The God Delusion

[INKoRP]

I'm trying to see your angle on the whole producing stuff in a lab concept? Being able to re-create stuff in a lab neither proves or disproves anything significant?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda-CDM_model like I said we're not there yet but there's no observable evidence of the existence of the stereotypical God figure other then references to the bible (of dubious origin)

And for that I perscribe the below:

[Dv8]

I think when science comes out of its juvinile state and if we were around long enough , long long enough ,
Science would way way of in the future prove the existence of god , we will smartly annialate ourselves by then tho , or rape the planet beyond being habitable .

But as ive stated before , im sceptical about what science tells us and what they dont .
If ever they were to stumble across definate order or intelligent design in genes etc or
something else do you actually think it would be made public ?

Again imo you dont need science to prove god , you need to look around , look at both sides of the coin with the information you have then make your own desicion .
Ive made mine based on the information i have so far and imo science fails .
Yes science has taught us alot , much much more it has no idea about , it is still very young .
Cancer / the common cold / Energy alternatives / Cloning / you can go on and on this is modern science that cannot solve these things , technology is in leaps and bounds but science is still very archaic .

[Dv8]

Can i ask why you want my opinion ?
do you think you,ll convert me to atheism ? If that were to happen i,d do it on my own .
Ive made my views clear and why i believe in such , thats my view , im open yes of course
But ive looked exhaustinly at Evolution (still do) Creation , religions etc i am always learning .

I challenge what i read in the bible with cross references and other sources , i dont just read the bible
i want to know about the nicene council the roman empire etc etc the society that the book came from
I have a keen interest in the roman empire to , i have a rare roman coin designed and put into circulation
By pontius pilate the year or year after jesus was crucifide

http://biblicalmites.com/pilate_story.html

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/catalo ... p?vpar=932

i also collect fossils lol ...

[frodo]

[frodo]

Re read that and didn't want leave things on what might be seen as a negative post so here is frodos take on matters of god and the church.........

The world religions can be all broken down to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is a good idea which is why they became so popular but that popularity brings power and the it gets the problems the communism gets good idea but if you invoke power with people it's always going to get fucked up at some stage with abuses of it.
I was brought up in the catholic system and like a lot of people here went away from it once I was able to think for myself and could see that most of what I was being told to believe was just stories invented or manipulated by power seekers.
Fast forward from that self centered young-un to me as a father of four and I see it a little different now. The message of be kind to others seems a little more important and so those four have been enrolled into the catholic system .
In short the church has a lot of failings but the underlying messages are good ones

God ........ Now that IMO is a complete different story. There may well be a god and there may not, I am too simple a person to be able to work that one out but it would seem to me if there was it wouldn't be a dude sitting up in the sky in flowing robes who communicated with us thousands of years ago through a few few select individuals and then let it go at that.
God in my mind would be more like a force, something a lot more elemental to the fabric of the universe than flowing robe dude.

Not trying to offend just my thoughts.

I have also noticed that people that believe in flowing robe dude or his son have something in their lives that this belief fullfis a need that they have be it a death to a loved one that life after death helps them to deal with or some other need that they will be helped with by their faith.

Too many thoughts to get them down coherently so I will just leave it at that.

[Gubben]

Yeah frodo, elemental force, or something that is far beyond our abilities to fathom.... and the notion that God spoke to a few individuals in the past, and then left the globe to deteriorate to the point of armageddon is a bit stupid i think. The need to believe, the belief itself, fills a void for some people and thats great but to express it as fact is a bit delusional. The post someone posted recently about the Australian guy who believes he is JC with his Mary partner is an example of the so called people who apparently spoke to angels and subsequently wrote the bible. Why is he any more delusional than those writers of the bible? The essential messages in the bible may be of value, but to claim a divine origin as fact is naieve.

OK you didnt ask , but saying angel wasnt the "correct" term when in fact it was , needed correcting .
No offence intended , its in the bible , just putting up whats there as ppl have no awarness of .

So why did you say i said that then? I said that Satan was Gods right hand angel not jesus... you corrected me that jesus was his right hand angel not satan... so i was correcting myself saying ok, right hand angel wasnt the correct term...you are getting a little confused dv8. Also im not asking you to put research up, i was just curious as to what was the click, the ahah moment, that convinced you that it was all fact and not fiction... You said you researched and came to all your own conclusions as opposed to following anyone else. I wanted to know what that critical piece of convincing was.

