I am an atheist thread 5

[mariyka]

A,

I’m still following your threads and really appreciated at the beauty in your photos. Thank you for taking the time to share them.

But it makes me wonder what you think about the following:

Why do we perceive something as beautiful? Of what benefit is it? Why do we get pleasure from seeing beauty, even if it often dangerous or useless?

I see this evolutionarily “unnecessary” ability as a small foretaste of heaven that God has given humans.

(I regret I will not be able to be back on-line for a while–but I am interested in your view, as well as in others’ thoughts.)

 

[Sabbath_Keeper]

Wow, such a mixed up convaluted thread.

Does God exist and what evidences are there to prove or disprove it? This seems to be the big question here.

I used to believe in God, then I began to believe we were put here by aliens. Then again I began to really study, history, archeology and theology. Mind you, I’m not catholic, however, I once again believe in God, the God of the Bible, his son Jesus Christ and all that pertains to what is written in Holy Script. Why? Because, it you study it thoroughly and in all true honesty, you can’t come to any other conclusion.

Over 100 prophecies conserning Christ, and each and everyone of them fulfilled. The Book of Daniel lays out all of history, BEFORE it ever happened, how could that have happened with out God to direct it. Archeological evidence abounds that point to civilization that were thought to have been mythical and only listed in the Bible but are now know to be fact. Explain that please.

Science too supports the Bible in its rendering of scientific knowledge. It states the the stars sing, and they do, is states that the world is round not flat, and the ancients believed it not until Columbus proved it.

Read and study, compare what you find out with the Bible, the evidences are there, just don’t close your mind to them and the truth will be revealed.

 

[Hislittlelady]

here’s a thought most seem not to see.
on the :bible1: bible, there are the “others”.

hmmm lets see, “others”… Maybe that means the “others” are not gods people. (not evil, just not his.). sooo, maybe the neighbors is the “others”. i would be a failure and a :doh2: embarrassment to the catholic church. i think too much for my own good. i really do.

: Hello Prye, I’m wondering if by your term the ‘others’, you’re talking about all the people from other religions and non-believers. I’m assuming that’s what you mean.

As Catholics and Christians we are to love all people, not just other Christians. God means ALL, not some. This also includes non-believers. At times I’ve found it has been much easier to love non-believers then some Christians and Catholics. It’s very hard to love people that are not lovable. I have a real problem with it too.

I once worked for someone who claimed he was an atheist and he was one of my favorite people. All the years I worked for him, I spent a spare moment here and there trying to convert him, and he always laughed at me. Of course, I knew where to draw the line. He did get a kick out of it. I think that’s why he loved me so much. He felt my love for him. It might have been a little of my love, but it was mostly the love of Christ. I really believe that. The Holy Spirit guides us to be witnesses and uses Christians that are open and willing to hear his prompting.

I truly feel in my heart that if God gave me the gift of planting a seed in this loving man’s mind, that some day, that seed will grow. I’ve heard some stories from a close friend who still keeps in touch with him, that he’s been asking her some questions about religion. He’s a real macho type of guy so he would never openly admit he’s interested in such things, but she could detect a small glimmer of interest on his part. I sure hope so.

Someone he loved very much became ill. He was desperately seeking answers and didn’t know where to turn. This is when he started asking questions. I haven’t heard anything lately, but I’m hopeful that the seed is taking root.

All people are God’s. He created each and every one of us, including those that deny Him. In fact, He knows how many hairs we have on our head. Can you imagine this? It’s hard to understand isn’t it? He also knows how many grains of sand there are on the entire earth and how many stars are in the sky. I find this thoroughly intriguing. If for no other reason, it’s well worth doing a thorough investigation of “Who” this very mind boggling entity is.

I believe I read somewhere that before Albert Einstein died, he made a statement to the effect that he was sure that this entire universe was created by design. A great assurance coming from him. The most brilliant mind that ever lived.

This is why Christian people are always witnessing or should be, in order to bring His ‘other sheep’ into the fold. Jesus commanded us to do so. The best witness of course is for a believer be a light, to let Jesus shine through us. It’s by our behavior and example that we would draw others to Christ.

As a matter of fact, you would never be an embarrassment in the Catholic church. I suspect you’re friendly and likable and someone of your nature would probably be the best witness of all. Who knows, maybe God is planting seeds right now, just during discussion.

In order to love God, first we must know Him. How can we know Him, unless we do lots of research. I can only warn you though, that if you invite Jesus into your heart with true sincerity, ‘look out!’ It may not be overnight, but your life will completely change. You won’t even notice. God loves to change hearts. I think that’s one of his favorite occupations. He never loses. Our arms are way too short to box with Him.

