phil777
Phoenix
Joined: May 21, 2008
Age: 26
Posts: 4825
Location: Montreal, Québec
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 Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2012 9:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Vigilans wrote: | | anna-banana wrote: | | Vigilans wrote: | | I used to be among those never to have tried steak, but no longer |
I used to eat steaks. lots of 'em. medium-rare. sometimes even rare! back then, I would even eat carpaccio that wasn't sliced properly thin.
but now I am a vegetarian. |
vegetables are for girly men!
Just kidding, I love vegetables. I am a vagitarian though |
Btw, my dad told me that the best Steakhouse in Alberta forbids that meat be cooked rare. Me thinks rare is the best. *.* |
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munch15a
Snowy Owl
Joined: Nov 17, 2011
Age: 24
Posts: 153
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| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 3:15 am Post subject: |
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| YippySkippy wrote: | The best Christians, I think, are those who acknowledge that it's all about faith at the end of the day.
No one can prove or disprove God - you just choose to believe or you choose not to believe.
Or, like me, you sit on the fence until your arse goes numb.  |
indeed my faith tells me there is a god and profoundly respect the right of others to decide there is not however i cant stomach it when they then think I’m somehow stupid there have been much smarter people then me and people with much better scientific credentials then me who have both agreed and dis agreed with me |
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ruveyn
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 22, 2008
Age: 76
Posts: 29311
Location: New Jersey
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| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 4:35 am Post subject: |
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| munch15a wrote: | | YippySkippy wrote: | The best Christians, I think, are those who acknowledge that it's all about faith at the end of the day.
No one can prove or disprove God - you just choose to believe or you choose not to believe.
Or, like me, you sit on the fence until your arse goes numb. |
indeed my faith tells me there is a god and profoundly respect the right of others to decide there is not however i cant stomach it when they then think I’m somehow stupid there have been much smarter people then me and people with much better scientific credentials then me who have both agreed and dis agreed with me |
Faith without hard empirical evidence to back it up is delusion and fantasy. The world runs on facts, not fond hopes.
ruveyn |
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dizzywater
Pileated woodpecker
Joined: Feb 04, 2012
Posts: 194
Location: sitting by the computer
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| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 4:57 am Post subject: |
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| phil777 wrote: | | Vigilans wrote: | | anna-banana wrote: | | Vigilans wrote: | | I used to be among those never to have tried steak, but no longer |
I used to eat steaks. lots of 'em. medium-rare. sometimes even rare! back then, I would even eat carpaccio that wasn't sliced properly thin.
but now I am a vegetarian. |
vegetables are for girly men!
Just kidding, I love vegetables. I am a vagitarian though |
Btw, my dad told me that the best Steakhouse in Alberta forbids that meat be cooked rare. Me thinks rare is the best. *.* |
They just don't want to be sued sometime in the future when some unknown disease is found to have originated in consuming undercooked steak. I love a good bloody steak though.  |
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donnie_darko
Phoenix
Joined: Nov 27, 2009
Age: 23
Posts: 1794
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| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 4:59 am Post subject: |
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| I'm not religious, but to be fair, believing we are an accident is almost as crazy as believing in Christ and imo, quite a bit more depressing too. Not that how happy a belief is is relevant to its status as truth, of course. |
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munch15a
Snowy Owl
Joined: Nov 17, 2011
Age: 24
Posts: 153
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| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:06 am Post subject: |
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| ruveyn wrote: | | munch15a wrote: | | YippySkippy wrote: | The best Christians, I think, are those who acknowledge that it's all about faith at the end of the day.
No one can prove or disprove God - you just choose to believe or you choose not to believe.
