Jul 31, 2012 -- 2:29PM, Seefan wrote:

Jul 30, 2012 -- 6:02PM, Namchuck wrote:

 As I see it, there is a reason humanity is unique and it isn't all to do with natural forces at play ...

Well, you may be right, Seefan, but I'd like to see the evidence that even suggests that there is more than natural forces at play, given that natural explanations do account for human uniqueness.

 *** Just simply through observing the nature of being human and all of what that entails ...

I think we still have an acute case of post-Copernican-stress syndrome. We have not resolved the trauma of losing our infantile sense of centrality in the universe. 

*** You maybe on to something but still, I think it's more to do with our knowing that we are unique and realizing that being the centrality in the universe was really only a physical location and hasn't changed anything within our uniqueness which is beyond that ...

 

The well-established hypothetical-deductive method is imployed in detecting and studying physical reality and is in the arena of science.

Quite right.

God is an infinite reality.

At best we can say that the claim that "God is an infinite reality" is a speculation enjoying not an ounce of compelling evidence.

  *** no God's not about coming to where he can't go to prove a point  I guess the ounce of compelling evidence is probably contained in the origins of the universe and beyond ...

Actually I'm not trying to convince but to try and explain what and why I believe.

I recognize that about your posts, Seefan, and I appreciate it, but explanation bereft of evidence or compelling reasons simply isn't explanation.

The problem as I see it is that I believe God to be infinite reality and because of this God can't be detected through the finite in any real tangible way.

Well, given that all of our means of apprehending reality are finite, any talk about God is largely irrelevant. As I've said before, the unknowable is indistinquishable from the non-existent. 

*** I believe that's similar to what the Buddha said in different words.  Not that God's irrelevent but let's talk about what we can do in the here and now in a tangible way to make life better to improve the conditions of the people of the day.  So He taught them to accept their situation and improve where possible ...

It would be harder for a microscopic drop of water to detect the ocean and make sense out of it!

An erroneous analogy given that a microscopic drop of water is not endowed with the the appropriate sensory equipment to detect the ocean or make sense of it. 

*** No not erroneous!  It's a good analogy that deserved better from you ...

Even if the wetness of the water was said to be from the ocean it would not make sense to the skeptic who disbelieves because the ocean can't be seen or 'detected as different'.

As I said, your analogy is erroneous, which renders your argument based on it equally erroneous.

  *** Ditto to my last comment ...

And to add to that, if another drop of water said but we don't really come from here but from outside of our water creation, that we really come from the sky!  The skeptic would say:  "What are you crazy?  Now that's simply baroque assumptions" ...

Ditto to my last comment.

*** Ditto to my last comment ...

simply trying to point out that unless it can be seen, touched, or tasted, it does not exist to some ...

Not everything the science has established has to be "seen, touched, or tasted". There are many examples of this that I can cite if you want me to.

And that's fine with me.  I certainly don't agree but I have no problem with you thinking such ...

Yes, but you have deftly avoided the central question, Seefan. I don't think anyone would doubt that matter is part of our makeup, where is the compelling evidence that it is not all?

*** As mentioned before - you and me, all the way back to the origins of the universe of which science is not equipped to answer ...

 

I would say that no matter what secular society seems to be accomplishing it is the influenical power of religion to change the hearts and minds and the info that points out the direction humanity needs to go ... imho ....

You have avoided my challenge, Seefan, to back up your claim about the progressive nature of religion!

And I have never denied that religion has the power to change the minds and hearts of people. It simply has not always done so in a positive manner. Superstition and the magic-worldview also has power to influence the minds and hearts of people, but only by giving them a false and stunted grasp on reality.

*** The superstition and magic filters is from man's own ideas of what the original message meant.  But to my knowledge the original revelation fulfilled its purpose - to advance civilization through its influence and teachings ...

Well to use what you've said, humanity is in its infancy!  In the scheme of things we are very young and maturity moves very slowly along the evolutionary lines ...

