Does God exist?

[Topcatyo]

I'm a little tired now to go full on debate, but I'd just like to shoot a fun fact: A catholic priest created the Big Bang Theory.

In fact honestly the Catholic Church has usually been pretty good when it comes to scientific advancements, JPII openly stated that belief in evolution was fine and Gregor Mendel, the father of Genetics, was an Augustinian monk.

You know what, I am going to have to concede.  I did some research and found that in general the Catholic Church allows for evolution and the big bang theory, as long as God is credited for setting it all in motion.

From the horses mouth itself:
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/adam-eve-and-evolution

Yup.  My b

I was going to write how I disagreed with the whole stem cell thing and how it was outlawed but that's more of an issue with the separation of Church and State than it is with the Catholic church, though I do oppose their views, and I didn't want to embarass myself again after the schooling I just got from the Catholic Church.

[SpongeClock SquarePants]

> 2011
> caring about religions and their specifics

[AmberArachnidClock]

> 2011
> caring about religions and their specifics

religious understanding is a great way to view to world from a perspective other than your own, I find it very interesting.

[Topcatyo]

religious understanding is a great way to view to world from a perspective other than your own, I find it very interesting.

I agree.  I've been taking an Indian arts class and we have been learning a lot about the Hindu religion.  It's fascinating stuff.

[SpongeClock SquarePants]

spangebeb go post another thread if you don't like this one garsh

Spingeburb nu nu nu nuh nuh nuh nuh nuuuh

[miracle fruit]

Spingeburb nu nu nu nuh nuh nuh nuh nuuuh

i .. i thought i was the only one

[Kodiakclock]

[Munglai]

As nice as the philosophy of some religions are, modern organised religion does nothing but harm to society.

[AlbinoClock]

clammo, if you really want to debate religions, don't try to disprove them with logic problems. They don't give a shit about that. Only the extremists and the children get hung up on those difficulties, the real meat of religions is in their philosophies. Try to dig a little deeper before dismissing them.

Those are two different things, and both are important. What you're telling clam is that the pursuit of verifiable truth is unimportant, and that is nonsense. If religious people have suspended their judgement, that's on them to admit that rather than try to argue that God exists. You can't argue without logic, so the best you can do, if that's your approach, is admit your lack of interest in examining the truth of your beliefs.

But yes, there is more depth to the more philosophical side of religion. The thing is, that has absolutely no bearing on whether or not God exists.

too smart for our own good.

Anti-intellectualism is incredibly dangerous.
 

Or maybe he's bestowing us the miracle of life and allowing us to do what we want with it. If God intercepted and changed stuff so that we're happier then what exactly is our role? And who says things aren't gonna turn out all right in the end anyway?

Have you seen what's going on in the resource-deprived areas of the world? There are many people for whom life is little more than suffering and dying. There are children with worms eating their eyes, and you think this is somehow the product of someone kind who gives a shit?

The fact that physics works is a miracle.

No it isn't. There has to be some set of physical laws to have a universe.

We don't even really know how it works at all, we've just come close in approximating it.

We know quite a lot about how physics works. There are some things we don't know, but we're always expanding our knowledge. Without our vast knowledge, you wouldn't be able to express your half-baked opinions for us all to see.

The fact that all chemicals have crazy different attributes just depending on how many electrons they have is goddamn genius and amazing. The fact that on top of all that there is at least one planet that has managed to create and sustain life, a whole new system that is completely compatible with the physics and chemical systems, is fucking amazing. Are you really asking God to, on top of all that, make life comfortable and happy for everyone? Is that really fair?

The universe is pretty cool, but there's absolutely no reason to assume God had anything to do with it. Also, if you're talking about an omnipotent being, there's nothing limiting the amount of effort he expends. Again, there are people whose lives are torture, which means that God cannot possibly be omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. He can be bumbling and powerful and benevolent or powerful and all-knowing and cruel or all-knowing and benevolent but not quite all-powerful, but he can't possibly be all three while children are having their eyes eaten by worms. Considering he's not stepping forward to make himself known,  we have absolutely no reason to assume he exists in the first place, and plenty of reason to assume he doesn't.

