Magnetic wrote:God allows suffering because in some cases it may draw people to Christ via the testimony of those involved, in how they overcame the trial and how their faith saw them through the tragedy.
Yeah, I've heard this one before. So, God allows suffering to get attention for himself. What a swell guy. Everything is OK as long as it brings him more glory.
OMFG, I once talked to someone like that. She said (in response to discussions of atrocity in scripture) "The Bible is not about our selfish human desires. It's about the Glory of God. Looked at that way, it's beautiful."
wolveraptor wrote:Supposedly, those who've never heard of Christ get asked at the pearly gates if they will submit to him and be cleansed of sins. Which basically means they get the cheap-ass way out. An islander could be a rapist, murderer and despot and get killed in the tsunamic, and then realize that there's a God and that he must submit. So he does and gets off scott-free for eternity. Nice justice system.
Mormonism has something like that, but I've never heard of any doctrine like that in standard Protestant theology.
“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.” -Jean-Luc Picard
"Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them." -Margaret Atwood
Does it have any basis in the Bible itself? I have a sneaking suspicion that people pull stuff like that out of their ass to make their religion seem less sociopathic.
Fucking Anti-Moral Bitch wrote:The Bible is not about our selfish human desires. It's about the Glory of God. Looked at that way, it's beautiful.
It's a selfish human desire to want to live?
"If one needed proof that a guitar was more than wood and string, that a song was more than notes and words, and that a man could be more than a name and a few faded pictures, then Robert Johnson’s recordings were all one could ask for."
But I'm wondering what's the point of faith/spirituality? Is there any genetic basis for it? If so, is it caused by intelligence (or a lack thereof ), or do monkeys worship a vast unknowable Bringer of Bananas?
My guess is that people just don't want to accept that this is all there is...
There is an inverse correlation between education level and religiosity, and a positive correlation between education level and intelligence. So it seems self-evident that there must be an inverse correlation between intelligence and religiosity, although there are exceptions of course.
I think that in the end, religion will always survive because people find the idea of death terrifying. So they believe that they will somehow live on after death. And once you believe that you live on after death, you must construct some kind of formal belief-structure in order to make this afterlife seem like more than something you just made up.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
There is a differance between spirituality and religeon. I'm a very spiritual person, but my faith of choice does not hold a personified God. For Universal Pantheist like myself our spirituality lies more of a sense of awe, wonder, and respect about the universe as a whole.
"Nobody ever inferred from the multiple infirmities of Windows that Bill Gates was infinitely benevolent, omniscient, and able to fix everything. " Argument against god's perfection.
If he really were, he'd be actively killing people, in the goriest way possible.
If is is in absolute control of the planet, then he does this all the time through natural disasters.
But those can all be explained without any god-like intervention. We should have people being spontaneously lifted into the air and torn in two, their entrails littering the ground like so much offal.
"If one needed proof that a guitar was more than wood and string, that a song was more than notes and words, and that a man could be more than a name and a few faded pictures, then Robert Johnson’s recordings were all one could ask for."
But those can all be explained without any god-like intervention.
From the point of view that God is omnipotent and he made the world, a hurricane or an earthquake is god-like intervention. Either he did it directly or he created a system that would certainly lead to such an event, which amounts to little different.
God could just be watching us because he thinks we're entertaining/interesting, like, as the cinematic version of John Constantine said 'a kid with an ant farm'. Or he could be playing some kind of complicated game with Vishnu where the aim is to convert everyone in the world.
Post Number 1066 achieved Sun Feb 22, 2009 3:19 pm(board time, 8:19GMT)
Batman: What do these guys want anyway?
Superman: Take over the world... Or rob banks, I'm not sure.
speaker-to-trolls wrote:God could just be watching us because he thinks we're entertaining/interesting, like, as the cinematic version of John Constantine said 'a kid with an ant farm'.
I don't think we're that entertaining a people. Especially to an all knowing, all seeing, all able to see the possiblities God. He knows what's going to happen. I'd be bored out of my mind.
Or he could be playing some kind of complicated game with Vishnu where the aim is to convert everyone in the world.
Contrary to Christian beliefs, God does NOT love everyone equally, and he does NOT want to see everyone in Heaven. He needs enemies to smite. At least by the Christian doctrine.
CaptJodan wrote:
I don't think we're that entertaining a people. Especially to an all knowing, all seeing, all able to see the possiblities God. He knows what's going to happen. I'd be bored out of my mind.
