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mikew262
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They are thinking about how to eliminate God from everything.
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Gunger
Guest
Tough question, and one that deserves an important caveat before any response: it is impossible to debate this issue effectively in a forum-- the answers are deep, the issues difficult in the vaccum of short, “pithy” responses, and the underlying assumption of the originating post somewhat antagonistic (i.e., prove it to me). That said, I couldn’t keep quiet.
A few comments on the “scientific proof” of God.
This is where the Christain gains the uperhand. The Christian can point to four millenia of human experience-- documented, in writing-- for how the order in the universe came to work: God. “AHA! you say, see, we’re back to the same old myth problem!”
Not quite. What you are looking for is a reasonable, believable explanation for why you should believe in God. I am presenting you with what you can experience (order, intelligence, consciousness), and providing you with an explanation that billions upon billions of people (including some of the greatest philisophical and scientific minds mankind has ever seen) have believed to be true both through their own personal experience and through what had been handed to them from the past. What is important in considering these “billions” of experiences is a little humility: these people were not "uncultured, unscientific, consumed by myth…these folks considered the very questions you ask (i.e., what if what we KNOW or THINK to be now is wrong, does God still exist)…and they arrived at some awe inspiring conclusions. Reading the early church fathers is no different than reading the most brilliant, educated, religious (or aethiest) philosophers of today-- what is more impressive is, they addressed the same arguments and reached the conclusions (God IS) WITHOUT the benefit of science…
As I said, this is a difficult subject (if not impossible) to discuss in a forum…but rest assured, if you are searching hard, the answers you are looking for are out there. If you are looking for basics, I’d start with the books recently written by Stroeble (SP?)-- they at least present the issues. If you are really into the basic question (why bother with religion) and need something more meaty (but still soft), I’d hit CS Lewis. If you’re really into it and the question is more direct (why be Catholic)…I’d start at the home page here
And in finding the answer, I might ask a slightly different question, the basic question of the triangle: what if God really does exist?
Regardless of your path or purpose, you are in my prayers.
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A few comments on the “scientific proof” of God.
- You exist. You are intelligent and free thinking (i.e., you understand the concept of mortality, recognize it for what it is, and live your life accordingly-- whether you’re Christian or not, you play in the same ordered sand box).
- Along with the rest of “living” matter, you are an incredibly well designed (i.e., intelligently designed) thing. We could debate this issue until we turn blue in the face-- but your own example of stem cell research is a good example (though not a good way to go about science). Simply put, it works. There are rules, laws…ORDER…that makes it work. What makes it work? That’s really not important for this discussion. The fact that it WORKS, is, proof of intelligent design, i.e., God.
This is where the Christain gains the uperhand. The Christian can point to four millenia of human experience-- documented, in writing-- for how the order in the universe came to work: God. “AHA! you say, see, we’re back to the same old myth problem!”
Not quite. What you are looking for is a reasonable, believable explanation for why you should believe in God. I am presenting you with what you can experience (order, intelligence, consciousness), and providing you with an explanation that billions upon billions of people (including some of the greatest philisophical and scientific minds mankind has ever seen) have believed to be true both through their own personal experience and through what had been handed to them from the past. What is important in considering these “billions” of experiences is a little humility: these people were not "uncultured, unscientific, consumed by myth…these folks considered the very questions you ask (i.e., what if what we KNOW or THINK to be now is wrong, does God still exist)…and they arrived at some awe inspiring conclusions. Reading the early church fathers is no different than reading the most brilliant, educated, religious (or aethiest) philosophers of today-- what is more impressive is, they addressed the same arguments and reached the conclusions (God IS) WITHOUT the benefit of science…
As I said, this is a difficult subject (if not impossible) to discuss in a forum…but rest assured, if you are searching hard, the answers you are looking for are out there. If you are looking for basics, I’d start with the books recently written by Stroeble (SP?)-- they at least present the issues. If you are really into the basic question (why bother with religion) and need something more meaty (but still soft), I’d hit CS Lewis. If you’re really into it and the question is more direct (why be Catholic)…I’d start at the home page here
And in finding the answer, I might ask a slightly different question, the basic question of the triangle: what if God really does exist?
Regardless of your path or purpose, you are in my prayers.
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Valke2
Guest
Can someone please leave me a private message when these ultimate questions regarding religion and God’s existence are resolved?
Thanks.
Thanks.