Also, I noticed in a previous post you mentioned angels?? :angel1: My favorite topic. I’m certainly no theologian or scholar, but I have read hundreds of books. The reason I read that many books was that in the year 2002, my beloved daughter died from a brain tumor. She was 33 years old. I never healed. Out of desperation, this extremely luke warm Catholic, went on a quest, thinking I’d find solace in reading up about near death experiences, after death communication, angel visions etc. etc.

Little did I know, that during all this investigating, while I didn’t know what I believed since I never really practiced my faith much, other then to sit at mass every Sunday and dream of what I was going to do that day, that I didn’t even have to bother looking for God. He came looking for me and found me. My journey had just begun.

Jesus told us to pick up our cross and follow Him. The Catholic journey is not an easy one. We must accept suffering and some say the church has too many rules. I think rules are excellent. We need them for guidance and to keep us on the straight and narrow. Jesus has His hand in everything. This is why the Catholic church has always felt like the one true church of God. I’ve been Catholic all my life, but a very poor witness of my faith to the world. :ehh: I’m still struggling through each day to be obedient to God and I want to be pleasing to Him.

I hope I haven’t chewed off your ear with all my preaching but it does feel so good to be myself on a nice Catholic forum where I can spread the message of our Lord and Savior.

May everyone’s day be sweet and may His light shine upon you.

John 10:16
And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

 

[Thing]

That’s funny. I don’t love any of the imaginary characters from bible class, and I have found plenty of good reasons.

Yes thats funny isn’t it.
Thats why the world is the way it is today, I suppose, people love just the people they like, not the people they don’t like. Anyone can love their friends, but this strange/funny religion challenges us to do the difficult thing, love your enemy and only do good to those who hate you.

 

[Thing]

maybe the neighbors is the “others”. i find it silly to say love your own kind. duh, u should. or is that out of the catholic bible as well (the whole “others” thing)? so moving on . what i am saying is that, “others” have their own paths they follow. love them for who they are, not pity them.

Your neighbour is everyone you come in contact with no matter if… or

 

[pyreshadow]

sigh, i guess he was right, nothing will change. well enjoy the spiritual wars.

 

[_A]

_A_;4182645:

I hope that one day you will believe in God.

Why? I hope that one day you see the truth that there have been many gods, and none are any better than their creators (man)

You live right in the middle of Paradise and you do not see Him?

He is invisible and non-existent. That makes it hard to ‘see’ him. If you have seen him, why not give a description, and I will see if I recognize it.

Why don’t you say the prayer I recommended?

I have tried praying in the past. It is little more than self-hypnosis. Every time you repeat something, it makes a copy in your brain. If you pray to ANY god often enough, you may delude yourself into believing.

And you can include the “threat”! See also my signature below - I believe it is relevant. I came across it in the days when my husband was searching. At the time I never spoke to him of these matters. There was a shyness which prevented me!

I am quite satisfied that the god of the bible is no more than the ignorant invention of bronze-age desert nomads. If you have EVIDENCE to support the notion of a god, I will look at it, but be ready for a very critical look. I increase my requirement of evidence as the outrageousness of the claim increases, and an all-powerful all-knowing is about the largest claim that could be made.

A,

I’m still following your threads and really appreciated at the beauty in your photos. Thank you for taking the time to share them.

Thank you, mariyka.

But it makes me wonder what you think about the following:

Why do we perceive something as beautiful?

Mostly because we are taught. Different cultures have different standards of beauty (have you ever heard Punjabi music?)

Of what benefit is it?

I couldn’t guess.

Why do we get pleasure from seeing beauty, even if it often dangerous or useless?

Mostly because of conditioning, I would say.

I see this evolutionarily “unnecessary” ability as a small foretaste of heaven that God has given humans.

Of course, if you believe you will find your god, you will find it everywhere. What makes this meaningless is that any god will do (many ‘see’ Allah too) which suggests that this has more to do with humans than with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient being who hides from all tangible analysis.

(I regret I will not be able to be back on-line for a while–but I am interested in your view, as well as in others’ thoughts.)

Take all the time you like, I try to make it easy to wander around in this thread.

Wow, such a mixed up convaluted thread.

I think it is because many people have things to ask an atheist, but few atheists are here to answer. I will try to keep up.

Over 100 prophecies conserning Christ, and each and everyone of them fulfilled.

Why not give one example, choose the most clear example of this prophecy and let’s have a look at it. By the way, it would need some specifics to count. Like dates, places and quantities.

Science too supports the Bible in its rendering of scientific knowledge. It states the the stars sing, and they do,

Stars do not ‘sing’. You may interperet something about them as singing (as you can jump through cognitive hoops to make it sound like Genesis can be accepted as true), but sing they do not.

is states that the world is round not flat,

It also states that the world is supported by pillars. Why do you suppost that NASA hasn’t found them?