Nah. Haven't you ever watched one of those movies where you know what's going on, but every character in the movie is confused, has the wrong idea, and makes hillarious mistakes because of their misperceptions? That's just like God, methinks. I'd find it all funny as hell.
That is a great article. I just came across it from another source and almost started a duplicate thread with it, but God tapped me on the sholder in the nick of time and told me the discussion has already been started.
The most basic assumption about the world is that it does not contradict itself.
It's such a great article that I decided to go out and buy the guy's book today. The End of Faith by Sam Harris. I only just started reading it, but it's pretty good so far.
If God is all-powerful, he can make it so he is no longer omniscient, at least with respect to the future. Of course, then he'd no longer be all-powerful, because he'd no longer have the ability to see the future (though with incredible intellect, he could probably guess it fairly well).
Anyways, he'd be much happier that way.
"If one needed proof that a guitar was more than wood and string, that a song was more than notes and words, and that a man could be more than a name and a few faded pictures, then Robert Johnson’s recordings were all one could ask for."
Discombobulated wrote:A helmet? Wow, that's... one of the coolest things I've ever heard. I don't think I can think of any better way to prove that this "universal human experience" of spirituality is, not to put too fine a point on it, made up.
I thought it was pretty cool as well. A fellow on another board calls it the "Epiphany Hat", which I thought was pretty good.
Actually it was sort of debunked because it couldn't be reproduced by other scientests than the one who reported it...
The experience was only "spiritual" if the testsubject was told that that was what the helmet would induce.
But I'm wondering what's the point of faith/spirituality? Is there any genetic basis for it? If so, is it caused by intelligence (or a lack thereof ), or do monkeys worship a vast unknowable Bringer of Bananas?
My guess is that people just don't want to accept that this is all there is...
There is an inverse correlation between education level and religiosity, and a positive correlation between education level and intelligence. So it seems self-evident that there must be an inverse correlation between intelligence and religiosity, although there are exceptions of course.
I think that in the end, religion will always survive because people find the idea of death terrifying. So they believe that they will somehow live on after death. And once you believe that you live on after death, you must construct some kind of formal belief-structure in order to make this afterlife seem like more than something you just made up.
One of those exeptions would be the pastor of my church. The guy got his doctorate in aerospace engineering, his thesis was something about the geostropic something or other of two fluids. . . . . . .I don't know what it is, I'll email him to find out exactly what his thesis was.
As far as intelligence goes, people tend to believe those who have more book learning (degrees) and not question what is said. Plus, for the most part, a sermon on Sunday morning doesn't provide a normal layperson with enough controversy to question what is being said. They're probably less likely to question the mechanics of how a world wide flood could occur as well as the many miracles it would take to make the earth livable again, spread the animals, repopulate the earth (people who would eventually have drastic characterictic appearances), etc
Of course scientists can have faith. All they have to do is not apply the scientific method to anything outside their field. They could very possibly be irrational fundies, and yet be a famous astrophycist. Of course, by fundie, I obviously don't mean a creationist, as too many views would overlap and disagree with the scientist's field.
"If one needed proof that a guitar was more than wood and string, that a song was more than notes and words, and that a man could be more than a name and a few faded pictures, then Robert Johnson’s recordings were all one could ask for."
Okay, my pastor got back with me. Here's what he said:
My thesis was titled "The Nongeostrophic Baroclinic Instability of Two Fluids." It refers to a rotational flow (of a less dense fluid floating on top of a denser fluid) upon which a shear force acts. The geometry of the rotating system that we chose allowed us to exaggerate some of the otherwise negligible terms normally neglected in weather prediction equations. We just added to the scientific literature for this classification of flow, but if it could be applied to anything, it might have relevance to studying the sharp edge of storm fronts.
Makes me wonder what possible contributions he may have made if he had pursued work in NASA.
One thing of humor. Once he was speaking on a certain topic one Sunday morning and said, "This isn't 'rocket science', . . . . . and I can say that with authority."
Discombobulated wrote:A helmet? Wow, that's... one of the coolest things I've ever heard. I don't think I can think of any better way to prove that this "universal human experience" of spirituality is, not to put too fine a point on it, made up.
I thought it was pretty cool as well. A fellow on another board calls it the "Epiphany Hat", which I thought was pretty good.
Actually it was sort of debunked because it couldn't be reproduced by other scientests than the one who reported it...
The experience was only "spiritual" if the testsubject was told that that was what the helmet would induce.
Everything is OK as long as it brings him more glory.
