Off Topic Dark Matter and other Astronomy information.

Metastasis is just cancer moving to another area, a cancerous cell transported by the blood or lymph. I think you are right about DD. I think he was being a touch flippant. His point, I think, was if you accept good miracles then you have to accept bad miracles, as God was responsible for both. Just because they are tragedies doesn't make them any less miraculous. Or something like that.

 

If the tricks were all easy there'd be no need for illusionists. You have to ask yourself which is more likely: they somehow managed to sneak a platform in there, or a man really can walk on water. If the latter were true it would be on every headline on every media outlet in the known universe not on some channel 4 magic show.
I'm not an illusionist so I don't know how most tricks are done, but tricks they most certainly are.

 

God didn't create human disease, microbes evolving caused that.

I see you've started a new thread following on from discussions on here, I may join in over there and give Sisu his dark matter back

 

Should I now post this response on the philosophical kebab thread????

Anyway, JB, I'm not sure we're discussing the actual point each other was making.

I thought you were correcting my post thinking I was claiming science had no absolutes which would in fact being an absolute. When I meant was that science is merely a methodology for answering any question, including are there any absolutes. I wasn't suggesting science had a Rule that there are no absolutes so was just clarifying. I was challenging the notion (you didn't make) that science is somehow this opposite of religion.

I then looked at absolutes with reference to religion or if you like faith and by faith I assumed faith in a deity with consciousness otherwise what exactly do you have "faith" or trust in? The higher power is an absolute. You can then if you like, organise institutions around that faith (religion) , to celebrate, proclomate etc etc but it has a starting point that isn't questionable.

Otherwise it's merely a "feeling" that we are part of something bigger. That's quite general. Scientists have that feeling without assigning it a consciousness. Maybe our definitions of faith are different which has lead to arguing different arguments if you know what I mean? (If you do you've an advantage over me!)

Your spirituality may be undefined which is fine but then what are you putting "faith" in? If there is no definition of the higher power in regards to what or who it is that you believe then faith isn't really necessary, belief in the absence of proof would suffice. In my definition faith has more commitment than mere belief. Faith would come after the deity has been defined.

E.g. you can believe a higher power exists. But unless you have direct communication with that deity you either stay at belief but ignorant of its character, or assign it a character you make up, or you accept what someone else tells you is the deitys character. You then have faith that that is true and all that you have been told regarding what the deity is and wants is to be upheld in absence of definitive proof.

If it's just the acceptance that there may be higher planes of existence out there then I share that belief in the possible. I feel I am a very small part of a bigger picture. But I don't have enough information or rather I don't believe any of the declarations put to me by existing religions enough to have faith in that particular version.

My consciousness doesn't like the cold unemotional declaration of atheists that this is it either. It seems to be a waste of self awareness incasing it in a fragile and extremely finite body but I suppose my feelings under that view are irrelevant to the existence carrying on without me.

Probably should move this lol....

 

That's a little confrontational, if I may say so, DD

 

Now then, you can't have it both ways, that's cheating. You can't say that an omniscient, omnipotent being created the universe but absolve Him of responsibility for all the stuff you don't like.
This is one of the things that wind up non-believers.

 

If answering me in anyway JB I see its probably better to do so on the kebab thread as that is what is being discussed lol

 

I'm not cheating. I believe that God created a good world with no disease [the advent of human disease is being studied] part of that good world was giving us free will. Now what some have done with that free will, war, hunger etc some want to somehow put that on God as well. It's a bit like saying the designer and creator of let's say a train is responsible for the lives that are taken in a crash. Doesn't work like that. But don't think for one minute that as a believer I haven't questioned my faith many times when awful things have happened.

 

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Dopplegangers and parallel worlds.... or even better, that feeling you have been somewhere or deja vu, is that another parallel reality that crosses over? Think I saw this on one of the through the wormholes. Was pretty interesting.

Oh and ghosts.

