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How can you literally believe...

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Oh boy... typical Atheist here. Avoids the challenge and goes of on a tangent. It's only common sense to believe in God. It's called 'Natural' apologetics to defend that position. Then there's Christian, And Catholic. As I've said many, many times, I've given evidence to support Christianity, and I will again. Which argument do I want you to start out with? It's your choice lol. Whichever one out of the 20 haha. I gave you the link. Now do the work. If you need further reason to believe in Christianity specifically, go to these many links. Debunk them too :)



Jesus and the Pagan Gods | Catholic Answers


How Jesus Became God: A Critical Review



The Historicity of Christ:


Extra-Biblical Historical Evidence of Jesus

http://carm.org/was-resurrection-story-borrowed

shockawenow.net
___________________________________

Further explaining God's existence:

Twenty Arguments For The Existence Of God by Peter Kreeft & Ronald K. Tacelli

shockawenow.net

catholic.com

A Rational Approach to God’s Existence | Catholic Answers

Why Something Rather than Nothing? | Catholic Answers

How to speak to an atheist | Catholic Answers
__________________________________

Resources on Atheism:

Atheism - CMI Mobile

http://www.conservapedia.com/Comedy_and_satires_concerning_atheism_and_evolution
___________________________________


Evolution and other information:

Catholic Answers

Answering atheist arguments - CMI Mobile

Can dinosaurs falsify evolution? - CMI Mobile

Philosophy, ethics and belief in God - CMI Mobile

The Great Creation/Evolution Debate

http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/dawkins’-debunkers
___________________________________

Catholic Myths:

http://www.catholic.com/browse/all/Catholic myths/all/all


http://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/slavery


http://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/curricula/mariology


http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/religion-is-irrational-right
___________________________________

God bless! :)


I could give much more evidence, but this should be good enough for now.



Oh, and you didn't answer practically any of my questions either. They were pretty simple...
Self-contained sourcing isn't evidence.
 
Self-contained sourcing isn't evidence.

Hmmm...why don't you go and debunk all of what I said then? It should be easy, right? Can you disassemble all the 20 arguments for God's existence and erect new counter arguments in they're place? Can you do the same with the argument for the Resurrection that I posted? Instead if using your own invalid opinion as a means to justify itself and your position, how about you bring evidence against me? That would make sense after all. No?
 

illykitty

RF's pet cat
@SoldierofChrist And any other Christians on this thread. Why did prophets, people in the past and disciples get to witness amazing miracles, hear God and be in the presence of Jesus but we cannot? Suddenly God becomes shy in modern times, seems fishy.

I would accept God if I could have undeniable evidence. But no matter how much I prayed, I never got ANYTHING from so called God. Never seen any miracles, heard anything or seen anything myself. I don't rely on hear say nor on things I cannot verify myself, with my own experience. If God knows everything, he would know me and what would make me believe and yet, it's not happening. I'm not even asking for anything outrageous. He would know I'm the type of person that CANNOT blindly believe that I need something, some kind of proof that I can personally test and verify. I'd be saved, if he wanted so.

Don't tell me it's because he doesn't want to interfere with free will. He provided huge proofs, some shown to a lot of people that would be crazy to deny his existence, yet they still had free will to do so, and now, nothing happens. Nothing on that scale has happened for about 2000 years. Again, why? It would be quite a simple task and many more people would be saved.

