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Author Topic:   Creationists think Evolutionists think like Creationists.
Trae
Member (Idle past 4306 days)
Posts: 442
From: Fremont, CA, USA
Joined: 06-18-2004


Message 91 of 485 (568838)
07-18-2010 7:59 AM
Reply to: Message 86 by GDR
07-17-2010 11:07 PM


Re: Evolution is agnostic
GDR writes:
I am not going to pretend there are easy answers. I believe that God is just as saddened by this as any of us.
One thought that I have though is this. If this life is all there is that poor little guy is going to live with that horrible disease his whole life. If however God is going to do what the Bible says and give us new eternal bodies in a new heaven and new earth then it isn't as tragic.
Oddly enough (pun intended), your take doesn't seem all that more optimistic to me. Christian theology usually states very few will make it to heaven and so the odds would suggest he will likely wind up in hell.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 86 by GDR, posted 07-17-2010 11:07 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 95 by GDR, posted 07-18-2010 11:23 AM Trae has seen this message but not replied

  
Woodsy
Member (Idle past 3374 days)
Posts: 301
From: Burlington, Canada
Joined: 08-30-2006


(1)
Message 92 of 485 (568851)
07-18-2010 10:28 AM
Reply to: Message 86 by GDR
07-17-2010 11:07 PM


Re: Evolution is agnostic
One thought that I have though is this. If this life is all there is that poor little guy is going to live with that horrible disease his whole life. If however God is going to do what the Bible says and give us new eternal bodies in a new heaven and new earth then it isn't as tragic.
You have demonstrated the shocking lack of compassion so very common among religious people, and shown us how religion comes to be the cause of so much horrible evil.

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 Message 86 by GDR, posted 07-17-2010 11:07 PM GDR has not replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 93 of 485 (568853)
07-18-2010 11:06 AM
Reply to: Message 89 by DevilsAdvocate
07-18-2010 6:52 AM


Re: Evolution is agnostic
DevilsAdvocate writes:
Wow, what a pretty insensitive and cruel thing to say. So basically you are saying it is ok that God in his foreknowledge and the ability to prevent this disease/ailmant from occuring in the first place, does nothing to prevent the incruciating pain and literal physical torture of innocent children because in the end they will have new bodies in heaven. The supposed promise of a new body in no way takes away the physical/emotional/and psychological pain, agony and outright torture these people and the families endure when they are stricken with these diseases/ailmants.
You ask a question and I provided an answer. You then make a personal attack against me saying that I am cruel and insensitive. Of course my heart breaks for that kid as does yours. Why does God allow it? I don't know. I do know that as humans we are called to do all that we can as humans to alleviate that suffering.
At the same time as I see all the suffering and hatred in the world I also see a lot of love and joy. Maybe the love and joy can't exist without pain and suffering. It seems to me that the love and joy in the world exceeds the pain and the suffering.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 89 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 07-18-2010 6:52 AM DevilsAdvocate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 96 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 07-18-2010 12:46 PM GDR has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 94 of 485 (568854)
07-18-2010 11:11 AM
Reply to: Message 90 by DevilsAdvocate
07-18-2010 7:04 AM


Re: Evolution is agnostic
DevilsAdvocate writes:
Furthermore, the very definition of God existing outside of our dimension of spacetime, aka his supernatural existance vs our existence in a natural universe, presupposes that he can remove any evidence of his existance at will from our physical universe and thus mask himself from our scientific query thus making this point moot.
I suggest that the fact that we exist at all, that we are sentient, that we have emotions, that we perceive beauty is all evidence. I agree that it isn't scientific but it in my view it is all evidence of his existence.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 90 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 07-18-2010 7:04 AM DevilsAdvocate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 97 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 07-18-2010 12:49 PM GDR has not replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 95 of 485 (568855)
07-18-2010 11:23 AM
Reply to: Message 91 by Trae
07-18-2010 7:59 AM


