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Author Topic:   Who Made God?
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 61 of 868 (689447)
01-30-2013 7:19 PM
Reply to: Message 54 by onifre
01-30-2013 2:41 PM


Re: What Constitutes Evidence?
onifre writes:
You seem to be arriving at your conclusion based on a very obvious misunderstanding of science.
If in fact you believe the accounts of the Bible to be true, then you don't need to twist up science to support your beliefs.
It depends what you mean about believing the accounts in the Bible to be true and I have no idea what you mean by twisting science. I’m just saying that science has discovered some pretty miraculous things about this planet like QM and for that matter evolution.
onifre writes:
Life is barely able to exist on a small planet in a vast, vast universe. In our solar system alone only 1 planet has life, and ONLY for a short period of time. It will eventually vanish either through catastrophic events on Earth or when the Sun has exhasted it's fuel.
Some design, huh?
Sure, but of course it is my view that this isn’t all there is, and although our current form of existence is obviously finite that we are all part of something bigger and more lasting.
onifre writes:
One species out of BILLIONS has a brain complex enough to have what yo u call "desires" and has given itself "purpose", but these qualities are not typical. It is not in abundance. No other species posses this,
Essentially I agree but I’m not sure my dogs would.
onifre writes:
so it's simply a by-product of one species evolution.
That’s your belief.
GDR writes:
It allows for our physical properties to change in order to better adapt to our environment.
onifre writes:
Our physical properties do no such thing. If I throw you in the ocean as a baby you will not produce gills by adulthood.
I think we both understand that the changes are generational such as the beaks Darwin’s finches.
onifre writes:
Then you have manipulated the evidence to fit a very narrow religious view.
No more than you do as when you make statements like you did above when you said so it's (intelligence and morality),simply a by-product of one species evolution.
onifre writes:
...and you continue to do it. What it will prove is that life DOES NOT need any intelligence to guide it, as it will obviously show that life can arrise from simple chemicalreactions.
Well, science is a long way from doing that so right now as I said it is simply science of the gaps but if it does happen it will require some scientist somewhere to figure out which chemicals and in what combination. If it is so simple then why don’t we see it happening all the time. We only see life forming from existing life.
onifre writes:
Where is this universe you speak of? I see one planet where ONE particular species has evolved a trait that is beneficial to them, but may end up destroying them. Some design. Some purpose. Is this what "god" intended?
As I said previously I don’t see the end of this planet being the end of everything.I believe that this universe is part of a greater reality that isn’t subject to decay. In the next life how about we re-constitute EvC and we’ll be in a better position to debate the quality of the design and purpose.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 54 by onifre, posted 01-30-2013 2:41 PM onifre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 69 by onifre, posted 01-30-2013 11:36 PM GDR has replied

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


Message 62 of 868 (689448)
01-30-2013 7:46 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by Taq
01-30-2013 4:25 PM


Re: Should God be slanged or kept to oneself?
GDR writes:
They were written as historical documents and as such we can view them as we do any other historical documents.
Taq writes:
Joseph Smith's accounts of finding the golden tablets and having them translated by an angel are also written as history. That doesn't mean that they happened.
That was my point. We can read any historical document and make of it what we will. As I said before, if you go into a library in Washington and read about the Viet Nam war you are likely to get a very different understanding of what happened than if you read an account in a library in Hanoi.
Taq writes:
Is it rational to believe that the Earth orbits the Sun, and not the other way around even though we do not feel the Earth move and can see the Sun moving?
Is it rational to believe that light can be a particle or a wave, but never both at the same time?
Is it rational to believe that fire is caused by an invisible gas?
The evidence has led us to many conclusions that seemed irrational at the outset. The importance is that we are following the evidence and not what we want to be true.
I agree with that, (although the fire thing is new to me), so I’m not sure what your point is. As I’ve read more and studied more I now believe that things that I believed 10 years ago were wrong. I look at the evidence and form my conclusions, which doesn’t mean that I will come to the same conclusions as you or anyone else given the same evidence.
Taq writes:
They can disagree all they want. What is important is that theists have failed to demonstrate that they are right. What we keep seeing is a set of beliefs that people want to be true, but can never demonstrate that they are true.
I can say the same thing about the atheistic POV.
You’re right in that I can’t demonstarte that my Christian or even my theistic views are true. It isn’t that I any more than anyone else form my beliefs by what I want to believe, but what I believe does for me make sense of the world that I experience and the world that I read about.
GDR writes:
The Theory of Evolution is as near as I can tell a well evidenced theory as to the process that led to life today. It is not evidence of why we exist. It would be like looking at a car assembly line and claiming that the assembly line just came into existence on its own and is solely responsible for the existence of cars.
Taq writes:
But we actually have evidence for people building car factories. That's the difference.
True, but you are talking about what is knowable. The fact still remains that evolution ticks along in much the same way that an assembly line does, and it is my unprovable belief that just as the assembly line required intelligence in order for it to produce cars that it is analogous to believe that intelligence was required for evolution.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Taq, posted 01-30-2013 4:25 PM Taq has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 81 by Taq, posted 01-31-2013 12:37 PM GDR has replied

