There is no evidence for God, so why do you believe?

[YoursTrue]

I'm talking about the Jehovas Witness. They expect the Rapture to happen soon.

Pretty good lecture about Hell from a Canadian Pastor/Historian:


The Invention of Hell

7:30

Aristotle was recovered and his ideas taken and put into Christian philosophy/theology. Ultimately Aquinas philosophy/theology are a synthesis of Plato, Aristotle and Christianity.

11:15

Ptolemaic Cosmology

Cosmology of Dante, Aquinas. 7 heavens, earth in center, Hell in center of earth.


Paradise LOST BY JOHN MILTON, HEAVEN EXPELS LUFIFER PRIOR TO GENESIS STORY.


Misreading of Rev 12:7-13 not happens in preexistence but is a future event.


Devil in Gospels

Tempted Jesus

Jesus casts out devils

Jesus talks about Satans kingdom

Jesus visits hell after crucifixion and before resurrection for salvation


In OT the devil and hell are absent.


Genesis, - not Milton’s pre-existent Lucifer


- serpent in story is much later interpreted to be Satan, here it’s a snake


- character does not recur to temp Cain and Able or any other temptation

In Job Satan is one of the sons of God.

Satan wagers with God that Job is righteous because he’s blessed, God allows Satan to torture Job

Isaiah 14 is taunting the King of Babylon who has compared himself to one of the Gods.

Morning Star son of the dawn is talking about a man, a king of Babylon who compared himself to Venus.

Isaiah is the source of much imagery, cast down from heaven to hell, attempted to rival God in heaven.

37:04 Serpent, The Satan, Lucifer (king of Babylon), not the devil


39:50 No heaven or developed concept of afterlife. Abraham is promised to be the father of many nations not eternal life. Then sleeps with ancestors in Sheol.


41:35


4th century - Jesus, Israelites went to a developed theory of afterlife.


2nd Temple Judaism had an established idea of hell/devil but dropped it, Christianity kept it.


44:20

Greek Hellenism/2nd Temple Judaism/Persian ideas

48:12


Dualism is from Persian religion - heaven/hell, God/devil and from Greek religion

Abraham was happy with prosperity, not an afterlife

1:00:30


Christian hell is a hybrid of Greek and Persian influence.

Hope you get some more information about this. There is no activity in sheol, the grave, or hell. Considering what hell is, in old English dialect there is an expression “helling potatoes." It did NOT mean to roast them, but to place the potatoes in the ground or a cellar. If you want to learn more, look up Jeremiah 7:31 and hopefully you will tell me what you feel about that.

 

[SkepticThinker]

The genetic code is evidence and Antony Flew's belief because of the genetic code, which it seems he thought too complex to have happened by chance, shows that you do not have to have a pre existing belief in God to see the genetic code as evidence for God.

What it does show is a lack of logic though.

If the genetic code is too complex to have occurred without a Designer, than an arguably far more complex Designer would also require a designer to explain it's much-more-complex existence. That's if we're arguing that complex things require designers, which is not a demonstrable fact anyway.

 

[SkepticThinker]

@joelr claims that it is 100% proven that God does not heal those who pray.
That is a claim of faith since it is not proven.
@joelr does that in many areas where "experts" have come up with their opinion on the Bible and joel takes their opinions as 100% fact even if other experts have differing opinions.

My uncle prayed over my dying father's body for Jesus to heal him and bring him back to life.
That didn't happen and my father died.

There, I just proved that God does not heal those who pray.
That was easy.
No faith required either.

 

[Ebionite]

There, I just proved that God does not heal those who pray.

There's no general proof. I know of case where someone was healed.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Of course it is not a code in the sense that it was written. That is not what the scientists who coined the phrase "genetic code" would have been thinking,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, probably.
That does not mean that other people are not allowed to see intelligence behind it or see it as suggesting of a writer, a designer.

That's exactly the way you're attempting to describe it. You even keep interchanging it with the word "language" which it definitely is not.

 

[SkepticThinker]

As you should know by now, finding God is not a scientific job, requiring falsifiable hypotheses.
Genetic code is just something that is evidence of God for those with eyes to see.
You, at the moment, have not got eyes to see. Just accept that. If you want to find God then it is a case of doing it through faith. Follow the evidence where it leads and because it does not spell out God, but just suggests God, make that leap of faith for God, just as you seem to do against God, with other things that you seem to think that science is close to showing, but has not quite done it.
But really abiogenesis does not even seem to be a falsifiable hypothesis and that the universe has always been or just came into existence also don't seem to be falsifiable hypotheses, so by your definition they do not have any evidence and are not science.

Once again, you describe faith as unjustified belief. Which is what I keep defining it as and you keep objecting to, despite the fact that every time you have to explain faith, you end up explaining unjustified belief.