Re: Evolution is agnostic
Trae writes:
Oddly enough (pun intended), your take doesn't seem all that more optimistic to me. Christian theology usually states very few will make it to heaven and so the odds would suggest he will likely wind up in hell.
Maybe you've been reading bad theology. I see the Bible as pretty clear that God is concerned far more about the condition of our hearts than he is our theology.
Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians that God will bring ALL things in heaven and on earth together. In the end we choose between love of ourselves and love of our neighbours. If we choose love of self, (looking out after number one), the we will choose to be separated from God.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 91 by Trae, posted 07-18-2010 7:59 AM Trae has seen this message but not replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 96 of 485 (568864)
07-18-2010 12:46 PM
Reply to: Message 93 by GDR
07-18-2010 11:06 AM


Re: Evolution is agnostic
You ask a question and I provided an answer. You then make a personal attack against me saying that I am cruel and insensitive.
Because your answer to why God creating this disease in the first place is that God could possibly give him a new body (only to those who believe in him) in no way alleviates the pain and agony this child (and billions of other human beings) felt. To me that is a cop out and constitutes as cruel and insensitive. This would equivalent to saying to the family of a child badly burned in a car accident cause by a druck driver: "It isn't too tragic that your son has been horribly scared in the fire caused by the drunk driver because the doctors can perhaps patch him up." Go tell that to the family and tell my what their reaction to you is. That is the equivalent of what you said.
Of course my heart breaks for that kid as does yours. Why does God allow it? I don't know. I do know that as humans we are called to do all that we can as humans to alleviate that suffering.
Yet God doesn't alleviate any of this suffering. Hypocritical much?
At the same time as I see all the suffering and hatred in the world I also see a lot of love and joy. Maybe the love and joy can't exist without pain and suffering.
Poppycock. That is like saying your child can't love or appreciate you until you burn their hand on the stove first. My daughter love's me even though I do not beat or abuse her.
It seems to me that the love and joy in the world exceeds the pain and the suffering.
That is a purely subjective statement with no tether in reality.

"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 93 by GDR, posted 07-18-2010 11:06 AM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 98 by GDR, posted 07-18-2010 11:45 PM DevilsAdvocate has replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 97 of 485 (568865)
07-18-2010 12:49 PM
Reply to: Message 94 by GDR
07-18-2010 11:11 AM


Re: Evolution is agnostic
GDR writes:
I suggest that the fact that we exist at all, that we are sentient, that we have emotions, that we perceive beauty is all evidence. I agree that it isn't scientific but it in my view it is all evidence of his existence.
No, this is just evidence that we are sentient, have emotions and percieve beauty (however subjective that may be). Your entirely right that it is not scientific. In fact it isn't even logical. Evidence of A (sentient humans who have emotions about the world they live in aka perception of beauty) does not equate to evidence of B (existence of God) unless you can in someway equate A to B.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 94 by GDR, posted 07-18-2010 11:11 AM GDR has not replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 98 of 485 (568928)
07-18-2010 11:45 PM
Reply to: Message 96 by DevilsAdvocate
07-18-2010 12:46 PM


Re: Evolution is agnostic
DevilsAdvocate writes:
Because your answer to why God creating this disease in the first place is that God could possibly give him a new body (only to those who believe in him) in no way alleviates the pain and agony this child (and billions of other human beings) felt. To me that is a cop out and constitutes as cruel and insensitive. This would equivalent to saying to the family of a child badly burned in a car accident cause by a druck driver: "It isn't too tragic that your son has been horribly scared in the fire caused by the drunk driver because the doctors can perhaps patch him up." Go tell that to the family and tell my what their reaction to you is. That is the equivalent of what you said.
I agree that this is a troubling issue and that if there would be anything that would cause me to turn my back on Christianity this would be it.
Frankly, assuming that you are sincere in your expression of this issue, as I believe you are, then I think that you are closer to God than are a lot of Christians who justify suffering strictly on the basis that God is all powerful so he can do pretty much what he wants.
I will throw out this thought. It seems to me that in this life we have free will. If we lived in a world that only contained love and joy then our choices wouldn't matter. We would no longer be free to make moral choices. It is how we as humans respond to the pain and suffering that makes us what we are.
In the end it does become an issue of faith. I believe that the God I worship is all loving and a God of perfect justice and that in the end there will be a balancing of accounts that will make up for the suffering in this life time.
Also to quickly address one other point you made. I don't believe that it is only Christians that are part of new creation as I pointed out in another post. It isn't a matter of intellectual assent to any particular doctrine. It is about being able to take the focus off ourselves and truly love others. (I have a long way to go.)
CS Lewis said that there are 2 kinds of people. There will be those people who in the end say to God thy will be done and there are those people to whom God will say thy will be done.
I know that this is not going to change your mind but for the record I have a lot of respect for your views and IMHO you are probably a lot closer to the mind of God than you might realize.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 96 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 07-18-2010 12:46 PM DevilsAdvocate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 99 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 07-19-2010 5:28 AM GDR has replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 99 of 485 (568949)
07-19-2010 5:28 AM
Reply to: Message 98 by GDR
07-18-2010 11:45 PM


