Do you believe in God and why

[mauGR1]

1 hour ago, Sunmaster said:

And you know that how?

 

Perhaps he read it somewhere, or heard it on the tv ????

[Fat is a type of crazy]

1 hour ago, mauGR1 said:

Perhaps he read it somewhere, or heard it on the tv ????

In looking at the topic you discussed, ie that intelligent design makes sense to you, I think it is  not unreasonable to rely on stuff we read or see if it has been peer reviewed and is scientific in nature. If I only believed what I found from experience my life would be limited. 

He might have seen a TV show comparing the scientific evidence for natural evolution and intelligent design. 

I concur that believing, say,  eyes happened by chance is hard. Even Darwin said initially that it seemed absurd that an eye could come from natural selection though he then said it was feasible.  

The Wikipedia page on the Evolution of the eye is interesting looking at how forms of life such as bacteria could sense light and over time life in evolved forms developed eyes. It makes sense that variations of life that improved even slightly the ability to perceive light, the direction of light, and more and more subtleties would have a huge advantage over the competition, and survive to pass on their genes.   100's of 1000's of years and competitive advantage for reproduction - you end up with eyes. 

There are of course a range of different types of eyes in life today - many more limited than ours and some with advantages over ours. 

I think therefore it is an intelligent decision to reject intelligent design for evolutionary science based on available information. 

[Sunmaster]

His comment would have made more sense if he said "From what I've read and learned, I don't think there's enough evidence for the existence of a Creator"....or simply "I don't believe in the existence of a God". That would have been a fair enough comment.

It's the absolute and categorical statement "There’s not a scintilla of truth or fact anywhere o(n) the subject!" that couldn't be more wrong and just denotes a complete lack of knowledge of the subject on his part.
Even that would be ok. You can't know what you don't know. There's no judgement in that. It's the presumption to apply that lack of knowledge to all others and make it an absolute that is cringeworthy.

[mauGR1]

32 minutes ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

In looking at the topic you discussed, ie that intelligent design makes sense to you, I think it is  not unreasonable to rely on stuff we read or see if it has been peer reviewed and is scientific in nature. If I only believed what I found from experience my life would be limited. 

He might have seen a TV show comparing the scientific evidence for natural evolution and intelligent design. 

I concur that believing, say,  eyes happened by chance is hard. Even Darwin said initially that it seemed absurd that an eye could come from natural selection though he then said it was feasible.  

The Wikipedia page on the Evolution of the eye is interesting looking at how forms of life such as bacteria could sense light and over time life in evolved forms developed eyes. It makes sense that variations of life that improved even slightly the ability to perceive light, the direction of light, and more and more subtleties would have a huge advantage over the competition, and survive to pass on their genes.   100's of 1000's of years and competitive advantage for reproduction - you end up with eyes. 

There are of course a range of different types of eyes in life today - many more limited than ours and some with advantages over ours. 

I think therefore it is an intelligent decision to reject intelligent design for evolutionary science based on available information. 

Once you realise that physical perception is not enough to perceive everything, you may understand that "available information " is not worth that much.

.. but, if the knowledge coming from materialistic science is enough to make you happy,  so be it.

Btw, I don't see why the study of evolution of beings should be against the existence of an intelligent design.

Edited April 17, 2021 by mauGR1

[Fat is a type of crazy]

11 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

Once you realise that physical perception is not enough to perceive everything, you may understand that "available information " is not worth that much.

.. but, if the knowledge coming from materialistic science is enough to make you happy,  so be it.

Btw, I don't see why the study of evolution of beings should be against the existence of an intelligent design.

On the first point it is not about contentedness but that physical perception is all I have. Examples of the non-physical in your life, that could only be sensed presumably by physical feelings and senses, would be interesting. That which cannot be explained by hormones, chemistry and dreams. 

 

On the second point intelligent design seemed to be based on the idea that things like eyes could not evolve bit by bit over time ..it had to be designed. 

Religion says  that whatever science finds - be it the creation of the universe, or evolution, or possibly life on Mars -we'll just update our previous FACTS and say it's god. That is faith. 

I thought god wrote the text above but you prove to me you wrote it. I say god was pulling the strings so it was god .. problem solved. It's all god and therefore god exists.

