What do you believe and why do you believe it?
- Thread starter Spectrox
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I accept that in the spirit it is given. I think your intentions are good but we see life differently. Your world view starts with an assumption or presupposition that the Bible is true. Mine is a default starting position that the null hypothesis is correct, i.e.
that there is no relationship between two measured phenomena until demonstrated otherwise. This avoids contradictions between competing claims, e.g. Christianity versus Islam. They are both not accepted unless demonstrated to be otherwise.
that there is no relationship between two measured phenomena until demonstrated otherwise. This avoids contradictions between competing claims, e.g. Christianity versus Islam. They are both not accepted unless demonstrated to be otherwise.
I have another premise.
Life maybe more about do the seeds of love take root and grow to produce the result the sower desires,
or distractions along the way take hold.
You strike me as someone who has closed the door, I am just wondering why?
I would not want good soil to miss the very life it craves to have, just because of cynicism.
Life maybe more about do the seeds of love take root and grow to produce the result the sower desires,
or distractions along the way take hold.
You strike me as someone who has closed the door, I am just wondering why?
I would not want good soil to miss the very life it craves to have, just because of cynicism.
He seems bitter about something... a bit of a tantrum sounds like.
Job had his quarrel with God and then God answered Job... shut him down! Job could not say anything further. He stopped complaining. God put him straight. In the end Job was greatly blessed.
Hope this story ends well. We cant give up on Spectrox.
Job had his quarrel with God and then God answered Job... shut him down! Job could not say anything further. He stopped complaining. God put him straight. In the end Job was greatly blessed.
Hope this story ends well. We cant give up on Spectrox.
One thing for certain you are honest about what you believe. Like most atheist most of them testify " I used to be Christian". Which means you weren't ever a Christian nor do they have any faith. Here is a general dilemma. You demand that God prove Himself in way that is convincing to you. In the mean time you know that He wont. SO! Nothing will happen which warrants your DIS-belief. Look at your conversion to being an atheist..." I had my doubts after several months as a result of speaking to atheists and ex-Christians. Some things in the Bible stopped making sense to me. Some of the Bible was immoral, some of it was inconsistent and some of it was not credible."
Only thing you've done is refuse to believe and null and void faith by agreeing with obstinate parties and their false information that pleases your 'common logic. Faith and Logic are indifferent of each other. Logic demands tangibles and notations while FAITH requires mere belief and that's the one true thing that pleases God. And with out faith how can HE prove anything to anyone who demands that He lower Himself to the finite thinking of a common unbeliever. Here is your answer friend. Have Faith. There is you proof.
Only thing you've done is refuse to believe and null and void faith by agreeing with obstinate parties and their false information that pleases your 'common logic. Faith and Logic are indifferent of each other. Logic demands tangibles and notations while FAITH requires mere belief and that's the one true thing that pleases God. And with out faith how can HE prove anything to anyone who demands that He lower Himself to the finite thinking of a common unbeliever. Here is your answer friend. Have Faith. There is you proof.
I must apologise for some members.
Children when they read any story tend to assume it is true and real.
At a particular age most kids start to be able to distinguish between fiction and reality.
I have had conversations with my own children laughing at the things in stories and films
they thought were real, before they realised it was just made up.
Some as adults forget their childhood and project back adult thinking into all human experience.
Children when they read any story tend to assume it is true and real.
At a particular age most kids start to be able to distinguish between fiction and reality.
I have had conversations with my own children laughing at the things in stories and films
they thought were real, before they realised it was just made up.
Some as adults forget their childhood and project back adult thinking into all human experience.
The problem with intelligent people is the bullet that is flying towards them still kills them
while the willfully ignorant have taken cover and survive.
Life is a balance between emotions and intellectualism and just getting on with things.
Jesus gives us keys to a door, unless we open it and follow the path, it will always
appear confusing.
while the willfully ignorant have taken cover and survive.
Life is a balance between emotions and intellectualism and just getting on with things.
Jesus gives us keys to a door, unless we open it and follow the path, it will always
appear confusing.
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It could be argued that "basic assumptions around situational ethics are arbitrary" - Exactly - unless you have some kind of a measuring stick that is truth! (which I have and you don't! 
) I will not agree that pleasure is preferable to pain, or that health is preferable to disease, etc. - I absolutely not will agree with your "bedrock assumptions"
) I will not agree that pleasure is preferable to pain, or that health is preferable to disease, etc. - I absolutely not will agree with your "bedrock assumptions"
Which just demonstrates my point that the Bible is useless at helping us with everyday moral dilemmas and practical problems.
This is essentially the Argument from Reason. There are various rebuttals to it but i think quite a good one is from Dr Richard carrier below:
"But it all reduces to a simple Bayesian case against God: if God did not design us, our innate reasoning abilities should be shoddy and ad hoc and only ever improved upon by what are in essence culturally (not biologically) installed software patches (like the scientific method, logic and mathematics, and so on), which corrected our reasoning abilities only after thousands of years of humans trying out different fixes, fixes that were only discovered through human trial and error, and not communicated in any divine revelation or scripture. But if God did design us, our brains should have worked properly from the start and required no software patches, much less software patches that took thousands of years to figure out, and are completely missing from all supposed communications from God.
Thus, observation confirms that the actual evidence of human reason is far more probable if God did not exist than if he does. Thus, even the Christian’s own Argument from Reason argues that God does not exist, rather than that he does. Because once again, when we bring in all the evidence, the Bayes Factor strongly supports atheism."