Yes, but the indicators are that we are waking up, and part of that maturation is the jettisoning of unjustified and insupportable beliefs and assumptions that have been major barriers to preventing humankind from maturing both intellectually and spiritually.

*** I agree but the original message revealed, including the idea that the original revelation came from God, is not a part of unjustified and insupportable beliefs and assumptions that has prevented humanity from maturing.  Actually in future I believe some of what you presume in these posts will eventually take on that role ...

You're right! It is a good beginning!  That's part of what religion provides ...

No, religion doesn't, and you have yet to make a case that it does. All you have offered so far, Seefan, is insupportable claims.

*** if that's true and I don't believe it is, it is no more than what you are saying.  You have yet to support your claim that the original revelation I've continual referred to has done anything negative but has allow humanity to continue to advance ...

Religion began as a primitive form but grows along evolutionary lines ...

Religion started off as a primitive form of philosophy and then entrenched itself in dogma, magical beliefs, and potent but baroque and unjustified assumptions that has completely prevented it from evolving. Any religion that holds its assumptions immune from criticism, revision, or rejection is not an evolving religion.  

*** If you are talking about what happens to all religions that try to continue after the next one in line is revealed you are right.  But that next religious system is, like science, self correcting in that it explains how man has not interpreted the right meaning in the previous message as well as introducing a more developed revelation along similar lines as the previous message, much like going from one grade to the next grade level and teaching the same subjects but at a higher level ...

 

I've read that the above was shaped by the coming of the revelation revealed by Muhammad and the resulting society his teachings established and influenced ...

An Islam much later than Muhammad - and during its all-to-brief 'Golden Age' - played a significant role assisting in the re-emergence of Greek learning, a learning, paradoxically, that would eventually undermine the chief assumptions of revealed religion, including that of Islam. 

*** Islam was a great influence in the Western world.  I think you're selling it short  ...

 

When you look at each of the past religions what man has said and written either does not necessarily conform to what the prophet said or we don't know what he said ...

Or if he said it at all.

*** Exactly!  Eventually this happens to all religions ...

Those were seeds of potentiality as we moved closer to the possibility of one planet one people concept along the lines with unity in diversity ...

That's a view you hold informed merely by the belief system you adhere to. They were not "seeds" at all but genuine and complete attempts to establish universal brotherly love. Buddhism, for instance, powerfully extends the idea of moral sensitivity and concern by making the whole world a target of respect, while Mohism brings moral piety down to earth with the demand to relieve the suffering of the poor by very practical means, and all emphasized without any need to posit some imaginary god.

*** Mo Tzu comes out of a culture of Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucism and is influenced but their teachings.  But we don't know what he actual said or what came from other contemporaries so your statement of some imaginary god maybe premature. 

However, certainly the idea of unity are 'seeds' that have been germinating for sometime and not just belief from me.  Look around and we see the signs of the potentiality of 'one planet one people' in all its diversity especially with the developing global economy of recent and present times which is so interwined that the collapse of one European country has an affect on us here! 

The concept of love is multifaceted and its understanding can be complex.  As you've suggested, while Mo Tzu talked about universal love in a practical way by helping the poor, has it been effective?  We still have the poor!  Humanity in one form or another has always helped the poor but, as the Baha'i Faith indicated, it needs to be through a maturation process of human development and a method developed in a sharing of the distribution of the world's resources and the wealth currently held by the top elite.  The very rich and the very poor are a definite problem.  A more equitable arrangement for the distribution of wealth needs to be addressed in order to spread 'universal love' through practical means.  Easy to say, not so easy to make practical ...  

 

This comes under the realm of belief and what makes sense to me as I've tried to explain in the past.  These last couple post seems to be going well so I'll leave it at that ...

You've got to try to understand this, Seefan. All you have 'explained' to me is what you believe. Given that you are unable to advance any good reasons for your beliefs, it hardly constitutes an explanation in the real sense of the word. I, for instance, can tell you that I believe in the laws of thermodynamics. If you asked me to provide good reasons why I believe in such laws, I could both explain them to you and provide plenty of compelling evidence so that you could check it out for yourself. Your 'explanations' do not amount to anything like this.