Or, like me, you sit on the fence until your arse goes numb. |
indeed my faith tells me there is a god and profoundly respect the right of others to decide there is not however i cant stomach it when they then think I’m somehow stupid there have been much smarter people then me and people with much better scientific credentials then me who have both agreed and dis agreed with me |
Faith without hard empirical evidence to back it up is delusion and fantasy. The world runs on facts, not fond hopes.
ruveyn |
If I have that its not faith any more I dont have faith the sun will come up tommorw I dont need faith for that I know it |
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ruveyn
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 22, 2008
Age: 76
Posts: 29311
Location: New Jersey
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| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:09 am Post subject: |
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| munch15a wrote: |
If I have that its not faith any more I dont have faith the sun will come up tommorw I dont need faith for that I know it |
Betting on the sun rise is odds on. The sun has being rising (which really means the Earth is rotating west to east) for the past 4 billion years or even more.
ruveyn |
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NarcissusSavage
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 03, 2009
Age: 31
Posts: 656
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| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:09 am Post subject: |
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| donnie_darko wrote: | | I'm not religious, but to be fair, believing we are an accident is almost as crazy as believing in Christ and imo, quite a bit more depressing too. Not that how happy a belief is is relevant to its status as truth, of course. |
If you get into the nitty gritty of it, nothing is an accident. Everything is cause and effect, and from the moment time began until this moment, everything has been a chain of events leading up to how everything is.
There is no reason to believe that we are an accident, despite having a lack of religion.
_________________
I am Ignostic.
Go ahead and define god, with universal acceptance of said definition.
I'll wait.
Maybe you are too?
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donnie_darko
Phoenix
Joined: Nov 27, 2009
Age: 23
Posts: 1794
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| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:14 am Post subject: |
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| NarcissusSavage wrote: | | donnie_darko wrote: | | I'm not religious, but to be fair, believing we are an accident is almost as crazy as believing in Christ and imo, quite a bit more depressing too. Not that how happy a belief is is relevant to its status as truth, of course. |
If you get into the nitty gritty of it, nothing is an accident. Everything is cause and effect, and from the moment time began until this moment, everything has been a chain of events leading up to how everything is.
There is no reason to believe that we are an accident, despite having a lack of religion. |
Well, if you're gonna be really semantic yeah. I guess what I mean by 'accident' is more that human beings, and by extension life and the universe itself, simply came out of nothing and inanimate matter. Personally I subscribe to the watchmaker argument, though I highly doubt that the designer(s) is Yahweh. |
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dizzywater
Pileated woodpecker
Joined: Feb 04, 2012
Posts: 194
Location: sitting by the computer
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| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:15 am Post subject: |
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| NarcissusSavage wrote: | Ok, I'll use the language of the Christian, in hopes to reach you.
Man sinned against god and god cursed man. But he wanted to redeem man, so he sacrificed his son, Jesus, to do so. Because man was cursed by him, and was irredeemable, unless Jesus sacrificed himself for all man, which god decided to do? God cursed man, and then forgave man, by sacrificing his son. Jesus is god, and god is Jesus. So god sacrificed himself to save man. So god is dead?
Anyway...god sacrificed Jesus, his other self, to save man...because...he wanted to forgive man. But...why not just forgive man? Why did he have to sacrifice anything at all? He is god, he should be able to just forgive man if he wants to, but is seems unable to do that. But somehow sending his son to his death can somehow let him forgive man for man's original sin? What sin? Disobedience. So because man disobeyed god, god had to kill off Jesus. But he didn't just hold a grudge against the man responsible for disobeying him; he cursed every single last human to follow, down the generations. He held all men accountable for actions they did not commit, and then, for whatever reason decides he has changed his mind, and mankind should be forgiven, but for some batshit crazy reason he needs to off his kid, who is him, to do it??
None of it makes any sense...none of it.
I’ve read the bible, from cover to cover. I recommend you try it. And while you are reading it, ask yourself if any of it makes any damn sense at all. Don’t just read little parts of it, or let some child touching preacher read it to you on Sunday, but sit down and read the whole book.
I’m fairly convinced the cure to Christianity is to read the Bible… |
That is the best post I've read here!
