Hey everyone.

[DrumminFool91]

Okay I know I said I would defend Pascal’s Wager, but I only have twenty minutes left and I want to address this first so here goes -

You’re saying that God just happened randomly with no provoking whatsoever? It didn’t need a cause?

That would be the definition of God. Except I don’t think you could apply the term “randomly” with God.

If you say that some primeval event had to have a cause, it’s completely arbitrary to stop the chain of causation at some particular point. And, even if you just define God to be the stopping-point, that’s quite a few stone-skips away from concluding that this First Cause is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, particularly fond of Jews, insistent on certain types of sex with certain types of people, etc. To be sure, there’s no way to empirically rule out anything before the Big Bang, but simply theorizing a First Cause doesn’t necessitate giving it a name with the connotations of “God.”

Well, I tried (and failed) to get the point across in my original post that all of these proofs for the existance of God doesn’t necessarily prove the Abrahamic God, it simply prooves a God of some sort. I think to make the leap from Deism to Theism, it requires action on God’s part through revalation. It is not logically deducible that God is a good God or that Jesus is His son, though a case of history for Christ I think holds some good weight. I’m sure another discussion will be had on that point

In short, if we identify a primeval event as the knowable starting point for matter, space, and time as we know it, then it certainly is reasonable that there was a cause for such an event. (Again, we see a long moving train and thus logically assume a locomotive). To postulate no cause wouldn’t be scientific in my mind. Yet science still has a problem becuase such a cause in an environment without space, matter, or time seems to necessitate a being or force that exists on that plain (i.e. beyond time, beyond matter, etc…). Such a being or force couldn’t possibly be quantifibly measured by modern science. So God, it seems, is at least a plausible explaination, but such a God can’t be limited by time and space. My other assertions I think are pretty reasonable as well: if God exists, it is reasonable to think it/He prefers to act through secondary causes and behind the scenes, likes free will, but has some baseline standard of morals as exemplified in the natural law. All of these things are open to some debate and I look forward to your responses tomorrow! Have a great night all!

 

[TheQuestioner]

Questioner- Would someone who had never heard of Jesus, and lived a good life but without accepting Jesus as their savior go to hell? If so, did they really make a choice, or did God make it for them?
And you said prison and hell are different because prison is for rehabilitation (debatable…death penalty much?), whereas hell is not. This is hardly proof of a ‘just’ God, as the effects of that person’s sin (be it theft, murder, abortion, being gay, not believing etc) will eventually dissipate, making it finite, but there punishment will never end. That also certainly does not support the notion of a merciful god.

Not necessarily, the Church teaches about something called invincible ignorance, that is that if a person through no fault of their own is ignorant of Christ they would not be held accountable. However this person may meet God right before death (who knows what happens between the state of final unconsciousness and final death?) and reject him at that point. This person is still obligated to follow the law written in their heart.

The effects of sins (especially mortal sins) do not simply dissipate overtime. I hear that argument quite a bit, but the truth is that it does not work that way. A child who has been mercilessly bullied will carry the effect of that bullying for the rest of his life if it is bad enough. A woman who has been raped does not simply ‘get over it’ as time goes by, she lives with the trauma and has to cope and try not to let it control her. A boy whose father was murdered in front of him has to deal with that pain all his life. He may cope, but the effect stays. In each case the bullies, rapist and murder do not simply have a finite effect on their victims and their survivors. Their effects are eternal. If indeed all there was to life was the life we have now that you would be right, since once we die, we die. But because humans are essentially eternal our sins are eternal. Christ paid for those sins by his suffering on the cross, so that even though the eternal sins of the bullies, rapist and murderer cut them off from God, they will not suffer forever if they rejoin themselves to God and his Church through the sacrament of reconciliation.

 

[kalt]

My name’s Matt, and I just want to have a thread to discuss well…the idea of Christianity. I’m an atheist, I was Christian until sophmore year of high school, I’ve read the bible numerous times, I go to church three times a week still, so I don’t need any education of the doctrines of the church or anything like that. I know that whenever an atheist and a theist try and discuss religion, things often get out of hand very quickly, and it ends up with the atheist saying “You’re a brainwashed idiot! How do you even figure out how to put your pants on in the morning?!” and the theist saying “You’re the Devil! You deserve to burn in hell for hating God!”
Obviously, both of those things are ridiculous to say. I’m not here to make anyone mad, I just want to have a nice, civilized discussion. I do NOT think that because you believe in something I don’t that you are any less intelligent than I am, or of a less moral stature, or anything else, so please don’t assume that about me.

