Off Topic Dark Matter and other Astronomy information.

Big claims demand big evidence. Got any?

And I think I've been careful NOT to disparage anyone's faith - just the narrative of biblical creation. And that last sentence is just circular logic. You're an educated bloke Dave: I respect your faith but to say that we don't know enough to disprove God's existence is shifting the burden of proof from those proposing a theory to those demanding proof. You don't moonlight on FA 'Independent' panels, do you?

 

Ok let's take that Genesis timetable first. For me it's a fable but a necessary one given the audience that it was written for. However, that does not for me shake the basis that until God acted nothing existed. Hence all that has transpired since has done so as a result of God's decision.

No I haven't got any BIG evidence and neither do I need to produce any. I told you that it was a personal process and did not have to conform to the processes that limit your understanding. That you are not prepared to leave your safety net is your issue. But if you do wish to stay within your comfort blanket then bring forward the scientific evidence that proves that God does not exist. I am saying that you do not have that level of proof.

Whilst you say that you are careful NOT to disparage anyone's faith then why start one of your discussions with JB with "Why did this God dude, if He is so omnipotent like, not just create humans and the Garden of Eden and all that on day one?"? Would you not find the tone displayed more than slightly disparaging?

I share saints opinion upon the discussion of this topic. I want to hold an adult quasi-academic dialogue wherein ideas can be exchanged and explored in an effort to promote greater knowledge and understanding. But the topic appears to promote just far too much heat!!!

 

Two things: disparaging the notion that an omnipotent being created the universe/life is not disparaging faith, per se - just the omnipotent creator business. Secondly, can you disprove that the sun is not Lord Frith?

Lord Frith is the sun, whom the rabbits deem as a god. According to the rabbits, he created the world. He is known to have several messengers, like The Black Rabbit of Inle or Prince Rainbow. He uses these to messengers to comunicate with the animals of Earth when he is unable to. Lord Frith stopped communicating with animals after the days of El-ahrairah, Prince Rainbow, and Rabscuttle were over. El-ahrairah was the Prince of the forest, with his people living in peace and harmony with the other animals of the forest. Until one day, when his people started multiplying out of control. Lord Frith told him to control them, but El-ahrairah told Frith that his people are the strongest in the world.Lord Frith saw this as arrogance and told El-ahrairah that if he won't control his people, that he will do it.

So, he gave a gift to every animal and bird in the forest. However, with these gifts came predators such as a dog a wolf, a hawk, a fox, and a weasel. To each of them, Frith gave them the desire to hunt and kill El-ahrairah's people. But Lord Frith also wanted to bestowed a gift upon El-ahrairah and his people. El-ahrairah was running when Frith came to see him, for he knew that Frith was upset with him so El-ahrairah said that if there was a gift to be given then it should go to his bottom. So Frith gave him the gifts of speed, cunning, digging, and a good sense of hearing, and he told him that his people no longer cover the world, but as long as they use the gifts he gave to them, they will never perish.



Ergo the rabbits from Watership Down are as right as Moses. But seriously, your narrative is no stronger, nor more valid, than the Australian Aborigines', the Aztecs' or the Eskimos'. Their faith can't be disproved either.

 

So do these limitations of knowledge and intellect only apply to non-believers, whilst believers are exempt from them?
As I said earlier, I have no wish to try and undermine someone's deeply held belief, but I would expect that consideration to be reciprocated. To suggest that non-believers are somehow "limited" in their understanding is a bit too patronising.
JB says he has frequently questioned his faith but retains it. Please allow for the fact that many of us who have lost it have also given it the same degree of serious consideration, and have simply come to a different conclusion.

 

If you care to look back through this thread you will see that I too found and strengthened my faith via years of questioning. And yes I do allow for those like yourselves who lost their faith (that's a horrible expression but I suppose it will do). In fact it is comforting in these discussions to know that there are people who may not share your position but do have an understanding of where you stand.

As for the emboldened statement. I think this time you protest just a little too much. I did say that I was talking personally and I was commenting upon a particular argument.

 

So if I can't disprove that the sun shines out of your arse then by your logic it must.

 

I reckon I'd replace 'fable' with 'allegory'

#semanticsruleok

 

Can we limit the religious banter to the 'philosophy' thread please? This thread is reserved for debunking Sisu's ludicrous anti-science

 

. & for the allegory

 

Top man, dave

 

I've tried to be civil but shut the f**k up you fat useless blob of apathy. Debunking to you is rolling off the top bed, drunk, and crashing to the floor and smashing up your arm.

You haven't debunked anything either btw.

