I've decided to devote a thread to the belief system in which I believe God works on.
Let's begin on what God is all about: 1rst we will look at choice. As many of you will argue that religion is something that once you get into it, you will simply blindly follow and you are given a ball and chain and there is absolutely no choice whatsoever. That's simply not the case. I'm sure you know as well as I do that there are extremist out there, but nonetheless God created us with freewill. Otherwise there wouldn't be any atheist to go haywire on this thread after they have read it. We as humans have a choice in which we set our faith (or lack thereof) our morals, our beliefs, and so on and so forth. God didn't want robots without any choice. He wanted something you could make that he could love him and something intelligent enough to love him back.
2nd we will look at faith. Religion is based completely on faith. Hebrews 11 is all about faith (NIV translation)
Verse 1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for. Verse 3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at Godâs command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
Verse 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
In part of God not wanting robots he decided to make life more interesting. He wants us to love him through faith and nothing more. This way he can understand how real your love for him truly is.
Now let's delve into Compromised Choice shall we. Atheism is the lack of faith of a divine being. Athiest prefer backed evidence compared to stories or biased sources. They need to see to believe contrary to Hebrews 11:1. But why would that be contrary to God?
Why would an omnipotent being need to be seen only through faith?
Because remember the first thing about God - he is all about choice. Therefor revealing himself outright would compromise this. Let me put it in a case of a scenario. If right now, wherever you are, God appeared right in front of you. He called you by name, then snapped his fingers and all of a sudden an elephant was created next to you, or he healed someone right there in front of you. Better yet let's say he did it at an international science convention where it was broadcast all over the world. Now God is there preforming miracles for the entire scientific community to see. Every single scientist in the world could run any number of tests that there is and get positive results that standing right there is indeed an omnipotent being.
So given that scenario, you have all the evidence you need. You have seen with your own eyes along with the rest of the world that God exist. You have all the scientific evidence in the world to back it as well. What reason would you have to NOT believe God existed? There would be miniscule reasoning to not believe in God.
Now this brings us to the second part of the Compromised Choice system. Faith. If you could see God right there in front of you, there would be no reason to have faith. You could love him or not but either way that love would be superficial. If you knew you could go to heaven or hell just by loving him there would be little choice in choosing a path because the only logical thing would be to believe in him.
God does not want to work on human terms because he has no need to. He gave the guidelines for what he would like for us to do and he has kept those guidelines for thousands of years and we continue to have a choice in what we do. But there is logical reasoning behind him never showing himself in the first place because he refuses to compromise his original intentions.
"you do not apprehend God's whole form at any one time, but everything you observe is of God." It just never seemed to me to be a notion that one could dissect, consider piecemeal, nor anything that was cited as possible proof of the existence of God itself (including 'rophecies' and 'miracles' ever anything more than historical verification.
We wouldn't need to understand God's whole form. We would just need to verify such a forces interaction. Further more verify them based on the claims of what that force can do. If God is playing an active roll in the natural world then we can determine this through science.
Anything can be 'explained away' if a person is willing enough to do so, hence my earlier comment that decisions regarding the 'assessment of phenomena that may be relevant to God existing' is up to that person alone.
Yes, that's one reason why it's important to try and be objective as possible.
In brief, between being right and being fair, I would rather believe I was being fair than right, particularly because being skeptical of everything, being right is a nebulous concept to me.
The problem is you can't really play fair with a group that doesn't want to. Let's take creationism for one example. This was a concept that tried to side step all the rules of how information get's into text books. They tried to claim doing this on the grounds of fairness, but this is completely unfair. It can't play by the rules so it tries to get around them. We can see this mentality even at a fundamental level in religion, as this thread attests to.
I would also assert the belief that reason has supplanted notions of God etc. to be inevitably stemmed from irrational motives. And that's why I take such a dim view at the liberal bandying about of the term "objective" here, because all it really indicates to me is a lack of self-recognition.
We rely on the objective aspect to eliminate our irrational nature from the equation the best we can. If anything being inherently irrational makes objectivity all that more important to strive for.
but I consider it a farce and an affront to the tenets of science to attempt to apply them in a manner where all that is ostensibly at stake is one's feelings.
