For every favorable mutation there are 100,000 failures which are either useless or get the carrier killed, so it ends up looking like a magical process in retrospect. But it's not. It's a very messy lottery that's been going on for an unfathomably long time.
Well someone had to roll the ball, and the big bang doesn't cut it ...
Again probably the biggest argument against God's existence is these examples of horrible things human beings did or do. There were two explanations given to it , linked together.
See in Genesis 1 it is written that god created human in his form. For centuries the greatest interpreters thought how is it possible that we were made in the form of an abstract being. Eventually they came to the conclusion that we weren't made physically like god, but rather mentally. We were able to think ourselves and decide ourselves our actions, we were aware of them, that is what differs us from animals, later on we will learn to separate good and wrong, our goods and wrongs are not necessarily fitting God's envision as for example we were born naked but when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge they decided that being naked is wrong.
From that point on we were always facing the choice of good and bad and only we dictated our own course of action. That means that god cannot force us to take one way or another, we choose for ourselves. He will try to guide us in various ways and punish us if we did something wrong but eventually our course of action is our own choice. That doesn't link that well up with the idea of the all knowing god as god won't be able to know our choice in theory, however it is settled by the fact that god is able to see the choice we will make in the future, we will make it ourselves on our choice, but he will know what choice we made before we made it.
However that idea creates another problem - why would god than bother give us predictions, warnings and such if he already knows we will do that something. Well it is possible that the future god sees is the future that will be if he didn’t give us a warning or if we didn’t listen to it, and that if we change our choice we will change our future and the future he will know, it works similarly to modern theories about parallel universes where for which choice we make another is created with the choice we didn’t take, and god is able to see them all.
Where do I take this all ? To the point where although we do quite horrible things these things were ultimately our choice, in some other universe maybe there was no WW2 but we took that specific set of choices to bring us to it and so God couldn't stop us.
Last edited by Iv121 on Mon Sep 23, 2013 4:55 pm; edited 1 time in total
Last_Jedi_Standing Moderator
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You know more about it then I do, but I'm still convinced there was an intelligent aspect in certain stages, at least in the jump to sentience from... I don't know, whatever gorillas are. And Abiogenesis still seems impossible, or at least implausible to the point of impossibility.
Sentience is a really hard thing to pin down. It's a scale, with humans on one end and jellyfish on the other, but there's no clear line there where the things on one side are sentient and the others are not. Chimpanzees can count and understand what that means, ants farm fungus and aphids, gorillas can learn sign language, elephants mourn their dead, bees recognize faces, and octopi use tools. Any one of those creatures is more intelligent and displays more of what might be considered basic signs of sentience than a human infant, but for all that a 1-year-old is a person and an octopus is not. Intelligence and sentience is a matter of degree, not of kind, but humans are somewhat prejudiced for our own kind. We want to believe that we're special, we're sentient, we're the ones chosen by God, but it's just not so.
Iv121 wrote:
Where do I take this all ? To the point where although we do quite horrible things these things were ultimately our choice, in some other universe maybe there was no WW2 but we took that specific set of choices to bring us to it and so God couldn't stop us.
But God demonstrated an ability to control human thoughts and actions in the book of Exodus, when he, and I quote, "hardened Pharaoh's heart" repeatedly so he wouldn't let the Israelites leave. If he can cause the Pharaoh to take action, how could he have been unable to prevent a war if he had wanted to?
Laibach General
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Where do I take this all ? To the point where although we do quite horrible things these things were ultimately our choice, in some other universe maybe there was no WW2 but we took that specific set of choices to bring us to it and so God couldn't stop us.
But God demonstrated an ability to control human thoughts and actions in the book of Exodus, when he, and I quote, "hardened Pharaoh's heart" repeatedly so he wouldn't let the Israelites leave. If he can cause the Pharaoh to take action, how could he have been unable to prevent a war if he had wanted to?
