Good quote, SC.

Two similar quotes:

"Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to." -- George Seaton

"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” -- Saint Thomas Aquinas

WOWZA.

A miracle is something that is scientifically impossible. Many improbable events occur daily; that they do happen is evidence alone that they can happen. Why must peeps interpret this as some sort of divine intervention?

And why can't the same peeps recognise the inherent contradictory selectivity of such a divine intervenor? Why would an all-knowing, all-loving God help some and not others? He seems a bit of a huffy, volatile [BadWord] to be honest.

Same with the fairies at the bottom of my garden.

Why would God ever send somebody to hell? If he knows everything, surely he can account for why people do the things they do, what made them that way, and forgive them their ignorance as a result of poor education and an advanced bourgeois society that embraces greed and profit. Surely he knows all of those humane reasonings. Oh, wait; maybe he doesn't - maybe he's the anthropomorphic product of self-projecting blood-thirsty absolutist self-serving backward-thinking fear-mongering state-loving liberal (make-)believers...

Hm. I'm starting to sound desperate - frustrated, even.

Ignorance is bliss.

All of those are self-serving intellectual faux pas, designed to cocoon and parry; a cop-out. They actually say more about the inadequacies of faith than they do about genuine reasoning.

Not this one: "To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” -- Saint Thomas Aquinas

In a nutshell, Aquinas is saying that no matter what I say to you, your mind won't be changed. No matter what you say to me, my mind won't be changed. You're no more open to the possibility that there is a God, than I am to the possibility that there isn't one. That's why this whole thread is futile.

No. I'm not saying there isn't a God, I'm saying there's no more evidence for his existence than there is for any other superstition that we would otherwise dismiss as silly.

So, in essence, though the quote itself might not mean this, you're using it as a way of 'agreeing to disagree' on the reducible grounds that 'faith needn't offer any evidence because that's what the definition of faith is': again, that's a cop-out, it's horseshit.

So, my point stands: 'All of those are self-serving intellectual faux pas, designed to cocoon and parry; a cop-out.'

I'm very open to the idea of a God, should we arrive at some concrete evidence that there is one. Of course, should I begin to want there to be a God, under the right circumstances - some medical drug, for instance - I might start finding the 'proof' that I feel I need. But such proof would never reach beyond the profoundly individual. It's internally insular, a way of coping with certain material issues - and nothing more. It's a form of idealism, a way of interpreting the world, a way to which I'm eternally opposed.

Read this.

That's why debates about many other topics are futile as well, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Because it is their GOD given right to believe so -- just as it is your GOD given right ( ) not to believe so. GOD gave all of us free will to have faith and believe or to not have faith and be a non believer. You have the right to seek out a 'scientific answer' to some things that may happen just as Mig has the right to believe that some things happen because of 'devine intervention'.

You want to believe in fairies, then by all means believe in them. Pray to them and worship them for all I care. As long as you don't hurt others because of your beliefs than I don't have the right to mock you, make fun of you, or tell you that what you choose to put your faith in and believe in is wrong. By the same token if the "peeps" choose to believe in GOD, choose to put their faith in GOD and believe that he can perform miracles, as long as they are not hurting others because of their beliefs than no one has to the right to mock them, make fun of them or tell them that they are wrong because they believe in GOD.

People need to respect one another's religious and/ or non religious beliefs as long as those beliefs do not infringe upon, make fun of, mock or call for the hurting others.

Thank GOD for free will!

What proof can possibly be offered? The miracle of life? The ability of a plant to perform photosynthesis? The existence of the oceans? The way that the moon controls the tides? The way that a bee pollinates a flower?

These are all miracles, and they occur every day. That's the only proof I require to believe.

Devil's advocate for a second: A scientist would say that these are all naturally occurring events and someone else might say that we perceive these as a miracle only because we're at the tail-end of the natural process called evolution.

I respectfully disagree. We must respect what people can't change about themselves, those that they've no role in it. Like the color of their skin, their nationality, or these sorts of attributes. Religion on the other hand is what we have a role in adopting for ourselves.