Unfortunately history shows us that there is more at stake then just one's feelings.
Since the disagreement here consists of the involved parties refusing to accept each others' premises, therein lies the impasse. Thus my criticisms from earlier are directed at both parties.
The premise of religion seems to be "accept what we say". We are just saying "show us don't just tell us". But it utterly fails at this, and even goes as far as to say "no we don't have to" and throws out idol threats. It's like trying to play ball with a kid who doesn't want to play by the rules then throws a fit when he gets called on it.
We are trying to be fair when we ask that they presents evidence for their claim. It fails to do so, so we don't accept that claim. It's not up to us to then disprove it, just not accept it.
Actually, you don't believe 100% in God, when you'll seek for evidence of God's existing.
Nor should you, by doing so you close yourself off to other possibilities.
Believing is good enough, to prove that he exists. (Kinda)
Not at all. By that logic we can say Santa and the Easter Bunny are proven to exist.
at work again so i'll keep this reply pithy: have you ever considered that tring to last down the rules of this engagement has given your opponents that foothold they require to garner validity through support?
you should be more concerned with properly observing the principles of your own tools.
have you ever considered that tring to last down the rules of this engagement has given your opponents that foothold they require to garner validity through support?
I'll just wait until you can expand on this.
you should be more concerned with properly observing the principles of your own tools.
Requiring objective evidence is observing the principles of our tools.
Wow, epic posting fail. Sorry about that, that last submit was accidental and I was only in the middle of drafting it out. That's what I get for trying to post on the fly. Disregard, I will retype it.
In response to MageGrayWolf's previous post
I am similarly concerned at the state of this argument in that we're now debating putting creationism as a valid scientific hypothesis alongside evolutionism. But the way I see it, the problem stems from when people mistakenly started to argue that science "made God irrelevant", which eventually turned into the common misconception that "science can disprove God". You yourself have repeatedly stated that we can reject specific phenomena asserted to be relevant to God, but (and this is the last time I'll repeat this) you have never been able to establish that God can be disproved entirely. If you're not aiming to do that, then this is fine.
However! Looking at this "creationist textbook" debacle. Would it not be more appropriate to flatly reject outright that Creationism could ever be a theory, as opposed to attempting to falsify aspects of it, that implicitly validate regarding it (or Intelligent Design, for that matter) as a competing theory? That's where the problem lies, after all. And that does mean acknowledging that it isn't science's role to even falsify that specific phenomena suggests that "God exists", because if you don't do that, you can't argue that "God existing" has nothing to do with what science aims to do. That's what I mean by properly observing the principles of your own tools: you might be adept at using them but the ends to which they are used is even more important.
If anything being inherently irrational makes objectivity all that more important to strive for.
To suppress with the aim of denying yields poorer results than to acknowledge and mediate. To strive for objectivity and objectivity alone will only take you further from it
I am similarly concerned at the state of this argument in that we're now debating putting creationism as a valid scientific hypothesis alongside evolutionism.
I was just using it as an example of how some try and say it is then don't want to "lay fair" and allow science to put it through it's paces, but instead we are just suppose to accept it. This behavior seems very prevalent in religion.
You yourself have repeatedly stated that we can reject specific phenomena asserted to be relevant to God, but (and this is the last time I'll repeat this) you have never been able to establish that God can be disproved entirely. If you're not aiming to do that, then this is fine.
Yeah actually that isn't my aim at all. We don't have to entirely disprove God, just need to poke enough holes in it to the point it would be absurd to consider it valid. Actually thinking about it we don't even need to do that much since it fails at such a fundamental level. But when we get things like the OP saying "we don't have to play by the rules" it needs to be called out.
However! Looking at this "creationist textbook" debacle. Would it not be more appropriate to flatly reject outright that Creationism could ever be a theory, as opposed to attempting to falsify aspects of it, that implicitly validate regarding it (or Intelligent Design, for that matter) as a competing theory?
But when we say "we don't believe that, show us evidence" that's what we are doing. So why should we then have to follow it up with proving that negative?
Reading over the rest of your post I get the impression we are on the same page of different books.
