Do you believe in God and why

[Lacessit]

1 hour ago, NotYourBusiness said:

Water, in it's pure form, has no smell, but it is possible they are detecting humidity or the impurities in groundwater. And as I already said, I don't think the Londoner could do it, as that would be a learned skill, honed since birth.

 

My friend says he detects water with his divining rod, and sometimes he has, so can I assume you believe him? 

 

Please get back on topic, and personal insults merely shows everyone your weakening position. DNA scientists agree that we are highly similar, much more so than any other species, and much more so than would be expected from an evolution hypothesis. Do you agree?

 

From The Smithsonian:

 

http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics

"People today look remarkably diverse on the outside. But how much of this diversity is genetically encoded? How deep are these differences between human groups? First, compared with many other mammalian species, humans are genetically far less diverse – a counterintuitive finding, given our large population and worldwide distribution. For example, the subspecies of the chimpanzee that lives just in central Africa, Pan troglodytes troglodytes, has higher levels of diversity than do humans globally, and the genetic differentiation between the western (P. t. verus) and central (P. t. troglodytes) subspecies of chimpanzees is much greater than that between human populations. "

 

Please take up your petty argument with them, not me thanks.

Your God didn't give you a sense of humor, evidently. It's a trait observed in many fanatics. Possibly it's a combination of smell and eyesight, as they are the most renowned trackers on the planet.

Nobody knows how divining rods work. Science may explain it one day. I doubt the Bible will.

There is no such thing as pure water outside a laboratory, and that takes specialised equipment even there.

Religious groups put a lot of effort into discounting evolution, as it is terribly inconvenient for them.

When you use the adjective "petty", are you not being personally insulting yourself?

[NotYourBusiness]

2 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Your God didn't give you a sense of humor, evidently. It's a trait observed in many fanatics. Possibly it's a combination of smell and eyesight, as they are the most renowned trackers on the planet.

There is no such thing as pure water outside a laboratory, and that takes specialised equipment even there.

Religious groups put a lot of effort into discounting evolution, as it is terribly inconvenient for them.

So glad we now in agreement that all humans are highly similar which agrees with the latest scientific research.

[transam]

Just now, NotYourBusiness said:

So glad we now in agreement that all humans are highly similar which agrees with the latest scientific research.

Oh no we ain't.......But wait....I agree we all stand upright, except Quasimodo...

[GarryP]

7 minutes ago, transam said:

Oh no we ain't.......But wait....I agree we all stand upright, except Quasimodo...

And he's just been made bloody homeless!!!!

[mauGR1]

43 minutes ago, NotYourBusiness said:

Certainly sir. A good example is the parable of the man born blind:

 

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him."

 

See? The world has been cruel to this man born blind, the obvious response would be that this was a work of Satan, yet Jesus didn't say that. He said "but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.".

 

Question: what the heck does that mean? Answer this question and you will understand the world.

Thanks, Jesus can sound controversial at times, but he's always thought provoking.

Now, i am tempted to try to explain the meaning of the parable, but in fact the parables themselves are maps of the spiritual worlds, which, for the joy of the atheist brigade, cannot be easily described with words.

Btw, i don't think that Jesus died, i'm inclined to think that he survived and with the help of his friends, went to some other, more peaceful place.

Somewhere in Kashmir, there are very old Christian places of pilgrimage, some are said to be about 2000 years old.

[marcusarelus]

6 hours ago, Grusa said:

So far as I can tell, most 12yos know practically nothing about anything, certainly compared to 50, 30, or even 20 years ago. 400years? Of course Pascal knew nothing about many of the things we now take for granted, but I am quite sure he knew more about the subject of this thread than any modern 12yo, and most modern adults.

The 12 year olds that I taught had a working knowledge relativity and celestial mechanics.  Most can write basic computer programs and solve problems that would have been impossible for a mathematician 50 years ago let alone 400 years ago.  On the subject of god most modern children don't believe such nonsense.   

[notmyself]

2 hours ago, Lacessit said:

Nobody knows how divining rods work. Science may explain it one day. I doubt the Bible will.

 

They don't work so the question of how they do is pointless.

[Lacessit]

1 minute ago, notmyself said:

 

They don't work so the question of how they do is pointless.