*** Give me a book on thermodynamics and the will to do so and I too can do the same.  The difference between you and me is that I know there is more to life than science and scientific discovery.  If that's all you need to satisfy you - good for you ...

I'd have to know which ones you're referring too ...

It doesn't matter as both 'forms' are really identical.

*** of course it doesn't matter  ...

 

What is your specific criteria for make this judgement?

The criteria is the simple fact that no religion conveys anything that even hints that its source was anything but the human mind. 

*** What???  You're kidding right!  The human mind conveys the ideas only!  Religion tells us that the "Source" is outside of our physical reality.  A proof of the existence of God is that we did not create ourselves and if we follow those threads back to the beginning, the universe also did not create itself.  Something outside had to have created it ...

 

seefan: You are absolutely correct!  But I believe the process has begun.

Certainly it's a process.  Even those innovators got their motivation from religious values ...

That is not necessarily correct. Sometimes, like with the Buddha, it came from simply ignoring religious values. 

*** I don't believe this is so.  What Buddha ignored was the silliness within the current Hindu religion and society of the times.  He, like all before and after Him, stripped away man's ignorance and superstition.  And by the way, the Buddha never taught that there was no God.  Because of the superstitious nature of the belief in many gods, and because His mission was not to become imbroilled in that debate, He concentrated on practical things so humanity in His day could benefit from His revelation and not get caught up in all of the human fluff ...

 

No it doesn't! But imo the power to motivate and the path to follow comes from religion ... 

Countless thousands of people are motivated in the direction of compassion, altruism, and simply doing the right thing and who haven't the least interest in the unjustified assumptions and beliefs of religion.

*** But the source of that power to motivate comes from religion ...

I have to agree that there is a move to tarnish some religions of the past for many justifiable reasons, but as in the past religion has always had its lows and highs.

Religions have done their utmost in tarnishing themselves, Seefan. 

*** No, man's superstition and egotistical pursuits have ...

 

When a new religious system is being introduced to humanity it is a sign that the once spiritual influence has left the old system and humanity is confused as to what that system is trying to say in its struggle for survival. 

There is no such thing as a "new religious system". All so-called new religious systems are merely re-formatted versions of the old, which can be seen in the fact that any "new" aspects never involve a re-formatting of the old assumptions, which invariably encompass a magical-worldview.

*** And I'm sure you believe there is not such thing!  If you go from grade 10 to grade 11 you don't throw out the previous subject but you build upon them.  This is what each successive revelations does and have done ...

 

The new religious system is begining to lay out a new order of things.  As this new order is taking place man is sort of in limbo and skeptics like yourself seems to make sense for a short period of time ...

Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses, and dozens of other "new" religions, make the same claims. And while they are composed of different and even contradictory sub-beliefs, the old unjustified assumptions are maintained. Religion makes no progress whatsoever. It will remain, though, an obstacle to true spiritual and intellectual progress as long as it claims for itself the kind of immunity from criticism, revision, and rejection mentioned above.

***  Mormons and JW's are not new religions.  A "new" religion appear about every 1000 years or so.  The names you mention are the same as any other splinter groups within Christianity.  When the time has ended for each new religious system and a new one comes to replace it (grade 11 replacing grade 10), the old system tries to regain its once lofty status.  But what happens is that it begins to fall apart and this process shows up through various splinter groups as you've mentioned.  You might want to think about the lack of information you have concerning religion when you are trying so hard to condemn.  I too see the need for revision and criticism within religion.  I've said so here and other places.  But the difference is, I also see the value in and purpose of religion ...

 

One can't get rid of reality because one does not understand it looking through a particular colored lense ...

And this is where the scientific method proves itself superior to any other means of ascertaining reality, being, as it is - and quite unlike religion - evidence-based and self-correcting.

*** Not necessarily!  Religion can control the hearts and minds of the masses and if understood and used properly can allow humanity to grow and develop.  Science allows us to understand nature and if use properly can either destroy or build nations!  What so superior in this?  Religious values, if used, is what protects us from science ...

