In the old testament repeaditly God appears in the form of fire, a darkness that descends on sleeping Abraham, or as a massive mountain sized cloud of darkness, fire, and thunder, that would descend as a pillar of darkness upon its alter from atop the mountain to speak to people.

However when I mention this, very often I will get one of two responses, people either were un-aware of this cloud bit from four or five books of the old Testament (many didn't even know about the cloud above the heads of Jews as they left Egypt) guess they tend to leave that part out of the kid book versions (Not even in Disney's Prince of Egypt) heh,

or they say, "No, God must have been inside the cloud, not was the cloud" yeah like that's all that much different. But that is usually from people who think an omnipotent all being would have the form of an old human man, or some other human shape.

guess the description leaves room for doubt or somehow to be ignored.

Now given the rest of those books with the blood sacrifices, loving the smell of burnt animal flesh as it wafted up to the heavens, and the laws which past the well known ten go on to become a very hate filled list telling them to kill just about anyone (even someone they found in the wild picking up sticks on the Sabbath), what if God had been described in a different form.

Say like that of a giant squid creature, or tentacles covered being that floated in the air?
with this different description would it still have the unknown or "was inside it" status of the current freaky description?

lol If god showed up with a form that was like anything on earth, first people would worship whatever looked like him. and then peole would get killed for killing whatever creature that is.





hopefully, he would show up as a black mamba, and people would kill themselves bowing too close to it.

One of these days you are going to grow a set and realize that all the questions dealing with religion that you come up with stem from the fact that you don’t believe in God because God cannot possibly exist to a person who is grounded in a logical mind set, which you obviously are…

answer the question.

because this response only came across as a self defense mechanism refusing to even acknowledge the scenario or the description.

this is a hypothedical question regarding the manner in which the book is written and how that influences how it comes across and the influence it has on society down the line.

and how is "growing a set" I imagine you mean balls effecting anything in regards to the question?. Are you trying to say I don't believe God exists, or refuse to say that. Don't read too closely I see to what I say in threads, but that is not the purpose of this thread. God is a character to me, and nothing more, I even feel free to use it as a lesser annoyance cosmic character in my own fiction series (inspired by the description and behavior in the old testament) but never plays a major role in any actual events. but Like I said, that's not the purpose of this thread.

this thread is a hypothedical question, not a debate about how you percieve my faith in anything. Besides by now it should be painfully obvious I don't believe in this God, especially given the context of how it is written.

But something doesn't have to be real to influence society, and the stories about it and how it is described does. and that is what I like to look at.

a vague writing allows for later vast variations on interpritations, while a specific writing allows for no such freedom.
these two types of descriptions were used for various laws in our own Constitution for that very purpose. Something was made specific to insure that one couldn't deviate from the writer's intentions, but something else was made vague to allow for possible cultural drift to allow the law to be altered to a certain extent.

that is the real point of the hypothedical, rather than the description given in the old testament which has resulted in the majority having the aformentioned two views, a more specific and possibly more nature based yet alien description had been used in its place?

You want me to answer the question, then so be it…

The Christian faith describes God in many ways, none of these descriptions lead to a realistic portrayal of God in any sense that we could possibly describe to a sketch artist and get a general portrait of this supposed Omni-being… God isn’t meant to be portrayed as a physical being, but rather a “sense” that is supposed to give believers peace of mind , a “sense” that isn’t meant to be understood but rather accepted through blind faith as the alpha and omega, the end all to every question that could possibly be proposed… You want to know whether Gods physical description makes a difference in the way Christians choose to believe in God? I think what you are really asking is whether God being depicted as something completely unbelievable makes the validity of God more or less viable… And if that is what you are really asking I without hesitation say NO… It makes no difference on way or another…

Gods physical description matters little in defining Gods validity, what matters is what gives Christians peace of mind…

~EDIT~

I still maintain that Christians… Just like every other faith that chooses to believe in a higher power… Are deluded to the point of being dangerous… I honestly believe that anyone who chooses to believe that something other than themselves is control of their own lives needs to be committed… Because they are one step away from taking up the cause of cleansing the world of all the non-believers…

alright smartass. If there wasnt a uniform creator for everything, then explain existence?

does it make more logical sense that everything just randomly happened, and somehow it all managed to fit together right?

given the extremely rare conditions it takes to both create, and sustain life, your logic leads you to believe that It just kinda happened this way on a random whim of reality?



everything that I have seen in my life only shows me with more certainty that there either was, or still is a god, or group of gods working as a single force to create a universe that could operate in such harmony as this one does.

the only difference between your logic and the logic of a religous person is that they have both a stimulus and a responce.

people without belief say "it is"

people who believe in "god" say "god said it, and so it was".






