All those things are worthy of acknowledgement and appreciation but your sense of beauty and awe is limited even by your own creative imagination.
“Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.”
The best evidence? That is subjective, don’t you think? I’m sure all theists of different stripes would give you a different answer.
All atheists would too, if asked for the “best” evidence for the contrary.
That’s why (IMO) in debates about the existence of a creator or lack thereof, you rarely see/hear “Oh, you’re right and I’m wrong, thanks!”
The thread is about the concept of faith. All I’m saying is that faith fills the gap left by a lack of evidence.
First welcome to the Dope.
A good way of dealing with lack of evidence is not faith but provisional belief. If I have a hypothesis, and I’m getting ready to test it, it makes sense to believe in it but also try to find ways of invalidating it. If your test fails, you give up on the belief with no great commotion.
Contrast with the cults who have predicted the end of the world. That’s been based on the faith that the Bible is true and that they know what it means. When they fail, do they decide that their faith was wrong? Nope, Oh we miscalculated. It will end in five years for sure. That’s faith. There are scientists who do this, but they get marginalized and laughed at, like the cold fusion people.
As for disproving God - which God? There are millions out there. Some like the tri-omni God are logically inconsistent. Some like a deist god inhabit a universe indistinguishable from one with no god. It is the believer’s responsibility to come up with a hypothesis. I think we can be pretty sure no human God exists because none of the people who claim to have been in direct contact with a God know anything more about the universe than someone not in direct contact - and usually quite a bit less.
Why would a God who cares about us wait for 13 billion years to make us appear? Why would a God who cares about us create a universe so unimaginably vast? The old model of the firmament, like in Dante, makes a lot more sense in a God created universe. And it is totally wrong.
You brought it up. What do you think is the best evidence out there for the existence of a god? Please try to avoid any variations of “I could tell you, but you would only say it doesn’t count so I’m not gonna do it!” Been there, done that, really tired of it.
Saying “I don’t know, but I’m going try to find out” will get you a lot farther in the long run then your “god of the gaps” method, which presumes everything and finds out nothing.
Religion took rational thought out of human life. Science took humanity out of life. Both miss the truth of reality. We are both human and rational. Both systems will ultimately fail once we learn who we really are, then it won’t be necessary to take roses apart to discover their beauty…
Once again, a demonstration of how little you know about science.
You skipped over the rule where we are not permitted to tell him that his experiences with spirits and god are illusions but he has every right to tell us that we do not appreciate beauty.
This is ignoring even the basics about the history of science. Depending only on faith is how we got the idea that the universe was a box or a dome over a flat earth.
Correct! As I said in my first post on the thread, this is only my “$.02”
Thanks! I love message boards and read lots of them. I never post, though, because threads on most forums just about always turn into a “flame war.”
This one seems to be the most civil and diverse I’ve found, so I’m excited to learn a lot of different perspectives on my two favorite topics (politics and philosophy), and even throw some ideas of my own out there. That’s not to say that I’m anywhere close to an expert on politics or philosophy. I talk about football too, and I’m definitely no expert. Know what I mean?
Also, this is my first experience with multiquote, and I’m pretty pumped that I pulled it off. (Thanks, “preview” button!)
In my original statement, faith is only one aspect of reaching a belief, along with reason, history, and logic. The cults you describe use faith without history, reason, and logic (or facts!). Faith is only useful when used in conjunction with reason, history and logic to form a belief. Faith is also not necessary when dealing with established facts, and it’s dangerous when it is used without reason, history and logic.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the question, “Is there a God?” when I framed my initial point. I was trying to address faith, and I chose a universal question, one which has not been definitively settled, with which to frame it. I should have posed the question, “Is there an intelligent creator?” to frame my point. That’s a universal question. Everybody believes that either (a) there is, or (b) there isn’t. Or they’re agnostic, or find no value in answering that question, but I digress. Which God is irrelevant to my argument. I was trying to offer an example of faith, universally, as I see it, for the OP.
This is irrelevant to the question about faith, and to my argument. Also, an intelligent designer doesn’t necessarily have to care about us. Also, I’m not well read on Dante and I’ve never heard the term “firmament,” so I’m going to go look that up next. Thanks
I did not bring up what I think is the best evidence for the existence of God. I didn’t even state my position on that question. I only mentioned faith’s role in reaching a belief. Not copping out, I just feel like you’re trying to bait me into an argument about my beliefs about creation. That’s for a pm. Or another thread. Because regardless of my answer, you would only say, “It doesn’t count,” and we’d derail the thread (further).
I agree! But I’ve posted long enough already, so I won’t bother restating any of my previous points…
