Religion/Spirituality Theism Discussion (Abrahamic Religions, Religious Philosophy, etc.)

[Poitier]

It's not faith when I have evidence that said data has lead to truth. Or, in other circumstances, ideas that are most likely to be true.

As far as everything else you said

And maybe I'm misunderstanding your position but ... sure, maybe our universe is one part of many other universes. We could speculate ANYTHING, but...why? We don't at the moment have any reason to accept that as true, we can only work with what we know. Why accept anything as truth that's beyond our current knowledge, including gods, multi-verses, etc? I'm not saying none of these ideas are possible, just that there is no good reason to believe them until the data sufficiently supports them.

Everything you just described is faith. Your trust in empiricism and data is faith. You speculate to let you know how helpless and ignorant you are in this thing called reality. Anything short of omniscience deserves humility.

 

[Prodigital]

What does spirituality mean?

Belief in the sacred and vague. That which cannot be proved by scientific process. Thought that does not exclude intuition.

Getting so caught up in trying to find the sequence of how everything thing came about is just the hope of satisfying our infinite quest for more, more in an existence that is boundless if not only by life and death itself. If science is the only thing a person believes, than that person is lost... thats just my opinion/definition

 

[NoMayo15]

Everything you just described is faith. Your trust in empiricism and data is faith. You speculate to let you know how helpless and ignorant you are in this thing called reality. Anything short of omniscience deserves humility.

Are you a solipsist?

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

You can't know because simply saying "God causes the tides to flow" is ambiguous...

Its not ambiguous. Religious people have been doing it forever.

If I explain how a miracle works and that its not a suspension of the laws of nature, is it still a miracle?

it could in fact be through what we call "science" that shows us the "how."

this is poetic semantics aimed at side-stepping the core issue.

And there is no evidence that much of anything is teleological (for a particular purpose).

They aren't opposing.

They are FUNCTIONALLY opposed to one another. One claims to know, the other doesnt, but rather supports its assertions via testable and repeatable hypotheses. The inclusion of that small margin of error makes it a more accurate process. Its like learning physics in high school then going to college and grad school and learning that shyt was pretty inaccurate but rather more complex.

It's the problem with attacking something that is basically "all powerful."

Thats not my problem. Thats your problem. You made that god up.

Unless you're also a God then there will always be room for ambiguity and belief in a mighty being.

Using this logic then you can say theres always room for lisa frank unicorns and leprechauns.

I don't think "faith" is stupid.

Faith is belief with the lack of evidence. Literally. You don't use faith in ANY other form of your life. Whether it be drafting players for your fantasy team or haphazardly crossing the street.

We all operate on faith at some level

Nope. Unless you're confusing faith with empiricism...which isn't faith.

Can't have it both ways.

seems that you don't understand what you're talking about.

Atheist tend to be satisfied by science answering "how" but not "why."

Science doesn't claim to be able to answer "why"

The "why" question doesn't get you anywhere either since it infers a purpose or a meaning...to which case you must ask why you're pursuing a meaning in the first place. Until you can justify that there IS a meaning (outside of one that you place upon such a thing) then you'll never answer that question.

There is no supported reason to suggest "why"

You can assert that there is no "why" but then you'd be going on faith just as much as a religious person, no matter how coherent your logic and reasoning are.

i don't assert that there IS NO WHY. I can't do that.

I can say however that there is no evidence for me to support a "why"

its YOU who do that.

I do think bigots and zealots ruin the reputations of many but you can't generalize. A suicide bomber does not make me hate Muslims. Kritic does not make me hate the people who post in HL.

I hate islam.

i don't hate muslims.

Get mad if you want to.

That being said...BEING RELIGIOUS IS VOLUNTARY. If you don't like abiding by even the most socially controversial parts of it, thats YOUR fukking problem. Its not my fault you refuse to be held to the standards you imposed on yourself.

Like I said, I'm Agnostic but I never really understood the whole religion versus atheism. It's really a waste of time with the life we're given.

Agnosticism only answers one question: What you know.

Atheism answers a completely different question: What you believe.

I do not know if there is a god. I can't know what I don't know.

However.

Based on the lack of evidence to support theistic or religious claims, i do not have any sufficent reason or evidence to believe in those claims.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

and I was crucified on this site for saying that one day the Big Bang theory would be altered or thrown out completely.

Science alters its theories all the time...Unless you want us to go back to alchemy and blood letting in lieu of radioactivity and pharmacology.

 

[MeachTheMonster]

Science alters its theories all the time...Unless you want us to go back to alchemy and blood letting in lieu of radioactivity and pharmacology.

I understand that. And that's what I said but @Sensitive Blake Griffin jumped all over me for it.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

I don't see it like that, though. The bare essential characteristics of a monotheistic god = creator, omniscient, omnipotent.

You made these up arbitrarily and are trying to defend them as if they're objective.

You must understand that.

You can discredit what certain religions like to additionally attribute but how do you go further?

I can't disprove things. No one can. All you can ACTUALLY do is prove something else and put evidence in a different direction towards a different conclusion with more supporting and convincing evidence. Its just like court.

Someone can always equate God = unknown and be correct.

Well that wouldn't even be correct since if its unknown then its a matter of knowing it, not that its forever unknown.

A lot of this stuff answers how but not why when you get to origins and things of that nature, which is an issue as well.

The "why" question is made up and not supported.

You're asking why...but WHY are you asking why?

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

simply put...all of the aforementioned will change in due time. They will come up with something else claiming it as fact. Facts do not change.

