Do You Believe In God

[irishScott]

You're projecting a bit, I never said anything about causation one way or the other. Atheism is rare in any large population, but it is still disproportionately represented in more educated and more intelligent circles. Feel free to argue about why, but that much is fact.

Granted. On a related note I've been recently having a number of instinctive reactions to forum threads that in the past have been quite accurate, but are now biting me in the ass. Could the internet actually be becoming more intelligent?

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

The ecliptic orbit (Johannes Kepler) the rotation of electrons (Niels Bohr) the rotation of these masses and there shape. All are too perfect to be the effect of some random infinite mass expanding.

Texas Sharpshooter fallacy, and a pretty textbook one at that. No wonder you're a religious conservative -- your reasoning functions are poorly developed (or broken, I suppose).

{snip}

God, the creator, Deity, whoever is so far complex that our meager pea size brains compared to the massive universe can not possibly comprehend its presence.

Except for you, it seems. You appear to think of yourself as quite the authority on the matter. Odd, that.

I personally think the creator is very huge and not of a body or form. Many people who have apparently seen heaven have described God as a very bright but not blinding light.

Yep. Broken.

 

[Ruptga]

Granted. On a related note I've been recently having a number of instinctive reactions to forum threads that in the past have been quite accurate, but are now biting me in the ass. Could the internet actually be becoming more intelligent?

Oh no, it seems far more likely that you've just been unlucky lately. And you weren't even all that far off this time. I do think there's a very good reason that more intelligent people are more likely to be skeptics, but I have enough sense and self control that I normally keep unevidenced opinions to myself.

 

[John Connor]

http://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-sin.html

 

[John Connor]

Except for you, it seems. You appear to think of yourself as quite the authority on the matter. Odd, that.

I and several hundreds of thousand of other followers of Jesus Christ and God. I didn't speak in a way to affirm that I am the all knowing. What I was trying to convey is that the universe is so grand and science so puzzling that we can't possibly understand what or who created it all.

Science is never perfect, not medical science. We can't cure AIDS, cancer, transparent a brain, make a blind man see or make a paraplegic man walk again. Scientific therories are constantly ripped apart and rewritten. The Bible on the other hand is set in stone and is God's word. He is the all knowing.

"The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

John 3:8

 

[William Gaatjes]

I and several hundreds of thousand of other followers of Jesus Christ and God. I didn't speak in a way to affirm that I am the all knowing. What I was trying to convey is that the universe is so grand and science so puzzling that we can't possibly understand what or who created it all.

Science is never perfect, not medical science. We can't cure AIDS, cancer, transparent a brain, make a blind man see or make a paraplegic man walk again. Scientific therories are constantly ripped apart and rewritten. The Bible on the other hand is set in stone and is God's word. He is the all knowing.

"The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

John 3:8

A with saliva moistured finger will tell you from what direction the wind is blowing.

Science is multidisciplinary. The bible is a guide to live by when you start. But the intention is to grow as a person and in intellect, withstanding the sins of life. The knowledge gained to be passed on to offspring to keep the process going. Enlightenment is not were it ends, it is just a temporary victory. Only with science we will survive as humanity. Otherwise we will become extinct.

 

[Rebel44]

No

 

[SP33Demon]

This is a forum hosted by a computer hardware site. People that get into computers tend to be smart, educated, and rational. People that are smart, educated, and rational tend toward atheism and/or agnosticism. It's completely unsurprising that people here are generally not religious.

And despite that, over 1/3 in this poll are believers. Times are a changing and the Bible is the best blueprint to fill the void in the hearts of families that are fracturing. If you want to know why your kid is a fuckup, it's because you (i.e. parents) never taught he/she to pursue God and become reborn. You never fed them the Gospel. Yet these kids will play the hell out of U2 ("I still haven't found, what I'm looking for") and wonder what their purpose is in life. They will try drugs, sex, party all night, build new rigs, divorce, get arrested for stupid shit, and yet still feel empty until they seek God in their heart. This carries over to adulthood as well, it's pretty dam sad. Take a look around this forum if you need proof.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Could the internet actually be becoming more intelligent?

There's plenty of evidence to the contrary. It's far more likely that you're getting dumber.

