Usually, literal believers say it is the other way round. God is the cause and the universe is the effect. One can certainly believe either, but neither has the benefit of any evidence.
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The Law of Cause and Effect.
- Thread starter Polymath257
- Start date
I think it would be a very short list of scientists and most of them would be well known in what is referred to as creation science and intelligent design. The other 99.9% wouldn't be on the list.
I agree. A theology book. Trying to establish it as a science book is a fool's errand.
It would go against my personal beliefs to hate religion, but I am also against creationism. Especially in regards to treating it as some sort of alternative to scientific explanations.
I agree with you. I don't have any issue that a person believes in something or doesn't. I consider that a fundamental right.
I keep finding I am in agreement with you. I think these are basic principles of my belief, my education and my training. Trying to make the Bible into something it isn't goes against what the Bible was actually written to teach.
I used to post on an unmoderated forum and it was a chaos of creationist ideas. Largely fueled by creationist websites that go out of their way to mix fact, falsehoods, conjecture and belief as if it were all fact. My friend IANS would say that I compartmentalize my beliefs separately from my understanding and acceptance of science and he is correct. The way I look at it, and you may or may not agree, one involves what I know, what I can know and the means to know the natural world and the other addresses what I believe based purely on faith. I feel there is more. I hope there is more. I was raised in an environment where one version of that faith and hope was taught. I tried to take the best of that religious education and leave the dregs behind.
I have a difficult time talking to fundamentalists, both theistic and atheistic. But I often find that the atheists are more open and oddly more knowledgeable of the Bible than theists. Certainly more than I am. Maybe that isn't so odd. They are also the people more prone to informed decisions. However, I also know many open-minded, knowledgeable theists to be fair. I think the big point for me isn't what a person believes, but how they believe it and whether they are considerate of other beliefs.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
Cause will always precede the effect....no matter how I express it
and the two items can never be separated
Thief
Rogue Theologian
by definition....there is only one....Almighty
if you prefer to say there are lesser gods.....fine
it is written....
Ye are gods.
I agree.
I wasn't arguing that it doesn't work that way. I was pointing out the difference between what you stated and what is usually stated by creationists.
By the definition of monotheists. Who that Almighty is varies. It depends on what you believe.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
a list of superlatives....
bigger, faster, stronger, more intelligent and greatly experienced
a God that fails on any one of these is not the Almighty
McBell
mantra-chanting henotheistic snake handler
Unless your god is involved.
Then it all goes out the window.
I wonder how you test a being that can't be demonstrated to exist. I believe He does, but I've never been able to demonstrate that to anyone else based on any kind of evidence I have. Maybe you some I've never heard of.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
that item you quoted....
It stands to reason...
in the scheme of life there are greater and lesser beings
in the scheme of the next life.....the same thing
and there is always someone at the top of the list
and there is only One at the top......the Almighty
I accept a line of logic as proving
"Parable" is defined literally? And what is literal to God?
gnostic
The Lost One
No. It is not odd.
I am not saying that all atheists are knowledgeable about the bible.
Clearly some atheists are more informed than other atheists because some of them were Christians and Jews, but lost their belief for some reasons or others.
Some may have been brought up in their respective religions, but losing their beliefs or faiths, doesn't mean they don't understand the bible. You cannot "unknow" what you have learn.
For instance, you can learn to ride a bike as a kid. Perhaps you don't like riding a bicycle. So you give up riding once you got your car license and a car. So say 10 years later, you meet a girl you like, who like riding a bike. So you take up riding again, even though don't like riding, but on every weekends you go out with her on short trips. You go out because of the company you re with, not because of the bike.
You heard of the saying - "It's like riding a bike", meaning it is a skill that you can pick up quite easily, even if you haven't use it in a long time.
It would be the same with learning and understanding the bible. You cannot unlearn it, you cannot unknow it.
Between the age of 20 and 35, I have not touch the bible. I nearly join two different churches, when I was teenager. The first, was my sister's church at 16. The second was another Protestant church at 19.
My argument with the pastor and my studies and career took the higher priority than joining a church.
My point is that I thought I understood as much as I thought I could about the bible, without becoming a Christian. And I believed in the bible, even though I have never baptised during the 15-year hiatus.
When I started reading the bible again, at 35, my view has changed. I still understand the church interpretations and teaching of the bible, I just no longer agree with church teachings.