That's just ONE of the many problems I have with these specific God/religious claims.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Jesus’s Miracles.Even the most sceptical critics cannot deny that the historical Jesus carried out a ministry of miracle-working and exorcism. Rudolf Bultmann, one of the most sceptical scholars this century has seen, wrote back in 1926:
There is no evidence these miracles happened, or could happen.
The resurrection of Jesus. It seems to me that there are four established facts which constitute inductive evidence for the resurrection of Jesus:
There are no established facts:
Fact #1: After his crucifixion, Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea in the tomb. This fact is highly significant because it means that the location of Jesus’s tomb was known to Jew and Christian alike. In that case it becomes inexplicable how belief in his resurrection could arise and flourish in the face of a tomb containing his corpse. According to the late John A. T. Robinson of Cambridge University, the honorable burial of Jesus is one of "the earliest and best-attested facts about Jesus."15
That is not evidence, and proves nothing. There's nothing significant about a Jew and a Christian knowing the location of his tomb that proves he rose from the dead. It just means they knew were he was buried.
Fact #2: On the Sunday morning following the crucifixion, the tomb of Jesus was found empty by a group of his women followers. According to Jakob Kremer, an Austrian specialist on the resurrection, "By far most exegetes hold firmly to the reliability of the biblical statements concerning the empty tomb."16 As D. H. van Daalen points out, "It is extremely difficult to object to the empty tomb on historical grounds; those who deny it do so on the basis of theological or philosophical assumptions."17
Wouldn't be the first or last time pranksters have pulled a good one and made some seriously deep societal impacts.
Fact #3: On multiple occasions and under various circumstances, different individuals and groups of people experienced appearances of Jesus alive from the dead.
People experience what they believe in. You experience Jesus because you believe in Jesus, yet our Hindu members here will experience Krishna or Vishnu because that is what they believe.
Finally, fact #4: The original disciples believed that Jesus was risen from the dead despite their having every reason not to.
Their entire reason for their purpose depended on him resurrecting. If anything, they'd have the most motivation to retrieve and ditch the body themselves.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Hmmm...why don't you go and debunk all of what I said then? It should be easy, right? Can you disassemble all the 20 arguments for God's existence and erect new counter arguments in they're place? Can you do the same with the argument for the Resurrection that I posted? Instead if using your own invalid opinion as a means to justify itself and your position, how about you bring evidence against me? That would make sense after all. No?
I don't have to. When all you can do are quote Christian and Catholic based information, I know it's heavily biased and they only quote from themselves, because their positions are not supported outside of their own circles. This is very much unlike mainstream science, where psychology can draw on biology, biology can draw on paleontology, paleontology can draw on chemistry, and chemistry can draw from psychology. Such Christian sources are simply and fundamentally incapable of building such bridges because so much either contradicts it, finds wholes in their studies, or, at the absolute best, people experience something but Christianity has no monopoly or control over it.
 
I don't have to. When all you can do are quote Christian and Catholic based information, I know it's heavily biased and they only quote from themselves, because their positions are not supported outside of their own circles. This is very much unlike mainstream science, where psychology can draw on biology, biology can draw on paleontology, paleontology can draw on chemistry, and chemistry can draw from psychology. Such Christian sources are simply and fundamentally incapable of building such bridges because so much either contradicts it, finds wholes in their studies, or, at the absolute best, people experience something but Christianity has no monopoly or control over it.



Phew...this is getting pretty bad. Your not proving to me, that Atheism is reliable or rational through data, facts or arguments in any capacity. Neither are you bringing anything but your opinion against me, as per usual with non-believers. What evidence convinced you to go against the Resurrection? What convinced you that your position is true? What is the incentive that led to your beliefs or lack there of? The truth is the truth, it doesn't matter if my resources come from Catholic or Christian sites. And you can't be biased to truth, it simple is and always will be. Even after these arguments have happened, and all of us are still in an intellectual warzone, the universe (and humanity along with it) WILL eventually die via running out of usable energy, so none of this should even matter to you. I'm curious as to why your deciding to go against God, when dis-belief leads to multiple suicides and depression. Here's the study that proves it:


Why Do Atheist Commit Suicide More?


Also, Atheism has caused over 111,000,000 deaths throughout history. How can you justify that? Rejecting Christianity can definitely lead to more deaths. Here's the evidence for that:



And, more facts and evidence for the Resurrection.


Resurrection | Catholic Answers


I'm in the middle of looking at your previous objections to the Resurrection argument I made. Stand by.
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
How can you believe things like a man coming back from the dead, bringing a corpse back to life, walking on water, instantly healing the sick and disabled, changing the weather, ascending to heaven (did he float up into the air or what?), etc. literally happened, as historical events?

