Thoughts on the Existence of the Universe

[Blackleaf]

YOU say there is no GOD! The arrogance is in your court and not mine. You need to prove there is some other way biological life can originate or God is the only logical explanation. Now there are Christian scientists and non-believers who are scientists. Scientists in general are pretty smart individuals; however, if they cannot spontaneously produce some real living thing and not simply the building blocks of living things, then the likelihood that "mother nature" could do it by chance is rather an impossibility.

Give the parts of 5000 watches to 5000 monkeys and I would submit that the likelihood that even one of them would reassemble a watch, much less a watch that works is an absolute impossibility.

OMG. You are so dense. It doesn't matter if we have a better explanation. Your explanation has no proof. It's up to you to convince us that your explanation is the right one.

[Blackleaf]

You have entirely skipped the simple fact that we now live with sin in a sinful world.

...Which God, in his omniscience and omnipotence, preordained to exist.

[Mr.Obvious]

You have entirely skipped the simple fact that we now live with sin in a sinful world. Satan doesn't like Christians anymore than atheists do. And so he motivates his servants to be selfish, cruel, spoiled, liars, cheaters, sexual deviants, connivers and worse. However, God is working to illustrate to Christians that even with such people around, it is possible to live for God. And even when Christians make mistakes, He is willing to forgive and get the Christian back on track. Christians do not live here forever and that is due to the wages of sin; however, Christians will one day go to be with God and live without any influence of sin. This is what I look forward to. Atheists just have old age to look forward to at best. If you're twenty and healthy, and don't ruin your body through drunkenness, sexual promiscuity, drug addiction, and smoking habits, you may (given you don't have some accident of any consequence) have about 40 more years and then you will be old. Time will fly by --- especially once you get out of school and then it will run from Christmas to Christmas at an ever increasing clip.

No, Nip, I'm not the one skipping something here.
Your God, were he to exist, could have created a world that would not turn to a sinful one by the free will of it's inhabitants but that would remain a good one through that free will.
However, he didn't. Instead he supposedly created it to be exactly what it is today; an imperfect world which you can label 'sinful'. And any influences Satan has in it, have been plotted out and thus sanctioned by his all-knowing, all-powerfull creator. Either they would have been different, or your deity isn't all-knowing and/or all-powerfull and/or the creator of everything.
This is not skipping something. This is taking your line of reasoning to it's conclusion. This is taking your idea and really running with it. This is facing what you blind yourself from, even though it is your conviction. And you not being able to face your own mortality does nothing to change that. How about you face the conundrum you've been presented, rather than dancing around it and trying to scare us with our inevitable ends?

[aitm]

God knows the how the final act will play out.

Unless they have iron wheels, then he is fucked….LOLOL your god is such a dipshit. Can never beat any army the first time…always takes three tries, can't beat any army with iron wheels, can't keep the jews on the straight and narrow even after showing himself to them….yeah…dats one tough ass bad mo-jo. HEHEHE..what a douchey god. Please, at least worship an alligator or something that has some bite to it.

[Baruch]

Unless they have iron wheels, then he is fucked….LOLOL your god is such a dipshit. Can never beat any army the first time…always takes three tries, can't beat any army with iron wheels, can't keep the jews on the straight and narrow even after showing himself to them….yeah…dats one tough ass bad mo-jo. HEHEHE..what a douchey god. Please, at least worship an alligator or something that has some bite to it.

The English "messiah" comes from the Hebrew "meshech" which comes from the Egyptian "mshch" ... which was the crocodile fat used to anoint the Pharaoh in a special ceremony.  So there is a connection between Jesus and the crocodile.

[Baruch]

And as usual just s big dodge.

No, i do not follow Plato. I do not think there is a world of ideas out there of where we are the shadows. I believe the other way around: what we experience as ideas are the shadows of the real world.

And no, we do not force fit facts to our ideas, we have a fantastic tool , science , that shape our ideas from the facts.

And no, there was never, in historical time, a common hypotesis that the earth was flat. Anyone, on the savanna or the sea, sees that mountains dissapears under the horizon.
The error Columbus made was to undersestimate the circumference.


And you didnt explain how your worldview are compatible with the universe before there was humans..,

There was no human universe, before humans ... the human universe is a human creation (partly subjective), made out of human psychology and sociology working on un-interpreted sensation.  You are mistaking that the human universe (particularly the one commonly accepted in your society) is the one whole and true universe ... which isn't true at all, it is confirmation bias.  Our perceptions (which are in our heads, not in the Platonic world of forms) mold the sensations we experience ... for example you and I could be looking at the same scene on the street, and we can see rather different reality put before us.  The universe of the un-humans ... can only be produced by un-humans.  The idea that there is a universe beyond perception, is Plato in spades.  Many people rely, unconsciously, on unexamined ancient conceptions that they inherited from their parents and society ... it is much more than religion.  Many modern people are Pythagoreans ... without even knowing who Pythagoras was.  This was not always true in even European society, it is a recent happening.  But then Socrates was all over this problem ... "An unexamined life isn't worth living".  It is very hard to examine one's life in more than a superficial way, particularly if one is bound to any ideology.