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now for something more on topic.

I think if god had looked something like a floating squid, he would have been taken less seriously. people have killed squids since they were first able to, so for "god" to show up in a form were comfortable killing, would have been a show of weakness.

personally, I kinda like the pillar of fire Idea. you cant mistake a pillar of fire as being much else than something supernatural.

If it gives you comfort to believe that an Omni-present force that lives in the heavens chose to create existence then I am happy for you… I guess I’m just a bit to pessimistic to think the same way…
I know this thread isn’t asking to prove the validity of God but rather whether Gods perception grants said being validity, but I’m going to go ahead and respond to darkility…



I would say that it makes as much sense to say that as it does to believe that some supernatural being who lives in the clouds one day decided to say… “Hey, I’m really freaking bored, I’ve been staring at nothing since the… wait a second… I can’t say since the beginning of time because I existed before time… So lets say since I perceived… No, wait a second, I can’t say since perception since I existed before perception… Let’s for the sake of the Christian faith say I have always been bored, since that doesn’t go against my preconceived notions of omnipresence…
Give me a freakin break, How can something exist outside it’s own preconception? If you choose to believe in a being that always has and will exist outside the constraints of conception you need to be on meds… Plain and fuckin simple…


A random whim of reality? I really like that!
I believe it’s much easier to see adaptation in progress then it is to see Gods magical hand shaping the world as we see it…


No kidding? I like that you say “was” when referring to God, because by doctrinal law that is blasphemy… If you want to give credit to something that you can’t perceive with one of your five senses then so be it… I just find it more comforting to actually figure out what is going on rather than chalking it up to something I can’t explain because I am either to lazy or ignorant to comprehend.


No… The only difference between my logic and that of a religious person is that I choose to believe in things that I can perceive with my senses, and choose to rationalize rather than blindly accept what was written down in a book thousands of years ago by men that may or may not have been completely out of their minds…


BeLIEfs - are lies shrouded in faith.


Because they don’t have the common sense to actually question the nonsense that was put before them…


My question to you…
Do you believe in God because?

A. You were raised to believe in God
B. You feel obligated to believe in God
C. You are scared not to believe in God
D. You have had an experience that you can’t explain

I never once said I believe in the christian god, or even in an omnipotent being. I'm just saying that weather you believe in creation or not, both theories begin with *poof* existence. I really do think it sounds more believable that something made the *poof* happen rather than everything beginning from nothing.



and adaptation is something that I've supported in evolution debates on this site before. there is no superbeing controlling every action and change in the world, and it would be a ridiculous thing to even imagine.


fck doctrinal law. if the bible were right, half the world would be struck down by lightening, and most of those people would be modern Christians.
and none of your 5 senses can feel radiation, but that doesn't mean it wont kill you. If your senses can ever tell you why a living will can result from a collection of carbon based molecules, you be sure to let me know. until then, I'll be trieing to make my own theory.


your senses are a reaction to different types of energy, and nothing more. they're so fundamentally limited that believing only what they tell you is insane. a cricket cannot hear most of the sounds that it can make, just like humans can never understand the reality they inhabit.

my good man, you believe in more things than most people do If you trust only your senses. every step you take is an expression that you believe that the floor is solid, and that you are capable of moving. every time you eat, you show that you believe that the food contains what your body needs, and that your body is capable of digesting i, as well as the belief that you will be alive long enough to use that energy.
blind faith is a lie. belief is the expectation that what's worked every time will work this time.



and If your thinking in terms of common sense, how does it work that everything in the universe would just suddenly exist from a single point of nothing? even the stupidest scientist saw that something must make things fall before gravity was theorized. just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it isn't real. by you logic, the entire universe could not exist to someone if only they were stupid enough.


and to answer your multiple choice (rigged) question. I dont believe in god. I just believe in singe creating force. be that one god or a billion, hell, I don't care if it was aliens, something put existence into a nice working order.

