RikuoAmero wrote: » Given that this is the existence of god debate thread, your post (talking about the properties and attributes of your god) is kinda putting the cart before the horse. You can make whatever declarations about your god all you want, but it's pointless since you haven't demonstrated there to be a god at all yet.
J C wrote: » Because God is omnipotent and omniscient, He avoids interactions with His Creation as He has given us free-will and any interaction by an omnipotent Being could compromise our free-will. When He last came onto the Earth He came as a Human Being ... and He used His omnipotent powers vary sparingly - and He didn't use them to compromise anybodies free-will.
Safehands wrote: » What a great bit of whimsical fun this one is. There are thousands of ways which God could use to convince everybody of his existence. My current favourite would be to wake up some day to hear that every computer, every phone and every television carried the same message, God exists and at 9am GMT, he was going to prove it. At that time, all traces of the Ebola virus would disappear. If that were to happen, Mr. Wayne, I think most people would be convinced. The only trouble would be that God would have to clarify which denomination represented him best. If he didn't, the rows would quickly start again, between all the different groupings.
Marion Morrison wrote: » Out of interest, exactly what irrefutable evidence would prove God ? To someone who does not want to believe, there is no evidence that I can think of, that could not equally be explained away as some extremely advanced alien species/spirit, pretending to be God.
Festus wrote: » What about life?
and man is not irresponsible ?
I have. do you believe aliens exist?
Perhaps you should explore it.
Forgive me but I do detect serious quantities of bias. For someone seeking the truth you do seem to be quite taken with lies, mis information, half truths and bias. Someone who is open would not call people with faith gullible or use asinine arguments like "god of the gaps" in any seriousness, but no matter. Maybe you just don't realize how biased you are.
Did you pray with all your heart, all your mind and all your soul? What did you pray for?
Just out of curiosity - how does GTA5 inform your relationships with women?
Squeedily Spooch wrote: » The one with the existence of God debate thread.
Festus wrote: » Which forum are we in?
Squeedily Spooch wrote: » To you. Not to the few billion people who don't worship the same Judeo-Christian version of the God you do.
Festus wrote: » I am sorry to hear that and I am glad you didn't follow through on the suicide. However, are you being presumptive or judgemental in referring to my "god"? There is God. By using the term "your god" you are implying there are different flavours of god. There isn't. There is one. God.
RikuoAmero wrote: » So far, everything that I have tested and examined when put into relation with your god has come up negative.
RikuoAmero wrote: » Ooh boy, that is a whole other ball game right there, which I won't get into here (to put it simply, if your god claim is true, along with this free will claim, then it shows a massive level of irresponsibility on your god's part).
RikuoAmero wrote: » Something measurable, something detectable. I think yourself or someone else put up the "what if it's aliens with advanced technology" as a possible explanation for perceived phenomena that seem god-like. That is a very real possibility, one which we can't rule out. So basically, since you believe Jesus died and was resurrected, how have you ruled out the possibility of an alien entity acting like Q from Star Trek doing it for the lulz?
RikuoAmero wrote: » You might as well ask me why I like my favourite colour. I dunno, that's not a question I've explored, and one I'm not sure I can answer.
RikuoAmero wrote: » Depends on what exactly you mean by this. I'm interested in discovering truth. I'm not going into your religion with a presupposed bias in whatever the truth may be. As I've said to you before, I've prayed a few times since leaving (upon advice from other christians who told me "Pray and you will find God". No I didn't. Even back when I was a devout believer and prayed, nothing ever happened.
Festus wrote: » Look at everything. Examine everything. Test everything. Consider everything.
Free will.
So what kind of evidence do you want? What kind of evidence would accept without responding with the standard "god of the gaps" response.
What is it about the topic that fascinates you? Are you like the atheists in the article and fascinated by the supernatural?
Are you actually interesting in discovering God?
RikuoAmero wrote: » I meant that the god you talk about and express a belief in. I would use the exact same phrase if I was talking to a hindu or muslim. As for you saying "There is one. God", that is still an unsubstantiated claim. Yes, you've put forward "everything" as your evidence...while later saying you refuse to "spoonfeed" i.e. refuse to provide workable evidence. I say workable because what am I supposed to do with the word "everything" as evidence for your god?
RikuoAmero wrote: » That's a possibility right there, but what is the evidence for it? Also, why all the hide and seek?
RikuoAmero wrote: » Having never been a soldier, I can't comment on it directly. However, if the claim "atheists pray without realising it in times of combat" is true, then all that is evidence for is that...well, they are praying. Plenty of people who don't worship the god you belief in have fought in combat and prayed to their own gods, and I'd be very surprised if no hindu soldier ever for example didn't go into battle praying to Shiva or Vishnu.
