What Do You Believe

i believe in God.

 

But what do you regard as possibilities?

 

God. and nothing else.

 

And there it is.

 

Cool, good luck with that.

 

what exactly were you looking for?
there was a question, i put in my answer.
im not asking you to think like me.

 

That's exactly what I was looking for, but I wasn't sure if that was what you would put.

That right there, that simple fact is the entire reason you have problems with evolution, and your biology class, and all this other stuff that scientific minds generally agree on. I would also go as far as to say that it is either the reason for or the product of your difficulties with the workings of pure logic, evidence, and proof.

 

I believe that were already dead and when we die we finally live....

 

The Pope believes in God too & he desn't have a problem with Darwin.

 

Does he still think birth control is a sin and that all aborted fetuses go to heaven?

 

the fact is, any assertion about our origin is a THEORY. you can throw 1000 bones at me, and it's still just a theory.

i have no problem digesting logic. yes i have problems with some of the THEORIES presented in biology class.

like i've said a million times on here, science is not understanding, but merely perception.

 

What is the difference between your position and the position of an atheist's who says "No god, and nothing else"?

Peace and love

 

i didn't say there was a difference?

 

Not true. Some are just guesses or assumptions. Theories are at least shown to be scientifically plausible. At least. Creationism is not a theory. Nor is ID. But you are right to say that we don't really know for sure.

And yet you are saying that many people are religious, and they can't all be wrong, so atheists must be wrong.

Not true. Sometimes, perhaps. BUT...with our perception we can understand. A lot. Evolution, biochemistry, genetic engineering, nuclear physics, astrophysics, etc. Maybe we can't get the whole picture, but we can get as much as we can. That's all there is to do. If you really think that you can get similar understanding by sitting on your bum and thinking, go ahead. Make the scientific establishment's day.

 

there are many reasons for my faith that you consider logical fallicies, and yet i dont.
i feel that we live in a perfectly ordered world that could not have happened by accident. one could argue that the human body is more complex than the universe itself. hell, one could make the same arguement for a single animal cell. i could find prove of my belief in a perfectly ordered world, b/c i think everything serves a reason or purpose. incredulous? maybe. but maybe so are you when you dismiss the idea of a God.

i didnt' say they can't all be wrong. im just saying that there collective faith could be seen as some kind of evidence.

that was kinda rude. but anyways...
i really dont think science leads to understanding. with each new perception, we just get even more deep and profound mysteries to solve.

 

Logical fallacies are not my own creation. It's not some standard I just made up, it's the way logic works. Evolution has little to do with accidents(see evolution thread). I would like (sincerely) to hear about why you think the world is perfectly ordered. The human body is part of the universe, and cannot, therefore, be more complex. The whole cannot be less complex than the part.

I don't think I dismiss the idea of god. Maybe when I'm feeling uppity, but what I will dismiss are ideas that are contrary to what we know about the universe and the way things work.

That is still a logical fallacy. If you are going to make that argument, why are the faithful given more credence than the unfaithful? Is it just a question of who's in the majority? The larger population gets the "lots of people think so" argument?

I apologize if that came of as rude, I do not mean to be. However, the point I was trying to make is that there is a way in which we can gain knowledge and understanding of things. This way is science, because science can be confirmed, falsified, and is really the only way we can obtain objective knowledge.

Granted, scientific discoveries often lead to more questions. I don't see why this is a bad thing. While we may have something new which we are confused about, we have something that we know about. If there are a million mysteries in the universe and we have solved three, knowing what some others are can only be a good thing.

 

I don't know about the destination of the fetuses, but I'm sure he thinks birth control by contraception (as opposed to the rythmn method, is a sin). But I'm not Catholic, so you might check with somebody else.

 

well, im very post-modern in my consideration of logic. i dont think logic encompasses everything.

what i meant when i was talking about the human body, is that the human body is a universe in of itself.

like i said, i think the world is perfectly ordered because everything functions with a cause. i can't really convey what i mean with words. think transcendalist when you read my post.

i give this point up. i can't really say what i mean.

well it's a good thing, but i think it's gives our heads some inflation on our perspective of who we are.

 

"The Universe is the Great All, and offers a paradox too great for the finite mind to grasp. As the living brain cannot conceive of a nonliving brain - although it may think it can - the finite mind cannot grasp the infinite. The prosaic fact of the universe’s existence alone defeats both the pragmatist and the romantic. Technical and scientific prowess has allowed us to chip a few splinters from the great stone pillar of reality. Yet, despite a tremendous increase in available facts, this wealth of information produces little or no insight. There are no great odes written to the wonders of artificial insemination, or to cars that run on power from the sun. Few if any seemed to have grasped the truest principle of reality : new knowledge leads always to yet more awesome mysterious. Greater physiological knowledge of the brain makes the existence of the soul less possible yet more probable by the nature of the search. The greatest mystery that the universe offers is not life but size. Size encompasses life. Size defeats us. For the fish, the lake in which he lives is the universe. What does the fish think when he is jerked up by the mouth through the silver limits of existence and into a new universe where air drowns him and the light is blue madness? Where huge bipeds with no gills stuff it into a suffocating box and cover it with wet weeds to die?"

"Or one might take the tip of a pencil and magnify it. One reaches the point where a stunning realization strikes home : The pencil-tip is not solid; it is composed of atoms which whirl and revolve like a trillion demon planets. What seems solid to us is actually only a loose net held together by gravity. Viewed at their actual size, the distances between these atoms might become leagues, gulfs, aeons. The atoms themselves are composed of nuclei and revolving electrons. One may step down further to subatomic particles. And then to what? Tachyons? Nothing? Of course not. Everything in the universe denies nothing; to suggest an ending is the one absurdity."

"If you fell outward to the limit of the universe, would you find a board fence and signs reading DEAD END? No. You might find something hard and rounded, as the chick must see the egg from the inside. And if you should peck through that shell (or find a door), what great and torrential light might shine through your opening at the end of space? Might you look through and discover our entire universe is but part of one atom on a blade of grass? Might you be forced to think that by burning a twig you incinerate an eternity of eternities? That existence rises not to one infinite but to an infinity of them?

"Perhaps you saw what place our universe plays in the scheme of things - as no more than an atom in a blade of grass. Could it be that everything we can perceive, from the microscopic virus to the distant Horsehead Nebulae, is contained in one blade of grass that may have existed for only a single season in an alien time-flow? What if that blade should be cut off by a scythe? When it begins to die, would the rot seep into our own universe and our own lives, turning everything yellow and brown and desiccated? Perhaps it’s already begun to happen.

"Think how small such concept of things make us! If a God watches over it all, does he actually mete out justice for a race of gnats among an infinitude of races of gnats? Does His eye see the sparrow fall when the sparrow is less than a speck of hydrogen floating disconnected in the depth of space? And if He does see....what must the nature of such a God be? Where does He live? How is it possible to live beyond infinity?

"Imagine the sands of the desert and imagine a trillion universes - not worlds but universes - encapsulated in each grain of that desert; and within each universe an infinity of others. We tower over these universes from our pitiful grass vantage point; with one swing of your boot you may knock a billion billion worlds flying off into darkness, in a chain never to be completed."

"Size."

 

we do not have the capability to know any sort of truth regarding the nature of our existance. but we have come up with very comforting conclusions through organized religion, and how powerfully it has brainwashed us. to each his own. but whatever created us wont punish us for not blindly commiting to a cult like institution.