OT - Über's Open Debate Thread

Seriously? Bloody Hell!

 

Well done, Travis. I can always rely on you to get your head around the serious issues.

 

Why thank you Sir

 

I'm sure it's just me being dense, Uber. I'll consider this and get back you.

 

I think that the reason I am missing your point, Uber, may be because I don’t feel the uncertainty that you (and Col) may feel. I don’t believe in a God, and I do believe that we are all here by accident – no outside intervention. I don’t feel the need for an explanation of my existence or for a purpose to my life – other than for it be as fulfilled as I can make it, whilst respecting others and bringing up my children to do the same. I believe that I, along with most others, have a pretty well-defined sense of what is right or wrong, because we, most of us, have empathy towards others. We don’t need God to tell us what to do any more. It is empathy that raises us above the animals.

Serious crimes (murder, rape, robbery) are not wrong because God says so, or because I say so, they just are wrong – who would disagree? Of course, individuals may differ on the validity of laws relating to less serious crimes, but, in a democracy, these are defined by the majority. This seems perfectly reasonable to me. If an individual, or a group of individuals, feels strongly enough about the unjustness of a particular law, they can set about persuading the majority to change it.

Your point about choosing God’s law over Man’s is interesting. Isn’t this what religious fundamentalist terrorists believe they are doing?

I fear I may still not have adequately addressed your philosophical point, Uber, and apologise if that is the case – maybe I just am too dense.

By the way, the existence of God, or some other form of outside influence is something that I would be delighted to be proved wrong about.

 

Bloody hell is this thread still going!? Take a break lads

 

The failure lies with me, Stroller, but I thank you for your patience.

 

OK, had some time to ponder today - here's the thing (and I'm more than happy to discuss these and other questions with anyone, but won't get into any heated arguments, and won't respond to people who aren't interested in reasoned debate on this, because it's an important and emotive subject, and I don't want to allow it to descend into acrimony and anger - as it so easily could....) :

1) Do you believe that the bible is an accurate telling of history?

In most cases, yes I do. I am aware that in some cases, archaeologic and scientific research tends to disagree, but a history on our planet lasting billions of years (as an example) is often expressed as a parable in ways that the audience of the day can relate. That's not just true of the Bible, it's true across all ancient literature, from the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, the Norse tales, and those more recently translated, such as the North American Indian and australian Aboriginal history.

The best answer is that whilst I believe some of the Bible is accurate histric record and some is parable, I believe that ALL of it is the inspired word of God written down through his followers.

2) Do you believe that the World was created by a religious God?

Yes I do. Whether in six days or over billions of years, doesn't really matter. It's not just here by accident, and neither are we.

3) If you do believe that God made the World, how do you think the Universe came about? Did a God create that too?

By definition and extension, the same answer applies.

4) Do you believe that we're the only life in the Universe?

No idea. And frankly, this doesn't really have an impact into my faith. If there's other life, then the same supreme creative being (that we call God) is there as well as here.

5) If not, did God create "aliens", if they exist, too?

See above - I really don't know, and have no real need to decide. Sometimes I wonder whether there is any life out there, but it's purely curiosity, not a spiritual question.

6) Do you believe that the Earth is only a matter of thousands of years old, as Creationists do?

In all honesty, no I don't. However, as I mentioned before, the fact that the information was written down and passed down through the BC years would have impacted how it was expressed, and I doubt the concept of 'billions of years' would have meant anything. But a few thousand, or a hundred generations, would have been understood. For one thing, it means that Matthew Chapter 1 doesn't require a million volumes all to itself with all of the 'begats'! In a nutshell, the pure statistics are less important than the message and the meaning, for me.

7) How do equate your beliefs to the scientific theory that our World will eventually die when our Sun dies in a few billion years' time?

Not a problem at all for me - because if I believe in a God who can make it all, that also means the same God can take it all away. The important thing is my relationship with God and how that affects my life, my values, my behavior, and my attitudes. Something that scientists believe will happen in six billion years has no bearing on today. That's not being dismissive, it's just that - to go back to your first point - the 'end of the world' is covered in the Bible, and says how the story ends.

