(puts Bryan on list of people who will be eaten last)
Right, since this sort of thing has to be repeatable for it to be scientifically valid. So everybody who prayed would have to regenerate limbs.
But then again, that would just show the connection between prayer and limb regeneration.
I don’t see them as the trappings of religion. you have to be clever with this stuff … along with having an open, honest heart. Sure, I negotiate with God… and rationalize, too. He knows my heart - He knows my intentions are pure.
You say you find it far more elitist and arrogant to say my Creator is omnipotent and omnipresent and omniscient than to embrace logic and reasoning.
I say my logic and reasoning thinks "God is omnipotent or almighty because “nothing is impossible to God”. Before things were made, all things were known to Him. Therefore, He is all-knowing, or omniscient. He is all-good since He is the author of everything that is good, and wills eternal good to us. It is strictly correct to say that God is love, since if we said that He has love, there would be a duality, two. But He is totally unity. He is identified with each of His attributes. So He is mercy, He is justice, and therefore in some way, mercy and justice are identified in Him. His justice is His mercy is Himself, and so on for all His attributes. When God decided to create the human race, it was inevitable to give them free will–otherwise it would be something other than the human race. He saw this would give an opening to great evils, but also to very great goods. He decided to as it were buy the package.
I don’t see anything elitist or arrogant about this. It’s what I think and believe about Him.
Here is my source: http://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachings/GODA21.HTM
I find it curious when people blame God for the evils of the world when indeed it is mankind who acts with their free will that causes evil. And since God gave us this free will, He’s not going to control our own will to stop evil; it wouldn’t exactly be free if he did so, would it.
it has nothing to do with being humble or proud. It’s just how I deal with things…
He is Omniscient. He is All-Knowing. He is Mercy. He is Love. He is Unity. He is Justice. He is All Good. He is Eternal. If something good happens he gets credit, and if something bad happens it is either our fault or the fault of an evil spirit.
I’m sure I left out a few others, but what you see here is the end result is thousands of years of playing the game of “My God Is Bigger And Better Than Your God!” One group has to show that they are better than the other group, and when science tells them that one branch of homo eapiens is no better than the next, science is abandoned and the supernatural is put on display. “So what if we are not smarter than you and our political structure seems to have as many problems as yours-our god is bigger!”
I do?
I’m with those who say that something inside me would have to change. I have never had a belief in God, or any other ‘higher power.’ Even as a young girl in church trying to believe, I didn’t. In my early '20s, I thought the problem might be with Christianity and I dabbled in a few other faiths, but while I found the study interesting, I never felt that spark.
Since my first memories, my default position has been ‘skeptic.’ I doubt any miracle could change that. The miracles that have been suggested in this thread have mostly been things which could be faked. Seeing such a miracle, my first impulse would be to look for the mirrors and strings.
I’ve read articles by people positing that belief in a god is biological. If this is true – and in my opinion it’s not an unreasonable notion – then it makes sense that some people just have the ‘believe’ switch turned off. So, in order for me to become a believer, something would have to throw that switch on.
If God made a faulty product then yes, He is responsible for the evil, as humans have to guess what is harmful in the long run and what is not.
If I tell my child you can go to the movies or any such command and I say it is my will that you do not go, so if you do go I will kill you (or punish you for all eternity) I would hardly call that free will . Saying now that you know good from evil you must die in my mind that is not free will.
If God knew that Hitler would do evil before he was born then it must have been God’s will that he do what he did. Just as if a parent knew it’s child would use a gun to kill some one (or many) and yet gave it the gun the parent would surly bare the blame(in my opinion)
Monavis
So, nothing is impossible to god because he can do anything… nothing is impossible to god because nothing is impossible to god? How well reasoned and thought out.
All things are known to him, therefor he is omniscient. Well, I guess tautologies are true…
Um, he created everything bad too. I guess that would make him not all-good… And doesn’t he send people to burn forever who don’t agree with him? Sound to me like he wills blind obedience to us.
So god is an emotion that sometimes connects parents and children, and sometime makes 2 or more people get naked and screw like baboons? Gosh, thats makes sense.
So now he is a bunch of abstract concepts humans invented which don’t have any real kind of existance, and who’s definitions change from person to person?
My what an incredibly… um something. Probably.
What? Are you saying that a being to which nothing is impossible, could not create the human race without free will?
So he allowed us to be subject to horrible evil and suffering? About that ‘all-good’ thing…
But you said god allowed all the evil in… he could have stopped it, right?
He can stop the evil around here, I’m good with it. Really. I’m sure you could get a similar response from quite a large number of people.
You can hold all of those ridiculously contradictory and outright silly ideas in your head at the same time, and even expect others to think you sane for it, and not think yourself arrogant? Whoa.
if God stopped Man’s free will to inflict evil, it would not be “free will” any longer. If God stopped the horrors of Hussain in his rape rooms or mass murdering his people, which Hussain did from his own warped free will, than he would be an Oppressive God who did not really give Mankind a free will. God is not oppressive. He lets us make our own decisions like whether he exists or not… its your free will to do so. If God was oppressive, he would force everyone to believe in him. But he is kind and loving to us… this type of “kind and loving” is beyond mankind’s comprehension… since mankind tends to be more oppressive and controlling… like my current micro-managing sadistic neantherdal oppressive bureaucratic manager.
see my post about regarding “free will”.
Oh please, the free will argument. Sounds like just another rationalization of why evil exists but god is supposedly good. Give me a reason to believe god exists first, then you argue about what he gives to people.
Apparently you don’t believe in volcanoes, cancer, or birth defects.