RikuoAmero wrote: » I meant that there is a mystery at the moment about why we are the sole species on Earth with this level of consciousness and intelligence. To throw in "soul" as the answer to this mystery would be like God of the Gaps, where one has a mystery (such as origin of the universe) and throws in "God did it" as an answer - neither case has as of yet any evidence for it. Nothing wrong with pursuing possibilities. But it is asinine to go from "I suspect that the answer for the problem of human consciousness is souls" to "I believe the answer is souls, despite not presenting evidence"
RikuoAmero wrote: » I for one do it because I want to be sure of my belief or lack of belief in something, especially in something that is claimed to be this uber-important. I do it because the topic is fascinating to me. I do it because I like debating. I do it because I actually like it whenever I'm shown to be wrong. Now I haven't read the full article as of yet (too busy with work and GTA5), but if I'm remembering correctly what little I did read, it talks about people being interested in the supernatural, not your god specifically (the character called God in the book called the bible).
Perhaps I am wrong here but in reading this I get the sense that rejecting God is more important to you than anything else. So much so that in contemplating suicide you could not figure out which god to pray to. Do you not think that perhaps God, seeing you facing suicide, encouraged you away from suicide so you might have more time to find Him?
... more than they think they do. Fog of war and all that. It does tend to focus the mind.
some atheists. Not all, some. As for god of the gaps - what is the relevance. If there is a suspicion of a soul wha tis wrong in pursuing the possibility from all possible angles?
You did, and I accepted you gave it a cursory glance but I was giving fair warning. I guess I was right in thinking spoon feeding wouldn't be of benefit. For the the article is well written, sourced from atheistic scientists and hence contains a certain bias, but poses the question why so many people atheists included, are interested in God. There has to be a reason for this as there is a reason for everything including our existence. Or perhaps we don't exist and are only sentient programs existing in the construct of a more powerful entities matrix.
Safehands wrote: » Anyway, the point is that the universe came about due to a process involving the "big bang",...
Safehands wrote: » ...not by a super being clicking his fingers over a period of 6 days and making it all happen.
RikuoAmero wrote: » Recently, I went through a suicidal phase, and I do have to admit, there was a brief time, where a part of me wanted to pray to your god.
RikuoAmero wrote: » However, during this period, I reminded myself that 1) there was no justification for a belief in your god on my part 2) I would have been falling victim to Pascal's Wager, since, without evidence, how was I supposed to determine if I would have prayed to the right god? Many religions teach that their god is a jealous god, who doesn't want humans praying to/worshipping other gods, so if I had uttered for example a catholic prayer, then how would I have been able to rule out the possibility of Allah punishing me after death for not praying according to what the quran teaches?
RikuoAmero wrote: » ...no-one brought me here. I went on to the christian section, saw the thread about NDEs, read it, watched the video and gave my initial critique, as you well know I did. Someone in the past may have told me "Go to boards.ie", I can't remember if someone did or if I found it myself, but no-one brought me to the NDE thread that day. That was all me. Where's your evidence for this claim, that I was brought there by someone else?
RikuoAmero wrote: » Fine, then a slight misreading on my part. It does say that atheist soldiers do pray, it's right there.
RikuoAmero wrote: » I will give the obvious answer that you are expecting and say, right bloody there. As for tacithttp://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tacitly adjective 1. understood without being openly expressed; implied: tacit approval. 2. silent; saying nothing: a tacit partner. 3. unvoiced or unspoken: a tacit prayer. So you're saying that as per the article, atheists have an unspoken belief in an immortal soul. Well, not me. I've never been given evidence for a soul - I know that there is an open question on why no other creatures share our level of consciousness and intelligence, but that doesn't give one licence to throw in the concept of soul as an answer, a la God of the Gaps, and to start talking about what it is. One can certainly suspect the existence of a soul, and to think of it in hypothetical terms, but if one doesn't have evidence for it, one lacks justification to believe it is there.
RikuoAmero wrote: » I did tell, did I not, that that last response from me was an initial response, while I was busy reading it? Therefore, I expected you not to take it as though I was giving a final critique. That response was akin to someone saying 10 mins into a movie "So far this movie is good, but not great, but I'll give you a final answer at the end"
Festus wrote: » In context it mentions atheists praying in war situations and probably not realizing it. Or perhaps when facing the potential for imminent death they "find God" ...but you're different I guess and are prepared to be a martyr to the cause of atheism unto death.
No doubt there are commited atheists who would not seek solace in the God of their childhood when facing imminent death but many do and at least one brought you into this conversation on the NDE thread.
