Addicted to the almighty

[Stumpy 284]

Anyone else get this strange sense of Deja Vu?

Never try to eat more than you can lift

[georgerussia 0]

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Have you ever told a lie?

Sure, I did, because your God created me that way. He definitely wanted me to lie, because he created me capable of lying. Compare it to my dog, for example - he cannot lie, which obviously means that some creatures were created like that. This leads us to logical conclusion that the God wanted the people to lie.

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When did I ever say that you were programmed? Are you one of these people who simply refuse to take responsibility for your own actions and constantly blame what you do wrong on everybody else?

It is obvious. Because your God is omnipotent and omniscent, everything is programmed (determined) for him. This includes Adam's behavior - the God knew that the creature he created will behave exactly like he did (if he did not know that - he is not omniscent, and therefore not omnipotent). He knew that would happen, but did not correct it - therefore approving it. But now you say he did not approve it. This is probably misunderstanding somewhere, as it either means that your God is not omniscent, or it means that your God is a sadistic asshole, who created the creature knowing it is going to eat the forbidden tree, did nothing to correct it, and then punished it for that. It is like I put a piece of nice meat in front of my starving dog, tell it "do not touch it", and then punish the dog when it eats it.

* Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

[georgerussia 0]

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Did Hitler prove his divinity?

For them - definitely. Remember, people were dying in the name of their Fuhrer.

Note that Hitler is in much better position comparing to your Jesus - at least there is a lot of witnesses (still alive!) who had personally seen him, and talked to him.

* Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

[SpeedRacer 1]

The alternative to how God created us would be "humans" with no free will. Organic Robots, essentially. no problem with sin there.

Speed Racer
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[georgerussia 0]

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Actually, God created us in his image. That means that we have free will and an intellect.

The fact you have a free _will_ does not mean you can really implement it. Try to use your free will to breath under water, for example. Or to kill the AIDS virus in your bloos. It will not work no matter how strong your free will is.

* Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

[Zenister 0]

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The alternative to how God created us would be "humans" with no free will. Organic Robots, essentially. no problem with sin there.

we've been around this before.. if there exists a record of your actions anywhere at all (even outside of time it matters not, so that dodge is pointless) BEFORE you make them, and that record is absolutely accurate, you have no freewill. You are incapable of doing anything not already in the script, no matter "where" the script is...

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Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[georgerussia 0]

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The irreducible complexity of Creation is 100% proof that there was a Creator.

Your God is obviously something of irreducible complexity. According to your own words, this is a 100% proof there was a Creator. So who created your God, and who created the creator of your God?

* Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

[georgerussia 0]

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The alternative to how God created us would be "humans" with no free will.

A completely free will is useless if you do not have supreme power to implement it. Obviously we do not have all truly free will; actually it varies even between the people in the same society.

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Organic Robots, essentially. no problem with sin there.

So could you use your free will to stop being an organic robot, i.e. stop eating, breathing and going to restroom?

* Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

[SpeedRacer 1]

Free will can only be experienced. not proven.


You know how it feels to be a human. You have an internal experience of being a human. You can't prove it objectively. You can only live it.

that is the nature of the human soul or spirit or whatever you want to call it.


Through objective, scientifically-provable argument you can only come to the conclusion that you have no free will. That you're just an organic robot. But your internal experience suggests otherwise.

You are a human being and you know it.

Speed Racer
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[SkyChimp 0]

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This is a recent post that appeared on the The JREF web site.


[I][sic]“I'm 32 years old and have believed in some form of fundamental Christianity my entire life. I've always considered myself a rational/objective person, yet for all these years, my beliefs in an “after-life” were stronger than ever, and I simply accepted things such as Jonah surviving his dubious swallowed-by-a-fish experience.