Seriously. This perplexes me. If someone was literally doing that stuff, it would be the biggest thing in the history of the world. Corpses coming back to life and walking around! But the only writings about are mythological writings from Christians, decades later at best. No one else noticed? Everyone just forgot? That's just irrational. If you make the claims that those things literally happened, I would expect some rather amazing evidence. But, we have nothing. What's going on here?

Now, if you take these things as metaphor or otherwise non-literally, that's fine, but this thread isn't directed towards that crowd.


NDE's are that uncommon.
Phew...this is getting pretty bad. Your not proving to me, that Atheism is reliable or rational through data, facts or arguments in any capacity. Neither are you bringing anything but your opinion against me, as per usual with non-believers. What evidence convinced you to go against the Resurrection? What convinced you that your position is true? What is the incentive that led to your beliefs or lack there of? The truth is the truth, it doesn't matter if my resources come from Catholic or Christian sites. And you can't be biased to truth, it simple is and always will be. Even after these arguments have happened, and all of us are still in an intellectual warzone, the universe (and humanity along with it) WILL eventually die via running out of usable energy, so none of this should even matter to you. I'm curious as to why your deciding to go against God, when dis-belief leads to multiple suicides and depression. Here's the study that proves it:


Why Do Atheist Commit Suicide More?


Also, Atheism has caused over 111,000,000 deaths throughout history. How can you justify that? Rejecting Christianity can definitely lead to more deaths. Here's the evidence for that:



And, more facts and evidence for the Resurrection.


Resurrection | Catholic Answers


I'm in the middle of looking at your previous objections to the Resurrection argument I made. Stand by.

why did the christian god commit infanticide?
why did the christian god commit suicide?



And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Also, Atheism has caused over 111,000,000 deaths throughout history. How can you justify that? Rejecting Christianity can definitely help in that area. Here's the evidence for that:
Hitler was indeed a Christian (as is obvious if you've ever read Mein Kampf or listened to/read any of his speeches). Stalin and Mao were not acting on behalf of atheism, but rather on behalf of the state.
This is very sharp contrast to Christianity, which has such a long history of violence it's impossible to even estimate the death toll, and has had such approval and support throughout so much of Europe's history that sometimes it was even celebrated.
 
NDE's are that uncommon.


why did the christian god commit infanticide?
why did the christian god commit suicide?



And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:


Honestly all of that just made me laugh. Why do you care about anything in that area, if God doesn't exist? And I guess soldiers commit suicide when they jump onto a grenade to save they're fellow men.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
that Atheism is reliable or rational through data
I've not said anything about atheism. If you can't read critically enough that you're inserting things into my arguments, why should I consider yours? And, it's something that Christians are very guilty of, and that is assuming anyone and everyone who questions and/or challenges their religion is automatically an atheist and trying to further/advance atheism. It doesn't work that way.
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
Honestly all of that just made me laugh. Why do you care about anything in that area, if God doesn't exist? And I guess soldiers commit suicide when they jump onto a grenade to save they're fellow men.


i believe in god.

God makes his light to shine on the whole world, both the good and evil, both the loving and hateful.

God is not a respecter of persons.
 
Hitler was indeed a Christian (as is obvious if you've ever read Mein Kampf or listened to/read any of his speeches). Stalin and Mao were not acting on behalf of atheism, but rather on behalf of the state.
This is very sharp contrast to Christianity, which has such a long history of violence it's impossible to even estimate the death toll, and has had such approval and support throughout so much of Europe's history that sometimes it was even celebrated.


It was they're atheistic ideals that made it possible to do what they did. Treating people like sacks of meat rather than people's with moral values and dignity. And here's something interesting on Hitler:

________________________________________

So far as we know, Adolf Hitler was validly baptized in the Catholic Church. That means he was a Catholic. Baptism is, literally, a new birth that makes the person a Christian in his very being, no matter how well or how poorly he lives out his faith. Just as physical conception means that a person will always be a human person with inherent human dignity, no matter how detestable the crimes he may choose to commit, so a baptized person, no matter how evil he becomes, remains a Christian. In Hitler’s case though, and in the cases of those Christians who also entirely abandon the faith into which they were baptized, it can be said that they no longer believe in Christianity and that their theological beliefs cannot be considered Christian. If they completely abandon their Christian faith, then they are apostates (cf. CCC 2089), though objectively they remain among the baptized.