[mauGR1]

1 hour ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

On the first point it is not about contentedness but that physical perception is all I have. Examples of the non-physical in your life, that could only be sensed presumably by physical feelings and senses, would be interesting. That which cannot be explained by hormones, chemistry and dreams. 

 

On the second point intelligent design seemed to be based on the idea that things like eyes could not evolve bit by bit over time ..it had to be designed. 

Religion says  that whatever science finds - be it the creation of the universe, or evolution, or possibly life on Mars -we'll just update our previous FACTS and say it's god. That is faith. 

I thought god wrote the text above but you prove to me you wrote it. I say god was pulling the strings so it was god .. problem solved. It's all god and therefore god exists.

I'm afraid you'll not see any intelligent design, until you'll accept the possibility that intelligent design exists. 

In this case, no blind faith is required, just ceasing to be in denial. 

The laws which rule the universe are not there "by chance ", in the same way human artifacts are created with a mix of hard work and intelligence, and are not existing "by chance".

 

I agree with your last paragraph, although not sure if you're being sarcastic.. . Sure, God is everything and everywhere and everyone.. forever.. thus God exists. 

 

As for the evolution theory, we are still at the beginning,  so I can expect to see a mix of theories, some of which may be completely right,  and some completely wrong.

I have some opinions about that, and it's always interesting to hear new and old theories. 

[Fat is a type of crazy]

29 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

I'm afraid you'll not see any intelligent design, until you'll accept the possibility that intelligent design exists. 

In this case, no blind faith is required, just ceasing to be in denial. 

The laws which rule the universe are not there "by chance ", in the same way human artifacts are created with a mix of hard work and intelligence, and are not existing "by chance".

 

I agree with your last paragraph, although not sure if you're being sarcastic.. . Sure, God is everything and everywhere and everyone.. forever.. thus God exists. 

 

As for the evolution theory, we are still at the beginning,  so I can expect to see a mix of theories, some of which may be completely right,  and some completely wrong.

I have some opinions about that, and it's always interesting to hear new and old theories. 

The last sentence wasn't meant to be sarcastic but was following the logic of a believer in god such that belief and faith comes first and they'll make the world fit that belief. They may feel they have good reason to do so since life experience tells them their is a god and they'd rather have a life with god rather than waiting for objective proof to keep the nay sayers happy.

An alternative is to start with no premise regarding god or intelligent design. If evidence showed that there was no sight and suddenly fully formed eyes appeared out of nowhere the intelligent design and god theory would get a lift.

The no premise theory doesn't deny god, and may even hope that god exists so there's more to life and more life,  but it just starts with the observable and works from there. 

[mauGR1]

2 minutes ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

The last sentence wasn't meant to be sarcastic but was following the logic of a believer in god such that belief and faith comes first and they'll make the world fit that belief. They may feel they have good reason to do so since life experience tells them their is a god and they'd rather have a life with god rather than waiting for objective proof to keep the nay sayers happy.

An alternative is to start with no premise regarding god or intelligent design. If evidence showed that there was no sight and suddenly fully formed eyes appeared out of nowhere the intelligent design and god theory would get a lift.

The no premise theory doesn't deny god, and may even hope that god exists so there's more to life and more life,  but it just starts with the observable and works from there.

Uhm ok, perhaps it's not so easy to explain that a human is more than a physical body with physical perceptions in a physical reality. 

..But for some reason I believe that there is always more than what we see.

If belief of the existence of an intelligent design was a total absurdity, it would have been disproved long ago.

Instead, relatively recent discoveries tend to point to the theory that everything is connected in some ways, possibly in such subtle ways we're still far  from being able to observe. 

[Kanada]

On 4/17/2021 at 5:00 PM, Sunmaster said:

And you know that how?

 

Ok show me some facts ( not opinions now but facts).....I’ll wait

[Peter Denis]

21 minutes ago, Brad Grier said:

Ok show me some facts ( not opinions now but facts).....I’ll wait

The Answer

 

[Kanada]

45 minutes ago, Peter Denis said:

The Answer

 

 

Edited April 18, 2021 by Brad Grier

[Sunmaster]

2 hours ago, Brad Grier said:

Ok show me some facts ( not opinions now but facts).....I’ll wait

You first...

[Peter Denis]

 

2 hours ago, Brad Grier said:

Ok show me some facts ( not opinions now but facts).....I’ll wait

 

13 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

You first...

