Bible Talk > Apologetics

Does God exist?

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Fat:
Hey Obi, you can speed this up by simply providing there is no God.

Please just list the evidence so we can end this.

JB Horn:
Hello Obi,

I would like to know a little more about your beliefs. The way I see it the universe could only come about in one of three ways.

1) It appeared for no reason and no cause, from absolutely nothing.
2) It has always existed, no starting time, no beginning.
3) It was created.

What do believe?

JB

obi_donkenobi:

--- Quote from: macuser on October 17, 2018, 05:46:51 pm ---
Absolutely true, and I hope you remember that you said this as this thread moves on.
--- End quote ---
>>macuser: While I'm glad to see you understand the logical fallacy, Appeal to Authority, I'm then forced to wonder why you employed it. You also seem to think I'm going to use it at some point, too. I don't intend to.


--- Quote ---You ask for the references my friend.

Definition of pantheism
1: a doctrine that equates God with the forces and laws of the universe
2: the worship of all gods of different creeds, cults, or peoples indifferently
also : toleration of worship of all gods (as at certain periods of the Roman empire)

Pantheism and Religion
Pantheistic ideas—and most importantly the belief that God is equal to the universe, its physical matter, and the forces that govern it—are found in the ancient books of Hinduism, in the works of many Greek philosophers, and in later works of philosophy and religion over the centuries. Much modern New Age spirituality is pantheistic. But most Christian thinkers reject pantheism because it makes God too impersonal, doesn't allow for any difference between the creation and the creator, and doesn't seem to allow for humans to make meaningful moral choices.
--- End quote ---
This is actually a point from another thread (Is the Bible truly God's word?), which I will respond to, there.


--- Quote ---Please answer my question: Does something need a cause to exist? Or can something just appear from nothing?

--- End quote ---
I'd be happy to: I don't know, but then again, I don't think anybody really knows. Theists claim to know, but their "knowledge" is faith-based, and faith is not a reliable path to truth, is it? And the logical extension to your question has to be: If something cannot come from nothing, then where did God come from? Theists usually then say God is eternal, but couldn't the non-theist just as easily say that the universe is eternal and skip the whole eternal entity question altogether? Having answers to the tough questions can be comforting, but isn't that only if one ignores the fact that the answers may not be true?

The theistic answer to the question of origin is based on a deduction made without sufficient data. In the human experience, everything we are aware of in reality had a cause for its existence. So, it seemed logical that the universe must have also had a cause. But I would posit that without good evidence of the cause (God), the best to be done is to consider the proposition of origin to be a hypothesis that needs further investigation to find any evidence for it. Theists have not done this, and skipped on to belief/faith, which isn't logical and as already mentioned, not reliable. One look through history and at the current state of affairs tells us that humans have been creating supernatural entities for as long as we've been around - hundreds of them. We are genetically prone to doing this - this doesn't make any of it necessarily real, does it?

obi_donkenobi:

--- Quote from: Hal on October 17, 2018, 07:02:46 pm ---Yes morals can be seen in nature's animals, like the grizzly bear who kills the cubs so that their mother will be free to mate with him. Murder for sex, very moral. In your above statement you seem to be saying that society can set the morals of man. I don't think you want to go down that road you're liable to end up in the middle of Hitler's Germany but then again you accept 60 million abortions in the United States alone since Roe V Wade?
--- End quote ---
>>Hal: Bears don't commit "murder." "Murder" is a human concept of killing without socially accepted reasons. Through scientific study, we think some non-social species kill the babies of competitors to ensure their own genetic line prevails. As a social species, we may not like it, but biologically, it makes sense, and we have no cause to try transposing our human morality on non-human species. Doesn't that make sense?

Society does set the morals of the peoples within their specific groups. Indians (from India) can't kill cows, Americans don't eat dogs, the Japanese find comics like "Rapeman" acceptable, etc. Or the Hitler thing. It's not a question of whether I want to "go down that road," or not. It is what it is, wouldn't you agree?



--- Quote ---As I have always understood it Darwin taught the survival of the fittest not survival  of the fairest or the most empathetic. Do you believe in Darwin's theory? I think that's another whole you don't want to go down. I've always wondered why one species would involve into another species so that the second species could eat the first species. I have always wondered how a how a species developed into two genders. Which came first the chicken or the egg? Where are the one eyed primates, or the grass eating mammals with an eye in the back of their head so that they can see the predator sneaking up on them? You ever wonder how the eye developed into something so sophisticated it could tell the different wavelengths of colored lights? Of course you never wondered, you have no need for that you are an atheist who has total faith from something told him by a person claims to have the truth.
--- End quote ---
Actually, Darwin coined the term "natural selection," and after reading Darwin's On The Origin of Species, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist Herbert Spencer re-phrased it to "survival of the fittest," which Darwin had no problem with. I don't "believe" in Darwin's theory, but I do recognize it as humankind's best explanation for the diversity of life on this planet and is one of the most solidly factual theories in all of science.

Please be aware there's more than one definition of the word, "theory." Used colloquially, it means, "best guess," but in the scientific use, it means, an explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can be repeatedly tested, in accordance with the scientific method, using a predefined protocol of observation and experiment. Established scientific theories have withstood rigorous scrutiny and embody scientific knowledge.

In science, as far as what we humans know with regard to the real world, a "theory" is the pinnacle of our knowledge in a subject. The wonderful thing about science is, if a theory is proven flawed, it's updated to incorporate the new knowledge, making it an even more accurate description of reality - it just gets better and better. It is not considered to be the immutable and never-changing proclamation of Truth. Be glad we have scientific theories; they give us every modern amenity you can think of: flight, electricity, computers, instant knowledge via the Internet, safe food/housing/cars/buildings, etc., etc., ad infinitum.



--- Quote ---And of course we go back to the basics, if matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed only change form, how do nothing become everything?

--- End quote ---
And to your last question re something from nothing: I don't know, but then again, nobody really knows. Theists claim to know, but their "knowledge" is faith-based, and faith is not a reliable path to truth, is it? And the logical extension to your question has to be: If something cannot come from nothing, then where did God come from? Theists could say God was eternal, but couldn't the non-theist just as easily say that the universe is eternal and skip the whole eternal entity question altogether?

obi_donkenobi:

--- Quote from: Fat on October 17, 2018, 07:25:14 pm ---Hey Obi, you can speed this up by simply providing there is no God.
Please just list the evidence so we can end this.

--- End quote ---
>>Fat: First, are you aware that it's impossible to prove a negative? So asking me to prove there is no God is not a viable question. Second, it isn't my position that there is no god or gods; maybe there is or are. I am simply un-convinced that your claim for a Christian God is true. I am not making a positive claim - I am doubting your claim. You now have the Burden of Proof to show such a thing exists in reality, and I'm pretty certain you can't. Can you?

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