Chase Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 My goal wasn't to change anyone's opinion. That's your choice then. I wish you define "error" here as I'm not quite sure I understand the context. Are you trying to say that it's unreliable because it's NOT specifically a history narrative? Or because the writer didn't have a modern view of the events? One of the things that will continuously be brought up is "rigidity" of earning eternal life. It's supposed to be rigid! The notion that being a Christian is easy is most certainly baseless and that's not what I'm trying to propose at all. You have to ultimately do the following: Admit that you are insufficient to join the Kingdom of God due to your sin nature. Put all of that said sin nature on Christ so that he can take your burden from you. With the knowledge that you have of your restoration, attempt to live as sinless as possible and constantly atone, while showing love for others (which is HARD in some cases!) And you, as a human, not God as a God, are likely to fail. This is where God restores us through Christ. Christianity is the wrong religion for you if you are looking for a God that gives out hand-outs -AND- is just king of a happy forest regardless of the choices made by his subjects. If you're looking for the easy way to Heaven, then you're not going to find it in any religion. My argument is that swallowing our pride and believing in Christ is the "only" Way - and not that it should be easy or that God should appeal to me if I am not looking for Him - and my belief in THAT is held in the Resurrection whereas other religions don't have something that can be taken seriously to anchor said belief in. Ultimately, you don't look for eternal life when properly living the Christian life. You look for Jesus. That's what's irrational about the whole thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaunt Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 My goal wasn't to change anyone's opinion. That's your choice then. I wish you define "error" here as I'm not quite sure I understand the context. Are you trying to say that it's unreliable because it's NOT specifically a history narrative? Or because the writer didn't have a modern view of the events? The second one...well in part, i'm saying that the author took for granted/true things that we now know are 100% false (remember that long list i pulled from that atheist site? That one) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chase Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 Right, right, your sensationalist website where you gave me a bunch of verses that were that were probably taken out of context and I ignored because I'm not feeding you guys sensationalism and I took as an attack on the viewpoint. Just because you can throw a bunch of things that were not literally true doesn't mean they don't hold any merit. Especially in a poetic narrative where the intention of the writer isn't to directly recall history in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hiss13 Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 There are a few ways I'd like to address this. Firstly, like I said in my post, even if you choose incorrectly, what did you lose? In the grand scheme of things, it's better to at least have a shot then to simply give up. Secondly, I personally do not believe that a just God would damn you eternally for choosing the wrong religion if you lived a just life and truly tried to be the best person you can be. I also do not believe that the christian God, to name something specific, would damn his followers for choosing the wrong subcategory of his religion when they were that close to him, especially so when they have lived a good and just life. That's like saying, "Well, you may have guessed pizza, but I was thinking of sausage pizza, so you're wrong." That concept just seems ridiculous to me. Let's start here then. You have this notion that not believing is simply giving up whereas that is not the case. Not believing is just that. It is simply just that we see no reason to believe in a god period. To me, the evidence points away from any god that is depicted by any religion. Now for the point I bolded (and everything in the paragraph that comes after). That is honestly an okay belief. But that belief pretty much shows why I should not need to invest in believing in a god. You claim that a just god would focus more on actions than belief (if I interpreted that correctly) in which case I have nothing to lose by not believing and just living my life like I normally do. And my train of thought is lost. Sorry, I told myself I would not post here and yet I keep coming back… But I've lost my motivation again and I'm not even sure where I was going with this... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eviora Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 Well, if god is going to require our absolute faith and commitment to him in order to avoid damnation despite the fact that he doesn't give us any unambiguous means by which to determine which god(s), if any, are real, I'm guessing that he's failing spectacularly at saving most people. You'd think a maximally great being would set us more realistic goals - I mean, he created us knowing how flawed we'd be, right? It's not my fault I'm a human - I didn't choose to exist. That's squarely on him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chase Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 So, you would need to argue that your capability to choose is the issue at hand there. It's not that it's impossible to be saved. It's that people don't make the choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaunt Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 Right, right, your sensationalist website where you gave me