[QUOTE=Voyager]
During the Battle of the Bulge a UFO landed right in the middle of Bastogne, an alien came out, and announced the way to achieve world piece and happiness. One of the companies in my Dad’s battalion was there, and I can post the message if you like.
You don’t believe me? You think I might have made it up 60 years after the event? You’re just a doubter who is resisting the wonderful message of the aliens.
Yes, perhaps my ancestors saw miracles and raising from the dead, and were so hateful of god that they ignored it and never bothered to write it down. Or maybe it is a pile of lies and shit.
[/QUOTE]
I guess we’ll all find out in the end. :eek:
[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
With faith, no explanation is given: without faith, knowledge is gained. With mythological stories, children are entertained.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=JohnnyEnigma]
I guess we’ll all find out in the end. :eek:
[/QUOTE]
Or more likely you (and I) will eventually die and enter oblivion as everything that makes up our mind and personalities cease forever. In which case, you’ll never ever know how utterly wrong you are.
[QUOTE=JohnnyEnigma]
Can I have knowledge and faith?
[/QUOTE]
Sure, plenty of brilliant people believe in god. You’re wasting your time following it’s imaginary rules however. My father in law is a very talented engineer who is also a very devout catholic. And because of his adherence to that nonsense he’s languishing in a loveless marriage. His faith is making his life worse.
[QUOTE=JohnnyEnigma]
Can I have knowledge and faith?
[/QUOTE]
People are good at compartmentalization, so yes; people can have knowledge, as long as faith does not touch that area of their minds. But as Czarcasm said, the question is, can you get knowledge from faith ?
The answer is no; they are opposites. People who take a belief on faith stop looking for the truth, and deny anything that contradicts what they “know” through faith; therefore, they can never discover the truth about whatever it is they have faith about.
[QUOTE=Lobohan]
Sure, plenty of brilliant people believe in god. You’re wasting your time following it’s imaginary rules however. My father in law is a very talented engineer who is also a very devout catholic. And because of his adherence to that nonsense he’s languishing in a loveless marriage. His faith is making his life worse.
[/QUOTE]
Well, that’s unfortunate for him. I would hate to believe the Church would want him in a loveless marriage. You wouldn’t believe how understanding they were with me… They met my ex- and actually told me that although they’re suppose to promote working things out, that I would be better off divorced.
So I suppose I’m not as devout as your father-in-law.. I left my ex-husband and got an annulment. Although, I found the annulment loophole. All I had to do was claim our marriage wasn’t “Christian”, and I was granted an annulment. So I’m covered as far as the church is concerned.
[QUOTE=T.O.]
True, if a being had that kind of power over a simulation I lived in, they would effectively be the same thing as a god, but there would be a distinction. They would not be an intelligence that was around before the real universe, that created all of creation. They would be just another computer operator - maybe a user of some kind of hyper-advanced quantum computer hundreds of years beyond our imagining, but not supernatural.
[/QUOTE]
Depends - if the “god” was the one that actually wrote the simulation that we are occupying, then it would qualify as a creator.
[QUOTE=monavis]
Suppose the stars stayed that way for at least one hundred years, and was written in all languages?
Monavis
[/QUOTE]
If the stars are over 100 light years away, we still won’t see 'em.
If there was a visible (to us) rearrangement of stars, prolonged persistence would be persuave of the belief that it wasn’t a momentary mental hiccup, leaving the possibilities of something real, something that is being consistently faked, or a prolonged delusional episode (which we tend to at least personally see as improbable if we personally see no other problems). So, the persistence of the stars leads one to believe that there is some active agent perpetuating the visual. It’s not persuasive evidence that the stars have been moved, and that we either are suddenly able to see distant changes irrespective of the speed of light, or that the changes were all made a long time ago, at varying times, depending on the distance from us, to have made the appearance of a sumultaneous change to many different stars.
