Ben Stein Expelled

[Millie]

Originally Posted by Grumath

Would you consider yourself an atheist in regards to the traditional definition of god? i.e. A personal god that is an all creating, all knowing, sentient being that takes interest in the daily lives of people? Or still agnostic? And once again, semantic arguments come into play, because many definitions and scales of belief I have seen put the "god is very unlikely but not disprovable" idea as an atheistic one. Agnosticism being the 50/50 equal chance of either or the belief that the question cannot ever be answered, or that it does not matter.

Yes, I'm an "atheist" if the argument is being leveled specifically against the Judeo-Christian conception of God. But that's a very limited framework, and it's sort of a flawed scenario to begin with. God is not necessarily the God of the Abrahamic religions, and it's entirely possible to believe there is a possibility of a higher power without believing in the higher power as described by human religions to date.

I can't rule out the existence of a higher power. I'm not talking about a higher power as he/she/it exists within the framework of organized religion. I'm talking about a higher power, period -- regardless of how it has been characterized to date.

If you want to call me an agnostic, great. If you'd prefer to call me a soft atheist, fine. Whatever term floats your boat. I'm just relaying what I think.

[Mimirswell]

Originally Posted by Asmadai

By doing that, people would be believing in God for purposes he did not intend them to. Not having proof, but maintaining faith is part of the whole...test for lack of a better word.

Yet the entirety of the Bible is filled with examples of God demonstrating proof of his existence to his followers. Jesus performed how many miracles to show the Jewish and Gentiles his connection with God? Moses sent how many plagues to prove to the Egyptians that the Jews followed the one true God? Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah? Walls of Jericho? Parting the Red Sea? Sorry; but no. You are using an unfounded assertion to justify the lack of obvious Divinity since the New Testament.

Jesus didn't tell his followers that I have no proof to show you but you should just maintain faith. He resurrected the dead, changed water into wine, exorcised demons, healed lepers, etc. Were those humans that lived in the time of Jesus and Moses simply just luckier than us in that they get a divine messenger to demonstrate first hand God's power?

[Zinke]

I should have known this thread would get out of hand quickly, and based on a lot of response, I think some people might be interested in the theory that I personally believe in. It's effectively a scientific explanation OF God, in more scientific terms and definitions. It sort of weaves evolution and ID together. It's called the Omega Point theory (that a french priest came up with), or specifically, the Tiplerian Omega Point reprisal (that a mathematical physicist came up with)
Omega point - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I do not belong to an organized religion of any kind, and while I think most of them try to do good and many people in the world need a religion, I also believe it's all glorified fairy tales to give people unnecessary comfort. I do, however, believe in the idea postulated in the Tiplerian Omega Point theory, that a God did/does exist in a way that we cannot comprehend.

The cliff notes of that link, is that God will exist/did exist at a single point in time. As he is all knowing and all powerful, he then creates all timelines and universes in (from his point of view) a single point of time. As he is all powerful, he knows what will happen along any of the timelines in that universe. example: If you pray to God, he both answers it and does not answer it. The timeline is divided at that moment in time, one where he answered it and one where he did not. You are not aware of this, of course, as you continue along whatever timeline you perceive. From your point of view, he did not interact with you. From his, he did and did not.

The part that some religious people will have a problem with, is that we're effectively evolving into God. As a whole, not individuals. The universe, complete with all intelligent life, will collectively become God in the far future (as the universe collapses onto itself). God then creates a new universe in a 'Big Bang' and where he can see everything that will happen during the entire life of that universe, rinse repeat.


Edit: Actually, what I posted was how I originally understood the Omega Point stuff, but I was reading that wikipedia link and it seems there's a few advanced concepts that are a little different, of which I was unaware. It's still basically the same thing though. Just my synopsis isn't exact.

[Kaosu]

Originally Posted by Millie

Yes, I'm an "atheist" if the argument is being leveled specifically against the Judeo-Christian conception of God. But that's a very limited framework, and it's sort of a flawed scenario to begin with. God is not necessarily the God of the Abrahamic religions, and it's entirely possible to believe there is a possibility of a higher power without believing in the higher power as described by human religions to date.

I can't rule out the existence of a higher power. I'm not talking about a higher power as he/she/it exists within the framework of organized religion. I'm talking about a higher power, period -- regardless of how it has been characterized to date.

If you want to call me an agnostic, great. If you'd prefer to call me a soft atheist, fine. Whatever term floats your boat. I'm just relaying what I think.

I think I'm going to go out on a limb and narrow your broadened views into one very specific theistic branch of religion - Unitarian Universalism.

You can thank me later.

[Millie]

Originally Posted by Kaosu

I think I'm going to go out on a limb and narrow your broadened views into one very specific theistic branch of religion - Unitarian Universalism.

You can thank me later.

Well, personally speaking, I think UU is just a catch-all belief system. It's sort of like hedging all bets. That's not really my personal belief. My personal philosophy is "There is probably no higher/supernatural organizing power/principle within the universe, but if there is, it's well beyond what we as a species have come up with to describe it so far."

[Loco]

Unfortunately the bible is no more proof than other texts regarding the existence of Zeus, Horus, Thor, Ra, Allah, The Flying Spaghetti Monster or any other divine being. A book can be 'made to fit' the events it describes. How it Christianity any different than the other thousand religions where their followers KNOW their God exists and is talking to them?

The Bible itself was a collection of stories written by over 40 different authors and compiled/edited several hundred years after the purported events took place.

