That's about the most universal "thinking" of nonexistence of God, which isn't really considered an argument. Please, do some research, come up with something other than "this can't be because I feel like it doesn't". Maybe take a course in Logic...you waste a year of high school math, but at least you learn that that isn't an argument. Thanks. Ever thought that God could mean something else than an omnipotent dude in the sky with a long white beard? Just take a few of the Hebrew words for God (sorry, no typing in Hebrew...lazy ): Yehova, Elokhim, El Shaddai, Adonai. The first one is probably the mix of Yuh (just two letters, yud and hey) and Vuh (vuv and hey). Basically, it's more or less a nonsense word. You can try to attribute a feminine and masculine side to it, but that's a really iffy translation and I wouldn't go with that. Elokhim and Adonai="our lord" used in any example of a greater power when you want to give respect. El Shaddai: This one's a little weird: el is "the", and Shaddai is 3 letters (shin, daled, yud) that don't really mean anything either. Again, nonsense word probably. So there you have a few of God's names. Now, looking at that you can easily determine that it merely meaning "something bigger than myself that deserves respect". Think about people and things who are bigger than yourself and deserve respect. Nature, world leaders, etc. If you know any middle eastern language you'll find that almost nothing is to be taken literally: for example, if I wanted to say that there was "lots of camels" (whatever, first came into my mind): gamolim gadolim gadolim. This means literally like...thousands of camels. Almost all writing in the original Torah (in Hebrew, mind you. English is a one direction language that has metaphor possibilities but not anywhere near as used as in Hebrew) in metaphorical in some sense.
so you want me to make up some theory that cant possibly prove how we started? okay heres my magical theory. all of a sudden BOOM here we are. sounds a lot to me like any of the theories in here doesnt? and ya im not the best at logic and discussion but everyone has their weaknesses...****. i didnt say thats the way it is because I think it is. i was using the word "that" to refer to what i just said why would i rephrase everything i just typed? and what is this whole "you wasted a year of high school math" ? but you are right that wasnt an arguement as you can clearly see i said "im going to put my input in" so ya my bad mr. "admin"
That....still didn't make any sense whatsoever. Read my edit and learn to do research. Make your own opinion through research, not deciding you don't like whatever you've heard because it doesn't make sense to you. Ever since I've personally questioned religion, I decided to go learn Hebrew. So I did. And then I translated the Bible by myself, and...surprise! It can mean something totally different than the literal translations that English only allows. Here's a good quote to getcha started "Religion was invented to explain the unexplainable, and to improve the lives of people around the world". I think that was it (might've messed up at some point...don't remember).
congrats on learning hebrew! SURPRISE your a ****! me my self i would have picked Japanese to learn but hey thats just me. its not that i just didnt like whatever i heard because it didnt make sense to me,ive been raised as a catholic my whole life, so its not like i just heard this **** yesterday, once i got older i did research the crap out of it but i'm terrible at putting my thoughts onto paper.i just summed it up in the simplest way i could, and of course the English version of the bible isnt translated right. But im not even talking about the bible im talking about god. god is more then just the bible. and great quote. too bad i already knew it. but im just gonna stop here since i cant seem to write what i think correctly. so ill just continue to enjoy reading these arguments. because most of these people have good points. after reading what i wrote ^ i realized i shouldnt be arguing when i havnt slept for days but its something to do. did i mention your a ****? i wasnt quite sure if my argument was clear enough for you to know thats what i was getting to. so i figured id just flat out say it...again
That's known as a personal attack, and doesn't belong here. kthx. This is the debate forum. The forum for...yes, DEBATES. And guess what people do in this...debate. They express their sides in...writing! If you can't do that, don't post. Simple enough...let's continue. Alright, you're talking about God...so was I. The first mention of the modern-day God came from the Bible/Torah, which was then literally translated into the english Christian version (from what I know, I can be wrong about this again). God and the Bible go hand in hand together. Good for you....nobody really cares what the author is feeling in a debate. That's why I don't care that you repeatedly call me a "****" even though I haven't directly insulted you, rather your debate style. It's more of a childish "yuh huh, nuh huh" than a well-thought out observation. I've never been on a debate team, but I've participated in quite a few debates, and a guy with your thinking would just be laughed at. There's no research, no backing, not really...anything, other than your personal attacks.