Read and study, compare what you find out with the Bible, the evidences are there, just don’t close your mind to them and the truth will be revealed.

The bible is a bunch of stories many from oral traditions of bronze-age nomads. If it were some kind of manual from an all-powerful creator, why did he fix it so that illiterates (that is most people throughout history) had to trust literates (usually an elite class of people - rulers) to get the message to them?
The bible is a hideous book of fiction and I am very happy that the main character is pure invention. If a creature such as Yahweh (aka Jesus) did exist, we would have to kill him.
It would be the only responsible thing to do.

Yes thats funny isn’t it.
Thats why the world is the way it is today, I suppose, people love just the people they like, not the people they don’t like. Anyone can love their friends, but this strange/funny religion challenges us to do the difficult thing, love your enemy and only do good to those who hate you.

That sounds like a ridiculous system, prime for abuse.
I think reciprocal altruism has it beat hollow (it IS how we humans have survived thousands of years before the bible claims a violent madman in the sky created us)

 

[magic_stick]

I was baptized catholic but I don’t believe a lot in what the catholic church teaches. I also don’t know if I believe that god is real. I wish I did, but to me if I did, it’s all based on blind faith rather than proof. And I know that god doesn’t need to prove himself.

I wish I wasn’t like that, so doubtful. My grandmother was very very religious. I want to believe deep down that there is life after death. Deep down in a way I believe, but the other part of me doesn’t.

 

[Cinette]

**Hi!

This is certainly not an easy topic. To believe one must have Faith and Faith is believing without doubting whatever God has revealed. And the things he has revealed are not all tangible. To explain God is impossible. Noone on this earth knows exactly. There is NO explanation as to what is God, who is God… This is why St Augustine said that **

 

[Hislittlelady]

A

I see you are a great challenge, which tells me you are super smart. You have surely done your homework and have a good comeback for everything. I enjoy seeing your responses. They’re good…but…there’s more to the story then meets the eye.

When we go to the Lord in prayer, this is when His Holy Spirit enters into our heart and speaks. We don’t hear with physical ears, but with spirit ears. Also the heart has ears. It’s unmistakable.

Do you think that the early church fathers and all the prophets of old were stupid men? They were not. These were very learned, brilliant minds of their time according to the time they lived. These people studied all of their lives. This is how things were passed down to us. God actually spoke to them in person back in those days. Don’t we wish!

There’s a whole bunch of books out there, although I must say, these are not Catholic ones, but they might have them now too, and they’re called for example “The Bible for Dummies” (no offense intended here), but this is truly the name of a book. I have several of them and they are quite good.

I have the Book of Revelation for dummies. These I don’t think are Catholic, and it was at a time when I was searching and lost, but at the time, they were a bit enlightening and helped me along.

This series of books, and there are many on many topics, break everything down and give very detailed information as to the ‘why’s’ of things. I really enjoy them a lot. I discovered some things I never knew in these books. I’m hoping they have a Catholic book like this now . I’d much rather have that then the Protestant version of them, no offense intended, but I am a Catholic after all. .

In either case, every single thing comes back to seeking. When we want to find God, we can and we do. For He said “Seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened to you.” Now I know you are not seeking, and I will respect that, but I’m not worried. I have no doubt everyone on this thread is praying for you. Especially that you’ve been so much fun besides, and challenged us which is great fun. I only wish I was more brilliant with words to speak rather then my simple faith.

Also, may I recommend an excellent television program for you to watch. It is wonderful and I’m a faithful watcher of it. It’s the Eternal Word Television Network a/k/a EWTN., and airs I believe all over the U.S. and foreign countries as well. What could it hurt? give it a try. I dare you! Then come and tell me what you think about it. I’m sure you have it in your local TV listings. It’s on I think pretty much round the clock.

We are all praying for you. Never think you are not one of His Own. You are, only don’t know it yet. May our Wonderful God, through His Son Jesus, The King of All Kings, speak to your heart today.

I just love this passage
Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

 

[phooney]

@Cathopologist

“Dark Matter is what holds the mega-universe together”

Let’s not just make stuff up, now. I’m quite sure you don’t have any information about extra-universal phenomena derived from observable evidence, that would be big news. And what exactly are you referring to when you say “mega universe” The way you describe the effects you seem to be just talking about this universe, but you are wrong there too, it’s not dark matter that does this, but gravity.

“What if God was that “Dark Matter” that even have scientists mystified? What if all that holding power in space is actually proof in the existence of God?”

You talk about it as if it was something derogatory to say about scientists and science, but in actual fact, they thrive on the unknown. Dark matter, is just an arbitrary name to use as a kind of place holder because we don’t know specifically what all the dark matter is at the moment. However, to say we don’t know what dark matter is, therefore it is god is just an argument from ignorance, and therefore fallacious. Dark matter/energy is postulated because of the observed rate of expansion of the universe and because of its indirect observation via gravitational effects on ‘normal’ matter.