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


Message 76 of 868 (689511)
01-31-2013 11:58 AM
Reply to: Message 69 by onifre
01-30-2013 11:36 PM


GDR writes:
I’m just saying that science has discovered some pretty miraculous things about this planet like QM and for that matter evolution.
onifre writes:
Maybe it's your own astonishment that's leading you to believe it's a miracle, or just a choice use of words to veer it toward the miraculous, but those who understand QM doen't call it miraculous. That would imply it's supernatural, and QM is very natural, predictable and testable.
I wasn’t implying that QM is supernatural. In the common vernacular the word miraculous is virtually synonymous with astonishing. QM may be predictable and testable but even 100 years ago its characteristics are something no one would have predicted.
GDR writes:
Sure, but of course it is my view that this isn’t all there is, and although our current form of existence is obviously finite that we are all part of something bigger and more lasting.
onifre writes:
But if we're going to exist beyond the physical world in you r opinion, if that's even possible or something that even makes sense, what's the point then of bringing up this physical universe and it's design qualities?
You said this universe seems designed, I pointed out that life has only existed for a tiny amount of time and will eventually be gone, and now you're telling me about another place where we'll go after that happens...and I'm imagining we'll be there for eternity. Ok, fine. So then, shouldn't your point be that we are actually designed for the afterlife, since we'll be there, well, forever?
Seeing as how we are the coffee house I guess we’re allowed to wander off topic.
The Biblical view is that all of creation will be renewed. (New heaven and new earth where God’s heavenly dimension and our earthly one somehow come together to form a new creation.) I think that the only way in this life that we can come to any understanding of that is through our science. I’ve used this quote several times on this forum before but it does help clarify my understanding of things. This was the headline for the lead story in Scientific American in the Nov. 2010 issue. Hidden Worlds of Dark Matter — An Entire Universe May be Interwoven Silently With Our Own.
Science seems to be coming to the conclusion that there is a greater reality that we are a part of. As science learns more and more about these things we may get a clearer picture of things so that much of what we call supernatural now will become natural to us in the way that QM has.
In answer to your question then is that my belief is that in ways that are currently beyond our understanding, our lives here are part of something bigger and better that we are ultimately designed but that our lives play an important part in building for that greater eventuality.
I’ll carry on rambling for a bit here. One of the things I find fascinating as I get older is the sense that I’m not. My body is aging, life experience and new knowledge and understanding changes my views but essentially there is understanding that the essential I isn’t really aging at all. It is hard to explain but I deal a lot with seniors as a volunteer. One friend is 101 years old. His wife passed away about 3 years ago and he now has a girl friend. He talks about going to silent movies as a kid and instead of watching the movie he would watch the piano player who would play mood music to fit what was on the screen. In our conversations we both agree that in our hearts we are no different than we were in our twenties. We agreed that although our bodies get older we don’t.
onifre writes:
Well, isn't it a by-product of an evolution you clearly agree happened? Even if you believe th e God of the Christian Bible gave it to us, you would have to agree that he did so through the process of evolution and we've developed it (intelligence and morality) to the levels you find today throughout the world.
How else do you believe it would have happened if not like that?
I agree but I would add that I believe that what we call conscience is God prompting our hearts and minds.
onifre writes:
I get to be Percy in the next life!
That has put a smile on my face all morning.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 69 by onifre, posted 01-30-2013 11:36 PM onifre has not replied