okay well i felt like i was being personally attacked. indirect insulating is just as bad so dont act like you werent insulating me regardless of if it was direct or not, and to me the underlined part is a personal attack but thanx. my thinking? your judging my thinking from a few bad posts? how do u know there wasnt any research? well since we are both extremely off topic why dont u start with your side of this debate because i am yet to see it, all ive seen is some tips on Hebrew and a song which explains the everything has a good and a bad side, at least i think thats what u were getting at
To cut your thought short, God is eternal, the moment he ceases to be eternal, he ceases to be God. Otherwise, we will just keep asking what created that and so on and so forth. The facts are there, it's how people interpret them. People see the universe itself as a testament to God. But if you wanted to isolate a single physical fact you couldn't. There is no physical evidence to support the claim. Humans, however, are not all numbers and figures, they have a heart. I feel that the soul is of great importance when determining your worldview however arbitrary it is to each individual. Personally, through logic, I come to the conclusion that this universe had a start and that it will end. Whatever entity that sparked the universe, however, is since long gone and impersonal. Sure, it could have been God, but God left a long time ago imo. That said, I do have several problems with the evolutionary model. For know, I'm satisfied with not knowing. God could certainly be out there dictating the events of the universe or not. The love of money is the root of all evil. Not money itself, it is amoral. Whether or not money was invented is of no importance, what is important is man's nature. @Insane, I'm going to have to get my notes now, because those names for God are not jibberish, they do have meaning. I can't recall them now, but I will address them when I've got my notes.
I've seen some of the translations, like 'marriage between Elokhim and Shekinah', which is all total BS, and doesn't mean anything, besides the fact I'm 100% sure it doesn't mean that. But it'd be cool to see what you have if it's something I haven't seen before... "okay well i felt like i was being personally attacked. indirect insulating is just as bad so dont act like you werent insulating me regardless of if it was direct or not, and to me the underlined part is a personal attack but thanx. my thinking? your judging my thinking from a few bad posts? how do u know there wasnt any research?" It's called a debate. You're attacking and defending your point. If you can't do that, you shouldn't debate. "Thinking" as in thinking from your post, and you can tell there wasn't any research, because there were no facts. "well since we are both extremely off topic why dont u start with your side of this debate because i am yet to see it, all ive seen is some tips on Hebrew and a song which explains the everything has a good and a bad side, at least i think thats what u were getting at" I did get way offtopic (though the song wasn't offtopic, the Hebrew is), though it has religious implications it doesn't belong in "The Beginning" thread. My bad.
Not just a "quick fix" for difficult questions, religion was also invented as a crutch for the fear of mortality. Now it serves as an evasion to answering real questions about how the universe began. If you think about it, in a timeline sense of development, 2000 years ago was the perfect time for rumours of Jesus performing miracles to spread and for the bible to be written. If Jesus had been born in the middle ages for example, there would be a plethora of documentation: witness accounts, letters, family trees, paintings, statues and physical evidence. People would've had the Historian's sense to store Jesus' belongings after he had passed, which would have been remarkable evidence. The technological setting made for a great blind spot where anything could be believed without any definite certainty: you can say "The garden of Eden" and "Noah's Ark" are metaphorical stories, but that wasn't the stance a few centuries ago.
I agree, stupid cat. We may never know for sure. Yes, faith. Believing outside the average human's capability. Wait, what? I never said our "system" is perfect... When will people ever see religion in the same light as science? Science has its flaws, religion has its flaws. Let's get on with it.