You are not the first one to ask this, this question was asked before but in another context - why would God do this deed ? Would he want Mouses to fail ? One very specific sentence gives us an insight on this:
In every single of the 10 strikes God brought on Egypt it was written that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, we could very well assume Godhardens it as we are not told the reason for it ... until we come to the seventh strike - the hail, here it was written differently : "And he made his heart heavier [Pharaoh] ... and stronger became Pharaoh’s heart and won't send the sons of Israel as he said to Mousse" . Noticed it ? That's right, Its not written that God hardened his heart, but Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Some Interpreters say that God didn't actually hardened Pharaoh’s heart himself but given Mousse a prediction that through his actions Pharaoh’s heart will harden, that is how it will happen, and yet on his choice.
Last_Jedi_Standing Moderator
Posts : 3033 Join date : 2012-02-19 Age : 112 Location : Coruscant
The New International Version records 7 counts of God hardening hearts and 3 of Pharaoh hardening his own heart. I give you:
Exodus 9:12 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said to Moses. Exodus 10:1 [ The Plague of Locusts ] Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them Exodus 10:20 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go. Exodus 10:27 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he was not willing to let them go. Exodus 11:10 Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country. Exodus 14:8 The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out boldly. Joshua 11:20 For it was the Lord himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the Lord had commanded Moses.
Those are all really specific. God can harden hearts, and thus presumably also soften them. If God chooses not to intervene, humans do what they want, but make no mistake: If you believe in the Bible as it is written, you must believe that when God wants something to happen, that thing does. A complete belief in the book of Exodus requires a belief that that same God let the Holocaust happen when he could have stopped it.
Iv121 General
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Well I wouldn't trust translations when I work on suck tinny differences in words, especially in Hebrew. In all these cases just to let you know It wasn't written that the lord did that, it was written plain that his heart hardened, and as a funny fact I think it might be possible that to this day Mouses walks with a horn on his head thanks to some crappy translator that didn't know that "Keren Or" means light ray...
The Ramban (Weird name huh ? that is actually a shortcut for Rabi Moshe Ben Nahman) says that for each new thing in this world there is a reason, and behind that reason there is another reason, and so there will be reasons up to the source of a thing. In the prophecies for the shortness of things there are often missing these causes but instead we know the result and the origin of things, such was Pharaoh’s heart too.
Finally before we discuss that book you must first stop accept it as an ultimate truth, or try to question it thus turning it into ultimate false. The bible is an amazing collection of literature that contains many things in it. You must however remember that it was written by humans and rewritten for generations. It is correct to assume that this book comes form a divine source, if you deny that you again view this book as ultimate false and thus cannot study it. However we do not possess that book in it's original form anymore. Even though the Hebrew version is probably quite close to the original we are nevertheless - humans. Many interpreters also worked hard on figuring different mistakes, hat they were allowed to write they wrote on the side of the book as a note, what not they wrote in their own interpretation books that try to explain why they assume this specific part was not written correctly. Due to these faulties the bible also feels quite clouded, though it does contain secrets initially and actually in Hebrew it looks less cryptic.
Last_Jedi_Standing Moderator
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Well I wouldn't trust translations when I work on suck tinny differences in words, especially in Hebrew. In all these cases just to let you know It wasn't written that the lord did that, it was written plain that his heart hardened, and as a funny fact I think it might be possible that to this day Mouses walks with a horn on his head thanks to some crappy translator that didn't know that "Keren Or" means light ray...
People have fought and died over lesser questions of translation than this. We can't just dismiss it; this is what the book that I am told to worship tells me. It comes down to you asserting that your Bible is right and mine is wrong. If mine is wrong on this point—and there's no potential for interpretation in that text, it directly states that the hardening of the heart was something done by God himself—then my Bible is surely not holy, because it does not tell true story of God. Taken to its logical conclusion, that train of thought would suggest that this thing masquerading as a holy text is probably heretical and really ought to be burned, because it spreads lies and calls them truth. But obviously that's ridiculous—you can't say your Bible is more right than my Bible. Them's fightin' words if there ever were any. But I will accept that what you say is true, and it's different in your version of the Bible. If two Bibles, supposedly both absolutely accurate truths given to us by God, can contradict each other, doesn't that rather throw the whole thing into doubt? The Bible is the only resource we have for this, and if it can be wrong as you claim this whole debate becomes nonsense. If a movie is released with two endings, which one is real? No-one knows. There's no way to know. But if you're planning to worship the movie, you'd better bloody know, and if you can't perhaps you should think about finding a different movie.
