Do You Believe In God, Why? Don't You Believe In God, Why?

[Skywalker]

Let me guess. You don't know any other languages, do you?

Yes, it is arbitrary, contrived, and culturally determined. There is nothing in the laws of the universe that dictate any one language.

Ever hear of click languages?

Click languages are not arbitrary, they exist within the parameters of the laws of nature.

 

[Skywalker]

True, and it's an artificial, contrived order, whose genesis we know. The naturally ordered, godless arrangement of a snowflake or ping-pong balls poured into a bathtub, on the other hand, happens all by itself.
You're just preaching. Declaring something true does not make it true, it isn't evidence that it's true, and why is a biblical quotation more authoritative than a Vedic or Quranic quotation -- or a quotation from The Chronicles of Narnia, for that matter?
Support your assertions with testable, predictive, empirical evidence or the logical thing to do would be to ignore it.
And it's created by a different mechanism from what creates a tree or mountain. One requires intentional design and manipulation, the other does not.
You're preaching again; assuming a god and intentional design with no evidence. If you're going to continue to use theological doctrines as major premises, you need to validate them first.
Argument from personal incredulity. There's no empirical evidence of intentional design or purpose, nor is any needed, as the natural, automatic mechanisms are known, and need no magical hand to guide them.

Magic requires faith, as there's no apparent mechanism involved. But he natural laws just are. they're descriptions of how things just are, and, unlike magic, they're observable.
Taste, like other senses, has a survival function, and evolved like any other sense.
You can watch water freeze into hexagonal shapes in real time, with no hand of God shaping them.
Natural selection, the mechanism that generates adaptive change in a species, will not work in cars. Cars do not reproduce with variation.

Natural selection, in complex organisms, requires reproduction with variation. Those individuals born with the features best suited to their current environment thrive, and out-reproduce their siblings. The gene sequences conferring their particular advantages increase in the population, and the advantageous trait becomes generalized. That's nature, and it happens automatically.
How can any similar mechanism work in cars?

Skywalker, you don't seem to understand science, biology or evidence, yet you hold strong opinions about them. How you managed to get through school without learning this I can't imagine.

Reproduction with variation doesn't lead to changes of kinds. Populations evolving to have traits that help them survive depend on individuals surviving a harsh environment they are not adapted to, which is self refuting.

 

[Valjean]

What about there being taste buds that we don't need to eat food? That and tasty foods like pomegranates show that God is a God of love.

No, taste and smell evolved, to help us distinguish good food from harmful.

Because if they don't come from God atoms and molecules would either be self existing or from the singularity.

Why would you think they don't?

I believe the Bible because we are not sinners by stopping sin that is sinless perfectionism. The Bible says that the heart of people is desperately wicked.

You believe the Bible because you were taught to as a child, before you had any firewalls; before you learned to critically analyze information. It seems to have become part of your ROM -- unalterable. You believe it because you were raised in a society that believed it.
Ever wonder why Christian societies produce Christians, Muslim societies, Muslims; Shinto societies Shintoists? Its not like they don't have access to the same information or analytical techniques. It's because they're more comfortable not availing themselves of them.

Why would nature create everything if the universe is not eternal? Nature creating everything would be pantheism and it's also vague. Nature cannot have an imagination.

You're assuming a purpose or design. "Why" is not the reasonable question. Rather, ask "how?"
Why does something need to be eternal?

]Because the nature being eternal would make it God and it would be a pantheistic creation.

Why are you presuming it's not?
You're cherry picking; choosing the facts that fit your preconceived ideas and ignoring those that don't.

Science chooses the conclusions that stand up to testing; that are observable and testable, regardless of their familiarity or personal attractiveness.

How could molecules and atoms function so good without nature having an imagination?

Now you're personalizing molecules and atoms?
They conform to the physical laws that emerged from the Big Bang. "So good" just happened. It is what it is -- could have been better, could have been worse.

 

[Skywalker]

No, taste and smell evolved, to help us distinguish good food from harmful.
Why would you think they don't?
You believe the Bible because you were taught to as a child, before you had any firewalls; before you learned to critically analyze information. It seems to have become part of your ROM -- unalterable. You believe it because you were raised in a society that believed it.
Ever wonder why Christian societies produce Christians, Muslim societies, Muslims; Shinto societies Shintoists? Its not like they don't have access to the same information or analytical techniques. It's because they're more comfortable not availing themselves of them.
You're assuming a purpose or design. "Why" is not the reasonable question. Rather, ask "how?"
Why does something need to be eternal?
Why are you presuming it's not?
You're cherry picking; choosing the facts that fit your preconceived ideas and ignoring those that don't.

Science chooses the conclusions that stand up to testing; that are observable and testable, regardless of their familiarity or personal attractiveness.
Now you're personalizing molecules and atoms?
They conform to the physical laws that emerged from the Big Bang. "So good" just happened. It is what it is -- could have been better, could have been worse.

The universe being eternal would be the only way to explain a possibility of it having godlike creative abilities.

 

[Valjean]

God died for everyone. What could be more loving?

