I Am Creation (Creator, evolution, God, verse)

[camanintx]

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

This question ignores the very definition of "God." But then, it's nothing new.

Your definition of God invokes special pleading, but then, it's nothing new.

[Rolling_Stone]

Originally Posted by camanintx

Your definition of God invokes special pleading, but then, it's nothing new.

Special pleading? Not hardly. You're the one who wants to redefine God. Or, rather, present a special (anthropomorphic) case no theologian today (or over the past few centuries) would agree with.

Not that it matters, anyway. Religion ain't about beliefs. Beliefs are merely the vehicle. (I'm sure you disagree with this, but so what? There thousands of years of religious tradition behind it.)

[Jaiket]

Heya, Rolling Stone. I've a couple of questions, but I'd like to apologise beforehand. I'm constantly questioning what you have to say. I don't mean to **** you off, but I find I can't read something I don't understand without asking questions.

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

Special pleading? Not hardly. You're the one who wants to redefine God. Or, rather, present a special (anthropomorphic) case no theologian today (or over the past few centuries) would agree with.

Theologians, and you, would argue then that God is not accurately described by terms like loving, jealous, benevolent, angry?

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

Religion ain't about beliefs. Beliefs are merely the vehicle.

What is religion about and what does it mean to say beliefs are the vehicle?

[camanintx]

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

Special pleading? Not hardly. You're the one who wants to redefine God. Or, rather, present a special (anthropomorphic) case no theologian today (or over the past few centuries) would agree with.

Where do you see my definition of God in this argument? You appear to be the one defining God as something apart from the laws that govern this universe.

[Rolling_Stone]

Originally Posted by Jaiket

Heya, Rolling Stone. I've a couple of questions, but I'd like to apologise beforehand. I'm constantly questioning what you have to say. I don't mean to **** you off, but I find I can't read something I don't understand without asking questions.

Theologians, and you, would argue then that God is not accurately described by terms like loving, jealous, benevolent, angry?

What is religion about and what does it mean to say beliefs are the vehicle?

You might think that it is inconsistent to describe God as beyond human comprehension on one hand, and on the other described as "loving, jealous, benevolent, angry," but theologians aren't stupid. It's not as though it hasn't been dealt with in a number of ways. I like this explanation: There is the Unmanifest God--the unknowable or, in the Kabbalah, the Ein-Sof--and there is the manifest, the God we know in relation to the created. The former is Absolute Essence and beyond conceptualization, but religious knowledge cannot be gained except through the contemplation of God's relation with his creation.

The elaboration to my answer in the thread Why Are You Right might explain some things.

I don't understand why it is easy to accept biological evolution (I have no problem with it) and so difficult to accept the evolution of ideas. The God of the OT is entirely different than the God of the NT. Don't take my word for it, just read it for yourself. But even Paul's definition of "faith" suggests that religion isn't about ideas as much as it is about ideals.

Originally Posted by camanintx

Where do you see my definition of God in this argument? You appear to be the one defining God as something apart from the laws that govern this universe.

Your argument (who made God?) defines God as contingent.

[camanintx]

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

Your argument (who made God?) defines God as contingent.

The question was who designed God, not who made God, and it was in response to Frank's statement that "someone designed everything". I am not defining God so much as asking if Frank resorts to the same special pleading all theists must. If you are going to claim that God does not require a designer or a creator, then you cannot argue that the universe requires such.

[stephenw]

I was reading about the development of the human zygote today. From a cell roughly the size of a full stop . to a 3kg 50cm baby with 100000000000 neurons in the brain alone in 9 months. At peak growth they reckon 250 000 new neurons are born a minute. And thats only humans, look at the size of the animal kingdom without ever getting started on plants and insects.
It is too far fetched to me to believe that all this came about from a chemical accident in a swamp pool. That just seems like a crazy notion and yet it is put forward as the most plausible. I don't know.

[camanintx]

Originally Posted by stephenw

From a cell roughly the size of a full stop . to a 3kg 50cm baby with 100000000000 neurons in the brain alone in 9 months.

If this is what nature can do in just 9 months, why is it so difficult to imagine what it's capable of over millions of years?