Also your assertions of life not coming from non living matter. I would argue that all the elements in existence are living matter. Just as continents move but at a pace that we cant perceive, i would argue that inert rocks and other elements (across the universe) are all part of the fabric of life, and therefore the building blocks of life are already there waiting to mingle and form themselves. Sentient creatures and consciousness is the elusive element of life in the universe that for the moment, we have only encountered here on this planet.

I dont know of any christians who think the earth is less than ten thousand years old , christians believe man to of only been here that long , i dont know how long the earth has been here .

Thats a bit confusing that sentence, do you believe that man has only been here for 10000 years then?

[Dv8]

"fills a void for some people and thats great but to express it as fact is a bit delusional"

I find that offensive actually , the last thing it does for me anyway is to fill a void or to want to believe because of fear of death , im way past that . So you say its ok to believe when things are bad for a crutch but when ok again dont continue your beliefs as facts
because you no longer need the fairy tale ?
I find that a shallow argument , ppl have many crutches ie alcohol , drugs and some poeple beliefs yes , but im much more mature than using false beliefs as a crutch . Its a Conclusion about why we are here and where we are going , gleened from my beliefs as a child then researched intensly ie , Evolution , Biblical Archeology , Historians , Bible Prophecy etc etc .
And btw many "well off " ppl have faith who are proffessionals i find it hard to beleive there "Delusional" Because they dont agree with your take gubben , no offence intended man .

"So why did you say i said that then?""you are getting a little confused dv8"
"I thought Jesus was his son... so right hand angel is not the correct term
Is God incompetent for making a world in which his right hand angel is corrupted and wreaks the havoc satan supposedly wields across humanity "Forgive me im sorry if i sound confused :-/ , i didnt mean to offended you gubben , but theres a big difference between satan and jesus being right hand men ...

"the building blocks of life are already there waiting to mingle and form themselves." do you actually realize the millions and millions of accidents needed to make even the smallest of single celled organisms , these accidents having to happen at excactly the right time with excactly the right amount , and it they dont happen excatly like that , like a mouse trapp for instance if one tiny bit is left out its a total failure , then try to compehend Evolution with all species being excactly the same to create the harmonious world we live in today , again i dont believe that if you do thats fine . Lets leave our differences there , i respect your beliefs , but sorry being taken for delusionall for my beliefs i have to stand up im afraid .

"do you believe that man has only been here for 10000 years'Yes around about , when you look at the earliest written records , to the fact europeans have only been in australia for about 200 years i dont find that hard to fathom at all . (forgetting science)

[Dv8]

lol frodo sry didnt reply ,
dont think your negative at all man .
Looking at the society , by that i didnt really mean that it produced the book im more interested at the roman empire from a historical point of view , from its religions , government , citizens etc .

Yes they cricified jesus and the government at that time realized the influence of christainity at the
time and the danger it caused there government hence the birth of the roman catholic church , melding there own pagan
beliefs with christianity a means to keep hold of the masses for a politicall purpose .

[xplosiv]

Let's go a step further. What if a political/controlling purpose was their only purpose from the start? What if that motivated them to create the notion of God? That seems more likely to me.

[Gubben]

Sorry dv8 my intention is not to offend. Its just the way i feel. Also, you mention one person's post as mature or respectful in a way which suggests that every others' isnt. So you deliver a bit of a backhanded jibe to other contributors to this thread.

So you say its ok to believe when things are bad for a crutch but when ok again dont continue your beliefs as facts because you no longer need the fairy tale ? I find that a shallow argument ,

There you are again asserting an argument on my behalf and telling me its shallow at the same time. I didnt say that, as i didnt say Jesus was Gods right hand angel. (Is God incompetent for making a world in which his right hand angel is corrupted and wreaks the havoc satan supposedly wields across humanity " there is no mention of Jesus, i was saying satan is his right hand angel who is corrupted and subsequently wreaks havoc... clear now?)

I dont think people flip flop their beliefs as quickly as that. They may change their actions in that way but not their true beliefs. And you may be surprised at the power of the sub conscious mind, for it compels us to do things or act in ways that we arent always consciously aware of. That includes adherence to god. It has nothing to do with maturity or intelligence or wealth for that matter (as per your point about there being many "well off" "professionals" who dont agree with my take lol btw unless they reading this thread they wouldn't know of my take) :p

For me the dfference between the way you and i look at reality is that i am still searching for the meaning and truth whether that be delivered by science or whether there is some supernatural occurence that enlightens. Thats why i am agnostic, because to base unequivical belief on a book written by men. then re written by men, and then interpreted as many times as it has, by men, and knowing the machiavellian nature of men, leaves me open to much suspicion. I dont disagree that the basic tenets of the bible as you listed above are worthy. Its the assertion of the origin that i reject for reasons ive previously stated.

re the building blocks of the universe. I dont know. I dont see how you can make the opposite judgement when you claim that scientists cant even do that, so how can you be so sure of the impossibility when the experts struggle with the complexity of trying to explain it?