________________________________________

And here's something on Religion and violence:

________________________________________

Religion and War

CHALLENGE

“Religion is inherently violent, producing countless wars.”

DEFENSE

This claim does not withstand scrutiny.

War is not unique to humanity. Other species—including ants, bees, and chimpanzees—wage war, understood as the organized, collective use of lethal violence against external enemies (such as for control of territory).

Yet these species do not have religion. War’s roots are thus non-religious.

Religion is a human universal, and historically there have been no atheist societies. It is thus impossible to argue that non-religious societies were less violent than religious ones. The officially atheist societies that arose in the Communist world in the twentieth century were not more peaceful than others. They warred, exported revolution, and killed tens of millions of people, including their own citizens.

If religion predisposed people to violence, we should see this on the small scale, yet violent criminals don’t usually seem to be devout churchgoers.

Like non-religious viewpoints, religions have differing attitudes toward violence, ranging from advocating violence for a variety of causes to advocating it only in self-defense to thoroughgoing pacifism. One cannot tar all religious viewpoints with the same brush. If religion can inspire people to kill, it can also inspire them to refrain from killing (“You shall not kill,” Exod. 20:13; “Love your enemies,” Matt. 5:44).

Similarly, if lack of religious zealotry deprives one non-religious person of a motive to kill, another non-religious person may go on to slay because he is not constrained by religious values against killing.

Ultimately, religions don’t go to war. Governments do, and they usually must convince an ambivalent populace of their decision to do so. In this, they may use religion as a motivating factor (whether or not the religion of the enemies is different), but that doesn’t make religion the cause of war.

Often wars are fought when there is no difference in religion. In the bloodiest war in U.S. history, the Civil War, the North and the South had the same religion.

Most wars are not fought over religious goals such as converting, subjugating, or killing people because they have a different religion. Instead, they are fought over secular goals such as control of territory and resources, self-determination, defending national prestige, or seeking revenge for perceived wrongs.

________________________________________

I'm going to do more research on the Resurrection, but this should suffice for now.

________________________________________

The Fact of Christ's Resurrection

The main sources which directly attest the fact of Christ's Resurrection are the Four Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul. Easter morning is so rich in incident, and so crowded with interested persons, that its complete history presents a rather complicated tableau. It is not surprising; therefore, that the partial accounts contained in each of the Four Gospels appear at first sight hard to harmonize. But whatever exegetic view as to the visit to the sepulchre by the pious women and the appearance of the angels we may defend, we cannot deny the Evangelists' agreement as to the fact that the risen Christ appeared to one or more persons. According to St. Matthew, He appeared to the holy women, and again on a mountain in Galilee; according to St. Mark, He was seen by Mary Magdalen, by the two disciples at Emmaus, and by the Eleven before His Ascension into heaven; according to St. Luke, He walked with the disciples to Emmaus, appeared to Peter and to the assembled disciples in Jerusalem; according to St. John, Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalen, to the ten Apostles on Easter Sunday, to the Eleven a week later, and to the seven disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. St. Paul (I Cor., xv, 3-8) enumerates another series of apparitions of Jesus after His Resurrection; he was seen by Cephas, by the Eleven, by more than 500 brethren, many of whom were still alive at the time of the Apostle's writing, by James, by all the Apostles, and lastly by Paul himself.