(I don’t know if by “was written in all languages” you mean that there are hundreds of differently-written messages all in close proximity out of different stars, or if the same single batch of stars appears differently to different observers in the language of their choice. If hte second option occures, we would know that we weren’t looking at actually moved stars, since the consistency test for varying observers would have been failed. The only options that would fit the evidence then would be custom illusions being provided for each observer, or the prolonged delusional episode.)
Any person who is only nonreligious out of resentment and anger is not an atheist. The only way to be an atheist is to either see evidence against, to see evidence that’s sufficently contraictory as to prevent reaching an affirmative conclusion, or to see no evidence at all. (You can also be angry, of course.)
If the NT is literal truth and Jesus actually did the things he did in the bible, then he did a piss-poor job of showing he was the son of a diety. His miracles were junk compared to say Hercules’s feats, and he got himself killed by common men. And not in some cool way, either; he was simply executed. Really, the most amazing thing about him is that his followers managed to inflate him up from a cult figure to the cornerstone of a major, worldwide religion.
A fun home exersize; the word “faith” can be replaced with the phrase “self-delusion” in all sentences without changing their truth value. Try it and see!
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
People are good at compartmentalization, so yes; people can have knowledge, as long as faith does not touch that area of their minds. But as Czarcasm said, the question is, can you get knowledge from faith ?
[/QUOTE]
yes, you can get knowledge with faith… through wisdom. You can learn to discern and use your common sense to think and rationalize things.
There’s something limited about those who need to only intellectualize things as oppose to use their faith, feelings, perception as well as intelligence. It’s an elitism that I find to be unattractive. There’s something hostile, proud and arrogant about elitism. I shun elitism…
I prefer humility.
Why not? maybe they have already discovered “the truth”, their truth which they need to carry on in this world. I would hope they would keep their minds always open regardless of their truths and beliefs.
[QUOTE=begbert2]
A fun home exersize; the word “faith” can be replaced with the phrase “self-delusion” in all sentences without changing their truth value. Try it and see!
[/QUOTE]
That might explain the T-shirt I saw with “sfaithion” written on it.
[QUOTE=JohnnyEnigma]
Well, that’s unfortunate for him. I would hate to believe the Church would want him in a loveless marriage. You wouldn’t believe how understanding they were with me… They met my ex- and actually told me that although they’re suppose to promote working things out, that I would be better off divorced.
So I suppose I’m not as devout as your father-in-law.. I left my ex-husband and got an annulment. Although, I found the annulment loophole. All I had to do was claim our marriage wasn’t “Christian”, and I was granted an annulment. So I’m covered as far as the church is concerned.
[/QUOTE]
I’m sure god thinks it’s awesome that you exploited a loophole in his rules. :dubious:
One wonders why an “omnipotent” god’s rules aren’t better thought out however.
[QUOTE=JohnnyEnigma]
It’s a matter of having faith which is a gift from God.
[/QUOTE]
In other words, people who don’t have faith aren’t blessed by God. If you have faith, it means God likes you more. Neener neener.
[QUOTE=JohnnyEnigma]
There’s something limited about those who need to only intellectualize things as oppose to use their faith, feelings, perception as well as intelligence. It’s an elitism that I find to be unattractive. There’s something hostile, proud and arrogant about elitism. I shun elitism…
I prefer humility.
[/QUOTE]
Which is funny, because Christianity never struck me as a humble faith-- it asserts, with unwavering confidence, that God caused and created and will continue to do amazing things and that with God by their side, a person can do anything. I’m an atheist, and my position on many things is that we don’t know how it came to be or what will happen to it, that we can’t know, because humankind’s understanding of it is limited. I find it far more elitist and arrogant to say your Creator is omnipotent and omnipresent and omniscient than to embrace logic and reasoning.
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
That might explain the T-shirt I saw with “sfaithion” written on it.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t get it.
I’ve never seen a case where faith inspired wisdom. Cases where otherwise wise people have faith, yes. Cases where faith leads to wisdom, no.
And I know of nothing less humble than faith. It’s a certianty that you are better are discerning the truth than everybody else who might dare disagree with you.
The word “truth” means “something that objectively is the case”. It does not mean what a person needs to carry on in the world. Let’s put back the goalpost, please.
