The universe was created by an intelligent being.
I will prove it to you as soon as you can identify or prove that "an intelligent being" capable of such actually exists. Otherwise, what you're asking is moot.
Posts by Etude
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376How is creationism DISPROVED?
by sabastious init is disproven.
but let's start another thread, because this one is being yanked off track again.
creationism/evolution always deserves its own thread.
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46
Can we look at FAITH in a more practical way?
by Terry inbelief is spackle.
you can't see the crack in your thinking when you exercise faith.
consequently, a person of faith can not, must not, will not allow others the option of non-binary references.. .
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Etude
Wow! Everyone here provided a great exchange of opinions. However, it seems to me that the primary poles of discussion are sabastious & Terry. You both present compelling ideas, worthy in their own right.
Although I didn't initially like Terry's "spackle" analogy because, as you sabastious said: " there is no drywall ", I reconsidered and now think that the drywall is reality, and that faith, according to Terry, is what we use to spackle reality. When our drywall-reality continually shows unexplained holes, instead of admitting that we can't find the explanations (answers) for the holes (questions) and that they're going to keep popping up, we spackle them away by "trusting" (exercising faith) that an alternate explanation will make the drywall-reality significant and smooth again. At this point I'm stretching the analogy and not meaning to say that that's what Terry intended to say, in case he didn't. In addition, I believe there are different ways of defining faith, belief, hope, trust and love.
You noticed, sabastious, that I emphasized the word "trusting" above. This is because you used the term "trust" in terms of relationships or friendships. But it seems to me that you're putting what happens in trust out of sequence. We don't decide to trust someone before we know something about that person. While the process is gradual (the more you know about a person, the more you trust them), it seems to have a quid-pro-quo: somebody gives a little of themselves (warmth, private confidences, caring, etc) and we in turn afford more trust to the person.
If a person fails to return a borrowed item we trusted him or her with, what we tend to do is assess whether we will lend that person another thing again, even if we evaluate the number of reasons for their failure to return or replace the item. We can make the same decision if they acted out of simple neglect or because we interpret that they were greedy and never intended to return it in the first place. The level of trust is changed. Yes we trusted, but it was on the basis of social rules and the expectation of everyone's participation that when you borrow, you also return. That is the foundation of that kind of trust. If the item lent is of great value, there are also rules that allow you to take someone to court for compensation.
If I were to base my faith and trust in God, I wouldn't do it because the U.S. Dollar says so. I would do it for the same reasons I just explained. sabastious you said: " Human antiquity shows that God has tried many different approaches to gaining our trust, because trust is earned, that's how it works. " And herein lies the problem. I can look at history and see what you're saying as well as the human toll "God" has caused not only by his policies (some of the things he commanded in the Bible) but also by the atrocities those who put faith in him have committed. If those acts cancel each other out, then there's no compelling reason to trust or put faith in God. Instead, the basis used for trusting Him are arbitrary and at times contradictory. I don't feel right picking and choosing which one will spackle up the holes.
sabastious stated: " what if we COULD know, but are being repelled by forces we don't know exist? " Really? Please think about that. Give it your best self-argument. In high school, we'd argue whether a rock was "alive" or "aware" -- By the fact that we cannot detect that a rock "thinks" doesn't mean it doesn't think. So therefore, not being able to prove it doesn't think does not mean it doesn't think and means it could think and be alive -- Even though it feels like mental masturbation, there are elements of the argument that can lead us to a conclusion. After further reasoning, I concluded that although the remote possibility of a sentient rock exists, there is no experiment or information available to me to make that deduction and therefore I'm forced to assume (trust or have faith) that rocks are intellectually inert, not alive and not aware of anything. Do you see the foundation for that conclusion?
A similar situation uses the same argument in the rock example: "Prove to me that that invisible man is not there." It sounds like this famous quote:
"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know." Donald Rumsfeld while explaining the missing WMDs in Iraq.
