Do you believe in God and why

[canuckamuck]

5 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

I believe @AsianAtHeart talked about a time on earth without sin where animals would not kill each other and even lions would only eat grass.

That was before the fall of man, and then after there is a new heaven and a new earth. Different eras, different situations.

Sinlessness is the ideal, but not possible for man alone.

Edited January 2, 2020 by canuckamuck

[AsianAtHeart]

1 hour ago, VincentRJ said:

 

 

 

I don't see any conflict regarding the 'methodology of science', in the above quote. Scientists are human like the rest of us, and subject to bias, and influenced by fame and greed, or simply the emotional need to keep their job to support their family, which sometimes involves keeping quiet about certain doubts about certain research results.

 

The flaws mentioned in the above quote were not flaws in the 'Methodology of Science' but flaws in the application of that methodology. The flaws were revealed by applying the true methodology of science. When the subject is very complex with a multitude of interacting forces, such as Psychology, certain aspects of Biology, Economics, and so on, it's more difficult to achieve a degree of certainty, and the repeated experimentation required to achieve certainty are often too expensive, cannot be funded, and/or take too long.

 

The true causes of Climate Change is an excellent example of such complexity which makes certainty impossible. We know that climate is always changing due to natural causes. It's reasonable to deduce that mankind's activities in total are having some effect on climate, but it's impossible to accurately quantify the proportion which is due to natural causes, the proportion which is due to deforestation, the proportion which is due to significant urbanization and the building of massive cities and black-tar roads, and the proportion which is due to CO2 emissions, and so on.

Perhaps you would like to understand the mathematical reasons for why so much of the research is flawed.  Here's the explanation, from the same article on "Scientific Regress" that I quoted earlier.
 

Quote

 

First articulated by John Ioannidis, a professor at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, this argument proceeds by a simple application of Bayesian statistics. Suppose that there are a hundred and one stones in a certain field. One of them has a diamond inside it, and, luckily, you have a diamond detecting device that advertises 99 percent accuracy. After an hour or so of moving the device around, examining each stone in turn, suddenly alarms flash and sirens wail while the device is pointed at a promising-looking stone. What is the probability that the stone contains a diamond?

Most would say that if the device advertises 99 percent accuracy, then there is a 99 percent chance that the device is correctly discerning a diamond, and a 1 percent chance that it has given a false positive reading. But consider: Of the one hundred and one stones in the field, only one is truly a diamond. Granted, our machine has a very high probability of correctly declaring it to be a diamond. But there are many more diamond-free stones, and while the machine only has a 1 percent chance of falsely declaring each of them to be a diamond, there are a hundred of them. So if we were to wave the detector over every stone in the field, it would, on average, sound twice—once for the real diamond, and once when a false reading was triggered by a stone. If we know only that the alarm has sounded, these two possibilities are roughly equally probable, giving us an approximately 50 percent chance that the stone really contains a diamond.

 

Now, for a simple thought experiment here, how many studies presume they will reach a proper conclusion with 99% accuracy?  Suppose that, instead, we increase their margin of error by even a few percent--how will this affect the final probabilities of an accurate result?

[Sunmaster]

1 hour ago, canuckamuck said:

That was before the fall of man, and then after there is a new heaven and a new earth. Different eras, different situations.

Sinlessness is the ideal, but not possible for man alone.

So, there was a state of sinlessness in the distant past, and another one prophesied for the new earth and new heaven. Both are mentioned in the bible, right?

[AsianAtHeart]

22 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

So, there was a state of sinlessness in the distant past, and another one prophesied for the new earth and new heaven. Both are mentioned in the bible, right?

Yes, that is correct.

 

The Bible actually specifies two times in the past when a state of sinlessness existed: The first is specific to heaven, the second to earth.  Sin began in heaven.  It later spread to earth.  But when the sin experiment is ended, it will no longer exist anywhere--both heaven and earth will be sin-free again.  Proverbs 2:21-22 speaks of the time when sinners will be removed: "For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it.  But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it."

[canuckamuck]

30 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

So, there was a state of sinlessness in the distant past, and another one prophesied for the new earth and new heaven. Both are mentioned in the bible, right?

Yes 

[mauGR1]

According to various Hindu holy books, we are living now in the Kali-Yuga (era of destruction).

Its beginning is calculated around 5000 years ago, its end is debated.

Some interesting prophecies :

 

Religion, truthfulness, cleanliness, tolerance, mercy, duration of life, physical strength and memory will all diminish day by day because of the powerful influence of the age of Kali.