 

I don't want to get into an argument with someone about their faith- I can only speak for myself.
I was brought up in a Catholic household and went to a series of Catholic schools. When I grew old enough to think for myself, the argument you put was one of the things that completely undermined my faith.
I was told God is everywhere at all times, therefore He knew when he created the world exactly how it would turn out. The free will thing is, imo, just a convenient way of absolving him of that responsibility.
As you say, the designer of a train is not responsible if it crashes through an error that is not his own, because (unlike God) he can't predict the future.
If however, he knowingly factors in flawed design elements aware that they are unsafe, then he is entirely culpable.
If God is everywhere at all times, he must take responsibility for allowing his creation to turn out the way it does.

Anyway, I've said too much and I'm leaving it at that. As I said, I have no desire to challenge someone else's fundamental beliefs and don't want to offend anybody. Just explaining my beliefs and the philosophical reasoning behind them.
As long as we do the right thing by each other it doesn't matter to me who's name we do it in.

As Dave Allen used to say, "May your God go with you".

 

You all know how I got my user name. Remember what fires up again early next year at twice the original power

 

It might find two Higg's Bisons then this time.

 

They've been there and done that. On to dark matter and other equally esoteric matters now

 

So you would still have faith if we all did everything right all the time and God stepped in to stop volcanoes erupting and taking lives, for example. Or if the world shared a moderate climate and weather and nature were completely ruled by him so no floods or earthquakes or other 'natural' disasters ever happened? I don't mean to be flippant just trying to gain a fuller understanding.

On free will you could actually say that because God knew all the choices that each of us would make before we made them, then we don't really have free will after all. He is guiding us in the choices and the world we live in is how it's meant to be at this moment in time. How would God taking responsibility look to you? If we could say this or that is God's fault, how does that change our world and life as we know it?

Anyway if this is indeed done now I will move on.

 

I think it has to be, JB. Because no-one could, or should desire to, shake the firmly held beliefs of another and there's always the possibility of an ill-conceived comment causing offence.

I'm not looking to do that.

 

Me neither

Thanks for taking the time to respond to me.

 

Just yanking your chain lad. I may have exaggerated a little

 

So did humans (and other animals) evolve defence mechanisms against disease and viruses, such as t-cells and white cells, or did God put them in there all latent like, knowing that disease was going to occur in a world that he designed free of disease?

I don't want to question your faith at all. Some of the most intelligent people on this planet have (or had) faith (Robert Winston, Isaac Newton and Buzz Aldrin spring to mind). The priest who christened my daughter was a doctor in micro=biology. It's just the narrative of the creation that is ludicrous and doesn't stand up to any logical analysis.

Maybe there is a 'God', but if so 'His' existence defies definition. And 'He' surely deserves better than to be used as a filler for our gaps in the knowledge and understanding of the universe.

 

DD why are you givinh JB a hard time? How do you expect him to be able to provide you with all the naswers that man has struggled to answer since the begining of time? Well he can't - and if you are being truly honest your not seeking answers just setting up the next puissance fence!

So I'll have a stab at furnishing a response in my own way.

There are 2 things in life of which I am sure. Firstly there is a God and secondly I am not Him. Now I know that God exists. I have satisfied myself on that and rest my faith on that conclusion. The tests and processes that I used to come to that conclusion are mine and mine alone. They do not have to conform to any scientific or philosophical process. Hence just as a female cannot be a little pregnant, you cannot be in a relationship with God until you accept Him for what He is.

But back to the second part (and JBs situation). It is written "God's ways are not our ways". For those of us who do believe, we have to accept that we cannot know everything as we do not have the mental capacity to absorb everything and understand the direct and consequential linkages. However, we believe that God does and that he has a purpose for his creation.

Now, we don't disparage the scientific and philosophical attempts to increase the sum of human knowledge rather we welcome ans share the excitement that new discoveries hold. But personally I do get tired of the bombastic dismissal of faith some people employ or the more constant call to prove God exists when in reality the counter holds good that man only thinks He may not because of the limitations of his own knowledge and intellect.