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Imagine23
Guest
It’s absolutely amazing to me that some of you can see as morally equivalent the destruction of a five year old child and a five day old blastocyst. If that is true, then why don’t you people stage protests outside of fertility clinics over the practice of discarding unused embryos. This should be mass murder under your belief system.Nothing. You can’t define what caused that “big bang”. (it’s still a “mystery” to science.)
I can define it.
I wasn’t really interested in arguing what doesn’t make sense… but okay…
I already discussed how the “harm and suffering that it causes” is the destruction of a human life by another human being, which is morally unacceptable no matter what you believe in.
I guess a similar argument could be used for cloning for the purpose of “replacement body parts”. Science like that may take time, I guess!
Humans are humans… no matter what “age” they are. Scientifically, the DNA proves it.
A five day old blastocyst feels no pain and is not human in any sense of the word. You’re saying they are human because they each have a unique and complete set of DNA? So do the skin cells that you shed daily.
And why do you care about the physical death of humans anyway, regardless of age? I thought you believed that it is the “will of God” when peoples’ physical lives terminate, and when they do they are better off anyway because they will spend eternity in Heaven?
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Em_in_FL
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It IS mass murder!
Exactly why this type of fertility treatments are not acceptable by the church.
Yes, but destroying one of my skin cells does not destroy the entire being that contains that unique set of DNA.
When you destroy a human embryo, that unique set of DNA ceases to exist… it’s gone.
So are you advocating for general murder here? You don’t have a problem with that?
A human being purposly destorying another human being is NOT the “will of God”.
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papaspicy
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Remember, it was atheism that motivated the activity of Hitler and Stalin, in which millions and millions of people were murdered. Was this what you consider “the advancement of our civilization?” Hitler and Stalin certainly thought so.
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Imagine23
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Hitler and Stalin were not motivated by the non-belief in an imaginary creator. They were motivated by the hunger for power.
History is filled with religiously motivated killings so I’m not sure where you’re going with that. Flip on CNN and I’m sure you will hear about a few murders today motivated by varying beliefs even within a religion (Islam).
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LilyM
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Firstly your skin cells DON’T have anything about them that is distinct from you. It would require a high level of tampering and artificial stimulation to get any form of life out of a dead skin cell, let alone a whole other human being, and what you’d end up with is a clone.
A blastocyst, on the contrary, if left entirely to nature and to its own devices will almost certainly grow into a unique human being. And is most certainly distinct from the man and woman who conceived it.
As for protesting the practice of discarding embryos - we DO believe it’s mass murder and DO protest it, hence our objections to IVF and stem cell research, you knucklehead!
Just because we’re not physically standing outside of fertility clinics doesn’t mean we agree with what goes on inside them - there are plenty of other ways to protest, you know!
Certainly it is the ‘will of God’ whether life begins or ends. The will of God is just that - the will of GOD, not the will of any other human being. Life, according to our principles, is his gift to us from beginning to end, given to us in order for us to achieve his purposes and not just our own selfish ones.
Only the President of the US has the power to declare war on behalf of the nation, and send its soldiers into combat to potentially be killed. So only God has the authority, ultimately to decide that a life or potential life is worth bringing into being, worth preserving or not, at every stage of potentiality.
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Imagine23
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I clearly was not advocating anything. I was asking you a series of questions. I’ve asked before why God doesn’t prevent murder and other awful things that happen to humans and the responses I received were that the “will of God” is that man make his own choices, including the choice that he kill his fellow man. Some have said God can prevent anything (which is why you guys pray when you’re sick right?) but he chooses not to. So he therefore chooses not to prevent murder.
And what about heaven? Don’t you believe it is better than earth? Does that not mean that under your belief system someone is actually better off when he dies?
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Imagine23
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Ask the majority of males over 65 with prostate problems how “incredibly well” they think the human body was designed.
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wcknight
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There’s a huge difference between God allowing nature to take its course and someone willfully aborting the life of a child.
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wcknight
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It is the abuse of religion that folks kill one another. Religion teaches folks to avoid evil not commit it. And it is precisely the absence of faith and religion that led Hitler and Stalin to kill millions. IF they believed in final judgement and consequences in the hereafter, they would never have done what they did.
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Em_in_FL
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God does not control us. He gave us the ultimate gift of “free will”, to make choices based on our own thoughts.
