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51

General Religious Discussion / Re: Question to theists

« Last post by WakingDeath on Today at 08:57:03 PM »

In my belief nothing we are aware of can exist simultaneously with God.   Things like life, free will, meaning, purpose, thought, awareness and time fall under this category.   They are all illusions.

As it pertains to the God in the bible,  it mentions a couple of times about how time exists with HIM in a different form that it does with us.  "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end"  and  " But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."-’Peter 3:8-9 "

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General Religious Discussion / Re: Question to theists

« Last post by median on Today at 08:55:13 PM »

One must be convinced (by either good/bad, sound/unsound, evidence or argument).

Isn't that hopelesly circular? How do you come to believe that the evidence on which you are convinced to believe is good or bad evidence?

That would depend upon the claim and depend upon the evidence. Either way, you still don't merely choose to believe something. As Christian philosopher J.P. Moreland has said, "You can't will yourself to believe there is a pink elephant in the room if there isn't." Whether or not you are convinced by good or bad evidence is completely irrelevant to the subject of how we come to believe things. We don't come to believe things by merely choosing. We must be convinced in some way.

Regarding the circularity charge, where and how?

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General Religious Discussion / Re: Probabilities of God's existence debate

« Last post by LoriPinkAngel on Today at 08:50:02 PM »

That is simple.  If god is a hands off God, he is just watching his experiment evolve.  Wars, dissease, murder, pain, suffering are all just interesting things to watch.  just like a scientist watching ants go to war all the deaths are just datapoints.  And as a side note the scientist being a god like creature to ants probably could care less if the ants worshiped him.

I once speculated in a post a while back that, if you assume a deist god, the universe could well be to him/her like a sand pendulum is to a human being.  And when human beings play with a sand pendulum, they certainly don't worry about whether the pendulum moving the sand around is causing any pain to the grains of sand or anything.

I'm starting to lean more toward the hands off god idea...

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General Religious Discussion / Re: Does God's love people in hell??????

« Last post by screwtape on Today at 08:49:01 PM »

I did.  It showed nothing.  Unless Screwtape's Dog existed here before, that would be evidence of absence.  Screwtape's Dog is not absent. It was never there.

It's there, you just are not looking in the right place.  Perhaps you should open your heart to my dog?  He responds better.  You have to do it sincerely.  I mean, really, really sincerely.  Like, squeezing your eyes shut and straining (but not so hard you poop).  He'll know if you aren't.  He'll know if somewhere, deep down you are actually rejecting him.  And he only comes to people who truly believe.

Or, you could skip all that baloney and click here:
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/forums/index.php/topic,20148.msg444285.html#msg444285

Lookee there.  Someone doubted and instead of insisting they were doing it wrong or lacked faith, I just produced evidence.  Imagine if xians could do that? 

For your future edification in case you need to search anything here, the advanced search function works best.  I did a search on "dog" and user "Screwtape". 

So, got that evidence for the nonexistence of Zeus yet?  Or are you ready to say he is as likely real as yhwh?

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General Religious Discussion / Re: Question to theists

« Last post by WakingDeath on Today at 08:48:51 PM »

You're quite mistaken here. Belief is not a choice. One must be convinced (by either good/bad, sound/unsound, evidence or argument). If you think it is a choice then please demonstrate by willing yourself to believe in real pink flying unicorns.

I choose not to. 

p.s. - "Nothing to look forward to except the grave"?? Is that really what you think? That if you didn't believe in a god you wouldn't have anything (anything at all) to look forward to?

When your dead your dead if there is no afterlife.  Nothing to look forward to when you die.

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Chatter / Re: Word association game

« Last post by magicmiles on Today at 08:47:32 PM »

Miller

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General Religious Discussion / Re: Question to theists

« Last post by nebula on Today at 08:46:50 PM »

I say this to both of you. If God exists, then choice and free will can exist simultaneously.  It would not be an illusion at all.  We exist in this time line, God spans the timeline simultaneously.

In my belief nothing we are aware of can exist simultaneously with God.   Things like life, free will, meaning, purpose, thought, awareness and time fall under this category.   They are all illusions.

Definition of NONDUALISM (Mirriam-Webster Online):
1
: a doctrine of classic Brahmanism holding that the essential unity of all is real whereas duality and plurality are phenomenal illusion and that matter is materialized energy which in turn is the temporal manifestation of an incorporeal spiritual eternal essence constituting the innermost self of all things
2
: any of various monistic or pluralistic theories of the universe

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General Religious Discussion / Re: Question to theists

« Last post by magicmiles on Today at 08:46:27 PM »

One must be convinced (by either good/bad, sound/unsound, evidence or argument).

Isn't that hopelesly circular? How do you come to believe that the evidence on which you are convinced to believe is good or bad evidence?

59

General Religious Discussion / Re: Does God's love people in hell??????

« Last post by WakingDeath on Today at 08:44:37 PM »

The existence, or lack thereof, of anything in the universe is not a matter of opinion.  It is a matter of fact that is right or wrong.

   

We don't have all  the facts. A person is allowed to have ideas and attempt to fill in the gaps.  Are you saying that what we don't know about the universe doesn't exist?   I can have the opinion that the universe was created and that is an honest opinion.  I don't care if you agree or not about this issue, and I am not going to discuss it with you any further.  Intelligent design is a possibility and that's that.

And unless you don't think your opinion is any more reasonable than the alternatives (in which case it wouldn't really be an opinion you held, would it?), you're at the very least saying that you know of good reasons to hold your opinion in contradiction of other options.  Which would still be dishonest, because you don't, hence the manner in which you're characterizing it as an opinion.

I did agree that it was an opinion that could very well be incorrect. I did not dismiss other options at all.  You are just playing a word game.  And get over this "dishonest" nonsense. I never lied to anybody here yet or to myself. I never claimed that my opinion was correct. I only claimed that it was one possibility amongst other possibilities.

Yes.  Did you read what you have posted?

Please don't push me.  I am not going to waste my time arguing semantics with you. Of course I read what I posted. I wrote the posts!   If you are here to insult me, then I am finished responding to you.

60

Chatter / Re: Word association game

« Last post by LoriPinkAngel on Today at 08:44:35 PM »

Salem's (like the Steven King book)