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billybobsky
BANNED
I am worthless beyond hope.
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Inner Swabia. If you have to ask twice, don't.
 
2007-01-30, 18:03

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Originally Posted by Freewell View Post
I have never understood people who claim not to believe in anything that they cannot see, touch, hear, or logically explain. How do they account for such things as temperature, wind and gravity? You cannot for even a split second see, touch or hear any of them, and yet you see their handiwork and essential revelance to human life everywhere you look.
You see their handiwork and you cannot see them? What the hell? This bout of illogic just goes to show you cannot try to fit the 'data' to the 'theory.'
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I cannot tell you how many times I have heard from those who have chosen not to have faith in God that "God doesn't love me, and therefore doesn't exist, (because if He doesn't love me and He said He does, then He lied, and therefore is not God) if He doesn't meet me on my terms!" It seems to be the number one argument to "prove" that there is no God. Yet I have seen these very individuals demonstrate their faith in the unseen by using a parachute when skydiving, safety harnesses when rock climbing, and restraint devices on rollercoasters. I have come to the conclusion that it is not so much that they refuse to have faith in something unseen and unexplainable, but rather what they choose to have faith in! You either believe that the universe was intricately created intentionally by Someone far bigger than all of this, or that it all just fell together in a cosmic crap shoot from total disarray and chaos into magnificent functioning order. Either choice requires a great deal of faith. It is simply what you choose to put your faith in.
Not really. Scratt would surely argue that it isn't faith that makes him believe his parachute will open. His parachute has 1) always openned (otherwise he wouldn't be here), and 2) he more than likely packed a backup -- why? -- because he DOESN'T have faith that 100% of the time the main will open, and the probability that both fail is extremely low. It is probability that the parachuter depends upon and not faith, Freewell. Is probability Faith? you better hope not -- otherwise god is just some quantum entangled state that whose existence is disprovable.

Regardless, you phrase your 'insights' in a telling way. Is the universe truly magnificent functioning order? This is a throwaway phrase that ultimately means nothing. What would be non-functional universe? How would WE know? The very idea that the universe is unique (religious folks use to say their home town was unique, then the earth, then the solar system, then the galaxy... then... you get the idea) is completely unprovable. It isn't even a rational place to begin.

Why don't I believe in god? Why don't you believe in multiple gods? How are these ideas any different?

I don't believe in god because there is enough historical evidence that humans created deities to match their will and needs. Naturalistic gods became the omnicient god you worship. I don't care either way, to be honest, but I can't stand people who argue that their god stands out from the pantheon of all other gods. It is just shear close-minded bullshit.

I don't believe in god because I don't have to. There is no soul in the religion I grew up in, there is no heaven, there is no hell. There is just reality, and the monotheistic god plans life year by year in response to the actions you have taken in the past year. The ethos thereby created is one in which the actions of the now directly affect you in the immediate and real future... but it isn't an ethics that NEEDS a deity to carry it out. It's kind of obvious that if I punch a large brutish man in the chin, he will likely punch back etc etc. Perhaps my parent's religion is just old enough to have an intellectual body that profoundly separates the ethics of the religion from the worship of, in all honesty, a nasty spiteful god. The early christians took this religion and gave it a roman flare -- the pomp and circumstance of polytheism with the benefit of an infinite afterlife. The use of infinity just ensures the types of litterally empty-minded unanswerable questions you proposed -- if you can't understand the universe, how can you even reason that there isn't a god, man? while the early christians passed around a theological joint...

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Then, as Drew mentioned, there are those subjects that truly defy logic, things like supernatural intervention... For instance, when I was barely three, one of my clavicles was basically shattered. The doctor told my parents that it may never heal properly, and that I would need to spend basically every moment, for the next 2-4 months in a sling if they were to have any hope whatsoever of it ever healing. Yet, two weeks later, of my own accord, I simply prayed that "Jesus (would) make my 'shoulder' all better, so I can play with my toys." No fanfare, no religiosity, just a simple prayer from a child's heart. Yep, you got it! The doctor was so astounded after looking at the x-rays glaring truth all over the place the next day, that he looked at my parents, and announced loudly that "This is nothing short of the hand of God!" In fact, I have since had x-rays of that same clavicle taken, and doctors swear that it has never been so much as fractured! It is perfectly new. Then again, I guess there are those who would merely rationalize it all away and tell me that my body just, for whatever reason decided to evolve in super fast-forward motion for those two weeks, or that the doctor misdiagnosed me to begin with and it is all very logical. Like I said... Either persuasion requires faith! The choice is an individual prerogative.
It's called misdiagnosis, young age, placebo effect, and your parent's word of mouth.

Your parents knew that you prayed? Really? You remember this scenario that clearly? Really?

Every single one of these devine interventions ultimately depends upon the diagnosis going against the worse case scenario doctors will tell people. No wonder it occurs so frequently. The doctors are trying to avoid a lawsuit where the minimal care needed might be too little and too much care... well... there isn't a punishment for that... It is just irrational to BELIEVE there is no rational explanation. Does the rational explanation require faith? No, because it is RATIONAL.

Last edited by billybobsky : 2007-01-30 at 18:33.
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