As others have mentioned here, there are different ideas of what "faith" means. I make a distinction between faith and credulity. A credulous person believes in the face of lack of evidence or in spite of evidence to the contrary. One dictionary definition of "faith" is "trust". Given my previous explanation of how trust is earned, it seems to me that faith is earned from some foundation while credulity is the spackle Terry is talking about. It seems to me that what makes me agree with Terry is that you both are talking about credulity and not the faith in the sense of "trust" based on some tangible foundation.
I tend to make a similar distinction between love and infatuation. Of course my distinction is subjective, depending on how you define them. But as the phrase goes, when people "learn to love one another", to me love involves the same elements needed for trust. I learned to love my wife, even though I was initially "infatuated" with her. Maybe it's that she was pretty or I was horny or both. But that was infatuation. Love is what I've learn after more than a decade of sex, arguments, joys and sorrows. Love, in this case, is NOT "not logical", as you sabastious put it. It's born out of our common experience and not out of a simple desire to experience it.
Earlier, I posted my definition of "faith" with a profound twist. Even though I find that we shall not have significant answers any time soon about the nature of matter and the foundation of the universe, the faith a scientist must exercise is based on the idea that the laws of Physics which have led us up to this present stage of knowledge have not failed us so far on most things. That they actually fail when we look at matter at the nanoscopic level lets us at least trust that there's another explanation we've yet come to find. In the mean time, it's OK to say "I don't know" and not be forced to assume that God must be there to make sense of it all or that we're decidedly in one of an infinite number of universes. While we're free to consider both of those possibilities, we need to refrain from attesting to one or another for the sake of our own mental or emotional security.
I think many of us also obfuscate belief with hope. Belief to me involves the acceptance of an idea, whether accurate or not. It involves our perception of reality, whether accurate or not. Hope is more nebulous. Hope projects our expectations to a reality that has yet to become. sabastious said: " Without belief we would never have discovered so much about reality. " The reality is that "reality" will happen whether we believe or not, whether we exist or not. I'm speaking of a reality that expands beyond ourselves and beyond what we can immediately perceive. So, our reality is no less real for those who have stopped "believing" because they are dead. There is no further discovery for them to make and "reality" (meaning the world as we perceive it and what we agree upon) continues on!
That reality must include the makeup of the physical world, the laws the govern the universe and the biology of man, and the archeological evidence about us we can uncover. No matter how significant the dead one's influence might have been on our "reality", it's easy to find examples of how they might have made profound influences in spite of their belief.
So, for me, credulity is the arbitrary and unfounded spackle on the drywall of reality. Faith (as well as trust) is an inconclusive but probable belief of or in something based on some previous act or related fact. Belief is what we hold to be true, whether it is true or not. Hope is simply what we wish would happen based on our true or false belief. Infatuation is when our gonads do our thinking and love (if you get it) is what we learn after we spend time with someone.
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If you believe God exists, what are your thoughts on what pleases him most?
by Fernando inour family has come to believe that god really wants each individual to personally and independently seek, find and walk with him - quite apart from what other humans say, think, believe or do.. we believe we were created as semi-autonomous beings.
when our inner compass is recalibrated, and we then self-direct, the outcomes seem best.. when we are instead led by humans, their hierarchies, organisations and ideas, the outcomes on the whole seem unfavourable.
legalism (rules), moralism (a moral code), ethnocentrism (doctrine), and gnosticism (knowledge) may seem meritorious.. yet these do not seem to lead to the deep inner transformation needed.
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Etude
I saw this topic, especially the part that says: "If you believe God exits..." and I said to my self: "OK self, this is one you don't have to even look at, since you don't believe." But then I decided to take a peek and read some comments. You guys crack me up! Keep up the good work.
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46
Can we look at FAITH in a more practical way?
by Terry inbelief is spackle.
you can't see the crack in your thinking when you exercise faith.
consequently, a person of faith can not, must not, will not allow others the option of non-binary references.. .
