Shaggy
Member
If I could I would. Tampering with currency is a federal offense though.
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Misc All Things Religious
- Thread starter Cad Wedge NC
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If I could I would. Tampering with currency is a federal offense though.
Yes it is.
Iceagewhereartthou
Member
Downeastnc
Member
I didnt turn away from god, at least I dont see it like that because again there is no god, I turned away from the conditioning and indoctrination....determining that I didn't believe in god was easy, what was much harder was deprogramming myself from things I had been conditioned to do. Heck even today I still say "lord help me" or "god knows why" from time to time.....not because I mean it but because its burned into me habit wise....
As for proof there is no god, obviously I cant prove it....does not change the fact I am sure there is no god.....just like you are sure there is one. On the science side of things I think there is tons of solid evidence that the Christian mythos ( and all the other religion mythos for that matter) are not factual. Things like Noah's flood, creationism, the Earth is only 6,000 yrs old, people living hundreds of years, dinosaurs and man existing together at the same time etc....none of that is real......
NCSNOW
Member
Romans 1:28 English Standard Version (ESV)
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
Iceagewhereartthou
Member
The bolded is neither logical nor rational. If you cannot prove it then you cannot present it as fact, only as your opinion or belief. The bold indicates both. The red is a belief statement which seems to contradict other statements. For the blue, are you saying this is fact or opinion? Can you prove it? All of your statements about there being no God are your opinions. You are free to hold them of course, but you are presenting them as factual (both to us and to yourself) without one shred of proof. One cannot use opinions for proof.
BTW, some of these points are not matters that are essential to faith and salvation. While age of the Earth is interesting, it doesn't matter at all for faith and salvation. Whether the Earth is 6000 years or 14.6 Billion years old it does not affect the possibility of God at all.
Downeastnc
Member
I see very few Christians going around saying I know there is a god but then quantify that with saying "its only my opinion and not a fact and therefor god may not be real"......so if we hold Christians to the same criteria you are holding me too then essentially you are saying that every single Christian on this planet must admit that they might be wrong and there is no god since they have not one shred of proof god is real. If not then when they say god is real its neither logical or rational.....
It does matter if people literally believe the bible on things like Noah flood and how old Earth is etc....because we know what is factual there and that matters.....
Shaggy
Member
@Iceagewhereartthou if there is so much proof god is real then why does religion require so much faith?
I have no issue with saying myself as fallible man could be wrong and could be deranged. That said if there is no God and my life and all it’s divinely inspired steps were just a very long series of coincidences, by your rule I will never know it. Not that I would change my life regardless.
It doesn’t. To the person who is seeking with an open heart, the faith needed is very small. To the person with the closed heart who is not seeking, there isn’t enough faith in the world to save him.
MichaelJ
Member
We all have faith just in different things, when you sit down in a chair you have faith it will hold you up. When you drop a ball, you have faith gravity will make it fall. Having said that, not every place has gravity but every place has God
Cad Wedge NC
Member
The proof is in the Bible. Here we have a history Book which proves that God did all the things that are in question. What you are really doubting is whether or not the Bible is the truth. Correct me if I am wrong.....
Cad Wedge NC
Member
If there is no God and I live my entire life in a delusional world, then that's ok. I will die and return to the dirt and that will be that. Same as you. However, if I am right and there is a God, then your in big trouble when the death angel comes calling for you. You are essentially betting your soul that God is not real. Big mistake....
Downeastnc
Member
Its not a delusional world.....also it seems to me you live your life in fear of what might happen, and if you want to waste part of your life going to church and worrying about gods wrath have at it.....
The fear you Christians have I understand as I use to have it too......
Downeastnc
Member
Well there are things the bible says happen we KNOW are not true, and there are lots of Christians that believe everything in the bible literally happened even though we know it did not happen. So how do you square that, well other than denouncing the science as wrong and then replacing it with very unscientific "facts" that are anything but....
Cad Wedge NC
Member
What exactly would those things be?...... Even though I find some parts of the Bible hard to wrap my head around, I will never say that It's not true.
Downeastnc
Member
Well the normal stuff like Noah's flood/ark, parting the Red Sea, people living to be hundreds of years old, dinosaurs and man living at the same time etc etc etc...