 

The sciences of this world are droplets of reality; if then they lead not to reality, what fruit can come of illusion? By the one true God! If learning be not a means of access to Him, the Most Manifest, it is nothing but evident loss. (Baha'i Faith) As to life's problems Einstein said it well - we can't solve a problem using the same consciousness that created it ...

Jul 31, 2012 -- 2:40PM, Seefan wrote:

 

*** You maybe on to something but still, I think it's more to do with our knowing that we are unique and realizing that being the centrality in the universe was really only a physical location and hasn't changed anything within our uniqueness which is beyond that ...

All creatures are unique in their own way, Seefan, and their uniqueness, including that of man, has now well-understood and compelling evolutionary explanations. As much as this might disappoint those who want to see the hand of some 'God' at work, that hypothesis is simply not required. We can actually observe the nascent aspects of man's uniqueness in the higher apes, sometimes strikingly so. 

It is a fallacy to think that hunger and thirst and the sex drive are biological but that reasoning and decision making and learning are something else, something non-biological. They're just a different kind of biology.

 

  *** no God's not about coming to where he can't go to prove a point  I guess the ounce of compelling evidence is probably contained in the origins of the universe and beyond ...

That's an appeal to the 'god-of-gaps argument, Seefan, an appeal that only identifies how desperate the God-believers position actually is. It also encompasses the 'fallacy of the loaded question', as it is not established that the universe began, and thus had a cause at all.

The problem as I see it is that I believe God to be infinite reality and because of this God can't be detected through the finite in any real tangible way.

I think you are missing the real problem (actually, two problems), Seefan, which is that all you have is belief. Other religionists have different beliefs than you, and the only thing that you have in common is a complete paucity of any compelling reasons to justify your respective beliefs.

Your second problem is your speculation about there being an "infinite reality", which, if it is undetectable to finite minds, can never ever be anything other than a mere speculation. The postulation of an "infinite reality" does not constitute an argument for the existence of God.

 

*** I believe that's similar to what the Buddha said in different words.  Not that God's irrelevent but let's talk about what we can do in the here and now in a tangible way to make life better to improve the conditions of the people of the day.  So He taught them to accept their situation and improve where possible ...

And he was wise in so advising, but now we know a lot more than people did in his day about how the world works and is, which is why one can confidently claim that the God hypothesis no longer has any explanatory value. 

 

*** No not erroneous!  It's a good analogy that deserved better from you ...

It was completely erroneous analogy, Seefan, and you obviously can't explain why it should be considered as being anything else.

*** As mentioned before - you and me, all the way back to the origins of the universe of which science is not equipped to answer ...

Do you know how often that claim has been made in regard to science only to be proved completely wrong!?

And, again, it is not established that the universe had a beginning, and thus requires a cause. 

 

*** The superstition and magic filters is from man's own ideas of what the original message meant.  But to my knowledge the original revelation fulfilled its purpose - to advance civilization through its influence and teachings ...

Oh, balderdash, Seefan! Superstition gave birth to religion - religion simply being organized superstition - and is permeated with it to this day. It is so easy to dodge this patently obvious reality by arbitrarily separating out the not so bad stuff from the real bad stuff and then claiming that all the bad stuff is man's doing. I have always thought that there is something patently duplicitous when believers indulge in this kind of trickery. 

*** I agree but the original message revealed, including the idea that the original revelation came from God, is not a part of unjustified and insupportable beliefs and assumptions that has prevented humanity from maturing.  Actually in future I believe some of what you presume in these posts will eventually take on that role ...

Seefan, Seefan, Seefan...the whole notion that there is a God and that He reveals Himself is one of the most potent and unjustified and insupportable assumptions indulged in by believers, and it is unjustified and insupportable because they can't advance a grain of compelling evidence that such a being exists! Compounding this fact, there stands the additional and overwhelming fact that all of the other once good arguments theists used to put forward in defence of their God - the Argument from Design, the Argument from First Cause, the Ontological Argument - have all miserably collapsed as well.

