Nothing is known about what you are calling "the Creator." Nothing, including who or what is or if it exists. Nothing.
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Just Accidental?
- Thread starter Deeje
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Nothing is known about what you are calling "the Creator." Nothing, including who or what is or if it exists. Nothing.
I don't understand the question.
You say nothing did it and I say God did it......then
If you say Batman did it, would I say God did it?
Are you offended that I said that I could do a better job as a god than the one we keep hearing about? For one, I wouldn't make creatures that I knew that I would be unsatisfied with, and if I did, regretted it, and wanted a do-over, I wouldn't use the same breeding stock. Even as a mortal man, I can see that that plan has no hope of success. Do you disagree?
No, I can't believe whatever I wish. That which I believe is not chosen by me. It is that which appears believable according to a rational skeptic's perspective.
Nor do I consider those who disagree with me morons for disagreeing with me. You make this stuff up.
Turning the other cheek seems like poor advice to me. When would I ever make that choice? It only incites further violence. In my worldview, virtually every other option is preferable. Negotiate a peace if you can. Walk away if that isn't practical. If you can't walk away, defend your face. Nobody that loves you advises you to simply stand down and offer the other cheek. Nor do they advise you to love enemies, nor be to be meek in their presence. Yes, this advice is all abut exploiting you and asking you to not resist. You really can't see that?
I am not controlled at all. Are you? You talk about things as they "really are," but the beliefs you profess seem like vapor. They have no substance. What you believe is of no value. What you know and can demonstrate is.
Of course you are commanded to respect the Sabbath. It's one of the big ten. Have you solved the riddle of why? Cui bono? Follow the money. That's who benefits.
So about 4 billion years ago he started designing and creating kinds. Can you make a timeline for us? Which kinds did he create when and when did he create his last kind?
If I were to say that the universe and everything in it was due to Batman, what would your response be?
Incidentally, I don't say that "nothing did it." I don't know what did it.
What is a Batman? The comic character?
I know a lot about my Creator....I have a personal relationship with him and I am continually awe struck at what he has made and how everything is interconnected....nothing that could ever have come about by chance.
I am sorry that you have never made his acquaintance.....perhaps he doesn't want to know those who don't want to know him?
No actually I am embarrassed for you. You haven't got a clue about anything except what you think you know.
Its what you don't want to know that is the important part. But that is your choice.
Since I am fully aware of what the Creator's purpose is, how could I agree that an omnipotent and omniscient being could get it wrong? You have a completely wrong interpretation of what you see. There is an agenda that is not obvious to unbelievers. So I will just leave it at that.
It is within the hearts of all intelligent humans to make decisions about everything. I love the way evolutionary science promoters like to use the word "rational" as if it doesn't pertain to the Creator. Not all skeptics are rational. Not all rational people are skeptics. Rationality has nothing to do with "belief". Evolution is a "belief" too.
I believe spirituality is born in a person....so "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear".....as the saying goes. You either believe in God as Creator or you don't. He won't force you to believe.....or to do anything against your free will.
I think you missed the point....as you seem to do often. "Turning the other cheek" is not talking about a violent act requiring self defense. The illustration has to do with a slap in the face, which is intended as an insult, not like a punch. Turning the other cheek means that you are not demeaned in the slightest by intended insults. It means you are bigger than that, as the rest of Jesus' advice goes on to illustrate. A humble person cannot be humiliated. Humiliation comes from pride....a trait God hates.
Controlled? That is not a word I would use in connection with the Creator. He recommends a way of life and a way of thinking that is foreign in this world. But he does not force anyone to do or believe anything. All our actions and thoughts come from who we really are. And because of the unseen power 'controlling' the system under which we all live...nothing is as it "seems". The 'vapor' might be toxic to unbelievers......so be it.
'It ain't necessarily so'......you 'believe' in evolution but you have never seen one kind of creature morph into another kind in your life.
You can't demonstrate or even test evolution, so what does that mean?
No, I am not under any obligation to observe a Sabbath. It was a Jewish law never said to be incumbent on Gentile Christians. Jesus observed the Sabbath because he was Jewish. He observed the Passover too, but Christians who are not Jewish were never told they had to observe either of them.
You think science is not based on where the money leads also? The whole world is driven by mammon. Who funds universities and medical schools? Who indoctrinates students to "believe" in something that cannot be tested or demonstrated? You follow the money and it it will always lead to corruption.
We don't know how long ago God created the universe...he simply doesn't tell us. Nor does he tell us how long the creative "days" were. We know that they were not 24 hours long....only that they had a beginning and an end. The Creator is not a magician, but a powerful entity who can create matter.
The Genesis account is quite specific about what was created and on what "day". Humans were last on the scene. How did Moses know that? How did he know that life began in the oceans and in the skies?
This is becoming a lot of effort for a simple question. Why don't we move on? I've already forgotten where we began or why I asked you.
Thumper
Thank the gods I'm an atheist
Do you talk to him using your hair brush or something? You know there is medical help for people who hear voices.
