Collins: Why this scientist believes in God - Page 43

[christina>you]

No he answered it based on Nichito's post about having faith in anything.

[Serunson]

Well my 'faith' i use the term extremly loosly, is that physics will one day prove religion to be created by man for man. Just because someone had a faith and wanted to broadcast it among his fellow men, so that ehy would all be in on this whole ever growing sect by the name of christianity, i mean just look at the conquests, Christians killing others, now i don't see that printed in the bible, do you?

[Sturm]

>anything at all? faith in your team (whichever sport you like), faith your gf is not cheating... no faith at all?

Don't like sports.
Don't have a girlfriend.(and probably never will)

I don't have faith in anybody or anything.
Every decision I make is usually based upon logic, not faith or belief. Faith is irrational, and there is nothing I hate more irrationality. (damn you e)

[lasher511]

hahaha come on now, AD. There is a huge difference btwn proving god exists, and proving Ben Franklin existed. Pictures, biographies, published work, first-hand accounts, etc. all prove without a doubt that Ben Franklin did exist. However, there is absolutely no proof that a god exists (because he doesn't). Even if jesus existed, that doesn't mean jack. Perhaps he was some kind of schizophrenic weirdo who thought he was talking to god, but it was actually just himself. Or maybe he made everything up, hoping for attention (he got it, didn't he?). The fact of the matter is, you can't prove that jesus was who he said he was. There is no proof that he actually did any miracles at all.. In fact, there is very little real evidence about him at all.. (The bible doesn't count, as it is a bunch of biased bull crap.)

There is very little proof that julius ceasar existed either and yet we still believe that he did. The difference between Ceasar and Jesus is that the historical texts about Ceasar are not in the Bible. Matthew,Mark ,Luke and John are all taken directly from historical texts. Those now being a part of the Christian Bible now does not make them any less proof that he existed.

Going by your method you can not prove who anyone was that you have not met. As i have said before the key element is faith. I know i can see your next comments already "Faith is illogical you need proof rarara science is the answer etc."

You need just as much faith to believe in a meaningless universe full of logic and half proven theories.

hey lasher, you seen my comment yet?

I assume thats the one you were talking about? The time difference throws me off you guys fill up 2 or 3 pages of comments while im asleep.

[Sturm]

>You need just as much faith to believe in a meaningless universe full of logic and half proven theories.

First of all, if its half proven its not a theory. Second of all why do I need faith to believe in a meaningless universe? Surely you can't be arrogant enough to actually believe we have a purpose and are special?

[lasher511]

Any thing in science that has not been 100% proven is still a theory.

Faith comes into most of our everyday life. For example nobody here has seen the entire world and yet we still believe it exists. Why? We read it in books, see it on TV and hear about it from friends who have seen it.

It is the same with believing that there is no God. Until you have personally proven it to be true then it is still depends on the faith that you have. Really what it comes down to is how much evidence you need before you start to believe in something. Anything else is based on faith.

For christians all the evidence we need is the Bible and the things around us. The rest is based upon faith. While Christians may need to have more faith then people who do not believe in God the fact remains that they still need some degree of faith to believe this.

If anything here is confusing or i have not explained it properly let me know and i will try and explain it better when i have more time.

[Sturm]

>Faith comes into most of our everyday life. For example nobody here has seen the entire world and yet we still believe it exists. Why? We read it in books, see it on TV and hear about it from friends who have seen it.

Actually no. There is enough evidence for me to conclude that the whole entire world does in fact exist. My belief in the existence of the world is not based on faith, even though I haven't seen most of the world, but logical assumption.

For example I am sitting at my computer right know and I can only see the screen and the keyboard nothing else. I am 99.9999% confident that the rest of my computer exists. I am pretty sure I have a graphics card, cpu, etc. Do I have faith that the rest of my computer exists? No I do not. Do I know the rest of my computer exists? No I do not. Do I think that there is enough evidence to assume the rest of my computer does exist? Yes I do.

[lasher511]

>Faith comes into most of our everyday life. For example nobody here has seen the entire world and yet we still believe it exists. Why? We read it in books, see it on TV and hear about it from friends who have seen it.

Actually no. There is enough evidence for me to conclude that the whole entire world does in fact exist. My belief in the existence of the world is not based on faith, even though I haven't seen most of the world, but logical assumption.

For example I am sitting at my computer right know and I can only see the screen and the keyboard nothing else. I am 99.9999% confident that the rest of my computer exists. I am pretty sure I have a graphics card, cpu, etc. Do I have faith that the rest of my computer exists? No I do not. Do I know the rest of my computer exists? No I do not. Do I think that there is enough evidence to assume the rest of my computer does exist? Yes I do.