Re: Evolution is agnostic
GDR writes:
agree that this is a troubling issue and that if there would be anything that would cause me to turn my back on Christianity this would be it.
Thanks for the honest and sincere reply GDR.
Frankly, assuming that you are sincere in your expression of this issue, as I believe you are, then I think that you are closer to God than are a lot of Christians who justify suffering strictly on the basis that God is all powerful so he can do pretty much what he wants.
Yes, well put, if this were the case than why not worship Baal or Zeus. They are pretty powerful gods in their own mythology as well. If the god of the Bible were not omnibenevolent as he supposed to be, than why should we worship him? Be in awe of and fear, yes, perhaps. But to worship such a being would be to "sell your soul to the devil" so to speak.
I will throw out this thought. It seems to me that in this life we have free will. If we lived in a world that only contained love and joy then our choices wouldn't matter. We would no longer be free to make moral choices. It is how we as humans respond to the pain and suffering that makes us what we are.
Yes, I understand what you are saying with contrasting emotions. However, does one need to beat abuse their kids in order for them to love them? I think not. Death and excrutiating pain are not required for joy and love to exist.
In the end it does become an issue of faith. I believe that the God I worship is all loving and a God of perfect justice and that in the end there will be a balancing of accounts that will make up for the suffering in this life time.
That is fine on a personal level, whatever floats your boat. But to expect everyone to believe in the same god that you believe in without any evidence to back up your claims is ludicrous.
Also to quickly address one other point you made. I don't believe that it is only Christians that are part of new creation as I pointed out in another post. It isn't a matter of intellectual assent to any particular doctrine. It is about being able to take the focus off ourselves and truly love others. (I have a long way to go.)
And you don't think the non-religious do this? You don't think we teach our children not to think of themselves all the time, and to not be selfish? I say it almost on a daily basis to my daughter.
GDR writes:
CS Lewis said that there are 2 kinds of people. There will be those people who in the end say to God thy will be done and there are those people to whom God will say thy will be done.
CS Lewis was a great Christian apologist. I admire his work and have many of his books in my library upstairs.
I know that this is not going to change your mind but for the record I have a lot of respect for your views and IMHO you are probably a lot closer to the mind of God than you might realize.
It is the inconsistency and hypocracy of the Bible that I lothe (the irrational, unloving, unforgiving, unjust, arrogant, vengeful, egomaniacal control freak and murder of the Old and New Testament), not the original intent of Jesus message of love for fellow man. In some ways, I often relate alot to Thomas Jefferson in his views of the Bible (though I am not in favor of his owning slaves). I guess in the end I am a humanist and liberatarian (which is not the same as the US liberarian politcal party) above all things.

"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 98 by GDR, posted 07-18-2010 11:45 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 100 by GDR, posted 07-20-2010 12:27 AM DevilsAdvocate has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 100 of 485 (569056)
07-20-2010 12:27 AM
Reply to: Message 99 by DevilsAdvocate
07-19-2010 5:28 AM


