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MindOverMatter2
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Again, you are assuming that because you don’t understand why something is true, that therefore everybody should draw the same conclusion.
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Moonstruck888
Guest
No, I am not assuming anything. No one can visualize subatomic particles, no one can visualize hyper dimensions, no one can visualize sub space. There are things that we as mortal and fallible human beings simply do not have the mental capabilities to do.
I take it as read that even the most devout young Earth creationist is not going to disagree that atoms exist and that they are made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. We had to make a simplistic analogue called the Bhor Model to understand the properties of electrons and photons and how and why quanta are exchanged.
That is because no one can actually visualize an electron or a photon. No one with current human physical limitations ever can visualize an electron. Our sensory apparatus and our pattern recognition filtering just doesn’t accomodate it.
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Moonstruck888
Guest
Exactly what material is space made out of?
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wheels10
Guest
Yes science has discovered vaccinations, as well as ways that may extend one’s life. Science has also discovered methods of building computers, motor cars, television, NIGC out of matter that already exists in this world.
Has science ever created anything out of absolutely nothing?
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wheels10
Guest
God did not want Abraham to Kill his son. If He did, He would have allowed Abraham to go through with it. God was testing Abraham to determine if he Loved God above everything. God knew that Abraham Loved his only son Isaac dearly, which was a good thing. But what needed to be determined is whether Abraham Loved and Trusted God above all. Abraham’s willingness to do what God was asking proved his complete Love and Trust for God.
Thank God that since this time we have been given the commandment “Thou shall not kill”, so that if we ever think that God is asking this of us, we can know for sure that this request is not coming from God.
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Moonstruck888
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As far as I’m aware, nothing has ever been created out of nothing by science or otherwise, mythical superbeings NOT excepted.
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phoenixrrt62
Guest
Ok. I can understand that it was a test…but still. That’s one hell of a test.
I just want to clarify something.
Was the statement I originally commented on :
Children who are loved genuinely by their parents are very rarely skeptical about the existence of God. In this sense love proves to them that God exists.
used as an example to make a point about the existence of a god, or do you all really believe that an agnostic or atheist does not have the ability to really love their children because they doubt the existence of a god?
I really need to know…
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coolduude
Guest
What that statement is saying is that children who are really loved ny their parents aren’t very skeptical about God because for them their parents’ love proves God to them.
It doesn’t say athiests are incapable of loving.
I don’t really buy that view, but I guess some people do.
It doesn’t say athiests are incapable of loving.
I don’t really buy that view, but I guess some people do.
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IntegraCatholic
Guest
Vatican I. Canons on Revelation:
- If anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema. (intratext.com/IXT/ENG0063/_PA.HTM.)
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MindOverMatter2
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Thank you very much for posting this. God bless:thumbsup:
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phoenixrrt62
Guest
So, ok. I see what the OP was trying to get across. I really do not agree, but I don’t want to pull this really important discussion off topic.
Thanks…
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phoenixrrt62
Guest
anathema:
-from Wikipedia-
…Thus, the meaning of the Greek word anathema, under the influence of the Hebrew word herem, was eventually taken as meaning ‘set apart,’ (like herem) rather than ‘an offering to god,’ as it had meant in Greek, and eventually the word came to be seen as meaning ‘banished’ and to be considered beyond the judgment and help of the community.
So according to this scripture, and your tenants, someone who is searching and is an agnostic is beyond help. Yeah?
Ok, then.
If so, it’s been real.
I’ve really enjoyed reading all of your thoughts, beliefs, and you all have answered a LOT of my questions, but I obviously don’t belong here.
It’s :nope:a shame. I was really starting to understand a bit of where you all were coming from, but perhaps not.
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greylorn
Guest
I doubt it.
Cosmologists, generally atheists to a man, adopt your first 3 premises and come up with big bang theory.
I consider their hypothesis absurd and unscientific, because it suffers from the same problems as yours. They define their cosmic micropea, the thing that blew up, as a “singularity,” which to them means something whose origin cannot be explained, whose properties cannot be defined. That’s exactly what religionists do with their “God” concept.
Instead of devising immature and irrelevant arguments, might not you consider the properties which your “God” needs, and how he, she, it, or they might have come into existence?
(Yes, I know that “in the box” thinking holds that God, or the cosmic micropea, must have always existed. Find an elsewhen box.)
Otherwise, you’re just inhaling and blowing out the same old secondary smoke that’s been filling the “room of mindless obfuscation” for the last 3000 years.
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MindOverMatter2
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I don’t understand what you are talking about? All people are agnostic by principle of ignorance until they find knowledge of that which they seek. Does agnosticism mean that one should not believe in something unless it is proven with absolute certainty? I don’t think so, and there are many Catholics who are faithful to the principle that God can be known through the light of human reason, but also admit that they have not yet come across an argument that has convinced them of Gods existence. They believe in God by faith but they are ignorant of any arguments in support of Gods existence. Also agnosticism by ignorance and agnosticism by principle of epistemological limitation is two different things. They are both grounded on the possibility of ignorance, but the kind of agnosticism that you appear to embrace is the kind that argues or assumes that it is in principle impossible for somebody to have certain knowledge of Gods existence. That is the kind of agnosticism which the Catholic faith rejects because it undermines a principle tenet of the catholic faith. Also you must consider the context in which a word is being used. When it says anathema in the context of some principle of knowledge, it is not does mean that you are banished from knowledge, but rather that in principle it is a tenet of the Catholic faith that God can in principle be known by the natural light of reason, and that to deny it, would be to remove your self from the Catholic community and faith. But it is not a tenet of the Catholic faith that all will come to and ought to embrace the Catholic faith through the light of natural reason alone. The Catholic faith does not disapprove of the idea that some are incapable in this life of giving purely intellectual assent to the existence of God. Some people cannot reason to Gods existence because they are in incapable for some reason.anathema:
-from Wikipedia-
…Thus, the meaning of the Greek word anathema, under the influence of the Hebrew word herem, was eventually taken as meaning ‘set apart,’ (like herem) rather than ‘an offering to god,’ as it had meant in Greek, and eventually the word came to be seen as meaning ‘banished’ and to be considered beyond the judgment and help of the community.