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


Message 85 of 868 (689522)
01-31-2013 2:14 PM
Reply to: Message 75 by Tangle
01-31-2013 8:53 AM


Re: What Constitutes Evidence?
GDR writes:
Just because you keep saying it doesn’t make it true. We do not know that an unguided process of evolution created intelligence and morality.
Tangle writes:
It's not me that's saying it - it's published science. Stacks of it.
We know that an unguided process of evolution produced all life on this planet including us. It produced many intelligent life forms, one of which, us, has developed it to a relatively high level.
We observe the evolutionary process. We can observe natural selection at work which definitely appears to be unguided but beyond that we don't know if the process is guided or designed. There is no answer as to how abiogenesis took place, (which we may be able to determine eventually), but we can only form philosophical or theological conclusions as to why we exist at all, let alone with intelligence and morality. Your view that it is just a natural progression from mindless, apparently non-dimensional or one-dimensional particles whereas it is my view is that we are the result of a pre-existing intelligence. Neither is provable.
Tangle writes:
Our moral sense is a necessary part of social development and is an emotion developed from empathy - which is seen in other primates.
Morality isn't what we do. Morality is about having a heart that is prepared to put the interest of others at least on a level with our own interest, but even more to put the interest of others before ourselves. What we do flows from our morality.
The fact that we can observe what appears to be moral behaviour in other primates is what I would expect of a moral creator.
Tangle writes:
The alternative is that some unknown god created an enormous universe 14bn years ago, left it alone to see what would happen then plonked intelligence and morality into an ape on one remote planet about quarter of a million years ago.
I choose the former because there is evidence to support it.
The latter is without any supporting evidence whatsoever.
Well we disagree about the evidence thing and there isn't much point in rehashing all that. However a big part of your view of Christianity or Theism revolves around time. From our vantage point we only know one way of experiencing change and we call it time. If you read my initial posts in this thread it seems according to modern science that there may be other ways of experiencing change with one or more additional time dimensions.
The early Christians understood this to some degree. In 2nd Peter I think it is, he talks about a thousand years to God is like a day to us.
Tangle writes:
My point is that Gods are invented by pretty much all societies - they're all different but they have a lot in common. The majority promise an afterlife if certain rules are met - mostly about only worshipping the correct god which just happens to be the one your tribe worship and not behaving anti-socially.
In one sense it isn't that we worship different gods it is that we have different understandings about the nature of God. Even amongst Christians there are considerable differences. It is my contention that there has to be ambiguity if we are to have free will.
The view as espoused by Jesus in the Gospels is not that it is about having the correct theology that makes you right with God. It is about having hearts that love. Christ does say that God will change our hearts if we open them up to His message of love and forgiveness.
Tangle writes:
To accept this god idea, it's necessary to believe that you (ie the human species, not GDR) are special - god loves love or has a plan for you, takes an interest in you and so on. Without this hubris, we'd just be another animal doomed to die - we need to believe we're special. If there's a god looking after us, then we must be special mustn't we.
I don't see it that way. In the first place we read this in Paul's letter to the Ephesians.
quote:
9 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment--to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. 11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,
I don't like cherry picking Bible verses but I contend that what Paul says here is generally consistent with the overall Biblical message.
Paul does say that new creation is for all creation, which presumably would include all life. The point isn't that we are special. The point is that we have been given the job of managing this planet and reflecting God's love and care for the creation into it. I know we aren't doing much of a job of it, but generally I think that we are improving with time.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 75 by Tangle, posted 01-31-2013 8:53 AM Tangle has not replied