I truly wonder what "science" you actually get involved with, more likely you uselessly occupy a desk space somewhere and do little if any f**king work.

It's not my anti science as you call it, I have done no scientific research of any kind, it's literally boredom and posting some stuff, not trying to steer a scientific community towards a new reality or something like that. FFS. It's a football forum You do Irony yeah? Your attitude is anti science, totally discount and mock anything that doesn't fit your belief system.

To debunk any of it you need to get your ample ass into a lab or shut your hole

It's my thread btw, go "steer" your own Emerdale thread in the direction you wish to

 

No. By your logic it must.

 

BINGO

 

I had 'left' this thread after discussion with saint but seeing further activity, came back for a gander.

I think your tone DD was one that I encounter a lot from non-believers the 'dude' type rhetoric which is not how you usually converse on here [at first it reminded me of tobes scouse-isms i.e. trying to put people down in an 'I'm cooler than you' type of way]. I'm not remotely offended by it but question why you need to use phraseology you don't normally use. To highlight your anti-religion stance maybe? Your response to my 'all life is a miracle' was to throw camcer in there, again, unnecessary.

As I say, I'm not offended by your views, they're different to mine, that's life etc. etc, but you have come across as trivialising my personal position [as a believer]with no desire to understand it further or even put forward a reasonable argument for your own position.

 

I guess it depends on your definition of 'a miracle'. In many respects it is. It's a 'survivor'. It causes the human race great pain and terrible distress, but it does what it needs to do to 'live'.

 

Of course. Everyone has their own definition of miracle - the whole experience of seeing a child born may be a miracle for one person but others may see it as gruesome [the baby is loved but not the actual act bringing it into the world]. I don't need to give more examples, you get what I mean. I didn't expect a response about all life being a miracle to be about a heinous illness [?] that has taken people from all of us in the cruellest way. I hate seeing nature programmes where animals kill each other but I understand how that bit of nature works even if I still can't fully comprehend how flowers 'know' when to bloom and what colour to be - you can see the huge gap in my scientific knowledge there

It's a difficult subject and very personal, even those of faith have different views and outlooks.

 

That's what makes the world such an interesting (and dangerous) place to inhabit.

 

And that's another thing about our wonderful 'design' and the hand of this God 'dude' - if you were designing a mammal to have a harder time giving birth the 'dude' couldn't have done better than female homo sapiens. Some say this flaw - that even up to a few hundred years killed 1-in-four women giving birth (still does in undeveloped countries) - is another throwback to our simian ancestry and evolving to walk upright, but maybe the grand-designer is just a misogynist. Certainly looks like that from a Catholic/Islamic perspective...

Look, if I am being flippant and dismissive it is not about faith, but the claims made about a grand designer-creator. I'll not trot out Karl Popper or Hulme again, but it's preposterous to espouse theories of creation and design and for them not to be challenged by reason. To drop names, I once had a -brief- exchange of views with Peter Hitchens online, an arch-Anglican who couldn't have differed from his late brother more vehemently. His preposition was that he couldn't accept that God did not design life and that evolution was (broadly) right as this would erode one of the main foundations of the bible. But so was the notion of the geo-centric universe before Gallileo, and the reluctant, it must be said, eventual acceptance of the earth rotating around the sun didn't mean all faith was baseless.

As previously mentioned, my daughter was christened by one of the most intelligent men I've ever come across; a High-Anglican priest with a scientific doctorate to his name. I truly believe that the New Testament, the only sequel to better the original apart from the Godfather II, was a fantastic Humanist tract by which our culture and morals have been formed. In the words of McCartney's Let It Be, my late mother (and father) do sometimes come to me in comforting dreams in which I can see, touch, hear and even smell them in a realistic way that delights and astounds me, even though I'm often aware that it is a dream I'm having whilst I'm actually in it (wish I could have a dream about Kylie like that though...). I don't know if I've been 'visited' or that this is - probably - my unconscious mind mining the databank of my experiences and memories to comfort me, and if so, is THIS God's creation: to gently pervade our thoughts and feelings to do the right thing?

I don't know. I have an open mind. What I am dismissive about is adherence to fairy stories of Arks, spare ribs, serpents and brimstone. They were just ways of controlling the masses, the television and Stella Artois of their day. And I'm sorry if my impatience of such drivel is offensive.

 

DD I don't think you have an open mind at all. I think you'd like to think you do but evidence is to the contrary.

I'm reminded of 'methinks the lady doth protest too much' in that you seem hell bent on damning a God you don't even believe exists!

 

Not once have I said I don't believe a 'God' doesn't exist - I just don't think there's one iota of evidence that 'it' created anything, including us.