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Yay cheeze! Now we're getting somewhere!

To explain what I said about public schools, I will use this simple anology:

children's Sunday school : one-sided towards Christianity(in general) and never speaks of other possibilties :: public schools : ?

But it wasn't the evil public school. Instead, it was from a book; it was from an author's fair opinion! Whoo! <(^.^)>

Do you remember what the thing he asked God to do? The last time I guessed (last post) about something you smacked me in the face for doing the most obvious answer and drunken was probably smirking at me from somewhere.


Me neither cheeze, me neither

God is such an issue in the USA...

As nobody will take any notice of my philosophical approach to the whole thing, because it leaves both parties dissatisfied, I'll just say this:

Theists: Please stop using the Bible to back up your claims that God exists. The Bible is a load of rubbish. Some say it was written metaphorically, and ok, that seems reasonable...but the New Testament was compiled by Emperor Constantine to help aid acceptance of Christianity amongst the Romans! How can you trust a book written for political reasons? Half of the gospels were left out, for goodness' sake. It may contain some good moral stories, but really now...

If you truly have faith and believe in God, you wouldn't need to refer to the Bible to justify your position.

Atheists:Just accept that if there is a God, he/she/it is not anchored in the world of logic and rational reasoning.

You're both as bad as one another, and your typical arguments drive philosophical agnostics nuts!

My parents are divorced, one of my siblings has died, and my StarCraft record sucks, but I'm still an atheist who is perfectly fine and happy. I don't need to pray to some magical dude I have no reason to believe in. My hope is what I plan to do in the future, what I plan to do.


Except Pokemon is just a story. There is no real Professor Oak that studies Pocket Monsters and gave a Pikachu to Ask Ketchum. Plus, wasn't the Bible written years after Jesus died? All the stories had just been told to people, very little actual writing was an exact record of what jesus said, so it could have asily been changed to make it the way they wanted it.


God is a real ass if he sends people to hell for that. Does hat mean he thought the Greeks were evil jerks and derserve to burn froever because their gods did not match him perfectly? There are so many religions as well, I'm sure some people believe you will go to hell because you are a different religion or faction from them.

edit: fixed some errors and an incorrect number.


If god and the Bible are so great, why would he have just made those things impossible, or made people not want to do that, and make me theist. A lot of people commit those crimes, maybe if there was a LOTR cult, it would be more successful in making people follow those guidelines. Wasn't there a joke relgion making fun of 'The Force' in Australia in 2001? Maybe that did well.


Says who? I haven't read the Bible, so I wouldn't know, but are their strict rules for praying, and what you can pray for successfully. How about I pray that the millions of tsunami victims that are still alive won't die from disease.


Private religious schools can teach whatever they want, but scientific theory and fact should be taught to the mainstream public. Anything that is scientifically based has some evidence to support it, it's not one of hundreads of worldwide cults. If the existence of a god is actually proven, and god comes down and says 'Hey, what's up, teach about me in schools. In fact, as proof, why don't I teach, or else everyone is going to follow blidly or get really pissed off,' then god can be taught in any school wherever.

Ok, it seems that people would still prefer to argue.

*Gives up*

Whoops, I ment Dan Baker. I was refering to his book, Losing Faith in Faith.


The same can be said for the invisible dragon in my garage. Postulating that falls within the vicinity of the ad hoc fallacy, and isn't any better than some dubious writings about the invisible dragon in my garage. In no way does it put the belief in my dragon because it has not been falsified, on the same level as if it has been confirmed. So, is the burden of proof suddenly shared by non-believers of my mighty dragon? Or is it still upon me to prove my ridiculous assertion?

ADDITION:

Ok, so not everybody wrote about the same God, which dispels the phenomena of so many people writing about your particular God.


Cool, someone started a new religion! And then this new religion influenced a large number of people, that they thought they were seeing God too.


I never said there was anything harmful in believing in God, I was only wondering if you know why believing in something because it hasn't been debunked a fallacy, which was an argument Drj12 proposed a page ago.

If you want proof that something does not exist, an entire line of absurdities will await you. No one has ever falsified garden demons, so you'd better not go outside at night, just in case. Leprechauns? Take it on faith, there's no proof they don't exist, so it would be folley to not follow a rainbow to the end for a chance at a pot of gold.


Because a billion Catholics can't be wrong, eh? What about the large number of people who believe the earth is flat? Such a large number of belief, it must be right. What about the large number of Greeks who believed in Zeus?

