Someone mentioned minecraft earlier and I think I was asked about why I was disliking the community... Essentially it boils down to the EULA changes happening tomorrow that change how monetization will work for servers who sell things. For those of you not in the know, minecraft servers are becoming rather infamous for having insanely priced things being bought from them. Everything you can imagine and then some. In many cases they've altered the rate things will spawn/removed things from the game and limited it to only instore purchases. The best examples I have is that it took me eight-ten servers that ran Pixelmon(Pokemon but in minecraft) to find a server that didn't have Legendary pokemon spawning disabled and only sold in the servers shop(prices ranging from 10$ to 30$+)
In short, many servers pretending they are EA and Capcom and cutting out content and selling it back to the players. So Mojang is stepping in and essentially saying "You can't sell stuff that effects gameplay." and "You are not allowed to sell things to players that isn't also available to non paying players on a server"
Being the mature and well rounded community Minecraft is, they flipped the shazbot out and are up in arms over the idea. The thing that really urks me is the line they use in the big petition they've got going around
The most important rule is:
"You're not allowed to earn money with Minecraft."
Pretty much blatantly false and disprovable, but talking to most of the random players on the servers I play it's the gospel truth.(Look I tied religious phrasing into it! Topical!) Hell even the server I actually like and feel they play fairly with the shop is going full ignorant. The owners up in arms about it and trying to discuss it is pointless. I've tried posting QnA's where Mojang explains things out is just me not understanding anything and it all going over my head.
What kills me is that at least 20,000 minecraft players have no problems with unethical business practices and are willing to defend it. It is infuriating to hear people spout "You're not allowed to earn money anymore!" and when asked if they've did any research they just say "That's just what I heard, I didn't look too deeply into it."
and then laughing because of how hilariously it is presented
On August 01 2014 04:35 Slayer91 wrote: or fuck it just make earth heaven which is sort of was until god went full ragemode becaues adam ate a fucking apple jesus christ what a temperamental son of a bitch
like how "jesus christ" and "son of a bitch" is invoked here, so brilliant
btw it wasn't an apple that adam ate, it was an unnamed fruit. somehow i think it'd be funny if it was durian or something like that.
Thanks for entertaining my questions. For me, belief in a deity would have to come from some sort of empirical and physical evidence - I've never been one to blindly trust in anything. But if there were indisputable proof that some sort of god/afterlife exists, then I'd be a fool and a hypocrite not to acknowledge it.
How seriously are you pursuing empirical/physical evidence and what would it take for something to be indisputable.
I'm not pursuing it at all as I have no particular desire or need/wish to believe in something "greater". For it to be indisputable, it would have to be something that could be tested and proven. It would have to go through the same principles of science that anything that I know to be fact would have gone through.
So if we for just a minute say God is real and the Bible is true, what would have to be tested and proven. How would you accept him proving his existence?
I have no idea
It would have to be something continuously observable and testable, but I admit that I don't know the contents of the Bible well enough to pick an example there that would be good here.
But let's take a polytheistic religion, for example. The different gods serve different purposes (rain god, sun god, goddess of fertility, etc.), and they were used to explain things that people didn't understand. As technology advances, we have been better able to explain and discover the scientific backings, causes, and effects of all of these different types of previously inexplicable things. And so it's difficult to imagine something being scientifically provable while simultaneously being religious in backing. But I won't say it's impossible because something could come along in the future that ends up proving some sort of deity (or deities) to exist.
The polytheism of the Greeks/Romans are just people making up stuff to explain things. I understand if you think that's exactly what I'm doing. But I'm saying if God is the creator of the universe and revealed himself through Jesus and different points in time in the Old Testament, then quite simply he created "science". Everything works the way it does because he made it so. He's outside of time, space, matter but has chosen to reveal himself in different ways and most importantly as Himself in the person of Jesus. Once again, I understand that can sound crazy and I'm just repeating some made up garbage but I also don't understand why people feel like there is such a dichotomy between those who believe in concrete "science" and those who work in the supposed imaginary realm of "religion". I mean, I could care less about Christianity beyond what Jesus has taught and God has commanded. You take away whatever baggage away that has occurred because flawed humans used religion for purposes other than bringing God glory. Just look at your body. Just think about it. I personally find it unfathomable that I'm the product of random chance over millions of billions of years. I just don't get it when I step back why that should be my default belief.