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Etude
Faith, whatever the hell it is, is what you must have when you can't explain the source of quantum equations, what explains the equations and why they fall apart when we try to explain the quantum realm.
Faith is what we lean on when we fail to satisfactorily answer the question why the universal constants (the strong and weak forces that hold particles together) are exactly what they must be in order for us to be here in the first place.
Faith is what you must rely upon in order to believe that there is an infinite number of universes with every possible combination of different quantum values so that we end up where we happen to find ourselves.
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Thinking of changing my life/ long rant
by DATA-DOG ini want to drastically change my life.
i am stagnating and will eventually drive my truck into an oncoming semi truck.
short of faking my death there are only so many things i can do.
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Etude
Yeah, I'm going to agree with everyone here about going back to school and how good that is. But also, let me add a few things.
1. Please realize the important distinction between being educated and having a degree. You can always be educated if you pursue and champion the things that you're really passionate about. Having a degree merely certifies that you have achieved and met requirements for certain level of training. But ultimately, the purpose of education is not to just to inform but to also teach you how to think. So, keep that close to your heart even after you register for college.
2. There are a lot of people with degrees that don't know their asses from their elbows. And yet, I have found that I've been passed over for many, many opportunities for being sheepskinless. If I were in your place, I would conclude that getting an education is very important for providing for my daughter. But, I don't know all your circumstances and can't really assess what kind of sacrifice that would be for you. Therefore, it's OK to do like OnTheWayOut said and concentrate your energies on seeing that you're daughter goes to college instead.
When I graduated from High School, I had the chance to go to a community college. I was also faced with the opportunity to "pioneer". Guess which stupid assed thing I chose? Not only that, after a year of it, I decided to go to Bethel (from the frying pan and into the fire). My dad, who was not a JW just let it happen; yes, let happen the conversion; yes, let happen the pioneering; yes, let happen the Bethel thing. If he had demanded that I go to college, I would have easily complied. Instead, he let it all happen.
Now, even after my 60th b'day, I'm still considering going back to school. To this day, I still don't know what I want to "do" and even though I went to college after I left Bethel (imagine that!), I have a hard time selecting a field of study. Maybe it's because I just like learning, period. But now, my interests have changed. It was because of college that I got into Mathematics and eventually in to I.T. and made a career. But now, I'm ambitious enough to think that I may study Law.
So lastly, I recommend that you find some financial help, or prove yourself to earn a scholarship, or join a college and seek financial help from the inside, even if you don't know what you want to do. There are a lot of pre-requisites that you will need to take no matter what your final field of study will be. Go. Do it now!
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It's time I face the truth about my belief in God.
by Cagefighter ini don't beleive in him, at least not like most christians do.
as some have described before the "sky daddy" version of god has not been able to be rationalized by cagefighter's brain for some time.. does this mean i don't believe in a divine power/entity?
does this mean i do not consider my self a christian?
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Etude
1. I'm not trying to shake the ground you walk upon. I think that your choice of beliefs promotes and emanates from goodness. But perhaps you don't give yourself enough credit for you being the source of goodness, apart from God. And, I believe that the divine and creative forces your body and life experience generate would be there whether you believed in God or not. That you choose to believe in some form of God is a natural consequence of our inevitable sense of spirituality. You are correct, but I like to keep it in perspective.
2. While the teachings of Christ revolutionized the world, many of its components were not unknown to the world before or since Christ. There is a redeeming and egalitarian quality about what he preached or is attributed to him if he actually existed. Just remember that in the history of mankind, we can conceive that a lot of people thought and acted with those principles way before Christ showed up on the scene. Therefore, you can choose to materialize all your humanity in one person (Christ) or realize that even without that person, the feelings you project are just as significant valuable.
