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This is now good stuff!
Quality points of view from both sides!
Quality points of view from both sides!
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Religion One of the all-time great bakes
- Thread starter Sloth
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I see disease as evidence of sin really.
Yeah, i know its your point. We are at an impasse b/c of what we are willing to believe in - what we have faith in. Or what we will consider evidence.
Faith is definitely and core component of Xianity. Not blind faith, as there is evidence for faith in Jesus. Not scientific, b/c that's not possible, but historic and legal proofs etc. An individual who is a Xian will also have had a personal experience of God/Jesus, and probably ongoing experiences as well.
I won't be able to convince anyone of Jesus divinity, or even of a divine being, purely on a logical, evidential argument. So I won't really try.
By the way, what do you gamble eternity on. For a start i find it a bit cheeky that you would even say this, as i suspect you don't believe in eternity.
- Thread starter
- #404
You might want to watch the insults to start with mate. I'll give you the time of day this time, but you haven't earnt it, and I will be circumspect in future.
You really misunderstand. I believe God created things "good", without fault, but thru sin and fallenness, it has become corrupted. Sickness would be part of that corruption. Sometimes disease is directly related to sin - if you get drunk all the time and get liver failure....well. Often it is part of the general fallenness of a world we all inhabit.
- Thread starter
- #406
Can we get an ETA on that smilie over here?
Oh, i see. Its a troll.
- Thread starter
- #408
Thanks for that apprentice. Run along now, the adults are talking.
Well since I am a Atheist eternity for me is basically the next 50 or so years (the term of my natural life).
So you could take it as I won't gamble my life (as limited and precious as it is) for faith.
OK. I get what you mean i think.
But why do you consider it a gamble for people of faith? I don't see what they have to loose. If they die and there is no God, then they are dead, nothing lost.
I do see what a non believer has to loose if they are wrong. If they die and there is a God...well.
No gamble for the believer, big gamble for the non believer.
evo
Let's hit the f*ken road!
Seems to me you lost plenty. You spent a whole life worried that you may be "fallen"
Curse that talking snake!
*sigh*
The same 'wager' exists for you. The exact same wager. There are many religions who offer a bad afterlife for not believing, if one of those are right and your religion is wrong, then the 'gamble' is the same for you and you have as much chance of ending up in a bad afterlife as a non-believer.
*sigh*
You didn't read the context of the conversation did you placebo?
If you are right, then max was wrong in what he said. He is gambling as much as a believer. Believing is no ore a gamble than hot believing.
Clearly we are starting too far back to make headway here.
Happy to have a real discussion about Xian faith, but I don't hve the time to swap insults and go round in circles thru this sort of medium.
Happy to have a real discussion about Xian faith, but I don't hve the time to swap insults and go round in circles thru this sort of medium.
O
Old Spice
Guest
What are the other options?
I happen to think myth and credulity are perfectly rational, at a certain historical juncture. After a gazillion anomolies, however, perhaps we need to plumb psychic depths to explain religious belief. Still a form of logic.
Pie eyed
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How do you make yourself believe if you don't believe? Theist, atheist and agnostic alike are all in the same boat as far as risk goes.
What Max said was irrelevant to my post as it seemed you believed the 'believers have nothing to lose, non-believers have something to lose' sentiment, however if you don't believe that, then my apologies.
Pascal's worldview was one of a man who was utterly terrified of his place in the world:
When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in an eternity before and after, the little space I fill engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing, and which know nothing of me, I am terrified. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me…
Pascal's solution to the gamble, in his terms, was “Stupefy yourself: take holy water.”
Stupefy: To dull the senses or capacity to think thereby reducing responsiveness
To stupefy oneself, due to a self-centered fear and a self-centered craving/attachment to a life beyond death, is to sacrifice (ie. lose) direct experience with reality.
Big gamble for the fearful believer, No gamble for the non-attached non-believer.
I lose nothing? I have to follow a bunch of arbitrary rules and venerate invisible beings. I have to give up a part of my free will.
If I lost nothing then belief would be worthless wouldn't it? Since it would mean nothing to be a believer.
So I have to give up something.
What if the supreme being (if he exists) does not like to be worshiped or have demands (prayers) made of them?
melbournemartin
Brownlow Medallist
People still go for this religious mumbo-jumbo ey?
melbournemartin
Brownlow Medallist
If you guys have a spare two hours up your sleeve, watch this:
http://fixed-point.org/index.php/video/35-full-length/164-the-dawkins-lennox-debate
It's a debate between Dr John Lennox (a mathematician of religious belief) and Professor Richard Dawkin (well we all know who his is yeah?)
You can really though cut to the final 5 minutes in the closing remarks, firstly by John. After spending two hours talking very intelligently about evidence for religion (I say the term 'evidence' loosely as I do not agree with its usage here) and the concept of God as being on such a grand scale, grander than the universe, he then for the first time states the fundamental aspect of Christianity, that being a belief that Jesus rose from the dead. Furthermore, that his beliefs all stem from this one point.