Re: Evolution is agnostic
DevilsAdvocate writes:
Yes, well put, if this were the case than why not worship Baal or Zeus. They are pretty powerful gods in their own mythology as well. If the god of the Bible were not omnibenevolent as he supposed to be, than why should we worship him? Be in awe of and fear, yes, perhaps. But to worship such a being would be to "sell your soul to the devil" so to speak.
In the first case I do believe in the God of the Bible. In saying that I don't take the Bible literally and I see it in the same way that people like C S lewis and more recently N T wright see it. I also like to read people like Alister McGrath and John Polkinghorne who have a background in both physics and theology. I found the book called "The Reason for God" by Timothy Keller to be very well written.
I recently posted this quote from C S Lewis in another thread but I'll post it here as well. This is the way I interpret the Bible.
C S Lewis writes:
Just as, on the factual side, a long preparation culminates in God’s becoming incarnate as Man, so, on the documentary side, the truth first appears in mythical form and then by a long process of condensing or focusing finally becomes incarnate as History. This involves the belief that Myth is ... a real though unfocused gleam of divine truth falling on human imagination. The Hebrews, like other peoples, had mythology: but as they were the chosen people so their mythology was the chosen mythology — the mythology chosen by God to be the vehicle of the earliest sacred truths, the first step in that process which ends in the New Testament where truth has become completely historical.
Miracles Ch 15 CS Lewis
In short I am a Christian because I believe. There is considerable evidence in the Bible, but also in the way that we experience life, that we have free will and that the future is not deterministic. I know that with my own kids that no matter how much I love them I can't always stop them from being hurt. I always hesitate to use the term omnipotent for God because I don't know what limitations that he had to deal with in creating this planet but I actually do believe that he is omnibenevolent. (Good word by the way. )
I could go through all the reasons as to why I believe but we have probably gone well off topic already.
DevilsAdvocate writes:
Yes, I understand what you are saying with contrasting emotions. However, does one need to beat abuse their kids in order for them to love them? I think not. Death and excrutiating pain are not required for joy and love to exist.
Interesting that you point out death which in the end is the ultimate evil. As a Christian I believe that Christ came to put an end to death. We will all experience physical death as did Jesus but there is life after this.
I believe that the misery that happens in this life will be made right in the next, and yes, it is an issue of faith.
DevilsAdvocate writes:
That is fine on a personal level, whatever floats your boat. But to expect everyone to believe in the same god that you believe in without any evidence to back up your claims is ludicrous.
I don't expect everyone else to believe. We all have beliefs even if it is to believe that we can't know. In my view there is considerable evidence in support of Theism in general, but also in support of Christianity, but I'm not going to get into another debate on what constitutes evidence.
DevilsAdvocate writes:
And you don't think the non-religious do this? You don't think we teach our children not to think of themselves all the time, and to not be selfish? I say it almost on a daily basis to my daughter.
I think that I have been reasonably clear that I would not for one second think that those that are non-religious are necessarily selfish. I have no doubt that many non-religious prople are less selfish than religious people.
DevilsAdvocate writes:
CS Lewis was a great Christian apologist. I admire his work and have many of his books in my library upstairs.
Here is the complete quote from Lewis’ The Great Divorce.
quote:
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.'
My favourite current theologian is N T Wright
DevilsAdvocate writes:
It is the inconsistency and hypocracy of the Bible that I lothe (the irrational, unloving, unforgiving, unjust, arrogant, vengeful, egomaniacal control freak and murder of the Old and New Testament), not the original intent of Jesus message of love for fellow man. In some ways, I often relate alot to Thomas Jefferson in his views of the Bible (though I am not in favor of his owning slaves). I guess in the end I am a humanist and liberatarian (which is not the same as the US liberarian politcal party) above all things.
I think that a lot of it comes down to how we read the Bible. I see the Bible as a meta-narrative of God continuing to work with His creation. I don't see it as being dictated by God and I don't frankly accept that everything that was attributed to God in the OT actually came from God. I think that there is a lot of human justification going on the writing of the history. I don't pretend to have all the answers but when I want to understand the attributes of God I look at Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, and I stumble along trying my darndest and usually failing to live by His message of love.
Cheers

This message is a reply to:
 Message 99 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 07-19-2010 5:28 AM DevilsAdvocate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 101 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 07-20-2010 6:11 AM GDR has replied

  
DevilsAdvocate
Member (Idle past 3101 days)
Posts: 1548
Joined: 06-05-2008


Message 101 of 485 (569071)
07-20-2010 6:11 AM
Reply to: Message 100 by GDR
07-20-2010 12:27 AM


