The existence of God and the efficacy of prayer

.......Science has shown that matter pops in and out of existence, that spooky at a distance can happen, and that the Matrix mind is a logical possibility.

I think that you are deliberately mis-representing science, again, for your own debating points. Give some evidence for all of the above, and I will of course withdraw that comment.

.......I am skeptical, but solidly grounded in many ways.

You have shown absolutely no evidence whatever of being sceptical. In fact, you have demonstrated time and again that you are not sceptical. By what standard do you judge yourself thus?


.......The arguments by many on this site answer that the Universe "just is". That sounds like a leap of faith to me.

I have never seen such arguments. Again, show me that you are right and I'll concede the point, but I believe you are just setting up a strawman.

.......They argue that since they have not had "experiences" that are remarkable (despite some stories that I do not accept as remarkable) others do not have such experiences.

Who is they?
If anyone were to argue in the way you have just characterised, they would rightly be accused of arguing from personal incredulity. There are many better arguments against some of the super-natural claims made by non-sceptics such as yourself on this forum. Tell us what your experiences were and I bet the alternative explanations you receive won't include anything like "it hasn't happened to me therefore it didn't happen to you".
 
With regard to the universe being fined tuned for life. . . . .Life as we know it lives on the skin on one tiny planet. Most of the universe is hostile and will kill life instantly. Extremes of temperature, radiation, crushing gravity, extremes of pressure, etc.
 
1 - There was a beginning from "nothing"
2- The Universe is indeed finely tuned
3 - Rather than being "dumb matter" the Universe is predisposed to create Intelligence
4 - Even if one can see the evolutionary line, the "motor" in the flagellum is remarkable, and the odds are against it
5 - The "gears" on a particular insects legs are also remarkable

1 and 2 are completely false.
3 and 4 are directly contrary to one another. How can the universe be predisposed to create intelligence, while the odds be simultaneously against something even simpler?
And 5 is just your feelings. Don't forget to throw in a good "Look at the trees," while you're at it.

It's like you just started reading up on apologetics a few days ago.
 
The statement that God (if he exists) wishes to remain hidden is reasonable.

Either there is a God or there is not a God. God does not show himself, that we all agree on. But are there clues to his existence? The answer for many with faith is that clues do exist.

If he exists and does not show himself, then why are there claims of evidence?

You want cake and a meal. God is hiding; hence no one can know; but wait — you have evidence because God came out of hiding for an encore in your head.

He's there. He's gone. Look now. Too late!

Heads you win, tails I lose.
 
The translation should be more like:

1:1 In the beginning of God's creating the skies and the earth
1:2 when the earth had been shapeless and formless, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and God's spirit was hovering on the face of the water

(My highlighting don't think they had flourescent highlighters back then - but I'm sure they were predicted somewhere in the text if you only know how to read the Bible "correctly" ;) )

My apologies for the derail, but that's really fascinating. It states God created the Earth, but then describes the Earth as "shapeless and formless" before the creation. I dunno; maybe that means "nonexistent."

And nice to know the water was there first.
 
2 - Some people (the prophets) have experiences that change history

Do you mean like Brigham Young? Or Mohammad? Tenskwatawa? There's a long list.

Their experiences indicate that many of their claims about god are wrong, as testified by other prophets. Seems better evidence against a god than for one.
 
Material:
1 - There was a beginning from "nothing"
2- The Universe is indeed finely tuned
3 - Rather than being "dumb matter" the Universe is predisposed to create Intelligence
4 - Even if one can see the evolutionary line, the "motor" in the flagellum is remarkable, and the odds are against it
5 - The "gears" on a particular insects legs are also remarkable

That the universe had a beginning does not indicate the existence of a god.

The universe is not finely tuned.

The universe is not predisposed towards intelligent life.

"Remarkable" means nothing, and even were the odds against any specific instance of life coming into being, that would not be evidence in favor of a god - just something unlikely happening.

Personal:
1 - Some people have experiences that science has (very) weak answers for
2 - Some people (the prophets) have experiences that change history

Neither of these would be evidence for a god even if they were true.

Of course, they aren't - at least, not in the way you think they are. No one has ever experienced divine visitation or anything of that stripe.

The arguments by many on this site answer that the Universe "just is". That sounds like a leap of faith to me.

It isn't.

They argue that since they have not had "experiences" that are remarkable (despite some stories that I do not accept as remarkable) others do not have such experiences.

No, we argue that you are a very bad judge of what your experiences actually were and what they signify.
 
God does not show himself, that we all agree on.
...

2 - Some people (the prophets) have experiences that change history

So which is it? The only way to reconcile this is that prophets are experiencing "false revelations," meaning, they are experiencing something other than God.

If God does not show himself, then any religion based on revelation must be false. Bye bye, Jesus.
 
One thing that many people, religious of not, don't understand is that a fly is just as evolved as a human. In fact, insects are doing far better than mammals. People often see a ladder progression to humans but it is anything but.
 
