Basically, if a person starts from believing that he or she is real and that what they see and touch is real and goes from there, they cannot end up believing in God or anything higher than this world. You have to start by believing in God and His Word and go from there.
If evidence isn’t a factor in all this, then why not start with the assumption that there is a higher God that rules over your God that rules over this world? Why not assume without evidence that there are two Gods that rule over two Earths, and that they both live in this Überworld? Why not assume without evidence that There is a Council of Gods that rule over the world?
Now you’re getting it. It all depends on what you want to assume.
Said like a North Korean citizen would say that being led by Kim Jong-un is true freedom and happiness.
I think this thread is done.
If that is true, then what you supposedly have built your life around is meaningless and without worth.
Outside of your God theories, have you made any other assumptions not based on evidence or logic?
Man, remind me never to get in a car when you’re driving.
It is, if you want to engage in a reasonable debate. Otherwise, you’re just one more fraud among many.
As a left-leaning agnostic, I’m afraid that defining Jesus - a human being for whom there is some evidence of existence - with God for whom there is none could cause the ultimate implosion of Christianity. As things stand right now, we “know” Jesus lived and we can honor his teachings or not. Where God is concerned, different churches have different ways of addressing how and in what form he/it is, but there seems to be general agreement among all churches that God is and will always be.
But Jesus was a mortal who died. If Jesus were God, then God would also have died. Ergo (don’t you hate that word? So pretentious…), Jesus = God and Jesus = dead which means (based on a mathematical rule that I’ve since forgotten the name of) God is dead.
To me, I’m good with that answer. It explains a lot because I don’t see a God in my life, but I imagine I’m one of the few who feels that way.
Nah, one of the huge aspects of the Trinity is that God/Jesus/Holy Spirit are literally a single entity. If you consider Jesus an “avatar” of God it makes sense (well, as far as any of it makes sense). You also have to realize that when you accept souls “death” doesn’t mean much. So God’s mortal form got offed, that’s great, whatever, it just means that his immortal godly soul “returned” to heaven. But he’s timeless anyway so he was already there so he kind of just rejoined with himself. There are, of course, other interpretations, but that’s the justification I’m most familiar with.
As an agnostic weak atheist I obviously don’t believe it, but it’s very, very common to say Jesus = God and there are entire doctrines, even books probably centered around the subtleties and justifications of the statement.
Tiny hijack: I know he (or at least those of us in “this world” would die, but how?
I’d like to draw an analogy.
Say you have a theory that you are an alien. In the course of questioning we determine that while you are an alien you have no way of proving it. Your DNA was manipulated to appear human and injected into an Earthling. Your species lives 500 years, but you will only live a humans span to fit in. You were not imbued with telepathy like your kin to fit in, nor their astronomical understanding of science. Your kind will not look for you nor communicate with you as it would endanger their scientific findings.
In essence, you make your case as unassailable as possible.
The problem is, the more it’s unassailable the less it means. Since you are in no way different from a human being, even in the incredibly unlikely event you aren’t, it doesn’t even matter.
Or, you can just accept that there are no Iron Age skycritters or anything “higher” than this world. Whatever something being “higher” than this world would even mean.
And with zero evidence (something have just admitted about your beliefs, and even claimed to be a necessity), why should anyone accept that your baseless religious beliefs are true, and not the thousands of other equally baseless beliefs out there? Why should I think that your religious beliefs are true, and not those of some tribesman in the Amazon instead? He has just as much evidence for his religion as do you.
It’s not quite a band name, but you just made the concept of God sound like the most awesome thing ever. I’m imagining giant birds with shiny iron-colored feathers that rain death upon everything now.
Why start there? Why not start by believing in Allah and Mohammed’s word?
Not the first to jump on this but it does seem a crucial point.
You too are already making an assumption. Namely that God exists.
From this assumption, noting the lack of evidence in reality, you will have to contort reality in order to fit in God.
No God in reality…but God MUST exist-----> therefore he must exist somewhere else-----> there must be another form of reality.
Call this a parallel universe, the super natural, the real reality, whatever…
So the only way you can have God exist is by assuming he does.
Now, why would we assume he exists?
Because of a book, the New Testament?
From our inferior reality, written in an inferior time by inferior men?
Based on a slightly older book that you yourself reject?
No insult intended. He says he was raised in this faith. He seems smart, he can type. I hope he’s here as the first step in a questioning his beliefs, and that he’s young enough to benefit from it.
Transitive Property of Equality:
[quote]
The transitive property states:
[ul][li]For any quantities a, b, and c, if a = b and b = c, then a = c.[/ul][/li][/quote]
I like my sky monsters to be all ragey and bad-ass, this peaceful loving God is bullshit, he’d get his ass kicked by all of the other gods and we’d never even hear about him.