Re: Evolution is agnostic
In the first case I do believe in the God of the Bible. In saying that I don't take the Bible literally and I see it in the same way that people like C S lewis and more recently N T wright see it.
Your stage of belief sounds alot like mine before I steped off the Christian bandwagon. At that time I had migrated to a C.S. Lewis than more of a Thomas Jeffersonian view of Christianity and religion in general. That is the belief that the Bible was not as litteral and contrived as it came off to be. In other words, the Bible, I believed, was as you say more of a loose narrative from a human perspective rather than a innerant God inspired work and all-encompassing ideological tome of Christian doctrine.
Here is another interesting quote from C.S. Lewis:
All Holy Scripture is in some sense though not all parts of it in the same sense the word of God
also
"The earliest stratum of the Old Testament contains many truths in a form which I take to be legendary, or even mythicalthings like Noah’s Ark or the sun standing still upon Ajalon,"
C.S. Lewis, because of his honesty, keen intelect and his ability to cut to the quick of things; I think if he lived long enough, may have become more estranged to the fundamental-conservative Christian faith seen in some churches today. JMHO.
In short I am a Christian because I believe. There is considerable evidence in the Bible, but also in the way that we experience life, that we have free will and that the future is not deterministic.
And I have no problem with this rationally or philosophically.
I know that with my own kids that no matter how much I love them I can't always stop them from being hurt. I always hesitate to use the term omnipotent for God because I don't know what limitations that he had to deal with in creating this planet but I actually do believe that he is omnibenevolent. (Good word by the way. )
The difference between you and God is that you did not create the various cruel and malicious vices that plague us today. In addition you are not omnipresent and omnipowerful and thus you physically are unable to always protect your child from being hurt. Also, you do protect your child from actions that will cause permanent physical, emotional and psychological damage whenever possible I assume. God does not do this. Or why would over hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children die of malnutrion and other terrible diseases every day.
I could go through all the reasons as to why I believe but we have probably gone well off topic already.
I think this is very relavent to why Creationists think the way they do, and why there is a moral, rational/logical and philosophical disconnect between the ways people think about each other (esp Creationists and Scientists).
Interesting that you point out death which in the end is the ultimate evil. As a Christian I believe that Christ came to put an end to death. We will all experience physical death as did Jesus but there is life after this.
Pure conjecture as no one has come back to prove this is so.
I think that I have been reasonably clear that I would not for one second think that those that are non-religious are necessarily selfish. I have no doubt that many non-religious prople are less selfish than religious people.
Yet, we are supposed to side with the people who are less moral than us who believe in a supernatural entity that they have no emperical evidence exists? I don't get it.
I don't pretend to have all the answers but when I want to understand the attributes of God I look at Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, and I stumble along trying my darndest and usually failing to live by His message of love.
I don't doubt at all your passion, zeal and love for God and your faith. I question the irrational basis that underlies it. That is not intended as a personal attack on you (though you may think it is), it is a healthy skeptism of the logic underlying your belief.
Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

This message is a reply to:
 Message 100 by GDR, posted 07-20-2010 12:27 AM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 102 by GDR, posted 07-20-2010 6:14 PM DevilsAdvocate has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 102 of 485 (569185)
07-20-2010 6:14 PM
Reply to: Message 101 by DevilsAdvocate
07-20-2010 6:11 AM