“If scientists cannot yet give a full explanation on how worm/black holes work or the fact that we know very little about our own galaxy, what’s there to hold anyone back from believing there maybe a possibility of a Higher Force at work?”

It’s certainly possible that there is a “Higher Force” at work, it’s also possible it could be the result of a mindless natural phenomena. Why arrive at the conclusion before the evidence warrants it? The burden of proof is on those that make the positive claim for a reason. If you had to DISPROVE everything before you should stop believing in it, there would be an infinite amount of things that people would (rationally under this system) believe in, yet would have nothing to do with reality. It’s unworkable. We haven’t disproved Russell’s teapot, we haven’t disproved alien abduction, but the evidence isn’t sufficient to warrant belief in these things and an infinite amount of other things in the first place.

“As i mentioned above, it is admitted that scientists know less than 1% on the workings of the universe but you already think you have made the gap smaller. That’s bold of you.”

To make that calculation of 1% you yourself would have to know exactly how much there is to be known about the workings of the universe. That’s bold of you, or anybody.

By the way, I also want to extend to you my best wishes for a speedy recovery so you can get out there and use your new camera!

 

[phooney]

@John Goddard

"I feel better when I pray, and more able to help others since I’m less selfish. That’s evidence and proof – for me – that my God helps.

Even if I wasn’t sure, if I said it could just be self-hypnosis or something, wouldn’t really matter as long as it works."

I care about whether my beliefs match reality above believing what feels good.

 

[phooney]

@Hislittlelady

“I’m new to this forum and so far I am absolutely enjoying it. Someone like you really piques my interest. I totally love the fact that you even bother coming onto a Catholic forum, but that’s beside the point. You say you’re an atheist, and I pray you won’t stay that way for life.”

I see A’s account is under review, I hope you don’t mind me doing a bit of responding while things are sorted out for him as I’ve taken part reasonably extensively over the past 4 and a half threads.

“I once read a book that was called “I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be an Atheist” I never forgot that title.”

I think I’ve heard of that one as well, though never got around to reading it.

“The writer stated that he had to believe in God because the alternative was too frightening to him. He felt just ‘what if’ when you die, you find out there was a God after all?”

Appeal to fear, begging the question and pascal’s flaw all rolled into one. What if when he, or you, or I, die we get to some kind of afterlife and instead of Yahweh, we see that the real god is Athe, the god who rewards lack of belief. I don’t believe in that God either but you get the point I hope, if you beg the question in the first place, you can set up an appeal to fear in the format of a pascalian wager about anything. In Pascal’s, and the author of the book you mentioned it seems, case the presupposition is the Christian God.

“He said his faith in being an atheist failed him. It wasn’t strong enough. I had to laugh at that.”

From the way you’ve described it, it sounds more like his fear of an angry god was greater than his fear of not existing when he died, so he chose to believe in what felt better. But, having not read it directly myself, who am I to say?

“I am a simple person. Not at all filled with knowledge as so many are. I love those that are because I learn from them.”

Indeed, we all do, and in that process we fill ourselves. There’s always room for more though

“But, speaking in very simple terms, let me tell you why I believe in God. Reason tells me there has to be. With the intricate workings of our bodies, how in the world could we have evolved into what we are.”

Our bodies are indeed intricate, there’s no doubt there, Much of it even works in what you could perhaps call a beautiful harmony. There’s still lots to be learned about it as well though, but you have to realise that biology is chemistry and chemistry is physics. The chemical reactions that take place in living organisms obey the same physical laws as the chemical reactions that take place when you dissolve metal in an acid or when you light a match. I know this suggestion won’t go down very well on this forum in particular, but for a well researched book into the many different baby-steps of evolution that it took for us to get here I recommend Richard Dawkins’ “The Ancestor’s Tale”. This tells the story of our evolution, in reverse, from us all the way back to prokaryotic cells, highlighting several interesting points of branching off along the way. Given the timescale that we’re working with, highly complex and statistically individually unlikely results are guaranteed.

This is my favourite example to demonstrate this:

Shuffle and deal out in a straight line all 52 cards in a deck, face up. The odds of you dealing the cards in exactly that order was 1 in 80,658,175,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Every single time you shuffle and deal out the cards, the odds of you getting that particular order are the same, no matter what order the cards come out in.

I think Dawkins has written another book about this principle called “Climbing Mount Improbable” but I haven’t read that as yet.

I heartily recommend reading up about evolution, as far as I know the Catholic Church has no problems with it and the entirety of evidence available confirms that it is the direct explanation for the diversity and complexity of life.

