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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 8, 2014 at 1:33 pm
(April 27, 2014 at 11:40 am)nogodchick Wrote: When we were kids, we used to dump a nest of black ants on a nest of red ones 'cos we were bored. And watched them war with each other. I grew up, though. Seems like God hasn't. I dunno, if I was god I'd do shit like that all the time. I wonder what the world would look like if its inhabitants were constantly fighting...
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 8, 2014 at 1:40 pm
(This post was last modified: May 8, 2014 at 1:42 pm by Ryantology.)
(May 8, 2014 at 12:41 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Atheism: a study in hopelessness.
Theism: a study in brainlessness.
Quote:Prove your claim that an intelligent being that knows all that can be known and is capable doing anything it is possible to do could indeed have made a better world.
P1. The world is not perfect.
P2. The world can be improved.
P3. The creator has all the power and knowledge possible to have.
C. Therefore, the world could have been made in that improved state.
Of course, the whole Eden story suggests that it was better to start with and God deliberately made it worse to punish everybody in the world because two simple people succumbed to the trap he set for them knowing ahead of time that they would succumb.
Now, prove your claim that an intelligent being that knows all that can be known and is capable doing anything it is possible to do exists and made anything at all.
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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 8, 2014 at 2:15 pm
(This post was last modified: May 8, 2014 at 2:16 pm by Lek.)
(May 8, 2014 at 12:40 pm)Kitanetos Wrote: (May 8, 2014 at 12:37 pm)Lek Wrote: What I was saying is "why blame God for it?"
Because a supposedly all powerful and all loving god would actually attempt to make this a better world for its creations rather than watch the horrific drama as though we are an entertaining reality show for it.
He made the world the way he made it, but he gives us an out for eternity. There's a lot in the world that we can't change, but there's a lot of misery that could be eliminated by people caring for other people and doing the right things. Unfortunately too many of us want to live only for ourselves. We cause much of the world's misery ourselves.
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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 8, 2014 at 2:18 pm
Quote:There's a lot in the world that we can't change
And that's God's fault, if he exists.
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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 8, 2014 at 2:18 pm
(May 8, 2014 at 2:15 pm)Lek Wrote: but there's a lot of misery that could be eliminated by people caring for other people and doing the right things.
Religion is not necessary for that no be accomplished.
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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 8, 2014 at 2:32 pm
(This post was last modified: May 8, 2014 at 2:34 pm by Lek.)
(May 8, 2014 at 2:18 pm)Kitanetos Wrote: (May 8, 2014 at 2:15 pm)Lek Wrote: but there's a lot of misery that could be eliminated by people caring for other people and doing the right things.
Religion is not necessary for that no be accomplished.
You're right, but faith in Christ is required for salvation.
(May 8, 2014 at 2:18 pm)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote: Quote:There's a lot in the world that we can't change
And that's God's fault, if he exists.
No. It's our fault for sinning. That isn't the way he created it in the beginning.
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God - a study in pointlessness.
May 8, 2014 at 3:20 pm
Prove it.
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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 8, 2014 at 3:26 pm
(May 8, 2014 at 2:32 pm)Lek Wrote: No. It's our fault for sinning. That isn't the way he created it in the beginning.
Then he created it knowing full-well in advance that we'd sin, and went ahead anyway.
If your god exists, he makes the rules. Furthermore, if there's a rule that says "if humans sin, then they must suffer", then god himself made that rule. He willingly made that rule, then with the foresight that we would fall, went right on ahead with creation. That is, I think, either evil or incompetent.
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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 8, 2014 at 3:50 pm
(May 8, 2014 at 2:32 pm)Lek Wrote: No. It's our fault for sinning. That isn't the way he created it in the beginning.
If the Genesis stories are allegorical, then you cannot state this with any certainty. If the stories are to be taken literally, then it's not reasonable to fault humanity for what happened. To speak of god as a being of such great power and wisdom and intellect and then pretend that he was so effortlessly bested by the devil and two humans does not make sense.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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RE: God - a study in pointlessness.
May 8, 2014 at 3:57 pm
(This post was last modified: May 8, 2014 at 4:00 pm by Lek.)
(May 8, 2014 at 3:26 pm)ThePinsir Wrote: (May 8, 2014 at 2:32 pm)Lek Wrote: No. It's our fault for sinning. That isn't the way he created it in the beginning.
Then he created it knowing full-well in advance that we'd sin, and went ahead anyway.
If your god exists, he makes the rules. Furthermore, if there's a rule that says "if humans sin, then they must suffer", then god himself made that rule. He willingly made that rule, then with the foresight that we would fall, went right on ahead with creation. That is, I think, either evil or incompetent.
You're entitled to your opinion. I understand that God (if he exists) doesn't do things the way you think he should.
(May 8, 2014 at 3:50 pm)Tonus Wrote: (May 8, 2014 at 2:32 pm)Lek Wrote: No. It's our fault for sinning. That isn't the way he created it in the beginning.
If the Genesis stories are allegorical, then you cannot state this with any certainty. If the stories are to be taken literally, then it's not reasonable to fault humanity for what happened. To speak of god as a being of such great power and wisdom and intellect and then pretend that he was so effortlessly bested by the devil and two humans does not make sense.
If God is who or what you think he should be then it doesn't make sense. If we allow him to be who he is then it does.
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