Well I'm not going to get into this religious argument as no one can win as there are just too many assumptions either way.. but this statement really intrigues me... Do you really believe it?
It's sounds like the statement attributed to Bill Gates (incorrect by the way) made, circa 1981 that 640k would be all we would need for a long time, or "Everything that can be invented has been invented." -- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899."
There are dozens of these and I think that we as humans know so little about reality both here on earth and elsewhere that to think otherwise is completely naïve. Our grandchildren (well maybe not mine as they are already here:) ) will look back at 2014 and think how primitive we really were...
Heres one for prophet Gödel proved that any formal system -math, logic etc. has unprovable statements ie this statement is false. Does that mean reality is more than science?
If religion isn't required for morality...there's no reason for religion...hence religion's defenders asking how we can have morality without it. It's actually quite funny. Prophet....would you kill if you'd never read the Bible? Would you know it's wrong? You need a piece of paper to tell you what is right and wrong, or do you know it inside yourself? If so...morality is outside religion. It is based on man's decisions. We decide what is moral. Not paper. Or we have to go back to believing slavery is fine.
How do you know that murder is wrong? Or stealing? Who taught you that? Who taught them? Keep going back far enough into antiquity and you will come to some form of Religion codifying morality.
So, while it may be true that society no longer "needs" religion to tell us right from wrong, it may only be due to the omnipresence of those ancient teachings that this is the case.
And you do recall that it was devoutly religious folks who were behind the abolitionist movement, right?
"They (Nik Mark and Shtebs) might be frustrated by the typical form these types of debates with spiritual minded persons takes. They argue using logic, proof and facts."Shtebs
"All atheists are immoral? I for one have standards and morals and I’m pretty sure most do. Why is that? Maybe morality is a human construct that has helped us survive."panama
"Hence religion's defenders asking how we can have morality without it. It is based on man's decisions. We decide what is moral."800OVER
Using Shtebs own criteria, logic, proofs and reasonable inferences, build a case for “morality apart from religious principles”.
Is “your” morality here Ontario the same as it is in other parts of the world? Who decides what the standard is and what is the basis of that standard? Keeping in mind that the basic mantra of evolution “survival of the fittest” it’s ok to put other species down in order to grow and move on.
800OVER asked the question “if I would ever kill if I hadn’t read the Bible.” Don’t know to be honest. If I am really honest, I think there are circumstance I could kill someone. I think there are circumstances where most people could kill someone. It doesn’t change the fact that I think killing is wrong.
800OVER, you say “it is funny”, I am asking a serious question.
How do you get morality when everyone standard for what morality is even different. Who draws the final line? Is the line in sand or does it change with each generation? What one calls evil, another calls “that is just life”. Think this through. Natural Selection and an unguided processes do not explain everything we can see or the unknown. How can it? How can Natural Selection account for morality, good, evil, a conscience? How does Natural Selection deal with free will of mankind? Because in truth, if Natural Selection is it, if that is all we have – survival of the fittest, then anything is up for grabs, and there can’t be morality or good or evil. There is just life, without purpose or design. Because the line is ever changing. How do we get morality if it isn’t from religious principles? Lay out the case for morality based upon a system of unguided random process and mutations if there is no previous pre-programming done in advance.
It is because it is the current dominant myth that supersedes all other myths currently running due to their larger membership and the incredibly powerful religious political lobby. Christianity is not powerful because of divinity. It is powerful because throughout the ages it's purveyors have worked very effectively to sway the masses and brutally squash and silence their opposition.
This (unfortunately) does explain some of the growth of the church, primarily in the West. It does not, however, adequately explain how the christian faith survived in the beginning. Early Christians were violently persecuted and killed, their faith was effectively forbidden. This was a time when a person's grandfather or great-grandfather could have been alive and possibly witness to the Gospel and early church events.
Conversion to the christian faith is forbidden today in many countries, people will be disowned/shunned by their families and pastors can be jailed, beaten or killed. Yet in many of those countries the church is growing!
If there is "god", why would everyone not have come to the same religion? Why are there different religions if god is the one and only?