Iceagewhereartthou
Member
Sorry I'm just getting around to responding Downeast. I certainly can't speak for other Christians, but I think it is certainly fair to apply that standard to Christians as well, and I don't think it would cause a problem. While it's true you'll hear some Christians say "I know there is a God," most readily admit their philosophy requires a bit of faith, which is a necessary foundation for a Christian. In fact, I don't remember specifically ever hearing a Christian say they could prove that God exists (though I am sure it happens). One of the big differences between the thought processes of theists and atheists is that theists admit (and even celebrate) that their worldview incorporates a bit of faith, whereas atheists almost always put themselves as far away from the word "faith" as they can get. "Atheism is a lack of faith" is a common line. Yet logically, we see that is not true, as the atheism worldview also takes faith. This idea that atheists don't have faith allows them to think they deal in "fact" while theists deal in "opinion," but that is not the case.
As for the flood, Earth age, and dinosaurs; I personally would not be confident enough to say "we know what is factual." I think we could have whole degree programs on all those topics so we will not solve them here and I certainly don't have all the answers on all those topics. We could quibble from now about how many animals Noah would have needed, how the ark could have been built soundly enough, fossils and carbon dating, etc. As I stated earlier, I think they are interesting topics to discuss but they are not essential for belief in God or Jesus or salvation. I seriously do not think (I may be wrong) God will ask us how old we thought the Earth was or if we thought dinosaurs and man lived together as a qualification test. John 3:16 gives a good summary of the essential tenets of Christianity. "God, love, begotten Son, belief, everlasting life."
Iceagewhereartthou
Member
I don't think I ever said there was "proof" and if did I shouldn't have (in fact, I've been pointing out the opposite to be intellectually honest). I think I have said I see a lot of evidence. Yes, it does require faith, but NOT blind faith. I consider myself a thinking person and have questioned and talked and researched and read and questioned again; heck it takes me weeks to decide what pillow or appliance to buy! We all have to decide what we believe when it comes to God. He either exists or He does not. I believe He exists as I see far more evidence that He does than that He does not.
Iceagewhereartthou
Member
It is interesting you say that. The vast majority of Christians I know actually live with very little fear. Having an eternal perspective on life and the world, combined with the faith that one belongs to God does not usually produce fear. In fact, we are "not given a spirit of fear but of sonship."
This is a great post. I have thought about this topic of faith vs proof many times though the years. There is no way to actually prove anything on either side. Both points of view require faith.
We ALL have faith in something. But when I look around this world and I think of the wonders that I see, placing my faith in the notion that it all developed out of random chance seems like the far bigger and far more ludicrous leap for me. The Bible says that the heavens declair His glory. And they do.
People have a distorted view of what faith is, which is why it is so silly everytime I hear someone who is an atheist say they don’t have faith in anything. Faith is believing something and acting on what that belief is. Everyone, everywhere has faith in something.
Agree, without faith, there would be no context for opinions.
Shaggy
Member
Ok thanks. I was taking your use of evidence as you saying it was proof. Thanks for clearing that up.
Downeastnc
Member
Oh I agree, I have faith in a lot of things, but for the most part they are things that have earned my faith through actions I can quantify....some others are testing my faith right now ( like my faith in humanity lol )
I think I lost my faith in Humanity with Honey Boo Boo....
NCSNOW
Member
Hebrews 11:1-6
11 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for(A) and assurance about what we do not see.(B) 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.(C)
3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command,(D) so that what is seen was not made out of what was
visible.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him(I) must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
11 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for(A) and assurance about what we do not see.(B) 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.(C)
3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command,(D) so that what is seen was not made out of what was
visible.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him(I) must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Shaggy
Member
I see 6 as the proof there is no proof of god.
In reality there is not one piece of physically verified proof that god, jesus ever existed. It's all a book a story book at that written by man proofread and edited by Constantin.
The Bible is not the only source that talks about the existence of Jesus. That said, faith is required to accept that God exists, the same as it is to accept that there is no God.
Shaggy
Member
I dont think it takes any faith to accept there is no god.
