Is there a God??

[Joseph1082]

Ok, a couple of things...
first off to lazysmurff,
Ok, but you cannot bring up one school of philosophy and take it as absolute, Leibniz pointed out very clearly the answer to an infinite God creating this World... this World is PERFECT, it is the best of all possible possibilities. Every variable needs to be balanced against the others, so that the scale doesn't tip. So this world we live in is perfectly balanced, the best possible one overall!
Ok, as for God vs Big-bang, as long as you don't trash God theory we won't trash yours, they both hold EQUAL weight.
Evolution, well, has many, MANY holes, 1st off, where r all the links, y have none of them survived as modern species, and even so, where are all their fossils, come on, gimme a break... there should be at least a dozen link species between every similar modern day species, this results into millions of dead links, tens of millions over the course of what, 400 million years of evolution. 2nd off, it is a fact of modern science that physical changes, say a scar, or loss of limb, aren't pass on through the gene pool, so how can the so-called adaptations be passed on. And Y is there never ANY evidence ever of a positive mutation?
To DGB,
You may not like my answer, but what I have to say is first off, realize that God is infinite, in every way. Your question, "before" Man existed was there "evil"? Well, the terms "before" and "evil" are human terms to describe concepts and phenomena. There is no before man, God exists at every point in time all at once, so to speak. Evil is simply the phenomenon we experience in our world and its label.
Ok, but to address what you asked, in my opinion then, no, there was no evil before man. Evil only came at the moment free-will came, it is the "other" option. It is what defines Free-will.

[Prelewd]

Originally Posted by lazysmurff

note: alot of this arguement was (for brevities sake) summarized from an article wiriten by Chad Docterman called "why the christian god is impossible" the link to the article follows http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/libr...mpossible.html

Very interesting article. There are many things in that article that I agree with, but there are also some that I do not. Just to play devil's advocate (no pun intended), the author bases his whole argument on the premise that God isn't perfect, yet he claims to be. We've already discussed that the bible was written by man, and thus can not be the complete word of god. Especially since things were omitted.

Another perfection argument that I have is that how can perfection exist when imperfection does not? It's all relative.

To Joseph.. not all non-relgious types believe in the big bang/evolution/any other scientific thing you can dig up.

To crapmaster, just because religion posts keep popping up, doesn't make your religion true.

I've said it along with many people in here. You can't prove either side. Saying your side is 100% correct is a fallacy.

[DGB454]

To DGB, You may not like my answer, but what I have to say is first off, realize that God is infinite, in every way. Your question, "before" Man existed was there "evil"? Well, the terms "before" and "evil" are human terms to describe concepts and phenomena. There is no before man, God exists at every point in time all at once, so to speak. Evil is simply the phenomenon we experience in our world and its label. Ok, but to address what you asked, in my opinion then, no, there was no evil before man. Evil only came at the moment free-will came, it is the "other" option. It is what defines Free-will.

Good point. Maybe I am falling into human based ideas when discussing evil and time. I usually try not to head that way when discussing God but it's not always that easy. Anyway thanks for your answer. I think we agree for the most part.

[DGB454]

Originally Posted by lazysmurff

ok, so everyones said that "god doesnt exist, science makes more sense" or "how else do you explain the creation?"

and this has gone back and forth and back and forth, so from a philosophy majors thought process here it is. keep in mind i am refering to a christian god, though many of these arguments will apply to any religion.

God is perfect right? why did he need to create the world then? was he lonely? bored? would a perfect being of infinate powers get bored or lonely? perhaps god was just egotistical and decided to creat beings to worship him...is god then worthy of worship? the definition of perfection contain "completeness" if God needed to create the world, he was not complete, thus not perfect.

perfection also begets perfection...what purpose would there be in a perfect being creating such an imperfect world?

Hume teaches us that belief in a god is simply irrational. again, our imperfect world is all that we know, how can we rationally infer a perfect creator? and then arguement from design (something had to have designed the world for it to run so smoothly) even if you accept this as true (which you rationally shouldnt) it still doesnt net you a perfect god, or a judeo/christian/muslim god by any stretch of the imagination.

note: alot of this arguement was (for brevities sake) summarized from an article wiriten by Chad Docterman called "why the christian god is impossible" the link to the article follows http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/libr...mpossible.html

Why did God create? It's in his nature to create. He is the creator. IMO.

Imperfect world? What would constitute as perfect? A world where there was no evil? That would then make us imperfect because free will wouldn't exist. Man causes evil and the only way to stop man from doing evil things would be to take away free will.
What is perfection? Who can judge what is perfect? You? Me? a philosopher? You would get different answers from all 3. So who should judge what perfection looks like other than the creator of the subject that is being measured against perfection. For example; If I created a painting and said it was perfect. Someone else might say it has too much blue in it. Someone else may say there is too much red in it etc....
but it's perfect to me who created it. It is perfect for what I wanted.

[thrasher]

Originally Posted by Joseph1082

Evolution, well, has many, MANY holes, 1st off, where r all the links, y have none of them survived as modern species, and even so, where are all their fossils, come on, gimme a break... there should be at least a dozen link species between every similar modern day species, this results into millions of dead links, tens of millions over the course of what, 400 million years of evolution. 2nd off, it is a fact of modern science that physical changes, say a scar, or loss of limb, aren't pass on through the gene pool, so how can the so-called adaptations be passed on. And Y is there never ANY evidence ever of a positive mutation?