However, I won’t talk to/try and debate you unless you have a solid understanding of logic and of what logical fallacies are, because I don’t want to spend the time of explaining them to you. A quick wikipedia/google search can get you going, they’re good things to know!

So for my first question…What attributes, specifically, do you give to God? I obviously won’t be able to respond to everyone on this because there will be numerous answers, but I’ll give it a shot.

Peace,
Matt:thumbsup:

Well, now that your rules have been set…

 

[kalt]

Cool, you guys gave me a bunch to work with.

Firstly, Texan. You say God is the ‘mover’ of all things. I have two questions to ask. 1) Do you believe that God is the primary mover because all things must have a creator? 2) Do you have any tangible proof for you beliefs of God, or do you come about it through faith?

Eucharist- Are you familiar with the logical contradictions that stem from God being Omnipotent and Omnisicient?

Geo- So you believe that your character traits have been given to you by God, not that they have developed because of your parents teachings and your life experiences?

Thanks for the replies. If anyone else replied while I was…replying, sorry but I can’t get to you! You can PM me though if anyone wants to discuss more

First you say that you don’t need an education, and then you ask, ," Do you come about it through faith?"

 

[kalt]

Cool, you guys gave me a bunch to work with.

Firstly, Texan. You say God is the ‘mover’ of all things. I have two questions to ask. 1) Do you believe that God is the primary mover because all things must have a creator? 2) Do you have any tangible proof for you beliefs of God, or do you come about it through faith?

Eucharist- Are you familiar with the logical contradictions that stem from God being Omnipotent and Omnisicient?

Geo- So you believe that your character traits have been given to you by God, not that they have developed because of your parents teachings and your life experiences?

Thanks for the replies. If anyone else replied while I was…replying, sorry but I can’t get to you! You can PM me though if anyone wants to discuss more

You are falsly presenting this as an either or. Nature vs Nurture is false.

 

[kalt]

How do you know that God wasn’t your subconcious ‘sending’ you to those places?

I already did ‘ask’ God about his attributes, and I used to pray quite a bit. That is until I realized the futile nature of prayer…even if God does exist.

Again, false logic on your part. Your “realization” about prayer is not proof that prayer is futile.

 

[kalt]

Once again, you need proof to make the claim that God exists outside of our universe. As of now, we know of no way anything could possibly exist outside of our universe, so your point of him being ‘unlimited’ is moot.

Science can’t prove God. Again, you say that you don’t need an education, but here you are asking for something that faith has nothing to do with.

Why is it that you accept that scientists can’t explain the origin of whatever it was that caused the big bang (just one theory to examine), or whatever it was that caused what caused the big bang, or whatever it was that caused, what caused, what caused the big bang, and so on, but do not accept that faith can’t scientificly explain God?

And why are you attemptint to mix the two?

You set some very specific rules. Is this because you wanted to have everything viewed through your lens only?

 

[kalt]

First off- No, I do not believe in the big bang. I am not sure how the universe ‘began’, I don’t even think it did. If I had to believe anything, I’d say I believe the universe is cyclic, therefore not having a first cause. That’s the only logical way our universe could exist, that we know of. This of course means a restructuring of all we know about space and time. However, don’t get me wrong. If the universe is cyclic, then god would be too, but he would still be within the universe’s constraints.

Pascal’s wager is a cowards last resort. IF there is a god, I am fully confident that he/she/it would be a just one. A just, loving god would not punish someone for not ‘serving’ them, and surely would not punish a finite sin with infinite punishment.
I have absolutely no fear of dying or going to ‘hell’ because of this. The bible is itself enough to disprove the existance of a Christian/Jewish God.

Wait. You’re saying that some undefineable, unknown, unseen, unproven, thing is eternal.

So you’re OK with this so-called “cyclic” eternal god, but not with the eternal God.