A lot of the problem you seem to have with the notion of God is that people suffer. Doesn't this beg the question of whether suffering has purpose? And no, I don't mean "ha ha look at those humans suffer" or something like that, but an actual good reason for existing. Is it possible or conceivable?

What possible purpose can a child's eyeball slowly being eaten have? How about women who are enslaved and raped every day since long before puberty? I can see God getting behind the suffering of white westerners, like having to get a new job or losing your girlfriend. Small stuff that hurts and changes who you are but isn't horrible torture builds character. That's not how a lot of the suffering in the world is.

TL;DR: Most Christians don't take the Bible literally Gosh Darn it!

You need to substantiate that claim if you want it to carry any weight whatsoever. Maybe most of the Christians you know are those wonderful non-offensive types that don't take everything in the bible literally and spend more time giving people food than trying to push their beliefs on everyone else, but I'm going to be very generous and say your sample size is probably not in excess of 100,000 or so people that you've met in your lifetime who also occupied space that you were in. You can't possibly know how much of the bible "most Christians" take literally. Anyway, they take enough of it literally that they make decisions based on it.

In fact honestly the Catholic Church has usually been pretty good when it comes to scientific advancements

Galileo would like a word.

You know what, I am going to have to concede.  I did some research and found that in general the Catholic Church allows for evolution and the big bang theory, as long as God is credited for setting it all in motion.

I'm pretty sure that's not one of the suspected sources of causation for the big bang.

[AlbinoClock]

Are you generalizing or are you saying that the concept of organized religion is inherently harmful?

I can't speak for Munglai, but I'd say that any situation in which large groups of people spend a lot of time patting each other on the back for believing in something without evidence is bad for a healthy society.

[TequilaClock]

I simply like to think that a mysterious force in life, if not life itself, managed to create a systematic universe that follows stable rules we can measure and apply to our own benefits.

[AlbinoClock]

You are already effected by these things, even the secondhand knowledge of these things effects who you are. I mean, look at Christianity: some innocent Jew getting nailed to a bit of wood and stabbed with a spear to die a horrible, torturous, degrading death is a seminal moment that transformed the world.

Fuck me, dude, I'm not important! I'm a white man living in America. I may not have it great, but even if I fuck up as hard as I possibly can I'll still probably live till I'm 50 and spend more on pot in 6 months than some people spend on food in their lives. I don't need anyone to do any extra suffering for me, that's why I buy fair trade chocolate.

What's more you talk about how these minor things change your character but not these horrible things, but horrible things like that change people's character just as dramatically or more, and even when it involves a person's death you're considering this from the atheistic perspective that there is no afterlife and, if you're thinking from that point of view, it's not really giving adequate consideration to what an omniscient Being would see as the effect of these experiences over the course of an eternity.

I don't pretend to know enough about how consciousness works to talk about anything "after" I die. While I suspect it's pretty unlikely that I'll somehow be judged for the content of my life based on an arbitrary morality, I'm less certain about a lack of some kind of experience beyond death than I am about a lack of an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent deity. As far as suffering lending character, sometimes it clearly doesn't. If you lose an arm and it somehow makes you better at coping with life, that might be a good example, but there are people who just die trapped in a bed and miserable for no reason. They get nothing. Now you might say they'll be rewarded after they die, but you can't use that as part of your argument for why God exists and has the properties you think he does because it can't be substantiated either.

In any event, whether or not things got better for those life-long bed-ridden rape victims after their slow horrific deaths, all that shit still happened to them. If the whole system was designed by an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent deity, why the fuck did he make a requirement of dragging people through hell to get them to the end-state of their spiritual evolution? It's I'm a edgy teen.
 
The only way I could possibly justify this is if none of those people were real.

[AlbinoClock]

I'm afraid I disagree. Unfortunately I suspect that your perspective on the importance of what you do with your life is an extremely common sentiment.
 