 

[IronWing]

And despite that, over 1/3 in this poll are believers. Times are a changing and the Bible is the best blueprint to fill the void in the hearts of families that are fracturing. If you want to know why your kid is a fuckup, it's because you (i.e. parents) never taught he/she to pursue God and become reborn. You never fed them the Gospel. Yet these kids will play the hell out of U2 ("I still haven't found, what I'm looking for") and wonder what their purpose is in life. They will try drugs, sex, party all night, build new rigs, divorce, get arrested for stupid shit, and yet still feel empty until they seek God in their heart. This carries over to adulthood as well, it's pretty dam sad. Take a look around this forum if you need proof.

Share how writing the above made you feel.

 

[Jeff7]

The ecliptic orbit (Johannes Kepler) the rotation of electrons (Niels Bohr) the rotation of these masses and there shape. All are too perfect to be the effect of some random infinite mass expanding.

Or, if the Universe didn't have those properties as inherent values, we wouldn't have formed, and thus wouldn't be able to ask questions about it.

You can still have little swirls of order within a chaotic system.
And "order" is itself a subjective term. Earth's orbit is not at all a "perfect" one. Our distance from the Sun varies by millions of miles. Our axis wobbles. The Moon is slowing down our rotation. The Sun sometimes blasts out eruptions of billions of tons of highly-energetic particles. The Solar System is littered with large lumps of ice, metal, and rock. Stars sometimes implode and release blasts of gamma radiation that could puff away a planet's atmosphere. A fossil record that shows multiple times when most life on the planet suddenly died. (Heck, look at what we live on top of: Dirt. Dead plants, dead animals, and various types of excrement, all coating the crust in a film of thick goo.)


Perfect.

“All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.”

"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal." Love this one!

Guess who coined these quotes?

God, the creator, Deity, whoever is so far complex that our meager pea size brains compared to the massive universe can not possibly comprehend its presence.

A Universe that has formed at a certain level of complexity that we see now: Not feasible, can't happen on its own.
An immensely more complex entity that could create a Universe like this one: Yes, definitely.

...what?

I personally think the creator is very huge and not of a body or form. Many people who have apparently seen heaven have described God as a very bright but not blinding light.

A brain near death can hallucinate quite easily. Hell, a normally-functioning brain can hallucinate with only a little encouragement.
And we're all basically the same on the inside, in terms of basic organ construction. There are going to be some systemic flaws or behaviors. For example, increase the alcohol content in a person's bloodstream. They will all exhibit some similar behaviors due to how it affects their brains. Digging a little deeper, if you electrically stimulate certain regions in a person's brain, you can get similar reactions.

Deprive our brain of oxygen, and maybe it'll think it's floating, or it sees a bright light; it's just one of those things that we're stuck with. A bug in the system, with no way to patch it.

I and several hundreds of thousand of other followers of Jesus Christ and God. I didn't speak in a way to affirm that I am the all knowing. What I was trying to convey is that the universe is so grand and science so puzzling that we can't possibly understand what or who created it all.

Science is never perfect, not medical science. We can't cure AIDS, cancer, transparent a brain, make a blind man see or make a paraplegic man walk again. Scientific therories are constantly ripped apart and rewritten. The Bible on the other hand is set in stone and is God's word. He is the all knowing.

"The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

John 3:8

Set in stone. God's all-knowing word.

But wasn't it already revised once, with the whole Jesus thing, and effectively discarding the Old Testament, depending on who you ask? (Well, except for what the OT said about homosexuality.)
So tell me again, exactly how long is a "day," and how can a "day" exist before there is a rotating planet near a star?

What then of those who say it's all open to interpretation?

 

[Jaskalas]

It is illogical to assume the universe had a creator. Because this is a thought process leading to an infinite loop.

Who created us?
Who created the creator?
Who created the creator of the creator?
Who created the creator of the creator of the creator?
∞

Now whether there's something greater than us, there might be. It's beyond our understanding if there is. We should forget trying to solve that for now and instead focus on more immediate concerns. We have a planet to live on and other living creatures to coexist with, and we are doing a very poor job.

Let's concern ourselves with human morality and sustainability first, then perhaps one day we will be worthy of looking to the stars. Of going forth and seeking those answers.

/Agnostic.

 

[z1ggy]

Not in the sense we humans define it. Our sense, is to give god some kind of personification. It's there to make us feel good about ourselves, and that our morality isn't just some random happening of the laws of nature.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Share how writing the above made you feel.

Trick question!! Nobody that was self-aware could have written that.

 

[Jeff7]

It is illogical to assume the universe had a creator. Because this is a thought process leading to an infinite loop.