I just read it to my son & he thought it was brilliant too, just yesterday we were discussing why he has to learn that stuff for the only compulsory GCSE, Religious Studies. He is refusing to learn bible stories, says its just stupid. Hard to convince someone to put effort into something pointless really. I try to get the point across that its an extra GCSE, but in truth its probably not what employers are really looking for.....
Any chance you could distill it into a few words so I can put the essence of it on a car sticker?
On second thoughts no, I might get my windows smashed by some God is Love christain. |
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NarcissusSavage
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 03, 2009
Age: 31
Posts: 656
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| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:27 am Post subject: |
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| donnie_darko wrote: | | NarcissusSavage wrote: | | donnie_darko wrote: | | I'm not religious, but to be fair, believing we are an accident is almost as crazy as believing in Christ and imo, quite a bit more depressing too. Not that how happy a belief is is relevant to its status as truth, of course. |
If you get into the nitty gritty of it, nothing is an accident. Everything is cause and effect, and from the moment time began until this moment, everything has been a chain of events leading up to how everything is.
There is no reason to believe that we are an accident, despite having a lack of religion. |
Well, if you're gonna be really semantic yeah. I guess what I mean by 'accident' is more that human beings, and by extension life and the universe itself, simply came out of nothing and inanimate matter. Personally I subscribe to the watchmaker argument, though I highly doubt that the designer(s) is Yahweh. |
Sometimes when I talk about the chain of causality in conversation, I give the analogy of a complex clockwork device in action.
But that is very different from the watchmaker analogy... There is a fatal flaw in the watchmaker argument. It is essentially arguing for irreducible complexity. But that just simply isn't true for any biological organ/feature. Even something as complex as the human eye can be followed through a natural progression from a light sensitive membrane to a fully functional modern eye. And if we look in nature, we can see examples of eyes at varying degrees along this general scale of complexity.
_________________
I am Ignostic.
Go ahead and define god, with universal acceptance of said definition.
I'll wait.
Maybe you are too?
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NarcissusSavage
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 03, 2009
Age: 31
Posts: 656
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| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:28 am Post subject: |
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| donnie_darko wrote: | | NarcissusSavage wrote: | | donnie_darko wrote: | | I'm not religious, but to be fair, believing we are an accident is almost as crazy as believing in Christ and imo, quite a bit more depressing too. Not that how happy a belief is is relevant to its status as truth, of course. |
If you get into the nitty gritty of it, nothing is an accident. Everything is cause and effect, and from the moment time began until this moment, everything has been a chain of events leading up to how everything is.
There is no reason to believe that we are an accident, despite having a lack of religion. |
Well, if you're gonna be really semantic yeah. I guess what I mean by 'accident' is more that human beings, and by extension life and the universe itself, simply came out of nothing and inanimate matter. Personally I subscribe to the watchmaker argument, though I highly doubt that the designer(s) is Yahweh. |
Sometimes when I talk about the chain of causality in conversation, I give the analogy of a complex clockwork device in action.
But that is very different from the watchmaker analogy... There is a fatal flaw in the watchmaker argument. It is essentially arguing for irreducible complexity. But that just simply isn't true for any biological organ/feature. Even something as complex as the human eye can be followed through a natural progression from a light sensitive membrane to a fully functional modern eye. And if we look in nature, we can see examples of eyes at varying degrees along this general scale of complexity.
_________________
I am Ignostic.
Go ahead and define god, with universal acceptance of said definition.
I'll wait.
Maybe you are too?
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NarcissusSavage
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 03, 2009
Age: 31
Posts: 656
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| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:31 am Post subject: |
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| dizzywater wrote: | That is the best post I've read here!
I just read it to my son & he thought it was brilliant too, just yesterday we were discussing why he has to learn that stuff for the only compulsory GCSE, Religious Studies. He is refusing to learn bible stories, says its just stupid. Hard to convince someone to put effort into something pointless really. I try to get the point across that its an extra GCSE, but in truth its probably not what employers are really looking for.....
Any chance you could distill it into a few words so I can put the essence of it on a car sticker?