No, wait, you’ll have a separate apology for those too, that sounds good on its own, but contradicts with your “god is good” explanation, or would if you bothered to look at the two explanations together. That’s the way it goes; even if the puzzle pieces look good on their own, you can’t get all the pieces to stick together at once.
here are some reasons taken from this site:
The argument of God’s existence from design
The special argument based on the existence of order or design in the universe (also called the teleological argument) proves immediately the existence of a supramundane mind of vast intelligence, and ultimately the existence of God. This argument is capable of being developed at great length, but it must be stated here very briefly. It has always been a favourite argument both with philosophers and with popular apologists of Theism; and though, during the earlier excesses of enthusiasm for or against Darwinianism, it was often asserted or admitted that the evolutionary hypothesis had overthrown the teleological argument, it is now recognized that the very opposite is true, and that the evidences of design which the universe exhibits are not less but more impressive when viewed from the evolutionary standpoint. To begin with particular examples of adaptation which may be appealed to in countless number – the eye, for instance, as an organ of sight is a conspicuous embodiment of intelligent purpose – and not less but more so when viewed as the product of an evolutionary process rather than the immediate handiwork of the Creator. There is no option in such cases between the hypothesis of a directing intelligence and that of blind chance, and the absurdity of supposing that the eye originated suddenly by a single blind chance is augmented a thousand-fold by suggesting that it may be the product of a progressive series of such chances. “Natural selection”, “survival of the fittest”, and similar terms merely describe certain phases in the supposed process of evolution without helping the least to explain it; and as opposed to teleology they mean nothing more than blind chance. The eye is only one of the countless examples of adaptation to particular ends discernible in every part of the universe, inorganic as well as organic; for the atom as well as the cell contributes to the evidence available. Nor is the argument weakened by our inability in many cases to explain the particular purpose of certain structures or organisms. Our knowledge of nature is too limited to be made the measure of nature’s entire design, while as against our ignorance of some particular purposes we are entitled to maintain the presumption that if intelligence is anywhere apparent it is dominant everywhere. Moreover, in our search for particular instances of design we must not overlook the evidence supplied by the harmonious unity of nature as a whole. The universe as we know it is a cosmos, a vastly complex system of correlated and interdependent parts, each subject to particular laws and all together subject to a common law or a combination of laws as the result of which the pursuit of particular ends is made to contribute in a marvellous way to the attainment of a common purpose; and it is simply inconceivable that this cosmic unity should be the product of chance or accident. If it be objected that there is another side to the picture, that the universe abounds in imperfections – maladjustments, failures, seemingly purposeless waste – the reply is not far to seek. For it is not maintained that the existing world is the best possible, and it is only on the supposition of its being so that the imperfections referred to would be excluded. Admitting without exaggerating their reality – admitting, that is, the existence of physical evil – there still remains a large balance on the side of order and harmony, and to account for this there is required not only an intelligent mind but one that is good and benevolent, though so far as this special argument goes this mind might conceivably be finite. To prove the infinity of the world’s Designer it is necessary to fall back on the general argument already explained and on the deductive argument to be explained below by which infinity is inferred from self-existence. Finally, by way of direct reply to the problem suggested by the objection, it is to be observed that, to appreciate fully the evidence for design, we must, in addition to particular instances of adaptation and to the cosmic unity observable in the world of today, consider the historical continuity of nature throughout indefinite ages in the past and indefinite ages to come. We do not and cannot comprehend the full scope of nature’s design, for it is not a static universe we have to study but a universe that is progressively unfolding itself and moving towards the fulfilment of an ultimate purpose under the guidance of a master mind. And towards that purpose the imperfect as well as the perfect – apparent evil and discord as well as obvious good order – may contribute in ways which we can but dimly discern. The well-balanced philosopher, who realizes his own limitations in the presence of nature’s Designer, so far from claiming that every detail of that Designer’s purpose should at present be plain to his inferior intelligence, will be content to await the final solution of enigmas which the hereafter promises to furnish.
Just saying…
personally, I look at the perfect and complex detailed design of the human body and I think there must have been a desigern. this could not have just happened. It’s too perfect a design down to the single cell.
Also, Evolution is not a theory based on blind chance. You might want to read a book about it.
Another cite:
I find the argument entirely unconvincing because it casually ignores the mind-bogglingly long time it took for the eye to develop:
…as well as suggesting that gradual incremental change over a hundred million years is less likely than the sudden appearance of a working eye. This is essentially argument of “I don’t understand it, I have no interest in understanding it, therefore it’s the work of God.”
I recall someone hitting me with a similar argument about the unlikelihood of extracting a dictionary from a shaken garbage bag full of Scrabble tiles. Had I been faster on my feet, I’d’ve countered (instead of thinking of this later that day) that the Scrabble tiles can stick together randomly. Some patterns are successful and they stay, copying themselves and forming the roots of other, more complex words, who also must demonstrate success. Patterns that are not successful and get broken down into their constituent letters. Shake the bag a billion times and, yes, you will have a lengthy collection of “viable” words.
Anyway, if you or the author want to believe this, that’s just fine. I hope you understand that we’d prefer honesty about it and not efforts to teach it to children as science, or used as the basis for law, or as anything other than what it is; a comforting belief.
Yes, but then the person could jsut say that scrabble tiles don’t act like that, assuming you don’t confuse them with the complexity of the scenario to start with.
I would just take a handful of marbles and toss them in a sink, and then when they all settled into some arrangement at the bottom, ooh and ah over the fact that they all ended up in that arrangement, rather than flying all over the room at random.