Why the Bible is wrong, according to the Bible

[Finny61]

As blunt as it may seem I can only see two outlooks, one in which we are created by a God and our existence has some meaning to it. Or we are not created by any God and merely an evolutionary trend that has led us to become nothing more then an advanced virus to this planet. That's why I prefer door #1, perhaps because it actually gives meaning and purpose to my life. Go figure. That would be why I think spirituality is an important component to humans.

So if it is door #2 and we are not a virus then what exactly are we? Just food for thought.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by getbak

I wasn't calling you a perv, if that's what you thought I meant.

I knew what you meant

Did you miss this one?



Is it strategic that they put christian billboards next to pornshops? or maybe the boss was just in the area and found an empty space.

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by Doctordestiny

You won't believe or agree with any of my points because - bottom line - you're a non-believer, but I disagree with just about everything in your post. We will agree that we can't prove God exists, just as you can't prove he doesn't.

It's because of logic that I believe in God. As wildly illogical as it seems to you, a divine creator is the only thing that makes logical sense to me. It's totally illogical to me that all that we see around us could just happen by chemical occurences and mutations. A creator's hand must be the reason. I believe in evolution as God's tool for creation.

You can have omnipotence and free will. We're not predestined.

God has perfect logic. It's beyond our comprehension to understand His logic, is all.

But, as I said, you won't agree with any of this because bottom line you don't believe in a God. To me, it's the only logical explanation.

You or someone else will come back and say I'm a fool or something like that, and will refute my points. None of us will convince the other, which is why I read but generally refrain from posting in these peeing matches. I will commit to pray for you, however.

In a world that knows evil, an all-powerful god responsible for all creation must be evil.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Finny61

As blunt as it may seem I can only see two outlooks, one in which we are created by a God and our existence has some meaning to it. Or we are not created by any God and merely an evolutionary trend that has led us to become nothing more then an advanced virus to this planet. That's why I prefer door #1, perhaps because it actually gives meaning and purpose to my life. Go figure. That would be why I think spirituality is an important component to humans.

So if it is door #2 and we are not a virus then what exactly are we? Just food for thought.

So if the end game doesn't have heaven your life is useless? whats wrong with living your life being the best you can be for as long as you can?

[photon]

Originally Posted by Doctordestiny

You won't believe or agree with any of my points because - bottom line - you're a non-believer, but I disagree with just about everything in your post. We will agree that we can't prove God exists, just as you can't prove he doesn't.

I don't think it stops there though, otherwise people would never change their minds.. but people DO change their minds!

Believers become non-believers, and vice versa. And it's always interesting to see why (and to see why the others think why).

Originally Posted by Doctordestiny

It's because of logic that I believe in God. As wildly illogical as it seems to you, a divine creator is the only thing that makes logical sense to me. It's totally illogical to me that all that we see around us could just happen by chemical occurences and mutations. A creator's hand must be the reason. I believe in evolution as God's tool for creation.

But this is just an argument from personal incredulity; because it doesn't make sense to me, it can't have happened that way. I'm not saying you can't have that belief, but it doesn't make a persuasive argument to anyone else simply because its a logical fallacy.

Look at it this way, does god use gravity, second by second, to move the planets in their orbits? Or did god just create gravity and let gravity do its job? Can't evolution be viewed in exactly the same way, god created the process of evolution and then let it do its job?

[photon]

Originally Posted by Finny61

As blunt as it may seem I can only see two outlooks, one in which we are created by a God and our existence has some meaning to it. Or we are not created by any God and merely an evolutionary trend that has led us to become nothing more then an advanced virus to this planet. That's why I prefer door #1, perhaps because it actually gives meaning and purpose to my life. Go figure. That would be why I think spirituality is an important component to humans.

So if it is door #2 and we are not a virus then what exactly are we? Just food for thought.

But this is also a logical fallacy, appeal to consequences or wishful thinking.

The question of god existing or not does not depend at all on what you prefer. The question of if there's a million dollars in my bank account does not depend at all on me wanting there to be.