And you’re OK with a permissive God, but not with a God who expects anything of you. It sounds like you’re unhappy with your parent’s rules. Is this why you were so eager to set the rules for this debate, without any (name removed by moderator)ut from those you’re asking to join you?

And you do realize that one of the contestants doesn’t get to set the rules, right?

 

[kalt]

That’s like saying that a bank robber “chooses” prison. God obviously has some role in placing and keeping people in hell, or else they’d just walk out, so to speak.

Evidently not, as you still require various uncanceled sins in order to account for the doctrine of hell.

Hell is eternal separation from God. This is a choice. You know the rules going in. You choose to accept the risk. You know the consequences of your actions, so you do choose eternal separation over eternal life with God. If I choose A, I get B. If I choose C, I get D. How can you say that you didn’t choose C and the consequence of the choice, D?

 

[kalt]

Oh lawdy, this thread has gotten a bit bigger while I’ve been gone . Thanks for stepping in Eleve .

Questioner- Would someone who had never heard of Jesus, and lived a good life but without accepting Jesus as their savior go to hell? If so, did they really make a choice, or did God make it for them?
And you said prison and hell are different because prison is for rehabilitation (debatable…death penalty much?), whereas hell is not. This is hardly proof of a ‘just’ God, as the effects of that person’s sin (be it theft, murder, abortion, being gay, not believing etc) will eventually dissipate, making it finite, but there punishment will never end. That also certainly does not support the notion of a merciful god.

DrumminFool- I seriously did not mean to call you a coward or anything else in my post, I’m sorry it came across that way. Posting without thinking…d’oh. I just meant that in my view, Pascal’s Wager is used to say “Well, you’re going to hell, and I’m not, so…nyah.” As to the Big Bang–
I freely admit that I personally have no knowledge of evidence for a cyclic universe. I come by that conclusion simply because it makes the most sense to me, in that I can’t fully reconcile what ‘started’ the big bang with the primary mover argument. Because if it was God, I still believe something had to have ‘moved’ God…infinite regress, which I hate. So I will say- I have no clue how the universe started, and don’t pretend to. But I do believe that no matter how it was created, everything that exists must obey the laws of the universe. But of course that’s just my belief

Bill Pick- There are many things I would like to say to you, but I’m trying to be nice and civil, so let me shoot down your argument with a link. - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Association_of_Atheists_%26_Freethinkers

And goodday to YOU, sir.

Texan- Again, I can’t deal with the first mover argument, because until it is proven that something can exist outside of our universe and not follow it’s rules, then God still needs to have been created by something. What are your other tangible proofs you had in mind?

This is ridiculous. You said you don’t need an education, and yet you ask this question. This is a very basic concept of sin.

Before you deny these things (Christianity), you should know them.

And what proof do you have that the effects of a sin dissipate? If the effect of serious sin (you said you know the doctrine) is separation from God, how does the effect dissipate?

Since you’re talking about sin, though you don’t believe in God, explain how the effect of abortion dissipates? Explain how the effects of any murder dissipates over time? And rape. How does the effect of rape dissipate over time? If it dissipates over time, at what point does the effect of murder and rape equal zero? What proof do you have?

 

[howgoyoufar]

Again, false logic on your part. Your “realization” about prayer is not proof that prayer is futile.

Kalt, is there a reason you feel the need to quintuple post instead of condensing into one?

I’ll try and respond to all that you said, but it’s so disorganized that it’s hard to. Lrn2forum.

1. Yeah, it’s my thread. I set the rules. You have an issue with it? Then go to another thread, seriously. You show a basic lack of understanding of my premise.
2. When do I say you don’t need an education? Everyone needs an education. Where are you pulling this from?
3. Those are the only two options for being religious…either you came to the decision by yourself, or you are going along with what you have already been taught. What the heck are you saying about Nature v. Nurture? Seriously…your posts are making less sense the more I read them.
4. That was my whole POINT about the prayer thing. Me saying god doesn’t answer my prayers isn’t proof of him not existing. JUST like you saying god answers your prayers isn’t proof of his existance…do you get it? It’s not that complicated, man.
5. I can accept that scientists haven’t proven the origin of everything yet…I stated that earlier, and I’m completely comfortable with that. Did you even READ the thread?
6. I am ‘okay’ with the notion of a God, but not with the Christian God, as it’s obvious to anyone who has READ the bible that it can’t possibly be the exact word of a perfect being.