 

I think I agree with most of that. Although, I should point out that I don't believe that there is a creative God that is judging us or whom we should please in some way.
However, I simply can't accept that the Universe (and any others that may be out there) appeared out of nothing. I watched a programme by Stephen Hawkin where he tried to show how the "big bang" could have come from NOTHING. Whilst a fair bit of what he said went way over my head, he failed to convince me (and science in general I believe) that you can get something from nothing. That you can have a vacuum with absolutely nothing and then....bang, all these ingredients just appear and start to mingle.
I believe something must have made these elements available in the first place..............but then I get to that eternal question of where did whatever supplied those ingredients come from............and then I lie awake at night!!

 

Thanks Willy.

I in turn, need time to ponder. I'll get back to you.

 

Well done Willy

Whether you try and untangle the bible even try and bend it your way ... it's hard to argue its sentiment about Black and white, right or wrong ... exactly the same crimes throughout history will always be committed ... The difference is today we all think we are smarter than the people who came before us ... are we really?

 

Wow, I've only just bothered to read some of this and have to say what a great thread.(didn't deserve my cock soup pic,sorry). Agree with stroller about authorities in the past using the fear of God, these days the fear used is terrorism! Raised a catholic I no longer believe in organised religion, it's a farce, a corrupt business I no longer will take part in.

 

My word, a couple of days out and we are deep into metaphysics and the nature of human beings.

This format is great for ensuring everyone has a voice, but a little limiting in other ways. I'm with Stroller on most of this stuff.

God - unprovable either way, but I've never seen any reason to believe, and even less to believe in a benign God which 'loves' and cares for us, which requires us to worship it and beg forgiveness for our imperfections, without which we would not know the difference between right and wrong. What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. I can tell you that I know, because I dreamed it or a wise man told me, that there is a planet billions of light years away where QPR have won the Champions League 20 years in a row. You can't prove otherwise, so would it be reasonable for me to expect you to believe it? I know some require this belief framework to give their lives some kind of meaning, but I'm happy to be a meaningless accident of chemistry and physics, the alternative to me is slavery. I think the origins of worship of the supernatural were simply ignorance, a desire to explain the unknown. With the development of organised religion it turned into something much more malign. But such is the genius of the human being that we have pushed back the boundaries, allowed ourselves to understand the universe better with each passing generation, despite the shackles that the mumbo jumbo of religion, to which every scientific advance is a stab to the heart, has tried to place on it every step of the way. There will always be uncertainty, the unknown and probably the permanently unknowable to humans - our brains are only so big, they haven't evolved for hundreds of thousands of years, but we have got ages worth of real knowledge to work with now. I think we should cherish the unknown, relax with the fact that some questions may never be answered. As Stroller says my life has fulfillment and integrity in lots of ways, but I love the fact that at the back of my mind I also know that its also absurd. The alternatives to this view are I think to search for meaning (fruitlessly) through God, or suicide.

DT are we smarter than our ancestors - no, there's no biological difference in the size or complexity of our brains. But we have tens of thousands of years of experience and knowledge to draw on now, as well as the time to do it, so we have a big advantage. My brain was in much better shape when I was 17 than it is now, but I make better decisions today. Difference is experience.

Willy , respect for being so open about your beliefs and responding so well to questions. There will always be believers, and if it makes them happy, great. I get a bit cross with preaching, forcing beliefs on children, making people wear certain things or eat certain foods, denying scientific proofs, all that totalitarian crap. But if you really believe I guess you have no option but to spread the word. Is your God, a Christian one from what I understand, the same one as the Islamic and Jewish God? I assume you also believe in an afterlife (the real carrot in the religion game) - is this available to all or only those who follow your brand of Christianity?

Uber your take on human nature is indeed dark if you feel that God and electricity are the only things keeping us from tearing each other to pieces. Or you have a box set of Survivors from the 70s. I understand where you are coming from, and I agree that it would be very nasty indeed for a long time if we lost basic services and the ability to enforce the law fairly (thats another debate I know). But even those with a very jaundiced view of our species, the game theorists, think that self interest of individuals actually ultimately drives a kind of equilibrium - to the extent that they advocate everyone should act purely out of self interest and never through altruism. Trouble is, even their own experiments with real people show that we don't always act out of rational self interest. And we have real examples of collapsed states where I would certainly not want to live, like Somalia, where amazingly, life goes on - babies are born, and ordinary people co-operate to try and make life bearable. It's an irony of the human condition that although we all feel that we are distinct, unique individuals (and I myself bang on about individual liberty) we are of course totally dependent on each other, we are an intensely social and co-operative species. The idea of division of labour - let Stan build the shelter while Uber hunts for dinner, we'll get twice as much done that way, and have some time to think and develop some culture at the end of the day, tell a story or sing a song, so we've done more than simply survive - can't be forgotten. There have been many truly horrible episodes of chaos and anarchy through history, some lasting a long time, but order and progress always returns. Apparently 39% of us Brits now profess to be atheists, so I think we can do without God in our post apocalypse rebuild, we'd probably get it done faster, we'll know the basics of right and wrong without some dictator telling us, just like we will without believing there are fairies at the bottom of the garden.