The same reason everyone isn't just a Montreal Canadiens fan. People are easily deceived by lies. Like "the Leafs might be good again someday".
Look, people couldn't not start worshipping another 'deity' when Moses went up a mountain to literally talk to God. People start to chafe under what they perceive as unjust/unfair rules and then they follow someone else who says they can do what they want.
Ancient Israelite: "Yeah, I know our priests are telling us about this creator God and controller of the Universe, delivered our people, yada yada yada. He's good and all, but over in Canaan they have temple prostitutes! Easy choice, right?"
Morality evolves--go figure. Evolution does not mean your going to kill off all other life forms lol. It also means a lot of cooperation and interdependence. Ever hear of ecology? Evolution very easily explains morality without resorting to magical explanations. What is morality? Human construct that helps us cooperate. Any social species exhibit cooperative behaviour. Pick any moral act and you will find that its helpful for tribe as root cause. Different tribes ( group, race,family,nation,species etc.) may have differing definitions of what considered moral because morality derives from group interaction. Your morality and my morality are probably very similar Prophet but concerned about inflexible thinking that could cause hurt.
Interesting read. The title of the article should be that 'christians weren't persecuted against as badly or as completely as you may have thought ' but that doesn't get as many page views I'm sure.
No doubt people make exaggerations of certain aspects of various persecutions, for their own reasons. Minimizing historical persecution will be what sells books for this author. Reality is likely somewhere in between.
I do agree that any North American saying the christian church is being persecuted hereis falling victim to "preposterous right-wing rhetoric". Saying you're a christian is essentially a requirement to become President of the U.S., as an example.
Do you have any links (even from that bastion of balance and reason, Salon) that say anything about the current and ongoing persecution of christians around the world today?
How do you know that murder is wrong? Or stealing? Who taught you that? Who taught them? Keep going back far enough into antiquity and you will come to some form of Religion codifying morality.
So, while it may be true that society no longer "needs" religion to tell us right from wrong, it may only be due to the omnipresence of those ancient teachings that this is the case.
And you do recall that it was devoutly religious folks who were behind the abolitionist movement, right?
Gotcha....until Jesus showed up it was just murder this and rape that....and as soon as people found religion, no problems.
Again MAN can decide all of these things. It has nothing to do with religion.
Milo...please read up on the people who were against abolition. The Bible was used to promote slavery. THAT is the problem with religion. It can be twisted. It is based on opinion.
“If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother, that person is a piece of shit.” Rust
With the absolutely knowledge of nearly everything on earth and the understandings of how it works and why/how it exists, the explanations we have for nearly everything that exists on this planet (except death obv, no one knows that and if they claim to do they are lying to your face) it makes sense to improve your intellect and perhaps move on to something more feasible?
Can I nominate this as the least reasonable thing anyone has said at any point in this thread? We have absolute understanding of nearly everything???
Unless you are an old, does anyone even go to church anymore? Last talk I had with my friends about religion was about the old pope was looking a lot like an evil sith lord, or perhaps some sort of vampire demon. That and the constant child molestation jokes that seems to be prevalent always with those priests.
[/QUOTE]
I'm 36, does that make me an old? Do the members of this church in Hamilton sound like olds? There are many more churches like it, I chose this one because the pastor is a friend of mine.
Being unaware of something doesn't mean those things doesn't exist. I'm intentionally avoiding a 'maybe school failed you' joke here.
How does religion deal with free will? It doesn't. If there truly is free will then Christianity is impossibly backwards.
God created humans free of sin and then created a tree to give them sin? All humans have souls and they ALL go to hell? Until God sends his son down to Earth to die....thereby breaking the rule that prevents them from going there in the first place (that He created).
God killed the entire population of earth (the people he created) because he couldn't see their sin coming?
You have free will. But God knows that you are or aren't going to be good and then send you to hell. Sounds like a rigged game to me.
Either God intervenes with humans (heals people of Cancer, saves 1 person in a plane crash). OR we have free will and he doesn't interfere. Which do you guys believe. BTW both is not a logical answer. So no miracles or free will. Pick one.