I don't have even the foggiest idea what you're talking about with the Ramban stuff. I think your syntax is a bit screwed up there, but I'm not certain. Are you saying that there's stuff that's not written there, but if it was, it would make sense? Because that would pretty much be cheating. It's like a football player saying "Well, I missed the shot and didn't get a goal, but if I had done it differently, I would have made it, so you should give my team the point anyway". I don't know that that's actually what you mean, but it is my best guess interpretation of that paragraph.
Groot Marine
Posts : 1456 Join date : 2012-03-18 Age : 28 Location : Yggdrasil
My thing with religion is as long as a human is writing the rules, there is probably a hidden reason behind it, I mean it can be an excellent control method, whoever thought of it is a damn genius.
I was going to say that religion can teach good values, but it can jus as easily teach bad values, and make them seem good, it's very good for manipulation.
As for the ultimate question, we can't go back before the universe, so we may never truly know.
Iv121 General
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See LJS there is no argue that the bible was first written in ancient Hebrew, there is really little argue that can be had over that, it's just a fact (just like Mousses walking with a horn on his head ). Really if you are to study the old testament you must study it in Hebrew and in detail, there is so much to know and so much to understand in the way it is written that no translation in the world will help you. For example the creation of the world, it is written that in the Beginning god created the sky and earth, or is it ? The same Ramban tells "Don't read Bara [Created], read Broe [the creation of]", what does it mean ? For you not much as you cannot see the original text before you (You won't even know that in Hebrew both words are written exactly the same !), but that means a difference that instead of reading "At the beginning god created the sky and earth" it now reads "Before god created the world" ... To understand all the depth in the text you must read it at it's native language.
Also you do not view the bible correctly, you see it as either the ultimate truth or the ultimate false, I dedicated a whole paragraph to that question.
Last_Jedi_Standing Moderator
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Finally before we discuss that book you must first stop accept it as an ultimate truth, or try to question it thus turning it into ultimate false.
I don't know that I'd call it the ultimate false. It's a perfectly good book, although not without its plot holes, and it has some good morals. But I do not and will never view it as a portal through which some greater being is attempting to communicate with me, any more than I do the back of a cereal box. If that makes me unworthy of speaking of its divine and wondrous light then so be it, and I'll enjoy my cereal in peace, but if you are still willing to discuss religion with an infidel such as myself let's not talk like that, aye-aye? I have no interest in being converted.
Keon Lord/Lady Rear Admiral 1st
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I can't be bothered to pull out mine. But basically, I don't see what it means in a debate with a person who accepts it as literal truth, and one who doesn't at all. You can quote from the Bible, and I'll quote from the Kojiki (Shinto book. One of many, they don't have a united scripture), and we'll be getting nowhere.
Laibach General
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There're like 20 different versions of the bible that are approved by the RCC, put that together with codexes, apocrypha, and the various protestant bibles and you have a big mess, you can't take it literally.
ACH0225 General
Posts : 2346 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : I might be somewhere, I might not.
I, as an atheist owl, have a question for all the apparently learned theologians on the forum.
If Deity-of-choice is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, then said Deity already knows, before birth and the universe, who is going to which after-death soul receptacle, then why do your actions matter?
Last_Jedi_Standing Moderator
Posts : 3033 Join date : 2012-02-19 Age : 112 Location : Coruscant
What I get out of the Bible, that I think is what Jesus would have wanted me to get out of it, is: Be a good person. Ultimately, everything else is secondary to that. The Commandments and laws and scriptures exist to tell us how to be good people. For the most part, other religions all have the same message. They differ on what exactly it means to be a good person—some say you must pray in specific ways at specific times, or not eat certain foods, or wear certain clothes, or whatever it may be, but even there nearly all religions list a few basic moral standards: Don't kill. Don't steal. Don't lie. Treat others as you want to be treated. Respect your elders. Jesus and God as described in the New Testament would be happy with you as long as you kept to these few basic things, even if you didn't believe in them. That is what I see when I read the Bible, and the people I respect the least are those who cling tightly to the Old Testament commands to slay the enemies of God and not to tolerate people who are not like them while paying only lip service to "love thy neighbor". I believe that God and Jesus would judge much more harshly someone who spent his entire life praying and tithing and going to Church every Sunday but also being an asshole to everyone around him than they would someone who never really believed or worshiped but was generally a nice person. If everyone read the Bible or the Torah or the Qur'an or the Kojiki or the Book of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and understood that overarching message, the world would be a much better place.