Oh, I know you're not just pulling shit out of your ass, I was raised Christian (and have actually gone through confirmation and all that fun stuff). But supposing science is the product of God's creation, I would think that he would be able to physically manifest himself in a way to prove to the non-believers that he exists. Would an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, benevolent god not want to reveal himself and end conflict and suffering for those he created? (that's a VERY loaded question)
You might find it unfathomable, but I find it completely awesome that we are products of random chance. What I do find hard to believe is that we could be the only instance of random chance prospering in this potentially infinite universe (/multiverse/etc). I personally don't need a belief in a higher being to accept that these scientific properties worked out in our favor, and I also know there is still so much about everything that we do now know and have barely scratched the surface on.
He did manifest himself, if you believe the New Testament. Of course, the people of the time sure did a bang-up job with that.
Faith and the higher concepts of science aren't interconnected, nor are they conflicting. Just because our world is a veritable needle in the haystack as far as the universe is concerned doesn't mean God doesn't exist, and just because God exists (if He does) doesn't mean that we should stop caring about being in awe of the amazing feats of science and nature in our world.
On August 01 2014 03:53 Slayer91 wrote: yeah we've seen only like 0.000000000000001% of our universe no chance we gonna detect the other aliens anytime soon even if they found our sun with a telescope no chance they gonna find earth and even if they do they won't be able to see shit the off chance of a radiation signal
On August 01 2014 03:53 mordek wrote:
On August 01 2014 03:50 Slayer91 wrote:
On August 01 2014 03:22 mordek wrote:
On August 01 2014 03:12 jcarlsoniv wrote:
On August 01 2014 03:08 mordek wrote:
On August 01 2014 03:07 jcarlsoniv wrote: [quote]
I EXPECT YOU TO KNOW THESE THINGS DAMNIT
<3
Thanks for entertaining my questions. For me, belief in a deity would have to come from some sort of empirical and physical evidence - I've never been one to blindly trust in anything. But if there were indisputable proof that some sort of god/afterlife exists, then I'd be a fool and a hypocrite not to acknowledge it.
How seriously are you pursuing empirical/physical evidence and what would it take for something to be indisputable.
I'm not pursuing it at all as I have no particular desire or need/wish to believe in something "greater". For it to be indisputable, it would have to be something that could be tested and proven. It would have to go through the same principles of science that anything that I know to be fact would have gone through.
So if we for just a minute say God is real and the Bible is true, what would have to be tested and proven. How would you accept him proving his existence?
Except you could ask the same questions for an infinite amount of gods and an infinite amount of holy books that havent been written or theorized yet so essentially with zero evidence god is a statistical impossibility
I get that, I'm trying to understand what is needed to convince him but more so I want him to know what it would take so he knows what questions to ask. The real travesty is if you just decide not to examine it.
tbh even if god was real he'd be a massive cock for allowing most life to endure massive suffering if he's not malevolent he's definitely not omnipotent
God gave Free Will to humans. Would it have been better if we were physically incapable of making choices? That would mean that we could not do horrible things or hurt one another, but we also would not be masters of our own fate. God doesn't want automatons to praise Him for no reason, He created life for the same reason people have children: because He loves them and wants to see them prosper.
If you ever have kids, it's similar. You put down rules, you try to teach them right, but in the end it's their own choice to do what they want and make their own fate, even if you think it's horrible and wrong. You just keep trying to help them as you can.
god gave you free will as well as people with desires such as pedophilia and people with voices in their heads telling them to murder people and generally massive greed and hedoistic desires that lead to people fucking people over and creating natural disasters and famine and disease to make sure most people die horrible deaths as well as most animals i think id take a free ticket to heaven and THEN have free will tyvm or not designing humans with horrible flaws that coincidentally correspond to things that were evolutionary advantages
I don't know why the mind evolved to allow these things to happen, or if God designed them that way for a reason. I can only talk about things I do know. Why do terrible things happen? Why does our world sometimes have disasters that kill hundreds and thousands of innocents and good people? I don't know, but bad things do not disprove the existence of good.