Re: Evolution is agnostic
DevilsAdvocate writes:
Your stage of belief sounds alot like mine before I steped off the Christian bandwagon. At that time I had migrated to a C.S. Lewis than more of a Thomas Jeffersonian view of Christianity and religion in general. That is the belief that the Bible was not as litteral and contrived as it came off to be. In other words, the Bible, I believed, was as you say more of a loose narrative from a human perspective rather than a innerant God inspired work and all-encompassing ideological tome of Christian doctrine.
This points out one of the major problems I have with the Christian, so-called, fundamentalist movement as we know it in North America, and frankly particularly in the States. I contend that view is fairly easily dismissed on any thoughtful grounds. If the Christian faith is true then it will stand up to questioning. I fervently believe that there are huge truths about our existence to be learned from the book of Genesis, but if we try and read it like a science text or a newspaper we will miss what God has to tell us.
If to be a Christian I had to believe in a 6000 year old universe I would have a problem. Fortunately this isn't the case. The trouble is that in many cases this type of belief has become something of a litmus test and as a result there are many that throw out the baby with the bath water.
DevilsAdvocate writes:
C.S. Lewis, because of his honesty, keen intelect and his ability to cut to the quick of things; I think if he lived long enough, may have become more estranged to the fundamental-conservative Christian faith seen in some churches today. JMHO.
The trouble with the term conservative it means different things in different contexts. In some circles I would be considered conservative and in other circles I would be called a liberal. In my own terms I would call John Spong, Dominique Crossan and Marcus Borg liberals and people like Timothy Keller, C S Lewis and N T Wright conservatives. I have no real concept of where I would place people like Pat Robertson as I have no idea how to relate.
C S Lewis had the same struggles about suffering that we have discussed, (particularly around the death of his beloved wife Joy) and he addressed these issues in "The Problem of Pain". Because of this discussion I've just started to re-read the book.
One of the points he raises at the outset is this. He writes of when he was an atheist. He says that if he was asked to believe in a benevolent and omnipotent spirit he would reply that all evidence points in the opposite direction. He then goes on to say that he never asked the question , "if the universe is so bad, or even half so bad, how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good creator? Men are fools, perhaps; but hardly so foolish as that. The direct inference from black to white, from evil flower to virtuous root, from senseless work to a workman infinitely wise, staggers belief. The spectacle of the universe as revealed by experience can never have been the ground of religion: it must always have been something in spite of religion, acquired from a different source, was held."
Frankly after having been a Christian for a number of years, (I was agnostic between my teens to mid-thirties), I actually started to seriously question what it was I believed. As a result of that questioning of my faith I found that some of things that I believed I no longer believed and also the other way around. As a result, I have never been more sure of my Christian faith.
DevilsAdvocate writes:
The difference between you and God is that you did not create the various cruel and malicious vices that plague us today. In addition you are not omnipresent and omnipowerful and thus you physically are unable to always protect your child from being hurt. Also, you do protect your child from actions that will cause permanent physical, emotional and psychological damage whenever possible I assume. God does not do this. Or why would over hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children die of malnutrion and other terrible diseases every day.
I don't know what options God had when he created this world. Maybe the choice is to have it the way it is or not at all. At least when I look at the cross I see a God who understands human sufferings and that things are not the way he would like them to be.
DevilsAdvocate writes:
Pure conjecture as no one has come back to prove this is so.
You gotta know I'm going to disagree with that. We can read the gospel accounts of the resurrection and either choose to believe them or not. In my view I would agree with Paul in that if Jesus was not bodily resurrected then we (as Christians) are wasting our time.
I read a book that was a debate between N T Wright and Marcus Borg. The Meaning of Jesus- Two Visions I believe that the historical evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus is much stronger than for the argument against it. Certainly to be open to the concept one has to be open to the possibility of an interventionist god. It seems to me however that if we believe in a creative intelligence then it doesn't seem like much a stretch to think that the creative intelligence in question would have a continuing interest in that which he had created.
DevilsAdvocate writes:
Yet, we are supposed to side with the people who are less moral than us who believe in a supernatural entity that they have no emperical evidence exists? I don't get it.
What interests me is the truth. We can't know the truth in the way that I can know the 2 + 2 = 4, but I can know it in the same way that I can know that my wife loves me.
I also contend that there is at least as much empirical evidence about Jesus, (if you call historical literature as empirical evidence), as there is for any other historical figure. Even the fact that there is something instead of nothing is evidence of a sort.
DevilsAdvocate writes:
I don't doubt at all your passion, zeal and love for God and your faith. I question the irrational basis that underlies it. That is not intended as a personal attack on you (though you may think it is), it is a healthy skeptism of the logic underlying your belief.
I know that you are agnostic, but I see the atheistic view that this world just happened to come about by chance, and that we all just happened to evolve randomly from atoms and molecules without any external intelligence being involved as irrational.
That however only gets us to the point of being theistic. As a theist I then have to ask if it is rational to believe that this external intelligence would go to all the bother of putting this whole thing together and then abandoning the project.
If we accept that as a premise then we have to look at the various world views and come to a conclusion about what it is that we believe. I agree that when I started the search I only looked at Christianity, but in later years I did look at other world views and in doing so my Christian faith was not only maintained but strengthened, albeit somewhat altered.
I just don't accept that that Christianity is irrational. IMHO it makes more sense of the world that I live than anything else does.
Back to reading "THe Problem of Pain".
Edited by GDR, : No reason given.
Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 101 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 07-20-2010 6:11 AM DevilsAdvocate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 103 by crashfrog, posted 07-20-2010 6:53 PM GDR has replied
 Message 104 by ringo, posted 07-20-2010 7:03 PM GDR has replied
 Message 111 by DevilsAdvocate, posted 07-20-2010 10:53 PM GDR has replied
 Message 117 by Theodoric, posted 07-21-2010 10:28 AM GDR has not replied