a bunch of verses that were that were probably taken out of context and I ignored because I'm not feeding you guys sensationalism and I took as an attack on the viewpoint. Just because you can throw a bunch of things that were not literally true doesn't mean they don't hold any merit. Especially in a poetic narrative where the intention of the writer isn't to directly recall history in the first place. And i replied that it is "unfair" to cite the parts of the bible that support your point of view while "disregarding" the explicitly wrong ones as "poetical narrative". If i use the same approach i can say that i consider the parts you are citing (or even the entire book) as "poetical narrative" (which i do btw) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eviora Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 My capacity to even know what I'm choosing is a big part of the issue. How am I supposed to know which religion is the correct one? That seem like a substantial portion of the difficulty to me. I've had plenty of arguments of this sort, and I was raised Catholic, yet I haven't encountered anyone who could convince me that one religion was any more accurate than the other. As I illustrated with my game show example, the task of making an educated choice is all but impossible without some sort of clear guidance, guidance beyond the sort that every religion tries to offer. How exactly is choosing any more than guesswork? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neo Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 (edited) The universe does exist. The Universe did not 'come from nothing'. In the big bang theory, to which I will admit I'm still skeptical on many parts of it, all matter was contained within a very small point. Having something incomprehensibly large or dense, is far from nothing. Here's where my skepticism of the big bang theory comes into question. 'ALL matter and energy is contained in this tiny point'. What set off it's expansion? While I question the validity of some of many details regarding the universes inception, I don't think simply saying 'it must have been created by a divine being' is the right answer. There's nothing wrong with saying 'We don't know due to our current lack of understanding.', but saying 'It can not explained so it must be divine intervention.' has been proven to be wrong many times in the past, not only in Christianity, but in all theological religions. There have been numerous hypotheses regarding anti matter, dark matter, or some just some previously unknown sub atomic particles, but truthfully, I'm not educated in such matters enough to tell you why or why they aren't sufficient. It's not explained through our current understanding, that very well may change some day in the future. It's happened before, it will continue to happen. A lack of understanding should not be attributed to something being a miracle. The whole premise of a miracle is that it is not explainable by natural or scientific law. As we continue to advance things once thought to be miraculous have been since shown to be possible within the bounds of new laws. In short, why should something be assumed to be a miracle if we can't understand it at this point in time? Let me jump in on this one, since I've got a decent background with astrophysics. The leading hypothesis behind the Big Bang Theory at the moment is one that involves quantum particles and empty space. So, let's say we've got nothing. Absolutely, nothing. No space-time, no matter, nothing. But what we do have is Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, the Brooker-Dewitt Equation, and well, physics. Many quantum particles are in a state of superimposition, simultaneously existing and not existing, using the Uncertainty Principle, this allows for empty space to come into existence through sheer probability thanks to these fluctuations going on in a false vacuum. Once a particle, that is infinitely small as it's completely described by its radius that is/contains a true vacuum pops itself into existence, it can then expand exponentially resulting in the universe we have now. The math isn't all the way there, but at the moment it is definitely the closest we have to solving the "something from nothing" issue. The biggest issue at the moment comes from determining whether the laws of physics were created with the universe, or simply exist. Edited September 2, 2015 by Neo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flux Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 Let's start here then. You have this notion that not believing is simply giving up whereas that is not the case. Not believing is just that. It is simply just that we see no reason to believe in a god period. To me, the evidence points away from any god that is depicted by any religion. Well, that actually puts us in the same place then. I've just used the christian God as an example, mostly because I know the most about that religion and therefore can provide more specific points. I personally would like to believe in a God similar to the christian God though. Now for the point I bolded (and everything in the paragraph that comes after). That is honestly an okay belief. But that belief pretty much shows why I should not need to invest in believing in a god. You claim that a just god would focus more on actions than belief (if I interpreted that correctly) in which case I have nothing to lose by not believing and just living my life like I normally do. Well, to clarify, I hope that a God would base judgment more on actions than belief. I personally would still like to have a solid belief in some idea of a god though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chase Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 And i replied that it is "unfair" to