One can also add another undeniable fact, and that is that there is a very clear inverse relationship between the amount of human knowledge and the credit (or blame) we are willing to Give God for direct intervention in the universe: the more we know, the less we attribute to supernatural causes. Any scientist faced with such a remarkably consistent trend would not hesitate much to extrapolate a bit and declare God very likely non-existent. 

*** if that's true and I don't believe it is, it is no more than what you are saying.  You have yet to support your claim that the original revelation I've continual referred to has done anything negative but has allow humanity to continue to advance ...

There is not a iota of evidence that the "revelation" that you "continually" refer to contributed to human progress. In fact, on the contrary, there is an abundance of evidence that clearly shows that religion has done more to halt the moral and intellectual progress of humankind than any other institution, as its own history clearly illustrates.

*** If you are talking about what happens to all religions that try to continue after the next one in line is revealed you are right.  But that next religious system is, like science, self correcting in that it explains how man has not interpreted the right meaning in the previous message as well as introducing a more developed revelation along similar lines as the previous message, much like going from one grade to the next grade level and teaching the same subjects but at a higher level ...

You would be hard pushed - which is probably why you haven't attempted it - to show that later religions are morally superior to earlier ones, Seefan. And I dispute your claim that religion, like science, is self-correcting (we know that they're not evidence-based) when it comes to their fundamental assumptions. See if you can provide me an example of this and I will concede your point? 

 

*** Islam was a great influence in the Western world.  I think you're selling it short  ...

My claim that it, Islam, played "a significant role" in bringing Greek learning to the world was "selling it short"!? Okay.

 

*** Mo Tzu comes out of a culture of Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucism and is influenced but their teachings.  But we don't know what he actual said or what came from other contemporaries so your statement of some imaginary god maybe premature. 

Actually, we know a great deal about Mo Ti (Lao Tzu is another matter), but the point was that the universal brotherly love emphasized by Mohism undermines your insupportable belief that such a concept can only be a later development of a more full-blown revelation from God.

However, certainly the idea of unity are 'seeds' that have been germinating for sometime and not just belief from me.

No, it is just your belief, Seefan. They are not "seeds" but real attempts by people of the past to bring about universal love. That they might not have succeeded doesn't make them "seeds".

Look around and we see the signs of the potentiality of 'one planet one people' in all its diversity especially with the developing global economy of recent and present times which is so interwined that the collapse of one European country has an affect on us here!

Yes, but what does that have to do with anything that you are claiming? The situation we see around us today has been brought about essentially by science and technology which has created a global village and is, thankfully, rendering old religious biases and prejudices - like that towards woman, against those with sexual differences, and a host of other abominations - no longer tolerable to reasonable people. We also have strong documentation that indicates that some of the most compassionate people, those who give more of their time and money to the less fortunate, and so forth, are to be found in those countries that have jettisoned abandoned religion and superstition.

 

The concept of love is multifaceted and its understanding can be complex.  As you've suggested, while Mo Tzu talked about universal love in a practical way by helping the poor, has it been effective?  We still have the poor!

Yes, love is a multifaceted emotion, but the fact that we still have "the poor" is not indicative of failure on the part of either Mo Ti or Lao Tzu, the Buddha, or anyone else. If anything, it represents a failure of will on the part of those better positioned to alleviate the condition of the poor.

Humanity in one form or another has always helped the poor but, as the Baha'i Faith indicated, it needs to be through a maturation process of human development and a method developed in a sharing of the distribution of the world's resources and the wealth currently held by the top elite.  The very rich and the very poor are a definite problem.  A more equitable arrangement for the distribution of wealth needs to be addressed in order to spread 'universal love' through practical means.  Easy to say, not so easy to make practical ...  

Yes, Seefan, but that indicates no great insight on the part of the Baha'i Faith. I can quote several ancient Greeks of circa twenty-five hundred years ago who recognized this fact, and they didn't need some postulated revelation to work it out.