You may be right. There's anecdotal evidence some people can make them work. I've never seen it in person. Like belief in general.

[NotYourBusiness]

In the 60's and 70's the astronomer Carl Sagan announced that there were two important criteria for a planet to support life: The right kind of star, and a planet the right distance from that star. Given the roughly octillion—1 followed by 24 zeros—planets in the universe, there should have been about septillion—1 followed by 21 zeros—planets capable of supporting life.

With such spectacular odds, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, a large, expensive collection of private and publicly funded projects launched in the 1960s, was sure to turn up something soon. Scientists listened with a vast radio telescopic network for signals that resembled coded intelligence and were not merely random. But as years passed, the silence from the rest of the universe was deafening. Congress defunded SETI in 1993, but the search continues with private funds. As of 2014, researches have discovered precisely bubkis—0 followed by nothing.

What happened? As our knowledge of the universe increased, it became clear that there were far more factors necessary for life than Sagan supposed. His two parameters grew to 10 and then 20 and then 50, and so the number of potentially life-supporting planets decreased accordingly. The number dropped to a few thousand planets and kept on plummeting.

Even SETI proponents acknowledged the problem. Peter Schenkel wrote in a 2006 piece for Skeptical Inquirer magazine: “In light of new findings and insights, it seems appropriate to put excessive euphoria to rest . . . . We should quietly admit that the early estimates . . . may no longer be tenable.”

As factors continued to be discovered, the number of possible planets hit zero, and kept going. In other words, the odds turned against any planet in the universe supporting life, including this one. Probability said that even we shouldn’t be here.

Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life—every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart. Without a massive planet like Jupiter nearby, whose gravity will draw away asteroids, a thousand times as many would hit Earth’s surface. The odds against life in the universe are simply astonishing.

Yet here we are, not only existing, but talking about existing. What can account for it? Can every one of those many parameters have been perfect by accident? At what point is it fair to admit that science suggests that we cannot be the result of random forces? Doesn’t assuming that an intelligence created these perfect conditions require far less faith than believing that a life-sustaining Earth just happened to beat the inconceivable odds to come into being?

There’s more. The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces—gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces—were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000—then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp.

Multiply that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions, and the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all “just happened” defies common sense. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?

Fred Hoyle, the astronomer who coined the term “big bang,” said that his atheism was “greatly shaken” at these developments. He later wrote that “a common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology . . . . The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”

Theoretical physicist Paul Davies has said that “the appearance of design is overwhelming” and Oxford professor Dr. John Lennox has said “the more we get to know about our universe, the more the hypothesis that there is a Creator . . . gains in credibility as the best explanation of why we are here.”

The greatest miracle of all time, without any close seconds, is the universe. It is the miracle of all miracles, one that ineluctably points with the combined brightness of every star to something—or Someone—beyond itself. - Eric Metaxas

[Lacessit]

Nature works within ranges. I don't buy the concept of conditions that must be perfectly met. If that were the case, we would not have Eskimos and Africans. We also don't know if life has to be necessarily carbon-based. For all we know, there may be intelligent silicon crystals out there. Just because there are no signals, doesn't mean they are not there. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Be that as it may, and let's assume there is a being out there that created the universe. Who or what created that being? What vanity do the various religions have, to assume said being cares about our existence? After death, why is it assumed by said religions we will have an afterlife? For all we know, we will be tossed into a cosmic rubbish bin as a failed experiment. Perhaps artificial intelligence will be our only shot at immortality.

[Nyezhov]

6 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

For all we know, there may be intelligent silicon crystals out there.

I asked you not to say anything. You said, Sandy, dont worry, your secret is safe......

[DavisH]

No. 

This is the first part of Aron Ra's series. 

 

[notmyself]

8 minutes ago, DavisH said:

No. 

This is the first part of Aron Ra's series. 

 

 

Good series.

 

[Elad]

It's possible that life on earth originated somewhere else in the universe and landed here on the back of a comet. Carbon compounds and amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) are found on comets within our own solar system and earth has been struck by millions of comets in the past. 

 

Our star (the sun) and its system of celestial bodies takes 250 million years to orbit the centre of the Galaxy, as it travels around the centre it will be affected by the gravity of other stars systems as it gets closer to them, this gravitational pushing and pulling can fling comets from one solar system to another. 