Thank you for helping to demonstrate (again) how faith is not a reliable pathway to truth because anything can be believed on faith.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I can understand genetic code enough to see what it does and what it is,,,,,,,,,,,,, and it is part of nature even if you seem to want it to be part of science.
Science can figure things out about all of nature, but that does not mean that nature belongs to science.
But don't worry about embarrassing me, I'm probably too thick to be embarrassed by such things.

Cool, so can you please describe what the genetic code is, and what it does?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Yes there does seem to be a long way to go to understand how a genetic code could have developed, and it looks like science won't ever put up the white flag of surrender and say that the genetic code is evidence of God,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, unless of course God has been shown to exist through the scientific method.
But science not being able to give up on it does not mean that God did not do it or that I should not believe that God did it, just as many geneticists believe.

Someone would actually have to demonstrate that is the case.

Surrendering to blind faith isn't something good scientists should do.

"Just give up and say Goddidit!" Isn't something any person who actually cares about what is true should be doing. Let alone any reputable scientist.

 

[SkepticThinker]

There's no general proof. I know of case where someone was healed.

Please read the post I was responding to.

 

[Ebionite]

Please read the post I was responding to.

What point do you think I missed?

 

[SkepticThinker]

What point do you think I missed?

I was trying to illustrate something to the poster.

 

[Brian2]

For many years I did not 'believe' in God. Where was he, I wondered? Why do we die? Why do we suffer? Evolution did not have the answers for me. I did MY OWN THING.
But still I wanted to be happy. Now here's what I found for myself but prompted by a preacher--NO ONE CAN HAVE FAITH UNLESS GOD GIVES IT TO HIM. And I still didn't understand that because I HAD NO FAITH. But things changed soon thereafter -- and I won't go into detail because each person has to find out for himself. SEEK AND YOU SHALL FIND. Matthew 11:26 - "All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one fully knows the Son except the Father; neither does anyone fully know the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son is willing to reveal him."

Yes and we don't know whom the Father is calling.

 

[Brian2]

What it does show is a lack of logic though.

If the genetic code is too complex to have occurred without a Designer, than an arguably far more complex Designer would also require a designer to explain it's much-more-complex existence. That's if we're arguing that complex things require designers, which is not a demonstrable fact anyway.

I think we are arguing whether things in this physical realm could have come about through chance only or needed a designer.
Where a designer might have come from and if He is complex or not is another topic.

 

[Brian2]

What it does show is a lack of logic though.

If the genetic code is too complex to have occurred without a Designer, than an arguably far more complex Designer would also require a designer to explain it's much-more-complex existence. That's if we're arguing that complex things require designers, which is not a demonstrable fact anyway.

I think we are arguing whether things in this physical realm could have come about through chance only or needed a designer.
Where a designer might have come from and if He is complex or not is another topic.

 

[Brian2]

My uncle prayed over my dying father's body for Jesus to heal him and bring him back to life.
That didn't happen and my father died.

There, I just proved that God does not heal those who pray.
That was easy.
No faith required either.

That was easy. God did not heal one person so God does not heal anyone.

 

[YoursTrue]

My uncle prayed over my dying father's body for Jesus to heal him and bring him back to life.
That didn't happen and my father died.

There, I just proved that God does not heal those who pray.
That was easy.
No faith required either.

The miracles that happened in the Bible as for healing were firmly associated with the Christ and the early disciples. We no longer need miracles to prove that God is going to change things soon. Matthew 24:14.

 

[Brian2]

That's exactly the way you're attempting to describe it. You even keep interchanging it with the word "language" which it definitely is not.

How would you describe it?

 

[Brian2]

Once again, you describe faith as unjustified belief. Which is what I keep defining it as and you keep objecting to, despite the fact that every time you have to explain faith, you end up explaining unjustified belief.

Thank you for helping to demonstrate (again) how faith is not a reliable pathway to truth because anything can be believed on faith.

Why did you take my post and take little bits out of context and make them say something different to what the post in context does not say?
What I said is that finding God by faith is the same as believing science.
Follow the evidence where it leads and believe what it is pointing to.

 

[Brian2]

Cool, so can you please describe what the genetic code is, and what it does?

It is that part of a cell, in the nucleus, which carries all the information for the structure and working of the cell and the body that the cell is in.

 

[Brian2]

Someone would actually have to demonstrate that is the case.

Surrendering to blind faith isn't something good scientists should do.

"Just give up and say Goddidit!" Isn't something any person who actually cares about what is true should be doing. Let alone any reputable scientist.

Yes I suppose science always wants to find out a possible mechanism for things, even if that mechanism might be wrong.
And even geneticists who believe God created everything, keep trying to find a mechanism.
But that mechanism does not show that God did not do it for them.
BUT what I was saying is that there is never any point where science gives up. Science is blind like that, it is a method that just keeps going blindly and it takes humans to actually see that God did it. Science needs that to be demonstrated to it and humans who follow science blindly also need it to be demonstrated to them through the science.