That, as Richard says, really "gives the game away". I am almost sympathetic to a view of a grand scale God. Not because I believe it is true, but because our ability for comprehension may not be sufficient to describe everything, and by everything I mean the universe and possibly more (what created the universe? are there many? etc etc, that sort of super-grand scale stuff). But to then to hinge this view and pretty much all other aspects of the Christian faith (okay, I understand that some Christians take a more modern, metaphoric view of the Bible and such so I am partially making specific reference to John Lennox here) on a resurrection from the dead, something which simply cannot happen, derails his entire argument. I do not completely agree with Dawkins in saying that God putting Jesus on Earth was a petty act, for I believe that something on such a grand scale as God would like to connect with the people on their own level. I do however know that this is one point where science totally destroys religion. Science can't disprove God (Dawkins says that in his final sentence), nor can it prove morals or ethics or many other things which are commonly linked with religion, BUT it can prove that someone cannot rise from the dead. I almost feel embarrassed to write that because it's so obviously true.
Another rather interesting argument against religion (I almost feel bad arguing against religion because I'm yet to hear a satisfying argument for it. John Lennox did okay here and there but stabbed himself in the foot in the final minutes) is that it is a purely human construct, as evidenced by the varying religions across the world. I cbf going into that in detail now but it is interesting. The "how do I know I picked the right religion?" really leads to a deeper and more important question of "if there is ANY choice in religion, then has there not been human intervention way?" I guess people could counter that by saying there is only one true God and different people at different times have simply missinterpreted the evidence for Him. If God is so almighty though, it is hard to believe that He would tolerate such missinterpretation though.
Anyway, that's my once a year rant against religion when I come out of my self-imposed shell of aethiest ignorance (due to a lack of confrontational desire) to try and enlighten the ignorant masses who still believe in something that was merely created by ignorant masses of centuries ago, which was similar to the rubbish believed by ignorant masses centuries before that.
I'm sure people could easily come up with points to dispute what I've said, and I applaud them. You can't win this argument though. You can stop it though by giving up on religion as you can't give up on science. I doubt that will ever happen though as the comfort of religion seems too overpowering for too many people.
ps: I didn't actually listen to the audio link from the first post because my browser wouldn't load it. My post therefore may be only of limited relevence but it was the most heavily populated thread with the religion tag on it.
http://fixed-point.org/index.php/video/35-full-length/164-the-dawkins-lennox-debate
It's a debate between Dr John Lennox (a mathematician of religious belief) and Professor Richard Dawkin (well we all know who his is yeah?)
You can really though cut to the final 5 minutes in the closing remarks, firstly by John. After spending two hours talking very intelligently about evidence for religion (I say the term 'evidence' loosely as I do not agree with its usage here) and the concept of God as being on such a grand scale, grander than the universe, he then for the first time states the fundamental aspect of Christianity, that being a belief that Jesus rose from the dead. Furthermore, that his beliefs all stem from this one point.
That, as Richard says, really "gives the game away". I am almost sympathetic to a view of a grand scale God. Not because I believe it is true, but because our ability for comprehension may not be sufficient to describe everything, and by everything I mean the universe and possibly more (what created the universe? are there many? etc etc, that sort of super-grand scale stuff). But to then to hinge this view and pretty much all other aspects of the Christian faith (okay, I understand that some Christians take a more modern, metaphoric view of the Bible and such so I am partially making specific reference to John Lennox here) on a resurrection from the dead, something which simply cannot happen, derails his entire argument. I do not completely agree with Dawkins in saying that God putting Jesus on Earth was a petty act, for I believe that something on such a grand scale as God would like to connect with the people on their own level. I do however know that this is one point where science totally destroys religion. Science can't disprove God (Dawkins says that in his final sentence), nor can it prove morals or ethics or many other things which are commonly linked with religion, BUT it can prove that someone cannot rise from the dead. I almost feel embarrassed to write that because it's so obviously true.
Another rather interesting argument against religion (I almost feel bad arguing against religion because I'm yet to hear a satisfying argument for it. John Lennox did okay here and there but stabbed himself in the foot in the final minutes) is that it is a purely human construct, as evidenced by the varying religions across the world. I cbf going into that in detail now but it is interesting. The "how do I know I picked the right religion?" really leads to a deeper and more important question of "if there is ANY choice in religion, then has there not been human intervention way?" I guess people could counter that by saying there is only one true God and different people at different times have simply missinterpreted the evidence for Him. If God is so almighty though, it is hard to believe that He would tolerate such missinterpretation though.
Anyway, that's my once a year rant against religion when I come out of my self-imposed shell of aethiest ignorance (due to a lack of confrontational desire) to try and enlighten the ignorant masses who still believe in something that was merely created by ignorant masses of centuries ago, which was similar to the rubbish believed by ignorant masses centuries before that.
I'm sure people could easily come up with points to dispute what I've said, and I applaud them. You can't win this argument though. You can stop it though by giving up on religion as you can't give up on science. I doubt that will ever happen though as the comfort of religion seems too overpowering for too many people.
ps: I didn't actually listen to the audio link from the first post because my browser wouldn't load it. My post therefore may be only of limited relevence but it was the most heavily populated thread with the religion tag on it.
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