Hey just because two things is related don't mean they come from a common ancestor! Ohhh wait a minute! It does! Holy mackerel! Wowza!
Hey, I hear in some parts of the world your ancestor might just be your descendant too. I mean, look at them folks what have a sister who's their wife too, and that kinda goins on?
Geno
The desert is a true treasure for him who seeks refuge from men and the evil of men. In it is contentment In it is death and all you seek (Quoted from "The Bleeding of the Stone" Ibrahim Al-Koni)
antelope sniper has asked what do we believe and why.
well, that's a start. i'll begin by sayin' i was taught evolution theory after i was taught about the old & new testament. so they came first and foremost. i was young at the time, btw. so, it was downloaded into a young brain, that was untaught and undeducated. but it was a beginning.
later, some goofy ph.d's started talking about all kinds of crazy stuff that i ain't never hurt tell uf before. one was evolution, and it just kept getting deeper and deepr.
so, what do i believe and why? about all i know is what i've been told. except for what questions i have raised sorting through the debris, odds & ends, and detritus. there is in fact very little that i believe that is in fact "mine" to believe. i got most my stuff from the cloud, so to speak. but, i continually sort, add levels of importance from low to high, and add probability to the unknown, bayesian i suppose. anyways, i try to keep my little island of consciousness afloat on a piece of flotsam believing that we'll see land sooner or later.
some say the only way to decide what is true is to vote on it. others disagree vehemently, almost violently even?
The word 'God' is used an awful lot, but what does it mean? Can anyone explain?
Why bother?
Some things don't need 'splainin'.
Like air:
Geno
Is it a matter of 'why bother' or just something that cannot be explained because there is no evidence for existence? I say the latter.
God cannot be literally described or explained as in a literal or actual God because 'God' is just an idea cooked up in the human mind. Consequently, all we have is a contradictory collection of ideas that some folks take literally, being convinced that this or that idea about God happens to be true and factual information.
Especially if it's something written by the ancients in what we call holy books, imagining authority or privaliged information where none exists, just ideas that people believed and wrote about.
antelope sniper has asked what do we believe and why.
Fair 'nuff. I believe that God created everything. Somebody did and we define that entity as God. Even the quantum soup idea requires somebody create dimensions and a universe to hold them for quantum-something to work in.
I also believe that evolution is likely correct. Evidence supports it and as far as I know there is no scientific evidence to the contrary.
And I believe these are not contradictory positions. The bible is not a book of science, it is a book of morals. Taken as such and written with the free use of literary devices there is nothing in the poetic language of Genesis that prohibits evolution.
And there is nothing in evolutionary theory that prohibits divine intervention. Can be fairly read as a map of "how he did it." The odds that evolution, and more so creation, worked out the way it did are long indeed. You can fairly say that's Mother Nature, people win Powerball. But there is no reason to not say the divinity had his thumb on the scale for this outcome. Statistics by it's nature cannot be definitive.
The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh
God cannot be literally described or explained as in a literal or actual God because 'God' is just an idea cooked up in the human mind.
Now that is open for debate and has been for a couple thousand years now.
That's why I asked the forum what do YOU believe.......and why.
Any proper discussion of "god(s)" begins with a definition of what the participants mean by God. Obviously your concept of God is very different than that of JoeBob, or Ringman or Curdog.
I would agree with DBT that there is no one universal description of God, not even if we limit that to the Christian God.
Many gods can be disproven by demonstrating their beliefs conflict with reality. The Greek Gods live on the top of Mount Olympus. Man has been to the top of Olympus and there were not there, so we've disproven gods falling within that definition.
The more general and nebulous the definition, of course, the harder it is to falsify a given god, but it also tends to make the god more meaningless. As an example a god who cannot (or will not) interact with this world, for practical reasons, is the same as no god at all.
I would like to split some hair with your definition of God.
