<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chutney)</div><div class='quotemain'> This doesn't make any sense. How can you criticize people for trying to understand something that is supposedly "incomprehensible" and then go ahead and state without a doubt that there's no God, religion is just a fable, it's created for a sense of security, etc? You're making the same mistake that you're criticizing religious people for making (having the arrogance to think you know the answer, without a doubt). I'm not saying that religion is necessarily true, but you can never rule out the possibility that it is.</p></div> Itmakesperfectsense.</p> Idontknowtheanswerofhowtheworldwascreated,Ihavenoclue,noonedoes,nooneeverwill,thatwasmypoint.I'msayingReligionisafarce,thereisnoproofbackingupclaimsofanyreligion,itsallheresayandspeculation.You'redefendingsomthingthereisnowayofproving.I can prove religion is a farce, because I can provide you with nothing that suggests otherwise.Its like me saying I have a million dollars in my bank account, its not there, but I believe it is,butthat it doesnt change the fact its not really there.</p>
I personally don't hold too much value to the very concept of religion. I think it's based on an evolutionary definition of entitlement that humans have, and is effective because it caters to our fears of the afterlife. Of course having a penchent for psychology, I find religion as a perfectly understandable concept, and a very effective strategy of improving self-esteem, and seeking understanding; these are all very natural (and expected!) behaviors of a human being. So much though that someone who finds these natural, expected, behaviors to be idiotic actually exhibits inhumane patters of thinking.</p> Edit: to make this a little more clear, I should note that use other means of seeking self-esteem / general understanding goals.</p>
[quote name='NTC'][quote name='Chutney']</p> Itmakesperfectsense.</p> Idontknowtheanswerofhowtheworldwascreated,Ihavenoclue,noonedoes,nooneeverwill,thatwasmypoint.I'msayingReligionisafarce,thereisnoproofbackingupclaimsofanyreligion,itsallheresayandspeculation.You'redefendingsomthingthereisnowayofproving.I can prove religion is a farce, because I can provide you with nothing that suggests otherwise.</p> [/QUOTE]</p> Are you sure you don't know? Because if you are then maybe the world was created in seven days or by a magic wand. Das de point.</p> It's hypocritical to "say that's not how the world was created but I don't know how it was and no one ever will".</p> I could prove democracy is a farce does that mean I'm right?</p> </p>
Why? I'm not offering any theories as to how the world was created. I dont know, no one knows,nooneneverwill, thats my point. It's not hypocritical at all. What I do know, is some guy called God didnt create the earth, because thats a physical imbossibility, and there was no guy called Jesus who managed to resurect himself, because again, thats phsyically impossible to do.
I at times think we are pets to some aliens out there, and they're just playing with us. lol</p> But yea there is no way to know what happend millions or billions of years ago. Maybe we always existed like we are now...who knows.</p>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lukewarmplay)</div><div class='quotemain'></p> I've got a pretty good idea as to how the world was created.</p> </div></p> </p> I believe in the big bang theory. That's just what makes the most sense to me.</p>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NTC)</div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chutney)</div><div class='quotemain'></p> This doesn't make any sense. How can you criticize people for trying to understand something that is supposedly "incomprehensible" and then go ahead and state without a doubt that there's no God, religion is just a fable, it's created for a sense of security, etc? You're making the same mistake that you're criticizing religious people for making (having the arrogance to think you know the answer, without a doubt). I'm not saying that religion is necessarily true, but you can never rule out the possibility that it is.</p> </div></p> Itmakesperfectsense.</p> Idontknowtheanswerofhowtheworldwascreated,Ihavenoclue,noonedoes,nooneeverwill,thatwasmypoint.I'msayingReligionisafarce,thereisnoproofbackingupclaimsofanyreligion,itsallheresayandspeculation.You'redefendingsomthingthereisnowayofproving.I can prove religion is a farce, because I can provide you with nothing that suggests otherwise. Its like me saying I have a million dollars in my bank account, its not there, but I believe it is,butthat it doesnt change the fact its not really there.</p> </div></p> </p> You're still contradicting yourself. The "millions dollars in my bank account" analogy doesn't work, because you know for sure that its not true. But we're talking about a topic that you yourself admitted is impossible to know for certain. How can you say that and then confidently say something like there's no such thing as God? You're claim has no more evidence than the one's you're criticizing. <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NTC)</div><div class='quotemain'>Why? I'm not offering any theories as to how the world was created. I dont know, no one knows, no one never will, thats my point. It's not hypocritical at all. What I do know, is some guy called God didnt create the earth, because thats a physical imbossibility, and there was no guy called Jesus who managed to resurect himself, because again, thats phsyically impossible to do.</div>This doesn't make sense either. IF you're going to consider the existence of a Christian God, then you can't fool around with the definition of it. A Christian God is omnipotent and wouldn't be restrained by natural/scientific laws (eg: gravity, thermodynamics, conservation of energy, etc.). According to Christianity, God created these laws and is above and beyond them. So it really isn't an impossibility that God could've created the universe.</p>