Interesting read. The title of the article should be that 'christians weren't persecuted against as badly or as completely as you may have thought ' but that doesn't get as many page views I'm sure.
No doubt people make exaggerations of certain aspects of various persecutions, for their own reasons. Minimizing historical persecution will be what sells books for this author. Reality is likely somewhere in between.
I do agree that any North American saying the christian church is being persecuted hereis falling victim to "preposterous right-wing rhetoric". Saying you're a christian is essentially a requirement to become President of the U.S., as an example.
Do you have any links (even from that bastion of balance and reason, Salon) that say anything about the current and ongoing persecution of christians around the world today?
Although the article is from salon...the quoted professor is from Notre Dame...a noted Catholic University. He's a professor of the New Testament and early Christianity...I'm sure he's more of an expert than I am. I would also argue a little less biased than Christianity Today. maybe I'm wrong.
No one is saying that Christians aren't persecuted...we're saying that has nothing to do with whether Christianity is a viable.
Gotcha....until Jesus showed up it was just murder this and rape that....and as soon as people found religion, no problems.
Again MAN can decide all of these things. It has nothing to do with religion.
Milo...please read up on the people who were against abolition. The Bible was used to promote slavery. THAT is the problem with religion. It can be twisted. It is based on opinion.
“If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother, that person is a piece of shit.” Rust
- There just might have been religion around before Jesus walked the earth. But you know that. Maybe you meant Moses.
- Actually, I think atheists can be moral, and many probably make more consistently moral decisions than many christians. If there were no God, then there would be no reason humans couldn't develop morality on their own. If there is a God, then they didn't (logically).
- Some people used the Bible to defend slavery. Saying 'promote it' sounds a bit like it was invented in the American South. Slavery has essentially always existed, whether related to religion or not. Of course not everyone who was an abolitionist was a christian. But don't deny that many, many were. The State did far more to maintain and defend slavery than the church, are you as against government as you are religion?
Although the article is from salon...the quoted professor is from Notre Dame...a noted Catholic University. He's a professor of the New Testament and early Christianity...I'm sure he's more of an expert than I am.
The issue isn't whether or not she is more of an expert than you (or I). Is she more of an expert than all the other professors of New Testament and early Christianity in the world - of whom I'm sure more than one would disagree with her conclusions.
I know no one was saying christians aren't persecuted. What you did say was that Christianity has grown because " It is powerful because throughout the ages it's purveyors have worked very effectively to sway the masses" My reference to early and current persecution was merely me trying to show that christianity has/does grow also from a position of weakness.
Note too that one effective way to "sway the masses" to your position is to be telling the truth. Right?
How does religion deal with free will? It doesn't. If there truly is free will then Christianity is impossibly backwards.
God created humans free of sin and then created a tree to give them sin? All humans have souls and they ALL go to hell? Until God sends his son down to Earth to die....thereby breaking the rule that prevents them from going there in the first place (that He created).
God killed the entire population of earth (the people he created) because he couldn't see their sin coming?
You have free will. But God knows that you are or aren't going to be good and then send you to hell. Sounds like a rigged game to me.
How does religion 'deal' with free will? I guess by almost endlessly discussing it, writing books and scholarly papers about it, etc. Fully understand it? No, I guess not.
Certainly He didn't create a tree to "give them sin". Did the tree give them the ability to choose to sin? Yes. Do you see the difference?
Either God intervenes with humans (heals people of Cancer, saves 1 person in a plane crash). OR we have free will and he doesn't interfere. Which do you guys believe. BTW both is not a logical answer. So no miracles or free will. Pick one.
You may have to explain further why it can't be both. Your definition of 'not logical' seems to be different than the standard.
How does religion 'deal' with free will? I guess by almost endlessly discussing it, writing books and scholarly papers about it, etc. Fully understand it? No, I guess not.
Certainly He didn't create a tree to "give them sin". Did the tree give them the ability to choose to sin? Yes. Do you see the difference?
You may have to explain further why it can't be both. Your definition of 'not logical' seems to be different than the standard.
God made a tree that he new would be eaten from of course....the guy knows everything. He could have easily created Adam and never created the tree. But we're arguing about a tree that never existed and a person who never existed so..