Terrible things happen because things happen and for some people some of them are terrible. Our world sometimes have disasters that kill hundreds and thuosants of innocents becaues they happen semi regularly on earth and its just that people happen to be there. It's just laws of nature again. Bad things do not disprove the existence of good, but they disprove the existence of a pure good omnipotent being at least. Bad and good are both subjective anyway so as long as someone decides they are bad or good they are so. Man creates good and bad you might say.
In any case, if I were to try to study God. I would study the creations of god which is assumed to be everything, essentially the entire body of science. Studying things that certain men said or wrote of which there are many of a similar nature and mutally contradictory makes no sense. The interesting thing about science is that everything seems to break down a just a few fundamental forces and then everything in the universe if just a shitpot that arrives from their interaction. Simple--Complex systems make a lot more sense than Complex Being-->Simple Universe-->More complex shit
On August 01 2014 05:26 ComaDose wrote: how do the modern christians explain the contradictions and horrible things it says in the bible?
On August 01 2014 05:16 Requizen wrote: Why God created imperfect things and people is unknown in that regard.
2 posts above you comadose
Well women had no rights during the time of the bible so cooincidentally the bible says that men have authority over women, similarly it's okay to stone people for adultery because thats what they did at the time the bible was written seems to be all the morals written in the bible were exactly those suitable for BC Jewish society. Christ tried to call bullshit on it and they rapped him for it, but the christians lived on and just went on Jesus' teaching of love and peace but decided to make up a load of stuff loosely based on the bible to try to link jesus with the old testament
Anything that is a law in the Old Testament is no longer valid. Full stop. Any Christian hung up on laws from Deuteronomy or Leviticus or anything else are doing it wrong. When Jesus came, he fulfilled the old laws and laid down a new set of laws, hence the New Testament. You'll find many of the contradictions come from comparing the Old Testament to New.
On August 01 2014 04:35 Slayer91 wrote: or fuck it just make earth heaven which is sort of was until god went full ragemode becaues adam ate a fucking apple jesus christ what a temperamental son of a bitch how about not punish all humankind because some bitch who thought she could talk to snakes also get rid of satan whats the point of punishing people just let them go to heaven too why discriminate oh but blah blah souls well you're god aren't you fix the legal details of souls so everyone goes all the time
On August 01 2014 04:43 Slayer91 wrote: I mean everything is contradictory the point of the Satan God thing is so there's a god guy and a bad guy and the guys who are assholes on the internet and IRL get fucked in the afterlife with pitchforks so you can feel smug about them doing things you don't like.
yaeh if I were god I also wouldn't invent someone whos basically the definition of pure evil big mistake there bro you guys should elect me gods advisor id fix things up so fast you wouldn't believe
Gee I wonder why I don't want to have these types of discussions.
On August 01 2014 04:40 jcarlsoniv wrote: I always found it a bit contradictory that Satan would punish those sent to hell. If Satan is God's enemy, and those who disobey God get sent to hell, wouldn't Satan want to reward them?
Hell isn't what you see on TV with Satan sitting around with a pitchfork. Hell is separation from God, less of a physical place with physical tortures.
How do you know hell isn't what you see on TV? How do you know God loves humans like his children? How can you propose to understand the mind of God? You're just believing something that someone proposed based on something somebody wrote and and was judged to be inspired by god by a panel of guys when they were putting together the old testament
Well, it's imperfect. But the core is the same. God is Love. Anything that contradicts that, that says he hates or wants to hurt, isn't right. No one knows the exact words. No one knows which stories are allegorical and which are literal, other than a few which are solely believed to be one or the other (Parables and Adam/Eve for the former, Parting of the Red Sea and Jesus's life fro the latter). Jesus's messages (not specific words, which can be different between the different Gospels and translations) testify to this and his messages are considered true if you're part of the faith.
Hell is separation from God. Full stop. Jesus talks about separating the wheat from the chaff, about being prepared for the bridegroom, and it's very clear what happens to those that are judged unworthy.
On August 01 2014 05:26 ComaDose wrote: how do the modern christians explain the contradictions and horrible things it says in the bible?