The bible was written in a time of great ignorance in regards to the world. Nobody understood nature so many cultures accepted odd weather or plagues as a sign that some god was angry.
We know how the world works now and we know all those stories and behaviors from god were just unknown weather back then.
In fact theres a terrible locust infestation right now in India and nobody even blinks an eye as to if it's a biblical plague.
This means all those godly acts are all bogus and never happened. There was no parting of the red sea. In fact that entire story is fake. The new translation of "red sea" is actually "sea of reeds" which was a shallow lake that is now dry.
Come on now, let's be be real here. If you believe the Bible is fake that is up to you, but it's just silly to try to interpret it that way. For instance the Egyptian army were drowned in a shallow pond? I guess the Jordan River was a small creek that they just stepped over and Manna was actually bird poop. The day never stood still as well, the Isrealites master chemists discovered meth and they whipped their enemy in such a short time it was as the day stopped, that or they smoked pot all day.
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A couple of points worth considering are that the idea of a greater being doesn't come from words on a page from an ancient text. Man has considered the existence of God since the beginning of time. And cultures without access to or influence from the Bible have been found to engage in worship and to speak about a higher power. Even if you remove the Bible from discussion, the idea of God remains.
The other point is that yes, there are things we know about the world. And there is much that we think we know, which we will later come to understand differently. I hate the argument that we are now so smart that we can be sure God doesn't exist. An atheist would have made that same arguement centuries ago when the world was flat.
We are in no way smart enough or know enough to definitively conclude that God doesn't exist. And just like I can't prove to you that God sent locusts to Egypt by reading you a Bible story, you can't prove to me that he didn't, just because there happen to be locust swarms around today.
So far, there is no solid proof offered in either direction...only arguments based on a presupposition. The conclusion is that it takes faith to subscribe to either point of view -- faith that a creator exists or faith that we have comprehensive and concrete knowledge about the entirety physical universe we occupy. The latter seems like much more of a leap to me.
Shaggy
Member
Exactly. Gods are a human condition. We've invented them from the beginning to explain the unexplained. Native Hawaiians didnt know why lava came out of the volcano so they invented Palai(sp).
We have science and physics that teach us about the universe. We have an okay understanding of how it works. We have scientific provable reason for all the plagues and we know its impossible for people to live hundreds of years.
We know when theres something that doesnt add up they tell you not to trust in your own understanding and just believe anyways. They tell you if your prayers arent answered that it's okay because god works in mysterious ways.
Its mind control.
None of that offers any evidence that God doesn't exist. Prayers answered or not doesn't mean God exists or doesn't exist. Lava coming out of a volcano, locusts swarming, viruses circulating the planet, etc. doesn't mean God exists or doesn't exist. Understanding things, like volcanoes, earthquakes, asteroids, nebulas, viruses, cell functions, gravity, electronic synapses, doesn't stand in opposition to the Bible or religion in general.
So in the end, we still have no evidence that God doesn't exist, meaning taking that position requires faith. You might think that is a better path or a better approach or whatever, but you still must exercise faith to hold that view. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is.
Iceagewhereartthou
Member
The more we learn about the universe and how it works, the less A God Concept becomes useful or realistic. Simple probability argument. A pure deterministic universe was shown to be full of holes after quantum mechanics. Really the only modern hope for 'God' is that the Universe is somehow a Massive 'Computer' Simulation. With that Highest computer being 'God'. That is, unless you want to entertain less than omnipotent gods.
Ok because I'm bored, Who/What built that computer?
Downeastnc
Member
Another computer obviously sheeesh....thus we fall into the god paradox.....its turtles all the way down.
Iceagewhereartthou
Member
I couldn't disagree more. Just because we can learn about how something works doesn't mean it wasn't created. I didn't make my computer and don't know much about the circuitry or software, but I could study and learn about it. Learning more about it would not take away any evidence that intelligence was necessary for it to exist; in fact, just the opposite. The more I learn about the intricacies and the complexities, the more it points to intelligence being needed for it to exist. Just because we have a good understanding of the physical laws that lead to lightning it does not mean there is no God. Complexity, order, physical laws, predictable outcomes, and our ability to learn and know things all point to intelligence, not a random chance of incomprehensible odds.
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