*** Give me a book on thermodynamics and the will to do so and I too can do the same.  The difference between you and me is that I know there is more to life than science and scientific discovery.  If that's all you need to satisfy you - good for you ...

It is the contemplation of the beauty and wonder of the cosmos - without, at the same time, being blind to some of its less attractive aspects - that satisfies me, Seefan. In fact, the feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver, and more and more people are finding the cosmos to be a far more beautiful, more wonderful place than a universe tricked out with capricious, ad hoc, magic.  

*** of course it doesn't matter  ...

No, it doesn't matter because religion is - in any of its forms or expressions - simply fairy tales for grown ups, which is why the most significant and obvious fact about them is that they haven't a bean of empirical or rational support.

 

*** What???  You're kidding right!  The human mind conveys the ideas only!  Religion tells us that the "Source" is outside of our physical reality.  A proof of the existence of God is that we did not create ourselves and if we follow those threads back to the beginning, the universe also did not create itself.  Something outside had to have created it ...

The belief that the source of the universe is "outside" of physical reality is simply another idea concocted by human minds, and it's an idea that has some deep problems that I think you are likely unaware of, Seefan.

And it is absolutely not "proof of the existence of God that we did not create ourselves and if we follow those threads back to the beginning, the universe did not create itself".

Is it not arbitrary to insist that the universe needs a cause but that God doesn't? Strato of Lampsacus warned us against this error 2200 years ago when he spoke of the universe being entirely sufficient of itself as a source of explanation without having to add something on top (today we call this the Law of Parsimony).

The following is a little dialogue between an atheist and a theist that might help clarify the above:

Theist: Where did the universe come from?

Atheist: Why did it have to come from something?

Theist: Everything has to come from something.

Atheist: Then, you tell me, where did the universe come from?

Theist: It came from God.

Atheist: Where did God come from?

Theist: God did not have to come from anything. He always was.

Atheist: Then everything does not have to come from something after all. Perhaps the universe always was.

*** I don't believe this is so.  What Buddha ignored was the silliness within the current Hindu religion and society of the times.  He, like all before and after Him, stripped away man's ignorance and superstition.  And by the way, the Buddha never taught that there was no God.  Because of the superstitious nature of the belief in many gods, and because His mission was not to become imbroilled in that debate, He concentrated on practical things so humanity in His day could benefit from His revelation and not get caught up in all of the human fluff ...

We've already covered this. You're right, the Buddha never taught that there wasn't a God, which doesn't indicate that he believed in one either. He knew the subject was irrelevant and, at best, a distraction from far more important things. This is even even truer today as we now have even better reasons to put aside the 'God" question, largely because it no longer has any explanatory value.  

 

 

*** And I'm sure you believe there is not such thing!  If you go from grade 10 to grade 11 you don't throw out the previous subject but you build upon them.  This is what each successive revelations does and have done ...

The study of religion reveals that there is no progressive revelation of any kind, and you have yet to identify any such thing, Seefan. The religious worldview, ancient or modern, is based on a raft of elaborate and unjustified assumptions that it attempts to hold immune to criticism, revision, or rejection. It hasn't fundamentally changed at all.

Nam, you said, "the unknowable is indistinguishable from the non-existent" that's almost saying that something isn't real until we discover it. Can we really say that life doesn't exist on other planets or galaxies until we discover it?

Aug 1, 2012 -- 8:23AM, Seefan wrote:

I'm glad you kept this one short, Seefan! The posts were becoming exceptionally long.

The universe is an emanation from God.

No, Seefan, that is merely a belief. One African religion says that Mbombo vomited up the universe. Given that both beliefs enjoy not a grain of empirical evidence, they are equally believable or unbelievable. In the absence of any compelling evidence, reasonable people will tentatively reject them.

It is not an eternal perpetual machine.

There is no good reason to think why it can't be, given the Laws of the Conservation of Mass and Energy. In fact, there is growing evidence that this may indeed be the nature of the universe. It is an old Greek idea - the Empyrotic Universe: a universe caught in a never ending cycle of fiery birth, cooling, and fiery rebirth - now being explored by modern astrophysicists.