Why shouldn't we debate or mock ideas? If someone believes they can fly just by the motion of their hands, you suggest we should not mock them? Or try to reason with them? Of course after a course of debate, and laughing at them I'm willing to let them fly off the roof, but what if they are trying to take a bus full of people and jump off the cliff? Would you sit aside and say, well, that's their religion and we should respect it? Haven't we seen enough of such mantras and attitudes even these days? Bush's war on Gog and Magog? Islamic Republic's mantra of setting the whole world right? Should I go on?

I refuse to respect any religion, since they've not presented me with any proof to their sanity or sense. Just because you blindly believe something is there, it doesn't make it so.

Can I ask Capo, VitoC, Afsaneh and others who don't believe in God, AKA a creator, how we got here? How is it possible that this entire planet has an atmosphere capable of supporting millions of different lifeforms that support one another? How did it start?

Something that has always bothered me is the clash between science and religion when it seems logical to me that they should go hand in hand. Two things can be equally true. I'm one of the few Christians that believe evolution is a possibility. I believe in adaptation by survival of the fittest. If it wasn't for technology keeping us fat people alive, the current population would be way down and our current athletes would be the main survivors. But when you go back to the beginning of evolution, how did it all begin? It only makes sense to me that a Creator would be the spark for the very first life form that eventually evolved into everything that lives on this planet now, which if you ask me is just as incredible and unbelievable as God is to nonbelievers. I find it just as hard to believe that a single coincidence resulted in millions of other coincidental events of "evolution" bringing us to where we are now in the world.

What do people who don't believe in God believe happened here? Science tells me we are made up of atoms. I've never seen an atom. I only accept that they exist because scientists tell me so, and as far as I know the most brilliant scientists are part of an underground group trying to eliminate religion. I don't believe that, but underground fairy's make as much sense to me as most science. But I'm getting off of my original question of how the first lifeform came to exist and how likely is it that everything works perfectly together to survive as a planet?

To add to my last post, I'm not saying I have any answers either. I think it's easier to try and disprove something than it is to come up with an alternate answer. I personally like the idea of a God. It doesn't mean God exists, but as mentioned before the earth was flat until science proved it was round. Who's to say that science won't progress enough in the future to prove there is a God? I think it's a possibility. But again, I don't know for a fact that God exists. I just choose to believe in something more powerful than I am. That's not a cop-out, it's a personal hope.

I'm not suggesting there's no God. I don't even want to go there. As for your question, I would be open to any sensible reasoning as to how we got here. For now I simply don't know. But I wouldn't buy the first theory that has no proof.

You don't have to listen to scientists and take what they say blindly. There are atomic microscopes. You can go and see for yourself. That's the difference between backed up science and bogus religion.

Haha, I had a feeling that would be the first thing someone would pick on from what I wrote. That's fine.

Where do I go to see one of these atomic microscopes? And how do I know what I'm looking at is true and not fabricated?

Really that wasn't my point. Nobody knows the truth. I find it interesting that people who try so hard to show how absurd God is, will say they aren't sure if there is a God. Of course not. That's the cop-out for nonbelievers. There's really no end to this argument. It's all "what if". If you don't believe, fine... if you do, fine. When it comes to what others believe in a world so focused on acceptance, who gives a flying fairy shit?

Hey, do you need direction to lab where there is one? I mean, if you don't want to know, that's okay, but that's just lazy excuse. You need to study on how an atomic microscope works. And then, if you have any proof that what it shows is not right, you can back it up with your studies.

If you believe there's an elephant in the dark room, it is fine as long as he doesn't communicate with you to do something stupid. And even before that, I would like to know your reason as to why you think there's one, and exactly an elephant. You are the one who needs to back up your claim, not I. It could be anything.

Read what I said Afsaneh. It's easier to try and disprove something than give an alternate answer. Nobody seems willing to give a better answer, but everyone wants to argue that the idea of a God is ridiculous. I said I don't know the answers... there is no proof. But if there isn't a better answer, then why not believe in a God? You don't have to, but I choose to. I said it's a personal hope, not proof. I can back up my faith no better than you can back up your lack of answers. When someone has a better answer, I will definitely listen.

