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#41 | ||
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let it snow~
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Since you're away for several hours, let me sum up a lot of key points I think you may have overlooked.
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In religious science, you begin with the 'facts' and work your way backwards. However, instead of applying thousands of tests, you apply slippery-slope logic that makes assumption after assumption to "PROVE" that God exists. 2) I think Reach went into far too great of an explanation when it comes to pretty pictures and music benefiting our survival. First of all (and this is going to be a huuuuuuuuge assumption), let's assume that not every culture on Earth speaks English. I know, it's a leap of faith, but bear with me for a second. Now, let's assume other cultures actually want to communicate with each other. Hmm. They don't all speak English! How do they communicate with each other? Oh. Another way to look at this is to understand that cultures tend to look at their culture and think it is great and worth passing on. Clearly worked for the Renaissance folks, since everything they painted has been idolized to this very day. Pictures are a way of passing on your culture long after it has been destroyed, or communicating with people you have no hope to communicate with. You can describe with thousands of words what you're trying to describe, but since our cultures are so vastly different, we will probably not pick up on what exactly you mean by bright multicolored round disappearing object, even if we do understand the translation, whereas drawing a simple little circle in the sky with small lines coming out from it clearly shows you mean the Sun. 3) Quote:
That wasn't good enough for me. And clearly, it's not good enough for you if you're reading apologetics. How can Jesus be his own father? If Jesus and God are the same person, why does Jesus ask God for forgiveness? If Jesus is his own father, then does that mean he committed a sin by impregnating his mother with himself? You don't have to answer any of that, because I'm sure you can come up with some convoluted answer to all of it. That's not the point I'm trying to make here. The point is that none of it makes sense, and it's not supposed to. Trying to explain miracles takes away the fact that it's supposed to be a miracle. This same phenomenon happened on the anti-Bible episode of Bullshit. A guy tries to explain how Moses could have parted the Red Sea by stating that they probably crossed the Reed Sea during low tide. But that removes the fact that it was a miracle! When you remove miracles from religion, then it's no longer a faith. Just stop trying to prove that God exists and take everything at face value. But since that won't work, please post these "proofs" of Christianity. Not just the Big Bang one either, though that was fun to debunk. I sincerely hope there's more than just "we don't know so God did it" in all of them. And I sincerely hope none of them are as dumb as the only other one I've heard, which is that the Great Flood carved the Grand Canyon. |
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#42 |
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FFR Veteran
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This doesn't work entirely the way you'd like it to. 'Time', at least the way we perceive it, is just a way of explaining the order in which things will happen/did happen, not an actual thing. If God created the universe, then two things must be true: 1) There was a point at which God existed and 2) At that point, the universe did not yet exist.
Sounds pretty sequential to me. The only way this could avoid using the concept of time as we know it is if, along with the creation of the universe, God also made 'time', which, by virtue of it suddenly coming into existence, retroactively had to include God's previous presence in the timeline. However, this brings up the issue of how long God had existed before the creation of the universe. If God was never created, and had always existed, that means that there is an unquantifiable—but, notably, non-zero—length during which God existed before the 'creation' of time which, again, doesn't jive with the entire scenario. The other option is that 'time', like God, has always existed, which seems far more likely, if you're going with that conception of God. |
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#43 | |
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Everybody gets one.
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Fuckin space bro
Posts: 1,003
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#44 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Dec 1969
Location: New York City, New York
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The problem is that you're still using God to fill in gaps with the "God outside of time" argument.
