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Author Topic:   why do you believe ?
Gzus
Inactive Member


Message 16 of 40 (40268)
05-15-2003 1:52 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Peter
05-15-2003 5:43 AM


death scares the hell out of me, never really figured out why exactly.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by Peter, posted 05-15-2003 5:43 AM Peter has replied

Replies to this message:
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zephyr
Member (Idle past 4550 days)
Posts: 821
From: FOB Taji, Iraq
Joined: 04-22-2003


Message 17 of 40 (40270)
05-15-2003 2:06 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by Paul
05-15-2003 1:23 PM


quote:
We see where in some species that one of a mating pair is killed directly after mating, therefore proof of no consciencness of death or fear of it in other species. As I said, other species will avoid death through instincts, however they will not, as some humans do, have a nervous breakdown over, or be consumed by, the fear of it.
Our brains are more complex. We have structures in them that perform abstract reasoning better than animals' brains. Our fear of death is explicit and "conscious" (whatever that means to you) while theirs is instinctive and demonstrated behaviorally. A conscious fear of death is a great survival mechanism. Do you have any evidence indicating this explanation is not enough?
quote:
Without a doubt, the foundation for evolution IS Nilallism( Nothing working on nothing by nothing, through nothing, for nothing, produced everything) and it is an extremely hard foundation to swallow and very difficult for the human mind to accept, in that it gives absoluetly no purpose to life.
Besides relying on a concept of evolution that most would never agree with (a.k.a. STRAWMAN), you are putting the cart before the horse when you insist on purpose for something that just IS. Life happens, we can watch or participate but we can't stop it. Nor can we determine its purpose, or lack thereof, simply based on how the conclusion makes us feel!
A proponent of absolute divine truth would be expected to agree.

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 Message 14 by Paul, posted 05-15-2003 1:23 PM Paul has replied

Replies to this message:
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nator
Member (Idle past 2170 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 18 of 40 (40280)
05-15-2003 4:04 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by Quetzal
05-15-2003 5:38 AM


Another good website is The Skeptic's Dictionary
In particular, read the entries on "Science", and "Creation Science" if you want to understand how creation "science" abuses science to advance it's religious agenda.

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 Message 12 by Quetzal, posted 05-15-2003 5:38 AM Quetzal has not replied

  
DC85
Member (Idle past 380 days)
Posts: 876
From: Richmond, Virginia USA
Joined: 05-06-2003


Message 19 of 40 (40302)
05-15-2003 7:01 PM


We are Animals! Just ones with the Abilty to think past our instinct(which we have) We Devoloped this ability to survive Rather then Getting Claws or Armor. it is a MUCH better tool. I don't Know why we like to think we Are so good and the Perfect things when WE are Far from it. When we don't look for Power then We are no longer Animal(I will Explain more if you want me to)

  
Paul
Inactive Member


Message 20 of 40 (40320)
05-15-2003 8:43 PM
Reply to: Message 17 by zephyr
05-15-2003 2:06 PM


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Without a doubt, the foundation for evolution IS Nilallism( Nothing working on nothing by nothing, through nothing, for nothing, produced everything) and it is an extremely hard foundation to swallow and very difficult for the human mind to accept, in that it gives absoluetly no purpose to life.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Besides relying on a concept of evolution that most would never agree with
Nilallism is not a concept of evolution. Naturalism to be true, requires this belief to be a foundational fact regarding origins, and one in which evolution quietly and reluctantly has to root itself into.
Conclusional feelings are irrelevant to purpose. There's either a purpose to something or there isn't and my feelings change nothing with that regard. This thread is on belief and my belief is existance with purpose with my reasons given within it. Logical to you or not, it's my belief.
Respectfully, Paul.

This message is a reply to:
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truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 21 of 40 (40325)
05-15-2003 9:24 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by DC85
05-14-2003 2:05 PM


