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Originally posted by Billy Joe Bob Gene:
Nagel,
I like you. We disagree on everything, but still, I like you.
Where to begin?
I appreciate you don't believe in a 6000 year old Universe. You are not insane. This is a good place to start.
i think so as well
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And God snapped his fingers and said " let there be light' and there was a Big Bang, and there was light and God said "whoa.. cool. that's good, that'll do. alright, lets get to work"
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What god? The god who existed before time, space, matter, and energy? It's a preposterous assumption, my friend.
that's right where our conversation is going to break down, i'm afraid. see, it's something called Faith - which is a belief in something that you have no solid evidence of.
(but you know that.) I have a huge reason for my faith, one that will A- do you no good and B- not interest you in the slightest.
however, i agree with you on one part - the idea that god is was and ever shall be is pretty preposterous to me as well, but i do believe that he's there and that he did create it all.
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It's an argument from ignorance. We simply go back to a point beyond which we have no explanation and say "God did it!". That point has been pushed farther and farther back for centuries, and recent developments preclude the necessity of god in the formation of the universe altogether.
well, generally instead of saying God did it! i tend to stick to the line 'I Don't Know'. But, to answer your words directly, a believer saying ' God did it!' is the other side of the same coin where the evoloutionist say "it just happened!"
Both are arguments of ignorance, because the real answer, from both parties should be " i don't know".
one side of the coin says 'god did it, it's 6000 years old,' and yet they can't explain why there are 500 million year old rocks lying around.
the other side says ' it just happened' and don't even pretend to explain how anything came to be there to bang bigly.
to me, saying 'Nothing was there, and then it exploded in to nothing, and then it made everything' is just as ludacris the typical creationist line seems to you.
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It's a weak and discredited argument. You are not allowed to define the unknown as god. If you insist, you must show your evidence, of which there is none. As if knowing the intimate, subtle mind of god was not enough for we mortal humans, we now assume he transcends space/time/matter/information?
It's too much to assume on no evidence.
I have evidence, and it works for me, but it isn't something i can show you, and even if i could it would not be evidence for you. i am sorry, but such is the nature of faith.
but, I am afraid that trying to explain Faith to someone who doesn't have it would be a little like trying to explain what the color yellow sounds like.
I do not define the unknown as God. i define the unknown as something i don't know.
God, i define as the guy who started it all. i do not know what was there before God. i don't know where he came from or why. i don't know why he did it. i have a few guesses, but they aren't really based on anything so are not relevent. i don't know what will be here after he's move on. i don't pretend to. i'm not sure that i even want to know
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I appreciate that you try to reconcile science and religion, and I'll hope you forgive me if I say it's irreconcilable. They work on entirely different principles. Science goes where the evidence leads, religion starts with absurd conclusions and tries to shoehorn ridiculous "evidence" into a preconceived matrix.
i never said religion. religion is... well, pretty useless to me. religion is churches and making sure you dress up nice on sunday morning and telling other people they are going to hell because they don't go to the same building that you do when you dress up nice on sunday mornings, and shooting dirty looks at people who don't dress up as nice on sunday mornings as you think they should.
i agree, science and religion are incompatable.
to me, religion and faith are also incompatable.
my belief is very simple on this exact topic, the start of " It All." i don't know any of the before, or any of the after, or any of the how's or why's.
God was there, he made a Big Bang, and thus the universe began expanding and evolving into what we have today.
it isn't irreconcilable to me, but i forgive you for believe it is
oddly enough, it will also be irreconcilable for Bill Grey, and that amuses me just a little. i'm not sure why, but it does.
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The time for religion as being an answer for cosmic and biological beginnings is, and has been, over. It's just done. Religion has been shown as a fraud, albeit with a significant memetic momentum.
i agree. for different reasons, but i agree nevertheless.
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With regard to our individual futures, life after death, religion may posit its ideas, but if those ideas are as valid as religion's ideas about origins, we are within our rights to be skeptical of them as well. We're **** near obligated to be skeptical, all things considered.
Oh good lord, ABSOFLAPPINLOUTLY we should be skeptical. about everything anyone tells us, EVER. whether it's physics, metaphysics, faith, or these days even if its about the weather. I've taught my children from an early age - Question Everything. Just because an adult or authority figure tells you something is true doesn't mean that it is. find out for yourself. and if it's a politician, assume they are lying until you find out otherwise.
yes, i included myself in that statement, but did tell them that for the most part, fact-checking Dad would need to wait until they are older, and for now just accept that when i say drinking antifreeze will make you sick it will, so don't drink it.
but interestingly enough, religion offers very little information.. what i'd consider information anyway, on the afterlife. they mostly spend time telling people what they may not do before they die.
there are a couple of brief mentions.. pearly gates, streets of gold, little hints here and there and a few vague lines that could mean pretty much anything.
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I'm enjoying our conversation. You haven't hit me over the head with a 10-lb. King James Bible yet. I imagine you won't.
As am i, and no, i won't. it would be rude, and counterproductive. also i wouldn't know where to get one. i guess if i wrapped mine in 9.5 lbs of reynolds wrap.
make it a little difficult to read. be a nice paperweight tho