Uh... God has been described as quite a few different physical manifestations. Mostly just as a voice from on high, sometimes associated with a cloud and fire (however the cloud and the fire were never attributed to being God as they led the Israelites out of egypt, rather miraculous signs in the day and night for them to follow) However the most common description of God is as an unremarkable looking man. From Genesis through to Revelation (specifically that entire bit of the new testament)

I want to point out that the Jews didn't see Yahweh as a burning bush. There's plenty of bushes on fire in the old days. It was a bush that was on fire but was not consumed. The difference is remarkable.

Alright smartass, explain God's existance? Explain how a being like God that transmutes mass and energy on a scale so astronomical doesn't leave any kind of footprint or evidence that is exists. We should be detecting remenants of God's work everywhere.

A wise man would say that we can't explain existance, and acknowledge that we may never be able to explain it. A fool with no humility would make up a fairy story instead of portioning his belief to the known facts...



Chemistry is anything but random, it follows precisely predictable pathways. Given the right elements, conditions and time, our existance is a precisely quantifiable probablility. We simply don't have enough data to quantify it yet. The way we can obtain that data is to find other Goldilocks planets. Ideally, that would probably be binary planetary systems orbiting stars at a distance that allows liquid water to occur on a reasonably permenant basis. The large moon may not even be strictly essential. If we can find a hundred Goldilocks planets and thirty three have life on them, then the probability of us existing would be one in three, wouldn't it?



LOL! The rarifaction of the conditions it takes to explain life might be reflected in the fact that 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999% of spacetime is so hostile to life that it would kill every single one
of us near instantaeously if we were ever exposed to it.



Harmony? Have you gone absolutely mad? Imploding stars, ever increasing entropy, ever decreasing baryon number, litterally unimaginable amounts of failed solar systems surrounding a tiny speck of rock that can support life on some of it's surface, some of the time, and every so often throws up an event that wipes most of that life out.

You have an interesting idea of what harmony is.

Incidentally, the agent of the latest mass extinction to occur on Earth, that will wipe out 99% of the macroscopic species on Earth, is an ape with enhanced pattern recogntion filtering that is reshaping the atmosphere and terrestrial environment indiscriminately while it lives under a delusion of harmony.



This statement is almost too pointless and assenine to be worth responding to, but actually, people who believe in God display a response in the absence of a stimulus...



Appeals to the supernatural. The age old excuse for not stopping to actually think.

Unless you follow the chain of Observe -> Hypothesise -> Experiment -> Repeat, your own theory will be bunkum. Since you cannot observe God, the chain is broken and theorizing becomese meaningless. It seems very clear to me that we cannot observe God because there is nothing there to observe. As to why living will can occur from a collection of carbon based molecules, there's still gonna be plenty of work for everyone in explaining that, if it can be explained. To look at it in a simplistic way, living will is one hell of a survival trait, and that is probably why it persists...



That's hardly an excuse to base your ideas on the vulgar ramblings of a gang of demented iron age jews. It is also the reason why applied science was invented, to expain that which we cannot infer through our sense and reason.



If you want to test the solidity of the ground, you only have to jump from the top of a high building.



Because there has to be some event that occurred to make the Universe inflate does not mean that it has to be supernatural or the workings of a conscious entity. If there is a God, it makes that problem of explanation much more difficult in fact, because we then are duty bound to try and investigate and explain how a being far more complex than ourselves managed to exist in the first place. Did God spring from nothing? Or did he evolve as part of a species in a nested heirarchy by period doubling cascade? Explaining God is a lot more problematic than explaining us!

ok first off, let me restate the fact that i AM NOT A CHRISTIAN. I dont believe in the words of some rambling jackasses a few thousand years out of date. Im just saying that a creation requires a creator of some kind.

and by "harmony" i'm talking about a universe where things don't slip out of existence, and time doesn't overlap. alot of catastrophic things happen in the universe, but all of it falls under into understandable systems. It's science. chaos doesn't fall into systems we can understand, so the fact that everything is in order has to be proof that something put it that way.

the "footprint" of whatever creating force started our existence, is existence itself. If we found a hundred thousand year old vase, even if we couldn't figure out who made it, it still proves that someone was there to make it.