 

I think the universe will be teaming with life and also intelligent life. We haven't made contact with any other beings because the distances our just too vast, even if we could travel at the speed of light it would take 100,000 years to travel across our Galaxy, and their are billions of galaxies.

 

As for making contact using radio, how do we know that intelligent life will be using radio to communicate, they might be using some form of radiation from the other 75% of the universe that's missing. There's a mysterious matter/energy that we think makes up most of the universe, cosmologists/physicists call it dark matter and dark energy, they know its there because of its gravitational effects but it doesn't interact with normal matter and doesn't omit light.

 

If anyone discovers this mysterious matter, not only will they win the Nobel prize, they will open a new branch in physics and maybe give us some answers the the biggest questions of all.           

[Lacessit]

5 hours ago, Nyezhov said:

I asked you not to say anything. You said, Sandy, dont worry, your secret is safe......

Well, you have a place called Silicon Valley. I suspect you are the bastard child of Steve Jobs and one of the first semi-conductors.

[Odysseus123]

12 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Well, you have a place called Silicon Valley. I suspect you are the bastard child of Steve Jobs and one of the first semi-conductors.

Or possibly a Nexus-6 replicant hiding in plain sight on TVF?

 

On the quite logical notion that no-one will ever spot him amongst the clutter and that Deckard is obsessed with posting on the "I wanna live in South America" thread and has no time for blade running at the moment.

[notmyself]

11 hours ago, NotYourBusiness said:

There’s more. The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces—gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces—were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000—then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp.

Multiply that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions, and the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all “just happened” defies common sense. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?

 

The fine tuning argument isn't really used much outside of Bible literalists and the type of people who believe the moon landings were faked and such like. One of the main reasons this line of argument has fallen away is simply because of lack of data as we only know of one universe and perhaps it could only be as it is. The honest answer is that we don't know and those who say they do know are either lying or ignorant of basic logic. 

 

Unrelated to your post......

 

9 hours ago, Lacessit said:

Be that as it may, and let's assume there is a being out there that created the universe. Who or what created that being?

 

Infinite regress solved (?) by stating that the particular flavour of god has always existed. Follow this path and you end up with the cosmological argument which among many things is an argument from ignorance... therefor [a] god did it.

 

9 hours ago, Lacessit said:

What vanity do the various religions have, to assume said being cares about our existence? After death, why is it assumed by said religions we will have an afterlife? For all we know, we will be tossed into a cosmic rubbish bin as a failed experiment.

 

For people it's fear of death and not understanding, or perhaps accepting, what 'not being' means. It brings comfort, to some, to think they will see the person or even dog they loved and miss once more and that they are in a better place in the meantime. Sigmund Freud wrote about it in his book 'The future of an illusion' in 1927 but it was known long long before then.

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_an_Illusion

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument

 

 

[BritManToo]

I came to the conclusion, it doesn't matter.

If god exists he clearly ain't my friend and I'd have to say 'to hell with him'.

[puukao]

How is this even an important question?

 

if i die and become a "soul"....well, that seems rather pointless.  i want my body and i want to be mortal.  if there is a God, then there is some dumb hierarchy.  I'm not good with having a boss!!!  i joke, but i'm serious.  i'm not listening to anyone. 

 

sickest part is all the rapes by the priests, all the murder by all the religions, from China to the ME to everywhere....really disgusting.  

 

and all the rich idiots in church who are literally the worst humans 

[Lacessit]

Religion is like the curate's egg - good and bad in parts. When one looks at some of the structures that have been built in the name of whatever god, or listens to the music created by the world's greatest composers, it can be awe-inspiring. However, then one has the pedophilia, Spanish Inquisition, terrorism in the name of Allah etc. Good and evil is as much a part of religion as it is of humans themselves.

[notmyself]

13 minutes ago, puukao said:

How is this even an important question?

 

if i die and become a "soul"....well, that seems rather pointless.  i want my body and i want to be mortal.  if there is a God, then there is some dumb hierarchy.  I'm not good with having a boss!!!  i joke, but i'm serious.  i'm not listening to anyone. 

