Very interesting mandielise. Are you saying that you no longer believe in any higher power? Also how do you approach Pascal’s Wager? I mean even though there are hundreds of religions out there, isn’t some shot better than none?
By the way: why did you place stars as such a contradiction? If you disbelieved one type of science, why not another?
I’m not attacking any of your beliefs (previously held or otherwise), I am genuinely curious.
I think you all seem to have taken my statement the wrong way. I was responding to the statement made by Meatros in which he said
and I responded saying…
meaning that I personally “stick to my guns” because God lives inside me and I can’t prove it to anyone, especially to someone who has never experienced it.
I certainly am not here to offend anyone and I apolgize if I did.
Secondly I am female Meatros just so you know and in answer to your question
I wouldn’t say it conflicts with the belief in God, but if you are a creationist who believes the bible as literal truth, then yes, it conflicts with that.
Sorry 'bout the gender confusion-totally my fault.
In your opinion dreamer, can you believe in evolution and believe in the Christian God? and if not why not?
I am totally just curious, I’m not trying to stir up trouble.
Sure, anyone can believe whatever they want. You can believe in the Christian God and in evolution too but I would assume you’d want to research and figure out how you can come to that conclusion since the bible doesn’t say anything about evolution.
I think believing in God and believing in the bible could be two different things, many people believe God is out there but they don’t believe what the bible says. It’s all a matter of opinion I suppose, right mandielise 
Absolutely dreamer!
Meatros, what IS Pascal’s Wager?
Even though I didn’t have an explanation for the stars, I believed the Bible was infallable, therefore science must have made a mistake, and I was trying to figure that one out. As I said, I don’t believe that anymore - and I don’t take any offense to what you’ve said about anything.
Furthermore, I’m not Christian anymore - that doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in a higher being. I’m really more agnostic than anything. I have an assortment of ideas (I guess you could call them beliefs) but nothing I’d wanna put money on. I’m learning every day, and sometimes that changes my ideas. I don’t pretend to know what’s going on in the universe, but I believe there must be some form of god - I just don’t think he/she is anything like the personal god of the Bible. I guess, if I HAD to say what I believe god to be, I’d say nature - but don’t hold me to it. 
Pascal’s wager is basically this: You believe either god does or does not exist.
If you believe he does exist and your are right-heaven-if you are wrong, well you’re dead like everyone else.
If you believe he does not exist and you are right-you are worm food like everyone else-if you are wrong, you go to hell.
Based on that, it makes since to believe; however the problem comes with the existance of other religions. If you believe the wrong religion-you are going to hell as well as atheists.
I’ve thought of that before, actually - I just didn’t know it had a name. I agree it’s MUCH safer and easier to believe in a god. It actually hit me really hard when I was having my surgery done this summer - I was so scared, and knowing that a god was watching over me woulda made things a lot easier. But I can’t make myself believe. I believe before due to my own ignorance (though I’m not calling anyone else ignorant… I might learn even more one day and go back, you never know).
Basically, I’ve tried to stop worrying about stuff like pascal’s wager. No one has religion completely right - fundies disagree with each other, catholics disagree with each other, etc… If no one agrees, then who’s to say what’s right? I sure as hell don’t know what it is!
Yup, I agree mandielise, although I still do believe. My thoughts are this; Mankind can judge me all they want. I have no desire to live up to another person’s morals or sense of what is good.
God on the other hand can and will judge me. Why put myself through the pressure twice, besides I think God is a better judge than any person.
My thoughts are people can believe whatever they want to believe as long as they let me do the same.
Same here Meatros. On a personal note, I should warn y’all that I might not be able to answer any more for a while. I’m moving to my apartment this morning and won’t have internet for a week or so.
So, was Jesus born in a manger or not?
Three out of the four gospels didn’t mention a thing about it.
I’ll have to write this one down in the books for future reference ;).