I'm not saying that anyone should stop thinking and blindly accept things as beyond their control. I'm just saying that order doesn't create itself from chaos. If anything, science is us figuring out the system. if we ever get enough information (see ya in a few billion years) we might be able to create order like this ourselves.

and as to the nature of god, who knows and who cares. so far as I'm concerned, he's a programmer who finished writing a working system and moved on.
I'm being attacked with science, but I'm not arguing it. scientific discovery has explained alot of things in our world, and that's perfect. if anything, a god that created order would expect us to work to figure it out.

you're saying that science works because it does, and I'm saying science works because it was designed to. the only disagreement here is origin, and it's the only thing in this arguement that cant be prooven, disprooven, or understood.

That's your problem, you can't get your mind around the obvious circular trap of modern theology. You believe that everything exists because something “created” it. If that’s the case then what created the creator?
According to the law of conservation of mass "matter can neither be created nor destroyed", if this is true then explaining creation through a higher power is not only illogical, but incredibly lame...

Then:

1) You'd be incorrect.

2) You would be regurgitating the ideas of a load of iron aged jackasses.



Do a google search under Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. On the Quantum Level, that is precisely what happens.



There are a number of spacetime paradoxes that have proven very difficult to surmount. How come the journey to the end of the ergosphere of a blackhole is an asymptot to the men taking the journey, but happens in real time from the POV of an independent observer? Time does overlap.



Then why don't we have a GUT yet?




From what I've seen of your posts, you are certainly not in a position of authority in the scientific community.



Fpr pne thing, most of the dynamics we see in nature are chaotic. The reason the galaxies, whirl pools, blood vessels, trees and hurricanes exhibit self similarity is because as the fractal is reiterated, underlying order emerges. If you had studied chaos theory, it would be obvious to you why complexity can emerge from these dynamics without an invisible pupeteer handling the controls. I'm sorry I can't be more perspicatious than this, but there is no simple way to explain this to you. You could try a google search for Feigenbaum attractor and Hausdorf Besicovitch dimension. That would be a good place to start.



That is because vases can't reproduce. If vases could reproduce spontaneously as humans, and indeed all living species can, then it would be absurd to infer a creator.

prometheus

I'm not sure I follow where you are getting that things can slip out of existence according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?

Taken from - The Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that locating a particle in a small region of space makes the momentum of the particle uncertain; and conversely, that measuring the momentum of a particle precisely makes the position uncertain.

It’s not saying that it’s slipping out of existence but rather admitting that getting an exact measurement of the location impossible due to the fact that the wavelengths oscillation isn’t constant. Not that I'm defending what darkality said, I don't agree with him either, I'm just not understanding how you are using the Heisenberg uncertainty principle to validate your arguement?

Science is a proceedure, nothing more. Follow the proceedure correctly, and you can falisfy ideas that are wrong. As to your other point, underlying order most ceratainly does emerge from chaos. I wouldn't use the word "create itself" from chaos, that would be absurd. but underlying order is most definitely a property that emerges from the chaotic regime.



The problem is that you have no data to back that up. You pulled the idea out of your ass.



Again, you have no data to back that up. Since God has been AWOL for two thousand years, disappearing long before the dawn of modern science, how would you know what he might expect us to work out?



Entia non sunt multiplicanda perter necessitatum!



Forgive me. I studied QCD for years, I forget that it's a very geeky pursuit that most people don't go deep into...

Keep reading... These wiki articles will paraphrase the principle in a few paragraphs. The implictions of the Copenhagen interpretation, which The Heisenberg principle and the Schroedinger function are the linchpin of are that spacetime on the quantum level is a seething maw in which particles blink in and out of existance constantly.

This is why if you fire certain disecrete amounts of energy into a point in space and time and you can produce a particle antiparticle couplet. Each point in space time is potentially any particle at large.

Ockham's razor
Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.
All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.

Gotta love common sense in it’s purest state!

~EDIT~
I will go back and re-read, I must have missed something.

Yeah, if it doesn't walk like a duck, doesn't quack like a duck and doesn't swim like a duck, it very probably isn't a duck...

Same reasoning can be applied to divine creators...



What I'm talking about isn't obvious, and sadly, I'm not articulate enough to find a simple way to explain it.

When we look at matter around us, it seems pretty solid and reliable. To view it as a manipulation of an aggregate of spacetime is pretty odd. Space and time overlap, space and matter overlap. Matter is a function of space and time. It's all interlinked and interchangable...

The implications of this are kind of disturbing, becuase our own minds, bodies and souls are part and parcel of this. We are not some divine creation, we are a philosophical absurdity...

That quote just made my day, cheers!


I get where you are coming from, but I disagree about the mind and soul part, as far as I’m concerned the mind and the soul are the same thing. I believe that the soul only exists as a concept that the church created in order to use guilt as a weapon to keeps it's followers in line. I guess I’m just to pragmatically pessimistic to accept that some part of us lives after death. That just seems a bit silly to me, it sounds too much like someone couldn’t cope with their own mortality so they invented this concept that means they never have to truly die…

~shrugs~
I could be wrong…

you're right Prometheus, I don't have a degree that lets me spout whatever bullshit I please.

I just made the assumption that since matter hasn't pooffed into existence in recorded history, there's no logical proof that it ever did.

I may not be the simplest explanation, but assuming that an event happened only once in the history of the universe requires an explanation that is unusual.




listen you popus morons. I'm not here to argue science. I'm not a scientist, nor do I have the time to look up every theory that you throw up to counter the minor details of my words.

I'm saying that in the history of the universe, I would begin it with "the universe was created" and you would begin it with "existence begins".

Itis just a bang in the dark, you say something banged, I say something caused a bang.

neither of us can be prooven wrong or right. so it's pointless to argue

I wasn't arguing, I was trying to figure out why you needed to believe in a creator? But hey, if your gonna go get all hostile and shit forget it…

I'm only getting hostile, because a difference in oppinion was turned into another show off of "look at how much useless stuff I can reference"

I dont need a creator. It just makes more sense to me than spontaneous random creation.

It doesn't quite work like that. Science is a reducing valve to stop one thinking whatever they please.



In the search for truth, you can never assume anything.



Agian that is an assumption. The event could have occurred many times in the history of the Universe



Then why are you being so definitive about a construct you freely admit you don't understand?



No, I would begin with "We don't know what the hell happened, so let's observe, try to collate data and see if it's possible to find out.



Since there was no air, it stands to reason there was no bang. No medium for sound to travel through. I don't know what it was yet, so I am keeping an open mind.



Not yet, and maybe never, will I be proven right. What matters is the approach taken to trying to find out. Yours, saying that someone created it is an absurd approach with no base to it.



The error you are commiting, and it is one committed by USA creationists constantly due to constant brainwashing by scum like Ken Hovind, is assuming that those are the only two options. That is absurd... The chances are it was no random event, it could very well be a process that we might be able to follow if we had more data, we just don't know what happened, and out of all the myriad possibilities of what this process is, you have to choose this one...





I always viewed the soul as the personality, which of course is a function of the mind. I don't think you and I will be floating around in etheric sphere's admist realms of light when our bodies pack in, but I was looking at us in a more religious context...

Prometheus science makes the assumption that things remain constant when they never change. it's not my theory.

the bang in the dark was a similar situation, put forth to show that it's only a matter of how you look at a situation.


and if you want an absurd approach, try looking for evidence of an event, when there was nothing for evidence to exist as until after the event took place.




I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to understand what went down, only that we absolutely cant right now, so the theories of spontaneous creation, and intelligent creation must both be up as possibilities.


I lkinda like the pic, but it isn't acurate to anyhting I've said.





my turn

hahahahaha

As soon as I saw the title I knew what this thread would turn into...

My answer would be(of course to the original question) that I think mythology in many ways has influenced christianity for the portrayal of God...being that the father was Zeus( and lets not get into a discussion about Zeus being the son of a titan). The portrayal of Zeus is what many picture to be god even though it is not belief in zeus.

I would imagine that it would, although I'm not sure how. However I have never understood why people have issues with the way god has choosen to appear in the past. To me form has never really in question, becuase it has always seemed logical that a powerful deity could appear however he wanted.

Science does not make that assumption. I don't know where you got that notion from.



It was a bad metaphor. Unfortunately, a lot of confusion between the scientist and laymen occurs because being a great scientist does not make you great with words. Particle "spin" is another appalling example of this, not to mention to old favourite, the so called "butterfly effect" and best of all, the crazy idea that creationists have that evolutionary theory states that a human being evolved from a 2008 model chimapanzee...



That remains to be seen. You are basing that assumption on the idea that this spacetime bubble we inhabit is all of the universe, is the first universe and is the only universe.

There is no evidence to support nor refute that assumption, but the assumption itself is a sign of poor judgement.



In my opinion, we shall never know what occurred before the inflationary period. In my opinion, we do not and never will have any data to work with. Pondering what must be up as possiblities without evidence is fun, but we must accept that it is only pondering, and should not be taken as truth in any way shape or form, particularly not now that there are six billion of us all with our own assenine ideas on this.

