Evidence for Design?

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atheistgirl said:
From ourselves.

And it says it is wrong to inflict harm on another or violate their person. And inflicting eternal torture or misery on someone does just that. And for what reason? For refusing to love and worship a being she can’t believe in.

Our sense of morality tells us it is against human rights, compassion or any sense of justice to inflict pain and misery on someone, even for a short time, never mind for an eternity.

People get goal time for emotional and physical abuse and neglect.

Our morality tells us it is wrong to inflict such harm on another person.

But not for a Diety apparently?

Sarah x 🙂
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I think that it would help if you got past this idea of hell as a torture chamber that God sends people to. Read CS Lewis’s The Great Divorce for a better idea of it. Hell is just the natural consequence of one person choosing to separate himself from God. If a diver cuts his breathing tube and separates himself from his air supply, he suffers the consequences. If man separates himself from the source of all joy, goodness, and happiness, then he likewise suffers the consequences.

Anyway, surely moral laws can’t come form ourselves. There have been people who do not feel it is wrong to torture another person, sadists, for instance. If their morality is only from themselves, than what is to stop them from harming others? Only if morality is some transcendent law that comes from outside people can it be binding even on people who would want to reject it.
 
atheistgirl

Sally thinks heaven is a place on earth.

Sally hopes heaven is a place on earth. Sally may get her heaven on earth as opposed to what many Sallys may get, hell on earth.

She can’t know for sure that heaven isn’t something on a grander scale somewhere else. She apparently doesn’t hope for that. If she chooses not to believe because she hasn’t already seen heaven (you have to earn it to see it), she knows what she risks … getting exactly what she bargained for … hell. She has no beef. Neither do you. 😃
 
atheistgirl said:
*Sally chose to exist for herself and she is getting what she wanted. What is unjust about that? *
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If she is in hell she is existing for herself. If she loves others she cannot be in hell.
What is unjust is that Sally, refusing the invite from a God she does not believe in, should be punished eternally for not loving a being she can not believe in.
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No one is punished eternally for not loving a being they sincerely cannot believe in.
When death comes, as it surely will, Sally wishes for that to be the end, and to live on in the hearts and memories of her loved ones.
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Sally doesn’t go to hell because she wishes death is the end unless she rejects the value of life after death.
But apparently, that won’t be happening. S will be condemned to a life of eternal torture for doing absolutely nothing wrong to anyone or anything. That is where the injustice is, in my opinion.
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That is sheer nonsense! No one is condemned to a life of eternal torture for doing absolutely nothing wrong to anyone or anything. 🤷
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Charlemagne_II said:
atheistgirl

Sally thinks heaven is a place on earth.

Sally hopes heaven is a place on earth. Sally may get her heaven on earth as opposed to what many Sallys may get, hell on earth.

She can’t know for sure that heaven isn’t something on a grander scale somewhere else. She apparently doesn’t hope for that. If she chooses not to believe because she hasn’t already seen heaven (you have to earn it to see it), she knows what she risks … getting exactly what she bargained for … hell. She has no beef. Neither do you. 😃
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Pardon me. Briefly, I would like to defend Sally’s human nature. As a human being, she possesses an active, rational, intellective ability coupled with the ability to continually make choices and even to reverse choices,
 
granny

**Pardon me. Briefly, I would like to defend Sally’s human nature. As a human being, she possesses an active, rational, intellective ability coupled with the ability to continually make choices and even to reverse choices, **

Nobody is attacking Sally’s human nature but Sally herself. It is natural to hope. If Sally is hopeless about surviving her own death, that is her choice, but it is the choice of denying her own human nature … which is to hope for every good thing that can befall us … including heaven.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
granny

Pardon me. Briefly, I would like to defend Sally’s human nature. As a human being, she possesses an active, rational, intellective ability coupled with the ability to continually make choices and even to reverse choices,

Nobody is attacking Sally’s human nature but Sally herself. It is natural to hope. If Sally is hopeless about surviving her own death, that is her choice, but it is the choice of denying her own human nature … which is to hope for every good thing that can befall us … including heaven.
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Seemed to me that Sally’s human nature was being ignored by limited assumptions. Being hopeless about surviving one’s death does not always mean a denial of one’s own human nature.