You can't change the answer to a question just because you don't like the answer.

This is also a false dichotomy, since those aren't the only two options. We could have been created by some other agent that is neither a god nor a natural process (advanced aliens for example).

And finally, it is mildly offensive because it implies that without belief in god people can have no meaning in their lives, when nothing could be further from the truth. It just means that the meaning they find isn't the same one you have.

EDIT: Not to mention the contrary evidence. So just like one could say that gravity doesn't exist, it's just god moving everything to look exactly like gravity existed, you could say evolution doesn't exist, but that means god created everything to look exactly like it did, which raises the question of a deceptive god.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Doctordestiny

God has perfect logic. It's beyond our comprehension to understand His logic, is all.

Logic is a human concept. If you can't understand God's logic, it's not because he has perfect logic, it's because he transcends logic and there's nothing to understand, just accept.

A mysterious, unknowable God is at least unfalsifiable. The God many here seem to believe in is definitely falsifiable, as believing in God based on the Bible is like believing in Xenu based on Dianetics; if the source is suspect than so are the conclusions derived from that source.

There is a very big difference between believing in God due to faith and thinking that the Bible is a deeply flawed human story of various people's relationship with him, and believing in the inerrancy of Scripture as proof of a particular God. Calgaryborn is an excellent example of the latter; he spends his time defending the Bible verse by verse as if the text was a kind of God in itself.

I'm the type of atheist that can understand people believing in God, but has no time for people believing in the Bible. The latter are, to borrow a Biblical metaphor, but ignorant worshippers of a golden calf.

[Finny61]

Originally Posted by T@T

So if the end game doesn't have heaven your life is useless? whats wrong with living your life being the best you can be for as long as you can?

Did I say heaven had to exist and you have to abide by rules to get to it? No. I simply compared a life created by God to one that seems relevant to me without an existence of God.

[Finny61]

Originally Posted by photon

But this is also a logical fallacy, appeal to consequences or wishful thinking.

The question of god existing or not does not depend at all on what you prefer. The question of if there's a million dollars in my bank account does not depend at all on me wanting there to be.

You can't change the answer to a question just because you don't like the answer.

This is also a false dichotomy, since those aren't the only two options. We could have been created by some other agent that is neither a god nor a natural process (advanced aliens for example).

And finally, it is mildly offensive because it implies that without belief in god people can have no meaning in their lives, when nothing could be further from the truth. It just means that the meaning they find isn't the same one you have.

Then what is the meaning of life with no existence of a God or outside party? Collectively as humans what are we? For a second who cares about how nice we are.

[Day Tripper]

Originally Posted by Finny61

Then what is the meaning of life with no existence of a God or outside party? Collectively as humans what are we? For a second who cares about how nice we are.

Why does your life need to have cosmic meaning to be worthwhile? Love, curiosity, etc. can provide meaning, can't they?

[Rockin' Flames]

Originally Posted by T@T

So if the end game doesn't have heaven your life is useless? whats wrong with living your life being the best you can be for as long as you can?

I think of it more along the lines of if the end game does have heaven and hell and I believe in God and asked for forgiveness of my sins and am a Christian I haven't lost anything because I've still lived my life the best I can for as long as I can. However, if I haven't trusted my life to God then I have my eternity after life to lose.

If I'm wrong and lived my life by committing my life to God, and he doesn't exist, I still haven't lost anything. Some may say I've lost the fact that I didn't do things that are contrary to the bible I've lost out on all that. Considering I might live a total of 80 years (being optomistic) I don't see that as being a big deal. I'm not prepared to gamble with my life after death. Each person makes that personal choice and if others don't want to make the same choice as mine then so be it, all I ask it that people respect my personal choice as I respect your personal choice.

That's just my two cents.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Finny61

Then what is the meaning of life with no existence of a God or outside party? Collectively as humans what are we? For a second who cares about how nice we are.

Our individual life begins with our random creation. While we are alive, our life revolves around our ability to minimize pain and to maximize our happiness. When we die, randomness takes over again. The Law of Entropy, the ultimate equalizer of the universe, provides for the proper randomization of our constituent atoms.
Moreover, die we must, because there can be no life without evolution and there can be no evolution of the species without the death of its individuals. Our life is temporary, from randomness to randomness. It is up to us to bemoan or to enjoy the interval between these two events.

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by Rockin' Flames

I think of it more along the lines of if the end game does have heaven and hell and I believe in God and asked for forgiveness of my sins and am a Christian I haven't lost anything because I've still lived my life the best I can for as long as I can. However, if I haven't trusted my life to God then I have my eternity after life to lose.

If I'm wrong and lived my life by committing my life to God, and he doesn't exist, I still haven't lost anything. Some may say I've lost the fact that I didn't do things that are contrary to the bible I've lost out on all that. Considering I might live a total of 80 years (being optomistic) I don't see that as being a big deal. I'm not prepared to gamble with my life after death. Each person makes that personal choice and if others don't want to make the same choice as mine then so be it, all I ask it that people respect my personal choice as I respect your personal choice.

That's just my two cents.

hmmm...what if youve chosen the wrong God? There are over 300 of them on this planet right now you know?

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Dion

My point was some athiests take offence to religions spreading thier message.

When the message is hate, ignorance and fear... of course I take offense to spreading it.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Finny61

Then what is the meaning of life with no existence of a God or outside party? Collectively as humans what are we? For a second who cares about how nice we are.

Why does meaning require the existence of an outside entity? The meaning of life is whatever meaning one gives to life.

Collectively we are what we are. Why does there have to be some extra meaning?

Just because want something doesn't mean that it's there. Just because we want meaning doesn't mean there is meaning beyond whatever meaning we make for ourselves.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Rockin' Flames

I think of it more along the lines of if the end game does have heaven and hell and I believe in God and asked for forgiveness of my sins and am a Christian I haven't lost anything because I've still lived my life the best I can for as long as I can. However, if I haven't trusted my life to God then I have my eternity after life to lose.

If I'm wrong and lived my life by committing my life to God, and he doesn't exist, I still haven't lost anything. Some may say I've lost the fact that I didn't do things that are contrary to the bible I've lost out on all that. Considering I might live a total of 80 years (being optomistic) I don't see that as being a big deal. I'm not prepared to gamble with my life after death. Each person makes that personal choice and if others don't want to make the same choice as mine then so be it, all I ask it that people respect my personal choice as I respect your personal choice.

That's just my two cents.

Pascal called, he'd like his wager back

If this argument actually had merit, why aren't you worshiping Allah, Zeus, Odin, and Wotan too? Or one of the other of the thousands of gods? By not doing what they say is required, you are risking your eternal life.

[Day Tripper]

Originally Posted by photon

Pascal called, he'd like his wager back

If this argument actually had merit, why aren't you worshiping Allah, Zeus, Odin, and Wotan too? Or one of the other of the thousands of gods? By not doing what they say is required, you are risking your eternal life.

And what if God rewards skepticism (Dawkins offered this, I think)? What if he sends all who pray to hell out of irritation, and those who don't bother him get to go to heaven?

[photon]

Yeah that's another flaw with Pascal's wager, is that whatever god ends up being the right one will probably be able to tell the difference between genuine conversion and covering your bases.

[Reggie Dunlop]

Originally Posted by Finny61

So if it is door #2 and we are not a virus then what exactly are we? Just food for thought.

Bacteria is highly underrated.

[Finny61]

Originally Posted by photon

Why does meaning require the existence of an outside entity? The meaning of life is whatever meaning one gives to life.

Collectively we are what we are. Why does there have to be some extra meaning?

Just because want something doesn't mean that it's there. Just because we want meaning doesn't mean there is meaning beyond whatever meaning we make for ourselves.

Didn't say it was a requirement, but in perspective I prefer the idea of a God in that it provides extra meaning, it's not whether it has to or not. Is it what I want? Certainly it is, because it is a desire it doesn't make it right for everyone but it makes it right for me and I don't like the alternatives presented. It's spirituality, it is what it is.