3. You're absolutely right, there is a lot of exaggeration as well as facts in the Bible. That's what, upon sincere analysis and apart from the importance some the major religions of this world place on it, I conclude that as point of reference and lore, it's quite ordinary. It's difficult to trust its sources and therefore much of the stories in it. They say the Babylonians were prone to exaggerate their history (as well as the Egyptians). Yet, the Code of Hammurabi produced by the Babylonians is a great example of principles that we still live by today, which were copied in the Bible. Therefore, while it can offer guidance, the Bible is by no means an arbitrary source for our lore and for our cultural heritage, although it should be noted. We have the power to shape our future and to control what influences it.
The reason I reply to your wonderful comments is to expose the possibility for other choices. I am a non-believer. Yet, I'm not cynical. I am critical of religious affirmations, but I'm not beyond recognizing the need to feel spiritual. I am highly suspect of "miracles", but I'm willing to concede, upon a thorough investigation, that I don't know enough to conclude either way.
I've heard that the Unitarian Church (perhaps the "Reformed" version of it) is even more liberal and receptive than the Methodist denomination. Perhaps that's because they don't have specific tenets about what and whom to worship, even though they appear to allow you to worship and believe as you may. You might want to consider them. I'm thinking about it myself while planning to remain a devout agnostic.
I often think about this sense of "other" we have that makes us look up and be in awe and feel connected to the universe and maybe even gives us a sense of hope. That seems to me to be an innate human attribute, which is often corrupted and misguided when religion comes into the picture. If think about centuries of isolated natives in the jungles of South America, I can conceive of at least one society with rules and guidelines (your "rails") that make sense within the content of their society. Sure, some people will point out that some cultures were head-hunters, etc. But anomalies like that are true in our very society in spite of "rails", like shooting a young girl for advocating school for females or killing a doctor because he performed an abortion. Since the word "civilized" has been applied to any of us humans, even though we've had many conceptual and technical advancements, we've changed very little. Instead, we just have more stuff.
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Does This Happen to You? I Need Help :/
by DarioKehl inhey guys.... i have a few important questions for everyone.
this applies to doubters, faders, inactive, dfed or seasoned apostates.
first, let me set it up:.
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Etude
I found that, even before I left the bOrg but had moved away, when I was still in touch with some witless friends and family, people were already inventing things about me. They didn't say I was an apostate, but they said that I grew a beard and had become a "hippy". My older sister (still a witless) tried to find out who was spreading the rumors and stop it. She didn't get very far.
Eventually, I left and never looked back. I knew I couldn't control what they would say or think, but realized it didn't matter. If I had a choice again, I would try to keep a foot in, just to see what they're up to. I would have acted just as shocked as you did at the news of your "apostate" friends but would have wanted to learn more, like how she found this out and from whom. I would ask questions about it and place doubt in her mind. I would lie about a conversation I overheard from some other "brothers" or relatives of the apostate that place in doubt what she's obviously mindlessly repeating. I wouldn't let her get away with that shit.
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46
Need some help!!!!! ***URGENT***
by sinis inmy wifes mother recently passed away, and it has devastated my wife.
the family, who are not witnesses, but out of respect for the deceased, and who was a jw, had the ceremony at the kingdum hell, which almost made me throw up... last time i ever step foot in that place.
i felt like a vampire on the threshold of a church, as i looked into the interior hall feeling my skin burn and start to smoke... anyways, as i have posted on here before a friend of my wife, has in the past, sent her (my wife) emails about going back to the kingdumb hell.
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Etude
sinis: You shouldn't do anything that your wife might consider a violation of her personal right to read whatever anyone sends her. If you block the witless email, she might not like that and consider it underhanded. But, since you say you share a common email address, you also have the right to respond to that individual as much as your wife has a right to read that persons crap. To reiterate what others have stated here, talk it over with your wife. Tell her that you feel compelled to respond and do it. There's a lot of ammunition on this discussion board for you to use and dismantle that witless.
