If God is

[Damian Mahadevan]

Feel free to point out some valid arguments for a second review.

I can point out two;
There are no witchcraft that have passed a double blind test.
We know today that sickness comes from bacteria and viruses, not demons.

Who ever wrote down the Bible assumed these existed and that includes Jesus.

I'd rather argue with new arguments and not the ones weve covered before.

The same thing can be said of the more sophisticated murderers. Witchcraft is an action not a personal trait.

So hereditary sicknesses comes from bacteria and viruses too? Like high blood pressure, heart conditiosn etc.

 

[peko]

@Damian
Just to clarify, and please correct me if I'm wrong I'm just trying to get your position.
As long as mutations are harmful they're an act of god, sort of a punishment for sin, but a beinificial mutation is out of the question?
That raises a number of questions for me but I'd rather wait for you to explain before I start with them.

 

[Damian Mahadevan]

@Damian
Just to clarify, and please correct me if I'm wrong I'm just trying to get your position.
As long as mutations are harmful they're an act of god, sort of a punishment for sin, but a beinificial mutation is out of the question?
That raises a number of questions for me but I'd rather wait for you to explain before I start with them.

My position is that as long as teh mutations are harmful, they are a result of sin(not God), as a christian we believe that the world and our bodies are decaying with every generation we move away from God, it is not a judgemnt but a result of sin influencing out lives. A beneficial mutation is out of the question because we were made perfect in the eyes of God(for example we start to grow wings etc). Though it may be possible for animals to have a positive muatation. Corwin probably could answer that better than me.

 

[Rithrandil]

Sooo you say beneficial mutations are out of the question, but then say they are possible?

 

[Damian Mahadevan]

Sooo you say beneficial mutations are out of the question, but then say they are possible?

Among animals yes, among humans no.

 

[Rithrandil]

Humans are animals.

 

[Relayer]

Once again another thread about God turns into a forum for rants against religion, by those who really don't have religious beliefs themselves, and cannot understand those who do, except by calling those who do have such belief fools, idiots, or deluded by a mass conspiracy

Why put words in my mouth? I never called anyone an idiot or a fool. It's one thing to argue about an RPG or game mechanics or politics or religion, it's another to start throwing insults around.

Now I think I can and DO understand those with religious beliefs to a certain point because I myself had them at one point in my life.

I have always firmly believed that one should not reject what one does not know. I've come to accept atheism only after being very religious and extremely curious about religion itself for many years. I have given religion and belief a chance many times and have just come to my own conclusions.

Now from my experience I can tell you that a lot of religious folk on the other hand believe simply on "faith", basically closing their minds to any other possibilities that may exist. They never question what they read or what they are taught from childhood.

And the sad thing is - and many of you will NEVER admit it - that some people only clutch on to "belief" as a security blanket. You know, "just in case", even though they have their doubts each day.

But back to the whole "mass conspiracy" theory… why not? It isn't so hard to accept if you really just think about it. In your lifetime have you seen any concrete evidence for god's existence?

While we do what we can to make our lives what they are, randomness is all around. Good things happen, bad things happen. I've seen great things happen to terrible people and terrible things happen to great people. How does god factor into it?

You praise him for the good… and for the bad? Ah, it was his will.

My sister is a firm believer. Her son, my nephew who I loved very much, died a few years ago at the age of 19 to cancer. This was one of the sweetest kids I knew. Never got in trouble, never did anything bad, wasn't a genius but did ok in school and was planning on going to college. Well, out of the blue he got lymphoma, suffered for 10 months and died.

Explain to me god's role in all this. Oh, our minds are too simplistic to understand the complexity of His works. Or he lets us make our own choices. My nephew chose to die. My family chose to suffer.

And it's not personal for me. Just look at the evening news and all the horrible things that happen. Do you know how many children die each day due to disease and abuse and starvation? Can you tell me what kind of loving caring being would allow these things to happen? And why they've been happening for centuries? Don't you think that it would be extremely effective for this being to show itself or make it's presence known to the masses?

And the whole concept of "heaven" or the after life is downright preposterous. Think of the logistics. How would it work? I die tomorrow still in my 30s, my wife dies let say 50 years from now at 86… in the meantime she remarries and has another child. Let's say the child dies after a week of birth. Ok, how will that work out?

I mean, heaven must be a physical place with properties that at least somewhat follow the rules of what we know otherwise what would be the whole point of us leading physical lives NOW?

And what a big place that must be if it will accommodate every being who EVER lived!

Oh wait - I guess that will depend on the religion you chose? No? I mean what will happen to all those Native Americans who believed in tree spirits and such?

What about those who have killed in the name of god? Those 9/11 Jihadists certainly believed what they were doing was for god, no? The Crusaders?

And what does it matter that I don't believe? I mean, I don't break the law, I've never killed anyone, I'm a generally giving and loving person, I'm not envious, I don't steal, I lie about as much as the average person does, I try to teach my children to be morally responsible, in other words, I'm not better or worse than the average believer.

