And this makes Harvey's point invalid how?Originally posted by: Fides
Originally posted by: Harvey
The point is, it's arbitrary. Religion is not necessary to be a good, or even spiritual person. With some variation, basic concepts of good and evil have transcended societies as long as there has been recorded history. Good has its own intrinsic value, and if you analyze it, it simply makes sense as good social engineering. The Ten Commandments can be viewed as a set of rules to keep a microcosm from blowing itself apart while wandering around in the desert for a few decades. Nine of the ten are based on the Theory of Bad Vibes.
Don't kill. Don't steal. Don't hit on your buddy's old lady, or your girlfriend's old man.
Why? It causes Bad Vibes.
Take care of your parents.
Why? Because, they did it for you when you were too young to care for yourself. It's your turn to do it for them if they're too old to care for themselves. Anything else causes (you guessed it) Bad Vibes.
Sorry Harvey, Jesus already had a theory 2000 years before you. He said love your neighbor and love God. Plus love just sounds nicer than vibe... Reminds me of a crappy car.
Originally posted by: Fides
Originally posted by: HombrePequeno
It depends on what you consider murder. Is self-defense murder? How about killing someone in a war? Hitler thought he was doing a good thing and so did millions around the world. You may think that good and bad is black and white but there is a LOT of gray in there.
Agreed, there is a lot of grey area, but not with God because he is an absolute concept/entity. The use of hitler as an example is an extreeme. I said NOT including thos who are mentally insane. If you kill somone and have a malevolent intent, then yes it is murder. If you go to war thinnking all people from Iraq are "evil", then yes it is murder. If you defend yourself while being raped, and then after the perpetraor is rendered unconcious, you shoot him... then that is murder. Killing for revenge is murder. Killing for money is murder. Killing for politics and power is murder.
Originally posted by: KIAman
Religion in one form or another requires faith. How can one logically or scientifically prove something that the religeous people have accepted through faith. It is incomprehensible. I can say to you that God does exist because I have faith that he does, and that is the honest truth (according to my world) but it is completely invalid to people which faith is not evidence. Thats why I stated earlier, arguing about whether He exists or not is not going to do anything except push those who are solid unbelievers further away. It is individually up to each one of us whether He is real or not.
Even if Pascal's wager is weak, mainly since he was in an environment where it was the catholic church, or pagan, and that raised questions regarding the wager could also be to other gods that could exist through other religions. Each wager to a god would further reduce the plausibility to wager against god or gods, but the wager against has zero chance of any gain (after death, not in life), while even choosing 1 religion to wager for that single or multiple gods would present atleast a fraction of a gain, say 1/(all possible religions). It might be 1 in a billion chance that the wager could benefit (again, after death, not during life), but it is still better than 0.
Originally posted by: Rio Rebel
what all of you who 'believe' (I put that in quotes, because there are many forms of it) don't realize, is how ludacris **some** of you sound.
Just in case anyone missed this little ironic jewel...
The key part is that in order for the big bang to happen, or whatever else you evolutionists claim, there has to be an uncaused cause. Somehow some way something had to be here to begin with. It just wasn't here. The only logical way of explaining this is a greater power. Since all you evolutionists and atheists tend to think logically and claim God is something made up, maybe you should think about your theories logically for a second. Logically something had to be uncaused. That thing that was uncaused was a supernatural being. A God if you will.
If you can't prove or disprove it then how can you possibly predict the likelyhood of it happening? You can't, so dont try.
i have no problem with anyones beliefs. this is a discussion, and i'm just trying to share my 2 cents...when I hear people say that its ridiculous to believe in God... well nothing. I just hear them say it and I don't like it SO DONT SAY IT!
Since all you evolutionists and atheists tend to think logically and claim God is something made up, maybe you should think about your theories logically for a second. Logically something had to be uncaused. That thing that was uncaused was a supernatural being. A God if you will.
To me, the more logical inference is that Mind produced matter rather than thinking that mindless matter somehow produced mind.
I have long believed that the mind/body problem has been put to rest prematurely. Just because we have discovered a few causal relationships between physical and mental events doesn't mean we can confidently assume that all mental activity could eventually be explained by physical phenomenon. And your comment makes the point even further.
It must be clearly understoodthat the argument leads to no conception of "souls" or "spirits" (words I have avoided) floating about in the realm of Nature with no relation to their environment. Hence we do not deny -- indeed we must welcome -- certain considerations which are often regarded as proofs of Naturalism. We can admit, and even insist, that Rational Thinking can be shown to be conditioned in its exercise by a natural object (the brain). It is temporarily impaired by alcohol or a blow on the head. It wanes as the brain decays and vanishes [i.e, is not observable] when the brain ceases to function. In the same way the moral outlook of a community can be shown to be closely connected with its history, geographical environment, economic structure, and so forth. The moral ideas of the individual are equally related to his general situation... All of this, far from presenting us with a difficulty, is exactly what we should expect.
The rational and moral element in each human mind is a point of force from the Supernatural working its way into Nature, exploiting at each point those conditions which Nature offers, repulsed where the conditions are hopeless and impeded when they are unfavorable. A man's Rational thinking is just so much of his share of eternal Reason as the state of his brain allows to become operative; it presents, so to speak, the bargain struck or the frontier fixed between Reason and Nature at that particular point. A nation's moral outlook is just so much of its share in eternal Moral Wisdom as its history, economics etc. lets through. In the same way the voice of the Announcer is just so much of a human voice as the receiving set lets through. Of course it varies with the state of the receiving set and vanishes [i.e: ceases to be observable] altogether if I throw a brick at it. It is conditioned by the apparatus but not originated by it (emphasis mine).