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M*W: There are other non-existent things we talk about, such as:
Zeus
Unicorns
Leprechauns
Santa Claus
Easter Bunny
Tooth Fairy
God
Jesus
Intelligent theists on sciforums
Can We Stop Arguing the Existence Of God?
- Thread starter Balerion
- Start date
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M*W: There are other non-existent things we talk about, such as:
Zeus
Unicorns
Leprechauns
Santa Claus
Easter Bunny
Tooth Fairy
God
Jesus
Intelligent theists on sciforums
But how beyond a reasonable doubt? It is PURELY impossible to either prove or disprove God, and therefore it stands exactly in the middle. That makes it irrelevant.
you could be in a dream, you could be a butterfly dreaming of being to be a human.
your perceptiosn can not be sjustified to correspond to reality.
thus you have to doubt them, but you cannot doubt the existence of what permits in the first place these perceptions: consciousness.
consciousness exists.
all other claim are unjustifiable.
and you do not need any other claim than consciousness perceive everything including you now, me, you in the past, you in the future.
Moreover, the hard problem if impossible, will show that matter if exist cannot interact with consciousness, thus matter has no relevance to our perceptions.
Then why are you wasting your time talking about fairy tales?
Trying to make sense of why people believe them.
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M*W: Talking about them is one thing. Believing in them is another.
We've got nothing but time.
Why do you care?
Not sure about that... why not focus on the things you do believe in rather than the things that you don't? Seems counter-productive.
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M*W: If I focused on myself and my family, you people would get bored. This is the religion sub-forum, and that's what I come here to talk about.
yeah, you can punch holes in a certain christian definition of god, like how is he merciful when he sends people to hell for eternity? or how is he all-knowing when you identify a certain action as a mistake. etc etc.
Because I want mankind to continue, with all the religious nutjobs about, each one of them willing to kill and die for their god, this is not very likely at the moment.
If we can understand how this mind virus afflicts them, then we are better able to cure it, before it becomes to late.
Considering that Christianity is continuing to grow, that isn't going to happen.
Where!
Well, the "secularization thesis"is now largely discredited. Christianity's growth has been explosive.
There are now six times more Anglicans in Nigeria alone than there are in all of the U.S. There are more Presbyterians in Ghana than in the U.S. and Scotland combined. Korea has gone from 1 percent to 40 percent Christian in a hundred years, and experts believe the same thing is happening in China. If there are half a billion Chinese Christians fifty years from now, that will change the course of human history.
Now, because of the vitality of religious faith in the world, efforts to suppress or control it often serve only to make it stronger (ie. when the Chinese Communists expelled Western missionaries during WW II, they thought that they were killing off Christianity; instead, it just strengthened it). Robust religious beliefs dominate the world. There is no reason to expect that to change.
and the sources please, it's just your ramblings, without several sources to verify it.
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M*W: Christianity may be growing in places such as Brasil and certain in certain parts of Africa, but that doesn't make-up for its progressive demise in the rest of the world.
On the growth of Christianity in the non-Western world, see Philip Jenkin's The Next Christendom, or Whose Religion Is Christianity by Lamin Sanneh, for starters.
And for how many sociologist are now backing away from the secularization thesis, you might want to pick up The Desecularization of the World: Religion and World Politics, written by a Mr. Peter L. Berger.
Islam is growing faster than Christianity. Just so ya know.
Anyway, are you rooting for this kind of madness, GG? Are you actually hoping that Christianity takes over the world? I can't imagine you would be. Why isn't it enough to have your beliefs and let the rest of the world be?
Two case studies are instructive. In 1900, Christians comprised 9 percent of the African population and were outnumbered by Muslims four to one. Today, Christians comprise 44 percent of the population, and in the 1960s passed Muslims in number. This explosive growth is now beginning in China. Christianity is growing not only among the peasantry, but also among social and cultural establishment, including the Communist party. At the current rate of growth, withing 30 years Christians will constitute 30 percent of the Chinese population of 1.5 billion.
I'm not; I was answering a question.
Let me ask you this: How could you possibly know that no religion can see the whole truth unless you yourself have the superior, comprehensive knowledge of spiritual reality you just claimed that none of the religions have?