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If evidence for god is in abundance, why is faith necessary?
RE: If evidence for god is in abundance, why is faith necessary?
There is good evidence that everything we see has developed naturally.

There is no good evidence for anything else.

Case closed. Unless you believe the planet of the apes movies are true.
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RE: If evidence for god is in abundance, why is faith necessary?
(October 7, 2017 at 12:23 pm)speedyj1992 Wrote: There is evidence - look at the universe. Look at life - how could this have happened by chance? From there, it's just a matter of what deity makes best sense, and from there, the Bible provides a lot of evidence (yup, your forums have been invaded by a Christian - I was once an atheist so I get it). I guess, ask me about it - I'll try and respond, but I'm not sure how to turn on notifications for this site.

How many court cases are won by the prosecution saying "just look at his face - he looks guilty!"
?

Stop being fucking childish.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist.  This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair.  Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second.  That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: If evidence for god is in abundance, why is faith necessary?
(July 27, 2017 at 4:07 pm)Drich Wrote: all it takes according to Christ is a mustard seed's worth of faith.

(The smallest amount) and God will move mountains of doubt.

I found you need the faith to simply ask and then follow where God leads.

That was better put than I could have put it, thank you for saying that. Of course, it requires action on our parts (hence the "follow" you mentioned), and not following means you're going to stay where you are, in a place of faithlessness. Alternatively, you could go in the wrong direction, or your own direction (aka not actually following) and end up in the wrong place and blame God, which happens a lot, unfortunately.

(October 12, 2017 at 8:45 pm)Cyberman Wrote:
(October 7, 2017 at 12:23 pm)speedyj1992 Wrote: There is evidence - look at the universe. Look at life - how could this have happened by chance? From there, it's just a matter of what deity makes best sense, and from there, the Bible provides a lot of evidence (yup, your forums have been invaded by a Christian - I was once an atheist so I get it). I guess, ask me about it - I'll try and respond, but I'm not sure how to turn on notifications for this site.

How many court cases are won by the prosecution saying "just look at his face - he looks guilty!"
?

Stop being fucking childish.

I think you're taking the point I made and making it about something else, because that's not what I'm trying to get at - let's use "Doctor Who" as a springboard to form an example of what I'm trying to get at because of your screenname, and because I'm a nerd and understand things based on nerdy comparisons best because it makes me more engaged (plus, this will be more fun to write this way). 

Your typical DW episode is usually a (clever) variation on the Doctor and his companion (soon going to be "her", and I'm totally down with Jodie Whittaker, even if she's not ginger) coming to a place or time, learning a bit about it, seeing there's something wrong based on what they know, and then trying to save people. The Doctor will often say things such as, "No, this can't have happened like this" because of his extensive knowledge - he doesn't assume that something hasn't or has happened because of how it looks, but based on knowledge. Our knowledge of the universe's complexity seems to increase all the time, for the better in my opinion, and the more complicated it is, the more likely it is that it wasn't by chance. Because all these particles had to form in order for us to get really complex planets and LIFE all on its own, and we just don't se that happening today - a tornado can't form a Boeing 737 by chance even if it went through a bunch of junkyards with all the parts. 

Basically, we have order, and there was once chaos (in both the Big Bang model and the God model), but now we have order. If chaos can only breed more chaos, how do we have order? But if we have God, it would make sense that we would have order.
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RE: If evidence for god is in abundance, why is faith necessary?
Proptip:

When you think that Drich makes a better point than you, you want to rethink your entire life choices up to this point.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist.  This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair.  Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second.  That means there's a situation vacant.'
Reply
RE: If evidence for god is in abundance, why is faith necessary?
@ speedyJ

I'm not going to follow you down the rabbit hole. Either you can make your case or you can't. Basically, shit or get off the pot.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist.  This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair.  Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second.  That means there's a situation vacant.'
Reply
RE: If evidence for god is in abundance, why is faith necessary?
(October 12, 2017 at 11:25 pm)speedyj1992 Wrote: Basically, we have order, and there was once chaos (in both the Big Bang model and the God model), but now we have order. If chaos can only breed more chaos, how do we have order? But if we have God, it would make sense that we would have order.