Please feel free to point out the CORRECT version of the events below:

GEN 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
GEN 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Or

GEN 2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
GEN 2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

How about the New Testament? Who was the father of Joseph?

MATTHEW

{1:14} And Azor begat Sadoc; and
Sadoc begat Achim; and Achim begat Eliud; {1:15} And
Eliud begat Eleazar; and Eleazar begat Matthan; and
Matthan begat Jacob; {1:16} And Jacob begat Joseph the
husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called
Christ. {1:17} So all the generations from Abraham to
David [are] fourteen generations; and from David until the
carrying away into Babylon [are] fourteen generations; and
from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ [are]
fourteen generations.


LUKE

{3:23} And Jesus himself began to be about thirty
years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph,
which was [the son] of Heli, {3:24} Which was [the son] of
Matthat, which was [the son] of Levi, which was [the son]
of Melchi, which was [the son] of Janna, which was [the
son] of Joseph, {3:25} Which was [the son] of Mattathias,
which was [the son] of Amos, which was [the son] of
Naum, which was [the son] of Esli, which was [the son] of
Nagge, {3:26} Which was [the son] of Maath, which was
[the son] of Mattathias, which was [the son] of Semei,
which was [the son] of Joseph, which was [the son] of Juda,

Here is a link to The Bible in PDF
http://www.templebaptch.com/KJV%20Bi...F/kjvbible.pdf

[Arbitrary]

The entire debate has already been solved for a while now.

[Millie]

Originally Posted by Arbitrary

The entire debate has already been solved for a while now.

That's basically Pascal's Wager:

Pascal's Wager - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The fundamental problem with Pascal's Wager is that it doesn't prove the existence of God; it just says "You don't have anything to gain from not believing in God, and potentially everything to lose, so you might as well believe in God." That's not good enough for a lot of people. Furthermore, if the Christian God existed, he wouldn't accept a belief out of bet-hedging/necessity to be acceptable for salvation. He'd require genuine belief, thereby negating the purpose of the Wager's directive.

[Zerai]

Originally Posted by Arbitrary

The entire debate has already been solved for a while now.

Actually, we went over that in my philosophy class. On The Existance of God, Morals and Ethics. And essentially it came down to if God is omnipotent and omniscient, and you're believing in him merely for the rewards, chances are you won't be rewarded.

[Twobit Whore]

Originally Posted by Indiana

Put me in the hardline atheist camp until shown proof I'm wrong. While I technically agree with your agnostic views Millie, it seems kind of a vague academic distinction. If absolutely *nothing* speaks to the existence of a god, and there's endless ammounts of circumstancial evidence pointing to the contrary, then I'm willing to take the last baby step and declare there is no God.

Absence of proof is not proof of absence.

Also, this is relevant.. sorry if it was linked earlier.. didn't see it.

Pasta monster gets academic attention - Technology & science - MSNBC.com

[Rythonn]

Originally Posted by PerritoBites

Uhm you can't use the scientific method to prove something doesn't exist. How can you prove something doesn't exist if you can't observe it or experiment with it?

You mean like Dark Matter and Dark Energy?

[Arbitrary]

Everyone picks up on Pascal's Wager post , no one picks up on the Wittgensteinian posts.

It makes me sad.

[Arakkis]

I think Arbitrary won the thread with that picture.

Man I posted just yesterday and this thread took off into pages and pages of the normal atheist/theist circle jerk. Thanks for laying down the law Millie. The last few pages have become a pretty interesting now that everyone is behaving.

To respond to a few things in past pages:

-Millie and a few others claim that Behe was totally debunked by Miller and company. Unfortunately this isn't the case. Like most things in science, these guys are in a perpetual state of back and forth bickering. With the discovery of the puffer fish blood clotting cascade missing parts it would seem that they have triumphed. However, taken right from the discussion section in the primary literature:

Of course it cannot be ruled out that one or all of the absent genes do not reside among the 5% of DNA sequence data that are not yet available from the puffer fish. This absence aside, it is remarkable how stable the rest of the coagulation scheme has been over the course of the last 400 million years.

Yes, I did actually read the PNAS article and this tidbit isn't till the end. The entire genome of the puffer fish hasn't even been sequenced and they are claiming victory. While 5% may not seem like much it could house the missing genes and much more. This is not a total debunking of irreductable complexity so I suggest you not totally discount Behe's book and pick it up if you really want a full view of the debate. Irreductable complexity may not be a new theory but damn if it isn't a good one in terms of the complexity of biochemistry.

-You guys fail at Sunday School. The story goes like this: God created angels before us. The angels were designed to be totally obedient to God and thus worship Him at all times. So He created man and gave him free will. He told man do whatever you want but don't eat the fruit of that tree over there. Then God made woman and she slutted the dude into doing the one damn thing that God said not to do. Thus, we were cast out of the perfect paradise that God created for us and made to suffer for disobeying. Satan had a cameo role in there as a snake with feet but that is the cliff notes version.

-This is the first time I have ever heard of Omega point and I am intrigued. Thanks for posting that Zinke, I am going to do some reading.

[PerritoBites]

Originally Posted by Rythonn

You mean like Dark Matter and Dark Energy?

My point: You cannot prove something doesn't exist because there is no way to observe/test it
Your example: You can prove something exists without observation

But just in case... I don't know a lot about Dark matter/energy, and I don't think that is something that is accepted by most scientists, but I could be wrong.

[Arbitrary]

edit - got off track