Why Do I Believe
No one has seemed to address the question that is the title of this thread, but I'd like to.
I believe, because I can't not believe. I was raised Catholic, dropped it because it didn't help me know God, picked up New Age beliefs from testimonies based on work in hypnosis by Richard Sutphen (back in the 70's), and finally became an atheist in 1982, but only for about a month.
After such a short time as an atheist, in my ignorance I decided it was impossible that a bunch of molecules could bump into each other and become me. (I now believe it is quite possible, and most certainly happened.) I had a co-worker who argued with me every day about Christianity. I won all the arguments, leaving him with stumpers he couldn't answer almost every day. He would laugh and say, "You'll make a great Christian some day."
I started reading the Bible in order to find the contradictions, so I could show them to him. The Gospels captivated me, and I began to be quite intrigued with this Jesus Christ character. One day, out of being nice to my co-worker, I went to his church to hear him preach. I had a really weird experience there involving voices telling me to leave the church, followed by "seeing" something so weird it would take me a while to explain it.
A few days later, a little shaken from that experience, I visited another church with another friend, and I ended up in an argument with a total stranger about the Bible and hell. He said, "It's not the Bible that matters, or hell, but whether Jesus Christ is the Son of God." I thought about that several minutes and decided I did believe Jesus was the Son of God. When I told him I believed that, it seemed like the whole world changed. I was filled with joy, I knew God was in the room; in fact, everything around me looked different. Actually, it felt a lot like I was stoned, except my mind was completely clear. I asked God what he did to me, and I heard a voice inside say, "I just baptized you with the Holy Spirit."
Now, that's probably not much proof for anyone else, but it had a pretty strong effect on me. I quit being Catholic when I was a teenager, because no matter how much I prayed or how hard I tried, I couldn't keep my mind on God. I got busy with daily life, doing whatever I wanted, and by the time I thought about what God wanted, most of my day would be over. It was frustrating, and after months of praying, I quit even trying.
After this experience, however, I've had God at the forefront of my mind for twenty-one years now. It's completely natural to check inside myself for his approval or disapproval on most everything I do. (Not that I don't sometimes ignore it out of what I just want to do.)
That inner voice has been trustworthy. So trustworthy, in fact, that when I started realizing I'd never find Christians united, like Jesus spoke about in John 17, I sat down and thought about the things I was confident were important to God. Those things--a united people, full of love, not based on doctrine, not even based on the Bible, but based on the Spirit, and hearing the same things from the Spirit--I couldn't find in any group, anywhere. I looked for twelve years for those things, and was on the verge of giving up, believing that I was fooling myself, that none of it was true, and I ran into a group of people, already together, who not only held the same things important as I did, but who seemed to be following the same Spirit I was following, based on what they were hearing and how they were living.
I have joined that group, and I've posted a couple of the small, but not insignificant, things that I experience on a very regular basis in another thread (http://EvC Forum: Ever lasting life with or without God. -->EvC Forum: Ever lasting life with or without God.).
We brought dancers to a music festival in Jonesborough, TN a couple weeks ago, and some of the things people said about us were, "How in the world do you do it? You have more people here than last year. I watched them and they all have done nothing but good." One person asked, "What do you do to make your kids behave like this." Our answer was, "We teach them that a good conscience equals a good day." One of the workers at the festival told us, "Often people with talent come a couple of times to a festival like this and then we move them on, to bring in fresh talent, but I want to make sure you all come back every year! You all brought life! You're so spunky!
We live together on one piece of land, nearly 200 of us, and we make people nervous just by existing. However, the most common reaction of anyone who actually has the guts to come visit us and ask us questions is, "It's so peaceful here, and your kids are the happiest kids I've ever seen. This is how everyone ought to live."
One last thing. The Department of Child Services came to visit us with fifteen hand-picked agents, because scared people had called repeating some of the rumors they'd heard about us. They spent all day with our children, literally interviewing all the children, nearly a hundred of them from toddlers to teens, and they said exactly the same thing. "Everyone ought to live like this. The only children we're thinking about taking from you are the one we want to take home to be with us!"
I'm not suggesting that any of the above will prove anything to anyone else. However, the above is the answer to my question of why I believe. I believe that Christ has been able to take some 35 families, many of us formerly strong, Bible-believing (and therefore Bible-arguing and Bible-thumping) Christians and make us drop all our pre-conceived Bible ideas and follow his Spirit into a way of life that is completely free, almost without rules at all (pretty unusual for any intentional community), but nonetheless knit us together as best friends, a large family.
We are, by the way, almost across the board, evolutionists. We have maybe five people who are holding on to the young earth creation view (as well as a few others who aren't much interested in the topic), and we even had our teenagers debate some of the adults (after I taught the teenagers a class on evolution).
Anyway, that's why I believe.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by truthlover, posted 05-15-2003 9:26 PM truthlover has not replied
 Message 23 by crashfrog, posted 05-15-2003 10:20 PM truthlover has not replied
 Message 24 by zephyr, posted 05-15-2003 10:29 PM truthlover has not replied
 Message 26 by Quetzal, posted 05-16-2003 2:34 AM truthlover has not replied

  
truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 22 of 40 (40326)
05-15-2003 9:26 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by truthlover
05-15-2003 9:24 PM


Re: Why Do I Believe
I apologize that my message was so long, but when your belief is based on experience, it's hard to keep it short.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by truthlover, posted 05-15-2003 9:24 PM truthlover has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 23 of 40 (40331)
05-15-2003 10:20 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by truthlover
05-15-2003 9:24 PM


Re: Why Do I Believe
I heard a voice inside say, "I just baptized you with the Holy Spirit."
I guess if god was speaking to me, too, I'd find it a lot easier to believe in him/her. But the voices in my head have never spoken with anything but my own voice.
So, that's why I don't believe.