 

Ping-pong with the Gods

 

[Elad]

Cephalopods' eyes develop in such a way that they have retinal axons that pass over the back of the retina, so the optic nerve does not have to pass through the photoreceptor layer to exit the eye and do not have the natural, central, physiological blind spot of vertebrates.

 

 

If I designed an electronic telescope and fed the power cables in front of the primary mirror blocking some of the light, would you call that an intelligent design?

[expatjustice]

Do you think ants inside a terrarium realize there is a human outside watching and potentially controlling them? 

 

I accept this as the definition of god, and so god may very well be an alien kid watching us inside his terrarium...

[yodsak]

12 hours ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

On the second point intelligent design seemed to be based on the idea that things like eyes could not evolve bit by bit over time ..it had to be designed. 

Irreducible complexity is one of two main arguments used by intelligent-design proponents, alongside specified complexity. Creationist Jonathan Sarfati has described the eye as evolutionary biologists' "greatest challenge as an example of superb 'irreducible complexity' in God's creation”, The eye and bacterial flagellum as examples of IC have been fully debunked. The flagellum has been presented so often as a counter-example to evolution that it might well be considered the "poster child" of the modern anti-evolution movement. 

 

''In short, the ‘Bacterial Flagellum Trial’ (as one of the defence lawyers called it) established that the teaching of ID in American state schools was unconstitutional. The court found that "Professor Behe's claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large.” > pallen.pdf

 

No true examples of IC have ever been found. IC can’t touch science, because IC is almost all philosophy and no demonstration, nothing observed, nothing tested, nothing real. IC is a thought experiment and nothing more. It has only one empirical part, the very first step that takes an observed object to analyse.  From there, it goes off on a fairy tale, making claims with absolutely no evidence. 

[yodsak]

Specified complexity is a creationist argument introduced by William Dembski, used by advocates to promote intelligent design The concept of specified complexity is widely regarded as mathematically unsound and has not been the basis for further independent work in information theory, in the theory of complex systems, or in biology.       "Dembski's work is riddled with inconsistencies, equivocation, flawed use of mathematics, poor scholarship, and misrepresentation of others' results.” – Elsberry and Shallit

[yodsak]

Any evils humans experience outside the Garden before God breathes into them the breath of life would be experienced as natural evils in the same way that other animals experience them. The pain would be real, but it would not be experienced as divine justice in response to willful rebellion. Moreover, once God breathes the breath of life into them, we may assume that the first humans experienced an amnesia of their former animal life: Operating on a higher plane of consciousness once infused with the breath of life, they would transcend the lower plane of animal consciousness on which they had previously operated—though, after the Fall, they might be tempted to resort to that lower consciousness.       – The End of Christianity – William Dembski

[mauGR1]

10 hours ago, Elad said:

Cephalopods' eyes develop in such a way that they have retinal axons that pass over the back of the retina, so the optic nerve does not have to pass through the photoreceptor layer to exit the eye and do not have the natural, central, physiological blind spot of vertebrates.

 

 

If I designed an electronic telescope and fed the power cables in front of the primary mirror blocking some of the light, would you call that an intelligent design?

Very interesting,  next you'll say that the planets are not exact spheres, and that's the 'proof 'that the design is not intelligent ????

This post make me think of some tourists going to some remote place in Asia, and complaining about the locals not understanding heavily accented English .

Something to do with arrogance,  anyway.

[thaibeachlovers]

5 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

Very interesting,  next you'll say that the planets are not exact spheres, and that's the 'proof 'that the design is not intelligent ????

This post make me think of some tourists going to some remote place in Asia, and complaining about the locals not understanding heavily accented English .

Something to do with arrogance,  anyway.

Some on here miss the point about faith, which is belief without the necessity for scientific or other proof. Much along the same lines as believing there are more than 2 genders.

 

Also, there is no proof that intelligent design wasn't created by God. IMO the basis for evolution was introduced at the beginning of life the universe and everything by God and everything is all going according to plan.

 

Those that say there is no God must ergo believe that the universe life and everything just happened from nothing, which is like saying magic created the universe. Magic/ God....................... which to believe?