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


Message 103 of 485 (569192)
07-20-2010 6:53 PM
Reply to: Message 102 by GDR
07-20-2010 6:14 PM


Re: Evolution is agnostic
I believe that the historical evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus is much stronger than for the argument against it.
I wonder if you'd consider opening or participating in a thread to address that very question. My understanding is that there's no real evidence even for the historical existence of Jesus Christ, much less his resurrection - just evidence of people reading scriptures that say he lived and died, and believing those scriptures even unto martyrdom. (Of course, every religion has its martyrs.)
I'm willing to grant you the presumption of an interventionist, albeit not necessarily Christian, God. In other words I'd grant you that the resurrection of Christ is a historical possibility, so long as you'll grant that if it did occur, it's surely an extraordinary occurrence, not an ordinary one.
I also contend that there is at least as much empirical evidence about Jesus, (if you call historical literature as empirical evidence), as there is for any other historical figure.
I contend that outside the Bible and other motivated religious scripture there is none at all, whatsoever.
I know that you are agnostic, but I see the atheistic view that this world just happened to come about by chance, and that we all just happened to evolve randomly from atoms and molecules without any external intelligence being involved as irrational.
It's always rational to assert the least number of unnecessary entities. Since we've observed the random interaction of atoms and molecules give rise to complexity - directly observed it - it's not irrational to conclude that such interactions gave rise to complexity in the past, even in the distant past, with ultimately all living species being the result.
I just don't accept that that Christianity is irrational.
Aside from the inherent irrationality of a religion of miracles, if there's no evidence for the central claims of Christianity, faith in Christianity must be inherently irrational.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 102 by GDR, posted 07-20-2010 6:14 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 105 by GDR, posted 07-20-2010 8:22 PM crashfrog has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 104 of 485 (569193)
07-20-2010 7:03 PM
Reply to: Message 102 by GDR
07-20-2010 6:14 PM


Religion is irrational
GDR writes:
I just don't accept that that Christianity is irrational.
It's unfortunate that the word "irrational" has negative connotations for some people. It's like "racist". Nobody wants to be a racist any more. Nobody wants to be irrational. Everybody wants to be a cross between the Dalai Lama and Mr. Spock.
But we're not. We are a little bit racist, most of us, and we are a little bit irrational, most of us.
I'd say that as long as your couch isn't telling you to kill the mailman, you can feel free to embrace your irrationality.

I rode off into the sunset, went all the way around the world and now I\'m back where I started.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 102 by GDR, posted 07-20-2010 6:14 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 106 by GDR, posted 07-20-2010 8:26 PM ringo has not replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 105 of 485 (569198)
07-20-2010 8:22 PM
Reply to: Message 103 by crashfrog
07-20-2010 6:53 PM


Re: Evolution is agnostic
crashfrog writes:
I'm willing to grant you the presumption of an interventionist, albeit not necessarily Christian, God. In other words I'd grant you that the resurrection of Christ is a historical possibility, so long as you'll grant that if it did occur, it's surely an extraordinary occurrence, not an ordinary one.
If you or anyone is really interested in the historical evidence for the resurrection I'll post the foillowing link that can explain it far better than I can. In his books Wright goes into far more detail but this talk does give in broad brush strokes the historical evidence for the resurrection.
I certainly agree that to date there has just been the one resurrection.
NT Wright

This message is a reply to:
 Message 103 by crashfrog, posted 07-20-2010 6:53 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 107 by jar, posted 07-20-2010 8:33 PM GDR has not replied
 Message 110 by crashfrog, posted 07-20-2010 9:40 PM GDR has replied
 Message 118 by Theodoric, posted 07-21-2010 10:31 AM GDR has not replied

  
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