Facts change when information changes.

I don't think you know what epistemology is.

Basically: Facts are things that are proven to the point that we don't functionally debate them.

You can debate them if you want, but we've empirically never been able to challenge that.

Fact is that at sea level gravity is 9.8 m/s^2...but theres a fact that AT ANOTHER ELEVATION, gravity is a different rating.

Gravity hasn't changed functionally, but the effects of gravity has.

 

[Sensitive Blake Griffin]

I understand that. And that's what I said but @Sensitive Blake Griffin jumped all over me for it.

I certainly didn't jump on you for saying science alters its theories, that is the entire point of science, if something is wrong and evidence proves it's wrong the theory must be altered. The big bang is a fact, it's just people misconstrue the big bang theory and expect it to answer ALL questions that they have (where did the primordial matter/energy come from? WHY did it expand? etc). The universe used to be infinitely small and then expanded. That is a fact and if you want me to explain why it's a fact I can, there is a fukk-TON of evidence to prove it.

"The standard Big Bang model tells us that the Universe exploded out of an infinitely dense point, or singularity. But nobody knows what would have triggered this outburst: the known laws of physics cannot tell us what happened at that moment."

this doesn't disprove the Big Bang theory, they're trying to explain things that the Big Bang theory never claimed to explain.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

The people in the science community have to be more understanding of their ignorance.

The. fukking. Irony.

People ARE aware of their ignorance. Have you ever read a fukking science journal? Its FULL of ambiguity and avoidance of saying things objectively because you NEVER KNOW completely (word to democritus and hume).

If you dont know you dont know but sadly, demonic clowns who worship scientific THEORIES perpetuate these theories as the truth and when their theories are crushed they just ignore the fact theyve basically been lying all these years and are jumping on the bandwagon of a new theory.

i like that people jump to new theories. It implies that we know less than we do but are willing to learn even more...however, blame it on the fact that people like you are unwilling to accept that things DO change and we CAN learn about things instead of your desire to rely on things as "concrete" when in fact they are not.

Its like but, but friend? What about that time you called friends idiots for not believing lies?

Its so demonic, friend.

Theres a difference between a lie and a more accurate theory. If the data you have at the time leads in one direction, then you must go with the data. Thats what empiricism says.

You can't know...WHAT YOU DO NOT KNOW.

 

[Poitier]

You made these up arbitrarily and are trying to defend them as if they're objective.

You must understand that.

I can't disprove things. No one can. All you can ACTUALLY do is prove something else and put evidence in a different direction towards a different conclusion with more supporting and convincing evidence. Its just like court. Well that wouldn't even be correct since if its unknown then its a matter of knowing it, not that its forever unknown.

The "why" question is made up and not supported.

You're asking why...but WHY are you asking why?

Man, short of being omniscient all of this is pointless. Yall love talking about "objectivity, "knowing" and "truths" but those are just terms to display human's pompous nature. It's all relative to us and our microscopic reality. I can't understand why atheist don't admit that they will never know. I love science because it strives for perfection but some of you don't realize perfection isn't obtainable and that is the problem. On the other hand, I love the aspect of deism that highlights our infantile nature. Religion is mostly junk but it's has historical merit.

 

[MeachTheMonster]

I certainly didn't jump on you for saying science alters its theories, that is the entire point of science, if something is wrong and evidence proves it's wrong the theory must be altered. The big bang is a fact, it's just people misconstrue the big bang theory and expect it to answer ALL questions that they have (where did the primordial matter/energy come from? WHY did it expand? etc). The universe used to be infinitely small and then expanded. That is a fact and if you want me to explain why it's a fact I can.

I'm not gonna go back and look for the thread. But all I said was that plenty of scientists challenge the Big Bang theory due to the massive holes in it and it is very likely that it would be altered or thrown out when more information is gathered. You jumped all down my throat as if I said something crazy.

Y'all spend so much time fighting the religious crazies that your ready to pounce as soon as someone says anything. That's why I got the fukk up outa "higher learning" aint shyt higher about the learning in here

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

lets just say for the sake of argument that this theory is true.

The real question here who created the "higher-dimensional star"????

This is a topic of great debate. Look at the experiments one at CERN.

I can give you some information about the current thinking on the topic but its up to you to suspend your clinging to the "god" thing to interpret the data.

There are some things that we just don't know right now...but that doesn't mean we can't try to figure it out, nor that we won't get the answer. Its the pursuit that matters.

Remember, we've barely been into this shyt for 100 years and we've already figured a lot of this out. Give it some time.

But my question to you is... if you want to know who created the "higher-dimension," why does it have to be "god?" If so, who created that god?

And if you answer: Well god always existed, then why can't the universe have always existed?

I'm not asking you to change your mind. I'm asking you to embrace new information and see how it makes you feel.

Its ok to not know things, but to reject them without UNDERSTANDING them is a flaw in its own.

 

[Poitier]

Napoleon, a belief in a higher force and religion are not equivalent. You are making tons of straw man arguments.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Well that Bible has been around long before any scientific "theory" was developed.

science is merely what we know.

Thats it. Its a process of empiricism. Its not some distinct thing.

The way you know soap cleans your hands is as much "science" as the manner that we create synthetic polymers or bacteriophage viruses as newer forms of vaccines.

It's called "theory" because it's subject to change at anytime.

No. Dumbass.

Its a theory because its supported by evidence.

Theories are merely ideas that can be tested.

The Bible is the actual word of God.

According to whom? The bible?