"I don't know how this would be possible, but God is so awesome that he just MAKES it possible." I mean, how can you disprove something like that? "God is so powerful that if we don't have an answer to something, we must assume it's beyond human comprehension and that it's something God did." I just fail to see why people use "God" as a way to describe what they don't know. WHY must it be some sort of magic man behind the fabric of spacetime? Instead of using evidence to support or reject a hypothesis, it's as if the hypothesis is assumed to be true, and the evidence needs to be reworked and warped until the hypothesis seems reasonable, or evidence is simply made up altogether for the sake of insisting the hypothesis is true. Then again, plenty of theists I talk to aren't really concerned with truth. Pick their claims apart with physics/evolutionary processes/etc, and it's almost always the same: "That makes sense but I still believe in God," which either means "I can't really explain to you why I believe in God despite your claims" or "I don't actually understand your claims." Usually people can't elaborate on the former because it's always something like "I've just believed it my whole life and it 'feels' right" without really considering the implications of such a statement. When pursuing a higher level of understanding or truth, sometimes we have to put aside what we think we know and critically put old evidence against the new, and bridge the gaps where possible, revise where things were mistaken, and so forth. Does this mean I am open to an entirely new view of the universe? Potentially -- but it would be if new evidence presented itself that made something else overwhelmingly clear, while still being consistent with all the other evidence. My question is why people choose to rely on "faith" in things like Christianity... but I digress. (I don't really care, either, if this goes against the "no religion" request in the OP -- feel free to disregard this post if you want, then) Last edited by MrRubix; 07-6-2009 at 08:00 PM.. |
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#45 | ||
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FFR Veteran
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Of course, this all falls apart when you consider that there are multiple religions, many of which think the other religions are wrong, and will condemn you to fiery punishment if you picked the wrong one. Oh well. |
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#46 | |
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let it snow~
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So, the real comparison is: Living life for yourself not caring about invisible space men. Living life in fear of going to Hell, making sure you don't piss off invisible space men. |
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#47 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Dec 1969
Location: New York City, New York
Posts: 8,023
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Actually, the real truth is that if you don't worship me as the Almighty Creator, you go to a fiery hell for all eternity.
Skeptical? If you don't believe me, why believe anyone else? What have you to lose by believing in me, now? You're going to be sorry when you go to Hell forever because you didn't take my warnings seriously! What I am about to say will come across as extremely presumptuous, narrow-minded, and disrespectful to most people, but it's something I know to be true: Everyone in this world who is religious is going to be in for a surprise when they die and find out there's nothing. Unfortunately, they won't realize it. Depressing and bitter, perhaps, but I do feel some power in "knowing" what will happen to us in death. The thing is, plenty of religious types feel just as strongly and believe in afterlife with the utmost sincerity. However, I sadly think the evidence leans heavily away from their views. I wonder, Reach, if you fear death at all? I understand it's an "illogical" fear to some extent, since a death leading into nonexistence means you no are no longer able to even care once you stop functioning. However, as a living human right now, who is able to think, breathe, and experience emotion, I feel fear in the fact that time is short and our lifespans are unpredictable. Last edited by MrRubix; 07-6-2009 at 11:53 PM.. |
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Admiral in the Red Army
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But I digress. The reason we are the only one we know of is that the closest Earth-like planet is simply too far away. There could well be intelligent life on other planets, they could even be venturing out into space, but we are only barely getting out into our own solar system. Forgive the pun, but the chances that we'd stumble across each other any time soon are astronomical. It could also be that other intelligent life in the universe may be far behind. In science fiction, aliens are often portrayed as more advanced than we are, but if we're only just barely reaching out into space, I think it's even more likely that other life forms in the universe haven't even begun reaching out into the vastness of the universe. Quote:
And it's turtles all the way down. ps on the topic of fear of death and the religious beliefs of the afterlife, I've always found it really funny that a religious person would be afraid to die. If I believed the sorts of things that religions tell about an afterlife, I'd be excited to die. You know those crazy extremists blowing themselves up in the middle east? That makes sense to me. They believe in this amazing afterlife, and they're getting themselves a quick one-way ticket there (or... they believe they are getting a one-way ticket there). But people elsewhere, no, they're afraid to die. It's as though they don't truly believe the stuff, because if they did, they should be in a hurry to get there. If Heaven is so great, why doesn't everyone go enlist in the military and volunteer for dangerous missions? Why doesn't everyone become a firefighter, constantly entering extremely dangerous situations to save others? Even the Christians who have had the "near death" experiences of their brains beginning to shut down aren't like this. No, they write books and live out a long life profiting from their experience. If they believe so readily, what are you doing sitting around here. If what you believe is true, this life doesn't mean ****.
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#49 |
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Ok, so this has boiled down to a full blown religious debate. I orginally wanted to avoid this as there is so much being said and it makes really hard to sort of give quality replies to every point made, which is sad because part of me would love to try and properly answer them. The fact is I don't have the time to do so, nor do I personally have all the answers.