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Light a Candle for Oompa
by BabaYaga inthere is a lovely site where one may light a candle for a moment of silence.. http://www.gratefulness.org/candles.
i set up a group, where they may all flicker together, if you like.. http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=oompa.
(we love and miss you, oompa.).
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Etude
It was hard to come back to this, but I went and did it. Happy trails Eric.
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Why aren't you an Atheist?
by Bloody Hotdogs! inlong time lurker, first time poster.. .
i'm an ms (accounts servant) in a large congregation in canada.
over the last several years i've faught a hard-won battle to rid my mind of all religous and supernatural beleifs.
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Etude
"I call myself an atheist because I am unconvinced by the evidence presented that a God exists. I make no claim, however, that a God cannot exist." From your post #2 on this thread.
I understand your position. I'm probably somewhere close to that. However, there is some less clarity in my mind about what an "atheist" means when we look at some of the definitions and compare them to agnosticism. For example, I found that agnosticism may describe you more than atheism:
"In the popular sense, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of a deity or deities, whereas a theist and an atheist believe and disbelieve, respectively. [2] In the strict sense, however, agnosticism is the view that humanity does not currently possess the requisite knowledge and/or reason to provide sufficient rational grounds to justify the belief that deities either do or do not exist." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism
The latter description reminds me more of your own description. So, could you be an agnostic rather than an atheists? Possibly, by some definitions. The reason I looked up that definition is because I was reading a book recently (perhaps it was something I read on-line) and the "harder" definition of an agnostic came up. It intimated that the fundamental difference between an atheist and an agnostic is that the former is convinced that God (or anything mystical) does not exist (by what evidence, I'm not sure) but that the agnostic does not recognize any convincing evidence to completely rule out God.
I also recently blogged about a contrast between Richard Dawkins (a fierce atheists endearingly called "Darwin's Rottweiler") and Paul Davies (a well known physicist and an expert on the Anthropic Principle). In his book "The God Delusion", Dawkins criticizes agnostics possibly even more severely than he takes theists to task. He basically believes that agnosticism is intellectually dishonest. However, he does not directly refute Davies' views. Davies on the other hand, has made the statement that in Science, there are times when we need to accept things by faith. The implication is that this "faith" is as valid as the faith of theists who accept God by faith.
Davies deduction is that since the laws of nature we use to explain matter and the world (namely those of Quantum Physics) break down and are useless when explaining the sub-atomic realm, we must accept by faith and not by proof (experimentation) that the world is as we explain it. Furthermore, even if the laws are correct, what explains the laws? That is what introduces us to the Multiverse (the Antrhopic Princple), which basically states (in the Strong Anthropic Principle only) that there must be an infinite amount of universes where every possible combination of the quantum constants (the ones we know) exists in other ratios. That would give rise to the combination of constants we happen to find in our own universe. The problem (which is Davis stronghold) is that we cannot verify that and therefore must accept it with a certain degree of faith. Davis has therefore proposed the following possibilities for our existence:
1. The absurd universe - It just happens to be that way.
2. The unique universe - There is a deep underlying unity in physics, which necessitates the universe being this way. Some 'Theory of Everything' will explain why the various features of the Universe must have exactly the values that we see.
3. The multiverse - Multiple Universes exist which have all possible combinations of characteristics, and we naturally find ourselves within the one that supports our existence.
4. Intelligent Design - An intelligent Creator designed the Universe specifically to support complexity and the emergence of Intelligence.
5. The Life Principle - There is an underlying principle that constrains the universe to evolve towards life and mind.
6. The self-explaining universe - A closed explanatory or causal loop: 'perhaps only universes with a capacity for consciousness can exist'.
7. The fake universe - We are living in a virtual reality simulation.
Yes, it's kinda tongue-in-cheek. However, it leaves us pretty much guessing and not having any guarantees of anything either from theologians or scientists, which is Davies' point. So, I feel comfortable choosing option no. 7 in Davies' list, which makes the "atheist" and "agnostic" rather transitory.