Unsubstantiated preaching, again.

Jesus was preaching to the spirits in prison and doing the harrowing of hell.

The third day was the right time for Jesus to come back to life.

Why?

Nature being eternal would give nature creative powers.

Why?

So it would have to have a Creator?

Why?
If eternal needs a creator, who created eternal God?

Because an eternal nature would be like a deistic or pantheistic God.

So you're proposing a non-pantheistic, non-deist God as a major premise? Why? You're reasoning backwards.

There would need to be an imagination because those particles have to come from somewhere.

So now you're a theoretical physicist? Why do they have to come from somewhere? Why are you assuming physics can't 'explain where they came from'?

What's your explanation for their existence, then? Keep in mind, I said explanation, not agent.

God in his heavenly throne cannot die but as a man God could die. Jesus dying for our sins shows that he is God because only an infinite being can pay the price of sin which has an infinite penalty; a sinner cannot pay the price of sin.

Preaching again.

The bodily ressurection of Jesus doesn't take away from the terrible suffering he paid so that we could be forgiven.

More preaching.

 

[Valjean]

God sits on His heavenly throne and there He will stay.
God is not a man, according to the Bible.

Hosea 11:9 I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city.

Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?

Moreover, Jesus said that no man has ever seen God:

John 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

1 John 4:12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

If no man has ever seen God that means that Jesus could never have been God, since many people saw Jesus.

Jeez.... This preaching must be contagious.

 

[Valjean]

The universe being eternal would be the only way to explain a possibility of it having godlike creative abilities.

Why? And why do you say it's creative abilities are godlike?
"Godlike" = magic -- effect without mechanism; intentional manipulation. How does this apply to physics?

 

[Subduction Zone]

The universe being eternal would be the only way to explain a possibility of it having godlike creative abilities.

Not really. The more we study the universe the smaller the role a god might have played becomes.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Why? And why do you say it's creative abilities are godlike?
"Godlike" = magic -- effect without mechanism; intentional manipulation. How does this apply to physics?

Math is hard. Physics uses really hard math. Looks like magic to me!

 

[Skywalker]

Why? And why do you say it's creative abilities are godlike?
"Godlike" = magic -- effect without mechanism; intentional manipulation. How does this apply to physics?

physics don't have the ability to create. God is not magic because magic is being a spiritual mover and shaker apart from submission to God.

 

[Skywalker]

Not really. The more we study the universe the smaller the role a god might have played becomes.

What explains all the planets lining up so orderly?

 

[Valjean]

That supports what I said about Jesus suffering for our sins. Other people being crucified has nothing to do with Jesus dying for our sins.

You're presuming his intent to be a scapegoat. Maybe he was just a victim like all the others. Maybe the whole "dying for our sins" was an invention of the early church leaders.

The second person of the Trinity stepped down from his glory.

Male and female reflect different aspects of the image of God but God is not a man. That doesn't mean that God could not become a man if he wanted to.

Jesus meant that no man can see the Father. Moses spoke with Jesus, the angel of the Lord, not God the Father.

Preaching.

Those other people were not God and never could have died for our sins.

Evidence?

 

[Subduction Zone]

What explains all the planets lining up so orderly?

Gravity.

 

[Valjean]

The Bible says that if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves. 1 John 1:8.

So?
What does the Guru Granth Sahib say? The Quran? The Satanic Bible? Why do you keep quoting this particular anthology of ancient, highly edited folk tales?
Why do you think the Bible's any more authoritative than any other scripture?
You're citing your own scripture to defend your faith in the scripture.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I believe that everyone knows that God is real

I can only inform you that this belief of yours is clearly and obviously incorrect.

, because of the starry heavens above and the moral law within.

Neither means a god exists.

 

[Valjean]

Where do you think everything comes from? I believe that Jesus created everything because creation shows the love of God.

How did he do that, and why do you believe it?

We have taste buds that help us enjoy food. We all do things we aren't supposed to do and in human laws when people commit crimes there is a penalty. Jesus died for our sins because he is a loving God and he doesn't want us to have to pay the price for our sins.

So why did he have to die? Why couldn't he just change the rules?

Complex orderly things like cars and books have intelligent design. Physics and chemistry don't change that. They don't mean that things can work automatically.

But they do work automatically. How do you explain that?
We can observe it happening. The mechanisms are commonsense, predictive and tested. Complexity does not need planning and conscious manipulation. It does not need magic.

Mechanisms, natural laws, matter, and energy do not change that everything with order and complexity has a mind and planning.

But they don't. You're presuming. You're ignoring contrary evidence.
You have a fixed idea and mythology. You presume everything contradicting it is wrong.

Fact: Your mythology is unsubstantiated. There is no empirical evidence supporting it.
The scientific explanation, on the other hand, is based on observed, tested facts. It's evidenced.
Tested, observable, predictive evidence trumps folklore.

The basis of language is in the pose of sounds.

????? -- what's that mean?

It's not artificial or contrived.

Huh? It's not a human creation? So where did it come from?

Regarding God being a lawmaker, unlike other beliefs,. Christianity is built on historical events and can therefore either be proven or falsified by historical investigation.