Being that organic chemistry follows the same physical laws as everything else, perhaps a better objection for you might be “so where do the laws of physics come from?” but that is a discussion for another day.

 

[phooney]

continued @ Hislittlelady

“Who can explain the workings of the human brain? Not even science, and I doubt they ever will.”

There is plenty of study going on in the field of Neuro-science. It isn’t something I consider myself to understand very well, unfortunately. However, on what grounds do you doubt that science will be able to explain the brain better than it already does? Science is based on observational, falsifiable evidence. Saying that science will never explain something is equivalent to saying “there will never be observational, falsifiable evidence for x” but then on what grounds can one claim to have knowledge about it? And further to that, why base beliefs on that lack of knowledge?

This is another complicated one. You ask fantastic questions, and that is commendable. However, it seems that when the answer isn’t immediately apparent your default answer is god, based not on evidence but on the apparent difficulty of the question. To me, it seems that the mind is the product of the brain. Take certain chemicals that interfere with the reactions taking place in the brain and you can temporarily substantially alter the personality and ability to reason. Sustain a brain injury or undergo various kinds of brain surgery and effects can be even more permanent. EVERY time we have deduced a mind in a living thing, we have observed a brain of some kind, from a simple swelling at one end of a spinal cord, to a complex organ. The bigger the brain in comparison with the body size and the more connections the neurons make with each other within the brain the more intelligence and abstract goal setting we see in the corresponding mind.

“Let me tell you a little joke and I think you’ll enjoy this. Once a scientist and God were having a discussion. The scientist told God I’m going to create a man. God said, very good, show me. So the scientist bent down to pick up some dirt to create man, and God said “Oh no, that is my dirt. Go and find your own.” I love that story.”

I’ve heard that before I think the scientist should have responded “If you’re not a figment of humanity’s collective imagination then just try to stop me yourself. Not through one of your followers, and not through a natural phenomena. Let everybody in the world see you actually do something yourself.”

“In fact that is the point I’m making to you. Sometime in your solitude, think real hard, which I’m sure you might have, but really think about things. Don’t you ever wonder how did this entire cosmos come into being? From the big bang? Could be. But that’s not proof that there’s no God.”

I think about it more than the average person I reckon. The big bang was only the beginning of what we would call our universe, and it only describes the rapid expansion of space-time since the planck time, which is a ludicrously small amount of time after the expansion first started. The big bang therefore only describes a transitional event, but does not itself speculate about what preceded that particular singularity or what is outside of our universe. And you’re right, it isn’t proof that there’s no God. It also doesn’t offer a shred of evidence for god either, so again on this front we’re left with no reason to believe in God (and in my opinion also no reason to believe in ‘no god’).

A question I saw asked not too far above your own post was “why is there something rather than nothing?” Of course the simple counter-question is “why would ‘something’ be less likely than ‘nothing’” Indeed, the answer seems to be that ‘nothing’ is very unstable and spontaneously breaks into ‘something’ and ‘negative something’ Did you know that the total net energy of our universe is ludicrously close to zero as far as we can measure it?

If the first law of thermodynamics also holds true outside of our universe, then energy cannot be created or destroyed anywhere, so it must have always existed. Theistic issues with this seem to hinge on the problem of infinite regress, which they say would mean that there would be an infinite amount of time before our ‘big bang’ happened, which would mean it would never happen. The same argument can be applied to God, but theists special-plead their own god out of this conclusion. All I would have to say about that is that our time is a dimension of our universe, so the causual structure outside of it is separate. Infinite regress may be a problem, but given the information available to us, we just don’t have a good reason to describe the nature of that regression-terminator.

My mathematics is nowhere near good enough to properly understand this at the moment, but I’m trying. I once heard somebody say that to those people who truly understand physics, when they are cut they bleed mathematics. I’ve still got this lousy blood though.

"There is a powerful entity that we know as God. How do I know? To quote John Edwards, “because I do.” "

I hope you can see how circular and unhelpful that is?

“Science is cloning now. Good for them. Why God is letting them, I do not know. But this is similar to the scientist making a human being story above. When the scientist makes this clone, where will he get all the minute, and microscopic matter that he needs to do this? Again, the scientist story. In fact, everything always goes back to the scientist story. That’s why I love it so much. It is MY PROOF OF GOD.”

But… it wasn’t a proof. It was, literally and by your own introduction, “a little joke”. As a proof it just begs the question, as in it assumes that which it is trying to prove.

 

[phooney]

continued @ Hislittlelady

“I am praying so much for you. I’m sure you’re seeking proof. Wouldn’t we all love that! I guess God does not want that for us. He wants us to love him and go to Him sight unseen. He sure is mysterious.”