Which is exactly what im saying although you just use a different way to descibe it. Faith takes off from where evidence leaves you. Its a difficult to explain but basically its your knowing that those things are there despite the fact that you can't see them. You have to have some sort of belief/faith that those things are there.

Now lets look at this on the scale of Christianity. The two peices of evidence that we have are the Bible and the things that we see around us in nature that confirm what the bible says. After that we have to have faith that the things we are told in the Bible are true just like you believe that all the components are where they should be in your computer.

Now take Evolution. Rather then having 2 peices of evidence you have alot more little things such as the experiments performed by the scientists and the other evidence. Unless you actually perform all these tests and experiments and see all the evidence first hand then there is no real way of knowing what the scientists have said is true but you believe that what they have said is true. That is faith. What about all the things in the evolution theory that have not been tested or looked into. Yet people still believe evolution to be true.

I hope this explains what i mean a little better. Just because the word faith has been linked to Christianity these days does not make it a bad thing. No matter what you believe about how we all came into being you still have to have faith that the things you have been told are true.

[Sturm]

>Which is exactly what im saying although you just use a different way to descibe it. Faith takes off from where evidence leaves you.

So do I have faith that my computer has a cpu? If you call this faith, I think you need to pull out a dictionary.

>Now lets look at this on the scale of Christianity. The two peices of evidence that we have are the Bible and the things that we see around us in nature that confirm what the bible says.

Bible is no more evidence than the science fiction book I finished yesterday. Nature contradicts the bible. Nature also supports evolution and natural selection.

>What about all the things in the evolution theory that have not been tested or looked into.

Such as?

[Serunson]

Has anyone actually bothered to read my post, it's like i am being ignored here!
Post #1262 if anyone actually cares....

[lasher511]

So do I have faith that my computer has a cpu? If you call this faith, I think you need to pull out a dictionary.

Definitions of Faith:

1.A convinced belief; a condition of mind fully satisfied; next to actual knowledge. We have faith the sun will rise to-morrow morning, but the knowledge can not be actual until after sunrise.

2. belief that is not based on proof

Bible is no more evidence than the science fiction book I finished yesterday. Nature contradicts the bible. Nature also supports evolution and natural selection.

I said that the bible and nature are all the evidence that a Christian needs to believe what they do. The rest is based on fact. Nature will pretty much support any thoery that fills in the gaps between what we know and what we don't know. Where does nature contradict the Bible aside from the dinosaurs which we have already been over? Even then its not so much a contradiction but more a lack of reference to dinosaurs.

Such as?

Well such as the lack of fossils depicting things that were only half way through their evolution process.

[christina>you]

Well my 'faith' i use the term extremly loosly, is that physics will one day prove religion to be created by man for man. Just because someone had a faith and wanted to broadcast it among his fellow men, so that ehy would all be in on this whole ever growing sect by the name of christianity, i mean just look at the conquests, Christians killing others, now i don't see that printed in the bible, do you?

If Christians kill other Christians, they are violating the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not kill. And if they do murder someone, then obviously they aren't real Christians.

How will physics prove anything?

[christina>you]

"I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isnt, than to live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is."

[lasher511]

For a start the 10 commandments say "thou shalt not murder" not kill.

You actually see it printed all throughout the Old testament. Infact it starts with Adam and Eve's sons! You do not see any of this in the new testament mainly because the texts span no more then 50-60 years after Christs death.

Religion has been the topic of most of the wars after about 100 A.D. However most of the time these were caused by a few essentrics and not the Christian faith as a whole. If you talk to most Christians they will not condone any of these things. We as a race have a history of war and violence and this is not just restricted to Christians.

[christina>you]

For a start the 10 commandments say "thou shalt not murder" not kill.

My bad. Although, they're synonyms.

[lasher511]

"I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isnt, than to live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is."

I kind of read that quote as. "Im going to believe in God just in case he is real and not just because he is real."

While i have no doubt that the person who said that is a Christian and believed in God i do not think its something that we should live by if you know what im trying to say.

[christina>you]

I kind of read that quote as. "Im going to believe in God just in case he is real and not just because he is real."

While i have no doubt that the person who said that is a Christian and believed in God i do not think its something that we should live by if you know what im trying to say.

That's not what the quote means. The person who said that doesn't live by that standard. It's just something to awaken those who do not believe. It allows unbelievers to think about what would happen if they were wrong.

[lasher511]

My bad. Although, they're synonyms.