"Even the quantum soup idea requires somebody create". I would agree the idea of a quantum soup begs for an explanation, but I fail to see where the explanation requires a sentient being to create it. See, the simpler and more humble the beginnings, the less extraordinary that which explains it needs to be. An all knowing, all powerful, all benevolent creator of universes, well, that's a pretty extraordinary claim, and would carry a very high burden of proof....with it's own infinite regress explaining the origins of the grand underlying complexities that lead to this Omni-everything creator (no Special Pleading allowed here).
As for the Bible being a book of useful morals I leave you with the following:
It's not the only moralistic interpretation of this story, but it's the one I find the most useful.
You didn't use logic or reason to get into this opinion, I cannot use logic or reason to get you out of it.
You cannot over estimate the unimportance of nearly everything. John Maxwell
God cannot be literally described or explained as in a literal or actual God because 'God' is just an idea cooked up in the human mind.
Now that is open for debate and has been for a couple thousand years now.
What does this so called debate entail? Christians do not agree with Hindus on the nature of God, or with Muslims, Jews disagree with Christians on the nature of Jesus and God.... that's without mentioning other religions and their offshoots...so this 'debate' hardly represents a coherent or literal description of God, whatever that is supposed to be.
God cannot be literally described or explained as in a literal or actual God because 'God' is just an idea cooked up in the human mind.
Now that is open for debate and has been for a couple thousand years now.
What does this so called debate entail? Christians do not agree with Hindus on the nature of God, or with Muslims, Jews disagree with Christians on the nature of Jesus and God.... that's without mentioning other religions and their offshoots...so this 'debate' hardly represents a coherent or literal description of God, whatever that is supposed to be.
If there was one true god, the arrival of Europeans in the new world would of been a little different:
You didn't use logic or reason to get into this opinion, I cannot use logic or reason to get you out of it.
You cannot over estimate the unimportance of nearly everything. John Maxwell
God cannot be literally described or explained as in a literal or actual God because 'God' is just an idea cooked up in the human mind.
Now that is open for debate and has been for a couple thousand years now.
What does this so called debate entail? Christians do not agree with Hindus on the nature of God, or with Muslims, Jews disagree with Christians on the nature of Jesus and God.... that's without mentioning other religions and their offshoots...so this 'debate' hardly represents a coherent or literal description of God, whatever that is supposed to be.
Com'on man.... Don't be such a downer. LOL
"I can't be canceled, because, I don't give a fuuck!" --- Kid Rock 2022
God cannot be literally described or explained as in a literal or actual God because 'God' is just an idea cooked up in the human mind.
Now that is open for debate and has been for a couple thousand years now.
That's why I asked the forum what do YOU believe.......and why.
Start at the beginning. I exist. You exist apart from me. We each came into existence as separate individuals, how did that happen? There must have been an entity to cause that. Nothing happens without a mover, a causing force. Skip through the Thomistic proofs, the upshot is there must have been a prime, uncreated entity and there can only be one. That we call God. Whatever characteristics you want to add to God is another matter. You can argue that this mode of thought, metaphysics, came from ancient Greeks in their consideration of fundamental transcendent desires of man.
The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh
God cannot be literally described or explained as in a literal or actual God because 'God' is just an idea cooked up in the human mind.
Now that is open for debate and has been for a couple thousand years now.
That's why I asked the forum what do YOU believe.......and why.
Start at the beginning. I exist. You exist apart from me. We each came into existence as separate individuals, how did that happen? There must have been an entity to cause that. Nothing happens without a mover, a causing force. Skip through the Thomistic proofs, the upshot is there must have been a prime, uncreated entity and there can only be one. That we call God. Whatever characteristics you want to add to God is another matter. You can argue that this mode of thought, metaphysics, came from ancient Greeks in their consideration of fundamental transcendent desires of man.
Do you equate the alleged "prime mover" with the classical God of Christianity, and if so, how do you logically move from the former to the latter?
You didn't use logic or reason to get into this opinion, I cannot use logic or reason to get you out of it.
You cannot over estimate the unimportance of nearly everything. John Maxwell