Yes, I won't ever know for sure, but I'm going to be honest and admit to not knowing rather than declaring my belief in anything I couldn't possibly prove. So you will agree that faith in God is based on lack of evidence? Certainly there isn't any evidence to disprove it, since you can't argue His existence on the basis of physical evidence. But you get my point. I know you didn't. You asked, how could we know if something is incorrect if it's by our own standards. Well, if something is infallible, it will know that it is infallible. I attempted to use an analogy, I'll try to be more clear about my point next time. He doesn't have to and it shouldn't be your goal to convince him of that. Let's get back to the discussion! I was going to, then I saw the let's get on with it. So whatevs.
The Bible was made WAY before Jesus. Jesus was actually Jewish, during the time of the first temple I believe...besides the fact I'm not Christian. That's over 2000 years already into the Jewish tradition (Apparently it's 5690 this year, or something like that. I don't necessary agree with that, but it's def been out there a long time). And I'm not inferring that religion isn't truthful, at all. I should have used the word "discovery" over "invention", as that could really be either way. To me, it doesn't matter and at the moment there's no way of knowing. And in no way is religion a crutch of any kind. It's just idiots that claim "evolution couldn't have happened...the Bible said so!" that are a crutch on the rest of the world, and that's not passing over the message that the whole point was.
You don't need to prove it to someone else, you need to prove it to yourself. Faith is based on personal experiences. I feel that man knows close to nothing.. if that helps..
I simply have my own complete theory on this matter. I have invented my own intricate and possibly false yet possible theory, revolving around a series of universes being as a set of thin flat sheets with edges that return upon themselves, shooting you to the absolute opposite of that one universe, and having an infinite amount of edges and planes and areas and so forth, becoming a massive globe that is represented by one thin sheet with no actual proportions, being made up of decillions upon decillions upon decillions to an infinite amount of tiny strands of absolute energy, vibrating and vibrating strands and particles around it, creating matter (a play off of the M-theory). As one universe is created, so are an infinite possible universes that entertain the same area that our current universe occupies, becoming an infinitessimal multiverse with no literal end or beginning, or way to pass over to each other. Universes can pop out of existence, but there is never less than an infinite amount of universes available to be present, each containing one of the infinite possibilities of being. Now, the way I believe it (by the way, please know this is all a theory I have invented, as previously stated) is that our universe and all other possible and existing universes do not actually exist, being a part of nothing and in fact are nothing, but we perceive it to be true and thus is real, even though it, and we, aren't. They occupy no space, yet occupy all space, sort of like a religious viewpoint of the Creator, how He stretches everywhere and nowhere. Well, this could be true, but I believe it in a materialistic sense. Now, our universe consists of particles, which make up gases, liquids, and solids, and sometimes plasma, less common upon our terrestrial planet of "Earth." Gases are the most abundant in the universe, creating stars and galaxies and planets and solar systems and other such oddities. In between those spaces is nothingness, but it is a tangible energy, called dark energy and dark matter. This is an already invented theory which I add to mine, and I won't go into detail. Now, how was it created? It wasn't, in my belief. It simply is, will be, and won't stop being, while actually not existing. The truth is is that it is a falsity while being a truth, a paradox, if you will, with no true emotion or rationality behind it. I don't take a religious viewpoint on it, but this is my thinking. It wasn't created by a power or being of supreme authority, but just acted upon itself. In the beginning, which was actually just a period in the never-ending or beginning multitude of numbers making up time, there was simply nothing, which was there because our universe repeats itself, over and over again, as does each of the previously stated universes, over and over again, not having an end or beginning. This nothingness was an absolute extinction, probably caused by some mixture of galaxies and stretching of the limits of existence, resulting in a ridiculously unthinkable cataclysm, simply ending possibility, and resulting in nothingness. Since you can't actually have "nothing," this resulted in nothing conglomerating into a mass of energy, which imploded and expanded to become what we call stars and gasses, which in turn create their own stars and burn themselves out. This is basically the Big Bang Theory. These stars imploded upon themselves, resulting in more and more, but pushing themselves further apart, resulting in clusters and galaxies and clouds, resulting in a universe. This took the course of trillions of years, not billions, since that is too short of a time. All of these impossible quirks of science and space eventually took the right course and resulted in creating our galaxy, which created our solar system, which created our Earth, which created us. Eventually, on the never-ending timeline of nothing, our universe will once again implode upon itself due to its massive amount of expansion and result in an additional restart of itself, becoming one more in the infinite amount of times it will do so. There is no set time for when this will happen, because each restart adds or subtracts one or multiple or infinite necessary things to make it the same as last time. The same is with each universe, despite the extremely infinite possibilities that occur with each. This gives them fluctuating timelines, such as ours, yet not the same, as there SHALL be something different, causing something different, causing something different, etc. We don't notice this happening, because it is a separate existence which simply just doesn't affect our own while still happening in the same area. And those are my thoughts on this matter. /thread.