If GOD interferes with day to day events....we do not have free will. If he can heal 1 person every once in a while...then he can also stop us from doing harm/receiving harm.
Lets say I'm a bad person....and I steal. Can my wife's prayer alter anything? If it does....bang no free will. if not...prayer is shit.
Hence: "Both God and I think murder is wrong, but only I am willing to do something about it"
We both agree that rape and murder is wrong..God is capable of stopping all murder...but doesn't. God could feed the world's hungry...but doesn't. But every once in a while prayer's are answered and someone lives through cancer. I choose to believe that it is due to the efforts of science. Some people choose to believe it's due to prayer. But prayer has no effect...except placibo when people know about it.
Shifting topics to Free Will is the best response to saying "there is no morality apart from religious principles." That's ok. I was hoping someone could show me how morality works in an evolutionary world because my understanding of Darwinism and Neo-Darwinsim is they are diametrically opposed to each other.
You might have tried The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. He believes science has already begun to pin-down the causes of human "happiness", and that regulating this pursuit is the purpose of "social morality". pg 181
You want to talk about free will.
New Atheist Sam Harris also wrote an essay called Free Will. In it he argues that man has no free will. Even the worst criminal that rapes and murders someone. His argument is based on the fact he is a neuroscientist and a philosopher. It can sound very compelling on the service. But even his New Atheist friend Dan Dennett whole heartly disagrees with him. See Reflections on FREE WILL : A Review by Daniel C. Dennett : : Sam Harris
A Christian perspective.
One of the great thinkers of the 20th century puts it this way:
“God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can't. If a thing is free to be good it's also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata -of creatures that worked like machines- would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they've got to be free.
Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently, He thought it worth the risk. (...) If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will -that is, for making a real world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings- then we may take it it is worth paying.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity
There is much to discuss here, but I will be away for a bit. I will try and check in while I am gone.
Well I'm not going to get into this religious argument as no one can win as there are just too many assumptions either way.
It's not a question of winning, as much as it is about not being bullied by the new atheists of our day saying things like, there is no God, Jesus is a myth, science can answer or has the ability to answer all the big questions involving mankind when there is clear evidence it can't. They have a working hypothesis they believe in, one that can't be tested, btw, and go from there.
You want to talk about Christians being persecuted in North America. Guarantee you have not heard about Emily Brooker. She sued Missouri State University (MSU) after she was threatened with expulsion and charged with violating MSU’s “Standards of Essential Functioning” for refusing to lobby the Missouri legislature on behalf of homosexual adoption. The lawsuit was settled in her favor. An outside investigation of the School of Social Work found ideological coercion on the part of the faculty against dissenting students and noted the chilling effect of its actions and policies on the school’s intellectual atmosphere. Hear her tell it in her own words.
I do appreciate you as a moderator not shutting this thread down, as well as I appreciate most of the contributors here for not making things personal for the most part.
I see absolutely no reason whatsoever to shut this thread down. You guys have generated 26 pages of generally well thought out discussion, with a few snippits of barbing each other. Personally I think in a discussion about religion that's a miracle in itself.
As for "bullying" on campus, see also the University of Calgary, Carleton, University of Ottawa . . . all fine institutions shaping our future leaders of tomorrow.*
*Provided, of course, they agree with the current orthodoxy. Otherwise, GTFO.
Well I'm not going to get into this religious argument as no one can win as there are just too many assumptions either way.. but this statement really intrigues me... Do you really believe it?
Yes I do.
Really the most intelligent people and the biggest breakthroughs have materialized already. But its not to say there won't be other breakthoughs and even smarter people being born. Its like since the 1800's I feel we have learned like 97% of the things we will ever need to know or learn on this planet. Sure small things will change, tech will advance, medicine will get better, things will get smaller and more convienent but overall the VAST amount of new, completely unknown knowledge of the earth and its billions of years of godless history is pretty much solidified.
cliffs: everything you need to know about our life on earth, history, how things work and why, exist today, right now, and you could live 1,000,000 future years on earth with just this information.