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


Message 89 of 868 (689534)
01-31-2013 8:58 PM
Reply to: Message 81 by Taq
01-31-2013 12:37 PM


Re: Should God be slanged or kept to oneself?
Taq writes:
The atheist POV is not a positive claim, so it is quite different. Theists are making the positive claim, and have yet to support that claim with positive evidence. The atheist POV is simply pointing that out. The fact still remains that evolution ticks along in much the same way that an assembly line does, and it is my unprovable belief that just as the assembly line required intelligence in order for it to produce cars that it is analogous to believe that intelligence was required for evolution.
Taq writes:
I think this illustrates the differences in our outlook. For the theist, there needs to be a purpose behind nature. Us humans need to be the ultimate expression of what nature was meant to do. This is a faith based belief, one that has not been supported by evidence and is believed to be true because it is comforting.
Frankly I’m not looking for comfort and I’m not saying that there needs to be purpose. I really am simply interested in the attempting to determine what the ultimate truth is. I accept at the outset that none of us will know the truth in the sense that we know that I have 10 toes. None of us have all the truth and I have no doubt that some things I believe are wrong. Frankly, though I am strongly convinced of the truth of my basic Christian beliefs even though I am not able to prove them. If there was proof we would all be Christian and then what would we argue about.
I agree that people can and do find comfort and purpose in the Christian faith but there is nothing wrong with that. It does seem to me though that as humans we all look for comfort and purpose. We look to families for comfort and purpose, we look to employment for comfort and purpose etc. It seems to me that if we look for comfort and purpose in the things that we do know about, that it might be seen as an indication that we are here for some greater cosmic purpose.
Taq writes:
This is why atheists see God as being made by humans, IMHO.
I agree that as humans we are all different and as a result yes we do instinctively create a god in our own image. It is my belief though that God does work through our hearts, minds and imaginations to continually draw us closer to His true nature. From our vantage point it does seem to be a long drawn out process.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 81 by Taq, posted 01-31-2013 12:37 PM Taq has not replied

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


(1)
Message 90 of 868 (689536)
01-31-2013 9:11 PM
Reply to: Message 82 by Faith
01-31-2013 1:00 PM


Re: Should God be slanged or kept to oneself?
Faith writes:
Of course I don't know what motivates GDR, too much pride to go with the despised "fundamentalists" perhapsk, so he picks the nice stuff that's going to get him compliments.
Interesting. If I don't agree with you then I am being prideful. That POV does seem more than a little prideful in itself don't you think. Also, I certainly don't despise fundamentalists, I simply disagree with them. As I said, most of the fundamentalists that I know are people who are actively serving God in their communities and around the world. I just think that their theology is out of whack.
The big difference in our beliefs is that your faith is based on an inerrant Bible whereas my faith is based on the resurrection of Jesus and in His message that His early followers recorded, to the best of their ability.
I agree that to understand Jesus properly, after all He was Jewish, we need the OT as Jesus constantly referred back to it, but also Yahweh in the OT we have to look at it through the filter of the message that we receive from Jesus.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 82 by Faith, posted 01-31-2013 1:00 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 95 by Faith, posted 01-31-2013 11:27 PM GDR has replied

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


Message 97 of 868 (689556)
02-01-2013 1:01 AM
Reply to: Message 95 by Faith
01-31-2013 11:27 PM


Re: Should God be slanged or kept to oneself?
Faith writes:
There is no evidence for the resurrection WITHOUT an inerrant Bible.
Why is that? Are you saying that if whoever wrote about a world wide flood in which one family housed the only remaining life on earth in pairs didn't happen then what the early Christians wrote about Jesus hundreds of years later can't be right either. That makes no sense at all. Are you saying that if God didn't order the mass killing of the Canaanites, or the stoning to death of difficult youth, prostitutes etc then we can't believe Christ's message of loving our enemies?
Christianity not only doesn't need an inerrant Bible, or at least the way you understand it, but in reality it nearly ceases to be Christianity because it no longer represents the God that we see incarnate in Jesus.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 95 by Faith, posted 01-31-2013 11:27 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 98 by Faith, posted 02-01-2013 1:10 AM GDR has replied