Here is an outline of a possible harmony of the Evangelists' account concerning the principal events of Easter Sunday: (I) The holy women carrying the spices previously prepared start out for the sepulchre before dawn, and reach it after sunrise; they are anxious about the heavy stone, but know nothing of the official guard of the sepulchre (Matt., xxvid, 1-3; Mark, xvi, 1-3; Luke, xxiv, 1; John, xx, 1). (2) The angel frightened the guards by his brightness put them to flight, rolled away the stone, and seated himself (not uponm Greek: ep autou, but) above (Greek: epano autou) the stone (Matt., xxviii, 2-4). (3) Mary Magdalen, Mary the Mother of James, and Salome approach the sepulchre, and see the stone rolled back, whereupon Mary Magdalen immediately returns to inform the Apostles (Mark, xvi, 4; Luke, xxiv, 2; John, xx, 1-2). (4) The other two holy women enter the sepulchre, find an angel seated in the vestibule, who shows them the empty sepulchre, announces the Resurrection, and commissions them to tell the disciples and Peter that they shall see Jesus in Galilee (Matt., xxviii, 5-7; Mark, xvi, 5-7). (5) A second group of holy women, consisting of Joanna and her companions, arrive at the sepulchre, where they have probably agreed to meet the first group, enter the empty interior, and are admonished by two angels that Jesus has risen according to His prediction (Luke, xxiv, 10). (6) Not long after, Peter and John, who were notified by Mary Magdalen, arrive at the sepulchre and find the linen cloth in such a position as to exclude the supposition that the body was stolen; for they lay simply flat on the ground, showing that the sacred body had vanished out of them without touching them. When John notices this he believes (John, xv, 3-10). (7) Mary Magdalen returns to the sepulchre, sees first two angels within, and then Jesus Himself (John, xx, 11-16; Mark, xvi, 9). (8) The two groups of pious women, who probably met on their return to the city, are favored with the sight of Christ arisen, who commissions them to tell His brethren that they will see Him in Galilee (Matt., xxviii, 8-10; Mark, xvi, 8). (9) The holy women relate their experiences to the Apostles, but find no belief (Mark, xvi, 10-11; Luke, xxiv, 9-11). (10) Jesus appears to the disciples at Emmaus, and they return to Jerusalem; the Apostles appear to waver between doubt and belief (Mark, xvi, 12-13; Luke, xxiv, 13-35). (11) Christ appears to Peter, and therefore Peter and John firmly believe in the Resurrection (Luke, xxiv, 34; John, xx, 8). (12) After the return of the disciples from Emmaus, Jesus appears to all the Apostles excepting Thomas (Mark, xvi, 14; Luke, x) dv, 36-43; John, xx, 19-25). The harmony of the other apparitions of Christ after His Resurrection presents no special difficulties.

Briefly, therefore, the fact of Christ's Resurrection is attested by more than 500 eyewitnesses whose experience, simplicity, and uprightness of life rendered them incapable of inventing such a fable, who lived at a time when any attempt to deceive could have been easily discovered, who had nothing in this life to gain, but everything to lose by their testimony, whose moral courage exhibited in their apostolic life can be explained only by their intimate conviction of the objective truth of their message. Again the fact of Christ's Resurrection is attested by the eloquent silence of the Synagogue which had done everything to prevent deception, which could have easily discovered deception, if there had been any, which opposed only sleeping witnesses to the testimony of the Apostles, which did not punish the alleged carelessness of the official guard, and which could not answer the testimony of the Apostles except by threatening them "that they speak no more in this name to any man" (Acts, iv, 17). Finally, the thousands and millions, both Jews and Gentiles, who believed the testimony of the Apostles in spite of all the disadvantages following from such a belief, in short the origin of the Church, requires for its explanation the reality of Christ's Resurrection, for the rise of the Church without the Resurrection would be a greater miracle than the Resurrection itself.
 
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@SoldierofChrist And any other Christians on this thread. Why did prophets, people in the past and disciples get to witness amazing miracles, hear God and be in the presence of Jesus but we cannot? Suddenly God becomes shy in modern times, seems fishy.

I would accept God if I could have undeniable evidence. But no matter how much I prayed, I never got ANYTHING from so called God. Never seen any miracles, heard anything or seen anything myself. I don't rely on hear say nor on things I cannot verify myself, with my own experience. If God knows everything, he would know me and what would make me believe and yet, it's not happening. I'm not even asking for anything outrageous. He would know I'm the type of person that CANNOT blindly believe that I need something, some kind of proof that I can personally test and verify. I'd be saved, if he wanted so.

