Does man have free will or just an ultimatum? I'm Catholic, but I find questioning Religion more helpful than just accepting it. It's not the destination, but the journey. I like questioning, it provides answers. One thing I can't stand is the answer a lot of parents give their kids, because I said so. I hate that answer. Explain why so they can understand. If anyone asks me why, I try and answer their question to the best of my ability. So in this forum I provided a question, and I recieved multiple answers. Thank you for taking the time to explain what you believe. ivy, as for your question about seeing over believing of the devine, I believe it is because of science. Science is something we can see and understand, but the devine works in the opposite manner. Everything has an opposite, religions is science.
Well put Gunslinger. Those who merely believe but never question arn't doing everything they should for their religion. I listen to my parents and my preacher but I'm always careful to examine the bible (The final word on any Christian matter) and find the answers for myself (Simply hearing what others say and accepting it is not beliving, is blind obedience).
No, we had a religeon thread ages back. Ended up getting locked because it started getting heated. It was unlocked but then it didn't even get that many posts in it after that. I'm not sure if it got locked again. But we did have one. Just a different title. Someone asked opinions of our relegions because they were curious in finding somethign for themselves. So yeah, trust me, This thread gets heated? It's going to get locked but that's the same with all the other threads.
Man does not have free will in the scope of all things. To his own consciousness, though, man appears to have free will. It's an odd scenario, but basically everything we do is predetermined by all the things that have happened before. We inevitably arrive at this moment and do what we are doing now because of the trillions of things that have happened in the space of time between the beginning of the universe and now. The practical fact of the matter is, though, that we do have free will in our perception. There may be no chance in the universe, but for us there is; it is because we cannot see cause-and-effect outside of the sphere of our perception. Our perception is all we have of the world, and thus we must live with what it gives us or risk utter meaninglessness.
Better keep the flames low... I like this thread. Its probably the tamest religious discussion I've ever seen.
I have talked to many people who have said, "Well, I've studied science, and there are just some questions that science can't answer." I have yet to be presented with a satisfactory example. (One of these people actually tried to tell me that if humans have been around for longer than the Bible says, that there would be at least one person for every square inch of the Earth, including the ocean floor. ) Also, we know that there is a lot we have yet to discover about our planet and our universe. The absence of information doesn't necessarily imply the presence of anything supernatural. It just means that we have a lot to learn. Look at how far science has come in the past couple centuries. It's not stopping here.
I personally find the exact method through which god created existence irrelevant. He made it in my mind and thats really all I need. For an example I would sight Macroevolution. Most fossils are incomplete and what peices they have are put together from multiple locations (A femer from here and skull from there you get the point). There is also no way to see the actual chang eover time because there aren't enough fossiles (You can't collect the bones and see a Velociraptor become a bird. You have a velociraptor and then something that is not a velociraptor but is a bit like a bird and is similare to a velociraptor). There is great evidence of Microevolution but with numerous holes in the chain of the fossil record macroevolution is easily refuted.
Isn't it interesting that, when it comes to this issue (which is supposed to be about science, which is supposed to be objective) what's a satisfactory explanation to one person isn't going to cut it for the next person? For instance, the Big Bang Theory, which is a cut-and-dried issue for many people--including better scientific minds than my own-- has holes in it that I, personally, cannot accept. Maybe this is why different people--equally intelligent and informed people--can study the same matter and come to different conclusions about it? Right on all counts. The absence of information in no way implies the presence of the supernatural. That's not science or faith: that's superstition. And look how far science has come: past the geocentric view of the solar system; past the theory that the world is flat; past belief in spontaneous combustion... Who knows what we'll discover next?
When people say that the universe is too complicated or too perfect or too something to have happened naturally I always have one question. If a perfect or at least working universe can't appear naturally, how can a perfect, all powerful entity appear out of nothing? I'm not trying to be insulting, this is just the basis of much of my belief that there is no God.
I not religious persay. Ive not been christened, my family calls me Spawn of Satan, so I dont technically have a religion. Howver, I do think there is a great spirit, maybe a God and I dont doubt that Jesus and the other Prophets wernt special but I dont think Jesus was anything other than a human. If he was a human, his message would be more relevant I think, but thats just me!!!!
I still rekon that there is something out there, waaay bigger than us laughing it's head off as he watches us trying to work out who is the 'real' God or being.