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


Message 112 of 868 (689619)
02-01-2013 2:44 PM
Reply to: Message 98 by Faith
02-01-2013 1:10 AM


Re: Should God be slanged or kept to oneself?
Faith writes:
GDR, believers in an inerrant Bible have no problem reconciling the Old Testament God with Jesus, it's UNBELIEVERS who make that distinction. If you are saved, great, but it must be by the skin of your teeth because you deny so much of the testimony of the Bible, which the New Testament treats as God's word in toto, referring to it without distinction as "the scriptures," and Jesus Himself quoted from all the books, and He also said to the disciples on the road to Emmaus that the entire Old Testament ("the scriptures") referred to Himself.
Believers in an inerrant Bible have no problem reconciling the OT to the NT because they simply ignore the massive discrepancies. They also ignore the differences within the OT as I wrote about in this post. Message 1
Here is a quote from Matthew 19:
quote:
7 "Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?" 8 Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.
Jesus doesn’t say that God gave this command he says it was Moses. He also says that Moses got it wrong. Your understanding of how the scriptures are to be used is contradictory to what Jesus taught.
Paul says this in Galations 4:
quote:
21Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law ? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. 23 But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. 24This is allegorically speaking, for these women are two covenants : one proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves ; she is Hagar. 25Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free ; she is our mother.
Paul understood that the great truths of the Bible were not necessarily to be understood in a literal sense. Your understanding of how the scriptures are to be used is contradictory to what Paul taught.
If God was in favour of genocide in the OT but in favour of loving your enemy by the time the NT was written then we should have no indication of what His desires are for us today.
Yes Jesus quoted the Hebrew Scriptures and explained what He was doing through those scriptures. Jesus was Jewish and He used the Hebrew scirptures extensively so that His fellow Jews would understand what He was all about. He draws out the scriptures such as we see in Isaiah, Daniel, Jeremiah in particular in particular to explain His message. He does not talk about the hateful laws in some of the other books such as Leviticus. Yes God inspires people to record their views and histories so that they are available to future generations and mankind is continues down its path of struggling between the love of self and love of others and for all of God’s creation at the expense of the self. So yes all scripture is useful for teaching, correction and righteousness. The Bible is a collection of the wisdom of the ages as God continued to work through the hearts and minds of the Jews, but of course what they wrote was both personally and culturally conditioned. And yes, God still speaks to us through those scriptures.
You talk about my being saved. If you believe that being a Christian is about being saved then you have completely turned the teachings of Christ around by 180 degrees. You have made the Christian faith all about the self, when in fact that we see in Jesus the message that it is all about taking the focus off of the self.
Paul writes this in 1 Cor 4:
quote:
1 So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. 2 Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. 3 I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. 4 My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.
Paul says that he will be judged by God according to what is on his heart. He is not going to be judged because of what he believes. It isn’t about salvation. It is about changing our hearts to hearts that humbly love kindness and justice, and reflecting that love which is from God into the world.
Faith writes:
And even if you can somehow make yourself believe in bits and pieces of the testimony and throw out the rest, your example to others may not create the same effect but just convince them that if the Bible isn't true in one place there's no reason to trust it where you trust it either. And I'd have to say their view makes sense. Picking and choosing from the Bible is a deadly error.
It's your own spiritual weakness that leads you to divide the Bible to suit yourself, it is not a spiritual strength, and it is a terrible example to others.
I suggest that it is a terrible example to others to agree that God is a God who justifies genocide as well as public stoning for minor offences. It isn’t a matter of picking and choosing. It is a matter of standing back and look at the entire narrative that is the Bible to understand what it is that God has to tell us.
We are not to make an idol out of the Bible. The Bible is not the 4th member of the Trinity. Jesus is the Word of God. The Bible is the word of God.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 98 by Faith, posted 02-01-2013 1:10 AM Faith has not replied

  
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