Because I want to be open to scientific reasoning. I need my brain just yet. The religious theory, when you get deep in it, would make sure there's no sense left in you to argue otherwise. Faith is blind and clearly states that you don't need reason, but I do. I desperately and frustratingly yearn for reason. I don't want anything clouding my judgment, however limited that could be.

I refuse to dope myself with the comfortable answer.

Well that goes back to my original post, that two things can be equally true. Why is it impossible to have faith in a God, while still keeping an open mind towards science? Everyone who has faith should never blindly accept it. It's a healthy thing for every person in religion to constantly question their faith. It doesn't mean that if you question it then you don't believe it. It just means you are doing your part to try and confirm what you believe. Where does it say you need to be a dope and follow just one thing?

It is as if you ask "Why can't a judge believe someone is guilty and try to prove he isn't?" Judge is supposed not to believe anything about the accused prior to trial. Otherwise he tries to prove what he originally thought is right.

Faith goes against constant questioning. You dope yourself with faith to stop questioning and accept blindly what you had doubt before.

The thing I think about is, Scientists believe that the Universe is infinite, doesn't end. Why is that so much easier to believe then a God/Allah/Creator etc that is infinite? How does an infinite universe begin? It would have to have always been there cause there's no beginning or end...

I'm by no means a Bible basher/Coptic Soldier etc. I dislike religion etc, But to the non believers, will you guys whisper a silent prayer on your deathbed, just in case?

What utter bullshit. You seem to feel that faith is a morphia for the masses. I'm not blind and I'm not deaf and I'm not mute. And I'm not drugged.

And since when is it ok to mock other people's beliefs? Debate, yes. Mock? No. It's insulting and it's beneath us.

There are these constant demands for proof. There is no proof. That is the point of faith. It's something that you believe DESPITE the clamoring of non-believers. That is the true sign of FAITH. There are constant challenges in life that can tempt you to abandon your faith. But a true believer hangs on in the face of adversity. A true believer doesn't turn their back on their faith because life got too tough. A true believer simply believes.

For those that don't believe, have a nice day. I hope that your emptiness is filled with something else. I will continue to follow my own brand of faith. My God will love me and challenge me and care for me and mine.

While much of this has been interesting, it's apparently pointless. You all want to continue to mock the existence of God, have at it. Stick a fork in me.

And when adversity does come your way your faith will see you through and make you as a person stronger. And your faith becomes stronger. JMHO

This is something that I have references concerning the existence of an eternal God existing within a separate reality or plane that is not bound by elements such as time, space, etc., which are creations of His in our world. While people search for concrete examples of His existence, they are, in fact, searching for human based methods and constructs (science, education, experimentation, philosophy) to ascertain the precise nature of God.

I disagree with the premise that faith is blind. If you look to scripture, precisely the writings of St. Paul, who was an ardent persecutor of Christianity until his dramatic conversion, he incessantly calls upon people to open their minds through learning and education to develop a deeper underrstanding of God through Christ.

My belief and faith did not merely result from blind acceptance of what I was taught, but from applying thought and rationality. Reason and faith coexist.

You just mocked my views by calling it utter bullshit. So now it is okay for you, but not for me?

Not that I care what you call my views! I could do just the same for yours.





You sound like you are blind, deaf and drugged. You believe in things despite the fact that there is no proof for their existence.



Actually if anything with the dope of faith, you can cope with the tough times much better. I for one didn't turn my back on faith because of tough life. I think it braver, to live with no hope of reuniting with the deceased loved ones for one thing. Or thinking that you will be no more once you die. You've to be way braver to face these possibilities and not run to faith.



You've a nice day as well. Thanks, but no thanks.

This, and the rest of your post, is not an argument for God or for the existence of God. Just because we don't have definitive answers doesn't mean we ought to grasp onto some idea - however appealing (and I understand the appeal) - at the expense of the same rational analysis that makes us not cross a road when there's traffic hurtling along it.

