What was thread about? - can't remember!

[dirtrider]

mmm aaaahhh ja

[hagar]

ja ja Big H is all smiles tonite his team won  hey they are on a roll damm ref 

[dirtrider]

Too little toooo late !

[The Saint]

  the athiests will tell you that you got this ability via evolution.

  

Good balanced post MuXman' date=' but if I may correct just one point.

 

Evolutionists would tell me I got the ability to reason via evolution. Atheism existed long before Darwin's origin of the species was written and as the antonym of faith is not based on, nor is it linked to evolution.

[/quote']

 

Cool thanks I learnt something today.

 

[Parbo]

  Let us say that the Bible is just a book written by a bunch of men and really has no substance to the world that we live in. It still contains a heck of a lot of good pointers in the way in which you should live your life. Eg The Ten Commandments.

 

And plenty of totally imoral ones that are supposed to be about Moral characters like good ole Lot who was so good that his was the only family to  be saved.  So good was he that when a stranger in his house was about to be screwed,  he said to the buggers, "Hang on lads, screw my daughters,  they are only women, cannot have you screwing a Fella now".

And then he got pissed made both his his duaghters preggie.  Right moral story that one. Moral Fella Lot.. No wonder he wasthe only one saved.

 

[dirtrider]

Hu ? F@@ turn the book around !! you got it upside down !

[The Saint]

I think he has had a LOT of Amstel

[linnega]

 

Faith is the denial of reason

Paradox defined. The existence of God depends upon faith' date=' that faith depends upon the lack of proof, the lack of proof is what creates the need for faith and on and on the cycle of idiocy goes like Robert Mugabe standing between two mirrors.

Proof? Atheists believe in the world, in what you can see. You want proof of the world, I'll show you it.

Now show me God.

Show me a flying man, a talking donkey, a navel-less man, a flying chariot, a talking, burning bush, a speaking snake. Explain how enough water to cover the top of Everest can appear from nowhere and then disappear.

Explain a virgin birth, Explain walking on water. Raise me a dead man. Show me someone who can heal leprosy by touch. Show me how you can stop the sun in the sky,

Any of those will do. Proof of god would be so easy if it were real, but it's not which is why the religious venerate faith. Faith is the denial of reason; it's "don't bother me with facts, I know what's right"; it's ignorance in the truest sense of the word, "to ignore".

And that is exactly why faith will never go away. There are always things that cannot be explained, and mankind is a storytelling monkey that will always come up with a story which invites others to believe in it.

Now moderate the crap out of that.[/quote']

Why would that be moderated? An opinion backed up by an argument, however wrong the opinion or flawed the argument, is not going to be moderated unless it was offensive.

 

While you might feel you present some valid points, the fact is every person has faith in something.  Unless you are somehow all-knowing it isn't possible for you not to believe something is true without some level of "faith" whether it be in a person or a "higher power" or God.  The irony is that Christians are often cast as being hypocritical, but your comments remind me of the biblical story about removing first the log from your own eye before you criticise the speck in another's.

 

[ChrisH]

Why would that be moderated? An opinion backed up by an argument' date=' however wrong the opinion or flawed the argument, is not going to be moderated unless it was offensive.

While you might feel you present some valid points, the fact is every person has faith in something.  Unless you are somehow all-knowing it isn't possible for you not to believe something is true without some level of "faith" whether it be in a person or a "higher power" or God.  The irony is that Christians are often cast as being hypocritical, but your comments remind me of the biblical story about removing first the log from your own eye before you criticise the speck in another's.
[/quote']

 

Linnega, if I understand you correctly you are saying that I must believe in something I can't prove before I can disbelieve it? That sounds suspiciously like religion.

[Baaisikilist]

Well ChrisH, you successfully summed up countless arguments i've had with countless religious people all in that one post. Do u own a copyright on that or is it fine for me to go ahead and print it on a t-shirt...?

[linnega]

 

Why would that be moderated? An opinion backed up by an argument' date=' however wrong the opinion or flawed the argument, is not going to be moderated unless it was offensive.