On second thoughts no, I might get my windows smashed by some God is Love christain. |
Thanks!
"Why did god have to sacrifice Jesus to forgive mankind? Couldn't he just have turned the other cheek?"
Or something like that I spose. The whole idea of needing to kill his son(or himself?) to even be able to forgive mankind for eating an apple confuses me to no end though.
_________________
I am Ignostic.
Go ahead and define god, with universal acceptance of said definition.
I'll wait.
Maybe you are too?
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donnie_darko
Phoenix
Joined: Nov 27, 2009
Age: 23
Posts: 1794
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| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:31 am Post subject: |
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| NarcissusSavage wrote: |
But that is very different from the watchmaker analogy... There is a fatal flaw in the watchmaker argument. It is essentially arguing for irreducible complexity. But that just simply isn't true for any biological organ/feature. Even something as complex as the human eye can be followed through a natural progression from a light sensitive membrane to a fully functional modern eye. And if we look in nature, we can see examples of eyes at varying degrees along this general scale of complexity. |
Granted, but what about life itself? We still have no clue how life formed, we know that amino acids can form in chemical reactions, but we have never simulated how they combine and become life.
I don't know, I look around at our world, at our civilisation, and it is just hard for me to imagine it is all just the result of chance. I'm not saying a bearded man created it all, I'm just saying the Universe itself seems intelligent.
I could be wrong. It might all be random chance. But I really don't think there is any proof of that. |
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NarcissusSavage
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 03, 2009
Age: 31
Posts: 656
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| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:56 am Post subject: |
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| donnie_darko wrote: | | NarcissusSavage wrote: |
But that is very different from the watchmaker analogy... There is a fatal flaw in the watchmaker argument. It is essentially arguing for irreducible complexity. But that just simply isn't true for any biological organ/feature. Even something as complex as the human eye can be followed through a natural progression from a light sensitive membrane to a fully functional modern eye. And if we look in nature, we can see examples of eyes at varying degrees along this general scale of complexity. |
Granted, but what about life itself? We still have no clue how life formed, we know that amino acids can form in chemical reactions, but we have never simulated how they combine and become life.
I don't know, I look around at our world, at our civilisation, and it is just hard for me to imagine it is all just the result of chance. I'm not saying a bearded man created it all, I'm just saying the Universe itself seems intelligent.
I could be wrong. It might all be random chance. But I really don't think there is any proof of that. |
Oh I fully understand where you are coming from.
The only two things we seem to see differently in this regard, is I don't think the words like "accident", "chance" or "luck" have any real meaning. Everything is exactly the way it was always going to be, down to the smallest detail. It may sound like I'm arguing semantics, but I don't mean to. In this regard I know my viewpoint can be hard to fathom, it took me a long while to get here myself...but the difference for me is a critical one, that's why I mentioned it. For me, the understanding that all things happen exactly as they are supposed to happen fundamentally changes the way I view the world.
The other difference would be that when I don't have an answer for something, I don't use an answer at all. Again, it took a while to be comfortable just having large holes in my understanding of the world, and I can understand how it can be a scary realization that you simply don't know something that is terrifyingly important to you. But for me it more important to be intellectually honest with myself than to avoid the potential suffering that facing an unknown might bring. And I completely sympathize with why people fill in the blanks of their understanding, especially ones like death and life and deeper meaning and origins etc.
For a long while I had concluded it was generally for the best that people have some form of faith, even if I never could. That at least in their potentially delusional beliefs they would have peace, even if it wasn't grounded in reality. But eventually I couldn't ignore the real world damage delusional belief in the unknowable was causing, and have since taken a far more critical stance on all things religion.
But to address your question, about the origin of the first living thing; we don’t yet know what caused it. But that doesn’t mean we never will, or that it is unknowable how this could have happened. But just because we don’t know, doesn’t mean it had to be something supernatural.
_________________
I am Ignostic.
Go ahead and define god, with universal acceptance of said definition.
I'll wait.
Maybe you are too?
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