Who created us?
Who created the creator?
Who created the creator of the creator?
Who created the creator of the creator of the creator?
∞

Now whether there's something greater than us, there might be. It's beyond our understanding if there is. We should forget trying to solve that for now and instead focus on more immediate concerns. We have a planet to live on and other living creatures to coexist with, and we are doing a very poor job.

Let's concern ourselves with human morality and sustainability first, then perhaps one day we will be worthy of looking to the stars. Of going forth and seeking those answers.

/Agnostic.

Temporal paradox.
God created the superspatial singularity accelerator that then inadvertently blasted a newly-formed singularity back through time, thus creating his own universe.

</Star Trek writer>


Or just make a box containing your own universe.

 

[disappoint]

Science is never perfect, not medical science. We can't cure AIDS, cancer, transparent a brain, make a blind man see or make a paraplegic man walk again.

Can God make a blind man that can see a transparent brain?

 

[IronWing]

The Bible on the other hand is set in stone and is God's word. He is the all knowing.

Name one thing the god of the bible knew that the writers of the bible didn't already know.

 

[Ruptga]

Share how writing the above made you feel.

I know it made me flashback to the 90s, when I first heard that spiel, but the funny thing is it was old-hat even by then. Someone really ought to update their apologetic scripts because times are a changing.

 

[BUTCH1]

I voted yes and here's why, more than once people who have been technically "dead" in a hospital and survived have told of some "out of body" experiences where they could see themselves getting treatment. Now it's easy to dismiss those experiences because of what the subconscious mind can conger up, specially with the body going through a lot at the time, but what freaked me out was how some could actually describe in detail what was happening in the rooms around them when they had these experiences, they were "on their way" but got called back when they lived, it wasn't their time..

 

[KeithTalent]

Can God make a blind man that can see a transparent brain?

Haha. :awe:

KT

 

[SlitheryDee]

I voted yes and here's why, more than once people who have been technically "dead" in a hospital and survived have told of some "out of body" experiences where they could see themselves getting treatment. Now it's easy to dismiss those experiences because of what the subconscious mind can conger up, specially with the body going through a lot at the time, but what freaked me out was how some could actually describe in detail what was happening in the rooms around them when they had these experiences, they were "on their way" but got called back when they lived, it wasn't their time..

I always chalked that up to the person having some level of awareness of their surroundings leading up to that moment. As in, they actually do open their eyes for a moment and see what everyone is wearing and the general positioning of objects in the room, and they continue to hear things going on even when their eyes aren't open. That information then gets integrated into the dream they are having where their mind fills in a lot of the detail. Add that to them recounting the story to a bunch of people who, statistically speaking, probably aren't that skeptical of such an experience in general, and you get an "out of body experience".

If people really want to believe it enough, they may selectively remember things as being just like what the person says when they really aren't, or they may unwittingly supply some of the details to the person themselves. I've seen such a thing happen. In the case I saw, the person who had the experience was recounting it with another person who was there, and the second person kept correcting them about the details of the story all the while believing that the details they were supplying from their conscious memories of the event were somehow validating the story. The doublethink going on there is kind of mind boggling to me.

 

[soulcougher73]

Oh i love these threads. Always lose a few brain cells trying to follow the theists talking points.

 

[clamum]

Not in the Christian God, but I do believe in "a higher power." I'm not quite sure what that is, a "spirit of the universe" or something, but I do believe there's a higher power.

 

[alzan]

I voted yes and here's why, more than once people who have been technically "dead" in a hospital and survived have told of some "out of body" experiences where they could see themselves getting treatment. Now it's easy to dismiss those experiences because of what the subconscious mind can conger up, specially with the body going through a lot at the time, but what freaked me out was how some could actually describe in detail what was happening in the rooms around them when they had these experiences, they were "on their way" but got called back when they lived, it wasn't their time..

Could be this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astral_projection

 

[justoh]

I voted yes and here's why, more than once people who have been technically "dead" in a hospital and survived have told of some "out of body" experiences where they could see themselves getting treatment. Now it's easy to dismiss those experiences because of what the subconscious mind can conger up, specially with the body going through a lot at the time, but what freaked me out was how some could actually describe in detail what was happening in the rooms around them when they had these experiences, they were "on their way" but got called back when they lived, it wasn't their time..

As far as reasons go for believing something, that's a pretty shitty reason.