 

sickest part is all the rapes by the priests, all the murder by all the religions, from China to the ME to everywhere....really disgusting.  

 

and all the rich idiots in church who are literally the worst humans 

 

There you have it.

[Lacessit]

4 hours ago, Odysseus123 said:

Or possibly a Nexus-6 replicant hiding in plain sight on TVF?

 

On the quite logical notion that no-one will ever spot him amongst the clutter and that Deckard is obsessed with posting on the "I wanna live in South America" thread and has no time for blade running at the moment.

If he is a replicant, I think he'd be spending most of his time chasing Pris and Rachael. Can't say I'd blame him.

Interesting the first thing religions try to do is assert control over human sexuality in various ways, from celibacy to polygamy.

[notmyself]

5 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Religion is like the curate's egg - good and bad in parts. When one looks at some of the structures that have been built in the name of whatever god, or listens to the music created by the world's greatest composers, it can be awe-inspiring. However, then one has the pedophilia, Spanish Inquisition, terrorism in the name of Allah etc. Good and evil is as much a part of religion as it is of humans themselves.

 

To adhere with TV T&Cs I have quote you fully above.

 

Religion is like the curate's egg - good and bad in parts. When one looks at some of the structures that have been built in the name of whatever god, or listens to the music created by the world's greatest composers, it can be awe-inspiring. However, then one has the pedophilia, Spanish Inquisition, terrorism

in the name of as a result of Allah etc. Good and evil is as much a part of religion as it is of humans themselves.

 

That changes everything.

 

 

 

[Lacessit]

1 minute ago, notmyself said:

 

To adhere with TV T&Cs I have quote you fully above.

 

 

 

 

That changes everything.

 

1 minute ago, notmyself said:

 

 

 

Yes it does; however, moderate Muslims would disagree with you. While they believe Islam will eventually take over the planet, they don't believe in achieving it by violence.

The Surahs of the Koran are subject to interpretation. The hadith of the prophets and scholars down through the centuries even more so. That fuels the extremists.

We've seen on this thread one poster claiming those who don't believe in the Bible and Jesus will burn in hell. It's a short step from that belief to developing a desire to hasten our journey.

[notmyself]

3 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

 

Yes it does; however, moderate Muslims would disagree with you. While they believe Islam will eventually take over the planet, they don't believe in achieving it by violence.

 

What I wrote was not against a people nor specifically Islam but what does moderate mean (fallacy of numbers) and what does radical mean? Recipe says roast a chicken at 20 ins. per lb plus 20 minutes but you leave it unstuffed, wrapped in foil and throw it in a fire for 30 minutes total. Who is the radical chef? Creationists, ISIS and such are crazy ********c***s but they are at least doing what it says on the tin. 

[jerojero]

Nope. And neither do 25% of Americans according to a recent legitimate poll.

[Lacessit]

2 hours ago, notmyself said:

 

What I wrote was not against a people nor specifically Islam but what does moderate mean (fallacy of numbers) and what does radical mean? Recipe says roast a chicken at 20 ins. per lb plus 20 minutes but you leave it unstuffed, wrapped in foil and throw it in a fire for 30 minutes total. Who is the radical chef? Creationists, ISIS and such are crazy ********c***s but they are at least doing what it says on the tin. 

Moderate means they don't twist the surahs and hadiths to suit their agendas. I completely fail to understand your analogy of roasting chickens, but that's OK. If I understood every thing posted on TV, then I would be God.

[GarryP]

12 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Moderate means they don't twist the surahs and hadiths to suit their agendas. I completely fail to understand your analogy of roasting chickens, but that's OK. If I understood every thing posted on TV, then I would be God.

I think he was talking about the Roast Chicken God. Some people idolize weird shit! 

[Nyezhov]

3 hours ago, BritManToo said:

I came to the conclusion, it doesn't matter.

If god exists he clearly ain't my friend and I'd have to say 'to hell with him'.

You dont have any friends anyway.

 

Me, I like to think that any God stupid enough to create man isnt worth a stick of incense and a bottle of Fanta besides.

[transam]

6 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

You dont have any friends anyway.

 

Me, I like to think that any God stupid enough to create man isnt worth a stick of incense and a bottle of Fanta besides.

I think Mosquitoes....????