This is not a theological or political debate. Scientology is a cult, not a religion and the only thing they can debate is if BattleField Earth was the worst movie ever made!!!!
I don't even think that THEY could take that argument... Battlefield Earth IS the worst movie ever... (with close runner ups of Napoleon Dynamite and both Ace Ventura movies)
__________________
Quote:
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." -- John Quincy Adams
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. and To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. and To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. and To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
O love this site. From a Cartoon to a cult to religion and now to atheism & agnostisism. Where else can you discuss all this is a single thread - WHAT A GREAT SITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In a season 5 episode of South Park (re: Stem Cell Research) Chef is telling Stan that God wants your tears, that is where he gets his great power from... the sweet tears of your suffering (or something to that effect)
Stan: Hey Chef.
Chef: How's it goin'?
Stan: Bad.
Chef: Yeah. Things have been better.
Stan: Why would God let Kenny die, Chef? Why? Kenny's my fr-f-f-friend.
Chef: Stan, sometimes God takes those closest to us.
Stan: But then, why does God give us anything to start with?
Chef: Well, look at it this way: if you want to make a baby cry, first you give it a lollipop.
Stan: I think I understand.
__________________
Quote:
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." -- John Quincy Adams
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. and To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. and To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. and To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Ok I can understand the point about atheism, but being a passive agnostic is pointless,
and if you are an active agnostic then surely there is the real 'danger' of you finding faith.
So why do you suggest atheism & agnostisism?
An atheist states that they do not believe in a god. Some go as far as to say that there is no god. Agnostics state that they simply do not know the truth; that there is not enough evidence to support the existence of a god. To be intelligent, you must first understand that you are ignorant.
__________________
Remember, you're not a true Axim user until you've 'bricked' it at least once. :approve:
An atheist states that they do not believe in a god. Some go as far as to say that there is no god. Agnostics state that they simply do not know the truth; that there is not enough evidence to support the existence of a god. To be intelligent, you must first understand that you are ignorant.
Yes I get that.. hence my split between active and passive Agnostisim.
A Passive agnostic says 'I don't have enough evidence to know if God exists or not... but i'm not going to do any thing about it'
whereas an active agnostic would say ' I don't have enough evidence to know if God exists or not... So let's look for evidence and attempt to settle it one way or the other'
now Passive agnostisism doesn't seem a particularly intellegent approach to take. It's just being ignorant and burying your head in the sand.
The possibility that god may (or may not) exist sounds like a such an important proposition that taking an active approach to your agnostisim is the only intelligent thing to do (otherwise you're just being ignorent and being unaware of the fact).
So remaining agnostic is an untennable situation, at best it's a holding position between faith and aethism. You will either have to come down on one side of the argument or the other, as you make sense of the evidence that you have been looking for.
__________________
You'd have thought that someone would have put a sig here To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Yes I get that.. hence my split between active and passive Agnostisim.
A Passive agnostic says 'I don't have enough evidence to know if God exists or not... but i'm not going to do any thing about it'
whereas an active agnostic would say ' I don't have enough evidence to know if God exists or not... So let's look for evidence and attempt to settle it one way or the other'
now Passive agnostisism doesn't seem a particularly intellegent approach to take. It's just being ignorant and burying your head in the sand.
The possibility that god may (or may not) exist sounds like a such an important proposition that taking an active approach to your agnostisim is the only intelligent thing to do (otherwise you're just being ignorent and being unaware of the fact).
So remaining agnostic is an untennable situation, at best it's a holding position between faith and aethism. You will either have to come down on one side of the argument or the other, as you make sense of the evidence that you have been looking for.
I agree with your comments, however, their is really no actual proof to suggest either. I mean faith in itself is a concept that has no basis for truth. Faith in a religion means that you believe you accept the foundation in which the religion is based. I watched a TV show about miracles. One of the Priests interviewed stated,
"For those with no faith, there are no actual facts, and for those with faith, actaul facts are not needed."
So my belief is that is your are an agnostic, you probably will never believe in the existence of God, because there are no actaul facts. Our religion is based on Faith.
