Then start at the simple bottom, as I did in the post. You are just trying to get out of doing some tiny work that isn't even work.
There is absolutely NO contradiction whatsoever between religious faith and science
- Thread starter Mind Over Matter
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Then start at the simple bottom, as I did in the post. You are just trying to get out of doing some tiny work that isn't even work.
still can't make me..
have you met my avoidance mode yet?
seriously, i am not ribbing you about the content, i am sure i understand alot of it, it is just not presented in a form i recognize.
If a person is like this -
- what do you think it would take to stop the la la la, open their eyes and take the hands off their ears?
Another person forcibly doing so to them, would that not be an act of overriding their free will?
Sure, and I am not arguing against that.
However, you are presenting the position that a person should be able to be fully passive and non-receptive - but still be able to get to know God.
If the reason for this is "God is omnipotent, so He should be able to make Himself known to me even against my will and despite my lack of effort", then I suppose this is in the same league with "If God is omnipotent, therefore, He should be able to make round triangles; and if He cannot, He's not omnipotent".
Open your mind, don't be so defensive.
Why do you think I'm less receptive to God than you are? I have been open to it all my life, and continue to be open to it. Being an atheist is an intellectual opinion based on known data, not a state of mind that is closed to new data. I call your argument a straw man. You are making me into something I'm not in order to justify God's non-appearance.
Your opinion is not based in intellect, rather you seek intellect to bolster your position. Neithier is it based on known data, as you cannot explain what data is required to change your mind, and no known data can even come close to proving, or explain the non existence of God.
You purposely dismiss scripture, despite not really attempting to understand them, and you accept scientific theories and ideas which are not proven or confirmed, as facts of life. Your position is very transparent.
But you seem like a cool guy, and you are alway up for a discussion, and you don't insult or make fun of. And we have been knocking heads for a few years now.
regards
jan.
Wow Jan, I wrote up some pointed responses to all your points, but I had to delete them as I would be banned immediately for posting them. I'm frankly offended by your post in a way I have never been offended before by religious dogma. I have been more than patient explaining my positions, but I realize now that this is not enough. It goes in one ear and out the other. It's one thing to believe something silly, but quite another to believe that your opponent in a civilized debate holds the opposite view than the one he has taken great pains to lay out. You are accusing me of being dishonest.
I demand an apology.
I demand an apology.
I sincerely apologise if I have offended you, but that was not my intention.
My analasys came from the answers you gave to my question (post 372).
The answers you gave showed no sign of the actual concept of God. A concept you well and know due to our time at these forums.
It appeared to me as though you threw some random ideas into the pot, ideas that YOU regard as contrary to physics.
That you think it is a silly belief, should not prevent you from taking the question seriously, and enter into the spirit of things.
As a result you ended sticking to your belief system (natural science), indicating that you were never going to accept anything which science cannot decipher.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying you are wrong or right, but you most certainly put a lid on all development of discussion. Hence I don't believe you appealed to intellect, not that you are incapable of appealing to intellect.
jan.
Thank you for your apology.
I do not accept that a God that is worth believing in would also have no effect on the physical world. This would not be the God of Christianity which is said to have effect on the world through prayer and intercession on our behalf in our everyday lives. Since nothing supernatural has yet been shown to exist by the only standards of evidence that can be trusted, the naturalistic worldview must be the intellectually honest default position. The scientific view has been proven with regard to the origin of all species including humans. This contradicts several common religious viewpoints and shows them to be fraudulent.
I would have to accept that the naturalistic worldview is wrong if natural laws were violated. I have outlined several scenarios where an obvious disruption in the natural order would prove a God to me. If God is present in this natural world, then he should be evident through natural means. What other means are there? If you feel God, I know that feelings are unreliable. If you see God, I know that perceptions are unreliable and that people can be mentally unstable. To ask me to lower the bar on what is acceptable evidence is basically unreasonable. You may say that God is outside of time, but that is a nonsensical statement, since all actions require time.
I can think of only one God that fits the model, the deist God that started the Big Bang, but could not foresee it's outcome, and was consumed himself in the fires of creation. This still leaves his existence unexplained, but could have come about as a result of an evolutionary process from another universe. I think we may safely use the razor of Occam to dismiss this one, and in any case, this isn't a God that needs worship or accepts petitions.
I do not accept that a God that is worth believing in would also have no effect on the physical world. This would not be the God of Christianity which is said to have effect on the world through prayer and intercession on our behalf in our everyday lives. Since nothing supernatural has yet been shown to exist by the only standards of evidence that can be trusted, the naturalistic worldview must be the intellectually honest default position. The scientific view has been proven with regard to the origin of all species including humans. This contradicts several common religious viewpoints and shows them to be fraudulent.
I would have to accept that the naturalistic worldview is wrong if natural laws were violated. I have outlined several scenarios where an obvious disruption in the natural order would prove a God to me. If God is present in this natural world, then he should be evident through natural means. What other means are there? If you feel God, I know that feelings are unreliable. If you see God, I know that perceptions are unreliable and that people can be mentally unstable. To ask me to lower the bar on what is acceptable evidence is basically unreasonable. You may say that God is outside of time, but that is a nonsensical statement, since all actions require time.
I can think of only one God that fits the model, the deist God that started the Big Bang, but could not foresee it's outcome, and was consumed himself in the fires of creation. This still leaves his existence unexplained, but could have come about as a result of an evolutionary process from another universe. I think we may safely use the razor of Occam to dismiss this one, and in any case, this isn't a God that needs worship or accepts petitions.
The quantum vacum in which these virtual particles appear to pop into being uncaused, is not "nothing", it contains fluctuations of energy.
Nothing cannot contain fluctuations.
Virtual particles only SEEM to appear uncaused.
The theory is not supported by all physists.
In short the first premise remains in tact.
jan.
Then there is no such thing as nothing the way you conceive it. That kind of nothing is just an abstraction. This phenomenon has even been measured:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect
The thread Title itself contains the contradiction.
"Science" is not "faith".
'nuff said.
It's not my conception, it comes from the claim that something can come out of nothing.
Now you say it's another kind of nothing?
jan.
I'm saying that reality on the smallest level runs on probabilities not absolutes. In nothingness there is still a very small probability that things can happen.
Jan, so, we have the 'near nothing', or even a 'nothing', in an overall balance and summation, which is as far from the ultimate complexity as one can get. One must turn around to face the complete other direction of the higher composite states of the future in order to hope for some universal mind to form. The answer was never in front of the lower looking nose.
Sci, can you be a little more straight-forward in your responses?
I'm not quite sure what you are getting at.
At least for now.
thanks
jan.
I mean just that, nothing. Empty space.