(August 19, 2023 at 6:13 pm)Barry Wrote: Good morning
St Augustine said that if you think you understand God, you don’t.

And why should we care what Augustine said?

Quote:But there is only one answer to the creation of the universe, and that is God.

Even if that were so (and I very much doubt it), why your god in particular?

Quote:There are many things we don’t understand in life, but accept on faith. Faith is a gift from God. You can accept it, or reject it.

Barry, I have no religious faith at all. I never have. My brain simply doesn't "do" religious faith. Why should I lie to myself and pretend to accept ideas that can charitably be described as "unsupported assertions," but that are vastly more likely to be arrant nonsense or outright lies?

(August 19, 2023 at 7:25 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(August 19, 2023 at 6:13 pm)Barry Wrote: Good morning
St Augustine said that if you think you understand God, you don’t. So it’s not surprising you don’t. Nor I. But there is only one answer to the creation of the universe, and that is God. I know it’s an inconvenient answer to atheists, and agnostics, etc, and it is a real challenge for thinking theists, but that’s the answer. No scientist has come close to any other way explanation and there are and have been countless eminent scientists who are Christians.
So if you don’t understand, don’t worry. There are many things we don’t understand in life, but accept on faith. Faith is a gift from God. You can accept it, or reject it.
Cheers Barry

For us faithless, kindly spell out the answer. What makes you think it's so terribly binary? What makes you think these are the only two possible answers?

What makes you so afraid to admit that we may not know, that you'd adhere to a synthetic explanation totally absent of proof?

I'd argue you 1) lack the imagination to consider that the answer may still be unknown and 2) the fortitude to say "We just don't know". You insist that this is binary, but you don't say why it may only be so.

I'd argue that you in your turn don't understand science as a process.

You are essentially pushing a god-of-the-gaps argument. How's that working out for your religion? Your pope concedes that natural selection is likely true, and we've had for decades experiments and observations showing that amino acids arise naturally. We've got a hypothesis about how they might congregate into cell-like structures.

We've made good headway into reducing deaths from  cancer, which seems to be beyond your god's purview.

We ship food to starving regions which your god seems to care little about.

In so many ways, the "perfect" god you worship pulls up short of human efforts, so you fall back upon, "But yeah, who made it all?" And when shown that something may arise from nothing, you shake your head. Not out of rational objection, but out of beliefs. And you're afraid to say "We don't know". No! Because you must have The Answer™ You! Your evangelism is ego writ large.

I don't care what you believe. I care what you can demonstrate.

Until then, you're just another blowhard who thinks nonbelievers will (at last!) take you seriously ... like any other blowhard.

Meanwhile, why do you still tithe to an organization which shuffles molesters off to hide them from law enforcement? Do you like supporting that stuff? Or are you simply afraid of what the Joneses will think? And if so, is that not ego as well?

 What a great post, pity it was wasted on a Troll/Sock

(August 19, 2023 at 8:19 pm)Astreja Wrote:

(August 19, 2023 at 6:13 pm)Barry Wrote: Good morning
St Augustine said that if you think you understand God, you don’t.

And why should we care what Augustine said?

Quote:But there is only one answer to the creation of the universe, and that is God.

Even if that were so (and I very much doubt it), why your god in particular?

Quote:There are many things we don’t understand in life, but accept on faith. Faith is a gift from God. You can accept it, or reject it.

Barry, I have no religious faith at all.  I never have.  My brain simply doesn't "do" religious faith.  Why should I lie to myself and pretend to accept ideas that can charitably be described as "unsupported assertions," but that are vastly more likely to be arrant nonsense or outright lies?

His god is so stupid it doesn't know if you believe or just say you do.
He continues to be totally unable to actually respond to any points addressed to him.
He's a One Trick Pony.

It is not established in science that anything "came into existence".
If the gods can always have existed, so could the universe.

Without time, "existence" is meaningless.

(August 19, 2023 at 1:51 pm)LinuxGal Wrote:

(August 19, 2023 at 12:14 pm)Bucky Ball Wrote: A person can only be sent to eternal punishment in Hell by deliberate sin, and, as Pope Benedict XII taught in On the Beatific Vision of God (1336), that sin must be “actual mortal sin”. So non-Christians do not go to Hell for refusing, out of invincible ignorance, a formal Baptism into the Christian Faith.

Q. Is there a way for newborn babies to avoid hell if they die before they are baptized?
Catholic Church: "God I hope so."

CCC 1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them," allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism.

Bucky's a blowhard, brittle of mind, not worth the time. He has occasional good points, but will not discuss or admit where he might be wrong.

(August 19, 2023 at 9:33 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(August 19, 2023 at 1:51 pm)LinuxGal Wrote: Q. Is there a way for newborn babies to avoid hell if they die before they are baptized?
Catholic Church: "God I hope so."

CCC 1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them," allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism.

Bucky's a blowhard, brittle of mind, not worth the time. He has occasional good points, but will not discuss or admit where he might be wrong.

And what EXACTLY have you added to this discussion ?
Oh. Exactly nothing. But you have to add your meaningless garbage as Grampa needs attention.

Thumpy doesn't like anyone who has the gall to back-talk Grampa Thump.

Hey idiot, I PROVED my point.  Here. 
Get your ass back to AD. There are a lot of people there you want to fight with. Constantly. 
Of course you know best, Gramps. 
Go fuck yourself.

(August 19, 2023 at 8:19 pm)Astreja Wrote:

(August 19, 2023 at 6:13 pm)Barry Wrote: Good morning
St Augustine said that if you think you understand God, you don’t.

And why should we care what Augustine said?

Augustine kneecaps himself in this bon-mot. Because by saying that someone else doesn't understand god, he's implying that he does. Or, if he's saying no one can understand this god-thingymajig, what makes him any sort of authority?

Either way, he's full of shit and himself. Not necessarily in that order, not sure about that part.

(August 19, 2023 at 10:09 pm)Bucky Ball Wrote:

(August 19, 2023 at 9:33 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Bucky's a blowhard, brittle of mind, not worth the time. He has occasional good points, but will not discuss or admit where he might be wrong.

And what EXACTLY have you added to this discussion ?
Oh. Exactly nothing. But you have to add your meaningless garbage as Grampa needs attention.

Thumpy doesn't like anyone who has the gall to back-talk Grampa Thump.

Hey idiot, I PROVED my point.  Here. 
Get your ass back to AD. There are a lot of people there you want to fight with. Constantly. 
Of course you know best, Gramps. 
Go fuck yourself.

Scroll up, dumbass. I stand by my critique and look forward to you giving it even more evidence.

(August 19, 2023 at 9:33 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(August 19, 2023 at 1:51 pm)LinuxGal Wrote: Q. Is there a way for newborn babies to avoid hell if they die before they are baptized?
Catholic Church: "God I hope so."

CCC 1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them," allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism.

Bucky's a blowhard, brittle of mind, not worth the time. He has occasional good points, but will not discuss or admit where he might be wrong.

I've made the appropriate adaptations.

(August 19, 2023 at 6:13 pm)Barry Wrote: But there is only one answer to the creation of the universe, and that is God.

Prove it!

Something from nothing is a theme from the Genesis fables.

Absolute Nothing is a math concept only and recent experiments demonstrates that nothing is an impossible state in reality.

There was always something.