It is understandable that we Catholics have a tendency of painting life in broad strokes – accept God or reject God, heaven or hell, etc. Obviously, we need that kind of direct terminology as a foundation. But we also need to realize that human nature is nuanced in many ways.

“Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery.” (Please read the rest of CCC 1260) What this implies is that the Holy Spirit offers the invitation to God’s friendship at the proper time which may not be the time we would choose.

Now, human nature is DESIGNED to seek God; however, within human nature there is the personal ability to alter that design, perhaps even delay the activation of that design. Personally, I find that no matter what poor choices are made, there is always the possibility of our human nature kicking in so our intellect and will can return us back toward God. Maybe the sense of God is not as developed as it should be. Nonetheless, we should not underestimate it.
 
Bottom line - if Sally chooses not to have a relationship with God upon her death God complies with her free will decision. He will not force the beatific vision upon her.
 
buffalo

**Bottom line - if Sally chooses not to have a relationship with God upon her death God complies with her free will decision. He will not force the beatific vision upon her. **

“Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my
heavenly Father.” Matthew 10:32-33
 
antunesaa said:
If evolution explains the mind, it seems absurdly improbable that what was enough for the first individuals of our species to barely survive as hunter gatherers among different beasts (some quite similar to themselves, like the Neanderthals and possibly other superior primates), was also enough to allow that same species to formulate the relativity theory and paint the Mona Lisa, thousands of years later and without additional and significant anatomical changes. Why didn’t they become just another type of hairy monkey?
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Exactly. It doesn’t make any sense. In fact, theory asserts that everything emerged from the simplest organisms – and the simplest we know are bacteria (which are profoundly complex). So your question is even more relevant. Bacteria exists today – why did it ever need to change into anything else?
In fact, if it was discovered that the laws of evolution led inevitably to reason, I would conclude that they weren’t just there; instead, they were created in that specific way in order to bring about the mind.
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True, but it’s philosophically impossible for natural laws (even if it was materially possible for #####, which it is not) to produce the immaterial substance of the mind.

From the CCC:

365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.
 
antunesaa said:
As someone said:

“A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. An experimental psychologist pulls habits out of rats.”
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And a neuroscientist pulls everything intangible out of persons - and is left with nothing but mindless bodies! 😉
 
Charlemagne_II said:
She can’t know for sure that heaven isn’t something on a grander scale somewhere else.
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That’s true.
She apparently doesn’t hope for that.
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That’s correct. She believes when she dies, she’s dead. That’s it.
she knows what she risks … getting exactly what she bargained for … hell.
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She doesnt risk anything as far as she is concerned. Is is not bargening for hell, nor does she think there is such a place.

If there was such a place, would it be just to send her there?
She has no beef.
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I think she has a pretty good beef with a system that would condemn her to this place called hell for something she has no control over.

Sarah x 🙂
 
atheistgirl said:
Another typo. Oh dear.

It’s because my fingers are little and I and E are beside each other 😉
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We all makes mistake (!) and I’m not blaming you. My sense of humour is sometimes childish but what’s life if we never have a bit of fun? 😉
 
atheistgirl

She doesnt risk anything as far as she is concerned. Is is not bargening for hell, nor does she think there is such a place.

But since you agree Sally can’t prove there isn’t a God, she also can’t prove there isn’t a hell.

So Sally has to also hope there isn’t a hell, as well as a heaven. 😃
 
Charlemagne_II said:
But since you agree Sally can’t prove there isn’t a God, she also can’t prove there isn’t a hell.

So Sally has to also hope there isn’t a hell, as well as a heaven. 😃
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That’s true too. She has no hope in either heaven or hell. She simply does not believe in the existence of either. She can not prove the existence or none existence of either.

She simply believes, like all things living, one day she will die, and that will be the end.

This is why she tries very hard not to waste a single moment of precious time, and tries to make a difference where ever she can, as she is accutely aware of how limited our time is.

If she believed in a life after death, where she would have an eternity to do things, she probably wouldn’t even get out of bed 😃

Sarah x 🙂
 
tonyrey said:
My sense of humour is sometimes childish but what’s life if we never have a bit of fun? 😉
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I did realize you were trying to be funny 😛

Me saying the mistake was made because the I is beside the E was my attempt at a childish humorous retort 😃

Clearly it was far too sophisticated for you :p:p:p

Sarah x 🙂
 
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