[facebook164]

You are mistaking that the human universe (particularly the one commonly accepted in your society) is the one whole and true universe ...

You conflate the human experience with science. Any intelligence that categorice structure into objects will have something akin to our mathematics. They will have other notions, they will have other values, but their descriotion of the universe will be on a deep level be homologous to our. That computers actually works is not just in our heads, it is not a "viewpoint".

The idea that there is a universe beyond perception, is Plato in spades.

No, you got that backwards. That is Kant. It is the opposite of Plato.

[Baruch]

You conflate the human experience with science. Any intelligence that categorice structure into objects will have something akin to our mathematics. They will have other notions, they will have other values, but their descriotion of the universe will be on a deep level be homologous to our. That computers actually works is not just in our heads, it is not a "viewpoint".

No, you got that backwards. That is Kant. It is the opposite of Plato.

Well I won't divert into Kant vs Plato.  But neither of them were scientists.  We presume that we are uber-species with uber-consciousness with access to the one Truth.  In my case, I consider cats to be superior ;-) ... she makes no such megalomaniac claims.

So, science occurs outside of human experience?  I find holes in any claims to "full" objectivity or "full" rationality ... I simply don't accept such claims of ape-men.  The objectivity claimed by science, mathematics etc are the results of game theory ... toy problems where two like minded people (notice) ... agree that the next allowed move on a chess board is Kings pawn 2 to Kings pawn 4.  And all game theory situations are human contrivances.  I don't see any way one can claim to be operating outside of human psychology, decrepit as it is.

[LittleNipper]

No, Nip, I'm not the one skipping something here.
Your God, were he to exist, could have created a world that would not turn to a sinful one by the free will of it's inhabitants but that would remain a good one through that free will.
However, he didn't. Instead he supposedly created it to be exactly what it is today; an imperfect world which you can label 'sinful'. And any influences Satan has in it, have been plotted out and thus sanctioned by his all-knowing, all-powerfull creator. Either they would have been different, or your deity isn't all-knowing and/or all-powerfull and/or the creator of everything.
This is not skipping something. This is taking your line of reasoning to it's conclusion. This is taking your idea and really running with it. This is facing what you blind yourself from, even though it is your conviction. And you not being able to face your own mortality does nothing to change that. How about you face the conundrum you've been presented, rather than dancing around it and trying to scare us with our inevitable ends?

God is not the author of sin, Satan is. God knew what Satan would do and what He would become this is true; however, God needs to allow this to play out so that He only embraces those who love Him of their own free will. The angels who remained loyal to the Lord have already been sealed. They made their choice and they can no longer rebel. The very same is true for humans. these that love the Lord will be sealed and are forever His ---- end of choice.

[Mike Cl]

God is not the author of sin, Satan is. God knew what Satan would do and what He would become this is true; however, God needs to allow this to play out so that He only embraces those who love Him of their own free will. The angels who remained loyal to the Lord have already been sealed. They made their choice and they can no longer rebel. The very same is true for humans. these that love the Lord will be sealed and are forever His ---- end of choice.

There is so much that is idiotic about this statement.  God is the creator of the universe--knows all and knows how all will begin and end.  Yet Satan is the creator of sin.  How can that be when there is but one creator?  And that creator created Satan just as he wanted Satan to be.  Satan has no choice--he has to play his part just as God scripted it.  What a bastard your god is, Nipper.  And God is so shallow and callow that he needs his creation love him.  If they don't then he throws a fit and sends them to hell.  Yeah, that is the hallmark of a loving creator alright.  No, that is the hallmark of a sadistic, sick, bastard.  I'd say that your god needs to earn my respect--not the other way around.  And nipper your god is a shallow, pitiful, poor excuse of a god.  He has not a single redeeming feature.  And you are so frightened of your own death that you grab at any fantasy--even that sick, bankrupt, cruel, stupid set of fantasy stories called christianity.  And your super hero jesus is cut of the same cloth.  Look at what he did to Thomas.  He has been vilified because he 'betrayed' jesus.  Yet jesus knew he would, for that is what he planned to have happened.  Poor Thomas bore the brunt of the sick, sadistic, immoral acts and words of jesus.  Yes, christianity is truly, truly a sick, immoral set of rules.  Nipper, it is simply sick.................................... 

[facebook164]

God is not the author of sin, Satan is. God knew what Satan would do and what He would become this is true; however, God needs to allow this to play out so that He only embraces those who love Him of their own free will. The angels who remained loyal to the Lord have already been sealed. They made their choice and they can no longer rebel. The very same is true for humans. these that love the Lord will be sealed and are forever His ---- end of choice.