These sort of threads have generally gotten me down as it is kind of overwhelming, but from them I have left with questions and all I can do is trust God that the answers are out there and in general over time I seem to come across them. Yes, I can see how can that be seen as starting off with an answer and trying to find evidence to fit the answer and not looking at the evidence and finding an answer. I think the biggest factor to how any of these arguments play out is simply whether or not you are willing to believe in anything beyond materialism. Just as many Christians will try and say they are willing to look at the physical evidence, many skeptics will try and say they believe miracles are possible. If you are unwilling to believe that there is potentially more in this world then protons nuetrons and electrons then please do not bother posting again. You will simply stop any potential progress this thread can make.
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Orbb fan club. White text society. |
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#50 | ||
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let it snow~
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Watch this. Quote:
Aside from that, the entire time you're talking in Universal terms, you're under the assumption that humans are IT. That there's nothing else in the Universe. There are billions of planets and an uncountable number of stars, but Earth is the ONLY PLANET with intelligent life, mirite? I know there's absolutely no proof that there are any other forms of intelligent life in the Universe, but there's also no proof against it. This is the standard "does god exist" result, but I'm purely speaking statistics here. Statistically speaking, with all the possible sources of life, it is beyond my comprehension that humans are the one and only form of intelligent life in the Universe. Last edited by Squeek; 07-7-2009 at 02:34 AM.. |
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#51 | ||||
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John 14:6 "Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Quote:
Also is there not a point to be made that out of all our species we seem to be the only ones with any real sense of self awareness? Does a Gorilla see himself as I? I can see that we in many ways have evolved from apes or what have you, but there is something that just seems special. Or is there nothing that we can't explain through evolution? Quote:
Christianity would argue that your barely even living on this Earth until you are in relationship with God. Jesus came so that we could have an abundant life, why would we wish to leave quickly? Whats the rush to get to a party that wont end, if you want to use that analogy. Quote:
![]() Squeek, two things regarding point 3 of your post. Judging concepts through the people who try to convey them is like trying to judge a car through someone's description. Someone may know a Ferrari is a good car but they may not know how. They may not be able to explain how, but it dosn't mean its a bad car. Secondly, I agree that trying to rationalize miracles through science or discounting them completely ruins the point of faith. But if you can believe that someone created the universe then it isn't much of a stretch to believe that he could alter the natural laws that the something created. That in no way proves Chrisitan miracles but it certainly helps start the process. I guess the word prove does not mean physically show that xyz happened or how xyz happened, just demonstrate that its possible and likely given proper assumptions.
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#52 |
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Squeek, whats the point in discussing things of a spiritual nature if you refuse to belive that spiritual things could exist?
Thats what I am trying to say.
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Orbb fan club. White text society. |
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#53 | ||
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let it snow~
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Luke 18:18-30 summary: Sell everything you own. If you don't, you can't get into heaven. Oh also, you have to follow me (aka be my disciple, you'll see where I'm going with this next). Luke 14:26 summary: Hate everybody. Hate your parents, hate yourself, etc. Hate everything and everyone. If you don't, you can't be my disciple (and, by proxy, you can't get into Heaven. This couples well with the next one!). Luke 10:25 summary: Love everybody. Love god, love your neighbors, etc. Love everything and everyone. If you don't, you can't get into Heaven. Hmm. Jesus is making this hard already. But it gets worse. Matthew 5:20 summary: Unless you're better than the Pharisees, you can't get into Heaven. Now this is a fun one. Pharisees are always talked about in churches despite the fact that nobody has a damn clue who the hell they are. So, let me just paste their laws. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_Mitzvot Pharisees obeyed these laws religiously (if you'll ignore the pun). If you can't obey those laws and more, you can't get into Heaven. People cite John 3:16 all the time as if it's the only time Jesus ever mentioned how to get into Heaven. I'm not surprised, since the other 7 times he mentions getting into Heaven are absolutely insane and do not coincide with this "one" way at all. But this is the word of God, after all! Not only that, but Jesus himself! Why do so many people ignore the other 7 rules? Nobody's getting to Heaven at all! It's kind of depressing. If only people would read the Bible, they would see that they're not obeying the word of God. But I digress. This has gotten far too outside of the confines of this thread. As for the rest of your post, I'm not a scientist nor do I follow science. I practically failed science in high school and college. I don't really know a damn thing about quantum physics. I just cite actual scientists who have explained these things. I'm not a good philosopher either. I really can't wrap my head around things like cosmology and infinitely expanding Universes. It doesn't make sense to me. However, it makes a hell of a lot more sense than just filling in the gaps of science with "God did it", especially when those gaps are constantly filled with better explanations, leaving less and less wiggle room for "God". Look, you've already confined him to the start of the Big Bang. How much more ground do you have to lose before you think critically and examine the facts without the bias of trying to fit "God" into them all? Now onto the next post. Quote:
That's what I am trying to say. Neither side of a Christian/Science argument is going to listen to the other side. You think we're stupid for blindly following science, we think you're stupid for blindly believing in religion. The only difference is that science is not closed-minded. Anyone and everyone can disprove anything they want to. If you don't like the Theory of Evolution, then find evidence that disproves it. It's that simple! But if I don't like the idea of Intelligent Design, no amount of evidence will convince you that you're wrong. It's kind of a double standard in your favor, but the funny part is that science still has never lost to religious claims. I would still love to see more apologetics since my google searches are only turning up pages that link to books and not actual examples. Last edited by Squeek; 07-7-2009 at 05:52 AM.. |
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#54 | ||||
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Admiral in the Red Army
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Just because evolution gives us something accidentally doesn't mean it's not a fundamentally good thing. Actually, that's the whole ****ing point of evolution. Random mutation creating useful traits that get passed on to progeny. The fact that a trait's origin is random chance doesn't mean it's not a good trait, not just in the case of human's logical nature, but for all evolved traits. Quote:
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Especially when you're talking about LOGIC, something is not PROVEN just by explaining a way in which it is POSSIBLE or LIKELY GIVEN OUTLANDISH ASSUMPTIONS. Something being possible DOESN'T MEAN ****, and REQUIRING AN OUTLANDISH ASSUMPTION for something to just be considered "likely" is ****ing stupid and NOT a proof of ANYTHING. Holy ****, man, really? To prove is not to merely show it is possible. What the ****. It is possible that I am actually an alien from Jupiter. Therefore, it is proven I am an alien. WHAT Ok stop. Let's start again with an outlandish, unverifiable assumption. I was born in the year 1800. Therefore, I am over 200 years old. Am I 200 years old really? No, because the outlandish assumption is in fact TOTALLY ****ING WRONG and HAS NO BASIS IN REALITY. Seriously, I am just totally losing my mind here. How the hell can you seriously say "the word prove does not mean physically show that xyz happened or how xyz happened, just demonstrate that its possible and likely given proper assumptions." I really want to know what makes you think that pointing out the possibility of something is in ANYWAY comparable to proving it.
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Alternatively, he practices favoritism by tinkering to help certain people and not others. Hell, sometimes really bad things happen! Does he purposely tinker to make bad things happen? Why would he do that? When a plane crashes and everyone dies except one why does he tinker to save only one person? Does he like them more than the others? He is too weak to save the others? Was killing everyone else part of his plan, and if so, isn't that cruel? This is a logical disaster you've gotten yourself into. The physical laws of the universe can never, ever be broken. This severely limits our choices in this scenario. Assuming God exists, he can 1) only be revealed through what is natural, so God is the universe itself, or 2) God cannot possibly reveal himself directly - He created the universe to do exactly what it has always done and does not intervene. To expect anything else is to throw your new found infatuation with logic out the window. Quote:
It's that gigantic piece of neural tissue that makes us special. Obviously that much more tissue allows us to take our self awareness to an entirely new level. Also, to support this why don't we look at what happens when our brains don't develop properly or don't develop into the right size (Too small). If it doesn't develop properly: See: http://www.judiciaryreport.com/images/fas-brain.jpg FAS - the child is mentally retarded with very little mental capacity, very little self awareness of cognitive abilities we consider normal. Too small: See microcephaly. Same thing. As brain size decreases, so does intelligence, and so does self awareness and other human like traits. Also, as an interesting exercise, note the similarities between the human skull and the chimp skull. Note the recession of the mandibular jaw, and the compression of the maxillary jaw to decrease biting power and increase skull space available for brain. Also, check out this picture of an ape without hair: http://www.boingboing.net/hairlessmkb0416.jpg
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Last edited by Reach; 07-7-2009 at 08:35 PM.. |
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#56 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Dec 1969
Location: New York City, New York
Posts: 8,023
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I cringe when I see the word "random" in these debates.