Don't tell me it's because he doesn't want to interfere with free will. He provided huge proofs, some shown to a lot of people that would be crazy to deny his existence, yet they still had free will to do so, and now, nothing happens. Nothing on that scale has happened for about 2000 years. Again, why? It would be quite a simple task and many more people would be saved.

That's just ONE of the many problems I have with these specific God/religious claims.


Question #1:

What makes you think miracles don't still happen? Here's Peter Kreeft on Miracles:

The Argument from Miracles

A miracle is an event whose only adequate explanation is the extraordinary and direct intervention of God.There are numerous well-attested miracles.Therefore, there are numerous events whose only adequate explanation is the extraordinary and direct intervention of God.Therefore God exists.

Obviously if you believe that some extraordinary event is a miracle, then you believe in divine agency, and you believe that such agency was at work in this event. But the question is: Was this event a miracle? If miracles exist, then God must exist. But do miracles exist?

Which events do we choose? In the first place, the event must be extraordinary. But there are many extraordinary happenings (e.g., numerous stones dropping from the sky in Texas) that do not qualify as miracles. Why not? First, because they could be caused by something in nature, and second, because the context in which they occur is not religious. They qualify as mere oddities, as "strange happenings"; the sort of thing you might expect to read in Believe It or Not, but never hear about from the pulpit. Therefore the meaning of the event must also be religious to qualify as a miracle.

Suppose that a holy man had stood in the center of Houston and said: "My dear brothers and sisters! You are leading sinful lives! Look at yourselves—drunken! dissolute! God wants you to repent! And as a sign of his displeasure he's going to shower stones upon you!" Then, moments later—thunk! thunk! thunk!—the stones began to fall. The word "miracle" might very well spring to mind.

Not that we would have to believe in God after witnessing this event. But still, if that man in Texas seemed utterly genuine, and if his accusations hit home, made us think "He's right," then it would be very hard to consider what happened a deception or even an extraordinary coincidence.

This means that the setting of a supposed miracle is crucially important. Not just the physical setting, and not just the timing, but the personal setting is vital as well—the character and the message of the person to whom this event is specially tied. Take, for example, four or five miracles from the New Testament. Remove them completely from their context, from the teaching and character of Christ. Would it be wrong to see their religious significance as thereby greatly diminished? After all, to call some happening a miracle is to interpret it religiously. But to interpret it that way demands a context or setting which invites such interpretation. And part of this setting usually, though not always, involves a person whose moral authority is first recognized, and whose religious authority, which the miracle seems to confirm, is then acknowledged.

Abstract discussions of probability usually miss this factor. But setting does play a decisive role. Many years ago, at an otherwise dull convention, a distinguished philosopher explained why he had become a Christian. He said: "I picked up the New Testament with a view to judging it, to weighing its pros and cons. But as I began to read, I realized that I was the one being judged." Certainly he came to believe in the miracle-stories. But it was the character and teaching of Christ that led him to accept the things recounted there as genuine acts of God.

So there is not really a proof from miracles. If you see some event as a miracle, then the activity of God is seen in this event. There is a movement of the mind from this event to its proper interpretation as miraculous. And what gives impetus to that movement is not just the event by itself, but the many factors surrounding it which invite—or seem to demand—such interpretation.

But miraculous events exist. Indeed, there is massive, reliable testimony to them across many times, places and cultures.

Therefore their cause exists.

And their only adequate cause is God.

Therefore God exists.

________________________________________



Question #2: How do you know that God is not communicating to you via this thread through me? Trying to convince you to believe? If it's God's existence that your skeptical about, look at these arguments:


Twenty Arguments For The Existence Of God by Peter Kreeft & Ronald K. Tacelli



And this website:


Catholic Answers


I'm truly sorry for any apparent arrogance or aggression on my part, to all non-believers in this thread. God bless you all! :)
 
i believe in god.

God makes his light to shine on the whole world, both the good and evil, both the loving and hateful.

God is not a respecter of persons.