How do you know this? How do we test this hypotesis?

[Sargon The Grape]

however, God needs to allow this to play out

If God is omnipotent, why does he need to do anything a particular way?

[Mr.Obvious]

God is not the author of sin, Satan is.

So God is not the all-knowing, all-powerfull creator of Satan? Blaming Satan for his wickedness and praising his omnipotent, omniscient creator is like blaming the bomb that went off for those it killed and maimed but calling the bomb-building terrorist that knowingly planted it and set if off a hero because he decided to call the ambulance afterward.

God knew what Satan would do and what He would become this is true; however, God needs to allow this to play out so that He only embraces those who love Him of their own free will.

So God is not all-powerfull? He is bound to do this this way, and can't manage a better, more moral way than creating creatures specifically to be destined to rebel against him and receive the lake of fire as punishment for being the way their creator preordained them to be? He was incapable of creating a better world from that get-go that would remain one with everyone choosing to love him of their own will?

So God is not all-knowing? He has to 'find out' who he'll embrace? He could've skipped all of that if he were omniscient. And he could've spared those who wouldn't choose him of free will the existance and eternal punishment that they can't escape by not creating them. Believe me, I love living, but if it's encompanied by eternal burning because I've been created with the foreknowledge that I would not accept the one and only lord as my own personal savior, I'd rather not have existed in the first place.

Honestly, at this point I can only see omnipotence and omniscience going hand in hand with a creator of this reality if the creator is most immoral and wicked. If that were the case you could still say: that may be so, but since I'm afraid of death I'm banking on him being real despite there being no evidence to the claim. Just so that in the smallest of hopes of there being not only life after death but also it being exactly the way I picture it, I can spend it not burning but rather praising an immortal, all-powerful monstrous sociopath for all eternity rather than burning in hell.
Which is not something I could respect. But at least I could understand. If that's not how you see it, Nip, please try again and stay internally consistant regarding your own line of reasoning.

The angels who remained loyal to the Lord have already been sealed. They made their choice and they can no longer rebel. The very same is true for humans. these that love the Lord will be sealed and are forever His ---- end of choice.

It all depends on what you call 'choice'. And it's what makes me think you don't really think through the consequences of the 'omnipotent, omniscient creator hypothesis'. Let's see if we can make this clear:

The angels who supposedly chose to follow God were preordained to choose this of their own free will as much as the third that rose against him were preordained to choose to rebel. God made them the way he made them knowing they would turn wicked and that he had to smite them down. He is the omniscient creator after all. And he could have created them so that all his creations would chose to love him and not rise against him. He is the omnipotent creator after all. Creating them one way rather than the other does not change the free will and 'choice' in play, as God knew either way before/as he created them what they would choose and he himself chose to create them in such a way with the full knowledge of what that would entail.
And with the possibility of creating a perfect world in which with as much free will as in this one no-one would dissobey him, and remember he has that possibility because of omnipotence and omniscience, he chooses to instead create a world in which sin runs rampant & people and angels are destined to burn forever.

[reasonist]

"God is not the author of sin, Satan is. God knew what Satan would do and what He would become this is true; however, God needs to allow this to play out so that He only embraces those who love Him of their own free will. The angels who remained loyal to the Lord have already been sealed. They made their choice and they can no longer rebel. The very same is true for humans. these that love the Lord will be sealed and are forever His ---- end of choice."

Yep, allow this to play out...the wiggle argument. And always the 'free will'. There is no such thing. I am trapped without an option. I was born a sinner because somebody listened to a talking snake 8,000 generations ago. If I don't buy into any this babble, I will be tortured for ETERNITY, no matter how good I lived my life. This must be the very definition of free will!
The funny thing is, the other cults say the same thing. If you don't believe their stories, you go to hell also. But we know littlenipper, yours is the right one...If you would have been born in New Delhi you wouldn't be a Sikh or a Hindu, if you were born in Tel Aviv you would surely not be following Moses; if you were born in Baghdad you would not be a Muslim. It would always be Jesus, no matter what indoctrination you receive as a child. We got it.

[SGOS]

Nipper, Satan lurks in this forum and he is starting to stir.  You risk catching his watchful eye.  Just a heads up.  Don't be so arrogant to think that your God armor will protect you.  Is it worth your soul?  How many other Christians have come here thinking they were strong enough to tempt Satan and remain among the chosen?  Two thirds of us used to be Christians, as firm in belief as you, but we came to the forum and we are now all atheists.  When you stray from God to tempt Satan, it is not some trivial thing.  The Internet is littered with dead souls who thought they were good Christians, but have been cast out and are awaiting their awful fate of doom.