demand evidence if someone claimed to have a giant diamond buried in their backyard. We all demand evidence for these claims, but religion is thought to be different - somehow beyond this level of inquiry. But it isn't.

Michael Shermer famously said that claims which are unfalsifiable are "not even wrong." They're worse than wrong. They can never be found to be true nor false, so they can never contribute to any kind of progress or understanding. I'd rather have a hypothesis that is dead wrong than one that is unfalsifiable.

Maybe I'm dead wrong. But you're not even wrong.

[BG_Spurs_Fan]

Please try to view your statement from another perspective.

Suppose I believe the universe was created in a super-duper-alien laboratory in the seventeenth dimension. (As absurd as you may think this is, I could easily create a religion based on it if I wanted to.) If such a hypothesis were true, it would be impossible to disprove because humans are merely three-dimensional beings capable of understanding three-dimensional concepts. In other words, my hypothesis is totally unfalsifiable. When challenged for the details about how it happened, I respond by saying it doesn't matter, I don't care, I believed in it long before you started asking. Whenever an alternative hypothesis is proposed, I claim that X hypothesis still fails to explain Y phenomena, so the 17th dimension alien hypothesis must be true. Simply by virtue of the robustness of my belief, you are expected to be convinced.

How would you feel about me if I thought this way? How do we typically feel about people who believe things on insufficient evidence in ordinary life? To take an example from Sam Harris, you would demand evidence if someone claimed that your lover was cheating on you, but you have no qualms with believing in a supernatural creator of the universe. You would demand evidence if someone claimed to have a giant diamond buried in their backyard. We all demand evidence for these claims, but religion is thought to be different - somehow beyond this level of inquiry. But it isn't.

Michael Shermer famously said that claims which are unfalsifiable are "not even wrong." They're worse than wrong. They can never be found to be true nor false, so they can never contribute to any kind of progress or understanding. I'd rather have a hypothesis that is dead wrong than one that is unfalsifiable.

Maybe I'm dead wrong. But you're not even wrong.

As the famous quote goes :

When you understand why you dismiss all other possible gods, you'll understand why I dismiss yours.