Sorry, I've droned on. Great thread. In relation to nothing, I like the old Japanese way of compartmentalizing - we all have three hearts, one which we share with everyone, one which we share only with our family and one which is totally private to ourselves.

 

Those who find themselves ridiculous, sit down next to me.

 

My pleasure, James.

 

There's so many questions buried in that paragraph, both asked and implied. Let me try to give my perspective on them all.

First of all, the direct ones. I believe in God, as the Bible expresses God. I really don't know whether the God I believe in is the same as the Islamic one, whatever the similarities and inconsistencies in our relative religious texts. I do believe that my God is the same one as the God that Jews worship, the difference being their rejection of Jesus as part of the Trinity (something else that separates us from Islam). That's also the answer to your second question about salvation / heaven / afterlife. Without meaning to preach (cos I know you don't like that ! ) the New Testament states over and again that the only way to Heaven is through belief and a personal decision to follow Jesus. So that's what I believe. That doesn't mean my 'brand' of Christianity is exclusive, because clearly a similar belief exists across CofE, Catholic, Methodist, Quaker, etc etc. But it does mean that adherence to New Testament doctrine is key.

OK. Your statement about 'having no option but to spread the word' does apply if a person's faith is a real, life-impacting one and not just a 'sunday club'. That doesn't mean the guy on the soapbox in the dark suit with the big black bible, preaching hell and damnation (which many non-Christians still believe is the stereotype preacher). For me it's about how I live, how I treat people, although sometimes this will provoke conversations. I'd guess it's around 90% non-verbal, and the 10% is rarely kicked off directly by me. I do know people for whom their evangelism is more of a direct thing in public speaking and in writing, and I also have friends who you would classify as 'missionaries' (such as a lady living and working in a town in East Africa, helping work with local women to run a shelter and a school for people who otherwise would have no home, no education and no food - but in which little direct 'preaching' ever happens despite the local customs being much more accepting of that than we are.) But it's how what we believe affects out heart, our behavior, and our approach to ourselves and others, that is the key. If that's right, then the messages we give out (both verbal and non-verbal) will carry the right spirit.

Sorry - I was getting a little too 'preachy' there, which isn't my intent - but I wanted to answer your questions as well as I could.

 

No need to apologise, your belief compels you to respond like that, otherwise your faith would be immaterial as it would not affect the way you live. There's no real point me extending this, it would jeopardise the spirit and tone of this excellent thread and probably put me in breach of the board rules. But just as you are compelled to declare your faith in a book which was written decades, if not centuries (Revelations - tell me you don't believe in the Whore of Babylon!) after the events it claims to describe, and which contains multiple inconsistencies, I am compelled to say how delighted I am not to be a slave to this kind of stuff.

 

DT are we smarter than our ancestors - no, there's no biological difference in the size or complexity of our brains. But we have tens of thousands of years of experience and knowledge to draw on now, as well as the time to do it, so we have a big advantage. My brain was in much better shape when I was 17 than it is now, but I make better decisions today. Difference is experience.


wait until you are 65 then do another assessment

 

[video=youtube;o0UC-HaIblA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0UC-HaIblA[/video]

 

Compels is the wrong word - I answered questions put to me in the most honest and complete way I could, and make no apologies for including references to the bible in that. And as for Revelation, I refer you to what I said before about a mix of historic fact and parable. And my faith is in God, not in a 'book' - no matter how important that book is or how central it's text is to the faith of billions around the world and the legal institutions of a great many countries.

Anyway - best not to continue down that route, because neither of us want to get there, partly because I want the thread to continue, and partly because I've already stated I'm not posting here to argue about my beliefs, which is where I fear this particular one may be going soon....