This message is a reply to:
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zephyr
Member (Idle past 4550 days)
Posts: 821
From: FOB Taji, Iraq
Joined: 04-22-2003


Message 24 of 40 (40332)
05-15-2003 10:29 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by truthlover
05-15-2003 9:24 PM


Re: Why Do I Believe
Sounds like the kind of place I'd like to live, in some ways. If there is a Spirit tho, my sense of it has been broken for a long time. I look and I listen and nothing happens... I think about the times when I thought there was an answer from God, and I think I was answering with what I expected He would say. On with the search....

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DC85
Member (Idle past 380 days)
Posts: 876
From: Richmond, Virginia USA
Joined: 05-06-2003


Message 25 of 40 (40337)
05-15-2003 11:16 PM


well I have a really Hard time with the concept that nothing Became something also..... I mean does nothing Explode?(Big Bang where everything came from) someone told me it was gas. But then I ask where did the Gas come from? I can get no answer (but my stupid Uncle said this "God Must have farted" then I asked him your religous?) well away from that I guess it would be reasonable to think everything must have been created. but it was said in another topic on here doesn't a god Complicate things more? it rasies yet more questions where did it come from?(I said it because how do we know a higher power is anything) is there another god then? wouldn't that contradict the Bible and other books? and then what created that god and on and on...........
[This message has been edited by DC85, 05-15-2003]

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Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 26 of 40 (40371)
05-16-2003 2:34 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by truthlover
05-15-2003 9:24 PM


Re: Why Do I Believe
Thanks for sharing your story, TL. Sounds like you have a wonderful community there (at least based on what you've told us). Regardless of the foundation of the community, it sounds to me like the kind of place most of us would like to live - and would be willing to strive for. Congratulations.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by truthlover, posted 05-15-2003 9:24 PM truthlover has not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 27 of 40 (40383)
05-16-2003 4:14 AM
Reply to: Message 25 by DC85
05-15-2003 11:16 PM


The Big Bang has nothing to do with gas (gas only forms later as the initial energy becoems fundamental particles which group together into atoms.
One possibility is that quantum tunneling created what is called a "false vacuum" - I won't try to explain because I'll probably get it wrong. Apparently according to theory this can happen even if all that exists can be mathematically described as space with zero volume - and that has got to be as close to "nothing" as makes sense.
You are right that invoking God to explain the universe simply moves the problem on - but people who just assume that God exists don't usually notice that.

This message is a reply to:
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Peter
Member (Idle past 1479 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 28 of 40 (40391)
05-16-2003 7:09 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by Gzus
05-15-2003 1:52 PM


I used to think about death a lot when I was young.
I couldn't get my head around the concept of lack
of consciousness and it gave me an insight into where
after-life myths have arisen.
As I grew older I realised that, since death was an inevitable
part of life it wasn't worth worrying about. By that I
don't mean that I go recklessly jumping off bridges etc.
but that getting on with your life and making the most of
it was worth more than contemplating something that I'll find
out about in the long run (or not ... depending )

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Gzus, posted 05-15-2003 1:52 PM Gzus has not replied

  
Peter
Member (Idle past 1479 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 29 of 40 (40392)
05-16-2003 7:14 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by Paul
05-15-2003 1:23 PM


If you know that you have an inner spirit that will go
on after the death of your physical body then death is
nothing to fear ... and according to you if you don't
fear death then you have no proof of an inner spirit ...
That's a bit of a paradox really.
How do you know that other animals don't know about death?
Some people don't value the lives of others, or justify
killing them one way or another ... does that mean that they
don't know that they are going to die? (This relates to your
comments on animals killing after mating ... which is an
energy reclamation activity I would guess).
Do humans in the rain-forests of south america or the plains
of africa stress over their mortality ... or are they more
concerned with surviving the week ... or the day?
I don't think it's our brains that make us worry about these
things, but that we have mental capacity to spare in the
western world (otherwise we wouldn't be fiddling about on this
forum, would we? )

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by Paul, posted 05-15-2003 1:23 PM Paul has not replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 31 by bulldog98, posted 05-16-2003 11:35 AM Peter has replied

  
nator
Member (Idle past 2170 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 30 of 40 (40401)
05-16-2003 9:47 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by Peter
05-16-2003 7:14 AM


Actually, "native" people in the rainforest and other places tend to work a lot less, thus have a lot more liesure time, than their western counterparts.

This message is a reply to:
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