The veracity of a claim isn't determined by how many books are written about it, or how many believe it, it is determined by how well it holds up to scientific testing.


Thankyee, sir.

ADDITION:

I wish God could do things like that.


Yeah, those science classrooms make unwarranted assumptions such as angels don't accelerate the speed of radioactive decay, or those transitional fossils weren't planted by Satan, whereas, a religious school contains no such bias.


Jesus! Didn't even get to the first page and there's already a flaw in logic. I wonder if he has enough faith to be a non-believer in the invisible dragon in my garage. It takes faith to believe he isn't there, har har!


Uh, this assumes this event did happen. Did anyone else's balony detector go off?

ADDITION:

Actually, there is a huge difference. Ash and friends aren't taking the pokedex on faith, because all the animals in the pokedex are firmly rooted on material evidence and logical proof. The belief in Pikachu isn't based on some account any Joe Shmo could make up, but material and physical evidence. The bible on the other hand, has nothing that can be tested, measured, and the accuracy of knowledge verifed like the pokedex, so it's a belief based on something that does not lie on logical proof or material evidence, hence it is based on faith.


Beh, I'm just going to quote what I said in an ealier post:



Sorry Cheeze, but you lost the sadistic game of religion lottery. God created you, knowning that in 80 years you won't believe, and uses that as a somehow justifiable reason to send you to Hell. He even gave you a rational mind to come to the conclusion he didn't exist, and now you're damned for being less than he created you to be.

ADDITION:

Actually, we're supposed to wage ideological wars of attrition (Deut. 20:16-17), stone disobedient sons (Deut. 21:18-21), own slaves (Lev. 25:44-46), keep virginal war prisoners and massacre the rest (Num. 31:17-18), execute rape victims if they don't cry out (Deut. 22:23-24), hate our family (Lk 14:26).


That's just an ad hoc fallacy unless you can confirm this. Remember my flat earth theory? I postulated that the round photos of the Earth must be God making it look round in order to test our faith, and when Magellan circumnavigated the Earth, he didn't really circumnavigate it, he actually entered a wormhole that took him back to the beginning like a pacman game.

But remember the principal of Occam's Razor? If you cut the unevidence fat, you're left with an Earth that's a sphere. Now, try that with the reasonings as to why some prayers don't come true...


Seriously, can anyone figure out what this guy is trying to say? You're sentences aren't very lucid, to say the least.

The ad hoc fallacy cannot be applied to any argument that freely identifies itself as illogical. It would be illogical to do so.

You're still anchored firmly in the physical world, it seems.

Einstein said that we only use 2% of our brain's potential power. Logic is contained in that 2% that we use. What's in the other 98%? I'm trying to find out.

That's not the point though. The point is that since in their world, there were pokemon that existed so THEn someone made a huge index over all these pokemon.


Well actually, God sends you to tell IF you have heard about him and rejected him. Those greeks back then i bet haven't heard about him so i guess they can go to heaven if they did good stuff on earth...


God doesn't want us to be like that. He wants us to have a will of our own. That's why he gave adam and eve the chance to eat the fruit from the tree of life or from the fruit of wisdom and evilness. He wants us to freely choose to follow him and not make us act like robots.


Says like almost every book in the bible. There really isn't a strict rule for praying but prayers he doesnt like are those that are selfish ones. He also likes ones which want to help others and are serious. So yes, praying for the tsunami victims is a good prayer (that is if you pray with the right attitude).


Well, that's just the way we are. It's what these forums are for


Right, but lots of those books which refer to different Gods aren't all talking about the same different God. Well, maybe there are some.


Uh, no. After meeting God for the First time, he became a Jew just like the rest of his brothers and sisters that were currently begging for mercy in Egypt.


If my understanding of what you're saying is correct...

If something isn't proven false, then it's possible that it could be true. Why not give it a shot?

Well then, sure. If you think there are garden demons out there, go ahead and hide; there's nothing wrong with being extra careful is there? Same with the leprecauns. If you choose to believe in them, go ahead.


Stuff like the flat earth is something which you can prove or disprove. Things like God and Zeus are things you can't; they're invisible to the naked eye.

In most cases, you're right; things are determined by how well it holds up to scientific testing. But since we're talking about invisible things, the number may possibly be a solution. There could be others but not of any which i can think of right now.


You're welcome


I wish cheeze could


That's true, but alot of the authors in the Bible have, or claim to have, seen proof of God. Not by answered prayers, but by actual vision of him. I 4get how they described him though but if i do good enough research i should be able to find it.