But hey, won't it be grand 2000 years from now when our descendants are arguing the same thing (and armageddon never came!)?

Hopefully by then we'll come across other intelligent life forms. The universe just seems like such a waste of space (pun!), I mean it's VAST (understatement, ya?)… what was god thinking?

 

[Damian Mahadevan]

Humans are animals.

Fine, it may be possible among any other animal than humans. Though i disagree human beings are animals.

 

[ffbj]

Relayer: I am not putting words in your mouth. My reply was not directed at you per se, but if you read through the thread you will see what I said was true. These threads turn into religion bashing, God bashing. Blaiming God for all that occurs, which on one level makes sense if you believe that God created the universe. Personally I don't believe in God as most describe him. The creator the unmoved mover, the clock maker god, whatever.

I am sorry to hear of your loss, and it does seem that if there is a God then why do such horrible things happen to good people? Or if there is goodness in the universe and it is not truly just random why do the good get punished and the evil get rewards? One answer, that you have arrived at, is that God is an illusion. That there is no cosmic law of rewards for good actions and punishment for evil ones.
To me that seems like a valid and reasonable response. However I don't feel or think that I correct, though one can certainly lead a good life without believing in God, and one can lead a horrible life while professing such a belief.

The various religions certainly deserve much of the anomosity directed at them these days. Crimes have and will continue to be commited in the name of God, but these are crimes commited by men not by God. There are various levels of belief, those who just say they have faith, in a sense, are to be pitted, 'they don't use the sense that God gave them', as the old saying goes, to question their belief, you did and arrived at you own conclusions. I have too, though my conclusions are different.

Regarding the cosmological things like heaven an after life..etc…Well I'm a Buddhist so it's rather a foregone conclusion concerning these questions. We are transmigrating through many existensces, and many worlds/planes as a result of our ignorance and karmic retribution, (acts good/evil commited in past existences) but this was a thread started about God, so I won't get into that.

DM: Humans are animals. It's just that they have the ability to think that they are not. Of course you can have instances where animals think they are something else than what they are. My mom's family had a pig, a runt named Otis, which would have been killed, so they raised it as a dog. So it thought it was a dog. It acted like a dog and ran around with them, the other dogs. Then one day they had to send it off to be slaughtered. That was a sad day for my Mom and her brothers and sisters, to say nothing of how Otis must have felt. Pigs are very smart btw.

 

[Rithrandil]

Fine, it may be possible among any other animal than humans. Though i disagree human beings are animals.

The only fundamental difference between humans and other animals is we have a bigger pre-frontal lobe.

Edit: Oh, and examples of beneficial mutations in humans? Here ya go:

AIDS resistance:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1377146/

Here are a few others:
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoHumBenMutations.html

 

[Rithrandil]

@ffbj - Who is bashing god? You're doing the stereotypical religious arguments - "If religion is false why do you address it?" and "You all sure seem to hate god and blame him for what happens!".

Religious belief is demonstrably harmful, and the arguments I have been making could easily be changed to fit faith healing, astrology, palm reading, and many other "supernatural" claims.

If you really are a Deist as you claim you should be able to understand why your arguments are straw men.

 

[JemyM]

The same thing can be said of the more sophisticated murderers. Witchcraft is an action not a personal trait.

What action would that be?

So hereditary sicknesses comes from bacteria and viruses too? Like high blood pressure, heart conditiosn etc.

Those cannot be cured.

 

[ffbj]

Many things have been been said by many different posters is this thread. To say my arguments are straw men means nothing. What arguments? The statement I have made that these threads are religion bashing? They are and will continue to be. Stereotypical arguments? What of it? That means nothing either. The belief that you somehow know the answers is after all just a belief. We all arrive at our own conclusions about life. I won't call someone a fool, though I may think they are, for their beliefs. In a sense they are not fools it's just that I think their beliefs are, and that includes those that believe in God. That is just a belief in God does not mean much imho.
In regards to the question of an undefined God, by definition God is undefinable, so that is why I say that these threads are a waste of time. I doubt if anyone will change their mind due to what I have said, and no ones have made much of an impression on me since I have heard it all before. Here and there someone may get something of value out of this circular argumentation, almost anything is possible.

In many ways I think there are a lot better people out there than me. I would like to be a better person too someday, my beliefs help me and support me, on this path. I don't care to defend them but I would be happy to explain them if people want to hear them. The only one that can really question your belief is you yourself. So use the same critical thinking on your own beliefs and don't bother with questioning those of others. They will believe what they want.

 

[Rithrandil]

Many things have been been said by many different posters is this thread. To say my arguments are straw men means nothing. What arguments? The statement I have made that these threads are religion bashing? They are and will continue to be. Stereotypical arguments? What of it? That means nothing either.

Well, no, to say they are straw men and stereotypical means they are straw men and stereotypical. I've already explained why your arguments are silly (at best) in previous posts. Refer to those.

