Life From Dirt?

[Polymath257]

The biblical scriptures are God’s word, therefore authoritative revelation, backed up by the evidence of creation everywhere.

Proof? Show that the Bible is accurate. Show that it is authoritative. Show evidence of 'creation' above 'existence'.

 

[PureX]

Absolutely true. But then, if they do not, nobody else needs to take them seriously. At that point, they are no more justified than the person who claims to be Napoleon.

You can live your life dismissing others to protect the delusion that you and your reasoning are right, and that you know what you can't honestly know. Lots of people do that. Theists and atheist alike. Or you can live life with an open mind, and an appreciation for those who see and understand things differently from how you see and understand them, and therefor offer you new and more holistic ways of doing so.

 

[Polymath257]

You can live your life dismissing others to protect the delusion that you and you reasoning are right, and that you know what you don't honestly know. Lots of people do that. Theists and atheist alike. Or you can live life with an open mind, and an appreciation for those who see and understand things differently from how you see and understand them, and therefor offer you new ways of of doing so.

And you can live your life without recognizing that some ideas are simply wrong. And some people will believe those wrong ideas.

 

[PureX]

And you can live your life without recognizing that some ideas are simply wrong. And some people will believe those wrong ideas.

We have no way of assessing that. Ideas either work for us when we apply them, or they don't. It's just that different people apply them to different tasks. And then disagree on whether they work or not.

Right and wrong are thus relative.

 

[Audie]

No, I don’t think we can just make anything up. If the biblical scriptures are God’s Word, then they are a revelation of reality and truth. Why shouldn’t the One who claims to be the Creator of heaven and earth be capable of speaking things into existence?

Who are "we"?
The flood story is made up. It's a fantasy, never happened.

 

[SkepticThinker]

No, I don’t think we can just make anything up. If the biblical scriptures are God’s Word, then they are a revelation of reality and truth. Why shouldn’t the One who claims to be the Creator of heaven and earth be capable of speaking things into existence?

"If the scriptures are god's word then ... "

That's a big if, isn't it? Which god? How do you know?

Of course anything is possible with made up magical all-powerful deities. But as I was pointing out, said deity doesn't appear to be observable in any way. You haven't disputed that here, so I take that as agreement from you on that one. So, you're just attributing traits and characteristics to a deity that is not observable or detectable. My question to you was, how are you doing that?

And as I was also pointing out, saying this god did it, doesn't provide us with any actual explanatory power, as you've so aptly demonstrated here. You can (and will) just make up anything you want or need to and poof! now anything is possible, even though you've never even demonstrated that it's possible in the first place.

What you're describing here is magic. Like, literally a magic spell. You claim God did and can "speak" things into existence. When asked what that means, you say you don't know, and that with god anything is possible, so then it's possible that god can "speak" things into existence. Is it though? How do we know? What does that even mean? You're claiming it's possible, after all. But you've got no way to show that.

 

[SkepticThinker]

The biblical scriptures are God’s word, therefore authoritative revelation, backed up by the evidence of creation everywhere.

How do you know this? Or why do you believe it?

 

[Audie]

And you can live your life without recognizing that some ideas are simply wrong. And some people will believe those wrong ideas.

Have you ever heard of a "philosopher"
being wrong?

 

[gnostic]

No, I don’t think we can just make anything up. If the biblical scriptures are God’s Word, then they are a revelation of reality and truth. Why shouldn’t the One who claims to be the Creator of heaven and earth be capable of speaking things into existence?

You means like magic or witchcraft, where magic can poof some nonexistent things into existence because of magic word or uttering spell or incantations.

Are you comparing your god to witches, sorcerers or magicians?

Do you think your Bible have the only god who is powerful magician?

There are myths of Egyptian gods, like Ptah, Ra, Thoth and Horus who create with words. And Isis was a powerful sorceress who could conjure up a snake that bit Ra, refusing to heal the sun god until Ra revealed his true name.

The power of the names are powerful magic, which existed in many ancient and primitive superstitious cultures, including in Jewish and Christian faiths.

In this and age, you would think people would outgrow from these superstitious beliefs and utterly nonsensical ignorance, but apparently you haven’t.

 

[Polymath257]

Have you ever heard of a "philosopher"
being wrong?

Only according to other philosophers.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The biblical scriptures are God’s word, therefore authoritative revelation, backed up by the evidence of creation everywhere.

The fact that there are so many self contradictions, errors, and bad morals in the Bible tells us that they are not the word of God. If anything you just blasphemed against your own God. And where is there any evidence of creation? I don't think that you understand the concept of evidence.​

 

[Brian2]

By that logic, science should not eliminate the possibility, either, that planets orbits are in fact caused by invisible angels, obsessed with conic sections, and carrying those planets around.

Ciao

- viole

I'm sure science does not eliminate that.

