Thread: Is it possible for us as men to have a discussion on God

Originally Posted by xman

1. The only thing which can be identified as a 'first mover' is the big bang. Remember, you're looking for evidence.

I question you where did that matter come from? What caused after millions of years for that one electron to change course and cause a collision, atoms and electrons are ordered beings that do not change paths unless acted on by an outside force. The unmoved mover.

Originally Posted by xman

2. IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME THING AS #1! ... honestly.

Again I ask what came before the bi bang what caused the change in motion.

Originally Posted by xman

3. I don't know where to start with this one. You're making too many fallacious assumptions and a contingent being is a mystery term intended to mislead. You even say that if contingent beings exist then everything must be contingent. That's like saying that because I have an apple everybody must.

See Number 1. There has to be a beginning for everything, God created that beginning and therefor is outside of beginnings and ends.

Originally Posted by xman

4. Greatness is another human creation. The universe doesn't really care about your value judgments. Only people do.

Greatness is not a human construct the word is human but by looking at the world it is undeniable that there is a higher order in the world that is outside of mans control.

Originally Posted by xman

5. Very wrong. What end does the shark have, but to fill his stomach. He requires no supernatural hand to do so. There is no need and no sign of it being otherwise.

Aquinas was not talking about sharks he is talking about humans, the logical animal. Humans have higher intellect and animal instincts, but the higher intellect out weights the instinct in almost every situation in life. Why do humans plant gardens, why do humans create art? To be human is to exist outside of strict function to be human is to exist in form. We (humans) mirror God in our acts of creating non functional objects and also in creating functional objects.

Originally Posted by xman

I think you should read the thread. I also think you're better off to abandon the notion of finding reasons to believe in your god. Just like the shark, you don't need one either.

I could say the same thing that you should stop believing that God does not exist and just accept it as you dont need a reason to disbelieve God.

Oh I forgot to mention that I dont disbelieve the big bang theory(not proven). The Judeo-Christian form of creation is about the creation of the humans soul and is an illistrative story. The Big Bang theory and the creation theory can go hand in hand.

Originally Posted by JMS

Thats fine jockeys, but I would like to see you address the spirit of his argument!

I think I was. Or, I don't understand his argument.

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

The mind and the intellect are just abstracts about the operations carried out by the brain.

We see people who's brains have a tendency to find patterns in numbers, from which derive the study of mathematics. The intellect is the operation of the brain making sense out of the incoming data, in this example numerical data, for a writer it's linguistic data, etc. But it still remains that those words are only abstracts that we apply to things which are more complex than we care to expound on in daily speech.

They're not references to a spiritual being, they are memes.

Correct. The brain is real, demonstrably and repeatably. The chemical reactions that occur within it are also real, and demonstrable and repeatable thanks to medical science. Strong correlations exist between certain reactions and certain "feelings." Thus, feelings are nothing more than a metaphor or abstraction for chemical reactions in our heads.

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

My brain is observable, but not directly by me
You can see X-rays?

Do you understand my point? What convinces you, what is good enough for proof is part of the matter at hand. When I see an x-ray chart, I can infer that what I am looking at represents my brain because of the similarities between what I am looking at and what I expect to see. I can also infer that my brain is God's creation because of the similarities between what I am looking at and what I expect to see

Playing semantics now, eh? No, I can't see xrays, but I can see what xrays do to film. No, I do not see a brain because I expect to, but rather because I have seen other brains, out of the skull, and see the similarity between another human brain and my own. Have you directly observed another deity that lets you correlate with the JCI deity?

Originally Posted by Seraphim

What causes heartache?

Have you ever experienced it? It is rather remarkable, as it is a physical sensation in your chest, not your head. You may be thinking "Why did my Suzy-Q dump me for Billy-Joe-Bob?" in your head, but you feel it in your heart, a simple pump for circulating fluids through your veins.

Why is it so shocking that chemical reactions in your head can cause chemical reactions in other places in your body?

When your brain is "afraid" (that is, the evolutionally conditioned state of danger recognition and subsequent fight-or-flight response,) it is undergoing chemical reactions involving adrenaline. Adrenaline does other stuff to your body, too. Other chemicals are the same way.

The chemical reaction in your head affects the chemical reaction in your chest. Nothing new here, move along.

Originally Posted by Akady

I question you where did that matter come from?

There has to be a beginning for everything, God created that beginning and therefor is outside of beginnings and ends.

Why can't matter have always existed? Why does there have to be a beginning? I never really understood the necessity of these things.

For some interesting insight into the Big Bang and what might have caused it, check out:
Big Bounce - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I don't see any reason why reality can't have existed previously for an infinitely long time, and behave cyclically.

Originally Posted by jockeys

Correct. The brain is real, demonstrably and repeatably. The chemical reactions that occur within it are also real, and demonstrable and repeatable thanks to medical science

Yes, but I still think my analogy serves my point that believing is more than directly seeing. I am playing semantics to point out that there is more at work than that which can be directly observed or tested. You see the film, but what is the film, but collections of smaller matter, and at some point you can only theorize what makes matter tick because of natural limitations. You were raised in a natural environment and that is what you are used to. But I am arguing that natural limitations are not universal limitations

Originally Posted by jockeys

Playing semantics now, eh? No, I can't see xrays, but I can see what xrays do to film. No, I do not see a brain because I expect to, but rather because I have seen other brains, out of the skull, and see the similarity between another human brain and my own. Have you directly observed another deity that lets you correlate with the JCI deity?

No, I have compared indirect observations of supernatural effects: observe
How does the rubble fly through the air? It can be naturally explained, the flight path, the forces at work, but without "the force" would it be happening? How could you prove or disprove that? You'd have to ask Darth Vader about it and see if what he says about it agrees with the observable in a testable and repeatable way even if the only way to verify it would be to rely on Vader's words and actions as they relate to the observable

By the way, I saw The Ten Commandments and I know that God has a deep voice like James Earl Jones so please don't tell me I can't use the Star Wars analogy

Originally Posted by jockeys

Why can't matter have always existed? Why does there have to be a beginning? I never really understood the necessity of these things.

Entropy? I don't understand the necessity of it either, I guess

Originally Posted by Ditch Doc

While I was in microbiology, I told a friend, the more I learn, the more I am convinced there has to be a God. He (my friend, not God) makes race car engines for Toyota, he told me that he likens it to a race car engine. It has 25,000 parts. What if you put all those parts in a box, and shook them up for a billion years. Would they make an engine?

This hasn't been a liegitimate argument for a number of years.

It's fallacious because it presupposes purpose for the parts, which evolution does not.

It's not a valid analogy because the intermolecualr forces that cause chemical reactions to occur are not actively at work in a box full of car parts.

It is a strawman argument because it assumes that the alternative to design is that life has occurred "randomly" which is never the explanation given. Life (most likely, and very probably) occurred naturally as a result of the stability between molecules that make up life forming polymers, which are further selected for stability by the factors present in the environment.

The argument from design was perfectly acceptable when there was no other possibility, when we believed lightning was God's wrath on the wicked, when people got sick because they were sinners or were under the influence of evil spirits, when the earth was flat, when women were subjects to men, and enslaving differing cultures was acceptable because those people weren't God's chosen ones.

But seriously, haven't we learned that religious establishments have yet to be right on a single explanation of the natural world?

God has yet to instruct his representatives on Earth in a truthful manner, religious establishments have always been a step behind the secularists in scientific and social advancements, both of which are what define us as a "modern" society.

Originally Posted by jockeys

Why can't matter have always existed? Why does there have to be a beginning? I never really understood the necessity of these things.

For some interesting insight into the Big Bang and what might have caused it, check out:
Big Bounce - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I don't see any reason why reality can't have existed previously for an infinitely long time, and behave cyclically.

That does not negate the primary mover. God is who is.