RE: If evidence for god is in abundance, why is faith necessary?
October 23, 2017 at 4:08 pm
(This post was last modified: October 23, 2017 at 4:52 pm by speedyj1992.)
(October 18, 2017 at 3:43 pm)Harry Nevis Wrote:(October 18, 2017 at 2:52 pm)speedyj1992 Wrote: Please elaborate - does simply bringing up God make me "juvenile"? Is there really no context, PERIOD, in which the existence of God would make sense? Why or why not? I'd love to hear your perspectives and engage in an actual discussion.
Because you act like it all so simple and obvious. There is no reason for a god to even enter the discussion. It's just a feel-good response to shit you don't understand.
Ok, so it seems like discussion is not something that's particularly intriguing to you - do you mind if I ask you why not? If I made it seem as if this is all obvious, I admit that to be my mistake, and I apologize, because it isn't, and if any believer makes it seem like it is, they're wrong, and I'm sorry that you have to deal with that. But I'd love to hear more about how you got to your perspective on this topic.
(October 18, 2017 at 3:45 pm)Harry Nevis Wrote:Well, you're talking about a "what-if" situation here, and while it is an intriguing question, I don't think it's really worth indulging. I think we could have the most productive conversation by focusing on what we currently have access to in terms of information.(October 18, 2017 at 2:52 pm)speedyj1992 Wrote: Are you saying you don't think I'd thought my way into atheism or theism? Because I've thought my way in and out of both, and what originally got me away from religion was actually a big lack of understanding the problems of evil and why God doesn't work in certain ways.
So you became an atheist because you didn't like the way god works? That's not atheism.
(October 18, 2017 at 2:52 pm)speedyj1992 Wrote: Your definition of chaos is very strong, thank you for sharing it. As for how God came about, I just take His answer to Moses when asked His name in Exodus: "I AM WHO I AM." (from Exodus 3:14) God has always existed (and is the only one, also according to many references in the Bible, and it would make sense God created time to cause our existence because God exists outside of time, being omniscient), and I'll get more to how God always existing isn't that farfetched in a moment ...
Current evidence shows that abiogenesis (which is just life emerging from nonorganic matter) is impossible, so either life had to exist organically from the beginning or God existed from the beginning, unless we find something that suggests abiogenesis actually could've happened (the research on this is actually pretty interesting, you should look into Robert Hoyle and what his research, flawed as it was, looked at regarding experiments to generate proteins for DNA molecules from nothing). Either way, something had to exist from the beginning, and beleiving in
So, words from a book of mythology explains how the main character came about. Wow.
And if it was shown that abiogenesis is possible? Where does that leave you and your god? Do you just go and re-interpret everything so it fits nicely again? No, because your belief in god is not really a belief in god, but a belief in belief. With it, the hard questions are answered for you, and you don't have to give up or sacrefice anything. Except your critical thinking skills. But you also have all sorts of the same ilk ready to stroke you and claim that it's alright. They're wrong. YOU'RE the right one.
(October 18, 2017 at 7:31 pm)pocaracas Wrote:(October 18, 2017 at 2:52 pm)speedyj1992 Wrote: Your definition of chaos is very strong, thank you for sharing it.
Strong?... nah! Just accurate.
I have come to learn to use words accurately, as much as possible.
Certainly, I'm still to this day guilty of using them inaccurately, when I use them colloquially, but there are some terms in theological discussions that need to be very well defined and agreed upon by both parties, before any discussion can happen.
And I know believers will often employ words with a colloquial meaning... and then twist them to their accurate meaning... and, because of that, I prefer to make things clear at the get go.
(October 18, 2017 at 2:52 pm)speedyj1992 Wrote: As for how God came about, I just take His answer to Moses when asked His name in Exodus: "I AM WHO I AM." (from Exodus 3:14) God has always existed (and is the only one, also according to many references in the Bible, and it would make sense God created time to cause our existence because God exists outside of time, being omniscient), and I'll get more to how God always existing isn't that farfetched in a moment ...
Just today, on some other thread, I was telling a guy about this.
Look at the words you used.
"God always existed" - This means that god exists within time. Since the beginning of time.
"God created time" - This means that god performed the action of creation in the absence of time. Think about this. How can any action be carried out in the absence of time?
"God exists outside of time" - How would you know this? All you offered me were some words from a book written by people... and none of those words even address this. Where did this information come from? How can I trust it?
(October 18, 2017 at 2:52 pm)speedyj1992 Wrote: Current evidence shows that abiogenesis (which is just life emerging from nonorganic matter) is impossible,
What?! what?! impossible?!
Where did you hear that lie?
It is proving to be very difficult to replicate abiogenesis in the lab, but from that to being shown that it's impossible is a big step in misinformation. You should check your sources.
(October 18, 2017 at 2:52 pm)speedyj1992 Wrote: so either life had to exist organically from the beginning or God existed from the beginning, unless we find something that suggests abiogenesis actually could've happened (the research on this is actually pretty interesting, you should look into Robert Hoyle and what his research, flawed as it was, looked at regarding experiments to generate proteins for DNA molecules from nothing). Either way, something had to exist from the beginning, and beleiving in
Your premise is wrong, so I don't expect the rest to follow through.
And do look up on actual biologists for this, instead of some astronomer.