Really the most intelligent people and the biggest breakthroughs have materialized already. But its not to say there won't be other breakthoughs and even smarter people being born. Its like since the 1800's I feel we have learned like 97% of the things we will ever need to know or learn on this planet. Sure small things will change, tech will advance, medicine will get better, things will get smaller and more convienent but overall the VAST amount of new, completely unknown knowledge of the earth and its billions of years of godless history is pretty much solidified.
cliffs: everything you need to know about our life on earth, history, how things work and why, exist today, right now, and you could live 1,000,000 future years on earth with just this information.
Pretty sure that people have felt this way in almost every century, at almost any point in history when "great leaps forward" have been made. the people making those discoveries would probably laugh at this thought.
Just because one can live with the information we have now, does not mean we are any where close to knowing everything. Hell, you could live for a mirrion years without any of the discoveries made since 1900, too.
Gotcha....until Jesus showed up it was just murder this and rape that....and as soon as people found religion, no problems.
Again MAN can decide all of these things. It has nothing to do with religion.
Milo...please read up on the people who were against abolition. The Bible was used to promote slavery. THAT is the problem with religion. It can be twisted. It is based on opinion.
“If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother, that person is a piece of shit.” Rust
if you need to define your morality through the bible then you bettr stone your kids if they misbehave
Comments
How do you know that murder is wrong? Or stealing? Who taught you that? Who taught them? Keep going back far enough into antiquity and you will come to some form of Religion codifying morality.
So, while it may be true that society no longer "needs" religion to tell us right from wrong, it may only be due to the omnipresence of those ancient teachings that this is the case.
And you do recall that it was devoutly religious folks who were behind the abolitionist movement, right?
"All atheists are immoral? I for one have standards and morals and I’m pretty sure most do. Why is that? Maybe morality is a human construct that has helped us survive." panama
"Hence religion's defenders asking how we can have morality without it. It is based on man's decisions. We decide what is moral." 800OVER
Using Shtebs own criteria, logic, proofs and reasonable inferences, build a case for “morality apart from religious principles”.
Is “your” morality here Ontario the same as it is in other parts of the world? Who decides what the standard is and what is the basis of that standard? Keeping in mind that the basic mantra of evolution “survival of the fittest” it’s ok to put other species down in order to grow and move on.
800OVER asked the question “if I would ever kill if I hadn’t read the Bible.” Don’t know to be honest. If I am really honest, I think there are circumstance I could kill someone. I think there are circumstances where most people could kill someone. It doesn’t change the fact that I think killing is wrong.
800OVER, you say “it is funny”, I am asking a serious question.
How do you get morality when everyone standard for what morality is even different. Who draws the final line? Is the line in sand or does it change with each generation? What one calls evil, another calls “that is just life”. Think this through. Natural Selection and an unguided processes do not explain everything we can see or the unknown. How can it? How can Natural Selection account for morality, good, evil, a conscience? How does Natural Selection deal with free will of mankind? Because in truth, if Natural Selection is it, if that is all we have – survival of the fittest, then anything is up for grabs, and there can’t be morality or good or evil. There is just life, without purpose or design. Because the line is ever changing. How do we get morality if it isn’t from religious principles? Lay out the case for morality based upon a system of unguided random process and mutations if there is no previous pre-programming done in advance.
This (unfortunately) does explain some of the growth of the church, primarily in the West. It does not, however, adequately explain how the christian faith survived in the beginning. Early Christians were violently persecuted and killed, their faith was effectively forbidden. This was a time when a person's grandfather or great-grandfather could have been alive and possibly witness to the Gospel and early church events.
Conversion to the christian faith is forbidden today in many countries, people will be disowned/shunned by their families and pastors can be jailed, beaten or killed. Yet in many of those countries the church is growing!
The same reason everyone isn't just a Montreal Canadiens fan. People are easily deceived by lies. Like "the Leafs might be good again someday".
Look, people couldn't not start worshipping another 'deity' when Moses went up a mountain to literally talk to God. People start to chafe under what they perceive as unjust/unfair rules and then they follow someone else who says they can do what they want.
