Census What explanation do you accept for the diversity of life on Earth?

I know what you're saying, I get it. But, to borrow a platitude, "life is a journey, not a destination"

I believe there is a purpose, but not a biological/physical purpose.


What "mistakes" are you talking about? Are you talking about suffering/problem-of-evil, or biological/physical inefficiencies, or something else?

What's wrong, and what would you have done better? (Let's just leave aside the suffering/problem-of-evil discussion for now, maybe I'll create a thread on it later if people want.)


(and as I said in my posts above: maybe God is omnipotent, maybe God isn't omnipotent, whatever, doesn't really matter to me. All I believe is God has power where it counts.)

Both.

The human/free-will side of the debate usually gets the most attention, but I find the nature side of the debate to be more thought-provoking for exactly the reasons you said.

 

You just used "free will" in defence of god?

OK, so god is heaps mega powerful, like Superman and Luke Skywalker and ALL THE HEROES EVAR. He creates a flawed creature, a restlessly curious creature, allegedly in his own image (and not the logical way around, i.e. man created god in their image); hid his presence and demanded obedience and obsequience on pain of eternal torment with the relationship being largely one sided and based on blind obedience. I mean, trust.
And for the hell of it, he guides the evolution of all life on earth. Because he's a ****, though, he appears to a bunch of unreconstructed savages and, giggling like a school girl, tells them he made the world in a week. A busy week, mind you, but a week nonetheless. Then, in another cart before the horse method, it becomes apparent that evolution was actually him all along, coincidently revealed after carbon dating methods had swept away the capacity to deny it and not be regarded as an idiot.

Lo, for god is lazy, and very good at just ****ing with us!

But I suppose he gave me free will just so I could point out how illogical he - sorry, forgot it's stylised as "He", raving egomaniac - is in, well, everything?

Ha. Haha. Ahahaha. Ha. Ha. Ho. Heee. Ha. Ho.

 

Remember, one can't just say free will exists. There are legitimate views that say free will doesn't exist.

 

I'm not even sure why I'm giving this a serious response...

* Our souls are created in the image of God
* God's presence is not hidden
* God doesn't demand obedience
* I don't believe in the traditional view of "hell." I believe we all go to the same "place" when we die. How we lived our lives will depend on how we experience the afterlife: more selfish people won't like it, more loving people will enjoy it. And everyone will be capable of further spiritual progress, and eventually everyone will enjoy it and be in communion with each other and God.
* God didn't really "guide" evolution, at least not in the way you're implying.
* Past prophets were inspired by God, they didn't get all of it right, they had their own biases and added their own creative storytelling
* not even sure what you mean by the term "unreconstructed savages"
* how does God being responsible for and understanding/controlling the natural processes mean God is, in your words, "lazy, and ****ing with us"?
* God isn't an egomaniac... God has no mania, and no ego (and no, I don't believe God demands our worship of him or its hell)

I know.

And honestly, the only thing that really matters is that it seems like we have free will. I believe we have free will, but it really is an irrelevant debate. But that's also another entirely different discussion.



Anyways, to stop this thread from being derailed, here comes a problem of evil/suffering thread.

 

MAKE SURE IT'S A POLL

 

An anonymous poll.

 

How can it be a poll?

I'm done for the night, I'll check up on this tomorrow...

New thread: If there is a God, then why is there evil and suffering?

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/if-there-is-a-god-then-why-is-there-evil-and-suffering.50003725/

 

1) Because he's a jerk
2) It's a test
3) God can't stop us
etc

It's not difficult!

 

It's 2am here and I have class tomorrow, I'll come back to this later when I'm more fully awake. Let's just move all that discussion to the new thread.

 

no but i wish i had because louisck owns. more than any other comic, you get a sense of artistry in the best sense. he's always really struggling with something up there on stage, baring his soul, etc

 

Pffft.

Dave Chappelle's "Black Bush" skit alone could best this Louis fellow any day.

 

Rogue -

It has language in it that's naughty, in case you are scared of the Satan-words

Ghost, your argument supposes God exists.

 

It's an anonymous poll but whatever, I go for naturalistic evolution. I'm not gonna add to the damned religious arguments going on here and in every other thread that pops up every other day, but let's just say I'm like Vivec: a deconstructed catholic for whom the fairytales and dogma stopped making any sense as I made my way through high school and college.

 

We are God's Sims.

 

that sketch isnt even funny anymore because it was predicated on "what if a black bush existed" and now we actually have a real black bush and its not funny at all

 

I know the discussion has moved on, but I wanted to respond to this because I found it really interesting. See, I've also been thinking more "like a scientist" in many ways, and have been consciously applying scientific skepticism to my life and the world around me. But since I started doing this I've started moving somewhat in the opposite direction from you. I was a very outspoken atheist before (as you well know) and assumed many things without putting them up to proper examination. Now while I'm still an atheist I've gradually moved farther away from hard atheism and now consider myself a so-called soft atheist. I acknowledge that there's plenty we don't know and it's quite possible we're missing something and that a God (or Goddess or gods) exists. However, I think that enough contrary evidence has been discovered to at least say that all existing religions are partially wrong, and based on what we've discovered the chances of any deities existing is slim enough that it may as well be treated as them not existing until we have further evidence.

From what I've seen naturalistic evolution has the most evidence to back it up out of the theories given, and so I go with that. I suppose it's not completely impossible for any of them to be wrong (we could be misunderstanding something) but once again it's extremely unlikely. Out of the other options given I think alien seeders is probably the second most likely, but even that is very far-fetched.

 

I went with "Naturalistic Evolution". I believe in God, but I don't think he necessarily had to have an individual role in tweaking evolution as everything came about - I would limit his interference to the infusion of humans with souls.

 

Zap, I think what you're describing is agnosticism, not a form of atheism.

 

No. An agnostic generally holds the belief that the existence of God or lack thereof is unknowable. I absolutely believe it is possible to get a definitive answer. And for the moment I choose to say there is no God because it's far more likely the case.

 

Eh, I think it's as definitive as it will ever get. We've found a universe that by all indications does not need an omnipotent deity to "work." "God of the gaps" will just keep on chuggin'.

 

Wow been a long time since I logged on here. Anyways, young earth creationism. Heard some good arguments for it, but ultimately even before those arguments it's because, despite the, uh, creative interpretations of Genesis that have gone on... The Bible is pretty clear.

 

Can someone quick define what theistic evolution is? Is that the belief that God set evolution in motion?

 

jesus did it. check AND mate, fornicators

 

I fornicate therefore I am.

 

I'm glad whatever certain people "believe" has absolutely nothing to do with what actually happened.

Also I like Census threads.