 

While you might feel you present some valid points, the fact is every person has faith in something.  Unless you are somehow all-knowing it isn't possible for you not to believe something is true without some level of "faith" whether it be in a person or a "higher power" or God.  The irony is that Christians are often cast as being hypocritical, but your comments remind me of the biblical story about removing first the log from your own eye before you criticise the speck in another's.

[/quote']

 

Linnega, if I understand you correctly you are saying that I must believe in something I can't prove before I can disbelieve it? That sounds suspiciously like religion.

That would be an incorrect understanding.  What I am saying is that you have faith as much as the next person in the intellectual sense unless you know everything - which I am assuming is not the case.  You can believe or disbelieve what you like but saying that Christian's have no reason or are ignorant because they have faith is hypocritical.

 

[porky]

ChrisH, you have a right to what you believe, I will never try and change you and I will never bother getting worked up about posts, which in reality, go against everything I believe in.I have stronger faith than that.

 

Any verse can be convoluted and twisted to suit a particular purpose, its not difficult but who cares, for those of us with faith, it irrelevant, we all have a right to believe what we like because its a God given gift and its called "Free Will." 

 

However explain this away - you will know the setting - Christ said to Thomas "You believe, because you have seen, Blessed are those who believe, but have NOT seen.!    

 

[ChrisH]

 

Surely the onus of proof is on those making the claim of a higher power, because it is impossible to prove a negative and I really shouldn't have to. There's no such thing as disproof.

 

I can't prove there isn't a chocolate teapot orbiting Pluto, I can't prove that there isn't an intangible invisible unicorn under my bed, I can't prove that lions don't fly when we're not watching. None of these lacks of proof support the existence or occurrence of these things. Equating faith and religious belief with atheism is also wrong. One is the absence of the other, not a balancing opposite. You don't call me an a-unicornist or an a-satanist for my lack of belief in those.

 

So from this whole thread we can conclude that there are two points of view. One is backed by reasoned argument and the other is asking someone to bet their sanity and continued support to an unknowable, unquantifiable dogma. The pay off of the first is understanding and continued intellectual growth, the pay off of the second is the promise of a life after this one.

 

Unfortunately the pay-off for both is a bunch of people telling you what not to think and believe.

[Parbo]

Hu ? F@@ turn the book around !! you got it upside down !

 

Read the book right way up Gen 19:  5-8 for the first wher he offered meer women, his daughters for rape.

and 19:30 -38 for the incest

Parbo2008-05-09 17:15:34

[Older]

 

 

So from this whole thread we can conclude that there are two points of view. One is backed by reasoned argument and the other is asking someone to bet their sanity and continued support to an unknowable' date=' unquantifiable dogma.

 the pay off of the second is the promise of a life after this one.

 

[/quote']

 

Faith (in God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit) cannot be explained, although you are trying your very best, but those who have it know it.  Hopefully you will know it sooner than later so that you can know your real purpose here. <?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

[bruce]

I have no problem with "evidence based" philosophy.

 

But, let's consider the evidence.  Just the creation of a human being is a process that's complexity is far greater than humans (the supreme beings on our planet) can accomplish.  We don't even fully understand the human body works, never mind being the creator of it.

 

The planet earth is still not fully understood.  The combination of elements at the core is just right to sustain life on the planet - surely something far greater than humans can accomplish.

 

So, it is clear that humans are not the creator, so who is?  There are two answers, either a random collection of elements came together to start the process, or there is an ultimate creator (or certainly an entity with far greater powers than humans).

 

In my mind, to believe that all these things happened randomly, that the improvements in species through evolution is purely luck, requires a far greater leap of faith, than to believe there is a creator, that we don't yet understand.

 

The Christians call that creator God.  And assign other benevolent responsibilities to that creator - such as ensuring certain laws are in place so that we can try to live together, and giving meaning to our lives.

 

After a lot of thought about this in my life, I've come to the conclusion that believing that there is no creator, is far less plausible, than believing there is.  Debate will rage as to which god the creator actually is.  But that is a different topic.