"Religion allows perfectly sane people to believe, en masse, things that only lunatics believe in isolation. We don't respect stupidity. We systematically respect religious stupidity." ~ Sam Harris
Thumper
Thank the gods I'm an atheist
Most Christians may not fully agree with you on this or we would not have "Blue Laws".
“It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid.” (Luke 16:17)
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” (Matthew 5:17)
Thumper
Thank the gods I'm an atheist
Again, this is a sign of deep-seated mental issues. You really should seek help.
Thumper
Thank the gods I'm an atheist
I am truly sorry you never learned anything about science. But you could still pick up a book and learn.
"They were allowed to stay there on one condition, and that is that they didn't eat of the tree of knowledge. That has been the condition of the Christian church from then until now. They haven't eaten as yet, as a rule they do not." - Clarence Darrow
Thumper
Thank the gods I'm an atheist
Didn't say it was. Meditation can be very beneficial.
Prayer wasn't even part of the conversation, but the idea of prayer is an interesting discussion (in the appropriate thread).
But when someone claims to know "the Creator's purpose," they've got issues.
allfoak
Alchemist
I would claim to have some knowledge of that subject myself Thumper.
Just because you do not does not mean it is not possible to know.
Thumper
Thank the gods I'm an atheist
"Are there things in the Universe that we cannot know in the usual way of observing and measuring, but that we can know in some other way -- intuition, revelation, mad insight?
"If so, how can you know that what you know in these non-knowing ways is really so. Anything you know without knowing, others can know only through your flat statement without any proof other than 'I know!'
"All this leads to such madness that I, for one, am content with the knowable. That is enough to know." ~ Isaac Asimov
allfoak
Alchemist
So do you want to know how it is that i know what i think i know?
The truth can be tested by acting on it.
Most just consider the things i say as foolishness because they are unwilling to test it for themselves.
And I know a lot about the limits of knowledge, the psychology of belief, and cognitive biases. You have no special senses or other mental faculties that allow you to know more about metaphysical issues than others. You simply have psychological experiences and interpretations of what they represent.
Looking ahead, it looks like we disagree on about everything. I hope you don't mind my disagreeing with what you consider true.
I would say precisely that about you. How shall we decide the matter?
You now claim to know the mind of an omniscient god? You're claiming knowledge that I know you cannot possibly have.
How could you agree that your God got it wrong? Your Bible says so: "And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart." - Genesis 6:6. So he tried to correct his mistake with a great flood and begin again. That's when He made another mistake. He used the same breeding stock. Guess what? Sinners again.
I am familiar with the agenda of the god of the Christian Bible. He created the universe and man so that he could collect souls to praise Him for eternity, throw the others in fire while still conscious, and destroy the world and all life on it in a fiery apocalypse. Isn't that about right?
What I said is, "No, I can't believe whatever I wish. That which I believe is not chosen by me. It is that which appears believable according to a rational skeptic's perspective." That was true the first time I wrote it, and it still is. I can only believe what I find believable, and I don't choose what that will be.
If I wanted to believe in a god by faith, I simply couldn't. I could suspend disbelief and behave as if I believed that, but that's not the same as believing, is it?
Spirituality is not tied to religion. The spiritual experience is available to unbelievers. In fact, I would argue that authentic spirituality, which involves a sense of connectedness (as well as mystery, awe, and gratitutde) is pretty hard to have when you are told that matter is base, man is corrupt,the world is a bad place and to remain separate from it, that flesh is vile, that one's own mind is an enemy - a portal for an evil agent to plague us with doubt and illicit desires, that reasoning, which is fundamental to human thought and what it means to be human, is demeaned, and to divert your attention from the here and now to heaven and an afterlife as if life is like waiting at a bus stop. How could you be any more disconnected from this world?
Consider this passage from an anonymous atheist:
"It’s like the universe screams in your face, “Do you know what I am? How grand I am? How old I am? Can you even comprehend what I am? What are you, compared to me?” And when you know enough science, you can just smile up at the universe and reply, “Dude, I am you.” When I looked at the galaxy that night, I knew the faintest twinkle of starlight was a real connection between my comprehending eye along a narrow beam of light to the surface of another sun. The photons my eyes detect (the light I see, the energy with which my nerves interact) came from that star. I thought I could never touch it, yet something from it crosses the void and touches me. I might never have known. My eyes saw only a tiny point of light, but my mind saw so much more."
That's a spiritual experience.
So is this: I used to live in a rural area, and often encountered turtles crossing the country road I was on. I would always pull over and cart them to the other side. There was usually nobody else present to see this. It would always fill me with a frisson of satisfaction, an experience that I don't believe would have been possible when I was a Christian.
At that time, the experience would have been one where I felt that I was being watched by an eye in the sky that expected me to do what I did, and would reward me or punish me accordingly. That's kind of an immature experience relative to the one I actually had, in which I expected nobody else to ever know what I had done, and for there be no reward apart from the spiritual experience I had - one in which for a moment, I had taken responsibility for a tiny corner of the universe.
It was a godlike experience, and so robust that I remember it decades later. That's what I mean by connectivity. My attention was on the here and now, not some alleged supernatural space and god.
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