It's power comes from an infinite source of power we call God!

That's simply another belief without a shred of empirical support.

His footprints are in everything within creation but everything within creation works according to what we see as natural laws ...

You can keep trotting out your insupportable beliefs as long as you like, Seefan, but, in the absence of any compelling evidence or rational proof, they mean absolutely nothing to me. You may as well try to convince me the the Earth was created by a pink unicorn who lives in a candy cave on the one of the moons of Jupiter.  

A thought that comes from the video posted by BodhiBick on another thread, you can see it here:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHHz4mB9GKY&feat... , that says for the last 100 year physics has been able to explain the universe but the more we delve into these natural forces it keeps getting more complicated and is now at the point that - we simply don't know!

I wouldn't be inclined to use a highly edited youtube video as my source of information, Seefan. Tell me, how many books by some of the world's leading astrophysicists and cosmologists have you read in the last couple of years?

The fact is, astrophysicists have made remarkable inroads in their explorations of the universe, and to such a degree that they have been able to present a comprehensive picture of how the current expression of the universe came about. The only thing that remains truly perplexing to them are the conditions that prevailed before the Big Bang. In respect to everything that proceeded from it, though, what we now know is startling. The God hypothesis remains a hypothesis with no explanatory value. 

I believe that eventual science will find the answers that perplex them now, but then another puzzle and another discovery and yet another and another - throughout eternity.  There is a master designer that is undetectable to science but is as plane to those with eyes to see as one's own hand .....

Another insupportable belief, Seefan (gosh, you have a repertoire of them!). The truth is, neither the universe nor life betrays the hand of a "master designer", or, at least, not a very competent one. Just taking into account all of the major extinction events in the history of life would lead one to conclude this. And why would a "master designer" who, or so it is advertised, is also supposed to be a loving creator, choose such a cruel and indifferent process as natural selection to bring about his divine purposes? It simply doesn't add up. 

Thanks so much for your thoughts and questions.  It's obvious that in this post we'll just banter back and forth with you trying to prove me wrong and disagreeing and me seeing that everything you say about the God question is spectulation whether you see it as such or not.  I'm sure something else will come up and we'll continue the never-ending-story a bit more ...

Later .....

You are welcome, Seefan, but, despite what you say in your closing paragraph, I think we have established beyond reasonable doubt that your beliefs simply can't raise themselves above the speculative. The fact remains that you have been completely unable to bring to the discussion any thing even resembling support for your beliefs. Not a tad. This places them squarely in the same field as all other unjustified beliefs. They are exercises of the imagination without any correspondence with reality.

Shalom.

Aug 2, 2012 -- 3:57AM, Namchuck wrote:

Aug 1, 2012 -- 8:23AM, Seefan wrote:

I'm glad you kept this one short, Seefan! The posts were becoming exceptionally long.

  Well I thought I was done and I've tried to make it shorter Namchuck but ...  

 

The universe is an emanation from God.

No, Seefan, that is merely a belief. One African religion says that Mbombo vomited up the universe. Given that both beliefs enjoy not a grain of empirical evidence, they are equally believable or unbelievable. In the absence of any compelling evidence, reasonable people will tentatively reject them.

  Being a belief doesn't invalidate it unless you have compelling evidence to the contrary ...  

 

 

It is not an eternal perpetual machine.

There is no good reason to think why it can't be, given the Laws of the Conservation of Mass and Energy. In fact, there is growing evidence that this may indeed be the nature of the universe. It is an old Greek idea - the Empyrotic Universe: a universe caught in a never ending cycle of fiery birth, cooling, and fiery rebirth - now being explored by modern astrophysicists.

  A theoretical assumption or as you continually call a belief in its possibility.  If the universe was a perpectual machine, getting its power from within would make it infinite reality.  If I'm reading it right science doesn't seem to care much for the possibility of anything being of an finite nature?

 

 

It's power comes from an infinite source of power we call God!