Christianity claims historicity, but the claim's unsubstantiated, as even biblical scholars will admit, and many biblical myths are clearly false.

Why wouldn't a tree or a mountain require intentional design and manipulation?

Because the natural mechanisms that created them are well known.

There is nothing that you see in nature that you can say has no design and purpose, other than things like marijuana that exist because of original sin.

I say everything I see in nature is natural, ie: sans intentional design or purpose. Everyone knowledgeable on the subject agrees with this. Your insistence on a magical manipulator behind it all is entirely faith-based and mythological. You're presuming your own myth and rejecting anything not in agreement, no matter what the supporting evidence.

Marijuana exists because of original sin?! This I've got to hear -- please explain.

Who created the laws behind natural automatic mechanisms?

The Big Bang/Inflation. There is no who. Why would there have to be a who?

A singularity could not create natural laws.

Show your equations, professor. The natural laws appear to be a chance artifact of inflation. There is neither evidence of design nor any reason to think it necessary.

The thousands of taste buds that we have have no survival function.

That's just absurd. It's as ridiculous as saying sight has no survival value. Why would you think they weren't the product of natural selection, like all the other senses?

The origin of that water was not from a singularity.

?????
The origin of water is the same as that of any other compound. There's nothing special about a water molecule. Why could simple chemistry not explain the compound?

Natural selection leads to microevolution, not changes of kinds.

Oh jeez, not this old trope.
What the heck is a "kind?" Kind is not a taxonomic designation. It's a designation made up by creationists.

What stops small changes accumulating into big changes? How does evolution know when to stop changing, so as to avoid becoming a new species? What would stop the changing? Most species that existed are now extinct. Most current species did not exist five or ten million years ago. Did they just pop into existence? Why do we never observe this magic poofing, if it occurs all the time? What mechanism would explain it? How do you explain the species we've observed emerging only recently? How do you explain ring species?

If French was once Latin, why didn't God prevent it from evolving into an entirely new language; a new "kind?" Why do small changes accumulate in language but not in biology?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Where does morality and an orderly creation come from, if not an intelligent designer?

The term "orderly" is very debatable though.
But in any case, your question, first of all, reveals a major argument from ignorance. It implies that UNLESS there is another explanation, the "god dun it" should be accepted. This is obvious nonsense.

But to answer your question: evolution. Not that it matters though.
For the sake of argument, I'm happy to say that it is "unknown" where it comes from (eventhough it isn't....).

That doesn't advance your "morals come from my god" case for even an inch.
Arguments from ignorance are a very poor way to argue.

Morality comes from God, the lawgiver.

If you mean the "laws" we find in the bible, then I can only say that all of us, including you, are vastly morally superior to the immoral barbarity found therein.

Since our secular 21st century morals are vastly superior to the ones we find in this millenia old barbarian text and NOT found therein, clearly morality doesn't come from said immoral text.

 

[Valjean]

physics don't have the ability to create. God is not magic because magic is being a spiritual mover and shaker apart from submission to God.

But physics 'creates' all the time, and we use it everyday. The polyester in your shirt, the photovoltaic electricity running your computer, frying an egg, your car's engine, the weather, diamonds, floating helium balloons -- all physics.
God is magic because, unlike physics or chemistry, he creates without mechanism. You credit him with all sorts of effects, but ignore the fact that these effects are explainable without magic.

 

[thomas t]

Do you believe that you have considered every single possible evolutionary advantage that might come from a species finding their surroundings to be beautiful? Are you of the opinion that if you haven't been able to think of such an advantage that it's impossible for such an advantage to exist that you simply haven't thought of? Unless you claim to know EVERYTHING I don't see how you can honestly say that it's impossible for our appreciation of beauty to be a natural product of evolution.

this is not how the concept of evidence works.
They claim evidence for gravitation.
Yet they do not know everything, either, as you stated.

So if it's POSSIBLE that your evidence indicates a creator being, but it's also POSSIBLE that it's evidence for a natural evolutionary development, one would have to have a confirmation bias to conclude that one is true and the other is false. That is to say if I start off looking for confirmation of evolution I would conclude that this 'evidence' confirms that evolution is real. But if I were to start off looking for evidence of a creator being I would conclude that this is 'evidence' for my creator being.

Thus if you're genuinely looking for truth and not just looking for evidence of your preconceptions you'd have to conclude that the fact that people find beauty in nature to be INCONCLUSIVE evidence for either proposition. It's just like how we concluded earlier that if it's POSSIBLE the creator was god and it's also POSSIBLE the creator was pixies, we can't conclude with any certainty that it was one or the other.

So if it COULD be a creator being or it COULD be a natural product of evolution, how have you decided that it's definitely evidence for a creator being?

There is the concept of Ockham's Razor.

@Valjean. I don't have a problem if the FSM existed, also. Besides God. So I don't care here. I'm talking here about evidence for the existence of a loving creator force behind, regardless of potential FSMs that may also exist.

 

[Valjean]

Do you want a further explanation?

Please.