1 - There was a beginning from "nothing"
Irrelevant; possible with or without the gods

2- The Universe is indeed finely tuned
Irrelevant; possible with or without the gods... even most mythologies with creator-gods, including the Judeo-Christo-Islamic one, don't imagine a finely tuned universe.

The Bible clearly says the Earth's surface is the bottom of the inside of a bubble at the bottom of a great abyss full of water which would collapse on us if not held up/back by the solid dome we call the sky. Others include other ways the world is waiting to be destroyed at any moment, like the one about the world as a carpet held down by giant animals around the edges who cause earthquakes with even small movements and would let the whole thing completely fly loose if they just got up... or the one about how the sun must be driven along its path each day lest it stray too close or stay too high too long and burn everything away... or the one about how the world is in the middle of a constant struggle between the forces of hot and cold, either of which would kill/destroy it all if it dominated over the other even slightly for too long. I don't know of any culture anywhere whose mythology has ever associated gods with a finely-tuned universe; it's more typical to describe and define gods in terms of their relationship to how it's always on the brink of destruction.

A finely tuned universe would consist entirely of a vast mostly-flat surface extending for any arbitrary distance horizontally, plus or minus a few thousand feet vertically for hills & valleys, with any number of small suns cruising around not very far above, like 20000 feet up and 100 feet wide. In other words, no great forces of opposite kinds of destruction constantly balanced in the struggle over which one gets to destroy us, no demons & monsters prowling prowling for a chance to ruin everything for us, no heavenly booby traps just for gods to conveniently be able to spring on us when they have a temper tantrum, and no space wasted on anything that doesn't contribute in some way to life.

3 - Rather than being "dumb matter" the Universe is predisposed to create Intelligence
Only if by "predisposed" you mean natural selection can have that result but doesn't seem to experience any particular compulsion toward it.

4 - Even if one can see the evolutionary line, the "motor" in the flagellum is remarkable, and the odds are against it
Feelings mean nothing, actual mathematically factual odds mean nothing, and made-up "odds" that aren't really odds at all but just feelings also mean nothing.

5 - The "gears" on a particular insects legs are also remarkable
Feelings mean nothing.

1 - Some people have experiences that science has (very) weak answers for
Irrelevant; even if science had no answers of any kind at all, that would still not be evidence for the gods. It would just be something unknown.

2 - Some people (the prophets) have experiences that change history
In other words, something that consists of nothing but aggregate human behavior can be changed by prominent humans' behavior. How would it even be possible for this rather obvious fact to have any relevance at all to the existence or non-existence of the gods? This is like trying to prove there's no such thing as bananas because my mother's cat prefers fish over poultry.

Science used to assume that what people saw, heard and touched was hard reality. Science has shown that matter pops in and out of existence, that spooky at a distance can happen, and that the Matrix mind is a logical possibility.
Again, nothing that has anything to do with the gods in any way at all.

They argue that since they have not had "experiences" that are remarkable (despite some stories that I do not accept as remarkable) others do not have such experiences.
Nobody has claimed that. You are lying.

The problem with religious/spiritual experiences is not a matter of whether they happen at all or not but simply the known and well proven fact that such experiences can be misleading and misinterpreted.
 
1 - There was a beginning from "nothing"

No, there wasn't. Understanding physics might help.

2- The Universe is indeed finely tuned

No, it is not.

3 - Rather than being "dumb matter" the Universe is predisposed to create Intelligence

No, it is not. You are commiting the sharpshooter fallacy.

4 - Even if one can see the evolutionary line, the "motor" in the flagellum is remarkable, and the odds are against it

Irrelevant. Evolution does not happen by chance.

5 - The "gears" on a particular insects legs are also remarkable

See above.

1 - Some people have experiences that science has (very) weak answers for

Some people have experiences that does not correspond to reality.

2 - Some people (the prophets) have experiences that change history

Irrelevant. Their actions change history.
 
...killing your daughter if she is sexually active.

...murdering your neighbor if he picks up sticks on shabbat.

...giving away all you have to the poor...

...eating lobster is an abomination...

The thing is the various laws combine what we'd consider civil and religious laws. I'm not sure which laws we "got" from Bible. I suspect they could also be found in Roman law.
 
I think you misunderstood me. If you look at my quotes below you might see how I feel on the issue.

I agree. That's why I said "no they won't." As in, they won't be surprised because they won't be anywhere.

Ah!! mea culpa - misunderstood and apologies!!!!:):o
 
...killing your daughter if she is sexually active.

...murdering your neighbor if he picks up sticks on shabbat.

...giving away all you have to the poor...

...eating lobster is an abomination...

Technically, the food ones had real, but unknown to the bible times people, reasons. Trichina for piggies and polluted water filtering (the pollutants into their bodies rather than out) for many marine/riverine crustaceans and the like. They just made god rules out of health problems!!

The other three are crap-headed nonsense!!!!! Probably put in by crabby old rectum eating priests with a big hate on for their own people!!!!! As are old (heads) of many religions and even not religions!!!
 
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