However, after months of arduous, objective, and scholarly study, I came to a conclusion that I wasn't prepared to come to. Christianity is an outdated, whimsical and washed-up canard and needless to say, no match for science, rationalism & materialism – or simple logic, for that matter.
Up until three months ago, my contentment and joy in life literally revolved around my perceived “relationship with God/Christ,” efficacy of prayer, and gracious heavenly payout. Now that I know this mode of thinking and dream isn't reality, I am experiencing very real – and I'm told, “clinical” – depression, something I have never experienced before. I have endured any past tribulation through reasoning, "God 'has my back'” and is somehow using this adversity to “make me stronger,” and “I can get through anything in this life because it's only temporary and in the end, eternal bliss awaits me.” I thought that, like other Christians, I had effectively already won the "after-life lottery."

Now I know my winning ticket is worthless. I had been duped, and worse, my life-sustaining purpose crutch had been yanked out from under me. Side note: I truly believe that if you could convince Christians in the USA that there was no Jesus/God, there would be a major, depression-laden backlash.
I have sought medical treatment. Ironically, the two psychiatrists and three psychologists I have seen, sincerely believe that a belief in a “higher-power” is essential to recovery. Further, they have all suggested, or flat out told me, that “my lack of faith” could be the cause of my depression. And the psychiatrists have also loaded me up with a litany of pills – none of which have worked. It's as though my psyche “can't handle the truth,” and I've even taken a leave of absence from my job. FYI – I live in a suburb of Houston where, generally speaking, if you aren't some sort of Christian, you'd be better off having leprosy, and Rick Warren is the next best thing to the Messiah himself." [/I]

I thought that it raised a very interesting point in that are we as a species now so dependant on belief in an almighty being that this need has become biologically ingrained in most of us, and the removal of this belief if not done at an early age, can cause clinical depression.

Now im sure the likes of Paj and Mockingbird will simply dismiss this as work of the devil, but if possible can we discuss this with a level or reality and rationale.

Is religion a drug? Are believers in denial and addicted??

A perfect example of someone exercising FREEWILL.

I wonder if everyone will remember what they posted in this thread the day they die.

Does anyone else find it funny that we made a SPORT out of an EMERGENCY PROCEDURE?!?!

[kallend 2,027]

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Waiting......... maybe its not that easy after all, probably why nobody has managed yet to prove your gods existence.

A painting is empirical evidence that there was a painter. A building is evidence that there was a builder. The irreducible complexity of Creation is 100% proof that there was a Creator. It doesn't take religion or faith to see that. Just eyes that can see and a brain that works.

Nonsense. A logical fallacy that has been explained to you several times already.

The Mandelbrot set is an infinitely complex object - does that make Benoit Mandelbrot a god?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[skydyvr 0]

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Anyone else get this strange sense of Deja Vu?

I am experiencing Deja-Moo -- the feeling I've heard all this bullshit before.

. . =(_8^(1)

[br0k3n 0]

Here's a an anology,

My Wife knows I like coffee and vegemite toast in the mornings.

So this morning she was awake before me and made me a cup of coffee and some toast and left it on the kitchen table, knowing that when I walked in I would drink the coffee and eat the toast.

So in I walk and see the coffee and toast, I drink the coffee and eat the toast.

Did my wife preordain this, or I choose freely???

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--+ There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.. --+

[georgerussia 0]

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Free will can only be experienced. not proven.

So you agree that the claim that everyone has free will is groundless?

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You know how it feels to be a human. You have an internal experience of being a human. You can't prove it objectively.

How do you know? Maybe I have no idea how it feels, and have no internal experience. What your claim is based on?

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Through objective, scientifically-provable argument you can only come to the conclusion that you have no free will. That you're just an organic robot. But your internal experience suggests otherwise.

This is kind of ignorant assumption. How do you know what my internal experience suggests, if anything? Hint: if your experience suggests something, it does not mean everyone else's experience suggests the same.

* Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

[JackC 0]

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Through objective, scientifically-provable argument you can only come to the conclusion that you have no free will. That you're just an organic robot. But your internal experience suggests otherwise.