We should communicate with people honestly and try to understand if they are happy or whether they could be more happy being or doing something else. According to the New Testament, a slave is "more blessed" if their master treats them badly. I find this perverse.
You tempted me into responding to this.
Paul is saying, working for your master as working for the Lord is our calling, our devotion to our circumstances
despite the constraints we live under.
In Christ we are blessed. So if our master treats us badly and yet we still respond in love bringing glory to Christ
we are more blessed in Him and greater will be our reward, for this is worthy of praise.
The blessing is in showing love and forgiveness despite harsh treatment, not to encourage masters to treat their
slaves worse so they are blessed more. Funnily this is how you are reading things, which demonstrates the
bias of your perspective. I could give you the benefit of the doubt, but I am not sure you do not see my point
very clearly and are just being obtuse.
Paul is saying, working for your master as working for the Lord is our calling, our devotion to our circumstances
despite the constraints we live under.
In Christ we are blessed. So if our master treats us badly and yet we still respond in love bringing glory to Christ
we are more blessed in Him and greater will be our reward, for this is worthy of praise.
The blessing is in showing love and forgiveness despite harsh treatment, not to encourage masters to treat their
slaves worse so they are blessed more. Funnily this is how you are reading things, which demonstrates the
bias of your perspective. I could give you the benefit of the doubt, but I am not sure you do not see my point
very clearly and are just being obtuse.
This is demonstrably not true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution
It states "Nearly all (around 97%) of the scientific community accepts evolution as the dominant scientific theory of biological diversity."
There are footnotes at the bottom which provide further links to peer-reviewed articles from scientists who have actually done the hard work to put the information together. It's very easy to dismiss other people's hard work with a few casual sentences. Much more difficult to piece together the self-supporting evidence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution
It states "Nearly all (around 97%) of the scientific community accepts evolution as the dominant scientific theory of biological diversity."
There are footnotes at the bottom which provide further links to peer-reviewed articles from scientists who have actually done the hard work to put the information together. It's very easy to dismiss other people's hard work with a few casual sentences. Much more difficult to piece together the self-supporting evidence.
If you can demonstrate to me why faith (in what?) is a good thing then I might be convinced. Also the default starting point for Christianity has to be that it is a myth until demonstrated to be otherwise. There are so many stories and philosophies around this time and subsequently (e.g. Islam, Sikhism, Mormonism) that none are proven until they are. They can't all be true because they make conflicting claims with each other. However, they can all be wrong. My aim is not to insult you. My aim is to get you to question more.
It appears you are NOT interested in finding truth. You did not, nor could not, refute that the information encoded in DNA demands a designer.
So if you are not here for truth, what exactly IS your motive for being here?
Also, you asked me a question about Mark and drinking poison. I gave you an account that I did and survived.
Are you going to move the goal posts yet again, and demand another proof?
So if you are not here for truth, what exactly IS your motive for being here?
Also, you asked me a question about Mark and drinking poison. I gave you an account that I did and survived.
Are you going to move the goal posts yet again, and demand another proof?
I understand what you're saying but my point is why is there no vision for the end of slavery in the Bible? Why didn't God write one of his Commandments as "Thou shall not own another human being as property." Don't you think that would have helped thousands of slaves throughout history? Could God have prevented slavery?
Slavery is not a bad thing, it is enforced servitude and resolves famine rescue and genocide in war.
The reason slavery was abolished is because working on plantations could be done with hired labour,
and slaves were dealt with as if it did not matter if they lived or died. Often torture and beating were
used which was inhuman way of treating other individuals.
Once society was wealthy enough to employ people, and wars were fought with professional armies,
while civilians were not part of the battles, then conflicts could be resolved through political means
rather than slavery and murder.
Interestingly Stalin, Hitler, Mao still used these techniques for domination. So the source of this approach
is not God but man.
The reason slavery was abolished is because working on plantations could be done with hired labour,
and slaves were dealt with as if it did not matter if they lived or died. Often torture and beating were
used which was inhuman way of treating other individuals.
Once society was wealthy enough to employ people, and wars were fought with professional armies,
while civilians were not part of the battles, then conflicts could be resolved through political means
rather than slavery and murder.
Interestingly Stalin, Hitler, Mao still used these techniques for domination. So the source of this approach
is not God but man.
I may not have given the answer that you find acceptable but I think I'm less close-minded than anyone on this site so far. I care about what's true. I try to have as many true beliefs as possible and as few false beliefs as possible.
DNA is a molecule that mutates over many generations. Ignoring all the details, such as natural selection, this is the simple answer to how it became as complex as it is today.
If DNA is too complicated to arise naturally, then how did something complicated enough to design DNA arise? I agree that much of the complexity of the natural world gives the appearance of design but it may not have been designed. Look at completely redundant vestigial features in some animals, e.g. blind cave fish or the laryngial nerve of a giraffe.
Even if we determined that all life had indeed been designed, how do you get from there to your particular God? The Bible contains no scientific predictions.
You drank poison you say and lived to tell the tale? Wow. What poison was it? How much did you drink?
DNA is a molecule that mutates over many generations. Ignoring all the details, such as natural selection, this is the simple answer to how it became as complex as it is today.
If DNA is too complicated to arise naturally, then how did something complicated enough to design DNA arise? I agree that much of the complexity of the natural world gives the appearance of design but it may not have been designed. Look at completely redundant vestigial features in some animals, e.g. blind cave fish or the laryngial nerve of a giraffe.
Even if we determined that all life had indeed been designed, how do you get from there to your particular God? The Bible contains no scientific predictions.
You drank poison you say and lived to tell the tale? Wow. What poison was it? How much did you drink?