The belief that you somehow know the answers is after all just a belief.

I've never claimed to know the answers. That is what religious people do.

We all arrive at our own conclusions about life. I won't call someone a fool, though I may think they are, for their beliefs. In a sense they are not fools it's just that I think their beliefs are, and that includes those that believe in God. That is just a belief in God does not mean much imho.

We're not talking about a vague, deistic version of god here. We're dealing specifically with the Judeo-Christian god, and specifically a literalist biblical belief and world view of the universe. That *is* foolish.

So use the same critical thinking on your own beliefs and don't bother with questioning those of others. They will believe what they want.

I do. And don't question others? Sorry, but no - when people put forth positive claims I will question them. Religious beliefs are just like any other beliefs - subject to questions. If they cannot justify their belief I do not have to respect it.

 

[JemyM]

Blaiming God for all that occurs, which on one level makes sense if you believe that God created the universe.

Crimes have and will continue to be commited in the name of God, but these are crimes commited by men not by God.

I haven't seen a single one in this thread who blame God.
The ones who believe in gods doesn't, the rest doesn't believe in them.

It is ok for one who do not believe in gods to claim that the biblical character does commit actions that would by modern standards be considered criminal. This statement similar to the statement that Darth Vader kills, without meaning that Darth Vader exist. A such person would still not blame God since they do not believe God exist outside the book. The claim "the biblical God kills" is thus a correct one, in a literal sense. It's also a valid counter argument against who ever claim "God exist and God is good".

An unbeliever will claim that crimes are commited thanks to the belief in God's existence.
Most wars are struggles over resources and domain. Most of the violence caused by the belief in God's existence comes from human psychology in interaction with that belief. Believed resources include salvation and the importance of exclusivity, which causes the groups to naturally strike at any opponent/competitor to their domain.

An unbeliever will see this resource as non-existant, thus wars are fought for nothing.
Our proposed solution to this is to make people stop believe in God. There have been mixed strategies to do this, and the democratic unbelievers will probably encourage information and education, not prohibitions.

There are various levels of belief, those who just say they have faith, in a sense, are to be pitted, 'they don't use the sense that God gave them', as the old saying goes, to question their belief, you did and arrived at you own conclusions. I have too, though my conclusions are different.

The problem with this position is that it's an irresponsible nutrition for the extremist. By abandoning the strive to think right, and advocate truth-relativism, they make it possible to earn status and respect in a society enough to cause harm. When it's instead held as a general rule, that any proposal or belief is challenged to provide evidence and consistent thought, logic and empirical data, an extremist will not be able to get into power. This is also true when the search for consistent truth, self criticism and relying on verifiable facts is a greater virtue than swearing support, obedience or submission to a certain faction.

This is true in both religious and non religious politics.

 

[Damian Mahadevan]

What action would that be?

http://www.witchcraft.com.au/

Those cannot be cured.

I have seen those cured however.

Edit: Oh, and examples of beneficial mutations in humans? Here ya go:

AIDS resistance:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1377146/

Here are a few others:
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoHumBenMutations.html

As a Christian looking at this, I would have to assume that these(or variations) were present in the creation of Adam and Eve and were lost sometime after the fall and were restored somehow. My question is that if it was indeed restored, how was it restored, and did God have a part in it?

It is why i was asking for more visible beneficial traits, because for this stuff, unless we find Adam and Eve we cant really be sure.

 

[Rithrandil]

ave to assume that these(or variations) were present in the creation of Adam and Eve and were lost sometime after the fall and were restored somehow. My question is that if it was indeed restored, how was it restored, and did God have a part in it?

It is why i was asking for more visible beneficial traits, because for this stuff, unless we find Adam and Eve we cant really be sure.

Yes we can. There's no way for something to be "lost" and "restored" the way you think it is. This is the point I am trying to drive home: you have a severe lack of understanding of how biology works. If it worked the way you think it did, these genes would be present in every human being but only ACTIVATED in some of them. These are NEW traits.

 

[Damian Mahadevan]

Yes we can. There's no way for something to be "lost" and "restored" the way you think it is. This is the point I am trying to drive home: you have a severe lack of understanding of how biology works. If it worked the way you think it did, these genes would be present in every human being but only ACTIVATED in some of them. These are NEW traits.

My point is that DNA research is relatively new to find unactivated genes, hence why i say we need to find Adam and Eve at this point to prove otherwise.

 

[Rithrandil]

*No*, we don't, Damian. You still aren't understanding this. We have mapped the human genome. Only a small percentage of the population has this gene *at all*.

And there IS no adam and eve.

 

[Damian Mahadevan]

*No*, we don't, Damian. You still aren't understanding this. We have mapped the human genome. Only a small percentage of the population has this gene *at all*.

And there IS no adam and eve.

I meant indentified genes. I should have been more clear. We have mapped the entire genome but we dont know what half of it does? I asked this question earlier.