The problem with Faith, is that there are plenty of "nuts" that firmly believe in aliens (and not just life elsewhere, but aliens that can find the secrets of the universe in giving prostate exams)
There are people that firmly believe in Nessie
People that believe in hollow earth, flat earth, counter earth, sentient earth, living earth, that we evolved on Mars or Venus and moved to Earth once we depleted it, that we were seeded here, that we are the 13th colony, that we travelled back in time and seeded ourselves.
I wonder what the difference is between "unshakable faith (in God)" and a clinical psychosis.
My opinion is in the number of people that believe in the same thing. Individuals have psychosis, small groups have cults, and masses have religion. So it is all the same thing without a good publicist
__________________
Quote:
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." -- John Quincy Adams
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. and To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. and To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. and To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Ok, maybe my use of 'faith' was the wrong word... and i can see the argument is eventually going to go back to Decartes position of doubting everything except ones own ability to think.
'Hence I think therefore I am'
So from Decartes, I can prove my own existence to myself, but not to anyone else. And vice versa. Radimus could therefore be a delusion. And therefore anyone who believes he exists is part of his mass psycosis (assuming they exist)
The logic is flawless, it just doesn't leave you in a useful position.
__________________
You'd have thought that someone would have put a sig here To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
The problem with Decartes, is that some (many) people are stupid (Why can't I print? Where is my AOL icon?)
__________________
Quote:
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." -- John Quincy Adams
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. and To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. and To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. and To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
...and therefore, God is extremely useful for anyone incapable of thinking.
Not putting the cart before the horse; there are plenty of great thinkers who believe in God.
(X)
Stephen Hawking clearly says that the way the universe was created cannot rule out the existance of God, and infact, God may be a good answer.
If Stephen Hawking (a genious) says that science doesn't counter Christianity... who are you to say it does?
BTW, the 10,000 year arguement is invalid. In the Bible people lived to be hundreds of years old. The 10,000 year arguement assumes that everyone lived a life with the lifespan we experience today. You can't pick and choose which parts you want to debate until you look at the whole picture.
-Reese Out.
I feel compelled to jump in on this one. I see this point brought up over and over again, and USUALLY it's by people who haven't actually read Hawking's works. I'm not saying that this applies to you, but I do think that often his comments are misunderstood. And I'm not suggesting that you misunderstand them either, but reading your comments I think it's possible that others might.
Firstly - Just because he says something is true does not make it so, he's just presenting theory.
Secondly - Here are some relevant extracts.
In regards to the possibility of the Grand Unification Theory:
Quote:
At the Big Bang and other singularities, all the laws would have broken down, so God would have complete freedom to choose what happened and how the universe began.... But if the universe is completely self-contained, with no singularities or boundaries, and completely described by a unified theory, that has profound implications for the role of God as creator.
Quote:
Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence? Or does it need a creator, and if so, does He have any other effect on the universe? And who created Him?
There is more, but I think this sums up his position. If I was to summarize it for those without the clear context and background, he's pretty much on the fence. He doesn't seem to make a statement about the existence of God, he simply raises interesting questions about the relationship between science and God. Specifically though, he is inferring (and quite clearly in the rest of the book) that what we know about science today does not provide us with enough information to be 100% certain what the origin of the universe was, and what role a creator might have played. Which is pretty much what you said, but I think it's dangerously easy to misinterpret the remarks without context.
I haven't read all of his work. So there might be other writings of his that reference God that I don't know about. But based on my knowledge, he seems to be on the fence.
__________________
Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
It is wrong to fill in all the gaps in science with religion. Religion for those of us who believe is not a fill in but a foundation from which all esle exists. Now I am not a bible thumping evangulist who tries to save eveybody, I am a fairly intelligent man who has faith in God, and see's the gaps as more instances where faith is needed. My belief system is simple. Is God the creator - Yes. Do I have proof - No, Do I have faith - Yes.
Follow Us
RSS Feed
Follow on Twitter
Facebook
YouTube
Addicted Member