That's sort of flawed logic though, because here we have the natural plane of existence. Where God hangs is the super natural plane, where nothing is the same. There are no Newtons law, there are no atoms and quarks and what not. It's all supposed to be completely different, completely unexplainable. And let's face it, there's no way any human could ever expect to explain God.
yup!... just go read the OT and you'll see how much of a 'loving' whatever man's self-fashioned god is supposed to be... here are just a few examples, taken from the intro to an essay of mine, titled, "(THE NAZIS,) THE JEWS, PALESTINE & ISRAEL '...as ye sow, so shall ye reap'": nice, huh?... now try to tell me a god who'd issue those orders could possibly be a 'loving' or a 'good' one!... and keep in mind that this bloodthirsty egomaniac happens to be the father of the guy christians like to think of as a 'savior'... saving who from what?... everybody from his own daddy?... but even if so, christ is still seen as being a loving and obedient son, right?... i rest my case... here's a link to the whole piece, in case anyone wants to read the rest: Says Mom - Writing Content love and hugs, maia [confirmed atheist-leaning agnostic]
Someone said before you have to see each one of those stories in context. It's like when someone quotes a sentence someone else said, which by it self might be totally self-incriminating, but with the whole picture isn't. Can't say I'm familiar with the Old Testament, which is where you seem to be getting these stories (they don't occur in the new, bar Revelation). Christ was a loving and obedient son. He never hurt anyone who didn't deserve it, and did exactly as his father said. What's wrong with that? What was he saving us from? Sin, supposedly. For some reason he had to be crucified in order to be able to come back once more and judge the living and the dead. Whether or not all this is true is hard to say. I believe in God, and Jesus and all that sort of thing, but even I find some of the stuff hard to swallow. I find it harder to swallow again that a bunch of gasses just chilling up in space exploded to form everything we know (and don't know) with out some sort of divine intervention.
Just keep in mind that religious documents such as the bibles are interpretations of the message by fallible humans, with their own agendas, and that there are also translators who may further have muddied the message. Just look at the range of interpretations of jihad, that range from inner spiritual cleansing to outright genocide. The outward message may be quite separate from the "original" intent.
uh-huh!... which is why i can't see why anyone would believe that the 'word of god' they choose to follow can actually be such, when it's clearly only the 'word of man' who wanted to think [or pretend] some god or other was speaking to/through him...
Indeed Cogito. The word Jihad means "To fight" but for a long time was only believed to refer to the inner battle against sin. Low and behold the Crusades come charging in and someone turns it into something completely different. By the way Maia, Deutoronemy 3:3-7 indeed says that but look at the verses just before it: "Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan; and Og, King of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei. And the lord said to me, Do not fear him, for I have delivered him and all his people into your hand; you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of Amorites, who dealt in Heshbon." Deuteronomy 3:1-2. The key aspect of much of the Israelite journy into the land that would become Israel was that they were ironically walking around and everyone already in the area attacked them. In the above verse the king of the area brought all his people out to fight. You don't send everyone to battle and not expect them to get killed (Especially in that day and age). A key aspect of the bible is also that the lord says there is a time for war. I note that you reference Nazi's in your above post. Tell me it wasn't worth going to war to bring Hitler down? As for the other verses, I will point out there are no parathetical insertions in the bible. Its also key to remeber that the first half of Deuteronomy inparticular is barely a book of theology at all but rather a book of history. The Israelites, being very religious, no doubt mixed their religion into recording it and as such added it to the Torah. An example of how the people who follow a religion don't always do what their religion demands. Its also key to note that for over 1000 years the only people with access to the Torah where the priests, and as made clear in the New Testement it seems rather clear that these priests weren't exactly the pinicale of their caste. Its already been nearly proven that several verses in the New Testement were fabricated and added to the books after their original writing, I wouldn't be surprised if certain Jewish priests did the same.
Frost - "I find it harder to swallow again that a bunch of gasses just chilling up in space exploded to form everything we know (and don't know) with out some sort of divine intervention." Think about this - A tiny sperm swims and finds an egg, implants itself and creates life. In the same context that must also be hard to swallow. No one questions it, but is it not called the MIRACLE of LIFE? Just food for thought.
loh... i don't 'reference nazis' in my post.. i do reference a title of one of my essays that includes that word... and i'm not going to answer such a facetious, spoiling-for-a-fight type of question... as for parentheticals, did you really need to be told that those are my additions, inserted for clarification?... that's a common reason for using parentheses, after all... sorry i didn't add a note to that effect, to save you the confusion...
I apologize maia. I was not attempting to start a fight. I did take it that you were referencing Nazi's when I read over the paper and probably should have clarified that (It was long and it was late so I didn't read the whole thing). Yes I know the insertions were for clarification but adding them is a good example of how verses can be turned into saying what they want (I will conced I did not check the other verses for that fact and probably should have looked it up before posting). Like I said it was late and I get cranky...
So...okay. I don't understand how you religious folk can explain your belief in God by citing holes in scientific theory, yet when questioned on the nature of God, respond with "God cannot be explained." Seems a bit counterproductive to me.
