Poll Does God exist? Is science true ? (Multiple choice!)

[Ghostrider]

I don't really understand all this God vs Science thing but here are my fake 2 cents...
Science is not a belief system or a spiritual guidebook or even a philosophy: it's a discipline that allows us to study and understand natural phenomena. When we're doing science, we're trying to understand how a mechanism work: we're not interested in who built the mechanism and why it was built, those are things for philosophers to discuss.

The real conflict is not between Science and the existance of God: some of you have talked about the Big Bang theory (Kaley Cuoco is hot) and it's interesting to note that at the time it was criticized as being too theist a theory. The conflict seems to be between how the universe or multiverse or buffyverse works according to empirical findings and how they contrast with legends that are at the base of most religions. A real believer should have nothing against science, he would know with absolute certainty that all truths being God's truth, Science will reveal the Creator's hand (or paw) in the cosmos' structure. He would know that sacred texts are not scientific texts (at least St Augustine thought along those lines) and should be the base for existential discussion and not for scientific reasonings.

The way I see it it's not even about the existence of God - it's which God should exist. A fanatic wants his personal version of God to exist, and none else. The idea that the Real Deal might be a whole lotta different from what they could even imagine to be is completely absent from their minds. Your average religious fanatic is mainly a selfish and egotistical person because he wants his God to be real so that he can profit from it in the form of rewards for his faithfulness. Those guys wouldn't recognize God if She would stare at them from across the room.

As for the whole animosity thing, it's typical human pack mindset. Just like Windows/Mac/Linux zealots and assorted console f4nb0is. It works the same way and it's just as stupid.

 

[Topper]

...I don't really understand all this God vs Science thing...

It is not God vs. science, and also no God vs. Darwin (they only are a symbol for that groups),
it is a "discussion" about people, who say they know better how the earth has been created because of their faith vs. people who say, they know how the earth has been created because of their sience. (Oh yes, she is!)

About people, who interpret the genesis literally and people who know, that the genesis was wirtten and created by humans.

I don't hate God (if he is existing) but i hate people witch are telling me, they know God better than me and they now what he want from us and what we should do. THEY DON'T KNOW THAT! Thats fanaticism!

 

[joertexas]

Define "god". Define phenomena that influenced you to believe in that concept. Define criteria that would make you accept the fact that you're wrong.

Can't? Than you have blind faith in an unfalsifiable, incomplete hypothesis.



In other words, you have an invisible dragon in your garage, and if anybody tries to touch it, it flies out, and it doesn't need to be fed. You, or the people who influence your beliefs, have set up the entire belief system so that it's impervious to rational reasoning. If you don't recognise the fundamental wrongness of this approach, you're beyond help.



Something that comes from outside our universe, can by definition not influence it. Universe means literally "all there is". If you're going to claim a god can't be measured with science, please stop trying to explain the concept in scientific terms and just admit it's blind faith.

I didn't once mention anything about science. God is beyond science, and He is well beyond our capacity to understand or define. You cannot seriously stand up and say you know all there is to know. That takes more faith than I possess. Besides, we will each know if we are right one of these days - when we eventually die and pass from this world. If I'm wrong, what have I lost? If you're wrong, you will have a problem.

Claiming that God cannot exist because He is not part of what He has created is like claiming that an architect does not exist because you can't find him in the building he built.

Read "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis. This is a better treatise of apologetics than I ever could produce.

JR

 

[Urwumpe]

Claiming that God cannot exist because He is not part of what He has created is like claiming that an architect does not exist because you can't find him in the building he built.

If the building is just a random heap of walls and prefabs, you hardly have problems claiming that the architect either does no longer go here, or has lost his mind.

Also, there is still the question then, which architect you are talking about. While Zaha Hadid is pretty easily recognized, Sir Foster is something for the real architecture fanboys.

Read "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis. This is a better treatise of apologetics than I ever could produce.

C.S. Lewis? The Ayatollah of Fantasy literature? Better is relative there. The Green book of Gadaffi is also better if you compare it with the Red Book of Mao.

 

[deltawing777]

My view of god is this: A higher power and or intelligence. My belief is the bible was written by man. Man back then couldn't describe what they were seeing in words. Hence, all the extraordinary claims of miracles and such. Did all the things in the bible happen? I think yes but if those same things were to happen now we would be able to describe them better,I think yes. If a fighter jet or the space shuttle was able to go back in time to the days of the bible what do you think would be written? Would they call the jet or shuttle a angel? I believe that religion and science are one once explained. These things really though are not as important as the underlying real message though which is laid out in the 10 commandments. Follow those and everything will be fine when we meet our maker

 

[Linguofreak]

I don't really understand all this God vs Science thing but here are my fake 2 cents...
Science is not a belief system or a spiritual guidebook or even a philosophy: it's a discipline that allows us to study and understand natural phenomena. When we're doing science, we're trying to understand how a mechanism work: we're not interested in who built the mechanism and why it was built, those are things for philosophers to discuss.

