Omnipotence

Brilliant!Even if you're just explaining something somebody else told you, that's the most enlightening explanation I've ever heard.

Thanks for your reply. I know. As I said, I believe because I trust the message of the Bible, Christ, and personal revelations from God. That's right. I'm no one to tell you why you should believe, but I believe that Christ is. You're free to believe it is all B.S. but you cannot prove it is anymore than I can prove it is not. That's why it is faith. I trust in something other than myself. You do not trust it. That is the difference plain and simple.

The question is why aren't you a Muslim or a Buddhist or a Hindu or a...? Oh, so now you have special priviledges, huh? You can make up any kind of assumption you want and you expect the atheist to stick with reason and logic?This reminds me, when I have time I'm going to bring up the "hydroplate theory" again.

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Hate world.Revenge soon!

I do actually believe Mohammed saw an angel... an evil one. Ever read through his biography? well... me neither, but I have read exerpts of it. Mohammed's first impression was that the devil himself had appeared to him, but his wife convinced him that it was really God and that he should write the things down.If I read the Koran for the first time, I might become a Christian. The Koran claims that Jesus was born of a virgin as the prophets predicted, that he performed miracles, and that he was raised from the dead after three days.Buddha never said whether there was a God or not and never claimed supernatural revelation.Hindu mythology is similar to the greek and roman mythologies. These are more a set of stories with no traceable roots to a divine revelation. I think you misundertood my statement. I was saying that atheists and theists get tangled up in arguments based on assumptions that neither one can prove. Its pointless and I'll be the first to admit I've done this quite often on here.

ParsimoniumThank you Pars though I had hoped to let "dawg" try it as it was part of my point in the post.
I will take another track with him though but for your enjoyment try this one. No doubt you will get this but what the hey?This message has been edited by sidelined, 11-05-2004 09:04 PM

You don't seem to understand the position that atheists take. It's not like the theist says "X is true" and the atheist says "no, it's false." What happens is, the theist says "X is true" and the atheist says "you can't prove or know that."So, yes. We're arguing about things we can't prove. That's the point of the argument - getting the theist to see that they can't prove or even know that their position is true.

Hangdawg13 I never once have said that beliefs were worthless.Beliefs that are not backed by evidence that rules out the vagaries of human weaknesses in observation and understanding are suspect from the start. The belief in a god or not is neither good nor bad in my eyes but merely unecessary for understanding the world. That I see the idea of god as being based only in our minds is not an assumption but an observation.I am asking for evidence which is not forthcoming and as I see it there is nothing in the concept that is not without assumption. It would be an odd thing to try and prove the negative of something that does not offer evidence. Well,here is a crux in the problem and the key between belief in god {theism} and the label attached to people who do not {atheism}.Atheist simply ask for evidence before belief in extraordinary things. The evidence we have accumulated over time and tested extensively points to a universe that is indifferent to the plight or the asprirations of human beings. Then what prevents your feelings from being the incorrect ones? The paradox of evilworld/good god is only a paradox for believers. In a universe that is not concerned with the affairs of men but nonetheless produced men as a consequence of existence that men are newly arrived upon there is no paradox as there is nothing to prevent evil from occuring.Evil itself is a consequence of humans and their own questionable inclinations.Good is also the effort of men making a conscious decision in order to better their societies.From post #10 But the lack of sense is because we assume that the world itself oeprates according to our beliefs or our wishes yet time and again the universe has shown that it is not structured by human expectation.In QM nature shows that the structure of things is without cause and effect as we would expect them and that the actual fabric of things has a fundemental limit that is the basis for nature itself.

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"Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."
--Don Hirschberg

Thanks, Crash. I'm glad you liked it.

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"It's amazing what you can learn from DNA." - Desdamona.

I'm sorry, sidelined, if I spoiled your canine training. I'll think about your question and come back to it later.

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"It's amazing what you can learn from DNA." - Desdamona.

Thanks for your reply.I posted a reply in the "Why is belief necessary?" topic since we have drifted off of omnipotence and onto the nature of belief.

Hinduism is vast and can be difficult to unravel. The Vedas are held to be divinely inspired. The Buddha's denial of their divine origin is one of the reformations that resulted in Buddhism being rejected as orthodox.The polytheistic profusion of deities in Hinduism actually collapses into monotheism. These diverse deities are seen as aspects of Brahman, or as projections of the mind for the function of progressing on the path.The story of Ramakrishna gives a good example. Ramakrishna was devoted to the Divine Mother in the Aspect of Mother Kali the devourer of illusions and attachments. He had visions of her and experienced mystic visions and states. One day an old sage approached Ramakrishna and told him it was time to give up duality and Kali. Ramakrishna was unwilling and the old man pressed a rock against Ramakrisnhna's forhead until the image of the Divine Mother shattered and in that moment Ramakrishna realized his non dual nature. There had never been a separate Ramakrishna and Kali, they had arisen from a false sense of division, and when that sense of separation dissolved what is left is consciousness aware of it's own creations.It is the maturity of Hinduism that it realizes that people at different stages or of different types will need and use different levels of understanding. The problem that I see for near or middle eastern religions is that the authoritative literalism of their reliance on holy books puts a low ceiling on the spiritual developement allowed to orthodoxy. Bernadatte Roberts and Meister Eckert awakened within the Christian tradition but they are fairly rare at least in that they wrote about it.I am not a student of Ramakrishna but I post this partly out of my impatience with fundamentalist insistence that only one religion is true (theirs) and all others false. I am not citing Ramakrishna authoritatively but merely as an example that an individual can devote their life to God without being narrowly prejudiced.Hangdawg, based on your intelligence I am disappointed that you seem to cling so tightly to the narrow literalism of your upbringing. You are still young and may grow beyond it, but CS Lewis had the education to know better and yet he succumbed to the emotional security of tradition. I don't expect Buzsaw or Willowtree to be able to understand. You seem to have the ability but choose not to, at least at this time, grow beyond limits imposed by literal belief. And I am cranky and impatient this morning. These are my expectations. Probably time I need to take a break for awhile from this forum.lfen Added by Edit:
My memory either confabulated stuff or I had read a slightly different version of Ramakrishna's awakening: This message has been edited by lfen, 11-07-2004 03:27 PM

Hi Ifen; thanks for your reply. I understand. I was merely answering the question of why I choose to believe in the Judeo-Christian description of God over those of Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism.There are obviously a great many truths to be found in these religions, but other beliefs may be mutually exclusive to SOME ideas of God put forward by Christ and the Prophets. Since I see more reason to believe in Christ than the God of any other religion, I choose to accept his teachings when they come in conflict with other teachings. That doesn't mean ALL the teachings of other religions are flat out wrong. Oh, I don't know.. I've actually deviated quite a bit now. I bet my old pastor would be appalled.

Ah then in that case, Dawg, I won't say a word to him, I promise!I'm interested in what lies beyond beliefs and is actually experienced.The Catholic contemplative paths deal with this while remaining in the context of Christian Theology. I think Buddhism and Hinduism go further and give explicit recognition to the barrier that belief can be to a greater awareness of the divine. Thus Ramakrishna had to give up the image of the Divine Mother in order to more completely experience oneness with the Divine Source. (I wish I understood the rules of capitalization better, oh well,)I'm trying to get a thread started on what "within" means in the context of the kingdom of God quote in Luke. I'd be interested in your thoughts on that.lfen