 

In Kali Yuga, wealth alone will be considered the sign of a man's good birth, proper behaviour and fine qualities. And law and justice will be applied only on the basis of one's power.

 

Men and women will live together merely because of superficial attraction, and success in business will depend on deceit. Womanliness and manliness will be judged according to one's expertise in sex, and a man will be known as a brahmana just by his wearing a thread.

 

The citizens will suffer greatly from cold, wind, heat, rain and snow. They will be further tormented by quarrels, hunger, thirst, disease and severe anxiety. 

 

There are other prophecies, i just copied and pasted a few.

[Tagged]

6 hours ago, AsianAtHeart said:

Just be careful what you think "science" is and is based on.

(That was published in 2016, by William A. Wilson in an article titled "Scientific Regress.")

Could please post sourches where you find your articles? I found your article posted on this magazine

 

https://www.firstthings.com/about

 

 

Article 

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/05/scientific-regress

 

[AsianAtHeart]

10 minutes ago, Tagged said:

Could please post sourches where you find your articles? I found your article posted on this magazine

 

https://www.firstthings.com/about

 

 

Article 

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/05/scientific-regress

 

It looks like you found it already.  I had it on my computer as a PDF, and didn't take the time to find its online origin.  It's a good article--worth a read.

[Tagged]

4 minutes ago, AsianAtHeart said:

It looks like you found it already.  I had it on my computer as a PDF, and didn't take the time to find its online origin.  It's a good article--worth a read.

You are not sceptical to researchers and sourches that is religious based, and only written to please their own view? 

 

I feel everywhere you go today, it has to serve something for the better of surten view from a company, political or religion, and thats where we step wrong, and are mislead. 

 

The world have always been extreme, and for surten no less ectreme today. 

 

 

[canuckamuck]

26 minutes ago, Tagged said:

You are not sceptical to researchers and sourches that is religious based, and only written to please their own view? 

 

I feel everywhere you go today, it has to serve something for the better of surten view from a company, political or religion, and thats where we step wrong, and are mislead. 

 

The world have always been extreme, and for surten no less ectreme today. 

 

 

That's all there is anymore, very difficult to find a source that others would define as neutral.

For example a Christian group is unable to provide any information, without humanists claiming it is biased, and vice versa.

Mainstream media sources are clearly biased these day, as are scientific societies. You have to make up your own mind what the truth is.

[Tagged]

3 minutes ago, canuckamuck said:

That's all there is anymore, very difficult to find a source that others would define as neutral.

For example a Christian group is unable to provide any information, without humanists claiming it is biased, and vice versa.

Mainstream media sources are clearly biased these day, as are scientific societies. You have to make up your own mind what the truth is.

And chaos interupt

[AsianAtHeart]

48 minutes ago, Tagged said:

You are not sceptical to researchers and sourches that is religious based, and only written to please their own view? 

 

I feel everywhere you go today, it has to serve something for the better of surten view from a company, political or religion, and thats where we step wrong, and are mislead. 

 

The world have always been extreme, and for surten no less ectreme today.

I have become a pretty skeptical academic when it comes to published scientific research.  First of all, I have learned exactly how the peer-review system works, and it doesn't function as most people would expect.  Further, magazines do not wish to publish non-stories of "we tried to find a correlation between A and B, but our results were not statistically significant."  Everyone wants to publish something a bit more tantalizing and sensational than that.  This means a lot of true science never sees the light of day.

 

It is true, for example, that medical research may be done by firms with no direct relationship to the pharmaceutical company hiring them (other than, of course, the fact that they are being hired), and it may even be true that they are neutral and unbiased in doing their research.  But after it is done, the results are turned over to the company, and they are only published at the company's discretion.  If, say, ten separate studies are funded, and only one finds a positive result, that is the only one that will be published.  Does this seem like unbiased science?  Even if we presume that the one positive study was conducted according to sound scientific methodologies, the fact that none of the other studies get published means that researchers and/or the public are left uninformed about the less convenient truths that were found as well.

 

A few years ago, The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), a peer-reviewed medical journal, published an article about hair-mineral analysis techniques.  The study authors used a single subject for the study, a woman with exceptionally long hair.  They cut her hair and sent samples from it to many different labs for testing.  Surprise, surprise (not!), they found highly variable results from each lab, and the entire article therefore would lead readers to believe that HMA-testing is unreliable and unsound medical practice.  But, since they did not carefully detail their methodology in handling their hair samples, they leave many questions in my mind.  First, do the authors of that article know how much the hair will change over time?  Hair nearest the scalp will have had less exposure to environmental influences, ranging from automobile exhaust and cigarette smoke to the shampoo or hair dye used to treat the hair.  Furthermore, the body's chemistry changes over time, and this is reflected in the hair composition.  So, did the researchers ensure that the hair samples sent to each lab were homogenized in some way?  If so, how? (They didn't mention anything about this in their article.)  Secondly, do the researchers suppose that a single subject is enough to prove statistical relevance?  Clearly, these researchers were either too ignorant to use correct methodologies--even if they thought they were doing everything correctly, or they were too biased to want to.  And that is the sad state of most "science" today--it is biased per the researchers' expectations.