It will not do if we want to maintain our civilisation. It will not do if we want to survive at all.

Making explanations up out of thin air that are completely untestable is intellectually stunted and weak, and something I cannot indulge in and will never support under any circumstances.

To cut to the chase, if there is an intelligent creator, do you know what he's sitting up there thinking?

"Holy shit! How did I get here! Something must have created me, I can't just have appeared out of thin air!
I'd better start praying!"





LOL at the picture.

I don't have to make the point that creationists are stupid idiots who have never read any arguement counter to their position. You are demonstrating the ignorance inherent to the creationist position far better than I ever could...

well this is "all" fascinating, yet this isn't really a "does God exist, could he exist," for the umpteenth Nth times thread.

its a hypothedical question as to the development of societies and their dominoe effect on each other from a common source, and how different these events might have been had the descriptive elements of the source material for said societies had been different (as in more specific, and grounded more in earthly or scary imagry).

this type of hypothedical doesn't require the entity of the book to actually exist or not.

In answer to the original question, yes. Anywhere from a little bit worse to catastrophically dismal. A litteral hell on earth.

Jesus H fcking Christ. was it that long ago that I said who gives a fck about the creator. were argueing the begining of the universe not the basics of the basis for how the universe could have been created.

that's like trieing to argue physics with someone who doesnt believe in numbers.



but that's not even the point.



the Idea of an inteligent designer has a few comforting meanings to people that alot of cultures probably needed.

1. It proves that theres inteligent life somewhere out there, because it sure as hell isnt here.

2. It is at least an explination.


do you know how chaotic things would get if everyone in the world actualy examined their lives, and it all rooted back to "there is no purpose to go on suffering, and everything is just fluke"


yes. the Idea of a "god" has been used to do a whole lot of backwards shit.

but get your heads out of the metaphysical cloud, and think philosophy for once. If the root of your existence is that there is no point to exist, then you're wasting your fcking time.

when creationism is proven without a shadow of a doubt to be wrong, then It can be ruled an outdated theory. but when you cant find an explination, people will implant their own, and you really cant proove them wrong.


it's just basic human nature. people want too feel comfortable, and the start of that is to assume that existence isn't just a random assortment of atoms moving down a timeline.

In science the definition of "theory" is as follows: A series of hypotheses that have been TESTED and are supported by empirical evidence. A theory that stands the test of time can be considered a law. The Theory (really law) of Evolution is that over the course of generations, life forms change to adapt to their environment. This can be sudden or gradual, but THAT is what evolution is. It does not matter what the stimulus for change is, the response is still evolution. By a similar note, the "Big Bang", as far as the data can indicate, was probably the reverse of what happens in a nuclear explosion (in which matter directly converts into energy), whereby as it expanded, the energy was converted into matter. Matter and energy are both finite. As the universe cools, more energy converts to matter or dissipates as heat (which then makes it "lost", but not destroyed). This loss will eventually (but not within a timespan measurable by humans) lead to the universe's "heat death". Our universe is actually at the very beginning of this expansion process, and nowhere near as far along as scientists used to believe according to the most recent data.

I was thinking about this a little bit more, and I think the main differences you'd see is that the chosen form would be incorperated more into christianity. Perhaps to the point of worshiping the creature god had chosen to assume the form of, in that respect perhaps the church would be more careful about it's actions regarding the environment because it could impact that worshiped creature. But aside from that, unless the teachings themselves changed I doubt it would do much more.

If people want to be cowardly, weak, and to remain ignorant and closed minded then of course that is entirely up to them...

Incidentally, you give me the horrible impression that you are too stupid to understand the arguements counter to your position. No scientist or thinking person believes the universe is random in any way, that is an absurd strawman used by the educationally subnormal and the scientifically illiterate to falsly make their interlocuters look as stupid and puerile as themselves.....



Only the foolish ones...

Ah well, nil despirandum.... God (or whatever) knows I've tried...



I missed the part where I was asked to fill in the questionaire before I embarked on this existance, but if you can give me a valid point to my existance without making some weasly appeal to the supernatural, then I guarantee I'll learn to love it.



And it's not even wrong...

Sounds like you're describing some kind of Flying Spaghetti Monster...