Urban Ranger-Shoot, if you are looking for questionable biblical passages you can start WAY earlier than Jesus. I don’t think that biblical “contradictions” are necessarily “contradictions” per se…
‘Gulp’…am I setting myself up or what??
A couple of friends of mine, back when they were Fundamentalists, switched back from creationism to believing in evolution, but I think it’s because they found belief in creationism untenable. By the way, dreamer, because of your thread on the rapture, one of these two is starting to become a convert to SDMB. From what I know of him, I think you’ll like him.
CJ
$.02 USD
One thing I want to make clear, in case someone challenges me on the “contradiction” thing: I will be using philosophy on the omnipotence of God type refutations; and for the most part I will be making them up on the spot…
I just have to say that I feel extremely blessed to have found this SDMB community and am looking forward to meeting your friend cjhoworth. Not only do I learn things new every single day here, but I also have (as we all do) the opportunites to communicate with people I would never get the chance to in my own life. I was thinking about it today how most Christians I know would not even take the time to bother to talk to atheists or agnostics and most definately would not take the time to continually discuss God and religion with them. That is a blessing to me, not only because I realize this community is the Real World, but also (though some may not appreciate it) I get to make a nice, long prayer list on which new additions are made daily :).
That’s the thing about fundamentalists. Not even they take the bible literally even when this is their assertion.
If you take all the passages of the bible literally you’d either go insane or become a nonbeliever because of the contradictions.
Taking it literally means you cannot add your own creative interpretations.
“Has anyone ever (for lack of a better phrase) converted a fundamental creationist to one that accepts evolution? If so, how?”
I’ve never personally followed up on posts I’ve made over the years; but I’m sure they add to a cumulative effect with life experience and the posts of others of moving the mind around a bit; causing someone to espouse something different than: Inerrancy.
I would probably say something along these lines (keeping it simple)…
Do you believe in EXISTENCE? – (That ‘something/anything’ IS?)
Do you believe in CHANGE? – (observation of difference)
Do you believe in VARIABLE FREQUENCY? – (number of, intensity of, percentage of)
Do you believe in VARIABLE COMPLEXITY? (more complex ((requires more energy to observe/find/decrypt)), less complex)
Do you believe in ‘PROGRESSIVE’ CHANGE? – (observation of change from the past towards the future)
Do you believe in CAUSE & EFFECT? – (Action, Result)
Do you believe in TRUE? (consistant)
Do you believe in FALSE? (inconsistant)
Do you believe in PROCESS? (Change that defines the effect of a cause)
(hypothetical - stormy rainy day, to a sunny cloudless day)
Q1: Do you agree that there are less clouds in the sky today than there were yesterday?
—Then you agree that the frequency of the clouds has changed over the course of time? Yes?
Q2: Do you believe that it might be relevant to notice why “Those clouds were there on that day, therefor they had to exist on that day?” ; trying to discern why it was impossible for the cloud frequency to be less on that day (why a cloudless sky had zero FITNESS (assertive, positively existential control) on that day)?
Q3: Do you believe that the ability to control the frequency of clouds on any given day; requires an understanding of the knowledge sought from Q2; and following:
Do you believe that refers to a mechanism that was automatic until we discovered it, and learned to control it, by observing it and claiming the fundamental ‘decision making’ aspects of that process?
Do you believe that the practicing of faith to reach heaven is possible, or even meaningful, without believing any or all of the above?
How long do you think you would be alive if you didn’t believe in CHANGE, EXISTENCE, CAUSE & EFFECT, PROCESS, CORRECT/INCORRECT (in accordance with the desired effect)?
You would not even be able to eat food long enough to exist, UNLESS of course you are actually chosen by God (disbelief in CHANGE or PROGRESSIVE CHANGE and/or CORRECT/INCORRECT; makes any practicing of faith insanity) - for clearly without CHANGE; you cannot become a ‘better’ or more FIT (in terms of your desire for heaven and Gods truth) person no matter what you do!