 

[Slaps]

9 hours ago, geronimo said:

My god!!! Is this thread still going?

 

In an effort to put it to bed once and for all ...

 

THERE IS NO GOD    WHY?  BECAUSE I SAID SO !!!!

 

 

..

..

Edited January 2, 2020 by Slaps

[VincentRJ]

9 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

When someone says that "science" has "proven" that God does not exist, they are speaking BS.

Of course. I've never heard anyone claim that the non-existence of some sort of 'Intelligent Designer' in this vast universe has been scientifically proved.

 

In order to prove the non-existence of something, one has to be aware of the precise characteristics and properties of the thing one is searching for, and one has to define the space or area within which the thing is claimed to exist.
For example, I can prove that there is no elephant currently in my room, because I'm aware of the characteristics of an elephant, and my room is too small for an elephant to hide.

 

The universe, on the other hand, is enormous. We can only speculate on what might exist in areas we have no hope of ever reaching.
For example, the furthest galaxy from our planet Earth, that we have so far detected, is Galaxy MACS0647-JD, which obviously appears very young because it is estimated to have formed about 420 million years after the 'Big Bang'.

 

It's also estimated to be around 13.3 billion light years from Earth, which means we are currently observing the galaxy as it was 13.3 billion years ago. If that galaxy exploded, or contracted to a 'Black Hole' during the present time on Earth, we would not be able to observe or detect such an explosion for another 13.3 billion years, because that's how long it takes the light to reach us.

 

When we look at the stars in the sky at night, we're looking at very ancient history.

 

The tools required to confirm or deny the existence of God do not even exist, and probably never will. It is foolish to think that humanity is advanced enough to even attempt such a task.

 

Very true. It's therefore equally foolish to believe in a God whose existence can be neither proved not disproved.

 

Humans in cosmic terms are only just out of the cave- can't cure cancer, can't cure hatred, can't stop pollution, can't make people content, can't even restrict birth rate to the ability of the environment to sustain. A primitive species indeed.

 

Definitely not true. We have developed the methods do all those things you've mentioned. The reason they are often not done is because so many people choose not to bother, either because they have other priorities, or lack the will-power and self-control to implement the known, effective procedures.

 

For example, losing weight when one is obese, is a no-brainer. One should simply eat less, eat a healthy diet, and exercise more. It's guaranteed to work. If one hasn't the will-power to eat less, that's another problem relating to the individual rather than the scientific procedure of eating less.
 

[yodsak]

On 1/1/2020 at 10:48 AM, AsianAtHeart said:

When you can explain to me why a living snail looks to be thousands of years old, then, perhaps, I will be ready to hear your explanation as to how you can know, without doubt, that those mountains are 60 million years old.

 

 

[VincentRJ]

9 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

Are you saying that we're all slaves of this evolutionary imperative of survival and expansion, and that only the most conscious and strict Buddhist monk can overcome these instincts and preserve life?
 

To some degree and in different ways, yes. But even a strict Buddhist monk cannot completely escape from some degree of complicity with these so-called 'sinful' acts which are embedded in the structure and processes of nature and life, because the monk has to eat in order to survive and he does not have control over the processes by which the food was created.
A monk is even allowed to eat meat, provided he is not aware that the animal, say a chicken, was killed specifically to feed him. How would a monk know whether the chicken, which was the source of the meat placed in his bowl, had been deliberately slaughtered in order to feed him?

 

I do agree that these urges can be found in all of nature, including us. However, I don't think you need to become a monk to make conscious decision to preserve life. Many do already. They become vegetarians, vegans, pescetarians, fruitarians.... Even if you still like to eat meat (I do), you can make the conscious decision to eat less of it.

 

Very true! One can choose a vegetarian diet to reduce one's complicity in the 'sinful' slaughter of animals. But it's not just the production of meat that involves killing. The entire industrial process in the modern era involves some degree of destruction and poisoning of the environment with consequent loss of life, and even extinction of certain species.

 

There are teachings one can find in both Buddhism and Christianity which point the way to a more cohesive and harmonious society where people can try to empathetically understand their enemies, love their neighbours, and refrain from doing unnecessary harm to other living creatures.