I don't think the 'appearance' of God makes too much of a difference. As long as he was perceived to be big, scary, omnipotent and mysterious that would be enough to scare most early peoples into subjugation. A big scary Squid or a big scary pillar of fire - or even a "No man may see my face and live" kind of deal.

Apologies if I'm misunderstanding the question.

prometheus, If you want to see people who are cowardly, look at all those people who spend there lives trieing to turn everything into ones and zeros so they can predict and know everything.

I may not know what all your words and numbers mean, but I have the ability to let it all go. I can sit back and live without trieing to fill my head with every bit of useless knowledge I can get my hands on.
It may sound to you like self imposed simplicity, but it's so much easier than your self imposed over complexity.

I seriously dont believe that you are capable of looking around without judging people on how many degrees they hold, or how much of an impact they've made on science. but believe it or not, 99.9% of the plannet has absolutely no use for knowing the decay rate of plutonium.


you might live by formulas and numbers, but I'd rather be happy than right any day of the week.

and as to the valid point you wanted. If you werent here to scream in the name of the numerical god, our lives would be no different.

and before you try to bitch at me for it, no I'm not condoning being a dits on purpose, or big religion.
I am condoning letting that which truely does not matter slide.

understanding the question better than "some" people.

Yep, would the religion have survived, and/or developed and spread the same, and would the societies it affected down the line have been the same or be different today with this different imagry.

I like spaghetti...

Perhaps giving it a form would make it easier to disbelieve? Mystery and fear of the unknown are useful tools to make a higher being more intimidating and believable, I think.



While there are many zealots to be afraid of, not nearly every spiritual person is dangerous. In fact, a lot of the time religious adherents are more benevolent and generous than non-religious folks.



You assume too much. Not all religious people believe in, much less blindly accept, everything or anything in a religious text.




God is all-powerful. He can break laws of physics. Duh.

Seriously though- what's so great about logic anyway? What's so wrong with believing in completely ridiculous lies? If it improves a person's happiness and quality of life, and as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, why does it matter?

I agree especially if the higher being is in fact a being within itself.




The only thing "wrong" with it would be what one person would say is wrong....

Take the salem witch trials for example...I would like to think that most of those women were relatively happy before they were burned alive..I doubt they were hurting anyone either.

The reason it matters is only because of other people..and how they want the world to be in their eyes...some people don't want people to be gay, some people don't want there to anyone but muslims...some people don't want anyone but christians...and so forth and so on...

it isn't much difference than a bunch of people together and one of them believes they are a dragon. What they believe doesn't really matter...but when it becomes public knowledge then what other people think and perceive will take that into account

Because when you get down to it...everyone is mentally ill

umm..ok..let me put it into words that you may understand.

It only matters in your mind, or whoevers mind is thinking it.

It matters because some people have to have something to argue about...because the world to them is their own fairy tale where only this shouldn't exist....because they can't touch or feel something it can't exist...

It matters because people need SOMETHING to matter...and certain people take up that particular flag and run with it.

From my previous post, I don't see how thinking you are a dragon would hurt anyone either...but that doesn't really matter to the people who are killing the other person or locking them up because they think that such things must mean you are crazy...

I don't know really...maybe it would be better to ask the people who it matters to why it matters to them...that might be the answer you are looking for.

I didn’t mean to imply that all religious people are zealots. I meant to imply that all religious people are delusional. I completely agree that most religious people are more kind hearted and generous than those that are not religious, but delusional none the less. I really don’t see that much difference between believing in God and believing in leprechauns. Neither can be produced for validation. If I were to tell you that I follow the way of the leprechaun because of some book that I read about them you would think I was nuts, which is how I see most people who follow a religion because some book told them to.

Then forgive me for saying this but “they are half assed believers who are both hypocritical and arrogant beyond belief”… Not only are they arrogant enough to believe that they know better than their supposed God and can change the doctrines to meet their lifestyle but they are hypocritical enough to not see a problem with doing this. I think these people are worse than zealots, because they think they know better than the God they pretend to follow.

I doesn’t hurt a thing, as long as these people don’t go getting all condescending and righteous. My entire family is very religious, diehard Catholics… And I am happy that they have found something that gives their lives meaning, but it annoys the living shit out of me when they have the audacity to feel sorry for me because I don’t believe the way they do…



Sorry for being an ass and never answering the question…
I don’t think it would matter one bit, regardless of what God looked like people would find beauty in Gods actions or some other aspect of the being.