Edited April 19, 2021 by thaibeachlovers

[thaibeachlovers]

7 hours ago, yodsak said:

Specified complexity is a creationist argument introduced by William Dembski, used by advocates to promote intelligent design The concept of specified complexity is widely regarded as mathematically unsound and has not been the basis for further independent work in information theory, in the theory of complex systems, or in biology.       "Dembski's work is riddled with inconsistencies, equivocation, flawed use of mathematics, poor scholarship, and misrepresentation of others' results.” – Elsberry and Shallit

Sooooo, if one doesn't believe that God created the universe, what explanation does one have for the existence of all the matter that makes the universe exist. Where did it come from?

[thaibeachlovers]

7 hours ago, yodsak said:

IC can’t touch science, because IC is almost all philosophy and no demonstration, nothing observed, nothing tested, nothing real. 

To believe that, one would have to believe that science knows everything there is to be known, when it is obvious that it doesn't. If it did there would be no such thing as cancer.

Science has no tools to prove or disprove that God exists yet. It may do in a few million or so years.

[mauGR1]

45 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Some on here miss the point about faith, which is belief without the necessity for scientific or other proof. Much along the same lines as believing there are more than 2 genders.

 

Also, there is no proof that intelligent design wasn't created by God. IMO the basis for evolution was introduced at the beginning of life the universe and everything by God and everything is all going according to plan.

 

Those that say there is no God must ergo believe that the universe life and everything just happened from nothing, which is like saying magic created the universe. Magic/ God....................... which to believe?

Personally, i use "intelligent design " as a synonym of "God" , after having noticed that some folks associate, more or less consciously, the word "God " with the God described in the old testament. 

Obviously i agree that the so-called evolution of living beings is part of the intelligent design, and the evolution theory as described by materialistic scientists is quite far from perfection imho, and I'm being generous ????

[Fat is a type of crazy]

3 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Some on here miss the point about faith, which is belief without the necessity for scientific or other proof. Much along the same lines as believing there are more than 2 genders.

 

Also, there is no proof that intelligent design wasn't created by God. IMO the basis for evolution was introduced at the beginning of life the universe and everything by God and everything is all going according to plan.

 

Those that say there is no God must ergo believe that the universe life and everything just happened from nothing, which is like saying magic created the universe. Magic/ God....................... which to believe?

If you are saying some have faith that there are more than 2 genders, rather than it being based on science, that could be correct for some . Many people though just say..if you feel like you are a lady  and it makes your life happier and easier then do your thing. In that case its not science based or faith based - it's politeness or live and let live based. 

A key point made many times is that not having definitive proof that something isn't real doesn't help those trying to prove it is real. In fact there is significant proof that intelligent design is not real but it can never be definitive - especially when believers can just change the goalposts of how it happened. That doesn't mean anyone has the right to look to stop other people believing it.

 

There's talk of arrogance and 'loud voices' in posts above - but saying there is not proof of something, or something is not likely to be a fact based on evidence, in a forum such as this, should be just as welcome, as letting people believe what they want. 

That goes to your last point too - scientists don't say that they are not sure how stuff happened so the options are magic and god e.g. no one understood the plague, and many blamed it on magic or god, but scientists did the hard work for us all doing research and keeping statistics and working out what caused it saved millions of lives. They may do the same on how stuff started. 

 

Edited April 19, 2021 by Fat is a type of crazy

[thaibeachlovers]

14 hours ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

A key point made many times is that not having definitive proof that something isn't real doesn't help those trying to prove it is real.

Personally, I don't care if people have an opposing view on God- I'm not out to convert anyone. However, it annoys me when posters say there is "no" God without being able to prove there isn't, so I try to point out the error of saying something isn't, when they can't prove it isn't. Referencing science is no answer, because science doesn't know enough yet to prove anything about the existence or otherwise of God.

Most of the points made by unbelievers seem to be about religion, and not faith, so not relevant IMO.

14 hours ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

Many people though just say..if you feel like you are a lady  and it makes your life happier and easier then do your thing. In that case its not science based or faith based - it's politeness or live and let live based. 

It'd be nice if some posters were as polite about faith in God as they are about gender then.

[VincentRJ]

21 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Some on here miss the point about faith, which is belief without the necessity for scientific or other proof.

I think most people here understand that faith in some 'thing' (idea, concept, phenomenom, etc.), in accordance with the usual definition of the word, does not necessarily require scientific proof or even reasonably sound evidence.