Nevertheless, for the sake of argument if you entertained the notion of such things (both comprising basic tenets of religious belief, including my own) then is not a reason for suffering conceivable?

As I just said, the only way to justify it is if none of the people being physically tortured are real, or, I suppose, if it were voluntary. I don't even really think I could justify some of the shit I've been through personally even if there's an awesome afterlife. I know I'm real, and anyone intentionally causing me the suffering I've undergone when they could just have easily not is either not benevolent or not omniscient, unless that person is me. The only person who would have the right to do all this shit to me is me, and not as part of a pre-arranged scenario.

Basically the only way God is omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent, is if I'm God and most of the people in the universe aren't real.

[Topcatyo]

I'm pretty sure that's not one of the suspected sources of causation for the big bang.

No, and I don't think it is, but the crux of my argument was that the word from the Catholic Church was that they don't allow for theories like The Big Bang or Evolution to even be considered.  I was wrong, so I admitted it, although I have seen countless people who think both are lies anyway, because Christians and Catholics I have seen take the Bible literally.

And I still disagree with the Church's position on abortion and stem cell research entirely.

[AlbinoClock]

No, and I don't think it is, but the crux of my argument was that the word from the Catholic Church was that they don't allow for theories like The Big Bang or Evolution to even be considered.  I was wrong, so I admitted it, although I have seen countless people who think both are lies anyway, because Christians and Catholics I have seen take the Bible literally.

And I still disagree with the Church's position on abortion and stem cell research entirely.

But in a way, they kind of don't allow people to consider those theories, because they force them to insert their ridiculous nonsense into it.

[Marlin Clock]

No, and I don't think it is, but the crux of my argument was that the word from the Catholic Church was that they don't allow for theories like The Big Bang or Evolution to even be considered.  I was wrong, so I admitted it, although I have seen countless people who think both are lies anyway, because Christians and Catholics I have seen take the Bible literally.

I will agree I know many ignorant people in that regard, but most catholic people I talk to (from church or from within my dorm) do believe, although I suppose I am in a university.

And I still disagree with the Church's position on abortion and stem cell research entirely.

Unless you really want my opinions that's a debate for another time. However, the backlash from talking about abortion is what gave my my uberchristian reputation in the first place so we should tread that water carefully.

But in a way, they kind of don't allow people to consider those theories, because they force them to insert their ridiculous nonsense into it.

There's really nothing extra besides *God is our Creator btw. Just so you remember.*
It's nothing that wouldn't come obvious with a belief in an eternal God anyway.

[buttplug]

There's really nothing extra besides *God is our Creator btw. Just so you remember.*
It's nothing that wouldn't come obvious with a belief in an eternal God anyway.

Do you mean that once they become well-supported theories we can just automatically attribute them to a deity?

> 2011
> caring about religions and their specifics

Religion has a huge impact on some countries, not everyone is Dutch. Watch the news lately?

Not to mention it is interesting, especially in a historical context.

[AmberArachnidClock]

Do you mean that once they become well-supported theories we can just automatically attribute them to a deity?

Well what else are you supposed to do?

[AlbinoClock]

Well what else are you supposed to do?

Stop being full of shit for 5 minutes.

[Topcatyo]

Unless you really want my opinions that's a debate for another time. However, the backlash from talking about abortion is what gave my my uberchristian reputation in the first place so we should tread that water carefully.

I am a-okay with not going into that subject for this thread.  As you put it, it's a debate for another time, and I certainly don't intend to get inflammatory about the subject.  I don't think there's a reason to get inflammatory about any subject (although I can understand if it's a personal one, like stem cell research is, but even then I'm not gonna type ALL CAPS at somebody for having an opposing view).

But in a way, they kind of don't allow people to consider those theories, because they force them to insert their ridiculous nonsense into it.

I just figure that somebody who is religiously inclined is going to insert God into those theories if they believe them, Church willing or not.  I remember when I believed in God I still believed in evolution (without reading the church's opinion obviously), my thinking was just "God set the plans in motion".  A person with theistic belifes is gonna attach a god or gods to things, that's what being a theist is about.