Okay, same page on different books seems like one way of saying it. Or maybe "same publication, different volume" :P
Actually thinking about it we don't even need to do that much since it fails at such a fundamental level.
There, you said it yourself! I'm just stricter about this (having many years ago attempted to go down the path of playing 'by the rules' and realising that I would lose a lot more integrity than net gain.) Debating these examples just undermines my ability to say "look you don't understand science as a whole so quit telling me what science is supposed or not supposed to do." It also helps to emphasise what science does do and not, e.g. as far as criticisms of evolutionary theory is concerned, science was never concerned with the story of our origin, merely proposing a model of our derivations. Obviously specific criticisms about the model should be dealt with but the weakness lies in the next step, that claims "due to this weakness, God's existence is suggested", and not before.
But when we say "we don't believe that, show us evidence" that's what we are doing. So why should we then have to follow it up with proving that negative?
My points boil down to "you don't, if you don't accept that they can prove the existence of God in the first place." As soon as somebody suggests that they can prove the existence of God, don't even get sucked into that playing field. One might cajole, compel, threaten (presenting believing in God as a choice which has dire consequences is still a threat of sorts), but I firmly draw the line before prove.
So I'll turn my attention to the OP, which I note you (MGW) have supplied a response to, a response that would overlap with mine so I'll skip ahead.
I've spent quite a bit of time talking about my insistence in keeping my scientific and "rational" considerations disengaged from debates about God. To extend this: I accept that as presented, my belief or disbelief in God is a choice, regardless of the ultimatums that accompany that choice. I make that choice on the basis of my own beliefs in the awareness that I'm working within the limitations of my own conceptual framework. That framework serves me well and I'll review it as I see fit. You can throw religion in my face as much as you want and tell me that I'm going to hell for having atheistic sentiments and refusing to believe in God, though I won't understand how it's relevant to you, nor will I understand how it serves anybody any useful purpose (and doing so in a way that is unlawful is, well, unlawful and I reserve the right to tell you to cease and desist purely because you're annoying), but I'm not going to pretend that I'm any more righteous for being able to justify my choices in some 'rational, objective' manner, because it's a farce that misuses the tools I hold dear.
A person who is settled and at peace with these things needs not make weapons of the guise of rational argumentation to justify personal choices. That just is, however I attempt to describe it, and I'll leave it at that.
You can throw religion in my face as much as you want and tell me that I'm going to hell for having atheistic sentiments and refusing to believe in God, though I won't understand how it's relevant to you, nor will I understand how it serves anybody any useful purpose (and doing so in a way that is unlawful is, well, unlawful and I reserve the right to tell you to cease and desist purely because you're annoying)
I never intended to throw religion in anyone's face. This is a debate forum and when I make arguments such as this I'm simply offering different views for people to see. I'm not suggesting that this is the only reason yet I'm giving logical appeal. Regardless of anything you might believe when I defend my religion in these forums it has plenty of justification for those who bash it.
Secondly I have a constitutional right to give speeches on religion as according to the 1rst Amendment. What your claiming is a Heckler's veto and it is obviously dismissed from the faultiness of your argumentation.
This is more overt, but is a prime example of how most prophecies are "fulfilled".
Magegraywolf, you misunderstood my post. I pity your ignorance. I was merely suggesting that the similarities of the verse were eerily close to the situation Osama was put in. I don't believe he is alive. I doubt he'll rise out of the sea and walk among the living again. I don't see why anyone would believe in that poppycock.
I don't see why anyone would believe in that poppycock.
There was a thread on here not to long ago about just that...
Ps: Mage is not ignorant.
Secondly I have a constitutional right to give speeches on religion as according to the 1rst Amendment.
And I have the right to call you an idiot. I'm not, but I have the right to.
What your claiming is a Heckler's veto and it is obviously dismissed from the faultiness of your argumentation.
What Strop is refering to is those people who run around badgering people about religion. For an extreme example, thing Westboro Baptist Church. Eventually that badgering turns into harassment. Harassment can take many forms and, that may infringe upon another's rights. When that happens it's against the law. The only reason people like WBC get away with half the stuff they do is because a lot of laws in America are driven by religious views.