"Not a respecter of persons"? Then why did he send down His Son to die for us and save us from sin? And allow us to have the ability to choose Him via our free will so He can have our genuine love?
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
"Not a respecter of persons"? Then why did he send down His Son to die for us and save us from sin? And allow us to have the ability to choose Him via our free will so He can have our genuine love?
to be selfless doesn't require a sacrifice, or murder. This is why he asked the Father to forgive them because they had no clue as to what he was saying. To lay down one's life is to take up the yoke. The key layed upon the shoulders is Love. I require mercy, not sacrifice. Isaiah 66 tells you what God thinks of filthy sacrifices.

I was sent. I am the son. To believe someone, isn't an advocation to practice idolatry


Psalm 82:6
I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.


Acts 17:28

For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.


For our God is a consuming fire.

I can't lose because I'm not interested in winning. I'm having fun just playing the game.

 
I was sent. I am the son. To believe someone, isn't an advocation to practice idolatry


Psalm 82:6
I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.


Acts 17:28

For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.


For our God is a consuming fire.

I can't lose because I'm not interested in winning. I'm having fun just playing the game.


Ok...
 

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
Hmmm...why don't you go and debunk all of what I said then? It should be easy, right?
Easy, but time consuming.
And useless, it's been done over and over and still someone like you will come along and present it as though it's something new.
It isn't. You have presented a batch of insupportable assertions and "God of the Gaps" stuff that gets old after awhile.
By "after a while" I mean I have personally been hearing it for 45 years or so. I don't usually respond to it any more.
Tom
 
Easy, but time consuming.
And useless, it's been done over and over and still someone like you will come along and present it as though it's something new.
It isn't. You have presented a batch of insupportable assertions and "God of the Gaps" stuff that gets old after awhile.
By "after a while" I mean I have personally been hearing it for 45 years or so. I don't usually respond to it any more.
Tom


"God of the Gaps" huh? So your saying that the universe came into existence by itself on its own power, in a very particular order where life is laser pointed to thrive on earth, and was a product of complete and utter chance? Sounds pretty illogical and unscientific to me. Do you think a book, with all of its comma's, periods and words, came from nothing? I don't think so. It's a product of intelligent design, just like the universe. As this argument supports:


The Design Argument

This sort of argument is of wide and perennial appeal. Almost everyone admits that reflection on the order and beauty of nature touches something very deep within us. But are the order and beauty the product of intelligent design and conscious purpose? For theists the answer is yes. Arguments for design are attempts to vindicate this answer, to show why it is the most reasonable one to give. They have been formulated in ways as richly varied as the experience in which they are rooted. The following displays the core or central insight.

The universe displays a staggering amount of intelligibility, both within the things we observe and in the way these things relate to others outside themselves. That is to say: the way they exist and coexist display an intricately beautiful order and regularity that can fill even the most casual observer with wonder. It is the norm in nature for many different beings to work together to produce the same valuable end—for example, the organs in the body work for our life and health. (See also argument 8.)Either this intelligible order is the product of chance or of intelligent design.Not chance.Therefore the universe is the product of intelligent design.Design comes only from a mind, a designer.Therefore the universe is the product of an intelligent Designer.

The first premise is certainly true-even those resistant to the argument admit it. The person who did not would have to be almost pathetically obtuse. A single protein molecule is a thing of immensely impressive order; much more so a single cell; and incredibly much more so an organ like the eye, where ordered parts of enormous and delicate complexity work together with countless others to achieve a single certain end. Even chemical elements are ordered to combine with other elements in certain ways and under certain conditions. Apparent disorder is a problem precisely because of the overwhelming pervasiveness of order and regularity. So the first premise stands.

If all this order is not in some way the product of intelligent design—then what? Obviously, it "just happened." Things just fell out that way "by chance." Alternatively, if all this order is not the product of blind, purposeless forces, then it has resulted from some kind of purpose. That purpose can only be intelligent design. So the second premise stands.

It is of course the third premise that is crucial. Ultimately, nonbelievers tell us, it is indeed by chance and not by any design that the universe of our experience exists the way it does. It just happens to have this order, and the burden of proof is on believers to demonstrate why this could not be so by chance alone.

