RE: What beliefs would we consider reasonable for a self proclaimed Christian to hold?
March 20, 2018 at 3:31 am
(This post was last modified: March 20, 2018 at 3:42 am by Banned.)
(March 18, 2018 at 8:37 am)Khemikal Wrote: So...here's the trouble.
If you accept that these chemicals have "specific activities"...it doesn't matter much whether you think goddidit. If chemicals have "specific activities" -however- they ended up that way is all the explanation required for why things made of chemicals have "specific activities". If you want to add "godidit" to the list..fine, but you'll have to show a god. Until then..the rest of us will posit that the "specific activities" account for self assembly..for example..in life, and your acceptance of those "specific activites" is acknowledgement that the chemicals can self assemble.
Could have been pixies, or the loch ness monster, or maybe it;s just a brute fact...but no matter what that answer is, you've already acknowledged the point of contention and made "god" incidental in the process. One of any number of ways or reasons for some state of affairs x..but, once that state of affairs exists..there's no need of reference to the incidental anymore. Regardless of whether goddidit, it were brute fact, or if the loch ness monster sprinkled fairy dust all over organic chemistry...what it would do..is what we see it doing - because that's the nature of those chemicals...they have specific activities.
Yes it is possible, if not common, to look at something designed and dismiss the inventor. There's a lot of people who drive cars but are clueless about the designers.
(March 18, 2018 at 9:21 am)Grandizer Wrote:(March 17, 2018 at 11:10 pm)Banned Wrote: Do you have any evidence of things outside of God's creation, that just appear by organizing themselves into functionality and working?
No, but you want to use God's creation as an example of that?
So apart from nature, including the functionality of the elements and chemicals, you don't have any evidence that things work by themselves.
Things don't work by, or create themselves. That is a fact, not a theory.
And you don't have any evidence that a divine mover exists. So again, Occam's razor.
Who says it's not a fact? You? And I never argued things can create themselves anyway. Also, a theory in the scientific sense is not the same as conjecture. Good scientific theories are highly credible.
Things don't create themselves.
(March 18, 2018 at 9:27 am)vorlon13 Wrote: Would it be reasonable to assume most Christians should not feel they are 'guaranteed' a slot in heaven ??
The number of folks claiming to be Christian is large, the number of slots available is quite limited, so realistically, only the cream of the crop is getting in. The odds aren't good, they aren't good at all.
What's stopping you from being certain of heaven?
(March 18, 2018 at 9:46 am)vorlon13 Wrote: Scripture says 144,000 get in.
Seems pretty limited, no ?
The 144,000 are the number left alive when God terminates the world. The rest were killed by the wicked by persecution.