What is chaos?
"
Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics focused on the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions. 'Chaos' is an interdisciplinary theory stating that within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, self-organization, and reliance on programming at the initial point known as sensitive dependence on initial conditions.
"

Do you suppose that our Universe was that sensitive to the initial conditions?
Could it have been any different, if not for the underlying hand of a guiding conscious entity?

If there is one guiding conscious entity, how did that one entity come about? What sort of dimensionality does it have? What sort of matter is it made of?
Are there more than one of it?

If the big bang marks the start of our spacetime, that means that time is meaningless without the big bang. How could an entity exist if no time exists? How could an entity generate a Universe, if no time exists for it to carry out an action?

In our Universe, as far as we can tell, much of the order we perceive comes by due to gravity. Gravity caused proton gas to contract beyond the fusion point thus lighting up the stars. Gravity comes from those protons' mass. Mass comes from energy, Energy comes from the Big Bang. The Big Bang comes from.... no one knows and anyone who claims to know is lying!
The current best guess relies on quantum fluctuations.
And everything works, no god is required to make it work.
Reply
RE: If evidence for god is in abundance, why is faith necessary?
speedyj1992 Wrote:I think you're taking the point I made and making it about something else, because that's not what I'm trying to get at - let's use "Doctor Who" as a springboard to form an example of what I'm trying to get at because of your screenname, and because I'm a nerd and understand things based on nerdy comparisons best because it makes me more engaged (plus, this will be more fun to write this way). 

Your typical DW episode is usually a (clever) variation on the Doctor and his companion (soon going to be "her", and I'm totally down with Jodie Whittaker, even if she's not ginger) coming to a place or time, learning a bit about it, seeing there's something wrong based on what they know, and then trying to save people. The Doctor will often say things such as, "No, this can't have happened like this" because of his extensive knowledge - he doesn't assume that something hasn't or has happened because of how it looks, but based on knowledge. Our knowledge of the universe's complexity seems to increase all the time, for the better in my opinion, and the more complicated it is, the more likely it is that it wasn't by chance. Because all these particles had to form in order for us to get really complex planets and LIFE all on its own, and we just don't se that happening today - a tornado can't form a Boeing 737 by chance even if it went through a bunch of junkyards with all the parts. 

I bolded the parts of your analogy that illustrate its ineptness. The Doctor bases his conclusions, on what he knows, not on appearances. That's the opposite of what you're doing. That chance can't account for complexity is not only an unsupported assertion it's contrary to observation. Chaos is more complex than order, and includes order. Chaos without any order would itself be a form of order that would have to be explained by an outside factor (chaos without any order is too consistent to be completely chaotic).

Life is based on organic chemistry not junk, and organic molecules behave very differently from pieces of junk. One of their defining characteristics is the capacity to spontaneously form complex polymers under certain conditions readily found in nature.

Why were you an atheist, anyway? I'd wager you didn't think your way into that position.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.
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RE: If evidence for god is in abundance, why is faith necessary?
(October 12, 2017 at 11:25 pm)speedyj1992 Wrote: Basically, we have order, and there was once chaos (in both the Big Bang model and the God model), but now we have order. If chaos can only breed more chaos, how do we have order? But if we have God, it would make sense that we would have order.

How juvenile.  "God" doesn't make sense in any context.
"The last superstition of the human mind is the superstition that religion in itself is a good thing."  - Samuel Porter Putnam
 
           

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RE: If evidence for god is in abundance, why is faith necessary?
Quote:If evidence for god is in abundance, why is faith necessary?

That's a very fucking big "if".
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RE: If evidence for god is in abundance, why is faith necessary?
(October 13, 2017 at 10:23 am)Harry Nevis Wrote:
(October 12, 2017 at 11:25 pm)speedyj1992 Wrote: Basically, we have order, and there was once chaos (in both the Big Bang model and the God model), but now we have order. If chaos can only breed more chaos, how do we have order? But if we have God, it would make sense that we would have order.

How juvenile.  "God" doesn't make sense in any context.

Right. It's a huge non-sequitur. We see order, therefore "God". No wonder this guy balks at the courtroom analogy like a vampire at garlic.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist.  This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair.  Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second.  That means there's a situation vacant.'
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