by unstopableravens 73 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Unstop...
Science is all about arguments, evidence and critical assessment from past findings and future discoveries.
At the other extreme, faith can simply mean something like a guiding assumption or presupposition, and on this view, science does require faith. But when you take the idea of the existence of God, and simply state that God has always existed and will always exist. Makes you wonder how could that be logical? What proof do we have for that statement to be true?
I don't agree with you if you think that not being an expert yourself means you cannot accept DNA evidence, nor the testimony of experts in the fields of biology, archeaology, history, etc. But if you want to be a super-agnostic, that is your perogative. I like to think of the "reasonable evidence" statement and will look into the thoughts of the experts and weigh it for myself without becoming an expert in every field.
But I tell you what: If you want to be the super-agnostic, then apply the same thoughts to belief as you do to unbelief. Certainly, reject anything near certainty of Christianity or any established belief system until you have become an expert in those fields. As mentioned, the best you could come out of that path would be as a deist. Don't accept the story of creation or of Jesus. Doubt all that just as much as you doubt that valid-sounding stories from scientists could be completely or even nearly completely right.
And then while you are at it, don't use technology. Don't get into a car or a bus and certainly not an airplane until you can believe it will be safe based on your own education in the field of study. You also will need to grow all your own food because you don't know if the stuff at the grocery store will kill you unless you oversaw it's growth, care, transport to market.
If you want to call belief in the reasonableness of trusting engineers and farmers and truckdrivers "faith" then so be it. But I don't see it as a good comparison to faith in God. Of course we will part ways when we talk about evidence and lack of evidence, so just be just as rigid on the one side as you are on the other.
Man, I really respect you, (I don't have to respect that silly thing you believe), but I respect you as a fellow human.
Start reading and learning, you'll be surprise of all the things you can and will learn.
The banana (and most, if not all, fruits, vegetables, crops and even animals that we use for food or to improve their utility) where created by us, through artificial selection. The banana was first domesticated around 8,000-9,000 years ago.
Enclosed is a picture of a banana. The seeds aren't edible.
That's for Mr. Confort
Thank you guys for your patience in answering Unstop, all this is good for believers to read. I am still amazed that people confuse faith and trust. They are two different things.
We can trust that something is true because of evidence. Faith requires that we believe something to be true without evidence.
The other great leap made by believers, without any logic, let alone evidence, is that even supposing a Creator did have a hand in bringing about the Universe,
what makes anyone suppose it was Bible god ?
Unstop, you remind me of an armchair sportsman. You haven't engaged on the field, yet you feel qualified to comment. You haven't worked hard enough for the answers.
We can't see elemental particles such as the Higg's Boson but we go looking for them anyways. The Higg's Boson will never be seen directly, but we can observe the results of a high energy collision, and with careful analysis (in this case taking months), eliminate any other possibility but the Higg's.
We also don't randomly set off the collidor to see what comes out. Physicists set up experiments to eliminate all but the expected result. That way we can progress our knowledge of the elemental particles beyond reasonable doubt.
This isn't anywhere near the same as the Christian faith in a set of beliefs.
Phizzy said-
The other great leap made by believers, without any logic, let alone evidence, is that even supposing a Creator did have a hand in bringing about the Universe, what makes anyone suppose it was Bible god?
I was thinking of that earlier, about how insane it is to say that everything in existence requires a creator, when the human population of 7 BILLION seemingly wasn't created by ANYONE, but via sexual reproduction of humans, i.e. "being born". Add to that the billions of animals alive on the Planet who also were BORN, where the general evidence seems to point to the RULE that carbon-based life-forms begat ('create', if you will) other carbon-based life-forms. Living matter is required in order to create other living beings, and that's why science breaks apart inorganic chemistry (chemistry of non-living matter) from organic chemistry (the chemistry of living matter, primarily revolving around the various possibilities of connectivity which is demonstrated by the carbon molecule).
Believers will object, saying that scientists haven't artificially created life in the lab. Well, no spit, but your God hasn't done so, either, and you're claiming that God CAN.
God should be able to solve the question YESTERDAY by creating living matter de novo, but the very absense of evidence on the question serves as compelling counter-evidence, in-and-of-itself.
Adam
Adam normally your etymological pedantry drives me nuts but this was helpful... thanks.
i am glad of all the responses, i just think the point mr comfort is making is that sense we have been able to observe evolution for 65 million years ,you trust or have faith in that.just like it takes faith for me to believe that god created creation. i was not there to observe creation, nor the parting of the red sea, but i have faith. maybe we all just have a different view of what faith is? perpahps. i am just wanting to use the same deffintion for both sides here
jh: i think you would know how i feel about spirit mediums
you trust or have faith in that.just like it takes faith for me to believe that god created creation
It is difficult to believe you can have read all of the rational responses to this wrong-headed assertion and yet you still go on repeating it.
Not a single word in reply to all the thoughtful posts above. Not a single effing word!