Two things can be equally true; 2+2 is the same as 3+1. But these concepts you're dealing with do not amount to the same conclusion. That's another fallacy. There have been books and books and books written on the world from a religious point of view, and it's normally with the already-chosen agenda of somehow using the world as a proof for God's existence. Scientists don't research to directly disprove God, they do what they do so we can understand why and how the world around us works. And they do so with rigour, with consistency, with the continual attempt at disproving themselves. And with such research and technology, they can tell us how and why a plant photosynthesizes; they can predict the weather for us based on real things such as wind movements and changes in temperature. In contrast, where's the purpose in saying, 'plants photosynthesize because of God' or 'it is raining because of God'. That's idealism, and it's vague and it doesn't really help us at all. It might be appealing, it might be comforting, but it doesn't really offer much in the way of self-honesty.

I could just as easily reduce the entire Holocaust to 'God'. That's ignoring all the social and historical forces that allowed the Holocaust to happen: technological modernity, a largely indifferent and complacent Europe, the subversion of an entire history of anti-Semitism to a seemingly logical end by the Nazis. All of these are 'God', in that they are no less 'God' than Moses parting the sea, than the creation of the Earth in six days. They are no less coincidental. But 'God' remains a vague explanation for the Earth's beauty, its horrors, the seeming inexplicability of a purposeless humanity. I don't see a defence for such vagueness, neither socially nor intellectually; I can see a need for it, historically, as a means of understanding something that we didn't have other means of research to find out with. But as I said, 'God' is now an outmoded tyrant; perhaps a vital system of belief that has helped get us where we are today, just as the bourgeois revolution was a necessary part in the development of mankind. But look where capitalism is heading now, and us with it... Like I said, I think we need to change the fundamental forces that create these contradictions, and perhaps we'll see an eradication of 'God' as a 'social need', because as an 'intellectual need' he's been long dead.

I disagree that 'disproving something is easier than giving an alternative answer'. That's a harsh reduction of the entire history of Darwinian thought; of all intellectual endeavour, actually - the development of modern philosophy, of genuinely groundbreaking ideas in science and art that have given us new insights into the world.

Why does it make sense? Why does it have to make sense?

I'm not saying there isn't a God. I'm saying that socially, we don't need one - or shouldn't need one, as I've argued already - and that if there is one, he isn't the by-default morally good power that we supposed him to be. Again: he's the product of anthropomorphic self-projection (and self-protecting because of that), which is why there are so many flaws in God's apparent mode of operating; he's the product of primitive thinkers.

Again: without God, we do not become immoral beings without purpose. Without science, however, we remain primitive tribesmen.

Science allows us to 'overcome' God, whereas a belief in God is always going to be in spite of all the scientific development that points against creationism as well as other things.

Not only this, but all the other coincidences that had to occur after that in order to establish certain dominant bloodlines and the evolution of species. But that they did happen means they could happen; a coincidence is not an impossible occurrence occurring, but an improbable one. The odds are stacked against it, but then people do actually win the lottery every week.

The world is far stranger than you've even posited here; and science hasn't and doesn't explain these strange things overnight. It's always limited by and related to the economic and intellectual state of society, which is always changing. But why should questions of probability be washed away with 'The Grand Designer' in the name of, frankly, what I see as an intellectual convenience, a way of putting an end to all curiosity? I actually think it's a shame, and I'm not even a scientist.

Blib, try thinking of all the coincidences in your life that didn't occur, that haven't happened, to try and get an idea of the meaninglessness of attributing one improbable event to some sort of morally conscious being...

Since you're already thinking about this subject, which is a good thing, and since you recognise your belief as a conscious choice, which is also a good thing, you should also ask why you choose to 'believe in something more powerful than you'. Why does it have to be something or someone more powerful than you? What needs is that belief fulfilling? What psychological state warrants a 'hope' in 'something more powerful' than the self? Is it to account for the atrocities around that self? The social injustices? More than this, is it to account for one's sense of guilt in relation to these injustices and atrocities, one's sense of utter futility as an individual in a system full of individuals?

I don't know, and am not pretending to know. But these are all significant questions if we're to search for any truth within ourselves, with any sort of honesty. Faith is not called 'blind' just for the fun of it.

That's the first step to self-debilitating scepticism in the fashionable name of relativism.

How do you know the chair you're sitting on isn't a table?

No, because again the two opposing concepts do not weigh the same in research or rigour. It's true I've had a few jerk-off digs in this thread at the would-be nature of would-be God. At a God with an agenda, anyway, since a God without an agenda becomes redundant and meaningless. I guess that's me trying to show how 'absurd' God would be, if he existed.

But it's not a cop-out to say I don't know if there is one. Atheism isn't a belief there isn't a God, it's a refusal to believe in God.

You can argue that a belief either way is arrived at through reason (though I'd argue religious people are more likely to have inherited their faith, through family indoctrination, which is more or less child abuse; little reasoning involved). But though the process might be similar between the following two approachesthey do not amount to the same, because A's reasoning is sound and B takes a leap in logic for its answer; it's a fallacy.

No, a miracle is when a scientifically impossible event occurs.

You seem to hold nature in awe, as something beautiful and precious. You're right to do so. Things are far stranger than you can imagine.

But 'God' in this sense is just a word reducible to 'Nature' or 'Causality' or 'The Way Things Are and Will Always Be No Matter What Happens or Will Happen'; Hegel talked of 'God' in the same way.

It's a language game, but it's subtle and it's insidious; there's a whole contradictory idealism that comes with it by extension.

If God is not a continual moral force - an intervenor - then he is redundant, and we should eradicate all reference to him. If he is a continual moral force, then we should see in him his deep contradictions and the evils that he places around us.

Then faith is, as I've said, inherently exclusive from reason. Falling back onto the argument that you've arrived at this faith 'through reason', through the 'common sense' of asking 'well how else can a bee pollinate a flower, how else can we account for the miracle of life, how a plant photosynthesizes?' That isn't truthful reasoning; it's a fallacy.

'God' becomes a premature explanation. And in the absence of a society advanced enough to research the world with rigour and cogency, theism was a survival instinct, a means of man understanding himself and his relation to the world.

But now a belief in God is in spite of such scientific endeavour, in spite of the social advancement and intellectual development of mankind. Religion is far outmoded; it remains as primitive and naive as it was when Poseidon ruled the waves and Athena was goddess of wisdom and the arts and when Zeus ruled over both of them.

It's just a silly cop-out. Again, to go back to an earlier post: if I believed, despite showing in other areas of my life a clear capacity for rational analysis, that there were fairies living at the bottom of my garden, I would be mocked, and challenged. Don't pull my leg by saying I wouldn't be. And it'd be right to mock and challenge, in the face of how silly such a belief is; you can substitute 'I believe in God' with 'I believe in The Smurfs / Santa / The Tooth Fairy / The Devil' (all of whom, again, are just anthropomorphic self-projections (why does the Tooth Fairy look like a human? Why does the Devil have human features? It's BOLLOCKS!)). The same things apply, but the beliefs no longer appear as reasonable. And I don't see why 'God' should endure reason when nothing else does; I don't see why religion should be off-limits when everything else is thrown out once a child realises that Santa didn't come down the chimney last night, that the Tooth Fairy didn't leave a pound coin under the pillow.

'God' (I add quotation marks because I speak of an idea, not a being) is the great tyrant masking the truth from us all. Reducing your beautiful, inexplicable world to, as said, a premature explanation in the name of OHMYGOODNESS clarity.