Laibach General
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I, as an atheist owl, have a question for all the apparently learned theologians on the forum.
If Deity-of-choice is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, then said Deity already knows, before birth and the universe, who is going to which after-death soul receptacle, then why do your actions matter?
You're thinking about it the wrong way, God isn't inside our universe or time, what we do matters, but he can see every single possible permutation and combination of our actions, so we can't catch him 'off guard' so to speak. Iv said something about this, I think I agreed with it.
Last_Jedi_Standing wrote:
What I get out of the Bible, that I think is what Jesus would have wanted me to get out of it, is: Be a good person. Ultimately, everything else is secondary to that. The Commandments and laws and scriptures exist to tell us how to be good people. For the most part, other religions all have the same message. They differ on what exactly it means to be a good person—some say you must pray in specific ways at specific times, or not eat certain foods, or wear certain clothes, or whatever it may be, but even there nearly all religions list a few basic moral standards: Don't kill. Don't steal. Don't lie. Treat others as you want to be treated. Respect your elders. Jesus and God as described in the New Testament would be happy with you as long as you kept to these few basic things, even if you didn't believe in them. That is what I see when I read the Bible, and the people I respect the least are those who cling tightly to the Old Testament commands to slay the enemies of God and not to tolerate people who are not like them while paying only lip service to "love thy neighbor". I believe that God and Jesus would judge much more harshly someone who spent his entire life praying and tithing and going to Church every Sunday but also being an asshole to everyone around him than they would someone who never really believed or worshiped but was generally a nice person. If everyone read the Bible or the Torah or the Qur'an or the Kojiki or the Book of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and understood that overarching message, the world would be a much better place.
That's half of it, the other half is to know love and serve God, then take your place with him at the apocalypse etc. etc. the alternative to that is going to hell. Although, apparently when you're sent to hell, it's because you can't bear to live with the raw truth of what you did/are. I'm not really explaining this right, sorry.
Edit: As for killing unbelievers, Just War theory usually doesn't apply, although I'm sure if the United Reddit Fedora League started chopping up kids, a war would be justified.
moar edit: You seem to have discovered the concept of natural law, congratulations.
Tiel+ Lord/Lady Rear Admiral 1st
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You're thinking about it the wrong way, God isn't inside our universe or time, what we do matters, but he can see every single possible permutation and combination of our actions, so we can't catch him 'off guard' so to speak. Iv said something about this, I think I agreed with it.
Last_Jedi_Standing Moderator
Posts : 3033 Join date : 2012-02-19 Age : 112 Location : Coruscant
That's half of it, the other half is to know love and serve God, then take your place with him at the apocalypse etc. etc. the alternative to that is going to hell. Although, apparently when you're sent to hell, it's because you can't bear to live with the raw truth of what you did/are. I'm not really explaining this right, sorry.
So, I guess the question is: Which do you think God values more: That you serve him, or that you're a nice person? And if you think he values obedience over kindness, why is he deserving of either?
Laibach General
Posts : 2024 Join date : 2012-01-23 Age : 73 Location : Frozen Fields
That's half of it, the other half is to know love and serve God, then take your place with him at the apocalypse etc. etc. the alternative to that is going to hell. Although, apparently when you're sent to hell, it's because you can't bear to live with the raw truth of what you did/are. I'm not really explaining this right, sorry.
So, I guess the question is: Which do you think God values more: That you serve him, or that you're a nice person? And if you think he values obedience over kindness, why is he deserving of either?
If you're raised without knowledge of Christ and the church, acting on your conscience can be enough, see baptism of blood and/or desire. As for why we should serve God, why should a child obey his parents? It's sort of the same principle. Also, the evil that exists in the world is our fault, so He's being pretty nice giving us a second chance.
Tiel+ wrote:
potentially nsfw:
Well, if we're going to do that...