On August 01 2014 05:16 Requizen wrote: Why God created imperfect things and people is unknown in that regard.
2 posts above you comadose
Well women had no rights during the time of the bible so cooincidentally the bible says that men have authority over women, similarly it's okay to stone people for adultery because thats what they did at the time the bible was written seems to be all the morals written in the bible were exactly those suitable for BC Jewish society. Christ tried to call bullshit on it and they rapped him for it, but the christians lived on and just went on Jesus' teaching of love and peace but decided to make up a load of stuff loosely based on the bible to try to link jesus with the old testament
Anything that is a law in the Old Testament is no longer valid. Full stop. Any Christian hung up on laws from Deuteronomy or Leviticus or anything else are doing it wrong. When Jesus came, he fulfilled the old laws and laid down a new set of laws, hence the New Testament. You'll find many of the contradictions come from comparing the Old Testament to New.
but like... it was valid back then? and there are more contradictions, like it starts with two stories about the same event that aren't the same.
On August 01 2014 05:26 ComaDose wrote: how do the modern christians explain the contradictions and horrible things it says in the bible?
On August 01 2014 05:26 Slayer91 wrote:
On August 01 2014 05:26 Scip wrote:
On August 01 2014 05:26 ComaDose wrote: how do the modern christians explain the contradictions and horrible things it says in the bible?
On August 01 2014 05:16 Requizen wrote: Why God created imperfect things and people is unknown in that regard.
2 posts above you comadose
Well women had no rights during the time of the bible so cooincidentally the bible says that men have authority over women, similarly it's okay to stone people for adultery because thats what they did at the time the bible was written seems to be all the morals written in the bible were exactly those suitable for BC Jewish society. Christ tried to call bullshit on it and they rapped him for it, but the christians lived on and just went on Jesus' teaching of love and peace but decided to make up a load of stuff loosely based on the bible to try to link jesus with the old testament
Anything that is a law in the Old Testament is no longer valid. Full stop. Any Christian hung up on laws from Deuteronomy or Leviticus or anything else are doing it wrong. When Jesus came, he fulfilled the old laws and laid down a new set of laws, hence the New Testament. You'll find many of the contradictions come from comparing the Old Testament to New.
but like... it was valid back then? and there are more contradictions, like it starts with two stories about the same event that aren't the same.
Right, the laws were designed for the time. They were valid in a time where they needed those strict laws because the people of that faith were a tribe wandering around the desert for a good portion of it. The laws of man change, and that's really what most of the Old Testament laws were. They took care of things like trade, ownership, stealing, all sorts of things that our government does nowadays. They were never intended to be the core of a religion. They were thrown out when the people of the faith had grown and no longer needed them.
I don't know what other contradictions you're talking about unless you say what they are, but I'd gladly talk about them from my limited knowledge. I only have a very brief study in Apologetics.
On August 01 2014 05:28 Parnage wrote: What kills me is that at least 20,000 minecraft players have no problems with unethical business practices and are willing to defend it. It is infuriating to hear people spout "You're not allowed to earn money anymore!" and when asked if they've did any research they just say "That's just what I heard, I didn't look too deeply into it."
In short, frelling morons the lot of um.
Given the average age of the community, the unwillingness of people on the internet to do research before making up their minds, and how easy it is to pitchfork and start a bandwagon about a topic that pushes people's buttons, I am somewhat not surprised that this has been the outcome. It is unfortunate but such is the fickle nature of the internet.
On August 01 2014 01:03 Celial wrote: i was just checking the tl commandments, wasnt there once upon a time a paragraph about no religious discussions? it isnt there anymore, but i really remember that being in there.
Relugious discussions are banned from the General Forum because they always descend into asinine arguements and are an agony to read let alone moderate.
I am somewhat ok with this discussion in OT for now. Because the community here is smaller and knows each other I think it's much less likely that the discussion can stay reasonable and respectful, and avoid ridiculous hyperbole or arguments becoming personal. After all, there is no point trying to burn bridges with people who you're going to interact with regularly especially in a small community.
Clearly, MoonBear has no faith in us.
*Ba dum tish*
You know what I meant lol. I am very pleased that the discussion so far has been civil.