As a teenager, I didn't question the bible, nor what the two churches taught me. I took it literally, without challenging.
But as an adult, I gain some experiences, first as civil engineer and later as computer analyst and programmer, to challenge what I see, to double-check, to triple-check my works, so I can iron out any errors, whether it be my design plans or my algorithms and codings. Both of my courses I did, gave me solid grounding in science, especially in physics, where I need to design and develop prototypes and test them. Tests are required and essential part of my works, and that is largely due to learning physics.
But just as I was becoming a computer programmer studying computer science, I have renewed my interests in reading literature on myths, and began developing my website - Timeless Myths - in 1999. I developed some experiences in researching ancient and medieval literature with mythological themes. That and picking up the bible again, changed my view about the bible itself and how the church teach the bible.
At that point of life, I have changed from a believer to being agnostic.
You are a "Methodist", as one of the Protestant groups?
If no, you methodist mean something else.
If yes, then you are open-minded. You said you believe in god, but cannot demonstrate god is true, as you would have no evidences (in one of your replies to Thief).
You know that you can believe but not prove it, because you know the limitations of what you can demonstrate or test to exist, and what you can't.
That's what I would call "wisdom" and "intelligence".
You know that in order to believe that it would take faith, not evidences.
Thief, on the other hand, is not very well-informed. He is allowing his belief to cloud his judgment. He make outrageous claim after successive outrageous claims, that no one can demonstrably know, including himself.
In it is one of Thief's tactics of deflecting questions.
His other tactics of evasions, include used his often repeated but meaningless mottos "Spirit, first" or "Spirit before substance" or "cause and effect". None of these favourite sayings prove anything about God existence.
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Thief
Rogue Theologian
no evasion on my part
and there is no proving (to you) that which is not tangible
your own development as posted displays the same path I took
I simply took the logical diversion at the critical crossroads
but you assume little of me and too much of yourself
Everything created has a Creator
Spirit first
btw I am well informed
not stubborn
persistent and insistent.....yeah
gnostic
The Lost One
If it is not tangible, then it is not truly "cause-and-effect".
If the "effect" is tangible, then so should be the "cause". Both have to be tangible.
You cannot have intangible "cause" for tangible "effect", because that's not how cause-and-effect works.
Not well-informed, if you cannot understand what I said above both cause and effect needs to be both tangible for your cause-and-effect to work.
It doesn't work when one is tangible but the other isn't.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
The OP is right to suggest that physics has no 'Law of Causation'.
Quantum physics has a number of phenomena that have no cause in classical terms ─ for example the emission of any particular particle in radioactivity; and the spontaneous formation of particle-antiparticle pairs that instantly annihilate each other and give rise to the Casimir effect (making them uncaused causes).
As for definitions of 'cause' and 'effect', I'd say that a cause is a transfer of energy from a place of higher energy to a place of lower energy; and that an 'effect' is the change that results. And that other uses of the terms were metaphors.
Quantum physics has a number of phenomena that have no cause in classical terms ─ for example the emission of any particular particle in radioactivity; and the spontaneous formation of particle-antiparticle pairs that instantly annihilate each other and give rise to the Casimir effect (making them uncaused causes).
As for definitions of 'cause' and 'effect', I'd say that a cause is a transfer of energy from a place of higher energy to a place of lower energy; and that an 'effect' is the change that results. And that other uses of the terms were metaphors.
Skwim
Veteran Member
What do you mean by "no cause in 'classical terms' "? What is the difference between such a cause and the cause in non-classical terms you imply?
"Spontaneous" doesn't signify uncaused, but only that it's random in the sense that the event is unpredictable, NOT that it is uncaused. But maybe this is the non-classical type of cause you're talking about: a cause that is unpredictable.
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Skwim
As, in effect, you guessed, I mean that classical physics describes causes for individual events, and things like emissions in radioactivity are instead described, predicted &c in statistical terms.
What do you mean by "no cause in 'classical terms' "? What is the difference between such a cause and the cause in non-classical terms you imply?
As, in effect, you guessed, I mean that classical physics describes causes for individual events, and things like emissions in radioactivity are instead described, predicted &c in statistical terms.
Skwim
Veteran Member
Are you saying that because radioactive emissions are unpredictable and can only be expressed statistically that they are uncaused?
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