Again, as I said in another thread, evolution IS. NOT. RANDOM. |
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#57 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Dec 1969
Location: New York City, New York
Posts: 8,023
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Windsurfer your "religious logic" falls apart because you're simply making illogical jumps that aren't supported by anything. Yes, I am "me," but why does that make me eternal? Why jump to the "logical" conclusion of a God when most of your reasoning is gap-filling? Why are you taking in the Bible when, as Reach said, much of it is demonstratively false?
It feels like, to me, you're taking an approach of "It doesn't matter how much evidence against God you find, there's always that chance everything else that you can't disprove is true and so God must exist." "I guess the word prove does not mean physically show that xyz happened or how xyz happened, just demonstrate that its possible and likely given proper assumptions." Neither of those views are "logical." A "proof" does not rely on something that is "likely," because a proof means something is necessarily true. Even at that, if we are to go by what is likely, it's like saying science has a near-100% chance of being right, and religious types have a near-0% chance of being right. I don't quite think religious types understand how much evidence is blasting back against them. For any claim or "logical linkage" you make in favor of God, you can't get upset when people bring up evidence against it. If there's evidence against something, you can no longer say it's a proof. Using God to fill in the gaps of everything has absolutely no logical basis. |
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#58 | |
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Everybody gets one.
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Fuckin space bro
Posts: 1,003
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This thread is just too much now.
So... Quote:
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#59 |
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Alright, at the very top of this thread in big letters I wrote "I do not want this thread to turn into a religious thread or a creation versus evolution." When it started out this way, naively and egotistically I thought, its cool I can handle it. As it has been made clear I can't.
As I have said earlier though, an unbiased thinker will not take my lack of ability to properly demonstrate the validity of Christian beliefs as a sign that they are invalid. I am happy to keep aiming for the moon and falling short. The fact is I can potentially handle trying discussing a single front of discussion at a time. I can't handle an all out assault from every direction. Thats why I asked for this not to turn into a religious thread. I still think there is truth in what I believe and I am very interested in critically thinking about it. I would love to make some more threads in the future on very small and narrow topics in the hope that we will not get things out of hand. Should I bother doing so? Are people actually interested in being open minded and discussing the validity of certain thoughts? Edit: Would I be wrong in saying that most of the posts in this thread have not tried seeing any validity in what has been discussed? It does feel like there has been next to no effort to try and think about things from the other point of view (mine), no effort to try and find some positives in my arguments.
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Orbb fan club. White text society. Last edited by windsurfer-sp; 07-8-2009 at 02:28 AM.. |
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#60 |
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let it snow~
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To be fair, asking for this not to become a religious thread is like shouting "THERE IS NO GOD" and asking for people not to tell you that you're wrong.
And asking us to see things from your point of view is rather... odd. I mean, you're telling us to assume "ok WHAT IF there was an omniscient omnipotent invisible being in the sky" when, to us, that's a rather large assumption to make and is outside of our scope of reasoning. For those of us who operating in the world of logic and proof, even making this huge assumption is like giving you an 'in', if you will. It's the same problem I was having with the Metaphysics thread, though I didn't post it. The person there is trying to make an argument wherein you cut two people's brains in half and split them among each other in trying to argue that your sense of self is lost when you do this. When you keep forcing yourself to use "what if"s in order to try to win an argument, it sounds to me like you're grabbing for straws at that point. But I'll play your game regardless. What if it were God? Then anything and everything can be God. Then there's no point in doing any scientific examinations of anything anymore, because it's easier to just assume it's God's doing. It's the same as the slippery slope legal argument. If you make one thing illegal, you can make anything illegal. If we say God did one thing, then God can do everything. Which is why we'll never admit, even in assumptions, that there has ever been a God doing anything. Last edited by Squeek; 07-8-2009 at 03:02 AM.. |
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