I guess he must like conflict a lot Proof for everybody would eliminate religious boundaries between people.

"Something else that might interest you if you really do want some kind of, if not exactly proof, at least a very big hint, I’d say go to your local major bookstore and find youself a copy or two of people that have had the near death experience. I do not know what the church’s stand is on this type of occurrence, but I’ve always had kind of an interest in this. I have found it intriguing.

Statistics have shown that eight million people have had this experience. I believe even science is starting to recognize this."

Funnily enough I just saw on the bbc news website today that there is going to be a clinical trial of 1,500 cardiac arrest patients whereby there are going to be pictures placed on high shelves in resuscitation rooms that could only be seen from the ceiling, so if the people have a near death experience and are able to come back and describe the pictures it will constitute as some evidence towards the ‘mind’ or ‘soul’ or whatever you want to call it being able to exist separate from the body. I just hope those doing the study are very careful about the security of just what is on the photos. If the doctors or patients are aware of the trial it opens itself wide for cheating and bias and would render it useless for rational purposes.

“Could it be that maybe God is trying to help us along a little bit by possibly giving us a little hint? I don’t know for sure, but one can never tell. This is not my advice, but just a bit of information in case you are interested.”

Unfortunately, personal (and apparently contradictory) revelations are anecdotal at best as far as evidence goes, and I struggle to fathom why a perfect all powerful all knowing being would choose this method of communication to the human race. Sure this entity may have its reasons, and if it exists would by definition be smarter than me, but I can demonstrate many different methods that disperse knowledge quicker and leave less doubt as to the originator of that communication, and I am but an imperfect human.

“Please do not put too much stock in this. It may be believable to a point, maybe some are, but we must be very cautious as to the tricks of satan. He works through this type of experience.”

What other experiences would you classify in this ‘type’ ?

“If you’d like my advice I’d say get down upon your knees before the Holy Crucifix of the Lord and He will work mighty miracles in your heart, your soul and your life.”

Just so I can be clear, we’re talking about Poseidon, right? If the crucifix is that thing King Minos’ wife had made, I’m not getting on my knees anywhere near it

“Someone he loved very much became ill. He was desperately seeking answers and didn’t know where to turn. This is when he started asking questions. I haven’t heard anything lately, but I’m hopeful that the seed is taking root.”

I have noticed that religion really tries to capitalise on people when they are desperate. It’s very sad the situation he is in, and I have heard too many people tell me how comforting it is to “know” that there is a god out there looking after you.

However, what is comforting has no significant correlation to what is true and is not a reliable benchmark for that purpose. I’m very sorry to hear about your daughter as well, I’m sure you find it very comforting to think that if you behave in a particular way you’ll be able to see her and have a conversation with her again. I myself would like to speak to my Grandpa a few more times, but I can’t. I wish I knew of a way for you to keep that comfort and derive your beliefs through a rational method. However, as you have clearly put effort into attempting to convert people to your religion, and I think that an evidential, as opposed to faith, basis for beliefs is one of the important steps that humanity as a whole must take, I feel I need to challenge your claims.

“I believe I read somewhere that before Albert Einstein died, he made a statement to the effect that he was sure that this entire universe was created by design. A great assurance coming from him. The most brilliant mind that ever lived.”

You can read this about a lot of people, deathbed conversion stories are a dime a dozen. However, I’m sure you’ll agree that the business end of a deathbed must be a very scary place to be, and many people when faced with that might value comfort above anything else. There are also some deathbed conversion stories that are pure propaganda, a couple that I know of off the top of my head are Charles Darwin and Carl Sagan. I hadn’t heard anything about the Einstein one before, so I can’t comment.

Einstein said a lot of conflicting things about God it seems, but overall I’d have to think that if anything he was pantheistic/atheistic and whatever he was, he certainly did not believe in a personal god.

“I hope I haven’t chewed off your ear with all my preaching but it does feel so good to be myself on a nice Catholic forum where I can spread the message of our Lord and Savior.”

Not at all, I quite like your writing style, and I think you’re probably not as simple as you described yourself!

“Also the heart has ears. It’s unmistakable.”

It’s no good appealing to my heart, it is only a pump.

 

[phooney]

and again @Hislittlelady

“Do you think that the early church fathers and all the prophets of old were stupid men? They were not. These were very learned, brilliant minds of their time according to the time they lived. These people studied all of their lives. This is how things were passed down to us.”

Not at all, but they didn’t have the tools or methodology that we have available to us now.

"

God actually spoke to them in person back in those days. Don’t we wish!"

Has god’s power diminished lately or something? Why not more personal visits? This is just a bald assertion anyway.

 

[Hislittlelady]

Phooney, I just wrote a huge response to you and lo and behold it disappeared and it had so much written on it. I think you are extremely knowledgable and wish you could have read all that I wrote back to you, but I will do that tomorrow. It was just too much writing to do it all over again tonight.