Well, if that's the way you think of God, fine. I'm not forcing any of you guys to believe in God. Just trying to defend my own beliefs non of u guys would ever understand


And the point of this is?

Well that's only if the rebellious son does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him like the ten commands say to do.

Well their definition of slaves could be different from ours.

That's because those people were Midianites, who have disrespected God, rejected him, made fun of him, and all sorts of stuff which hurt God's feelings. God wanted Moses and the israelites to take vengeance on them.

They are people that commit Adultery. It's not rape.

He's saying if you Hate your family, you cannot be his disciple for it said to love your family.


Just try praying with a wrong attitude. it wont be answered. If you pray with the right attitude and right stuff, then it will be answer. The thing is people like you will never be able to achieve the right attitude because deep down inside your hearts, you refuse to believe in God.


Sry if my responses are getting dumber and dumber or are getting bit off topic. I'm just feeling a bit wierd today

Atheists - Please see bottom of post for my question posed to you.



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Ugh - this is such unbelievable tosh. There is a point where you should start to realise that your reasoning is flawed and based on a book that was distributed for political reasons: The Bible.

I've already said that it was compiled and endorsed by Emperor Constantine, do you want me to go on to say that the high council of Christians mainly responsible for the content of the NT were undecided on whether Jesus was the Son of God or not? Because they were, and they took a vote: 'Shall we say in the Bible, that Jesus was the Son of God?' They voted yes, but only marginally. In fact, it has been suggested that they only called Jesus the Son of God to deify him: The Roman citizens would question a religion based around an ordinary man with groundbreaking views, but they would not if this man was deified... So, Jesus was called the Son of God for political reasons, not because he was... I may have gotten the idea from a Dan Brown book, but I've done my research and it seems to highly likely.

As for the Old Testament - it's not even relevant. It is a Jewish scripture, not a Christian one... The 'good' content of the Bible is all in the New Testament - the OT is full of contradictory, draconian rubbish that has no place in today's world.

You're just damaging and devaluing the case for theism by using the Bible as justification for your beliefs in God. Free yourself from such nonsensical pseudo-religious writings and just stand up for what you believe in. You don't need a book to justify your beliefs, you just make yourself and theism look stupid by trying to do so. You might as well just flush your arguments and God down the toilet if you're going to take the 'God must exist because the Bible says he does - and Jesus is his son.'

I don't object to the fact that you're trying to argue for theism, but I just cringe at the way in which you're going about it.

I'm not on your side. Likewise, I'm not on someone like DrunkenWrestler's side. It's a difficult place to be, believe me. I like to question; to approach things philosphically.

This brings me onto a question actually - this one aimed at the atheists: so-called critical thinkers who like to question everything using their (Cheeze/DW, I'm looking at you):

When did you decide that logic was the way to approach issues - have you actually questioned human logic, and are you 100% certain that this logic is irrefutable...unquestionable?

If you are certain or it never occurred to you to question human logic, then you are placing blind faith in the ability of the human brain to see things clearly and objectively, and are living a life of extraordinary irony. You are just as bad, if not worse than the theists.

I can come to my own conclusion on this: You cannot analyse logic objectively. If human logic was flawed, we could not possibly know it. After all, we would have to use logic to analyse logic, wouldn't we...?

Exactly, it's a fact that pokemon exist. Therefore, compiling them into a data table would be reasonable. It's true the stories exist, but that doesn't mean the content is real.


I've helped everyone I can, I've done everything that is good. The only thing I failed to do is shown faith in something that has refused to admit he is there.


Wow, then the Industrial Revolution must have been hell for god, eh?


Atoms are invisible to the naked eye. But we proved they exist. So what's the difference between god's invisibilty verses atom's invisiblity?


*Send's Army to Hades*


I wrote a book about Pikachu. Therefore, Pikachu must exist.
Flaw? Just because there is a book that is there doesn't mean the actual existance of that being is.


As a young child, when I was "religious", I begged god to show me evidence of his existance. I wished every night that he would help me become better at anything. Guess what? He failed.


Logic is the backbone of arguements.


Yes, I put blind faith in my ability to see through my eyes, hear through my ears, taste from my mouth, feel with my hands and smell with my nose.

And this is my last post on SEN. I will be going to http://www.iidb.org/vbb/, possibly under the name of CerebralWrestler, or I may adhere to this name.


Ah, so there are exceptions. Aborted babies, third world tribes oblivious to the rest of the world, people born prior to Christ, the mentally retarded, etc. I don't recall any verse in the bible that makes any exceptions, but this is leaking like a sieve. Why isn't something like skepticism in some dubious books not an exception?


