abre

noone calls you ignorant and yes we do not have physical proof only convincing facts that he exists period.as much as i understand that you are a schizoid person that is abnomally introverted i come to really understand where you come from.the whole scenario of our beliefs is a hotbed of schism,then science appeard on the scene so people being so complex decided to follow something that will allow them to experiment and have visible proof,only they forgot that that's god's intelligence and its being put into practice.

you definately know that theories can only formulate living organisms by abstract notions,and dogma on the other hand can express aptly the living process of the unconscious mind in the form of repentance,sacrifice and redemption,thats why people can never dispute dogma and doctrine.we dont have to because its undisputable.

abre

so you are telling me that its ok to succumb to the whims of science without calling it indoctrination because its structured concretely on fact,proofs and verifications.i thought man is supposed to learn and understand the world he lives in thats why there was the pharisees and the scribes and darwin who documented their findings on our existance.do you ever ask yourself what it would be like if man lived without a seed of knowledge in him.i say its Gods plan that he allows us to question and understand our environment.

he knew it would be boring for man to live without something that will keep him occupied,thats why children play and adults invent its part of their games,so if you get caught up in your own games and think you are invicible you start challenging your creator who gave you the power to procreate water to drink and air to breath.thats exactly what darwin,einstein and all those insane scholars who poisoned your mind to believe in their madness did.

Abre , what will it take with you ??To me, God is whatever/whomever created the concept of the four-dimentional universe, and set it into motion. The Origin. That thing/being is God to me whether it is all-powerful or not, whether it is all-benevolent or not, and whether or not it is even aware of our existance. My God may have absolutly nothing set up for us in the matter of an afterlife. I must admit that my definition of a God would bring little comfort to most people, but it does have a plus in the fact that it does for certain exist. (unless you're a nihilist, but screw you nihilists, you're no fun

Yes, if the nihilists are right, then screw it all, man. In fact I think that's their motto, "Screw it all, man"...But seriously, if I ask, "What is the origin of the universe?" No matter what you say, it qualifies under my admitedly ambiguous definition. Even if you say, "The universe has always been" it is still compatable with my creator. This can be explained as follows:

Suppose you were to name a tree, "A". It has seeds, and spawns a new tree, "1A". 1A eventually has seeds and spawns, "2A". And so on. But when you go to make a chronology of them, you realize that "A" was once a seed as well, so you name the tree that spawned it, "-1A", and the tree before that one, "-2A". And so on. And eventually you have the idea that maybe there was no first tree, that maybe it just goes on and on in both directions like this:
...-3A, -2A, -1A, A, 1A, 2A, 3A...

So you say, "If there's always been trees, then nobody could have created them." But this isn't true. What is being described here is a "causality chain". That is, cause and effect, and effect and effect. And it is possible that it goes on forever in both directions. But that wouldn't rule out the existence an origin for that chain, if the origin existed outside of time.
{...-3A, -2A, -1A, A, 1A, 2A, 3A...} - God

The above would depect: God, an entity that exists outside of time and it's cause and effect restrictions, spawns a causality chain that exists within time, and extends to infinity in both directions.

Ta-da! God and infinite causality can fit in the same room.

The only way my God couldn't exist is if you adopt this equation:
{nothing} - Nobody

whats your take

*Kiss*

Before i do let me just say this to you .Anything and everything is believable.

The real issue is why and how people believe what they believe.

I think an investigation into why people believe what they believe will be a fascinating endeavour, and it should correctly start with yourself: ask yourself why you believe what you believe.

We all hold some kind of internal framework with which we filter what we see and hear, and by which we understand what we see and hear. Now we may hold several framework at one time, and we may not always be conscious of all of them, or of which and in what context we apply them, and they are also not all consistent, ie contradictory, either of themelves or their applications. (And before we can start to believe we may have have already filtered away things we dont want to see or hear.)

*Kiss*

The patterns of distribution of living animals and plants on the continents and islands of the world is exactly what would be expected if they had evolved from common ancestors by slow, gradual degrees. The patterns of resemblance among animals and plants is exactly what we should expect if some were close cousins, and others more distant cousins to each other. The fact that the genetic code is the same in all living creatures overwhelmingly suggests that all are descended from one single ancestor. The evidence for evolution is so compelling that the only way to save the creation theory is to assume that God deliberately planted enormous quantities of evidence to make it look as if evolution had happened. In other words, the fossils, the geographical distribution of animals, and so on, are all one gigantic confidence trick. Does anybody want to worship a God capable of such trickery? It is surely far more reverent, as well as more scientifically sensible, to take the evidence at face value. All living creatures are cousins of one another, descended from one remote ancestor that lived more than 3,000 million years ago.