 

To some extent we have progressed towards that ideal situation, in certain countries, such as Australia and New Zealand. But the world as a whole seems to be in a bit of a mess, with some areas at the opposite extreme of the best religious teachings, that is, immersed in totally mad and insane conflict, the epitome of evil and sin.
 

[Sunmaster]

15 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

 

There are teachings one can find in both Buddhism and Christianity which point the way to a more cohesive and harmonious society where people can try to empathetically understand their enemies, love their neighbours, and refrain from doing unnecessary harm to other living creatures.

 

To some extent we have progressed towards that ideal situation, in certain countries, such as Australia and New Zealand. But the world as a whole seems to be in a bit of a mess, with some areas at the opposite extreme of the best religious teachings, that is, immersed in totally mad and insane conflict, the epitome of evil and sin.

I believe that eating meat is not a sin. If we want to find the sin, it's in how we treat the animals and nature in general. That said, I also believe that not eating meat would be better not only for the environment but our body too, especially nowadays where they pump the animals full of hormones and chemicals. After my close encounter with Kundalini I stopped eating meat for 7 years, but then started again. Fried chicken wings were the cause for my fall from paradise. ????

I'm working on it.

 

Regarding the state of the world in general, I feel optimistic. Like @mauGR1 pointed out, the Kali Yuga has influenced the history of the past 1000+ years. Personally, I think it has ended and we are already in the next yuga (Dvapara Yuga), a time for scientific progress, communication, an age of energy.
But regardless of these Hindu time frames, I believe this is the direction we're going.

 

 

[VincentRJ]

9 hours ago, AsianAtHeart said:

Perhaps you would like to understand the mathematical reasons for why so much of the research is flawed.  Here's the explanation, from the same article on "Scientific Regress" that I quoted earlier.
 

Most would say that if the device advertises 99 percent accuracy, then there is a 99 percent chance that the device is correctly discerning a diamond, and a 1 percent chance that it has given a false positive reading. But consider: Of the one hundred and one stones in the field, only one is truly a diamond. Granted, our machine has a very high probability of correctly declaring it to be a diamond. But there are many more diamond-free stones, and while the machine only has a 1 percent chance of falsely declaring each of them to be a diamond, there are a hundred of them. So if we were to wave the detector over every stone in the field, it would, on average, sound twice—once for the real diamond, and once when a false reading was triggered by a stone. If we know only that the alarm has sounded, these two possibilities are roughly equally probable, giving us an approximately 50 percent chance that the stone really contains a diamond.

 

On the other hand, if all hundred stones contained a diamond, then the device with 99% accuracy would show a detection of 99 diamonds. Not too bad. ????

[VincentRJ]

31 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

I believe that eating meat is not a sin. If we want to find the sin, it's in how we treat the animals and nature in general.

Okay! So let's consider the situation of farm-bred cows.  Like humans, cows only produce milk after they have given birth, and dairy cows must give birth to one calf per year in order to continue producing milk. 

 

Would you consider it sinful to remove the new-born baby of a human mother every year, in order to use her milk for other purposes? Animals do have feelings. They sometimes fight to the death to protect their offspring.
 

[Sunmaster]

3 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

Would you consider it sinful to remove the new-born baby of a human mother every year, in order to use her milk for other purposes? Animals do have feelings. They sometimes fight to the death to protect their offspring.

I wouldn't use the word "sin" for sure, but yes, I would consider it wrong for both the cow or for the human mother, obviously.

[VincentRJ]

10 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

I wouldn't use the word "sin" for sure, but yes, I would consider it wrong for both the cow or for the human mother, obviously.

Such words as 'sin', or 'evil', or 'right' and 'wrong', are rarely 'either/or' concepts but cover a spectrum like the readings on a thermometer from very cold to very hot.

 

The issue is not just the separation of the calves from their mother, usually within 24 hours of their birth, but what happens to those calves. Some of the female calves will usually be kept by the dairy farm for future milk production. The male calves will often be sold to other meat-producing farms, or often just slaughtered during the first week of their life.