It's hard to have free will when your actions can already be determined ahead of time. God knew full ahead of time when he created Adam and Eve that whey would eat the apple he planted. He even planted a snake with 1337 talking skillz to ensure it would happen. So, like a police officer deliberatly planting cocaine in someone's car, God set up a conspiracy to grant himself a justifiable reason to damn us.


What was wrong with him praying for the tsuanmi victims?


He converted his siblings?





The shape of the Earth wasn't observed until 1960, but it was believed to be round for much longer than that, via studying the movement of other plants, or something of that sort. Data is collected in more ways than just visual observation. With that, how has any diety been observed?


Actually, it's still not. There are a number of people who believe cripples are paying for a crime they've commited on another planet. Are the numbers of belief at all relevant to this claim? Again, it's about how well it holds up to scientific testing, not how many believe the claim.


Too bad neither of them can.


And there's plenty of people who claimed to have seen aliens.


Well, that is kind of a sadistic god, don't you think? And definately not a god you'd worship out of love, but just out of fear of Hell or greed for immorality.


Well, I guess you can just throw all those verses out since they're in the OT.

Here's Luke by the way:
(Lk 14:26)If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children,and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

And if you read Deut 22, it explicitly says to execute rape victims if they don't cry out loud enough.


I'm sure there are plenty of believers who are praying for the people injured from the tsunami. Still, nothing's happening, and these ad hoc hypothesis are every bit as good as my ad hoc hypothesis on my flat Earth theory. Using Occam's Razor however, superfluous, unevidenced assumptions are removed and you get an Earth that is a sphere rather than flat, and prayer simply doesn't work.

Unless, you live in CaptainWill's Barbie World where it's beyond the concept of logic, that it's seemly absurd and asinine to believe that there is no agent that distorts NASA picture of the flat Eart and makes it look round, and that there isn't a wormhole at the edge that takes you to the opposite edge like a pacman game. Since it can't be debunked, it's of the same proposition as if it is confirmed. Just like the alleged [URL=http://www.users.qwest.net/~jcosta3/article_dragon.htm]invisible dragon in my garage.


Is there another world, Mr. Enlightened?


"Human" logic? The most commonly refered type of logic is boolean logic, which is really lacking in this thread. We don't have faith in logic by the way, logic is a guideline for structured reasoning. An algorithm of critical thinking and decision making.

Incidently, there is already a thread on this at Internet Infidels Discussion Board (IIDB), which I entreat you to visit.

Note: I'm using 'logic' as a broad term to describe the way in which humans interpret the Universe and then make decisions based on these interpretations.
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Yes, your brain interprets the world in a certain way, using stimuli that enter through your eyes, nose, ears, mouth and skin etc.

How do we know that what we sensing is really there? Could all our senses - could logic - be wrong (well, not wrong, but perhaps only one way of seeing things)? Logic is key to our understanding of the way the Universe works. The Pooblars on the hypothetical planet Gooblon could perceive the Universe in an entirely different way. A way in which our senses and scientific equipment could not perceive and therefore we could not understand using logic. Of course, if our sensors cannot detect it, then it cannot possibly exist!

Or could it? These Pooblars might be able to see God, or that invisible flying monkey, or the red dragon in your garage. What would they use to see the world - telepathy, resonating crystals? Of course not! Such things as telepathy are vaguely understood by humans, and if we vaguely understand something, then it is not something that we have no grasp of. The method of communication, and ways of perceiving the Universe that the Pooblars have are unthinkable - literally. You might recall in some movies that robots which get fed an illogical instruction say 'Does not compute' and then their heads explode. Something similar might happen to us if we try to understand Pooblar perception (or whatever you want to call it.)

What you've got to understand here is that logic is questionable. It helps us advance in life, because it's what everyone else uses, but is it completely above question? There might be other ways of perceiving the Universe. People who we would regard as insane might simply be using one of these alternative 'ways.'

I think I'll stop before I wade too far out into philosophical waters and drown in their illogicality.

Sorry for only joining now, but this was only when I had the time to kick in and fully read it.

I agree with Cheeze n' D.Wrestler on most of it. For any doubts on my stand in this matter, just head here.

I just saw the creationism vs. evolution factor being pulled out of the drawer here by some folks. Please head here, if you wanna debate as it's already occuring. This is the thread D.Wrestler already mentioned earlier.
In fact, coming to think of it better the latest arguements debunking in there, just can be applied here as well... what about that?