I really appreciated you taking the time to respond to this very simple person, as compared to your brilliant mind, which I could not even attempt to compete with, but I will give it my best try again tomorrow.

For tonight, whether you like it or not I ask God to bless you and keep you in His care and to let you know how very much He loves you.

I know there are plenty here that would love to take you on!!! :knight2: LOL. Wish it could be me!!!

 

[Hislittlelady]

continued @ Hislittlelady

Funnily enough I just saw on the bbc news website today that there is going to be a clinical trial of 1,500 cardiac arrest patients whereby there are going to be pictures placed on high shelves in resuscitation rooms that could only be seen from the ceiling, so if the people have a near death experience and are able to come back and describe the pictures it will constitute as some evidence towards the ‘mind’ or ‘soul’ or whatever you want to call it being able to exist separate from the body. I just hope those doing the study are very careful about the security of just what is on the photos. If the doctors or patients are aware of the trial it opens itself wide for cheating and bias and would render it useless for rational purposes.

I’ve read this experience in a number of books regarding people out of body seeing something way above the ceiling on a light fixture. I’ve read more then one experience like this. These people told these things to the medical staff and it was already PROVEN.

I think God just gave me a message for you. As I was sitting here I’m listening the the EWTN channel which is the Catholic eternal word network channel, and a priest just said that "God chases after people who keep running from him, but he hides himself from those that seek him. I think this message was meant for me to give to you. I do believe God speaks to us in many ways. I find it odd that this particular statement was made as I’m typing here.

How Great Thou Art!

 

[Hislittlelady]

Originally Posted by phooney
continued @ Hislittlelady

Appeal to fear, begging the question and pascal’s flaw all rolled into one. What if when he, or you, or I, die we get to some kind of afterlife and instead of Yahweh, we see that the real god is Athe, the god who rewards lack of belief. I don’t believe in that God either but you get the point I hope, if you beg the question in the first place, you can set up an appeal to fear in the format of a pascalian wager about anything. In Pascal’s, and the author of the book you mentioned it seems, case the presupposition is the Christian God.

This would surely be a great shock. I can’t argue about this ‘Pascal’ or this god "athe’ whoever they may be, since I’m not an intellectual and admit it, but can only reply in more simple terms as the average person. But I cannot fight lack of faith, but still I’m going to proceed to try and see what I can respond to in a fairly intelligent way to my way of belief
…

Our bodies are indeed intricate, there’s no doubt there, Much of it even works in what you could perhaps call a beautiful harmony. There’s still lots to be learned about it as well though, but you have to realise that biology is chemistry and chemistry is physics. The chemical reactions that take place in living organisms obey the same physical laws as the chemical reactions that take place when you dissolve metal in an acid or when you light a match. I know this suggestion won’t go down very well on this forum in particular, but for a well researched book into the many different baby-steps of evolution that it took for us to get here I recommend Richard Dawkins’ “The Ancestor’s Tale”. This tells the story of our evolution, in reverse, from us all the way back to prokaryotic cells, highlighting several interesting points of branching off along the way. Given the timescale that we’re working with, highly complex and statistically individually unlikely results are guaranteed.

Well, here comes the science again. You no doubt have an IQ of 160 plus. That’s actually kind of a detriment. You people with these IQ’s, are so busy studying the where’s and why’s, that you’ve never had the vision to see what’s right before your eyes. Don’t you see that God is challenging you? That’s why he gave you that kind of brain and me my kind of brain. I have no doubt that He is using all of us to to come to the same conclusions about God’s existence, using your high intelligence against my simple faith. We shall see!
​

I think Dawkins has written another book about this principle called “Climbing Mount Improbable” but I haven’t read that as yet.

I heartily recommend reading up about evolution, as far as I know the Catholic Church has no problems with it and the entirety of evidence available confirms that it is the direct explanation for the diversity and complexity of life.

Being that organic chemistry follows the same physical laws as everything else, perhaps a better objection for you might be “so where do the laws of physics come from?” but that is a discussion for another day.

I can believe evolution. I have my own theories but of course to someone of your scientific mind, it will seem silly, but I think I’ll tell it anyway. You can laugh if you’d like, but it still could be something to think about as silly as it sounds to you. Did it ever occur to anyone, that since most of us believe in Adam and Eve and the sin committed in the garden,why couldn’t it be that when Adam and Eve were tossed out, remember they were very beautiful, made in God’s perfect image, that they were stripped of all their beauty and every other good thing as well, and thus evolved early man. Pretty ugly I’d say! I sometimes imagine this to be the missing link.
That’s how the matter of evolution and faith meet right in the middle.