Ancient Israelite: "Yeah, I know our priests are telling us about this creator God and controller of the Universe, delivered our people, yada yada yada. He's good and all, but over in Canaan they have temple prostitutes! Easy choice, right?"
Interesting read. The title of the article should be that 'christians weren't persecuted against as badly or as completely as you may have thought ' but that doesn't get as many page views I'm sure.
No doubt people make exaggerations of certain aspects of various persecutions, for their own reasons. Minimizing historical persecution will be what sells books for this author. Reality is likely somewhere in between.
I do agree that any North American saying the christian church is being persecuted here is falling victim to "preposterous right-wing rhetoric". Saying you're a christian is essentially a requirement to become President of the U.S., as an example.
Do you have any links (even from that bastion of balance and reason, Salon) that say anything about the current and ongoing persecution of christians around the world today?
Gotcha....until Jesus showed up it was just murder this and rape that....and as soon as people found religion, no problems.
Again MAN can decide all of these things. It has nothing to do with religion.
Milo...please read up on the people who were against abolition. The Bible was used to promote slavery. THAT is the problem with religion. It can be twisted. It is based on opinion.
“If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother, that person is a piece of shit.” Rust
Can I nominate this as the least reasonable thing anyone has said at any point in this thread? We have absolute understanding of nearly everything???
[/QUOTE]
I'm 36, does that make me an old? Do the members of this church in Hamilton sound like olds? There are many more churches like it, I chose this one because the pastor is a friend of mine.
Being unaware of something doesn't mean those things doesn't exist. I'm intentionally avoiding a 'maybe school failed you' joke here.
Actually, I guess I didn't.
God created humans free of sin and then created a tree to give them sin? All humans have souls and they ALL go to hell? Until God sends his son down to Earth to die....thereby breaking the rule that prevents them from going there in the first place (that He created).
God killed the entire population of earth (the people he created) because he couldn't see their sin coming?
You have free will. But God knows that you are or aren't going to be good and then send you to hell. Sounds like a rigged game to me.
Either God intervenes with humans (heals people of Cancer, saves 1 person in a plane crash). OR we have free will and he doesn't interfere. Which do you guys believe. BTW both is not a logical answer. So no miracles or free will. Pick one.
Although the article is from salon...the quoted professor is from Notre Dame...a noted Catholic University. He's a professor of the New Testament and early Christianity...I'm sure he's more of an expert than I am. I would also argue a little less biased than Christianity Today. maybe I'm wrong.
No one is saying that Christians aren't persecuted...we're saying that has nothing to do with whether Christianity is a viable.
- There just might have been religion around before Jesus walked the earth. But you know that. Maybe you meant Moses.
- Actually, I think atheists can be moral, and many probably make more consistently moral decisions than many christians. If there were no God, then there would be no reason humans couldn't develop morality on their own. If there is a God, then they didn't (logically).
- Some people used the Bible to defend slavery. Saying 'promote it' sounds a bit like it was invented in the American South. Slavery has essentially always existed, whether related to religion or not. Of course not everyone who was an abolitionist was a christian. But don't deny that many, many were. The State did far more to maintain and defend slavery than the church, are you as against government as you are religion?
Side note on slavery: There are more slaves in the world today than at any other point in human history. And christians continue to be a part of trying to end it.
The issue isn't whether or not she is more of an expert than you (or I). Is she more of an expert than all the other professors of New Testament and early Christianity in the world - of whom I'm sure more than one would disagree with her conclusions.
I know no one was saying christians aren't persecuted. What you did say was that Christianity has grown because " It is powerful because throughout the ages it's purveyors have worked very effectively to sway the masses" My reference to early and current persecution was merely me trying to show that christianity has/does grow also from a position of weakness.
Note too that one effective way to "sway the masses" to your position is to be telling the truth. Right?
How does religion 'deal' with free will? I guess by almost endlessly discussing it, writing books and scholarly papers about it, etc. Fully understand it? No, I guess not.
Certainly He didn't create a tree to "give them sin". Did the tree give them the ability to choose to sin? Yes. Do you see the difference?