Seriously, I’m trying to be civil, but you’re an idiot. If you don’t like the ‘rules’ I set up (which by the way are completely reasonable guidelines for a debate) then don’t participate in the thread.

I’m not even going to address the rest of your points, you are so obviously either A) a troll or B) A painfully idiotic fool. Go pray for some intelligence.

 

[LXA2]

Kalt, is there a reason you feel the need to quintuple post instead of condensing into one?

I’ll try and respond to all that you said, but it’s so disorganized that it’s hard to. Lrn2forum.

1. Yeah, it’s my thread. I set the rules. You have an issue with it? Then go to another thread, seriously. You show a basic lack of understanding of my premise.
2. When do I say you don’t need an education? Everyone needs an education. Where are you pulling this from?
3. Those are the only two options for being religious…either you came to the decision by yourself, or you are going along with what you have already been taught. What the heck are you saying about Nature v. Nurture? Seriously…your posts are making less sense the more I read them.
4. That was my whole POINT about the prayer thing. Me saying god doesn’t answer my prayers isn’t proof of him not existing. JUST like you saying god answers your prayers isn’t proof of his existance…do you get it? It’s not that complicated, man.
5. I can accept that scientists haven’t proven the origin of everything yet…I stated that earlier, and I’m completely comfortable with that. Christ, did you even READ the thread?
6. I am ‘okay’ with the notion of a God, but not with the Christian God, as it’s obvious to anyone who has READ the bible that it can’t possibly be the exact word of a perfect being.

Seriously, I’m trying to be civil, but you’re an idiot. If you don’t like the ‘rules’ I set up (which by the way are completely reasonable guidelines for a debate) then don’t participate in the thread.

I’m not even going to address the rest of your points, you are so obviously either A) a troll or B) A painfully idiotic fool. Go pray for some intelligence.

Uh oh, they are going to play favorites and your gonna get kicked out for saying that

Anyways, I too am atheist, and I came to this forum to ask in politely, how are you able to accept God without questioning?
I’ve tried believing in God before but I can’t.
I’ve seen no evidence of his existence, other than the Bible, and that’s not good enough for me, nor should it be for any of you. I’m just wondering why people are able to believe in something without questioning it.

Can someone here tell me why they believe?

Why is it that you accept that scientists can’t explain the origin of whatever it was that caused the big bang?

Okay, a bit of hypocrisy on your part. Why is it that you can accept the idea of God which has next to no evidence maybe less? When we ask “What created God?” and you guys say “Nothing, he’s been there forever”, yet, you guys always bring up “What created the Big Bang?”.

 

[SonofMonica]

Okay, a bit of hypocrisy on your part. Why is it that you can accept the idea of God which has next to no evidence maybe less? When we ask “What created God?” and you guys say “Nothing, he’s been there forever”, yet, you guys always bring up “What created the Big Bang?”.

Because the Big Bang is a discrete, observable event, which took place at a finite moment in time. God (according to Christianity) is not. Events require causes. An eternal God does not–persons, entities themselves, do not require a cause. The event of their birth requires a cause. If they are arriving on the scene where they previously were not, that requires a cause. But if God has always been, if an event never took place which caused him to come into being, then he does not require a cause.

So if we could not point to the Big Bang event, then we would still be wondering if the universe has always existed. Then you may have a leg to stand on–i.e., if God is eternal, why couldn’t the universe be eternal? However, since we can point to the big bang as the beginning of our universe, that comparison is foreclosed.

Honestly, have you paused to think that Dawkins and his ilk maybe aren’t as smart as you thought they were when you read The God Delusion? Think for yourself, man. That’s right, a theist is telling you to think for yourself.

Mr. Dawkins is a brilliant evolutionary theorist and scientist, but he makes plenty of mistakes in the philosophical realm–for example, he thinks Catholicism is a polytheistic religion. Don’t expect too many coherent explanations of evolutionary processes on these forums, but in the same vein, don’t expect to find the answer to the God question from an alcoholic like Christopher Hitchens, either.

 

[Michael_Francis]

Thread closed pending moderator review by Rachel Malloy