Life without faith

[majordinkydau]

Basically what i mean by fair is that, if someone doesnt understand or know what they are doing is wrong, why would they be judged as a sinner? and if people say that person is a sinner (child) then i would say in return that is not fair, due to the fact the child doesnt know any better.

 

Fairness is a childish notion and has no real place in society. Fair means if I give your brother an apple I must give you one too. Justice on the other hand is like farming, you reap what you sow.

[Boerseun]

This is interesting, B. I appreciate the candor.

 

This does stike me as central to your lack of appreciation/acceptance of the core theses in Christianity.

Purplesungirl-

 

please read my previous post again. You'll see that almost all my sentences there start with "I think..." or "if there is...". It's all my opinion, and we are here to share ideas and opinions. The thread is about life without faith. You obviously represent one side, and I represent the other side. A one-sided coin simply doesn't exist.

 

Biochemist-

 

You're quite right. This is one of the main tenets in my lack of appreciation/acceptance of Christianity. And the good thing is that I can quantify the issues that makes Christianity/Islam/Hindu/Bhuddist philosophy and doctrine highly unlikely, to say the least. There's no such thing as 'blind faith' in my world. I can have blind faith in an airline pilot, and still die in a plane crash.

You see - I live my life without faith, as this thread says, and I'm quite comfortable with it. As a matter of fact, every time I see a flower opening, or even a litter of kittens, I'm amazed that billions of years of evolutionary weeding and statistics have resulted in what we see around us. And then it strikes me that if it turned out any other way, if maybe one ape-like creature decided to rather stay in the trees, we might today be swinging around in the trees still. But it didn't pan out that way. To even speculate on what could've been is meaningless, because it obviously didn't happen. What did happen, what you see around you, is statistically so unlikely and amazing that that should be evidence in itself of how a few simple rules running the universe can conspire to come up with such things as Adolf Hitler and Mohandas Ghandi simultaneously. Or a lotus flower. Or a cactus. It's amazing. God didn't build the mosquito - there was a niche for a pesky little blood-sucking bug, and a bug evolved to fill that niche.

 

And somehow, the universe coming out of itself blindly, evolving blindly according to some set of rules, and coming up with what you see around you (even a computer is a natural thing, seeing as it was made by animals from nature, humans) is much, much more magnificent (by several orders of magnitude) than reducing this magnificent, self-regulating universe to the meddling of some arbitrary God/Goddess. Or gods/goddesses, if we keep the Hindus in mind.

 

So - maybe we should flip the coin on this issue: Are atheists offending believers, or are believers offending atheists by insulting the splendour and grandeur of mathematics and natural laws? Maybe the believers should be a little bit more sensitive, and not be expected to be naturally handled with silk gloves, due to the nature of their mass-delusions?

[Biochemist]

...And somehow, the universe coming out of itself blindly, evolving blindly according to some set of rules, and coming up with what you see around you (even a computer is a natural thing, seeing as it was made by animals from nature, humans) is much, much more magnificent (by several orders of magnitude) than reducing this magnificent, self-regulating universe to the meddling of some arbitrary God/Goddess. ...

This is one of those areas where the same facts are interpreted in absolutely opposite directions.

 

Christians look at the facts you laid out and tend to react in awe that:

 

1) A God this big cares about us, and

2) He is clearly not an arbitrary, meddling God: He is a personal one.

 

That is, the fact that a God that is sophisticated enough to author such an elegant universe cares about us really moves some people. In your case it is evidence that He does not exist.

 

Can you see the other view?

[Skippy]

So if your a sinner, your still loved by God :shrug: .

-- John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."

-- Romans 5:8, "God demonstrates His own love for us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us!"

-- Romans 3:23 - "All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God."

 

Check it out

[Skippy]

It's even more complicated. Paul says that some things are OK for some people, but not for others. It's not a specific thing, it's a concious thing. If it's ok for me to have a beer, but my buddy is an alcoholic, it's not ok for him to have a beer. When I'm around him, it's not OK for me to have a beer.

 

Focusing on sin causes one to think like sin is some obstacle that can be overcome if we just try hard enough, or think hard enough. You start to see the law as an obstacle- if only I hadn't done such and such, or "perhaps that was wrong... maybe it wasn't.... I don't know." That is precisly the thinking we should avoid. The Bible is Good News, after all. All have sinned. It's happened. Let's think about making the world a better place through our good actions, rather then focusing on our innate compulsion to do bad ones.

 

Are children "sinners?" Sure, I suppose. I think it's a pretty innate thing. Will they "go to Hell?" (another topic I don't think is appropriate 99% of the time) That's really none of my business. God judges- not me. I just humbly hope he's forgiving for my faults, and the faults of everybody else.

Very Well Put, bumab. The only thing I'd add is when talking about children, we talk about the "age of accountability," which is an arbitrary age dependent on the individual's maturity and nurture. If a child is not old enough to undertstand that stealing is wrong and that stealing carries consequences, that child is not at the age of accountability and would not be condemned by God if he/she was to die.