Well, part of the dispute is that when you're trying to figure out how old the mechanism is, who built it and why can be relevant. If you have a timer that displays a number and increments that number once per second, and if you know that that timer can't display negative numbers and will never roll back around to zero, you might figure, if the timer shows a value of 1,000,000,000, that it was built a hair less than 32 years ago. But perhaps the person who built it did so a year ago, and then synchronized it with another timer that had already been counting for 31 years.

The clash between science and religion is this: Science sees that the timer shows a value of 4 * 10^17, and says "The timer is 4 * 10^17 seconds old". Certain religious types look at writings that they believe were written by people who had heard directly from the person who built the timer. These records say that the timer is 2 * 10^11th seconds old.

---------- Post added at 23:09 ---------- Previous post was at 22:51 ----------

C.S. Lewis? The Ayatollah of Fantasy literature? Better is relative there. The Green book of Gadaffi is also better if you compare it with the Red Book of Mao.

You really haven't read much of his writings have you? His fantasy works were among his more popular works, but hardly where he did most of his writing. I incidentally would recommend you read his Miracles.

 

[Jarvitä]

You cannot seriously stand up and say you know all there is to know. That takes more faith than I possess.

And no one is doing that. What you're doing is saying "I don't know all there is to know, therefore, Jesus is personally responsible for every phenomenon we're currently incapable of explaining scientifically."

Science doesn't claim to have all the answers. We just don't like jumping from "We don't know yet" to "A wizard did it".

 

[bujin]

Besides, we will each know if we are right one of these days - when we eventually die and pass from this world. If I'm wrong, what have I lost? If you're wrong, you will have a problem.

Ah, the old Pascal's Wager. And what if you're wrong about following Christianity? What if the Muslims have the one true path to God? Or maybe it's the Hindus? Heck, maybe it was the Vikings with their Norse gods. There are many thousands of religions, and many of them are mutually exclusive. You cannot say for sure that Christianity is the correct religion, so there is just as much chance of you being wrong as any atheist, and then you also have a problem.

In response to Pascal's Wager, I always quote Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius:

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

 

[Urwumpe]

The clash between science and religion is this: Science sees that the timer shows a value of 4 * 10^17, and says "The timer is 4 * 10^17 seconds old". Certain religious types look at writings that they believe were written by people who had heard directly from the person who built the timer. These records say that the timer is 2 * 10^11th seconds old.

Science would also say that the timer is only accurate to 1 * 10^-16 seconds. Science works by not keeping its inaccuracy secret. You hardly find that in religious writings, simply because their favorite deity is always infallible, unless you have polytheism, where the pantheon shows many similarities to "Sex in the City".

You really haven't read much of his writings have you? His fantasy works were among his more popular works, but hardly where he did most of his writing. I incidentally would recommend you read his Miracles.

I doubt I follow this recommendation easily. I never regretted taking the only Narnia book from the public library, because I wouldn't have liked spending money for it. It quickly annoyed me.

I don't see a problem in people having a belief. That happens quickly. But I have a big problem when people see their mission in telling others that their belief is the best and how foolish they are believing something else. Just take Christianity - a great concept. But badly ruined by a bureaucratic entity that places itself second to God.

 

[Ghostrider]

The funny things is the by Narnian philosophy, Aurelius is right...

(Narnia spoilers below)


In The Last Battle a Calormene soldier by the name of Emeth comes to Aslan's presence (for those who haven't read the books, the lion Aslan is Jesus in the form He would take in a land populated by talking animals). Emeth, like all Calormene, has been raised to believe in Tash who is actually the Devil. However, since he has been honestly devout to Tash believing him to be the true God and has done many good deeds in his name, Aslan will consider all of Emeth's service to Tash as done in his own name and therefore Emeth will be admitted to Aslan's country (Heaven).

 

[Urwumpe]

In The Last Battle a Calormene soldier by the name of Emeth comes to Aslan's presence (for those who haven't read the books, the lion Aslan is Jesus in the form He would take in a land populated by talking animals). Emeth, like all Calormene, has been raised to believe in Tash who is actually the Devil. However, since he has been honestly devout to Tash believing him to be the true God and has done many good deeds in his name, Aslan will consider all of Emeth's service to Tash as done in his own name and therefore Emeth will be admitted to Aslan's country (Heaven).