There IS evil in the world, but it is not of God. We can choose to align our thoughts with evil or to align them with love for our neighbor. God does intervene when we ask Him to. You have to make that choice to ask for God’s grace in your life. It’s your “free will” to make that choice.
Heaven is paradise.
Heaven is when we are with God.
To be with God we must be pure in love, otherwise we can’t be fully with him.
But God gave us our lives here on Earth as a gift. The gift to experience love and to actively give our love to others, by our own free will.
Yes, heaven is perfect and ideal and it is God’s will to have every single one of His souls with him in heaven. But we can choose whether or not we want to be with Him.
Imagine23… I highly recommed you look into reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I think it will answer a lot of your questions.
Thank you for coming here… your posts may bring others to Christ.
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Gilbert_Keith
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imagine23
Hitler and Stalin were not motivated by the non-belief in an imaginary creator. They were motivated by the hunger for power.
Add Mao.
It was just coincidental that they all hated Christianity?
Why do you atheists find monsters everywhere but in your own camp?
Please spare us your juvenile logic.
Hitler and Stalin were not motivated by the non-belief in an imaginary creator. They were motivated by the hunger for power.
Add Mao.
It was just coincidental that they all hated Christianity?
Why do you atheists find monsters everywhere but in your own camp?
Please spare us your juvenile logic.
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mikew262
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Ok, that is silly. Human beings age over time, a natural fact. The fact that he has lived for 65 yrs shows a pretty good design.
Try again.
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wcknight
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Why God does not prevent murders and other bad things on earth is precisely because this is earth, NOT Heaven. IF this were paradise there would be no more death, no more suffering. BUT since this is earth, all these things are possible and they do happen.
You say you are interested in finding the truth, but why bother to look if you are not open to at least the possibility that you could be wrong. To automatically discount a possible outcome prior to investigation is neither logical nor scientific. You say you want evidence but you ignore the evidence that abounds. There is the testimony of hundreds if not thousands of eye witnesses to various miraculous events.
And the sad thing is, even IF you personally experienced your own miracle you would probably discard that as some mere coincidence or quirk of nature. There is a mountain of evidence that you simply choose to ignore.
To you all this is myth and hoaxes but to accept your position then one would have to believe that all these thousands of folks are either all in on some massive conspiracy or all mentally unstable. and even then you would not be accounting for the physical evidence. Evidence that even modern science has no explanations for.
You say you are interested in finding the truth, but why bother to look if you are not open to at least the possibility that you could be wrong. To automatically discount a possible outcome prior to investigation is neither logical nor scientific. You say you want evidence but you ignore the evidence that abounds. There is the testimony of hundreds if not thousands of eye witnesses to various miraculous events.
And the sad thing is, even IF you personally experienced your own miracle you would probably discard that as some mere coincidence or quirk of nature. There is a mountain of evidence that you simply choose to ignore.
To you all this is myth and hoaxes but to accept your position then one would have to believe that all these thousands of folks are either all in on some massive conspiracy or all mentally unstable. and even then you would not be accounting for the physical evidence. Evidence that even modern science has no explanations for.
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buffalo
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imagine, still not answered.
Is your claim that at some point you became a human being? When was that?
Is your claim that at some point you became a human being? When was that?
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Imagine23
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Didn’t God wipe out the entire planet in that little Noah’s Ark fairy tale?
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Imagine23
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It’s not silly at all. It’s a clear example that the body was not perfectly, or “intelligently” designed. If fact, if we were “perfectly” designed we might not ever die at all.
Another example for you, birth defects. Some children are unfortunately born with them and die very young. Does that suggest a perfect or “intelligent” design?
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wcknight
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IF you believe in very literal interpretations of the Bible, yes. It was a nearly totally corrupt world that He wiped out. BTW there is geological evidence of the flood.
It appears you have a real problem distinguishing God from Satan. Evil exists in the world that is a fact. It does NOT however come from God. Suffering exists in the world and that is unfortunate, it does have its purpose. It does not have to make sense and it may not be immediately known to us why.
What you want to describe is Heaven (no suffering, no dying etc), that is not here yet. IF you wish to ever get there, you must first get through this world. You may not like the process and it may be a huge pain in the neck but that is our reality. Denying God’s existence doesn’t get you any closer and may in fact put that future in jeopardy.
IF Heaven is what you want, then there are minimal prerequistes to get there. P****ing off the Almighty is definitely NOT the way to get there.
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