To make the practicing of faith meaningful, YOU MUST BELIEVE IN CHANGE, or you wouldn’t even bother! (or else you would die of starvation - unless of course God has already chosen you; at which point you would not need to eat to survive on earth; ior by the act of starving; you went to heaven because of your faith.). Instead of testing your viability by starving yourself; you fall back on EVIDENCE over faith and DO EAT FOOD; instead of TRUSTING YOUR FAITH and making yourself vulnerable to the EVIDENCE OF FAITH in God; which is expressed logically by not needing to eat to survive, once your COMPLETE SURRENDER of faith has taken place. You are fundamentally relying on the logic of the WICKED, the FAITHLESS, the FEARFUL, the ARROGANT and the PRESUMPTUOUS to survive on this earth. It is your default position; which if you should continue to use to subsist, should have the integrity and logical consistancy of at least aknowledging the truth of. When push comes to shove; the very concepts that lead to the observation of evolution
(Progressive change for a reason), are the very same concepts that you use daily to subsist your body and nurture your mind. To NOT believe in any of the basic concepts of evolution, renders all practice of your faith meaningless, counter-productive, hypocritical and clearly ineffective towards achieving the goal which you seek.
Evolution = (Progressive change for a reason); the secular mechanism is DESCENT THROUGH MODIFICATION.
To not believe in that concept; disproves the entire viability of practicing your faith; for if a person cannot survive to the heavenly sphere by actively modifying their behavior through a process around their environment; then you are already screwed, and everything you do to try to reach haven can be demonstrably proven as worthless and COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. That nature fundamentally mirrors this process; should not be a suprize to you, if you believe that a process of change and/or existence is existentially positive.
-Justhink
One concept that creationists fail to comprehend about evolution is that BOTH ideas share ALOT in common on the ideological fringes; they are in fact _inversions of each-other. Concepts like “fitness” and “selection” are existentially positive veiwpoints; that mirror much of the same basic logic that creationists use to sustain their existentially posistive outlook on existence, life and behavioral validity. When a ‘fringe’ creationst says anything to an evolutionist; even in their own minds; they are talking to their own image, reflected in reverse in a mirror; and don’t have the ability to recognize that it is in fact their own image. They’re basically critisizing themselves; as ideological evolutionists do in converse with the creationists.
The inversion is simple:
Eternal God created motion.
Eternal motion created God.
What bothers creationists IMO, is that clearly the second of these is the most consistant with our understanding of reality. Things seem to be created by ‘motion’; not by ‘names’ or ‘ego’s’. God could not have even had the thought to create motion were there no such thing as motion before him. You can’t will logical consistancy until the foundation for it has already been established. You cannot create something from nothing.
The only solution to this is that: God is motion; motion is God
Motion in and of itself has no inherent consistancy; truth or complexity. Without motion having properties that are immutible; it is just chaos with no meaning above and beyond acausal circular reasoning; a property that must collapse eventually - what is motion or change if it always changes and never moves?
On the evolution side: ETERNITY of change or motion makes no sense. If change exists for an eternity, then it can be shown to not actually CHANGE, for it never obliviates (which is the change of change). Of course once motion or change actually does move and/or change (and obliviates), oblivion doesn’t have the properties of change, it just stays itself and remains changeless, for eternity. Change is a hypocrite until it obliviates; oblivion is never a hypocrite.
Oblivion = Eternity/Infinity
a.) An intelligent designer cannot create themselves, therefor an intelligent designer who creates themselves, must be eternal/infinite (cannot exist).
b.) Change cannot be infinite unless it is NOT actually changing. Change can only exist in a meaningless fashion.
Ideological slants on evolution and creationism both get very stuck on these two logically consistant points. These points are what allow people to critisize those who make existentially positive arguments (for they actually can disprove the validity of the argument using the logic required to eat food to survive (through meaning)).
-Justhink