Isn't that sad? Stealing the credits of good deeds....

 

[Ghostrider]

Isn't that sad? Stealing the credits of good deeds....

Well, he's not a tame lion...

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, he's not a tame lion...

No, but I think that this shows best what goes wrong in most organized religions. What ever happens, it is always done by God, unless it is so evil, that it is blamed on the devil. There is no responsibility of the deity.

 

[dgatsoulis]

I just watched this vid. Found it very interesting and since it's on topic, i'm posting it here:

 

[Ghostrider]

Hm, actually the way I see it (should ask Lewis but my spiritual switchboard is faulty) is that God doesn't really care why you're doing good stuff as long as you're doing it. In the novel Aslan doesn't take credit for Emeth's actions, he simply rewards him for them no matter whom he did them for.
I have a feeling that some guys would probably fire-and-brimstone CS Lewis for suggesting that a Satan worshipper goes to Heaven simply because he was honest and good, and yet it's more or less what lies beneath the Good Samaritan's Parable.
Oh wait. Let's say they would fire-and-brimstone Jesus himself.

 

[Urwumpe]

Don't assume that all Christians actually know what stands in the Bible after the first 100 pages.

My impression is: The more fundamentalist, the less they know about Jesus. Simply, because all justifications for their actions comes from very few selected parts of the Bible, and all contradicting parts are ignored...even if they are the majority.

 

[Jarvitä]

In my opinion, the sheer amount of inconsistencies and contradictions in any religious text (I refuse to use the term "holy") makes all of it highly questionable at best. The parts christians claim to be teaching "good moral values" are mostly generic common sense you'll find in every religious text and most contries' laws, for that matter. I don't know about you, but I don't need an invisible sky wizard to tell me genocide, murder, rape and theft are bad things.

But you must concede that he even dilutes that simple message quite a bit when he follows it up with "oh, and if you beat your slaves regularly, that's ok with me, but keep in mind if you do that they won't sell very high. Thus spake the LORD".

(I may be paraphrasing that a little)

 

[Topper]

Don't assume that all Christians actually know what stands in the Bible after the first 100 pages.

My impression is: The more fundamentalist, the less they know about Jesus. Simply, because all justifications for their actions comes from very few selected parts of the Bible, and all contradicting parts are ignored...even if they are the majority.

Yes all in all you are right, but the problem with the Bible is, that you can interpret nearly everthing out of it!
The Bible and each religius book was developed by humans, written by humans and censored by humans.
If somone says "thats are the words of good" then he lies!
Of course, not everything is bad there!

Further i wanted to report what i've been asked my colleg:

I've asked him, if God has created the Earth maybe 6000 or 8000 years ago, how it is possible, that the light of stars and galaxys, billions of lightyears away, is able to reach the Earth today!? That was the first time that he can't give me an answer of a question! :rofl::rofl:
But i think i know what he will answer me next:
maybe
first possibility: Satan has pushed the light faster than the speed of light
Or,
second possibility: All our measuring of the distance to the stars is wrong, the Earth is flat, and the stars are printed onto a cupola, and also you will fall down from the disc if you are travelling to far away from the coast.

Hail Prope! (I pray that the Probe will never hit the sky dome!)

 

[Linguofreak]

I doubt I follow this recommendation easily. I never regretted taking the only Narnia book from the public library, because I wouldn't have liked spending money for it. It quickly annoyed me.

I got the impression that you didn't like the Narnia series. My point was that refusing to read an author's nonfiction works on philosophy or religion because you didn't like their children's fantasy is a bit narrow minded.

I don't see a problem in people having a belief. That happens quickly. But I have a big problem when people see their mission in telling others that their belief is the best and how foolish they are believing something else.

If you believe that somebody's beliefs don't match up with reality, and that that will get them into trouble, don't you have the responsibility to warn them at least once?

Just take Christianity - a great concept. But badly ruined by a bureaucratic entity that places itself second to God.

It's only a great concept if its assumptions are true. If you believe that they are, then your responsibility before God is to put it into practice as best you can, not to judge how well others have put it into practice. (And Christianity hasn't been contained under one single "bureaucratic entity" since at least the 11th century). If you don't believe its assumptions are true, then do what you want...

 

[Jarvitä]

If you believe that somebody's beliefs don't match up with reality, and that that will get them into trouble, don't you have the responsibility to warn them at least once?

The problem arises when the majority population is swayed to believe science takes as much faith as religion, and that "I don't know, and neither do you" is a neutral position.

Agnosticism isn't neutral. It's the "I don't care to learn about what either of you have to say, but I'm superior by virtue of not having done so" option.