On August 01 2014 05:26 ComaDose wrote: how do the modern christians explain the contradictions and horrible things it says in the bible?
On August 01 2014 05:26 Slayer91 wrote:
On August 01 2014 05:26 Scip wrote:
On August 01 2014 05:26 ComaDose wrote: how do the modern christians explain the contradictions and horrible things it says in the bible?
On August 01 2014 05:16 Requizen wrote: Why God created imperfect things and people is unknown in that regard.
2 posts above you comadose
Well women had no rights during the time of the bible so cooincidentally the bible says that men have authority over women, similarly it's okay to stone people for adultery because thats what they did at the time the bible was written seems to be all the morals written in the bible were exactly those suitable for BC Jewish society. Christ tried to call bullshit on it and they rapped him for it, but the christians lived on and just went on Jesus' teaching of love and peace but decided to make up a load of stuff loosely based on the bible to try to link jesus with the old testament
Anything that is a law in the Old Testament is no longer valid. Full stop. Any Christian hung up on laws from Deuteronomy or Leviticus or anything else are doing it wrong. When Jesus came, he fulfilled the old laws and laid down a new set of laws, hence the New Testament. You'll find many of the contradictions come from comparing the Old Testament to New.
but like... it was valid back then? and there are more contradictions, like it starts with two stories about the same event that aren't the same.
From what I understand there is no real reason for the OLD Testament to be in the bible for Christianity. It's filled with contradictions to what is in the New Testament and is pretty vile honestly.
On August 01 2014 05:26 ComaDose wrote: how do the modern christians explain the contradictions and horrible things it says in the bible?
On August 01 2014 05:26 Slayer91 wrote:
On August 01 2014 05:26 Scip wrote:
On August 01 2014 05:26 ComaDose wrote: how do the modern christians explain the contradictions and horrible things it says in the bible?
On August 01 2014 05:16 Requizen wrote: Why God created imperfect things and people is unknown in that regard.
2 posts above you comadose
Well women had no rights during the time of the bible so cooincidentally the bible says that men have authority over women, similarly it's okay to stone people for adultery because thats what they did at the time the bible was written seems to be all the morals written in the bible were exactly those suitable for BC Jewish society. Christ tried to call bullshit on it and they rapped him for it, but the christians lived on and just went on Jesus' teaching of love and peace but decided to make up a load of stuff loosely based on the bible to try to link jesus with the old testament
Anything that is a law in the Old Testament is no longer valid. Full stop. Any Christian hung up on laws from Deuteronomy or Leviticus or anything else are doing it wrong. When Jesus came, he fulfilled the old laws and laid down a new set of laws, hence the New Testament. You'll find many of the contradictions come from comparing the Old Testament to New.
but like... it was valid back then? and there are more contradictions, like it starts with two stories about the same event that aren't the same.
From what I understand there is no real reason for the OLD Testament to be in the bible for Christianity. It's filled with contradictions to what is in the New Testament and is pretty vile honestly.
From my understanding, the Old Testament is included to show the prophecies that were told about Christ and show his fulfillment of them. The rest is really just bookkeeping/storytelling.
On August 01 2014 05:26 ComaDose wrote: how do the modern christians explain the contradictions and horrible things it says in the bible?
On August 01 2014 05:26 Slayer91 wrote:
On August 01 2014 05:26 Scip wrote:
On August 01 2014 05:26 ComaDose wrote: how do the modern christians explain the contradictions and horrible things it says in the bible?
On August 01 2014 05:16 Requizen wrote: Why God created imperfect things and people is unknown in that regard.
2 posts above you comadose
Well women had no rights during the time of the bible so cooincidentally the bible says that men have authority over women, similarly it's okay to stone people for adultery because thats what they did at the time the bible was written seems to be all the morals written in the bible were exactly those suitable for BC Jewish society. Christ tried to call bullshit on it and they rapped him for it, but the christians lived on and just went on Jesus' teaching of love and peace but decided to make up a load of stuff loosely based on the bible to try to link jesus with the old testament
Anything that is a law in the Old Testament is no longer valid. Full stop. Any Christian hung up on laws from Deuteronomy or Leviticus or anything else are doing it wrong. When Jesus came, he fulfilled the old laws and laid down a new set of laws, hence the New Testament. You'll find many of the contradictions come from comparing the Old Testament to New.
but like... it was valid back then? and there are more contradictions, like it starts with two stories about the same event that aren't the same.