Spoiler:
Last_Jedi_Standing Moderator
Posts : 3033 Join date : 2012-02-19 Age : 112 Location : Coruscant
That's half of it, the other half is to know love and serve God, then take your place with him at the apocalypse etc. etc. the alternative to that is going to hell. Although, apparently when you're sent to hell, it's because you can't bear to live with the raw truth of what you did/are. I'm not really explaining this right, sorry.
So, I guess the question is: Which do you think God values more: That you serve him, or that you're a nice person? And if you think he values obedience over kindness, why is he deserving of either?
If you're raised without knowledge of Christ and the church, acting on your conscience can be enough, see baptism of blood and/or desire. As for why we should serve God, why should a child obey his parents? It's sort of the same principle. Also, the evil that exists in the world is our fault, so He's being pretty nice giving us a second chance.
Except that as you become an adult, you are expected to know right from wrong and think for yourself. If a religion is true, it shouldn't be threatened by skepticism, because its tenants should be able to stand on their own merit.
Laibach General
Posts : 2024 Join date : 2012-01-23 Age : 73 Location : Frozen Fields
That's half of it, the other half is to know love and serve God, then take your place with him at the apocalypse etc. etc. the alternative to that is going to hell. Although, apparently when you're sent to hell, it's because you can't bear to live with the raw truth of what you did/are. I'm not really explaining this right, sorry.
So, I guess the question is: Which do you think God values more: That you serve him, or that you're a nice person? And if you think he values obedience over kindness, why is he deserving of either?
If you're raised without knowledge of Christ and the church, acting on your conscience can be enough, see baptism of blood and/or desire. As for why we should serve God, why should a child obey his parents? It's sort of the same principle. Also, the evil that exists in the world is our fault, so He's being pretty nice giving us a second chance.
Except that as you become an adult, you are expected to know right from wrong and think for yourself. If a religion is true, it shouldn't be threatened by skepticism, because its tenants should be able to stand on their own merit.
People used to be extremely isolated, if someone with no knowledge of the Church obeys natural law to the best of their ability, I think there's a good chance of their souls falling under baptism of desire and/or blood. And there's also the entire concept of Limbo for unborn children and other weird cases like that. Religion isn't really threatened by scepticism, believe it or not the Catholic/Christian practice of proselytizing isn't born out of some sort of pseudo-nationalism, but because-in general anyway-we actually care about the well being of others, and it's pretty sad to think about the people who are probably going to hell. Also, religious people have more kids, liberalism/the white race is actually dying out. Edit: I sort of misread your post, sorry. We should think for ourselves, we have free will after all, but judging from the horrible things we've done as a race it seems like we're still pretty childish, on a whole.
Last edited by Laibach on Mon Sep 23, 2013 11:58 pm; edited 1 time in total
Laibach General
Posts : 2024 Join date : 2012-01-23 Age : 73 Location : Frozen Fields
Ok, different/parallel topic, does anyone else think that Hyperspace is retarded? Taking a 'shortcut' through another dimension just seems like it would make the trip longer, for it to work at all you have to assume the universe is shaped like some sort of 4D doughnut. Even if it is, you don't know whether there's anything even remotely interesting on the other side, and it seems like there would still be massive distances involved. I haven't really taken any cosmology or anything, I'm just drawing analogies from the relationship between 2D and 3D space.
Groot Marine
Posts : 1456 Join date : 2012-03-18 Age : 28 Location : Yggdrasil
Subject: Re: The Dedicated Argument Thread Tue Sep 24, 2013 2:21 am
slightly relevant, but contains strong language, probably NSFW, watch at own risk.:
Mon Sep 23, 2013 4:52 pm
). Really if you are to study the old testament you must study it in Hebrew and in detail, there is so much to know and so much to understand in the way it is written that no translation in the world will help you. For example the creation of the world, it is written that in the Beginning god created the sky and earth, or is it ? The same Ramban tells "Don't read Bara [Created], read Broe [the creation of]", what does it mean ? For you not much as you cannot see the original text before you (You won't even know that in Hebrew both words are written exactly the same !), but that means a difference that instead of reading "At the beginning god created the sky and earth" it now reads "Before god created the world" ... To understand all the depth in the text you must read it at it's native language.