 

[Brian2]

Let's not kid ourselves here, the story in the Bible is definitely not about a "local" flood. The whole point of the story is that God killed everyone on earth except for Noah and his family - the only truly righteous people on earth.
To make it into a local flood (and let's face it, you're having to do that because the science doesn't back up a global flood) is to butcher the story into something rather mundane and pointless.

The story tells us that God want to do away with all flesh and the story tells us that God did not do that.
The Bible story shows what happened where Noah was and maybe other flood stories tell us what happened there.
But I don't see the flood as having covered all the high mountains on the earth, all the high hills in that area yes, but we don't know what happened elsewhere.
There was flooding at around that time elsewhere and because the oceans were low and people were living probably near them in the low areas, the devestation was probably extreme there also.
We don't know exactly when the flood happened for Noah imo as it seems genealogies were not written to give all the details in those days, so generations were eliminated.

 

[Brian2]

Really? They know? I have as yet to see one that did not have mere belief. You may be a bit confused. Merely believing very strongly is not knowing. Knowledge is demonstrable and if one cannot demonstrate why their beliefs are true all that they have is mere belief.

I have mere belief.

 

[Brian2]

Because science requires evidence.

Science needs testable evidence, true.

Since evidence is the only way to know, how could you otherwise know?
If science doesn't know, how could you know?

I don't need testable evidence about the physical universe to believe in a God. I believe and God confirms to me that my belief is true and so it becomes more of a knowledge as time goes on. But it is hard to draw the line between faith and knowledge.

What is that, a "spiritual side"?
How do you know it is real, whatever it is?

I don't need to know it is real to believe it is real.

No. I limit my view to that which can be demonstrated by evidence.
I do that not because of any a priori dogmatic decision like "materialism"...
I rather do that out of practical necessity.

If not by evidence, how could I expand my view in a justifiable way with things not in evidence?
How do you tell the difference between a non-existent thing and an unfalsifiable thing not in evidence?

I do not limit my view to what science can tell me about. That does not mean that I do not use science to determine mechanisms and reality, but science does not limit me.

To me it's a meaningless label, because I have no dogmatic subscription to it at all.
Show me evidence of "non-material" things and I'll HAPPILY accept those things.

You probably won't happily accept those things, you will want them to be tested thoroughly with physical tests and then declare them to be material in nature.

But if all you have are "claims" and "visions" and "feelings", then I have nothing to go on and nothing to distinguish that which you claim from that which doesn't actually exist.

You would have whether you were prepared to believe me or not and what interpretation you might put on what I say.

 

[Brian2]

Then there's your trick of not even responding
to what was in the post you answer.

Then there is the trick of not even responding to whole posts.

Is it true that you assume a uinverse without God is
impossible?

I believe that God is the reasonable answer to how the universe came to exist.

 

[Audie]

I'm sure science does not eliminate that.

Human intelligence normally precludes seriously
considering the idiotic.

Still, I've encountered God fearin' , Bible
readin', heaven goin' folks as believe
comparably deranged things.

World wide flood, say. Complete with such as
" hydroplate theory" excess water wafted to
Neptune ( where it shine to this day as a warning
beacon against upcoming rogue angels), and
flash frozen mammoths by the million buried
in flood- muck.

But once magical thinking takes hold as a
great Virtue, the sky is the limit when it comes
to believin'.

So why not angels carryin' planets.

 

[Audie]

The story tells us that God want to do away with all flesh and the story tells us that God did not do that.
The Bible story shows what happened where Noah was and maybe other flood stories tell us what happened there.
But I don't see the flood as having covered all the high mountains on the earth, all the high hills in that area yes, but we don't know what happened elsewhere.
There was flooding at around that time elsewhere and because the oceans were low and people were living probably near them in the low areas, the devestation was probably extreme there also.
We don't know exactly when the flood happened for Noah imo as it seems genealogies were not written to give all the details in those days, so generations were eliminated.

Because the oceans were low?
Then it suddenly rose and drowned people?
Extreme devastation?

Makin things up again.

 

[Audie]

Then there is the trick of not even responding to whole posts.



I believe that God is the reasonable answer to how the universe came to exist.

I wonder how that is reasonable given all
the profoundly unreasonable details.

 

[Brian2]

Critical thought is the gift, not belief by faith, and it's a gift of evolution and of Western academic culture. Children believe what they are told by faith because they have no way to evaluate what they are told beyond whether they like the idea or not. They all accept the Santa story if told it young enough, because they have no defense against it until they are older. That's what you are calling a gift.

Should it surprise us that a worldview that can only be believed by faith extols it as a path to truth?

I'm old and have rejected Santa and kept God. But of course in faith circles, faith in what is called the truth, is seen as a virtue.

I guess you don't see the problem there. Have you detected what you call spirit? Did you use your brain? If you answer yes, then that is the physical process that reveals what you call spirit to you. It also reveals it to me, but I interpret it differently than you do. But the key point is that like you, I do this using "physical methods." The material world doesn't begin outside your body. Your body and brain are material as well.

I think you just assumed that consciousness is produced by the brain.