From what I understand there is no real reason for the OLD Testament to be in the bible for Christianity. It's filled with contradictions to what is in the New Testament and is pretty vile honestly.
From my understanding, the Old Testament is included to show the prophecies that were told about Christ and show his fulfillment of them. The rest is really just bookkeeping/storytelling.
Hmm could be, I don't know that much about it. All I really know is without the New testament there is no Christianity and the message of Love in the New Testament goes against all the senseless killing that happens in the Old Testament. I'll just ask parents tomorrow, prob getting tired of me questioning their faith though. Kind of stopped going years ago.
On August 01 2014 05:26 ComaDose wrote: how do the modern christians explain the contradictions and horrible things it says in the bible?
On August 01 2014 05:26 Slayer91 wrote:
On August 01 2014 05:26 Scip wrote:
On August 01 2014 05:26 ComaDose wrote: how do the modern christians explain the contradictions and horrible things it says in the bible?
On August 01 2014 05:16 Requizen wrote: Why God created imperfect things and people is unknown in that regard.
2 posts above you comadose
Well women had no rights during the time of the bible so cooincidentally the bible says that men have authority over women, similarly it's okay to stone people for adultery because thats what they did at the time the bible was written seems to be all the morals written in the bible were exactly those suitable for BC Jewish society. Christ tried to call bullshit on it and they rapped him for it, but the christians lived on and just went on Jesus' teaching of love and peace but decided to make up a load of stuff loosely based on the bible to try to link jesus with the old testament
Anything that is a law in the Old Testament is no longer valid. Full stop. Any Christian hung up on laws from Deuteronomy or Leviticus or anything else are doing it wrong. When Jesus came, he fulfilled the old laws and laid down a new set of laws, hence the New Testament. You'll find many of the contradictions come from comparing the Old Testament to New.
but like... it was valid back then? and there are more contradictions, like it starts with two stories about the same event that aren't the same.
Right, the laws were designed for the time. They were valid in a time where they needed those strict laws because the people of that faith were a tribe wandering around the desert for a good portion of it. The laws of man change, and that's really what most of the Old Testament laws were. They took care of things like trade, ownership, stealing, all sorts of things that our government does nowadays. They were never intended to be the core of a religion. They were thrown out when the people of the faith had grown and no longer needed them.
I don't know what other contradictions you're talking about unless you say what they are, but I'd gladly talk about them from my limited knowledge. I only have a very brief study in Apologetics.
but is it the word of god? like he said having slaves and stoning women was what people needed at the time? a good example of a contradiction is like i said the first two stories in the bible. they are different creation stories.
On August 01 2014 03:08 mordek wrote: [quote] How seriously are you pursuing empirical/physical evidence and what would it take for something to be indisputable.
I'm not pursuing it at all as I have no particular desire or need/wish to believe in something "greater". For it to be indisputable, it would have to be something that could be tested and proven. It would have to go through the same principles of science that anything that I know to be fact would have gone through.
So if we for just a minute say God is real and the Bible is true, what would have to be tested and proven. How would you accept him proving his existence?
I have no idea
It would have to be something continuously observable and testable, but I admit that I don't know the contents of the Bible well enough to pick an example there that would be good here.
But let's take a polytheistic religion, for example. The different gods serve different purposes (rain god, sun god, goddess of fertility, etc.), and they were used to explain things that people didn't understand. As technology advances, we have been better able to explain and discover the scientific backings, causes, and effects of all of these different types of previously inexplicable things. And so it's difficult to imagine something being scientifically provable while simultaneously being religious in backing. But I won't say it's impossible because something could come along in the future that ends up proving some sort of deity (or deities) to exist.