But this seems a bit backward. It is surely up to nonbelievers to produce a credible alternative to design. And "chance" is simply not credible. For we can understand chance only against a background of order. To say that something happened "by chance" is to say that it did not turn out as we would have expected, or that it did turn out in a way we would not have expected. But expectation is impossible without order. If you take away order and speak of chance alone as a kind of ultimate source, you have taken away the only background that allows us to speak meaningfully of chance at all. Instead of thinking of chance against a background of order, we are invited to think of order-overwhelmingly intricate and ubiquitous order-against a random and purposeless background of chance. Frankly, that is incredible. Therefore it is eminently reasonable to affirm the third premise, not chance, and therefore to affirm the conclusion, that this universe is the product of intelligent design.

Question 1: Hasn't the Darwinian theory of evolution shown us how it is possible for all the order in the universe to have arisen by chance?

Reply: Not at all. If the Darwinian theory has shown anything, it has shown, in a general way, how species may have descended from others through random mutation; and how survival of these species can be accounted for by natural selection—by the fitness of some species to survive in their environment. In no way does it—can it—account for the ubiquitous order and intelligibility of nature. Rather, it presupposes order. To quote a famous phrase: "The survival of the fittest presupposes the arrival of the fit." If Darwinians wish to extrapolate from their purely biological theory and maintain that all the vast order around us is the result of random changes, then they are saying something which no empirical evidence could ever confirm; which no empirical science could ever demonstrate; and which, on the face of it, is simply beyond belief.

Question 2: Maybe it is only in this region of the universe that order is to be found. Maybe there are other parts unknown to us that are completely chaotic—or maybe the universe will one day in the future become chaotic. What becomes of the argument then?

Reply: Believers and nonbelievers both experience the same universe. It is this which is either designed or not. And this world of our common experience is a world of pervasive order and intelligibility. That fact must be faced. Before we speculate about what will be in the future or what may be elsewhere in the present, we need to deal honestly with what is. We need to recognize in an unflinching way the extent—the overwhelming extent—of order and intelligibility. Then we can ask ourselves: Is it credible to suppose that we inhabit a small island of order surrounded by a vast sea of chaos—a sea which threatens one day to engulf us?

Just consider how in the last decades we have strained fantastically at the limits of our knowledge; we have cast our vision far beyond this planet and far within the elements that make it up. And what has this expansion of our horizons revealed? Always the same thing: more—and not less—intelligibility; more—and not less—complex and intricate order. Not only is there no reason to believe in a surrounding chaos, there is every reason not to. It flies in the face of the experience that all of us—believers and nonbelievers—share in common.

Something similar can be said about the future. We know the way things in the universe have behaved and are behaving. And so, until we have some reason to think otherwise, there is every reason to believe it will continue on its orderly path of running down. No speculation can nullify what we know.

And, anyway, exactly what sort of chaos is this question asking us to imagine? That effect precedes cause? That the law of contradiction does not hold? That there need not be what it takes for some existing thing to exist? These suggestions are completely unintelligible; if we think about them at all, it is only to reject them as impossible. Can we imagine less order? Yes. Some rearrangement of the order we experience? Yes. But total disorder and chaos? That can never be considered as a real possibility. To speculate about it as if it were is really a waste of time.

Question 3: But what if the order we experience is merely a product of our minds? Even though we cannot think utter chaos and disorder, maybe that is how reality really is.

Reply: Our minds are the only means by which we can know reality. We have no other access. If we agree that something cannot exist in thought, we cannot go ahead and say that it might nevertheless exist in reality. Because then we would be thinking what we claim cannot be thought.

Suppose you claim that order is just a product of our minds. This puts you in a very awkward position. You are saying that we must think about reality in terms of order and intelligibility, but things may not exist that way in fact. Now to propose something for consideration is to think about it. And so you are saying: (a) we must think about reality in a certain way, but (b) since we think that things may not in fact exist that way, then (c) we need not think about reality the way we must think about it! Are we willing to pay that high a price to deny that the being of the universe displays intelligent design? It does not, on the face of it, seem cost effective.
 
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