Can you provide a link to a scientifically provable argument that concludes we have no free will please?

Your profile says you are a scientist (although a mad one which I assume is a joke), so I expect you to know what a scientific argument is and the standards that are required for proof.

Perhaps you can then explain why as a scientist after reading this alleged proof(!), you do not believe it and instead defer to you your fallible internal experience?

[jakee 1,489]

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My Wife knows I like coffee and vegemite toast in the mornings.

You are a sick man. I hope for your sake that you can get to a doctor before it's too late.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[JackC 0]

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My Wife knows I like coffee and vegemite toast in the mornings.

You are a sick man. I hope for your sake that you can get to a doctor before it's too late.

Yeah, everyone knows Vegemite is a piss poor substitute for Marmite.

[jakee 1,489]

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My Wife knows I like coffee and vegemite toast in the mornings.

You are a sick man. I hope for your sake that you can get to a doctor before it's too late.

Yeah, everyone knows Vegemite is a piss poor substitute for Marmite.

You are a gentleman and a scholar.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[JackC 0]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK7n1Q-fDeA

[philh 0]

"Here's a an anology,

My Wife knows I like coffee and vegemite toast in the mornings.

So this morning she was awake before me and made me a cup of coffee and some toast and left it on the kitchen table, knowing that when I walked in I would drink the coffee and eat the toast.

So in I walk and see the coffee and toast, I drink the coffee and eat the toast.

Did my wife preordain this, or I choose freely??? "

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Here is the difference between your analogy and the Chrisitian theology of prophesy. In your analogy your wife is aking a prediction based upon observed behaviour. These prediction can often be very accurate, but as long its possible that you might behave differently we cannot say her prediction is an infallible prophesy. In Christian theology the prophecies are considered inflallibl, there is no possibility allowed for god to be wrong; now if that is true then there is no such thing as freewill becuase no one could have acted differently to what they do.

[Stumpy 284]

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Anyone else get this strange sense of Deja Vu?

I am experiencing Deja-Moo -- the feeling I've heard all this bullshit before.

Absof**kinlutely

Never try to eat more than you can lift

[pajarito 0]

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The Mandelbrot set is an infinitely complex object - does that make Benoit Mandelbrot a god?

Fractals

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Where did this incredible organization and beauty come from? Some might say that a computer produced this organization and beauty. After all, a computer was used to produce the graphs in the figures. But the computer did not create the fractal. It only produced the map—the representation of the fractal. A graph of something is not the thing itself, just as a map of the United States is not the same thing as the United States. The computer was merely a tool that was used to discover a shape that is an artifact of the mathematics itself.

God alone can take credit for mathematical truths, such as fractals. Such transcendent truths are a reflection of God’s thoughts. Therefore when we discover mathematical truths we are, in the words of the astronomer Johannes Kepler, “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.” The shapes shown in the figures have been built into mathematics by the Creator of mathematics. We could have chosen different color schemes for the graphs, but we cannot alter the shape—it is set by God and His nature.

Evolution cannot account for fractals. These shapes have existed since creation and cannot have evolved, since numbers cannot change—the number 7 will never be anything but 7. But fractals are perfectly consistent with biblical creation. The Christian understands that there are transcendent truths because the Bible states many of them. A biblical creationist expects to find beauty and order in the universe, not only in the physical universe, but in the abstract realm of mathematics as well. This order and beauty is possible because there is a logical God who has imparted order and beauty into His universe.
--Jason Lisle, Ph.D. (Astrophysics)

[steveorino 7]

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" In Christian theology the prophecies are considered inflallibl, there is no possibility allowed for god to be wrong; now if that is true then there is no such thing as freewill becuase no one could have acted differently to what they do.

However, there remains the concept that man's free will can change the mind of God, and thereby change the outcome of said prophecy. See Jonah, 3rd chapter, for example.

Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days. On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned." The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh:
"By the decree of the king and his nobles:
Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish."

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

steveOrino