"do you believe that man has only been here for 10000 years' Yes around about , when you look at the earliest written records , to the fact europeans have only been in australia for about 200 years i dont find that hard to fathom at all . (forgetting science)

Im really scratching my head on this one mate...forgetting science? and what does the reference to europeans being in Australia for only 200 years indicate?

Aboriginals have been on this continent 60000 years. Do they not count? You know Jesus wasnt a white man right? So if there are no written records there was no man? What about all the archaelogical evidence? Lucy found in Ethiopia (3.2 million years old) amongst the rest??

A controlling purpose makes a lot of sense xplosiv.... it has done just that throughout the ages...

[kplxz]

I'll chime in briefly here...

The books on esotericism number the millions...amongst them are some of the most in depth texts ever written on the subject...finding the best ones and comprehensively reading them to a degree of satisfaction can take many, many decades.

That's just the theory part.

Using a musician as a comparison, many great musicians never learnt any classic theory. Most have and some of the amazing musicians from the classical world helped forumlate the music theory of today. Even those that didn't learn any classic theory and gained their skills through incessant practice, still will have some kind of theoretical knwoledge to compliment their skills (in-house? ). The practice side will generally take a decade before real skills are competently held (unless the person has some innate stuff happening). Then if that person ever choose to teach these skills to others there's another learning phase to go through.

Using a chemist as a comparison, the chemist needs to learn a lot of theory. Applying this theory to unkown areas of science successfully will take a long time.

To approach the idea of God and to understand how humans can communicate with things beyond our five senses is not something you can just look at like a comic strip and laugh at, deny or advocate unless at a purley shallow level and in reality - ignorant level. This takes decades (again unless there is some innate stuff happening), so imo it'd be awesome if more people who formed opinions on this subject took the time to research it more, or at the very least say something like "I have no idea what I'm talking about cause I'm a noob here but...blah blah"...

[Dv8]

"you may be surprised at the power of the sub conscious mind"
Not out of my depth there gubs , excactly in fact the subconscious mind proccesses a thousand or more thoughts a second
then the conscious mind handles about 7 give or take 2 so that from 5-9 the conscious mind handles that i do know .
(modern pychology)



'and what does the reference to europeans being in Australia for only 200 years indicate?'
"Aboriginals have been on this continent 60000 years. Do they not count?"See your assuming science to be right .

Im indicating that if europeans have only got to australia in the past 200 years its not that much of a stretch
of the imagination for man to only be 10,000 years old we are very young.
Yes forgetting Aboriganies becuase obviosly theve been here longer , but 60,000 years
is science's take on in which im very critical off ...

[Gubben]

Sifz ive previously said i'm neither a scientist nor a theologian so i think that fact is well established, yeah?

I do however have an imagination and am entitled to believe what ever it is my mind finds reasonable, same as you or dv8.

You can read the words of men as much as you like and take as many decades as you wish. Bottom line is, no matter how adamant you or anyone else wants to be, NO ONE will ever know the truth. Simple. So theories whether scientific or theologic will be simply that.

As for the 60000 years, its not the scientists, its the aboriginals who say that. Is their voice not valid unless some missionary says so? Who are you to dismiss them? Also there is evidence that this continent was visited by Chinese, Indonesians and the Spanish, BC, (ie before Cook). and to be honest i dont see what the relevance is to europeans getting here in the last 200 years to the existence of humans being around for only 10000 years, i mean how do you come to that conclusion or is it written in the bible and you are taking their word?

[Dv8]

"its the aboriginals who say that"

With the aboriganies claiming sacred sights everywere , i really dont think they would know , They are a very proud race but misinformed imo at the very least it would be a stretch of the truth . No im not racist but they fiercly stand up for there heritage
with the vast majority not knowing what it is , they have a very cacooned view of creation(Dreamtime) with big fish carving out rivers etc , there creation story go,s no further back than Australia ...

"there is evidence that this continent was visited by Chinese, Indonesians and the Spanish, BC, (ie before Cook).'
Very true , my reference is that its only in the last two hundred years for Australia to become settled , So a Continent as big as Australia to only recently be settled seems more in line with a young Earth population to me rather than a species thats been around for a million years or so ?
And no its not in the bible lol .

America being settled wasnt much older than that , so to me a 10,000 yr old population is plausable ...

[Dv8]

"I am entitled to believe what ever it is my mind finds reasonable"
+1