I enjoy learning about the world around me. It's not a crime, unless of course you buy into fundamentalism.



Do you think I was born knowing what those words and numbers mean? Do you think I was born knowing how to drink Kentucky Burboun? How to smoke a cigarette? How to mix down a multitrack recording or how to record it in the first place? That's character, and the only way to get it is to apply yourself to it.

When I left school at seventeen, I was a little snob who turned his nose up at people who did honest jobs and had never done an honest days work in my life. Learning is character building, working and coming home with dirt under your nails is character builiding. Hitting rock bottom with depression, drink and drugs is character building. Astronomy is character building. Arguing on forums is charcter building. Doing anything where you come out of it a little bit more enlightened than before is character building.

You can learn anything you want to learn my friend. You're obviously not stupid. You've got a brain and a body in the hub of the information age. Use them and learn whatever you want to learn, whether it's science, theology, witchcraft, opening a chain of restraunts, drinking whisky, smoking a pipe, collecting model railways, whatever...



It sounds like you should not be talking as though you are some kind of prophet who understands the inner secrets of the universe, that's all. I don't care what anyone else believes, it's fine with me, but if someone publicly declares that they know this about that, and I know that they are spouting a lot of vague and meanigless untruths, it's my right to call them on it. That's what happens on forums. You can challenge me, I can challenge you... I admit that I don't know the prupose of life and the Univerese, and any thinking person should do the same.



For a start, I don't have any degrees. I'm a sound engineer to trade, and my qualifications as such are in that. I've spent time at Universities for various reasons, most of that being related to sound engineering and I've studied biochemistry at University. I also have a diploma in IT stuff, and I build computers out of scrap and pass them on to my friends, sell them, or find various uses for them. Most of the stuff I have learned I have learned by myself for myself, purely for the love of knowledge. You can download just about any significant scientific paper just by consulting google....

I have been around a lot of scientists and engineers when I was growing up, so it\'s probably not surprise that I have been brought up to have that kind of mindset. My father was a biochemist and a lot of his friends were scientists, my uncle was an aircraft engineer who worked on Lockheed Starfighters and then Jetstreams, and my uncle on the other side of the family eas an engineer who built machines to manufacture precision bearings, so science and engineering was what we all talked about when I was growing up.



The two aren't mutually exclusive. I'm happy. I'm spiritual too. I'm not some kind of Edwardian reductionist discipliarian, if you want to compare me to someone, I'm more like Richard Stallman or Jeff Minter or some character like that...



That was precisely my point. It's pointless. It's what you make of it that counts...

Jeremiah 48:10 : Cursed be the one who does the LORD'S work deceitfully.



Yeah, most religious fundametalists love this kind of stuff:

Leviticus 18:22 : 'Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.

But tend to shy away from things like:

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 : If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

Fundamentalism is a crime?







So that's what counts..I was wondering that myself.

If you re read my post and apply a little more intellectual penetration, you should be able to ascertain my meaning being that in the eyes of the fundamentalist, the acquisition and expounding of heretical knowledge is a crime against God. You should bear this in mind, because your agnostic ramblings would guarantee your untimely demise just as surely as my scepticism would guarantee mine in the unfortunate event that the Church were to seize control again.



Oh?

I meant my post in jest, I was just having fun with the play on words...Of course it was silly..I know what you meant.

I try to laugh in even the most serious of times or discussions, especially in the forum for words are just words..no matter what people put to their meaning.

I do not fear death....no matter the cause of my death, I will welcome it...

How many different ways can you describe god? I wonder...






Again it was in jest. I had read earlier where you said you didn't know the meaning of life, and then made the statement that "It's what you make of life that counts".

I understand. Unfortunately, there's no Balitmore catechism for atheists and agnostics...

i'd say the easiest way for man to describe god or any supernatural being that's loved (or at least supposed to be loved), the easiest way to describe it would be in human-like terms...to personify him/it. (that's what i attribute god being described in human-like appearance and personality to). as far as god being described in personality and appearance as something different, like a squid creature, i'd say that it not being personified would have a greater impact on the personality of god. the actions of god in the books would be less human-like, ie yaweh's reaction to satan's rebellion wouldn't be so human in characteristic (traitor! i'm banishing you! [sounds almost like a middle ages king]), and cultures that followed those teachings would be different based on how much impact religious dogma has on culture...moreso during earlier periods of time.