Well of course its a metaphor. You were the one saying it was a real piece of fruit and we were telling you it wasn't. You just lost, sorry. Okay so here is how its gone. You said-- The story of adam and eve telling how people became evil. I said-- no your wrong a fruit couldn't do that. how is that scrutinizing one irrelevant detail? The whole point of the story is eating the fruit. It's almost a main character for crying out loud! If the fruit wasn't really able to do that the whole story would fall to pieces. oh well gosh just maybe a certain some one on this thread is really really really bad at being passive-aggressive, but is making it their entire argument of how the other person is wrong, which in turn makes their argument fail. And the person they were chastising had not even made their point for a couple posts because they were arguing over the person's stupid, nonsensical fruitcake of a debate point. But I have no idea who that may be, erico any ideas? [/passive-aggressive is stupid] Ya know what? I don't know. It's as simple as that really. And is a perfectly acceptable answer. If that doesn't build your faith, then don't dwell on it. To me its not a subject that makes or breaks my faith. All this perfect and imperfect business has no relevance to the way I live my everyday life, so why make up to something that can bring the end all answer to god? maybe someday down line we'll find something that will give one side of the argument some real weight, but until then its just speculation and why base your life off of that? How can you compare a human telling a cat what to do and a deity telling people what to do? The cat isn't going to understand you in the slightest and you should have known that(going by personal experience) it will rip up everything. This is completely different from humans who have understood the laws set down and choose to be in direct violation of them. Just look at monks and nuns, it is completely possible for humans to follow god, yet a cat would be unable to even understand a simple command like sit still, without training, and I doubt you could ever get it to specifically not do something. And so what if you think God is harsh. That's an opinion, and if we all acted on those the world would suck. Maybe its my opinion that my parking ticket fine is so harsh we ought to overthrow the entire government so that there are no parking tickets. My opinion holds the same weight as your opinion of God's harshness, and since you are saying your opinion is correct that means mine is, too. Hello mass chaos. oh please, tell me some flaws in the process of science. this ought to be rich. Who cares if your theory(not even that really more like a hypothesis) is possible? Anything is technically possible, so until you can provide some proof supporting your theory, it's, well it's not that it's wrong, it's just not correct, if you get what I mean. I think I'll put "/thread" at the end of my points, to add credibility to what I'm saying, without really doing anything. /thread
Sigh, I suppose I shouldn't expect you to understand the metaphor I was actually portraying. We're talking about "The Beginning" here remember, my metaphorical story was relating to the Adam and Eve story with the apple. Now, before Adam and Eve ate the apple, they had no knowledge of Good and Evil, and thus no knowledge of Right and Wrong, a bit like our cat. You can't refute this, since it's the eating of the apple that gives them this knowledge. I (God) inform the cat (Adam+Eve) not to destroy the slipper (eat the apple). How does the cat (Adam+Eve) know that not following this order is wrong? It (they) can only know after the event actually occurs. I (God) knew I'd placed the cat (Adam+Eve) in a situation that it (they) will hoplessley be unable to resist; then I (God) punish it (them) for it. Who's really at fault here? Notice I ignored the snake, it's not even relevent. But, hey sure if we wanna add to it, why would God even create the snake, or the tree, or the apple? Why would I put the cat in the room with my favourite slippers? I could even argue what you were talking about, but it's not really on-topic, so I won't. I shall just say that you don't talk cat language, so how can you know whether they're really able to follow orders or not? God could communicate to a cat however it likes and make it understand, maybe God does...the cat doesn't have to tell you about it. But anyway, off-topic, so meh. Oh yeah. [/thread]