[QUOTE=JohnnyEnigma]
yes, you can get knowledge with faith… through wisdom.
[/quote]
Faith makes wisdom impossible, in the areas it touches on. Faith cripples the mind. And you can’t get knowledge from faith; it’s empty. It has no way of giving you knowledge; it’s just a guess combined with denial.
[QUOTE=JohnnyEnigma]
There’s something limited about those who need to only intellectualize things as oppose to use their faith, feelings, perception as well as intelligence. It’s an elitism that I find to be unattractive. There’s something hostile, proud and arrogant about elitism. I shun elitism…
I prefer humility.
[/quote]
Not if you trust faith you don’t. Faith is immensely arrogant. Faith denies reality, denies the arguments of others, denies everything but your egocentric fantasy of what the world is. Nothing could be more arrogant than faith.
[QUOTE=JohnnyEnigma]
Why not? maybe they have already discovered “the truth”, their truth which they need to carry on in this world. I would hope they would keep their minds always open regardless of their truths and beliefs.
[/QUOTE]
You cannot, by definition, have an open mind on something you have faith in.
And a faith based belief is never better than any other wild guess, with the difference that the guesser will refuse to change his or her guess as the facts come in. THAT is “why not”.
[QUOTE=AudreyK]
In other words, people who don’t have faith aren’t blessed by God. If you have faith, it means God likes you more. Neener neener.
[/QUOTE]
If you don’t have faith, or have no belief in God, what would you care what he thought. the truth is, God loves us all equally… the faithful and faithless…
[QUOTE=JohnnyEnigma]
we tend to judge others as we are ouselves.
[/QUOTE]
Oh?
[QUOTE=JohnnyEnigma]
There’s something limited about those who need to only intellectualize things as oppose to use their faith, feelings, perception as well as intelligence. It’s an elitism that I find to be unattractive. There’s something hostile, proud and arrogant about elitism. I shun elitism…
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=begbert2]
Depends - if the “god” was the one that actually wrote the simulation that we are occupying, then it would qualify as a creator.
If the stars are over 100 light years away, we still won’t see 'em.
If there was a visible (to us) rearrangement of stars, prolonged persistence would be persuave of the belief that it wasn’t a momentary mental hiccup, leaving the possibilities of something real, something that is being consistently faked, or a prolonged delusional episode (which we tend to at least personally see as improbable if we personally see no other problems). So, the persistence of the stars leads one to believe that there is some active agent perpetuating the visual. It’s not persuasive evidence that the stars have been moved, and that we either are suddenly able to see distant changes irrespective of the speed of light, or that the changes were all made a long time ago, at varying times, depending on the distance from us, to have made the appearance of a sumultaneous change to many different stars.
(I don’t know if by “was written in all languages” you mean that there are hundreds of differently-written messages all in close proximity out of different stars, or if the same single batch of stars appears differently to different observers in the language of their choice. If hte second option occures, we would know that we weren’t looking at actually moved stars, since the consistency test for varying observers would have been failed. The only options that would fit the evidence then would be custom illusions being provided for each observer, or the prolonged delusional episode.)
Any person who is only nonreligious out of resentment and anger is not an atheist. The only way to be an atheist is to either see evidence against, to see evidence that’s sufficently contraictory as to prevent reaching an affirmative conclusion, or to see no evidence at all. (You can also be angry, of course.)
If the NT is literal truth and Jesus actually did the things he did in the bible, then he did a piss-poor job of showing he was the son of a diety. His miracles were junk compared to say Hercules’s feats, and he got himself killed by common men. And not in some cool way, either; he was simply executed. Really, the most amazing thing about him is that his followers managed to inflate him up from a cult figure to the cornerstone of a major, worldwide religion.
A fun home exersize; the word “faith” can be replaced with the phrase “self-delusion” in all sentences without changing their truth value. Try it and see!
[/QUOTE]
I mean that if a God spelled out the message he would make it so it was visible to all human’s, and all humans would understand it in their language.
So I’m covered as far as the church is concerned.