cite the parts of the bible that support your point of view while "disregarding" the explicitly wrong ones as "poetical narrative". If i use the same approach i can say that i consider the parts you are citing (or even the entire book) as "poetical narrative" (which i do btw) 1. How was I disregarding "explicitly wrong" passages? I've essentially said in this thread that there I don't believe the Hebrew word for day is equivalent to the 24 hour day, that it's possible the flood only pertained to a specific area of the world, and I'll make more of a concession and say that Sodom and Gomorrah was possibly destroyed by seismic or volcanic activity. This is essentially pointing out critically that the writer of Genesis doesn't have a modern explanation for those events - and but it doesn't discredit the author's observations in the slightest. This means that the Bible has observational truth beginning with the very first book and only lacks modern understanding. World was created - we know that to be true without looking at the Bible. There was indeed a major flood in the area the manuscripts of Genesis was written that is paralleled to the Great Flood. Sodom and Gomorrah did exist and were destroyed by some catastrophic event. 2. The entire Bible is most definitely not poetical narrative. In fact, the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) are officially recognized by critical scholarship as Greco-Roman BIOGRAPHIES detailing the life of Jesus. Acts is a short historical narrative telling of the early Church following the Resurrection. Paul's Epistles are letters. - There's even direct historical content in several books of the Old Testament - such as Judges and the Chronicles. I don't see how you can view the entire Bible as poetic. That just goes to show you don't know your Bible, and you are arguing to uphold your personal view on it's reliability without making enough of a scholarly sacrifice to interact with it. 3. The Bible is much different than www.BooYahAtheism.com in that the Biblical narrative is not out to shame other viewpoints. When you use a sensationalist source, you are stepping outside the bounds of critical scholarship and into the bounds of derisive rhetoric. I don't know if you think I'm trying to beat people over the head with my Christianity, but I'm certainly not appreciative of you walking into a debate only to try and beat me over the head with your Atheism. At least if you aren't going to go out and make the arguments yourself. --- Eviora The difference between faith and guessing is the amount of conviction behind each. A guess is not likely to hold much conviction behind it and it is more likely to be adjustable as new facts that support or refute the guess are discovered. Faith is backed by loads of conviction in a manner that effectively makes the object of faith fill in all existential gaps without having to bend over backwards and continue to whittle away at them. On the one hand you are given the ability to freely and and almost pricelessly jump from one viewpoint to the next, but on the other, you're able to live your life without too much misguided questioning and are able to apply existential meaning to areas other viewpoints may not have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shamitako Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 Out of curiosity Hilda, are you conceding these things for the sake of the debate or because you actually think they're wrong? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eviora Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 But I don't have faith in any gods, and it's unlikely that any will suddenly develop of its own accord. Therefore, logic failing, all I'm left with is guesswork when I'm trying to figure out which god(s), if any, are real. I would think a maximally great god would give me more to work with than this if he really wants me to figure out the truth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted User Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 While I'm inclined to agree with you here Eviora, the belief is that such interference would eliminate the possibility of free will. I'm sure Hilda would be happy to explain it further. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eviora Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 If that were the rebuttal, I would be extremely likely to disagree, and would add a follow-up question: Why is free will more important than the eternal salvation of a multitude of people? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shamitako Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 So, you would rather be forced to believe in a god than have to go through the challenge of finding one and deciding to follow them? Because that's what your rebuttal says Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laggless01 Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 You guys are so damn productive...in less than 20 hours, you gave me nearly 3 pages of arguments to wade through, and when I finally have made a post, probs half a page more... I'm glad that a decent amount of people want to be involved in this topic.I'll read them tomorrow morning, and reply. I'm too tired atm to have decent coherent thought. 'kay? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eviora Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 No, that is decidedly not what my rebuttal says, and I would appreciate it if you didn't put words in my mouth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Global Mods Ice Cream Sand Witch Posted September 2, 2015 Global Mods Share Posted September 2, 2015 (edited) Just something I felt like expanding on from my post, since I covered life on the home planet but never got into god(s). I don't know if there are any gods or goddesses at home. There are higher powers known as guiding forces (which are just forces, they don't have a physical form), which can be reached through prayer even on earth and are prioritized by level of need. I've heard that artifacts are sometimes sent down for guidance or learning. This matches up with a vision I had where a blue and yellow orb was on display in a science museum. According to the tour guide who was describing it, it had to do with ocean currents and lightning and its purpose is to help people better understand the world. I mentioned guardians of countries. Those aren't godlike entities. Other than their position and combat ability, they're not above anybody else in any way, and can act just as silly as ordinary people. With the exception of one guardian who does stealth and intel missions as opposed to direct fighting, they have partners called sentinels. Sentinels are powerful kids and young teenagers involved in combat. There's the Data Vault, which has information about (almost?) everything. I think it's in a plane all on its own, not in Cerri. Permission is needed to access it. I've seen the area where the data vault is in a vision, but the vision ended before I got to see the vault itself. Someone else in the vision was being granted approval to access. Edited September 2, 2015 by Ice Cream Sand Witch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shamitako Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 By asking why free will is more important than salvation you're heavily implying that free will isn't more important than salvation to you. Unless you mean to tell me that you're not actually arguing for your PoV and just trying to deconstruct Hilda's? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eviora Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 1. Questions do not translate to statements. I may imply that in the future, but I haven't done it yet. 2. Have you followed our whole discussion? Because the problem I've been running into is precisely the lack of an argument with justified premises with which to be challenged. It's pretty easy to think up a nice god I can't disprove who I would be happy to follow, but I'd prefer to find out what's true. It seems awfully silly to go through all this arguing if we're just going to throw logic out the window at the end. 3. I'm not trying to deconstruct Hilda's argument, I'm trying to get her to present one for why I should believe in any gods at all, or her specific god, or something like that, in the first place. 4. If you're unsure what someone is trying to say, it's politer to ask them what they mean than to assume the worst and state it as fact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shamitako Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 The thread isn't about trying to convince others of your opinion, it's about explaining why you believe what you believe, which is exactly what Hilda's been doing. I have indeed been following the whole thing. And thus why I'm here now pointing out that you're not trying to demonstrate your own PoV but that you've consistently been trying to disprove someone else's with trapped questions that have nothing to do with your own PoV. That's not at all what this thread was made for and definitely not okay I may not agree with everything Hilda's said, but she has at least done a good job of respecting other PoV's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted User Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 My point of view (to keep it short and sweet), it's impossible to prove or disprove the existence of god. I don't believe there IS a god, but to say definitively that there is NO God, takes faith all the same as someone who believes in any deity. I'm not a person of faith. That's not to say I won't believe anything just because I don't see it with my own eyes one way or another. Some things you need to assume for the sake of practicality. I don't find it 'practical' to live life believing in an all knowing being. So long as you can leave the world a better place, in my eyes belief in god or not becomes completely irrelevant, so trying to fit to HIS (as ideal as humanly possible) mould is pointless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eviora Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 Whether this is the right place for it or not, I'm definitely not the only one here arguing about beliefs. I would guess that Hilda would agree that she has been willingly participating in these arguments - in fact, she has asked me to prove things several times, and I have offered arguments in in favor of a particular position of mine - namely, the belief that no "maximally great" gods exist. This does involve both of our PoVs. I wouldn't call my questions "trapped". They're earnest questions. I've been doing my best to do my position justice without being rude during this discussion, and if I have failed at that, I apologize. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Froiky Posted September 2, 2015 Share Posted September 2, 2015 I must admit I was surprised to see this topic. Not many people seem to want to talk about religion, especially on a forum for a game. Anyways, I'm a christian. For those that don't know what means I believe in one God who created us and gave us free will. I believe that humanity sinned, separating themselves from their creator, and are lost by themselves. I believe that God continued to love humanity and sent his son to bridge the gap. I believe that Christ, God's son, died, taking our sin from us, offering us a way to return to God. I believe that the Holy Spirit, the presence of God, is among humanity, calling for us to cross the divide and accept Christ's offer to return. This is what I believe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts