I think He is that and FAR beyond that. Not to mention an artist beyond anything we could ever hope to accomplish. One look at the pictures from the Hubble Telescope is enough to drive that point home.
Why can't science and religion just get along?
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I think He is that and FAR beyond that. Not to mention an artist beyond anything we could ever hope to accomplish. One look at the pictures from the Hubble Telescope is enough to drive that point home.
All I'll say is this....
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstein
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstein
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Lord Garth
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I don't care what people believe as long as it doesn't impede progress.
Actually, he couldn't be a scientist because he already knows everything. The scientific method is of no use to an omniscient being.
Does God know where he comes from and who created him?
See, that's the problem with the whole concept right there.
Why do people easily accept that there needs to be a God that is an absolute (with no beginning, no end and no creator), but can't accept that the universe itself could be an absolute that has no creator at all.
I was taught by Franciscans. Bunch of tree-hugging do-gooders. I did go to a Jesuit university though. Those guys are no joke.
Yeah, see this is a good example of what I was talking about. This Jack Chick fellow is painted into a corner and can't get out. Just reading his anti-evolution stuff is all that's needed to dismiss a guy like that. He's a fundie. A caveman, banging rocks together for heat and barking at the moon.
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use..."
- Galileo
Starry Eyed:
I said chick because that is the name of the website... http://www.chick.com/default.asp
And yes. I know his full name and who he is, my friend.
I have read a lot of more on the topic of christianity than you have my friend (i.e. numerous books involving the Bible and the science that backs it up). So I think I would know a little more about him and the subject of christianity than you do. This is not to be boastful but to be truthful on the matter so that you and others may have a more informed decision on God's way of life for yourself and others.
Now, although Jack does get a little more fundamental than me (concerning rock music and role playing games). I do see his side of the argument. And it is not wrong way of life to live if it works for certain people. I know that there are destructive aspects to these things if it is misused. And they need to be carefully sifted thru to determine what you are constantly filling your mind up with. Although, I don't personally subscribe to his extreme views on these particular subjects exactly. However, I do believe that his plan for salvation and God's plan for your life (which is a standard plan for salvation within christianity from the Bible) is spot on.
Here is the actual tract that helped start my relationship with God (if you ever become interested), my friend...
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0001/0001_01.asp
It is still insulting that you would call the guy a nut job just because he believes a certain way. But I get it. Anyone who is going to believe in the Bible is going to be persecuted. In fact, Christians have died because they believed in the Bible long ago. And someday in the future: history will repeat itself like that again.
Granted, role playing (i.e. make believe) is not evil in of itself (if you focus on the right and good things). I think what Jack is concerned about is that D & D involves magic and playing evil characters and the like. But role playing with magic and evil characters and actually practicing magic (such as in Wicca, and Satanism) are two separate things. But on the other hand, when you do start to fill your mind with those things too much, though... it can lead to trouble you don't realize. But magic and stuff aside. That is not the first thing you should be concerned about to start. Asking God into your heart is (if your open or ready for it). And that is what Jack Chick teaches that is most important. If God talks to your heart differently about your walk with Him. That is between you and God.
But I still highly recommend checking it out!
You won't believe how amazing it is to accept God into your life. For me it was like a transformation. And I was totally on fire for the Lord when I did.
Actually, I think Corinthians 2:9 says it better than I ever could...
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."
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True, I stretched the term quite a bit (read: a LOT)--but given that we're dealing with God we very often have to deal in metaphors and approximations. The overall point I was trying to make is that He takes a very intense interest in how things work, in all of the processes...but (and this is where I am at great odds with some fundamentalists) I do think that He has an interest in us learning the scientific method and learning how to understand the world that He has created for us. He's most certainly got the most thorough knowledge of the method and how we would use it, that one could possibly have.
(And personally I find it quite amusing and interesting that a number of things in this world almost seem to be laid out in a manner that invites us to explore them and make those kinds of discoveries!
)
Really?
To the best of my knowledge, Jack Chick has never suffered any kind of persecution at all.
In fact, his company, Chick Publications, claims to have sold over 750 million of its tracts.
If being criticized and mocked on the internet is the worst thing that ever happens to him, I'd say that Chick has done pretty well in life.
Especially considering some of the false and defamatory things he says in some of his tracts. Among other things, he has claimed that the Roman Catholic Church invented Islam as part of a conspiracy to destroy true Christianity--and Judaism, too.
In fact, he charges, in his tract The Storyteller, that "Islam is now being secretly armed by the Vatican to destroy Israel."
See here.
*deep, cleansing breath*
Okay, I'm going to do my best not to stray into TNZ territory here.
First, being told you are factually wrong about something (like evolution, for example) is not persecution. No more than people who believe the Earth is flat are being "persecuted" for being told the Earth is round.
Second, is there any group throughout history that has delivered more persecution and suffering than fundamentalists (of all types)? It's the type of thinking involved: concrete, black and white thinking. I propose that fundamentalists of Islam are not meaningfully different than fundamentalists of any other kind (see my signature quote). When you are so certain you are right, because a very old book says so, you feel justified in doing whatever you believe is necessary to "defeat the enemy" (AKA "us").
Third, I suppose as an American I can respect a person's right to their opinion, but I feel no obligation whatsoever to respect the opinion itself. Why should I? I don't want the Bible (or the Koran, or any other holy book) shoved down my throat. I don't want the Constitution replaced by the Bible.
Lastly, you're still ignoring other faiths who accept the Bible, just differently than you do. Catholics are the most obvious example. To greatly over-simplify, we believe the Bible is a myth. Stories that highlight underlying truths. Like Aesop's fables, there is deeper, more profound meaning below the surface. Or as one Jesuit told me, we believe the Bible is True, but not necessarily Literally True.
Now granted I'm not going to win any Catholic of the Year awards, but at least my upbringing and traditions do not prevent me from seeing what's right in front of my face. My church did not tell me that science was false, or the Devil's work, or any such nonsense. It allowed me to function comfortably in the modern world.
I've encountered this idea reading about the Omega Point Theory, and it's indeed very interesting, even if I fail to see any practical use.
I understand your point, but since you aknowledge that there can be no answer, I fail to understand the point of the question. In the context of your example, "real" or not deesn't really make any difference: physical being or information construct, my live will be exactly the same. In the end, it's simply a recursive argument: even if we actually live in a technologically created universe, in the end there will be still a uncreated universe, whose existence is as mysterious as ever. So, why don't we just cut to the chase and say that this is the uncreated universe? My feeling is that Occam's razor could be invoked in this instance and do not lose any significant information.
I agree. Again, just to be unnecessarily specious as my usual, I would call it philosophy, of which religion is a subsample. But that's just me.
Sorry, but then you were never an atheist, just an angry or depressed theist. The existence of evil in the world is actually more problematic for theists than atheists, since we don't attach to it any metaphysical sheanigans and simply define it as anything that is detrimental to human beings.
If religion gave you peace, more power to you. Different paths for different people.
Mmh, I hope there is a joke there somewhere, but I'm afraid I can't find it.
I don't hold his beliefs against Chick (even it I think he's misguided), but I cant stand the fact that he gives deeply flawed interpretation of anything that he touches in his comics. If his purpose is to educate people, he's doing a really shitty job, and I'm not sure if it's due to simple ignorance or actual malice.
Yes. Let's consider, for example, the possibility that our world is just a computer-generated Matrix. There is no way to tell the difference between the Matrix and the real world from the inside.
But if this is, in fact, a computer-generated Matrix, then there must be a computer that is doing the generating. And this computer must exist in the real world.
It therefore follows that the existence of the real world is certain. Either this is the real world, and therefore, the real world exists. Or this is the Matrix--and therefore, as we have seen, the real world exists.
Given that we know the real world exists, the question then becomes: do we have any reason to think that this world is, in fact, the Matrix? No--we have already established that there is no way to tell the difference. For all we know, or can know, this is the real world.
We know just one thing: that the real world exists. And the simplest explanation that fits what we know is that our world is the real one.
Furthermore: G. E. Moore demolished skeptical arguments like these by pointing out that they commit the fallacy of equivocation. They confuse two different senses of verbs like "to be possible."
In English, for example, there is a big difference between "to be possible for" and "to be possible that."
For example: it is possible for my computer to be switched off. But it is not possible that my computer is switched off. I know this because I am using it to type this message, right now.
From this example, we can see that, just because it is possible for something to be true, it does not follow that it is possible that something is true.
It may be possible for this world to be the Matrix--but it does not follow that it is possible that this world is, in fact, the Matrix. We would need some additional evidence to establish this possibility--just as I would need some additional evidence to establish the possibility that my computer is switched off.
But as we have already established, there is no such evidence, and can be no such evidence: from within, the Matrix is indistiguishable from the real world. And in the absence of such evidence, we have no grounds for even supposing that this might not be the real world.
I may go on a tangent here and say that the uncertainties of language are one of the main difficulties when discussing philosophy. I long for a time when all philosophical models would be examined by mathematical logic and treated under proper model theory.
But I'm quite sure I'm not the first to say this.
But I'm quite sure I'm not the first to say this.
I may go on a tangent here and say that the uncertainties of language are one of the main difficulties when discussing philosophy. I long for a time when all philosophical models would be examined by mathematical logic and treated under proper model theory.
But I'm quite sure I'm not the first to say this.
"Philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday."
- Wittgenstein
Ah, the paradox of evil in a universe ruled by a benevolent, all-knowing, all-powerful God. Putting aside all the theological mind games and applying good old Occam's Razor, I've come up with three possibilities:
A) God is benevolent and all-knowing, but not all-powerful. Therefore, bad stuff happens that God is unable to prevent.
B) God is benevolent and all-powerful, but not all-knowing. Therefore, bad stuff happens that God is unaware of.
C) God is all-powerful and all-knowing, but He's a prick.
http://www.maniacworld.com/why-call-him-god.html^Well, Epicurus nailed it around 300 BC.
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
http://www.maniacworld.com/why-call-him-god.html
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
http://www.maniacworld.com/why-call-him-god.html
That's leaving out an option, though.
It is my personal belief that once we took the free will we were given and abused it, that for God to "reabsorb" us--to force us to be good by ending that free will--would be a crime of such magnitude that no form of murder or torture even gets close. Anything we can think of as Hell would absolutely pale in comparison to that. It is my belief that malevolence would be expressed in reabsorption, not in forcing us to be free from pain and even physical death.
Now obviously that brings up the question of why we were created as separate entities in the first place, given the possibility of our abusing our free will. I think it comes down to the nature of love--which is itself the definition of the ultimate good. (And by love I obviously mean something much more all-encompassing and of far higher magnitude than simple eros.) To bring love into full perfection, it must be reciprocated freely by two beings capable of fully independent will. Coercion and love do not mix--not in the slightest. Of course, the same free will that is necessary for said relationship of truly separate wills also comes with the huge risk of our saying "no." And from that moment, you get a cumulative effect resulting from each poor choice we make--kind of a snowball/butterfly effect of evil.
Now ultimately, in my belief there will be restoration. But the reason we are not simply forced to take part is because as I said--I think there is no evil we can do that would even come close to the horror that would represent. Whatever comes, we must choose it, and be able to process it in full understanding of what we are doing. Under this interpretation, the backing-off that we see, the fact that evil happens, is due not to unconcern but because the alternative is immeasurably worse. The power to commit the crime of "reabsorption" is there, but the decision is made not to use it because of the magnitude of evil it would represent.
Now there are some schools of thought within Christianity such as that seen in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas that suggest that perhaps the fall and the introduction of evil and the permission of evil to act (rather than the alternative of reabsorption) was not just a risk, but inevitable in the process of bringing about the greatest good. And again, if we consider love as a knowing relationship that understands the decision, understands the alternatives, and chooses to enter the relationship even though one has the power not to, then it begins to seem that our knowledge of good and evil is part and parcel of that.
It is interesting to note that different churches have different doctrines of what the West calls the Fall. In the West it is called the Fall and means exactly that. In the Eastern Church the failure of Adam and Eve was not a fall, but a failure to rise to their fullest potential--a break in the relationship and a shift in our priorities. (The Orthodox Church has no concept of original sin as Catholic and Protestant churches do, but rather of cumulative effect of choice...that we do not bear the guilt of that original sin but live with its consequences instead. I tend, though Protestant, to come closest to this view as it is the one that to me makes sense.)
Now if you don't accept this particular hierarchy of values, in which love and free will trump even the value of physical life or absence of pain, then yes, you'll wind up being left with only the choices above. But that is how I happen to see it.
It is my personal belief that once we took the free will we were given and abused it, that for God to "reabsorb" us--to force us to be good by ending that free will--would be a crime of such magnitude that no form of murder or torture even gets close. Anything we can think of as Hell would absolutely pale in comparison to that. It is my belief that malevolence would be expressed in reabsorption, not in forcing us to be free from pain and even physical death.
Now obviously that brings up the question of why we were created as separate entities in the first place, given the possibility of our abusing our free will. I think it comes down to the nature of love--which is itself the definition of the ultimate good. (And by love I obviously mean something much more all-encompassing and of far higher magnitude than simple eros.) To bring love into full perfection, it must be reciprocated freely by two beings capable of fully independent will. Coercion and love do not mix--not in the slightest. Of course, the same free will that is necessary for said relationship of truly separate wills also comes with the huge risk of our saying "no." And from that moment, you get a cumulative effect resulting from each poor choice we make--kind of a snowball/butterfly effect of evil.
Now ultimately, in my belief there will be restoration. But the reason we are not simply forced to take part is because as I said--I think there is no evil we can do that would even come close to the horror that would represent. Whatever comes, we must choose it, and be able to process it in full understanding of what we are doing. Under this interpretation, the backing-off that we see, the fact that evil happens, is due not to unconcern but because the alternative is immeasurably worse. The power to commit the crime of "reabsorption" is there, but the decision is made not to use it because of the magnitude of evil it would represent.
Now there are some schools of thought within Christianity such as that seen in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas that suggest that perhaps the fall and the introduction of evil and the permission of evil to act (rather than the alternative of reabsorption) was not just a risk, but inevitable in the process of bringing about the greatest good. And again, if we consider love as a knowing relationship that understands the decision, understands the alternatives, and chooses to enter the relationship even though one has the power not to, then it begins to seem that our knowledge of good and evil is part and parcel of that.
It is interesting to note that different churches have different doctrines of what the West calls the Fall. In the West it is called the Fall and means exactly that. In the Eastern Church the failure of Adam and Eve was not a fall, but a failure to rise to their fullest potential--a break in the relationship and a shift in our priorities. (The Orthodox Church has no concept of original sin as Catholic and Protestant churches do, but rather of cumulative effect of choice...that we do not bear the guilt of that original sin but live with its consequences instead. I tend, though Protestant, to come closest to this view as it is the one that to me makes sense.)
Now if you don't accept this particular hierarchy of values, in which love and free will trump even the value of physical life or absence of pain, then yes, you'll wind up being left with only the choices above. But that is how I happen to see it.
I may go on a tangent here and say that the uncertainties of language are one of the main difficulties when discussing philosophy. I long for a time when all philosophical models would be examined by mathematical logic and treated under proper model theory.
But I'm quite sure I'm not the first to say this.
No. But G E Moore would have approved of what you say here. He is one of the founders of analytic philosophy in the English-speaking world--and unlike his followers, he often took a very down-to-earth, common-sense approach to these problems.
For instance: how do we know that an external world exists?
Well, for an external world to exist, there must be more than one object to be encountered in space.
But is there more than one object to be encountered in space?
Of course, he said, waving his hands: here is one hand, and here is another.
I wish I'd been there to see that.
The thing is, when you read Genesis, free will wasn't given to humans by God. God wanted to prevent them from becoming self aware. Someone else talked humans into eating from the Tree of Conscience (sometimes tree of knowledge of good and evil, sometimes the tree of all knowledge).
That tree was beyond God's powers. That tree enabled humans to think for themselves. And God didn't want that to happen. But he could not prevent it, he could only warn them not to eat the fruit. When they did, he became angry and exiled them. He exiled them from Paradise before they could eat from the Tree of Life, too, AND he punished them for becoming self aware. That is not the action of a good God. That is the action of an afraid God.
I find this particular story the most interesting in the entire Bible. It shows that God was never omnipotent to begin with, and that humans were supposed to be something like slaves or stupid pets, rats in the experimental labyrinth.
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If we hadn't had free will then, then how could Adam and Eve have ever disobeyed God's command? They would've been no different from Borg drones being told not to do something by the Queen, and they would never have been able to divert from the command to stay away, that they were given.
"Snake is irrelevant--resistance is futile," basically.
We were already thinking and deciding for ourselves. We didn't have much in the way of information then, or conception of the possibilities, but we were already choosing. Until then, we had simply chosen obedience. The problem actually started before Eve bit the forbidden apple. She made a choice (and then Adam made the same choice in parallel and is equally culpable, BTW) and then learned more possibilities of how she could apply those choices than she was prepared for at the time.
I don't think we know that had Eve rejected the temptation instead (I almost phrased that differently, except I figured "blown off the snake" sounded so, SO wrong...) that some way of educating us in a way where our moral understanding would never be outstripped by our technical/philosophical understanding might not have come about.
I also do not see where you're getting that the tree was outside God's control. What He was choosing not to control was our will. He could've Borgified us. But He chose against that.
"Snake is irrelevant--resistance is futile," basically.
We were already thinking and deciding for ourselves. We didn't have much in the way of information then, or conception of the possibilities, but we were already choosing. Until then, we had simply chosen obedience. The problem actually started before Eve bit the forbidden apple. She made a choice (and then Adam made the same choice in parallel and is equally culpable, BTW) and then learned more possibilities of how she could apply those choices than she was prepared for at the time.
I don't think we know that had Eve rejected the temptation instead (I almost phrased that differently, except I figured "blown off the snake" sounded so, SO wrong...) that some way of educating us in a way where our moral understanding would never be outstripped by our technical/philosophical understanding might not have come about.
I also do not see where you're getting that the tree was outside God's control. What He was choosing not to control was our will. He could've Borgified us. But He chose against that.
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