My 'emptiness' is filled with my family, with my friends, with love for each of them; it's filled with the joys of cinema, of music, of art, of life; of people and their interrelations, their frustrations, their strangeness; the ineluctable irreconcilability of linearity - time itself; with memories fabricated, selected to protect me from the trauma of the present; with writing, with thinking - 'I think, therefore I am'; with quests for the truth, for the objective reality despite all attempts at the internalisation of the horizontal plane; with the churning of my stomach as I look at a girl and she looks at me; with the moral dilemmas of eating meat; with the daily struggle of the emancipation of the working class from the illusions of a 'selfish human nature'; with debates with people I've never met before but would love to meet, for they are humans, inherently mysterious, of interest, strange and unique and perishable and fragile - significant and expendable, meaningless and void; with the utter horror of mortality, and the liberation of such horrors; with outrage at the many social injustices of the world - the increasing decline of civilised man; with the writings of Trotsky, Lenin, Marx, Engels; the films of Patrick Keiller; James Joyce; Terrence Malick and Frederick Wiseman; James Gandolfini and Edie Falco kissing in a swimming pool; the peaks and troughs as I stand on the threshold of adulthood as a graduate in a world seemingly hostile to graduates; as a graduate in a relative privileged social and economic position, but one whose exploitation seems inevitable due to his relation to the means of production; DH Lawrence - Birkin and Gerald, their honest declaration of love for one another after that naked wrestle; the absolute heartbreak of a break-up; Aroon - her tits, arse, pubic bush; dark nights when the rest of the world seems to be sleeping and I lie awake wondering why I can't stop thinking why I'm wondering about nothing in particular and everything at once; my adolescent yearnings for innocence; weed-induced laughter; the naked comfort of comforting nakedness; transience, of which we are at the mercy, always and forever; the sweeping moment; when Michael shoots McClusky and Solozzo; when Vito shoots Fanucci; Noah23, Ihmotep, New York, Tuscany, poetry, green, red, blue, yellow and everything in between and beyond and within and without and what is said and unsaid and the faint sigh of delight as we realise there's really nothing to it after all.

And I guess I don't need the idea of a God to get me through any of that.

Actually, the universe is expanding, which means it cannot be infinite. But a belief in an infinite universe is arrived at by mathematics, by scientific research; scientists' understanding of these issues is always developing and changing, but crucially they are honest about it. They have to be, otherwise research becomes purposeless. There's consistency to it.

Regarding a belief in God, and I've heard many reasonings, there's either a fallacy at the outset or some sort of leap of logic at the end. It's just a language game, wherein 'God' becomes reducible to 'Nature' or 'Causality' or 'The Way Things Are and Will Be No Matter How They Are Are What They Are'. The language employed by believers allows them to account for many incompatible worldviews formed by materialism: evolution, the Big Bang, etc. 'God' made the world and now we're fit to explore it as we wish, with science and all those other 'human constructs'. Meanwhile, God watches down out of curiosity as to how we're getting on...

But the belief in God remains a product of a logical fallacy; I've dealt sufficiently I think in my two previous posts as to why this fallacy might have such social appeal - a belief in something beyond us and above us helps us to remain aware of our own hopelessness: this is the true meaning of 'hope', it's actually a product of despair.

This brings me nicely onto Klyd's last post:

Okay, fine. So he 'incessantly calls upon people to open their minds through learning and education to develop a deeper understanding of God through Christ'. Cool. But how does that help with your reasoning? How is 'learning and education to develop a deeper understanding of God through Christ' any more cogent than simply saying 'I cannot account for many things in the world, therefore I believe in God'. The two don't even connect, they don't have the same meaning.

Well, I suppose you've got to have some faith in what you read and accept, otherwise you'd be another self-debilitating sceptic.

But saying you have applied 'thought and rationality' to arrive at the knowledge of God's existence does not mean you did apply 'thought and rationality'. It's just another vague linguistic trick.

So: What's your reasoning for God?

Afs, I was quite rude to you. You are the last person on this board that deserves that kind of treatment, and I hope you accept my apology. I respect you and your intellect tremendously.

I admire your intelligence and the way your mind works, Capo. Very interesting reads. Like I said in my first post. I'm a spiritual dude, who follows his own spirituality. I believe in a creator, yes, But I don't believe in these rules and hell and tests. I don't think it really gives a shit what I'm up to etc. For me the main reason I believe, is I just have to look around. Everything is perfect. Such a perfect design. Religion has poisoned everything.

The big bang theory sounds as plausible to me as God does to the Atheists. The theory we came from Monkeys also sounds like a crock of shit to me. We were killing Monkeys to conquer the planet. But that's a different debate...