 

However, there are subtle nuances in the meaning of words like' faith' or 'belief', and also different degrees of 'faith' or 'belief' depending on the soundness of the evidence. A high degree of confidence that something is true could be regarded as a type of 'faith'.

 

Scientists tend to grade their confidence that something is true in accordance with the accuracy and availability of the data, and the rigour, consistency and soundness of the experiments which are conducted in order to confirm a particular theory.

 

This highlights the major problems that human societies have faced in the past and will probably continue to face into the future. That is, the belief or faith held by so many people that certain things are true or factual despite the lack of sound, supporting evidence, and the emotional need for such people to defend their faith by attacking people who have opposing ideas (in wars and physical conflicts), instead of addressing the opposing ideas with rational discussion and presentation of evidence.

 

In other words, a faith without sound evidence is different from a faith which is based upon sound evidence. The faith which is based upon sound evidence will change, or should change, as new evidence arises which sheds a different light on our understanding.
 

[thaibeachlovers]

39 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

I think most people here understand that faith in some 'thing' (idea, concept, phenomenom, etc.), in accordance with the usual definition of the word, does not necessarily require scientific proof or even reasonably sound evidence.

 

However, there are subtle nuances in the meaning of words like' faith' or 'belief', and also different degrees of 'faith' or 'belief' depending on the soundness of the evidence. A high degree of confidence that something is true could be regarded as a type of 'faith'.

 

Scientists tend to grade their confidence that something is true in accordance with the accuracy and availability of the data, and the rigour, consistency and soundness of the experiments which are conducted in order to confirm a particular theory.

 

This highlights the major problems that human societies have faced in the past and will probably continue to face into the future. That is, the belief or faith held by so many people that certain things are true or factual despite the lack of sound, supporting evidence, and the emotional need for such people to defend their faith by attacking people who have opposing ideas (in wars and physical conflicts), instead of addressing the opposing ideas with rational discussion and presentation of evidence.

 

In other words, a faith without sound evidence is different from a faith which is based upon sound evidence. The faith which is based upon sound evidence will change, or should change, as new evidence arises which sheds a different light on our understanding.
 

The problem then is that I do have evidence, but it's not of a sort that can be measured or photographed etc. My evidence comes from within.

Let me put it another way- if I see a beautiful sunset, another person may not think it beautiful. It's a personal interpretation. Same with faith- just because I can provide "evidence" of God, someone else may not see that "evidence" in the same way.

What I do know is that if one is not open to the possibility that God exists, one will never have faith in God; just as I refuse to believe there are more than 2 genders ( other than hermaphrodites ), while others do believe there are.

 

I believe that God is unknowable by humans, so I'll be surprised if science can come up with any definitive answer.

[thaibeachlovers]

19 hours ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

They may do the same on how stuff started. 

When scientists can prove that ALL the matter that formed the universe came into existence all by itself, without any "creation" involved it may change things, but I'm pretty sure they never will in my lifetime. I think I'm safe in saying science doesn't think matter can come from nothing.

[mauGR1]

4 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

The problem then is that I do have evidence, but it's not of a sort that can be measured or photographed etc. My evidence comes from within.

Let me put it another way- if I see a beautiful sunset, another person may not think it beautiful. It's a personal interpretation. Same with faith- just because I can provide "evidence" of God, someone else may not see that "evidence" in the same way.

What I do know is that if one is not open to the possibility that God exists, one will never have faith in God; just as I refuse to believe there are more than 2 genders ( other than hermaphrodites ), while others do believe there are.

 

I believe that God is unknowable by humans, so I'll be surprised if science can come up with any definitive answer.

The gender thing I'm afraid it's a very difficult subject to discuss, too many different opinions. 

I completely agree with the rest of your post, and I find the paradigm : "if I cannot see it, it doesn't exist", pretty annoying and unscientific. 

[thaibeachlovers]

6 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

The gender thing I'm afraid it's a very difficult subject to discuss, too many different opinions. 

I completely agree with the rest of your post, and I find the paradigm : "if I cannot see it, it doesn't exist", pretty annoying and unscientific. 

I don't think it's difficult at all. There are 2 genders, male and female, but there are many differences in how people express their sexuality ie homosexual, transexual, transvestism etc etc etc. Far as I know there is no gene for homosexuality. If I'm wrong, tell us.