Maybe you missed the whole 'Plus, it could just be a metaphor..' part. It's like me saying that all horses are pink, then you saying what about their pubes? It's just.. No. God's world Vs. Our world They're about 90% different. Huh, you've got me stumped. -.- Oh yes and: Space goes on for EVER and EVER and EVER and EVER the sun is just PERFECTLY spaced from the Earth just so some random thing we call life could just spawn there... from nothing.. you know, just that's COMPLETELY normal... Why not just teleport to Uranus while we're at it.. Gravity is just there along with many other scientific laws and completely "natural" thing that just happen because they happen... nothing else to it.. Organisms are just "naturally" curious about life and always have been... or you could say that they weren't curious and somehow nucleic acids suddenly became human beings... yes, that too.. Energy has been around forever.. particles that repel each other hold matter together... riiiighhhtt On a serious note: There is no physical evidence that gravity is proportional to, and therefore a property of mass There is no way to prove that an object will move in a straight line unless a force acts on it to change that motion and, in fact, nothing moves in straight lines, the historic swirling mass of gas claimed to impart its motion to matter in the solar system and therefore account for the rotation and orbiting of planets is just a fantasy that fails to explain any of the chaotic movement that is the solar system In recent decades, scientists have discovered that the ordinary matter that makes up stars, planets, even human beings, accounts for only 5 percent of everything in the universe. The rest belongs to dark matter and dark energy There is no biological basis of consciousness There are no facts as to how the earliest life forms on life arose Nobody knows what "produces" intellect Should I continue? I'm not saying that these are unexplainable so they must be made by God... I'm just saying that science has its flaws, and so does religion... but it'd be stupid to just say that either science OR religion is unexplainable and were thought up by inbreds who know nothing about anything... would you agree? So let's just calm down and stop accusing things, mmkay?
@El Diablo: You completely failed to understand my main point. I'm not even going to go over it again because it's still there... you just need to look. Don't call me an idiot... just because you THINK I have no idea what I'm talking about. Come on! Give me some credit. I'M JUST SAYING that science AND religion has its flaws. I'm not saying science and religion are completely different, I'm saying that you can't just say religion is flawed and there's nothing else to it. God is behind science, so there may be VERY few things that will always remain a mystery. Come on, you can put some effort into this instead of saying, no, your argument is invalid because you're ER1C0 and you're an idiot. Why thank you, I'll just flutter on telling the world about God without knowing anything about science.. is that how you see it? It just really irritates me when you start calling me names and crap without showing and OUNCE of respect OR acceptance of ANY sort towards my views. Thanks man, really means a lot. -.-
No wonder you don't get my points. Well you certainly implied it. Great, resorting to name-calling... Sorry if I'm actually defending my religion. Shut up dude, I mean seriously, I give valid points and all you seem to do is push it down, wrap it in what you view as good counter-attacks, then ship it on over to me, saying my points are invalid because I'm ignorant. You seriously aren't helping this debate prosper.. at all. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Your predetermined mind just naturally shoves my views aside... without showing even an OUNCE of any sort of acceptance or even questioning of my credibility. Nope, you're just on autorun now. Uhh... Do you even read my posts? Honestly, that's a question. Answer it. I guess so. That's exactly what I plan on doing... It's all part of my plan to screw you up and make you trip over one post after another until finally BAM! I'll lay it all on you. -.- But you don't give clear reasoning behind anything. You don't say I get what you're trying to say, or I know what you're talking about. No, it's just, "you're wrong, I'm right, you're ignorant, I'm not, life goes on because I naturally know more about everything than you do." Okay, when you meet someone new, do you call them ignorant and walk away? Or do you show respect and say, hi, I'm _____? One word: Hypocrite. One more word: Hypocrite. Wait, you're religious? I really had no idea... I thought you were a total atheist all the way from the start... OR, as you would say it: Fix'd