---

This is another complicated one. You ask fantastic questions, and that is commendable. However, it seems that when the answer isn’t immediately apparent your default answer is god, based not on evidence but on the apparent difficulty of the question. To me, it seems that the mind is the product of the brain. Take certain chemicals that interfere with the reactions taking place in the brain and you can temporarily substantially alter the personality and ability to reason. Sustain a brain injury or undergo various kinds of brain surgery and effects can be even more permanent. EVERY time we have deduced a mind in a living thing, we have observed a brain of some kind, from a simple swelling at one end of a spinal cord, to a complex organ. The bigger the brain in comparison with the body size and the more connections the neurons make with each other within the brain the more intelligence and abstract goal setting we see in the corresponding mind.

I wouldn’t even attempt this one. I’m not a scientist and can’t imagine anyone ever discovering the actual ‘mind’, not the brain itself. The mind is nothing tangible, and I understand all you say about chemicals and neurons etc., but show me what a ‘mind’ looks like. Aha! Got you on that one. You want to see what God looks like. I believe we have a mind sight unseen! I wonder if science will ever be able to show us ‘the mind.’ yet there it is within us. God is not mocked!

To be continued…

 

[Hislittlelady]

Originally Posted by phooney
continued @ Hislittlelady

I’ve heard that before I think the scientist should have responded “If you’re not a figment of humanity’s collective imagination then just try to stop me yourself. Not through one of your followers, and not through a natural phenomena. Let everybody in the world see you actually do something yourself.”

I’d love to see this. I’m waiting to see science create a human that they make from nothing, nada, zilch, zero, something they create from absolutely nowhere or what we perceive as nowhere.

---

The big bang was only the beginning of what we would call our universe, and it only describes the rapid expansion of space-time since the planck time, which is a ludicrously small amount of time after the expansion first started. The big bang therefore only describes a transitional event, but does not itself speculate about what preceded that particular singularity or what is outside of our universe. And you’re right, it isn’t proof that there’s no God. It also doesn’t offer a shred of evidence for god either, so again on this front we’re left with no reason to believe in God (and in my opinion also no reason to believe in ‘no god’).

A question I saw asked not too far above your own post was “why is there something rather than nothing?” Of course the simple counter-question is “why would ‘something’ be less likely than ‘nothing’” Indeed, the answer seems to be that ‘nothing’ is very unstable and spontaneously breaks into ‘something’ and ‘negative something’ Did you know that the total net energy of our universe is ludicrously close to zero as far as we can measure it?

Cannot argue these points. Still mysterious to science and I’m waiting for their proof that God does not exist. So far I see some scientists leaning toward creative design. Other then that, I can say nothing here for lack of knowledge on matters of science.

I also ask where did the ‘nothing’ come from? God is the Master Artist.

If the first law of thermodynamics also holds true outside of our universe, then energy cannot be created or destroyed anywhere, so it must have always existed. Theistic issues with this seem to hinge on the problem of infinite regress, which they say would mean that there would be an infinite amount of time before our ‘big bang’ happened, which would mean it would never happen. The same argument can be applied to God, but theists special-plead their own god out of this conclusion. All I would have to say about that is that our time is a dimension of our universe, so the causual structure outside of it is separate. Infinite regress may be a problem, but given the information available to us, we just don’t have a good reason to describe the nature of that regression-terminator.

I also believe that time is a dimension of our universe, for lack of a better way of explaining it to myself. The big bang I also can believe, although my church has always become very indignant about this, but the way I believe it I feel is pretty okay in accordance. Very simple. The big bang was the “Breath of God.” In other words, he blew the entire universe into existance. Then he created man. I know you’re laughing and I hear you. Proof is something I doubt we’ll ever have. Who can even begin to comprehend infinity? Wow. An awesome thought. God is infinite.

“Science is cloning now. Good for them. Why God is letting them, I do not know. But this is similar to the scientist making a human being story above. When the scientist makes this clone, where will he get all the minute, and microscopic matter that he needs to do this? Again, the scientist story. In fact, everything always goes back to the scientist story. That’s why I love it so much. It is MY PROOF OF GOD.”

But… it wasn’t a proof. It was, literally and by your own introduction, “a little joke”. As a proof it just begs the question, as in it assumes that which it is trying to prove.

Well, maybe it’s not actual proof, but can you even imagine God up in His Kingdom, which we would call heaven, laughing at them. He adores them for trying to find him which he will not allow, unless it will be in a prayerful and spiritual way. So when all these special souls meet up with their Creator although He loves them so much, maybe even more so for trying so hard to either prove or disprove his existence, I only pray he will not be real angry with them for their great insult to our Mighty God and Creator. I know my answers are not scientific, but just the reasoning of my mind.

To be continued…