There, you said it yourself! I'm just stricter about this (having many years ago attempted to go down the path of playing 'by the rules' and realising that I would lose a lot more integrity than net gain.)
I haven't seemed to have been losing integrity by doing so. If anything it's been of benefit.
Debating these examples just undermines my ability to say "look you don't understand science as a whole so quit telling me what science is supposed or not supposed to do."
While I could likely use it more often I don't think it has undermined my ability to do this either.
My points boil down to "you don't, if you don't accept that they can prove the existence of God in the first place." As soon as somebody suggests that they can prove the existence of God, don't even get sucked into that playing field.
I like to give them at least a chance especially in an area where they are allowed to voice their points.
I'm not suggesting that this is the only reason yet I'm giving logical appeal.
Since your argument basically said "God is above all that, so just believe" You pretty much missed that mark. If you want to discuss with logic why start with a point that would allow you to dismiss any logical counter argument? Though this thread has generated some interesting discussion.
I was merely suggesting that the similarities of the verse were eerily close to the situation Osama was put in.
Actually the similarities were quite contrived. Though it was how many prophecies get fulfilled with even vague similarities and things being forcefully matched.
What Strop is refering to is those people who run around badgering people about religion. For an extreme example, thing Westboro Baptist Church. Eventually that badgering turns into harassment. Harassment can take many forms and, that may infringe upon another's rights. When that happens it's against the law. The only reason people like WBC get away with half the stuff they do is because a lot of laws in America are driven by religious views.
Believe me I honestly CAN'T stand the WBC. Yet they still have the constitutional rights. Just like the Skokie, Illinois Case with Frank Collins in the 70's who was a neo-nazi who was going to march in full nazi uniform in Skokie, Illinois where the population was 40% Jewish. The ACLU defended the case and brought several legal battles to the United States Supreme Court and won every single one. Now as a lawyer I can't stand the ACLU in any way, shape, or form but this case proved a lot. Is it morally right? Not in the least. But do the moral implications outweigh the freedom of speech? No they do not. Our freedom of speech lies in the freedom of our opposition. Otherwise when we were the ones to stand up and be suppressed the Government wouldn't be able to help us in the same way. It is no way religiously guided it's fundamentally logical.
Whenever the WBC does any of it's actions, as long as they do it orderly we can not do anything that we wouldn't do if a homosexual gathering was protesting a ban on gay marriages.
In Canada their "freedom of speech" would be seen as defamation and harassment. They'd be sued, and some would possibly face jail time.
Just like the Skokie, Illinois Case with Frank Collins in the 70's who was a neo-nazi who was going to march in full nazi uniform in Skokie, Illinois where the population was 40% Jewish.
This could be seen as an acceotable form of freedom of speech. However, the WBC is deliberately going to funerals and cheering for the death of soldiers. That's defamation.
It is no way religiously guided it's fundamentally logical.
Uh huh...
How many states is same sex marriage legal? How many states is euthenasia legal? How many states support church views over other groups? Should I use Texas as my prime example of backward thinking?
Also, what the WBC (just to bring it home again) is NOT acceptable. It's a defamation of character and standing. THAT is against the law the last time I checked.
I never intended to throw religion in anyone's face
relax, you're overreacting. I was making a generalised statement about my perspective, not any single accusation of harassment. I assure you I would not do something like that in response to a forum thread unless it actually broke site rules. furthermore, that you'd think I was trying to gag you shows either you haven't read my posts in this thread, or you didn't understand them. or that you don't understand the terms you yourself are using, but i'm not going to speculate on which might be the case.
mgw, you remind me of myself 6 years younger. that said I think i've just about presented what I wanted to, all I will reiterate at this stage is that I think greater benefit still lies in aiming to fix the misconception of science's role in this kind of debate. my stance on discussing specific criticisms was already covered in my previous post. I wouldn't actually want to stifle the debate as it stands directly (as much of a waste of time as I consider it!) but I do have my sights set on the bigger picture of altering the playing field so that it might be more constructive... instead of endless iterations of the same thing on this forum. arrrrrrgh!