So according to this scripture, and your tenants, someone who is searching and is an agnostic is beyond help. Yeah?
Ok, then.
If so, it’s been real.
I’ve really enjoyed reading all of your thoughts, beliefs, and you all have answered a LOT of my questions, but I obviously don’t belong here.
It’s :nope:a shame. I was really starting to understand a bit of where you all were coming from, but perhaps not.
Also, the catholic faith encourages Thomism but it does not hold it as a tenet. That God can be proven is not proof that any Catholic has found certain evidence of Gods existence.
Does your being beyond the help of the community mean that your some how banished from the possibility of ever knowing God? I don’t see why that should be the case. I don’t see why you should stop seeking answers, or why this isn’t the right place for you?
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Moonstruck888
Guest
Cosmologists adopted the big bang hypothesis because we know from verifiable data on the Doppler-Fitzhu shifts on distant galaxies (outside the local cluster) that all the observable matter in the Universe originated from one point. We know this because we have a cosmic benchmark, the type 1a supernova, that can tell us how distant a galaxy is, and that we always find the degree of the red shift of a galaxy to be a function of that distance.
I can’t envisage a situation where any scientist would ever say:
- The past is finite
- There was a point when the universe did not exist
- Something had to create the universe
Also, no scientist in his right mind would make a claim to knowledge of what was going on before this primordial singularity inflated. There have been ideas floated on this subject, but at the present time they are impossible to verify and in all probability they may always be impossible to verify. We have a pretty good understanding, backed up by an increasing database of experimental results, about what has been occuring since T=ZERO. As a scientist who takes nothing on faith or logic alone one has to accept that this may be a fundamental limit to human knowledge.
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tonyrey
Guest
Abraham believed God wanted him to kill his son but he was mistaken! The concept of God in the Old Testament is sometimes very primitive because the Hebrews were fallible human beings. The significance of the story is that Abraham was inspired by God not to kill his son. The prophet Jeremiah declared that God had not delivered Israel from Egypt just to multiply sacrifices but to produce a people wholly obedient to His will. Hosea used words which Jesus was later to quote—”l desire goodness and not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings”. The unfulfilled sacrifice of Abraham’s son prefigured the self-sacrifice of Jesus, the Son of God. That reveals the true nature of Christianity which is based on love not laws…
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greylorn
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You seem to know some things of which most posters are oblivious. In that context, would you care to consider a few alternative questions? If so…Is there no end to all of this? Just kidding.
First of all, according to modern physics, time and space are inter-related. According to quantum physics, the universe is finite, as there is a finite amount of particals, even at the sub-atomic level.
There was some discussion about not being able to traverse infinity. In truth, infinity is NOT a number, it is an abstract concept. Furthermore, there are actually different levels of infinity, referred to by thier “cardinality”. For instance, the set of natural numbers has the same cardinality as the set of integers, or even the set of rational numbers (fractions). The proof for such things is based on the idea that one can generate a mapping from one set of numbers to another. So we can have infinite, and discrete. According to quantum mechanics, the universe is finite and discrete. But the set of real numbers, for example, is of an ever higher level of infinity, or cardinality. A consequence of this is that the probability of picking any one number in the real number line between 0 and 1 is zero.
I think of God as infinite (and of the highest cardinality), and of our finite existense as having zero probability, except for Gods decision to deliberately create our universe, and thus us. To God, our finite existense is very small, and thus well within His capacity to comprehend fully. We, on the other hand, are unable to fully comprehend God. God is NOT bound time, dimension, space, or any known laws. As God is the creator of our universe, and our universe is relatively simple to Him, WE are bound by all laws created by HIM.
Theoretical physicist and Catholics have one thing in common. We both realize that we have to accept the concept of mysteries, i.e., there are somethings that we can never know. God does not have such limitations. To say that God is great is an understatement. How great He is is truly beyond our realm of comprehension.
When someone ask me for proof of God, I say look around. God gave us all a good home that we call Earth. From this, It’s now what we make of it. We are suppose to be Gods children - His family. We have to realize this, and start acting like His family. If we did, then there would not be much suffering, or injustice in this world.
God bless.
Why did God create human beings, which are pretty much a bunch of nitwits?
Have you a better explanation for the First Law of Thermodynamics (constancy of energy) other than the usual, “God made it that way,” nonsense?
Why did God make humans to be so dreadfully ordinary, when he had the option to imbue them with a more interesting set of properties?
Can God think? I.e: can God have a new thought, an idea which neither he nor anyone else has ever had before?
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MindOverMatter2
Guest
Scientists have beliefs
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Moonstruck888
Guest
I’m sure some do, but there beliefs have nothing to do with ther performance of their job. In order to expound his beliefs, the credulous scientist would have to do so outside the scientific arena, otherwise his career would be finished, and rightly so.
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Barb3
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I certainly haven’t read all the pages about whether or not God exists – to be honest, I don’t have to question it because God lives with me. There is no doubt in my mind and I am talking to Him all the time. Other than God, I am alone – my children are all miles away from me – my husband died a number of years ago – and I would be absolutely devastated if God wasn’t present in my house. I go to Mass every day and receive the Eucharist so I know Jesus also is with me – I truly wish all of you would be convinced of God’s presence a/c I know you would accept life and its difficulties much easier.
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