The Argument from Design, then, has been destroyed as a reason for believing in a God. Are there any other arguments? Some people believe in God because of what appears to them to be an inner revelation. Such revelations are not always edifying but they undoubtedly feel real to the individual concerned. Many inhabitants of lunatic asylums have an unshakable inner faith that they are Napoleon or, indeed, God himself. There is no doubting the power of such convictions for those that have them, but this is no reason for the rest of us to believe them. Indeed, since such beliefs are mutually contradictory, we can't believe them all.

There is a little more that needs to be said. Evolution by natural selection explains a lot, but it couldn't start from nothing. It couldn't have started until there was some kind of rudimentary reproduction and heredity. Modern heredity is based on the DNA code, which is itself too complicated to have sprung spontaneously into being by a single act of chance. This seems to mean that there must have been some earlier hereditary system, now disappeared, which was simple enough to have arisen by chance and the laws of chemistry and which provided the medium in which a primitive form of cumulative natural selection could get started. DNA was a later product of this earlier cumulative selection. Before this original kind of natural selection, there was a period when complex chemical compounds were built up from simpler ones and before that a period when the chemical elements were built up from simpler elements, following the well-understood laws of physics. Before that, everything was ultimately built up from pure hydrogen in the immediate aftermath of the big bang, which initiated the universe.

There is a temptation to argue that, although God may not be needed to explain the evolution of complex order once the universe, with its fundamental laws of physics, had begun, we do need a God to explain the origin of all things. This idea doesn't leave God with very much to do: just set off the big bang, then sit back and wait for everything to happen. The physical chemist Peter Atkins, in his beautifully written book The Creation, postulates a lazy God who strove to do as little as possible in order to initiate everything. Atkins explains how each step in the history of the universe followed, by simple physical law, from its predecessor. He thus pares down the amount of work that the lazy creator would need to do and eventually concludes that he would in fact have needed to do nothing at all!

Abre, much as I respect (and actively support) scientific thought and rationality, I do find your quasi-religious FAITH in science pretty amusing. Even science has had its awkward moments, like when Staphen Hawking finally realised (after three decades) that his theories were actually wrong. Science has as many schools of thought as faith has religions.

I have made the following argument before, It's relevant here so here's a cut down version;

Seriously, if anything actually created life and the universe (consciously), what are the chances of us successfully explaining its existence in terms of our (scientific) understanding of reality? A reality IT created?

Also, (and more importantly) science has only served to help us understand the mechanical workings of the universe as oppossed to proving or disproving the existence of a higher being; Maybe the proccess of evolution was intended... Think about it.

abre les ojos wrote:

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Yes science argues about the mechanics of the universe. Because they ARE mechanics.... Even thought Einstens E=MC2 is just theoretical, it opened a can of others thoeries. But this is theoretical, absract science.

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You misunderstood me. I meant mechanical as in perfuntory... unaware... unthinking...?

About theoretical physics, is it possible to talk about the origins of the universe without having to drift into the subject at some point? Every other field of science (biology, chemistry, and archeology in particular) is 100% incidental to it don't you think?

Ok, religious teachings (would dogma be a better word?) do have significant logical inadequacies. Can't argue about that.
Scientist generally don't (and shouldn't) profess to know "everything" but at least they make an effort to. Agreed.

Going by your logic, would it be fair to say that even you can't rule out the possible existence of a conscious 'creator'? Note, I'm not talking of a God in the context of a specified religion.

I still think science in its present form has too many inherent shortcomings for it to be useful in verifying a higher being. Using science that way is in my opinion like dissecting a chicken to find out who owns the farm. Wrong tool.

abre

this is why i say you contradict yourself on many occassions,how can you believe in something based on speculations,you definately know that scientists often speculate. and whats all this arguement, everything scientific is theoretical,without theory science is dead knowledge.

and science has more flaws than religion because if you cant prove anything you speculate,in religion information is passed on or based on retellings from generation to generation that makes it easy to authenticate.

game wrote:

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...in religion information is passed on or based on retellings from generation to generation...

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