The polytheism of the Greeks/Romans are just people making up stuff to explain things. I understand if you think that's exactly what I'm doing. But I'm saying if God is the creator of the universe and revealed himself through Jesus and different points in time in the Old Testament, then quite simply he created "science". Everything works the way it does because he made it so. He's outside of time, space, matter but has chosen to reveal himself in different ways and most importantly as Himself in the person of Jesus. Once again, I understand that can sound crazy and I'm just repeating some made up garbage but I also don't understand why people feel like there is such a dichotomy between those who believe in concrete "science" and those who work in the supposed imaginary realm of "religion". I mean, I could care less about Christianity beyond what Jesus has taught and God has commanded. You take away whatever baggage away that has occurred because flawed humans used religion for purposes other than bringing God glory. Just look at your body. Just think about it. I personally find it unfathomable that I'm the product of random chance over millions of billions of years. I just don't get it when I step back why that should be my default belief.
Oh, I know you're not just pulling shit out of your ass, I was raised Christian (and have actually gone through confirmation and all that fun stuff). But supposing science is the product of God's creation, I would think that he would be able to physically manifest himself in a way to prove to the non-believers that he exists. Would an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, benevolent god not want to reveal himself and end conflict and suffering for those he created? (that's a VERY loaded question)
You might find it unfathomable, but I find it completely awesome that we are products of random chance. What I do find hard to believe is that we could be the only instance of random chance prospering in this potentially infinite universe (/multiverse/etc). I personally don't need a belief in a higher being to accept that these scientific properties worked out in our favor, and I also know there is still so much about everything that we do now know and have barely scratched the surface on.
He did manifest himself, if you believe the New Testament. Of course, the people of the time sure did a bang-up job with that.
Faith and the higher concepts of science aren't interconnected, nor are they conflicting. Just because our world is a veritable needle in the haystack as far as the universe is concerned doesn't mean God doesn't exist, and just because God exists (if He does) doesn't mean that we should stop caring about being in awe of the amazing feats of science and nature in our world.
On August 01 2014 03:53 Slayer91 wrote: yeah we've seen only like 0.000000000000001% of our universe no chance we gonna detect the other aliens anytime soon even if they found our sun with a telescope no chance they gonna find earth and even if they do they won't be able to see shit the off chance of a radiation signal
On August 01 2014 03:53 mordek wrote:
On August 01 2014 03:50 Slayer91 wrote:
On August 01 2014 03:22 mordek wrote:
On August 01 2014 03:12 jcarlsoniv wrote:
On August 01 2014 03:08 mordek wrote: [quote] How seriously are you pursuing empirical/physical evidence and what would it take for something to be indisputable.
I'm not pursuing it at all as I have no particular desire or need/wish to believe in something "greater". For it to be indisputable, it would have to be something that could be tested and proven. It would have to go through the same principles of science that anything that I know to be fact would have gone through.
So if we for just a minute say God is real and the Bible is true, what would have to be tested and proven. How would you accept him proving his existence?
Except you could ask the same questions for an infinite amount of gods and an infinite amount of holy books that havent been written or theorized yet so essentially with zero evidence god is a statistical impossibility
I get that, I'm trying to understand what is needed to convince him but more so I want him to know what it would take so he knows what questions to ask. The real travesty is if you just decide not to examine it.
tbh even if god was real he'd be a massive cock for allowing most life to endure massive suffering if he's not malevolent he's definitely not omnipotent
God gave Free Will to humans. Would it have been better if we were physically incapable of making choices? That would mean that we could not do horrible things or hurt one another, but we also would not be masters of our own fate. God doesn't want automatons to praise Him for no reason, He created life for the same reason people have children: because He loves them and wants to see them prosper.
If you ever have kids, it's similar. You put down rules, you try to teach them right, but in the end it's their own choice to do what they want and make their own fate, even if you think it's horrible and wrong. You just keep trying to help them as you can.
god gave you free will as well as people with desires such as pedophilia and people with voices in their heads telling them to murder people and generally massive greed and hedoistic desires that lead to people fucking people over and creating natural disasters and famine and disease to make sure most people die horrible deaths as well as most animals i think id take a free ticket to heaven and THEN have free will tyvm or not designing humans with horrible flaws that coincidentally correspond to things that were evolutionary advantages
People with psychological disorders are the extreme minority, not the norm. Our bodies hold to the laws of nature, which mean they're fallible and prone to issues. We deal with those both personally and we deal with other people's issues as well.