"Sir Fred Hoyle FRS (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001)[1] was an English astronomer who formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. He also held controversial stances on other scientific matters—in particular his rejection of the "Big Bang" theory, a term coined by him on BBC radio, and his promotion of panspermia as the origin of life on Earth."
Again, check your sources.
Be careful with the terms you use.
Try to find things with the minimal bias possible.
1) Agreed, making terms clear from the get-go seems to be best. I appreciate your take on this.
2) You're right, believers can really twist things around, but so do atheists. This is not a believer vs. non-believer issue, this is a human issue, and I try not to be guilty of this, but I fall short, as we all do. So, I'm going to try and encourage question-asking and avoiding finger-pointing.
3) Look up "Bible verses God omniscient" because that answers your questions on Bible verses that get at the idea that God has to exist out of time. If God is sovereign over everything (you can look up verses on this too), then He must be sovereign over time, and if time is a creation, God created time and created from there within time. God exists in AND out of time all at once. A very odd concept in a lot of ways for us because of how we know our universe and how we experience things. I'm not posting the links here because I don't have enough posts to put up links.
4) Science is defined as that which we can KNOW based on observation and experimentation. I can't find any research that shows that abiogensis has been observed in nature, and the current research in terms of trying to recreate it in labs hasn't allowed it to happen (look up the experiments on this that Hoyle cited to get his number - even though I admit this was an erroneous number, I still see no way that we could've had a simple organism formed from nothing based on those experiments by even being liberal based on the current realm of possibility). Yes, in theory you could say that it may have happened in ways we don't know about it, but really think about this: you still believe in something that you can't currently prove happened. I do, too, and even though we have different beliefs, we're still not that different, and are equally human. We can both learn from each other and shouldn't be dismissive of each other as such, so I'd love to hear more from you on this.
5) See the parenthetical comment in number 4 to address the Fred Hoyle part - nothing I read about him seemed particularly biased on his part. Granted, I think his numbers were wrong and oversimplifed by miles, so I did my own calculation, if you're interested in hearing more about that.
6) Hey, thanks for giving me a lot to work with. I appreciate your time on here and hope we can continue to have these discussions. I have a busy week-and-a-half to two weeks coming up, but I'll try and sneak some time here to answer your questions and engage in more discussion with you on this.
(October 19, 2017 at 11:10 am)Mister Agenda Wrote:speedyj1992 Wrote:Are you saying you don't think I'd thought my way into atheism or theism? Because I've thought my way in and out of both, and what originally got me away from religion was actually a big lack of understanding the problems of evil and why God doesn't work in certain ways.
Also, just pointing out that you actually helped to prove my point about how organic and inorganic chemistry are very different from each other. My first question to you is if you believe whether organic life emerged from inorganic matter OR whether you believe it was present from the beginning of the universe - because the first is not possible based on current research and the second is actually not that far from the idea of God existing from the beginning. Second question, if chaos and order have to exist together, where did the order come from?
So clearly, you weren't an atheist for the same reason most atheists on this forum are: a position that belief should be proportionate to the evidence in its favor. The barbarity carried out by or directed by God in the Old Testament cured me of being a Christian, but it didn't make me an atheist. Skepticism did, and by the time I stopped believing in God, I had already stopped believing in alien visitation, ancient astronauts, Bigfoot, ESP, ghosts, and the Loch Ness monster.
You didn't make a point about how organic and inorganic chemistry are very different from each other. The main difference is that the molecules involved in organic chemistry contain carbon atoms, while those in inorganic chemistry don't. Carbon forms strong attachments and can form a wide variety of combinations that are conducive to forming complex molecules.
To answer your first question, organic life did not arise from inorganic matter. It arose from organic matter. See organic chemistry above. Life as we know it would have been impossible in the early stages of the universe. It was impossible in the earliest stages of the earth's formation, as well. Your assessment of what current research finds impossible is at odds with the opinion of the people actually doing the research, and as I've noted before, you don't seem to have a firm grasp on what's not possible. Hint: improbable and impossible are not synonyms.
As to your second question, as has been already explained by myself and others, chaos necessarily has an orderly component. The existence of order is not the big mystery that you seem to think it is. As to the prevalence of order that may be beyond what would be expected if the universe were solely a chaotic system; gravity accounts for almost all of it. Gravity brings order to the universe, but it's an impersonal force, not a god or God.
No, it seems as if we have some things in common, some not - I was also skeptical, but I mentioned the events in my life that led me to skepticism more as the premise because I believe that was really what was driving my skepticism. I would encourage you to look up the experiments trying to recreate abiogensis and the numbers behind it (I can't post links here yet) - the realm of what we consider possible is 1/10^50 (1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). I can't post links here right now, otherwise I would provide you with some stuff I've read that I and quite a few others have found to be compelling.
And I don't see gravity as anything other than an impersonal force. But your claim is that we live in a chaos-driven universe, and right now, we have no current explanation with scientific backing behind it as to how organic matter could've come about within that aforementioned realm of possibility (which is highly liberal) - if, as you put it, organic material hasn't been around since the beginning of time, it must've formed somewhere. Where do you believe that happened, and how, since our current attempts at recreating it aren't working and would require something that isn't within the realm of possibility based on current research?