You may have to explain further why it can't be both. Your definition of 'not logical' seems to be different than the standard.
God made a tree that he new would be eaten from of course....the guy knows everything. He could have easily created Adam and never created the tree. But we're arguing about a tree that never existed and a person who never existed so..
If GOD interferes with day to day events....we do not have free will. If he can heal 1 person every once in a while...then he can also stop us from doing harm/receiving harm.
Lets say I'm a bad person....and I steal. Can my wife's prayer alter anything? If it does....bang no free will. if not...prayer is shit.
Hence: "Both God and I think murder is wrong, but only I am willing to do something about it"
We both agree that rape and murder is wrong..God is capable of stopping all murder...but doesn't. God could feed the world's hungry...but doesn't. But every once in a while prayer's are answered and someone lives through cancer. I choose to believe that it is due to the efforts of science. Some people choose to believe it's due to prayer. But prayer has no effect...except placibo when people know about it.
You might have tried The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. He believes science has already begun to pin-down the causes of human "happiness", and that regulating this pursuit is the purpose of "social morality". pg 181
You want to talk about free will.
New Atheist Sam Harris also wrote an essay called Free Will. In it he argues that man has no free will. Even the worst criminal that rapes and murders someone. His argument is based on the fact he is a neuroscientist and a philosopher. It can sound very compelling on the service. But even his New Atheist friend Dan Dennett whole heartly disagrees with him. See Reflections on FREE WILL : A Review by Daniel C. Dennett : : Sam Harris
A Christian perspective.
One of the great thinkers of the 20th century puts it this way:
“God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can't. If a thing is free to be good it's also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata -of creatures that worked like machines- would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they've got to be free.
Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently, He thought it worth the risk. (...) If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will -that is, for making a real world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings- then we may take it it is worth paying.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity
There is much to discuss here, but I will be away for a bit. I will try and check in while I am gone.
Prophet22
It's not a question of winning, as much as it is about not being bullied by the new atheists of our day saying things like, there is no God, Jesus is a myth, science can answer or has the ability to answer all the big questions involving mankind when there is clear evidence it can't. They have a working hypothesis they believe in, one that can't be tested, btw, and go from there.
You want to talk about Christians being persecuted in North America. Guarantee you have not heard about Emily Brooker. She sued Missouri State University (MSU) after she was threatened with expulsion and charged with violating MSU’s “Standards of Essential Functioning” for refusing to lobby the Missouri legislature on behalf of homosexual adoption. The lawsuit was settled in her favor. An outside investigation of the School of Social Work found ideological coercion on the part of the faculty against dissenting students and noted the chilling effect of its actions and policies on the school’s intellectual atmosphere. Hear her tell it in her own words.
Threats, Coercion, and Bullying at Missouri State - YouTube
This is one of hundreds if not thousands of examples of what is going on at the university level.
Here is a case involving free speech of a parking garage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVOF1eM2gL8
I do appreciate you as a moderator not shutting this thread down, as well as I appreciate most of the contributors here for not making things personal for the most part.
Prophet22
*Provided, of course, they agree with the current orthodoxy. Otherwise, GTFO.
Yes I do.
Really the most intelligent people and the biggest breakthroughs have materialized already. But its not to say there won't be other breakthoughs and even smarter people being born. Its like since the 1800's I feel we have learned like 97% of the things we will ever need to know or learn on this planet. Sure small things will change, tech will advance, medicine will get better, things will get smaller and more convienent but overall the VAST amount of new, completely unknown knowledge of the earth and its billions of years of godless history is pretty much solidified.
cliffs: everything you need to know about our life on earth, history, how things work and why, exist today, right now, and you could live 1,000,000 future years on earth with just this information.
Pretty sure that people have felt this way in almost every century, at almost any point in history when "great leaps forward" have been made. the people making those discoveries would probably laugh at this thought.
Just because one can live with the information we have now, does not mean we are any where close to knowing everything. Hell, you could live for a mirrion years without any of the discoveries made since 1900, too.
Typo or are you being a racist asshole?
Can't it be both Johnnie?
Mark
Just an asshole.
Got it.