In The Matrix they stimulated the neural connectiond of your brain and nrvous sytem in order to falsify what you sensed, and give you a different idea as to what is happening. But in the Matrix people acted as if it were the real world because that's how it seemed to them. They were completely wrong that they lived in 1999 and they were in control and stuff, but they took information and made snese of what they understood. Only enlightened people like Neo understood more, but before he was taken out of the Matrix, he for the most part believed everything was real. He tried to understand what information he could salavage, and that's what we're doing. If we try to apply the idea that our logic is excrutiatingly faulty, then our entire lives would be governed by it. We can't give up on our senses on the chance that we are in the Matrix, because we could not be extremely decievd, and we may never escape 'our Matrix.' You have a very neat point of view, but it's really hard to aply because we'd have to appply it to everyhting and then everything gets really confusing and screwed up.

Yeah, it's a really evil viewpoint.

Like I said though, it's not understandable by humans, which is why it seems so screwed up.

I don't believe in god. One day, gas decided to go together from some chance, and thus, a big bang happened for scientific reasons. Thus, planets were made, then us humans.

Humanity lived for a while, and began to realize, that life was pointless. We are born, do stuff, and die. Some guy said "Hey! Lets make up some guy who made us and will send us to a better place instead of rotting in the ground!". People bought it.

So, thus far today, people with insecurities of live use religion and god to cover up the truth, that everyone will eventually die, be forgotton, and rot. This simple insecurity has caused war, discrimination, and hate. Even though scientists have proven that most of the concepts in religion is fictional, (they say heaven is in the sky, because at the time the idea was created people could never get into the sky thus it was unprovable. Now that we know theres no heaven in the sky, people make unrealistic unprovable excuses because they can't face the truth about reality. We're all going to die). Religion has been changed over and over again, yet people keep ignoring the simplest signs of flaws in religion.

Yes, I most likely will offend all the religious people with this statement, but I am by no means discriminating. I might be wrong, and there might be a god (in which, I'm now going to hell). Are you a Christian? Good for you. Go be the best darn Christian that you can be. I'm not stopping you from your beliefs, I'm just stating my opinion.

How do you explain scientists are trying to reach immortality, then, if it's on the religious belief to "find a reason, a way not to die"?

The discussion has moved on somewhat from ridiculous Theist/Atheist wars, Yoshi. We're on about the philosophy that proves that God exists (of course not in the way or form that Christians envisage).

Check out the other topic on God for more philosophical ponderings. They question logic (is logic only one way of interpreting the Universe? etc.)

I'm not offended by your beliefs, it's just that you didn't seem to notice that the discussion is now nothing to do with God or religion in the sense that you're thinking.

God can't send us to heaven:

God: "You're going to hell cheeze."
CheeZe: "Before I do, tell me the last digit of pi."

Are you still blathering on about the Christian God?

If there was a god, it could probably tell you the last digit of Pi.

If gods are claimed to be so smart, in any religion, including the one I just made up, then they should answer my question. But to do so, they would have to disprove the whole theory of pi

I'm going to guess the last digit is 1

I just needed to release a rant Its not really off topic (its on the subject of "god") and it encourages discussion.

Yeah, I guess he/she/it would have to disprove the theory of pi. Fortunately, that would be easy for them because they're not constrained by logic. Maths is pretty much the most logical discipline in existence. Remember that maths is just a human invention, just like the Christian God.

I'm pretty sure that mathematics is a human concept because I don't think that animals can count.

Just because human made it known doesn't mean it didn't exist in the past. If I add 2+2 now, it's 4. If I added those numbers 5 billion years ago, it would still be 4.

Well so many people here seem to not believe in God. I do, however, believe in God. I can see why many of you non believers think god doesn't exist but for me, i seriosuly think he exists. No way i can prove it, but that's just what i feel. No way you can change my beliefs, no way for me to change yours. We just all have to accept things the way the are. I think this discussion has reached it's limits so let's lock this topic now?

If you're an alien of some sort, would mathematics make any sense? If you added those numbers together 5 billion years ago - it would still be a human concept. We invented maths as a means of understanding the Universe and to convey information about how to build a dome, for example.

Maybe there are aliens out there who have never heard of maths.

ADDITION:


Just because it's moved away from discussing your God isn't a reason to lock it!

Of course your God is real - but only for you. He exists in your mind so therefore he exists. I think that every Christian has a slightly different view of God, so there are probably as many Christian gods as there are Christians.