I don't know why the mind evolved to allow these things to happen, or if God designed them that way for a reason. I can only talk about things I do know. Why do terrible things happen? Why does our world sometimes have disasters that kill hundreds and thousands of innocents and good people? I don't know, but bad things do not disprove the existence of good.
Well, no, you're talking about things you think and believe. Which is totally fine, but it's not necessarily something you know. We know that gravity makes things go down and that an object in motion tends to stay in motion. We also know that there are scientific properties behind all of this. The difference is that you believe God is behind it, while I think that it just is the way it is.
The thing is that if science is the end-all be-all of knowing things then you're left with knowing that there is gravity but not knowing how to live life. The scientific method only tells you what materially is. It judges neither the philanthropist nor the pedophile and both of those people are merely following their own desires. If one happens to promote more happiness than the other, that is a fact, but the scientific method doesn't tell us that happiness is a goal. Feelings do that.
Personally, while I'm often far from a great person already, without any real reason for morality to exist aside from evolutionary processes I think I'd be much worse. In that case I actually can't see a reason to not do whatever you please, whatever it is, because in the end humanity itself is a blip of no consequence. You can choose to ignore the big picture, and I understand why most people do, but that decision is not a logical one. It is born of irrational necessity. So you're right: God vs nothing is not something we *know* scientifically. I'm convinced that God is the better option though.
My respects to all of you, and for those of you who hate this kind of discussion, sorry, this will be my only post in this one.
On August 01 2014 05:26 ComaDose wrote: how do the modern christians explain the contradictions and horrible things it says in the bible?
On August 01 2014 05:26 Slayer91 wrote:
On August 01 2014 05:26 Scip wrote:
On August 01 2014 05:26 ComaDose wrote: how do the modern christians explain the contradictions and horrible things it says in the bible?
On August 01 2014 05:16 Requizen wrote: Why God created imperfect things and people is unknown in that regard.
2 posts above you comadose
Well women had no rights during the time of the bible so cooincidentally the bible says that men have authority over women, similarly it's okay to stone people for adultery because thats what they did at the time the bible was written seems to be all the morals written in the bible were exactly those suitable for BC Jewish society. Christ tried to call bullshit on it and they rapped him for it, but the christians lived on and just went on Jesus' teaching of love and peace but decided to make up a load of stuff loosely based on the bible to try to link jesus with the old testament
Anything that is a law in the Old Testament is no longer valid. Full stop. Any Christian hung up on laws from Deuteronomy or Leviticus or anything else are doing it wrong. When Jesus came, he fulfilled the old laws and laid down a new set of laws, hence the New Testament. You'll find many of the contradictions come from comparing the Old Testament to New.
but like... it was valid back then? and there are more contradictions, like it starts with two stories about the same event that aren't the same.
Right, the laws were designed for the time. They were valid in a time where they needed those strict laws because the people of that faith were a tribe wandering around the desert for a good portion of it. The laws of man change, and that's really what most of the Old Testament laws were. They took care of things like trade, ownership, stealing, all sorts of things that our government does nowadays. They were never intended to be the core of a religion. They were thrown out when the people of the faith had grown and no longer needed them.
I don't know what other contradictions you're talking about unless you say what they are, but I'd gladly talk about them from my limited knowledge. I only have a very brief study in Apologetics.
but is it the word of god? like he said having slaves and stoning women was what people needed at the time? a good example of a contradiction is like i said the first two stories in the bible. they are different creation stories.
I'm not explicitly familiar with most of the Old Testament. From what I remember, though, most of the laws governing things like slaves and goods and all that controversial stuff was not uttered from the mouth of God, but rather the laws of the leaders and Pharisees. The laws of God were the 10 Commandments and what the Prophets said in his name. Much like the Church and churches of today have the laws of the faith, but also the rules of their religion (bad example, but closest I could think of). Since they were written by men, they were made for men of the time, who owned slaves, who didn't understand the ideas of equality, etc.
As I said, many (but not all) of the stories in the Old Testament are taken to be allegorical. Just as Jesus spoke in Parables, so were many of the stories passed down orally
EPT