[Boerseun]

This is one of those areas where the same facts are interpreted in absolutely opposite directions.

 

Christians look at the facts you laid out and tend to react in awe that:

 

1) A God this big cares about us, and

2) He is clearly not an arbitrary, meddling God: He is a personal one.

 

That is, the fact that a God that is sophisticated enough to author such an elegant universe cares about us really moves some people. In your case it is evidence that He does not exist.

 

Can you see the other view?

I try, my friend, I try.

 

But every time I try to see the other view, it strikes me that:

 

1) God is omnipotent.

2) God supposedly created the universe

3) All the stuff in the universe is all the stuff that there is.

4) i.e. God must have created Himself.

5) Which is just as unlikely, just a little less scientific and mathematical than the Big Bang. And Occam doesn't dig explanations with unnecessary features, such as a God. The Godless universe coming out of the Big Bang is currently the best explanation we have.

 

Can you see the other view?

[emessay]

1. God looks like 'a gambler' like humans , so He is now still playing 'universe dice'.

2. God is always looking 'His Universe Mirror' like humans having self-consciousness.

3. God is being 'Personalized' by human consciousness and probably 'singular event'.

4. Next.....................

[Skippy]

A one-sided coin simply doesn't exist.

No, but skuinders is working on a three sided one :shrug: .

[bumab]

The only thing I'd add is when talking about children, we talk about the "age of accountability," which is an arbitrary age dependent on the individual's maturity and nurture. If a child is not old enough to undertstand that stealing is wrong and that stealing carries consequences, that child is not at the age of accountability and would not be condemned by God if he/she was to die.

 

I think you missed my point. This whole "arbitrary age" and "old enough" business seems incredibly harmful to me. Why go around condemning babies, when we should really be asking for grace ourselves? We're told the love God and love our neighbors. That's about it- all the laws of the prophets are summed up there, as it says. No formalism required. I think discussions about how old a kid has to be to go to Hell are incredibly innapropriate and offensive.

[bumab]

1) God is omnipotent.

2) God supposedly created the universe

3) All the stuff in the universe is all the stuff that there is.

 

Fine so far, but this doesn't follow...

 

4) i.e. God must have created Himself.

 

If you are positing an omnipotent being, couldn't you just as easily say He's outside of time, outside of space, etc? All the material stuff in (3) would make more sense, right? :shrug:

 

5) Which is just as unlikely, just a little less scientific and mathematical than the Big Bang. And Occam doesn't dig explanations with unnecessary features, such as a God. The Godless universe coming out of the Big Bang is currently the best explanation we have.

 

True. But Occam is hardly a rule of nature, it's just a guideline. And the best model we have is a universe coming out of the Big Bang, nothing about God at all, one way or the other.

 

Can you see the other view?

 

I certainly can. Thanks for discussing alternates yourself! :wave:

[Biochemist]

I try, my friend, I try.

 

But every time I try to see the other view, it strikes me that:

 

1) God is omnipotent.

2) God supposedly created the universe

3) All the stuff in the universe is all the stuff that there is.

4) i.e. God must have created Himself.

5) Which is just as unlikely, just a little less scientific and mathematical than the Big Bang. And Occam doesn't dig explanations with unnecessary features, such as a God. The Godless universe coming out of the Big Bang is currently the best explanation we have.

 

Can you see the other view?

I do understand the other view. I do not think it is irrational, I just don't agree with it.

 

I do thinik that #4 is a non-sequitur, and is at odds with most theists' thinking.

[blazer2000x]

It's generally accepted by Christians that God has always been, I have never really met any who think He created Himself.

 

"Who has preceded Me, that I should pay him?

Everything under heaven is Mine.

Job 41:11"

 

I do not think you can use science to say that God cannot exist, He is above science if He exists (which I believe He does). Can you look at a painting and describe the author? Can you say there can be no author because he is not in the painting? I still don't see what logic is behind evolution. If someone knows, please tell me.

[niviene]

We have a ton of threads covering that question, blazer. :D

[niviene]

And, in response to bumab's post... perhaps God is part of that 73% of mysterious unknown energy in our universe (see C1ay's article) :D

[blazer2000x]

And, in response to bumab's post... perhaps God is part of that 73% of mysterious unknown energy in our universe (see C1ay's article) :D

 

That would defy the Biblical conseption of who God is.

 

 

"And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

Col 1:17"

[infamous]

Some of the posts in this thread have suggested that because God must have had to create himself, this disallows his existence. I might ask, as a position of faith, according to The Standard Model, the Big Bang need'nt have had a predecesor to it's existence. I'm sure that a few will come back to exclaim that they didn't mean to explain this position that way. Maybe so, but this view has been expressed frequently and by many. Maybe Faith isn't such a bad thing afterall??????

[niviene]

That would defy the Biblical conseption of who God is.

 

Yea, but as we've said in so many other threads, since that's the only source of info you've got, then who knows? :D I do not have the faith that you do, so for me, it doesn't matter what the Biblical conception God is.