The article says that on the death of a loved one some people make declarations like prayers. it does not say that they pray.
Now where does it say they hold a belief in an immortal soul?
Lawton is making a summary point which cannot be reasonably critiqued in the manner you did without access to the raw data. If your response to this article is anything like what you have just posted having skimmed the article or anything like your review of the NDE video you will forgive me for thinking it might not be worth the time to read it. It is highly likely that if you continue to read into articles and postings things that are not there, mis-interpreting them, or re-interpreting them to suit your own agenda you may find my responses being limited to "that's not what it says, read it again".
Lady Chuckles wrote: » Unless I understood things seriously wrong, they did NOT live thousands of years after "the book" was written. The bible has lots of sections written at different times: 800 BC, 400 BC, 200 BC, 160 BC. New Testament and the Gospels around 150 AD. I'm not native in English so you may have to look up what parts come from what time yourself, if you're interested enough ... Yes, some parts of the bible are older than the great thinkers (but not by thousands of years). Some parts are newer. This is drifting off topic at this stage - but I am not OK with you so casually saying that the bible was written by a bunch of "ignorant people".
Safehands wrote: » There were brilliant thinkers and philosophers throughout history. Aristotle was way ahead of his time, but don't forget, these people lived thousands of years after the book was written and even they didn't know some very basic facts that we take for granted today.
Lady Chuckles wrote: » Back then as in BC? Ignorant like Archimedes, Socrates and Plato? I still don't think your statement is quite right. Not everyone was "ignorant /.../ back then". In either meaning.
RikuoAmero wrote: » Very well then, I found your source. I'm having a read of it now, only part way as I type this. Just as a brief note, many of the things that link says atheists do, I do not. It mentions atheists praying, or holding a belief in an immortal soul (I do not). I do not pray. Since I realised my former religious beliefs had no justification, I have prayed only a small handful of times, as experiments, not out of a sincere expression of belief towards the deity. I will have to fully read the article, and see if I can get at the study and/or research papers before I can offer up a more complete response. However, that will be tomorrow evening, as I'll be going to sleep soon.
Safehands wrote: » I mean ignorant in the literal sense, not being offensive. Everyone was ignorant of facts back then.
Lady Chuckles wrote: » Care to elaborate? I think this statement is very offensive. Maybe I read it wrong or maybe you used a poor word to make a point....
Safehands wrote: » It would be lovely to think that God blinked his eye and created everything, as outlined in the Bible. Obviously that did not happen. I say obviously, because there is nothing anywhere to suggest he did, except a book written by ignorant people.
Festus wrote: » Read my postings to other posters, you'll find it. It came from science20 Please, read the source I provided from science20. It's not a joke.
RikuoAmero wrote: » What source? All I remember seeing is you mentioning you don't believe atheists exist, and then saying that atheists believe in moral relativism or that you took my actions here on this forum to paint a broad brush of all atheists.
RikuoAmero wrote: » So yes or no - are there people out there, like me, who say (and mean it) that they do not have a belief in your god? No, I never said it's not okay to say "I don't believe you" (after all, that is my stance toward everything you said about your religion). What I am pointing out was that you denied that there were people who exist who don't believe in your god, (in other words, espousing that other people cannot have a lack of belief) and yet being perfectly fine with saying it of yourself.
Safehands wrote: » No Festus, you are seeing things which can be quite easily explained by physics and science.
Safehands wrote: » Scientists accept that the universe came into existence about 14 billion years ago after the big bang. What existed before that nobody knows for sure. It would be lovely to think that God blinked his eye and created everything, as outlined in the Bible.
Safehands wrote: » Obviously that did not happen. I say obviously, because there is nothing anywhere to suggest he did, except a book written by ignorant people.
Safehands wrote: » We do know for example, how the mountains and the firmament came into existence. We know what all the visible the stars are, we know where they are and we know how old they are (roughly). When Genesis was written these facts were unknown.
Safehands wrote: » So you take the position that you see evidence for God Everywhere. You see beauty in Nature, in the world, in humankind. A snowflake is beautiful, but we know how it is formed. It is nice to think of it as evidence for God's existence, but it is not, unfortunately.
Safehands wrote: » I could say the same thing about Zeus or Apollo, if I had a mind to do that.
Safehands wrote: » It is just as accurate to say that I can't prove they don't exist as it is to say that I can't prove the Christian God doesn't exist. There is as much evidence for their existence as there is for your God's existence.
Safehands wrote: » Having said all that Festus, I would truly love to really believe that Gad exists, I really would. Unfortunately I don't.