Just because you are agnostic, doesn't mean everyone else is an idiot if they aren't.</p> I hate elitists.</p>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CelticKing)</div><div class='quotemain'></p> I at times think we are pets to some aliens out there, and they're just playing with us. lol</p> But yea there is no way to know what happend millions or billions of years ago. Maybe we always existed like we are now...who knows.</p> </div></p> There are ways to know as well as you "know" anything.</p> But the idea that somebody set off the universe is, right now, unknowable. Let's say someone did- they set a few parameters for the laws of physics, ignited a singularity- would that make them god?</p> I had a weird discussion about this and about free will the other day. He was of the opinion that if the above were the case, if you could make the universe run along a set path, then that eliminates free will. My counter was that at a quantum level everything is probabilistic, so even if someone set the probablilities, they couldn't predict outcomes with certainty, and so you can't set the universe along a path. But his point was that was only as far as our current level of understanding goes.</p> Free will is strange. It makes no difference, kind of, if it exists or not, as it changes nothing in a practical sense. But he made the very good point that if there is free will, there is still very very little of it. The actions you take and the thoughts you think are largely constrained by your genetics and your environment. I like to cling to that little sliver of free will, though. We have a friend who's a playwright who doesn't believe in it at all, which is bizarre to me.</p> </p>
I just wrote a paper on that very same topic (centered around Augustine's views). Originally I was going to criticize his compatibilist view of free will, but the more I read about it, the more I began to think the other way. Free will is such a superficial concept, but we defend it so vigorously and place so much importance upon it. It's tempting to believe that if God has foreknowledge of every thing that will happen, that it eliminates free will and any responsibility we have for our actions. But when you think about it, foreknowledge really doesn't compel us to act in a certain way. There are other things in life that we overlook that compel us much more and which could supposedly contradict the commonly accepted conception of free will (ie: our upbringing, genetics, past decisions, etc.). I tend to view free will in a more simple form: namely our ability to think about what decision to make beforehand and reflect on that decision afterwards.</p>
I was struggling with that problem too, but I think it comes down to a matter of perspective. We all believe that we can rationalize our various choices before a decision is made. When there's no compulsion, we believe that the choice we make is the one we want to make. After a the decision is made and we deal with its consequences, we can reflect upon it and debate over whether or not we should have acted in that manner. Then in what sense are we affected by the fact that some transcedant being, that we often have no tangible experience with, knew what we were going to do and what would come out of it beforehand? It may all be predestined from the perspective of that God, but not necessarily from ours. None of that really changes the fact that we thought about and chose that decision "freely." Not sure if that made much sense (probably should've waited until I got my mark before sharing the opinion with others, lol).</p>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (peg182)</div><div class='quotemain'></p> <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lukewarmplay)</div><div class='quotemain'></p> I've got a pretty good idea as to how the world was created.</p> </div></p> </p> I believe in the big bang theory. That's just what makes the most sense to me.</p> </div></p> There's a great corallary that goes with that. I was watching a show on discovery times, or one of their sister-science channels, and theres a spreading theory that the universe is oscilating (explains why its currently getting bigger right now). I forget what the belief is on why it does this, maybe it has something to do with energy. Anyway, after it reaches a certain size, it collapses back onto itself untill is uber-dense, and then explodes.</p> ...the big bang.</p> so yeah it's going to get VERY crowded one of these days. and then you'll die. </p> </p>
I never understood what people meant by "the universe is getting bigger." Does that there's some sort of barrier that we could crash into?</p>
lol, I know, the bing bang theory is an interesting one but I have a problem with it because I don't see how you can have something out of nothing, having an explosion out of nothing and therefore we have the universe, doesn't make sense to me.</p> Same with religions, I don't believe that "someone" (aka god or whatever) made up everything, and created us, but at the same time I don't believe that we came to existence from nothing, there is no proof of that...</p> But what do i know... </p>
Well the whole oscilating universe theory explains that big bang part. The big bang apparently never came out of nothing, but rather every particle of matter was condensed into this small area. Obviously this would contain unthinkable amounts of energy...enough to cause an explosion the size of the universe.</p>
But you can have something out of nothing. You can have very energetic particle appear out of nothing for short periods of time. You can even make your own universe out of nothing, according to Brian Greene.</p> "The question is, why is there something instead of nothing?" -Grant Morrison, Doom Patrol</p>