 

"Cows — whether raised for meat or dairy — develop strong bonds with their newborn calves. Like humans, mother cows carry their unborn young for nine months. However, dairy calves are taken away from their mothers within 24 hours of birth, causing severe distress to mother and calf. Grieving mother cows can be heard bellowing (sometimes for days) for their missing young."
https://www.animalsaustralia.org/issues/dairy.php

 

"Unwanted male calves (known as 'bobby calves') are sent to slaughter in their first week of life so that their mothers' milk can be harvested for human consumption.
The number of male calves being killed straight after birth is on the rise again, despite efforts by the dairy industry to end the practice known as ‘the dirty secret’.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/26/dairy-dirty-secret-its-still-cheaper-to-kill-male-calves-than-to-rear-them

[ThaiBunny]

11 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

Would you consider it sinful to remove the new-born baby of a human mother every year, in order to use her milk for other purposes? Animals do have feelings. They sometimes fight to the death to protect their offspring.

Apparently carrots shriek when they're pulled from the soil

[Skeptic7]

Been a vegan for 29.5 years for strictly ethical reasons. My only regret is that it wasn't sooner! 

[VincentRJ]

24 minutes ago, Skeptic7 said:

Been a vegan for 29.5 years for strictly ethical reasons. My only regret is that it wasn't sooner! 

Well done! It looks like you are destined to arrive in Heaven for your good behaviour. ????

[AsianAtHeart]

56 minutes ago, Skeptic7 said:

Been a vegan for 29.5 years for strictly ethical reasons. My only regret is that it wasn't sooner! 

I've been a vegetarian my entire life; as were my parents and both sets of grandparents.  However, it was not for ethical reasons, but rather for health reasons.  When we take care of our bodies, we honor our Creator.  Furthermore, it is much easier to choose to do right when we are in good health and have a clear mind.

[Skeptic7]

1 hour ago, AsianAtHeart said:

I've been a vegetarian my entire life; as were my parents and both sets of grandparents.  However, it was not for ethical reasons, but rather for health reasons.  When we take care of our bodies, we honor our Creator.  Furthermore, it is much easier to choose to do right when we are in good health and have a clear mind.

I need a drink! ???? 

[Sunmaster]

I need a Schweinshaxe! ????

Edited January 3, 2020 by Sunmaster

[mauGR1]

3 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

3 hours ago, Skeptic7 said:

Been a vegan for 29.5 years for strictly ethical reasons. My only regret is that it wasn't sooner! 

Well done! It looks like you are destined to arrive in Heaven for your good behaviour. 

Vegetarian since 42 years, for every good reason.. It would be funny to meet @Skeptic7 in Paradise...

He would be probably be seen cursing God and denying its existence in the same time.

[VincentRJ]

21 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Vegetarian since 42 years, for every good reason.. It would be funny to meet @Skeptic7 in Paradise...

He would be probably be seen cursing God and denying its existence in the same time.

More probably he would be questioning Him about His deeply flawed creation of life on Earth, as I would. Why does life for all creatures appear to have so much suffering, even for those humans who firmly believe in the existence of God, and perhaps even more so for many of those who believe in God. due to religious conflicts?

[VincentRJ]

3 hours ago, AsianAtHeart said:

I've been a vegetarian my entire life; as were my parents and both sets of grandparents.  However, it was not for ethical reasons, but rather for health reasons.  When we take care of our bodies, we honor our Creator.  Furthermore, it is much easier to choose to do right when we are in good health and have a clear mind.

That's actually a good point, despite coming from a God believer. See how unbiased I am? ????

 

A healthy diet, consisting of wholesome foods such as brown rice, wholemeal bread, and plenty of raw, unprocessed vegetables and fruit, is very sensible.

 

However, I'm not sure that completely abstaining from eating meat, has any benefit. I tend to follow the Buddhist principle of 'everything in moderation'.
There is some biological/anthropological evidence, which you will no doubt dispute, that eating meat was an essential part of the evolution of Homo Sapiens. It possibly encouraged the development of our large brains.

 

From the following site:
https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/evidence-for-meat-eating-by-early-humans-103874273/

 

"it's only in the Homo lineage, especially in Homo erectus, that we see biological features often linked to meat-eating, such as a decrease in tooth and gut size and an increase in body and brain size."

 

Of course, we can't be certain about such events and their effects in the distant past. A lot of the theories are more precisely just hypotheses. Here's another interesting read.
https://www.americanscientist.org/article/meat-eating-among-the-earliest-humans

 

"Over the course of six million years of human evolution, brain size increased 300 percent. Our huge, complex brains can store and process decades worth of information in split seconds, solve multifactorial problems, and create abstract ideas and images.
This would have been a big advantage to early humans as they were spreading out across Africa and into Asia just under two million years ago, encountering unfamiliar habitats, novel carnivore competitors, and different prey animals. Yet our large brains come at a cost, making childbirth more difficult and painful for human mothers than for our nearest evolutionary kin. Modern human brains take up only about 2 percent of our body weight as adults, but use about 20 percent of our energy."