That's simply another belief without a shred of empirical support.

  Yet you say it's possible for the universe to get power from an infinite source from within? 

 

 

His footprints are in everything within creation but everything within creation works according to what we see as natural laws ...

You can keep trotting out your insupportable beliefs as long as you like, Seefan, but, in the absence of any compelling evidence or rational proof, they mean absolutely nothing to me. You may as well try to convince me the the Earth was created by a pink unicorn who lives in a candy cave on the one of the moons of Jupiter.  

  and you keep skirting around those insupportable beliefs.  If you have supporting evidence to the contrary I haven't seen it.  And your feeble attempt of belittling those beliefs by using silly arguments like pink unicorns is beneath you!  As far as we know at this point science believes the earth, like everything in the universe, is the result of the big bang!  Those facts have nothing to do with God ...

  

 

A thought that comes from the video posted by BodhiBick on another thread, you can see it here:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHHz4mB9GKY&feat... , that says for the last 100 year physics has been able to explain the universe but the more we delve into these natural forces it keeps getting more complicated and is now at the point that - we simply don't know!

I wouldn't be inclined to use a highly edited youtube video as my source of information, Seefan. Tell me, how many books by some of the world's leading astrophysicists and cosmologists have you read in the last couple of years?

  I don't think that's a valid point at all!  Better still can you counter what the video says ...

 

The fact is, astrophysicists have made remarkable inroads in their explorations of the universe, and to such a degree that they have been able to present a comprehensive picture of how the current expression of the universe came about. The only thing that remains truly perplexing to them are the conditions that prevailed before the Big Bang. In respect to everything that proceeded from it, though, what we now know is startling. The God hypothesis remains a hypothesis with no explanatory value. 

  the God factor maybe of the only explanatory value even though science will continue to delve into the physical manifestation of its known laws and find out many more startlings facts and findings.  That's the purpose God gave to science!  It has little to do with a belief in God.  It keeps our minds busy and maturing - for God knows what ... 

 

I believe that eventual science will find the answers that perplex them now, but then another puzzle and another discovery and yet another and another - throughout eternity.  There is a master designer that is undetectable to science but is as plane to those with eyes to see as one's own hand .....

Another insupportable belief, Seefan (gosh, you have a repertoire of them!). The truth is, neither the universe nor life betrays the hand of a "master designer", or, at least, not a very competent one. Just taking into account all of the major extinction events in the history of life would lead one to conclude this. And why would a "master designer" who, or so it is advertised, is also supposed to be a loving creator, choose such a cruel and indifferent process as natural selection to bring about his divine purposes? It simply doesn't add up. 

  Don't be silly.  The design of the universe is a very competent one.  It's survived the Big Bang and isn't completely destroyed into a hugh ball of nothingness.  It's discovered and undiscovered laws that were there before the big bang have brought it out of what appears to science as chaos.  And man is here to witness and record the miracles (nothing supernatural implied) he is finding!  Your assumption that the universe doesn't show signs of a 'loving God', a feeble attempt to explain away God, is simply a lack of understanding of what a loving God consists of in providing one out of billions of possible species within creation the power and need to discover, grow and mature even when the task is extremely difficult ...

 

 

Thanks so much for your thoughts and questions.  It's obvious that in this post we'll just banter back and forth with you trying to prove me wrong and disagreeing and me seeing that everything you say about the God question is spectulation whether you see it as such or not.  I'm sure something else will come up and we'll continue the never-ending-story a bit more ...

Later .....

You are welcome, Seefan, but, despite what you say in your closing paragraph, I think we have established beyond reasonable doubt that your beliefs simply can't raise themselves above the speculative. The fact remains that you have been completely unable to bring to the discussion any thing even resembling support for your beliefs. Not a tad. This places them squarely in the same field as all other unjustified beliefs. They are exercises of the imagination without any correspondence with reality.

Shalom.

  I guess when you give proof that I'm wrong I'll come over to the dark side.  But until then you've failed to show anything in the least to disavow my points ...