What these professionals are saying
Bunch of ignorant charlatans
“Lazarus, come out!”
by Fisherman 38 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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cofty
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Jeffro
Fisherman:
Many people here have expressed faith in evolution and in other theories—but in all honesty, do you have any hope whatsoever in your heart or in the back of your mind ? Truthfully.
Fallacy: false equivalence. 🤦♂️
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Witness 007
You are scared of dying but you will die one day. So God is the crutch you lean on. But "the truth" is blackout, death, and gone. I work in a hospital all those prayers went no where...people kids babies still died...I have alot of ptsd.
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Fisherman
Having ''faith'' in anything, doesn't prove anything either
Proof comes before faith. No proof, no faith. Faith involves trust and hope and logic standing on that good evidence. —There is a risk of being disappointed though as with someone that is unfaithful and disloyal but there is no reason to believe that.
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peacefulpete
Semantic word games. I'm faithful to my wife, I'm faithful to my principles, I have faith that spring will come. I even have hope that humans will find their way through the divisive politics of the day. None of these involve supernaturalism or invisible deities. I'm quite capable of seeing beauty in life and people, and to value both.
What need have i for religion?
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punkofnice
do you have any hope whatsoever in your heart or in the back of your mind ?
It doesn't matter what I think. If I have false hope, what's the point of that?
There doesn't have to be a hope after death, it's a cozy notion, I grant you.
Guess we'll find out or not when our number's up.
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slimboyfat
My view on the possibility of resurrection is that it is a complete miracle, no matter how you look at - whether believing in God, or blind materialism - that the universe somehow conspired to give rise to our conscious existence in the first place. The fact that we are alive right now is just unfathomable, and hard to believe, except it’s a fact. If that was possible, then who is to say that God/the universe/ or whatever it was that gave rise to our existence in the first place cannot do it a second time?
More than that, our conscious life seems to require some sort of explanation that materialism is not in a position to provide. Trying to explain consciousness in terms of matter is a bit like trying to explain the plot of a story in terms of ink and paper. It doesn’t get anywhere near to touching the real issue. We don’t know what accounts for consciousness, but whatever it is may hold deeper clues to our nature and the possibility of future conscious life beyond our current lifespan.
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peacefulpete
SBF...We may not have the full answer to self awareness (consciousness) but whatever it is must be true of 'lower' animals as well.
Invoking statistical possibilities as evidence of providence is a misuse of math. Every single moment in time and space is statistically impossible but the moment it happens is 100% likely. Statical analysis has its place in a localized closed systems (like flipping a coin, heads) but not in predicting every contingency of the universe; (what are the odds the copper formed in a supernova would accrete in the earth's crust, to be mined, to be eventually minted into a coin, to be in your pocket, to be flipped by you and get heads. The odds of predicting that would happen are beyond the scales of mathematic possibility and could mistakenly lead to the conclusion that some supernatural force willed the coin to be heads.
So..., we are left with concluding every single happenstance and contingency is predetermined by supernatural forces, or, that events naturally play out in a sequence beyond our ability to mathematically model. Most folks would not attribute supernatural influence in the countless mundane particulars of every moment but get all philosophical about themselves.
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slimboyfat
I’m not saying that it’s simply statistically improbable for me to exist in particular, or life in general for that matter. I’m saying it’s miraculous that matter, life, and consciousness should have arisen at all. Either that is a miracle of God or it’s a miracle that it just happened all by itself. Whatever way you look at it it’s miraculous - some might even say that the “it just happened” theory is more miraculous. You’ve probably heard the observation that materialism asks: “give us one free miracle and we will explain the rest”. The one free miracle materialism is asking for is that the universe, life and consciousness arose from nothing, out of nowhere, for no reason. That’s a pretty big miracle!
Animals have awareness too and that needs to be accounted for, as you say. But as far as we know humans are the only creatures able to contemplate the nature of ourselves and the universe, apparently with some success, as far as science goes. That the universe should produce a mind that is able to contemplate the universe is in its own way miraculous in addition to the miracle of existence. Materialists can keep on claiming that there is nothing miraculous going on here to produce the universe, life, consciousness, and accurate perception of reality, but it does seem pretty extraordinary, and does seem to call for an explanation beyond “it just happened”.
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cofty
I’m saying it’s miraculous that matter, life, and consciousness should have arisen at all
Maybe it will turn out to be as incredible as a rock falling down a hill. The only sensible answer at this point is to admit we don't know.