Yeah i think that it confuses alot of people. Infact alot of the supposed contradictions that non-christians point out about the Bible either come from things like this or even taking verses out of context altogether. For example in this case although the Bible says "Thou shalt not murder" it says later that its ok to kill in self defence or defence of your family etc. When you look at it like this then its not a contradiction, but as soon as you replace the word murder with kill it can be seen as a contradiction.

The New testament actually tells us that the laws of the Old testament no longer apply. This includes the 10 commandments although I think the essencial elements of 9 of the 10 commandments come up in the new testament.

[lasher511]

That's not what the quote means. The person who said that doesn't live by that standard. It's just something to awaken those who do not believe. It allows unbelievers to think about what would happen if they were wrong.

I'm not saying that the quote itself is wrong. Personally i think its a great quote but i still think that there is more to it then simply saying you believe just incase you are wrong.

[christina>you]

The New testament actually tells us that the laws of the Old testament no longer apply. This includes the 10 commandments although I think the essencial elements of 9 of the 10 commandments come up in the new testament.

Yeah, but I think Jesus implied that the Ten Commandments should still be used.

I'm not saying that the quote itself is wrong. Personally i think its a great quote but i still think that there is more to it then simply saying you believe just incase you are wrong.

Yeah, of course there is more to living a life for God... but for unbelievers, that's a big deal.

[lasher511]

Yeah, but I think Jesus implied that the Ten Commandments should still be used.

Where do you mean? Like i said i think the new testament basically says that 9 of the 10 still apply. However the one about the Sabath does not. (bear in mind that the sabath is saturday and not sunday)

Basically i think the easiest way to describe it was that Jesus started from scratch and then gave us new laws.

[hollystyles]

Well such as the lack of fossils depicting things that were only half way through their evolution process

There's lots of fossil evidence of species varying in design. And there's lots of skeletal evidence of man's own evolution. It is the sheere variety of discoveries that keep the paleontologist so busy.

There is also lots of archeological evidence that coroborates the new testament and the existence of many of the people in it, like King David for example.

Why do some people feel they must subscribe to one and not the other? For me its not about faith in some rigid certainty, but that we are here; there is a future to be discovered; and tomorrow we can be better than we were today.

[Ezzaral]

If all of the religious adherents throughout the world acknowledged that, regardless of beliefs on what is to be after death, in the mean time we are all stuck on this big ball of dirt together and focus solving the problems of the present, we would be much better off for it.

I'm disgusted by the extent to which religion is a source of conflict and strife rather than a remediation of it.

[Serunson]

Well if they want to kill inocent people because 'god' or whoever is their 'spiritual leader' that's their decision. But if they were true followers of their religion would people not stop murdering, and killing, and declaring wars, and general stupid behaviour. If the so called 'followers' actually were active religious followers, we wouldn't have the trouble we have now.

[christina>you]

Yeah... I don't disagree with you. Violence is stupid.

[hollystyles]

Who is truly innocent? I always liked Judge Dredd's take on that :)

[Michael De Berm]

A distinguished in one of our National newspapers stated he did not know the answers. But he was convinced it could not happen by chance. He posed a scenario whereby if you follow the chance theory, if it were possible to throw up into the air sufficient quantities of all sorts of RAW materials, that if it was done often enough we would eventually end up with the Taj Mahal! When I was at school learning from our schoolmaster, he always stressed that mankind's brain was not big enough to understand all the mysteries of our religion, which was in this case Roman Catholicism. I think there was a lot of truth in what he said and even as we think we are becoming smarter we are finding the more we learn, the more questions remain unanswered.

[Serunson]

Why was this thread revived?
:D

[Ezzaral]

A distinguished in one of our National newspapers stated he did not know the answers. But he was convinced it could not happen by chance. He posed a scenario whereby if you follow the chance theory, if it were possible to throw up into the air sufficient quantities of all sorts of RAW materials, that if it was done often enough we would eventually end up with the Taj Mahal!

A gross over-simplification at best. Under what conditions are these "materials" being "thrown up"? One could argue that man and stone are "materials" and "throwing them up in the air in sufficient quantities" did yield the Taj Mahal.

When I was at school learning from our schoolmaster, he always stressed that mankind's brain was not big enough to understand all the mysteries of our religion, which was in this case Roman Catholicism. I think there was a lot of truth in what he said and even as we think we are becoming smarter we are finding the more we learn, the more questions remain unanswered.

Not knowing something isn't a valid reason to quit trying to understand. Throwing up your hands and claiming that it's too difficult to puzzle out doesn't substantiate mysticism. Learning anything usually does entail finding there is more to learn. Just because you stop at that point does not mean everything beyond it is unknowable.

[Ezzaral]

Why was this thread revived?
:D

He thought he saw the horse twitch and decided more beating was in order.