Perhaps so. But at least I don't believe in silly fairytales like Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and gods, like a four year-old.
God can either A. Exist, or B. Not exist. Correct? Can we agree on that? If he does exist, and you keep faith, and live as a "good man" you get into Heaven. Thats ALL you have to do. So simple. No test's, no fee's, nothing. Why not just keep the faith?
Talk about being "a fool." You ignore the history of your own people because to do otherwise would be inconvenient. The religious definition of "living as a good man" varies from era to era, from community to community, from religion to religion, and even from one little sect within that religion to another. At various times, in various places, in various faiths, and in various cults within those faiths, it has required the slaughter of entire populations, the destruction of entire civilizations, the persecution of scholars, the rejection of our most loyal companions (dogs), the burning of libraries, the destruction of art, the suppression of music, the treatment of women and various minorities as second-class citizens, the rejection of medical treatment, and so many other things that can only be called "sins" that it threatens my self-imposed limit on sentence length.
You happen to be (presumably) a mainstream Protestant Christian at a time and in a place where mainstream Protestant Christian leaders guide their followers into ethical behavior. But it has not always been so. Read up on the Reformation, a period of almost non-stop warfare among competing sects. Or the support of the pious German Lutherans for Hitler. The American churches who advocated cleansing the land of Indians and/or enslaving Africans. In any case you Protestants are newcomers. When you've had as long a history as the Catholics, perhaps you too will have destroyed a couple of "heathen" civilizations. Muslims think their religion is just as unerring as you do, and look at what it has inspired a whole lot of them to do? The Jews finally stopped being persecuted and to celebrate they've decided to persecute somebody else.
As I pointed out earlier, the followers of the Abrahamic religions have, averaged over time, perpetrated far more evil than good on this planet. As I already noted, there is no way to atone for the complete annihilation of two Bronze Age civilizations. This is something that can never be forgiven, and this is as good a reason as any to be wary, skeptical and intolerant of Christianity forever.
Is this what you want me to do in order to make God happy? Fuck the bastard! I would much rather be absorbed back into the earth when I die, than to live for all eternity with crap like that on my conscience and some powerful crazy evil leering creature from another dimension praising me for it.
. . . .but if he is real and you had faith then you go to heaven, if you didn't have faith then you don't.
There are worse things than not going to heaven. Being a complete asshole because the leaders of your religion tell you God wants it is on top of the list.
the only thing i will make comment on this, where is the evidence for a closed system?
It is never necessary to prove a negative. The burden of proof is always on the person who asserts the positive. If someone claims that there is indeed an invisible, illogical supernatural universe from which creatures and other forces act to thwart the natural forces of this universe, it is up to them to provide the supporting evidence. There is none.
. . . . science is looking for evidence in the wrong places.
The natural universe is the only place there is. This principle has undergone such rigorous testing for so long without coming close to being falsified, that any contradiction of it now falls into the category of "extraordinary assertions" so the Rule of Laplace applies. The person making the assertion must provide extraordinary supporting evidence (e.g., not something their father told them) before we are obliged to treat them with respect. SciForums is not an academy so the rules are relaxed, but we still demand
ordinary evidence and no one has even been able to show us that. The best we've got is "God is in my mind." Yeah there are lots of wackos out there with weird shit in their minds.
you cannot get an accurate measurement if you are trying to use the wrong test equipment.
I see that metaphors can be carefully chosen to deflect an argument. Our "test equipment" is the entire natural universe. Pray tell what else is there? Something imaginary?
it is very irresponsible of religion to dismiss science.
Most don't. Many church-supported universities have fine science departments whose graduates go on to achieve greatness.
. . . . but it is also irresponsible of science to argue the same way.
Aside from a few loudmouths like Dawkins who give us all a bad name, most of us don't go around making that argument. However, this is a science website and this subforum is called "Comparative Religion," so if you come here you should have a reasonable expectation that this is one of the few places where that argument will be taking place. Duh?
just because religion invalidates science is not a reason for science to invalidate God.
Indeed. The reason to invalidate gods is the Rule of Laplace. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, to use Sagan's more concise 20th-century version.
While humans are considered natural, what they create is not. Therefore, we can assume that the creation of any mind is not natural. That being the case if there was a God and he did create the universe, then that universe would not be nateral.
This argument is taken from philosophy. This is not one of the philosophy boards and to use it here is disingenuous. In the context of science, the natural universe is governed by the laws of nature. Humans are components of the natural universe and everything we do obeys those laws. To arbitrarily say that what humans do is unnatural, while the nests that birds build and the sticks that chimpanzees fashion into tools are not, is to adopt the anthropocentric model of the universe that seduces the religionists. "We're here so we must be special. Even God thinks so."
The supernatural universe postulated by the religionists and other supernaturalists is said not to be subject to the laws of nature. This is why gods and other fantastic creatures (allegedly) can appear and disappear at will, why they can change the weather, why they can set bushes on fire, why they can turn people into salt, and (my personal favorite) why they can raise sea level worldwide to an elevation that far exceeds the total mass of water molecules on, in, and around the planet.
This is what is not natural, because if it actually happened it would violate several natural laws. Cutting down a tree, chopping it up into pieces, and reassembling it into a house
does not violate any of the laws of nature. It appears to violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics by increasing order, but it does so by decreasing order in the surrounding areas by a greater amount, so no actual violation has occurred.