Easy there, I think you need to take a refresher course in evolution and paleontology. Acquired characteristics are not passed on through generations, that is called LaMarckian evolution, and has been known to be false for about 150 years. Mutations that cause variance in reproductive success are what ultimately lead to changes in allele frequency in a population. And mutations are neither good nor bad, they are neutral. Sometimes they turn out to give an individual higher fitness, but they are random. The argument that evolution has MANY holes is outdated and not really accepted in the scientific community anymore. Nothing in biology makes sense without evolutionary theory.

There are species that have survived for very long periods of time. Crocodiles and Alligators have been around for 200 million years, Ceolocanths have been around for 200 million years, and Great White Sharks have been around for about 400 million years. The first life appeared around 4.5 billion years ago, and the Cambrian explosion (about 550 mya) was when life really started to proliferate. When you take into acount the fact that the conditions required for fossilization are rarely present in natural environments, you begin to see that we are incredibly lucky to have the fossils that we do. 500 million years is a long time, and organic materials break down much quicker than that, so unless they are replaced by minerals, you can't expect to have a complete fossil record of every species that has inhabited the earth. We have a plethora of fossils from the recent past (last couple hundred years), but reconstructing the past beyond that is very difficult, as the fossil record will never be complete.

Originally Posted by DGB454

Anyway did you get what I was saying about Christianity and science and how they aren't opposed to each other in my mind?

I get what you are saying, I could see how that would work. It's consistent, not what I choose to believe, but that's ok.

About the Cro-magnon and neanderthals, the most recent evidence from anthropologists suggests that anatomically modern Homo sapiens were present around 100 thousand years ago, and that we simply out compteted the neanderthals and Cro-magnon, as a result of our superior problem solving and adaptibility to environments.

[DGB454]

I get what you are saying, I could see how that would work. It's consistent, not what I choose to believe, but that's ok. About the Cro-magnon and neanderthals, the most recent evidence from anthropologists suggests that anatomically modern Homo sapiens were present around 100 thousand years ago, and that we simply out compteted the neanderthals and Cro-magnon, as a result of our superior problem solving and adaptibility to environments.

Question: If we supposedly evolved from the cro-magnon line then why would cro-magnon be competing with modern man? Wouldn't cro-magnon have evolved past that point and become modern man? Was it selective evolution where only pockets of cro-magnon evolved while others remained in the cro-magnon state of evolution?

[Joseph1082]

Ok, I see everyone's point
to thrasher,
But how come Y have Dinosaur Fossils from oh, say, the Jurasic period, yet have no fossils of links from a quarter of that time ago?
to Lazysmurff,
read my post #76 abd let me know who made Hume's philosophy have more weight than all the others, and let me know waht proof you have that the World is not perfect... you don't because we have nothing to compared it to.
In this respect the argument of whether God is pefect or not is moot... we have no idea what perfect is any, all we can say is that God is infinite.

[lazysmurff]

noone said Hume carries more weight than anyone else.

but i can name SEVERAL philosophers who believe liebniz to be worthless, and call me a cynic, but i reject his best of all possible worlds statement.

if this is the best of all possible worlds that God could come up with, God must have the rational ability of Homer Simpson. Surely we can all imagine a world with no hitler.

i'll let thrasher cover the evolution thing, but even the pope has admitted it happened, i think you can too.

saying god created because he is a creator is a circular arguement.

oh and joseph, we cant know whether this world is perfect or not (which you said in your last post #82) directly contradicts what you said in post #76 about this being the best possible world. it also agrees 100% with Humes arguement as to why it is irrational to believe that a perfect God created this world...This is our only "world" experience, we've got nothing else to base it on. for all we know, this could be gods rough draft.

[YogsVR4]

Originally Posted by DGB454

Question: If we supposedly evolved from the cro-magnon line then why would cro-magnon be competing with modern man? Wouldn't cro-magnon have evolved past that point and become modern man? Was it selective evolution where only pockets of cro-magnon evolved while others remained in the cro-magnon state of evolution?

Not to distract from the topic of the thread (and its been the best behaved religous thread I've ever seen here) but take a look here to see the evolutionairy path for modern humans http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanor...ha/a_tree.html

[Joseph1082]

Lazy,
The not knowing what's perfect, i'm pretty sure I read that in Hume... I was using Leibniz to offer an explaination as to how this world COULD be perfect, and then am pointing out the absolute notion that a perfect World is a subjective thing.
1st off, we have nothing to measure THIS world against, you know this.
2nd, perfection itself is a somewhat subjective term, what you envision as a perfect world may be not be the same as what I do... so who's to say what is perfect? Perhaps I beleive that a World with death and disease is perfect because they balance out the popualtion. What about suffering, well, isn't it essential to human growth? You see my point.
I was unaware that the pope has accepted evolution, to be that seems like blasphemy. I still dont accept it. See, like I said, no one has been able to actually answer me as to the missing links? And as far as mutations, someone said they were nuetral, but I would consider mutations that have advantageous results to be positive, say those mutations that led to the human brain. Alligators have been here for XXX millions of years... ah, this proves my point, Y in all this time have they not produced a newer, better species, modern man only appeared 100,000 years ago, you'd think in all those millions of years alligators would have produced some positive mutations, created an off-shoot species, and eventually be replaced, right?
Oh, and as for animals reasoning, I think you are misunderstanding me. I SAID, yes, a mouse can do a maze, so chimps can pile up blocks to get food, but the Chimp cannot think RATIONALLY, he cannot say to himself, "If I leaved the blocks like that, I will be able to use this devise tomorrow in the event thy put food up there again."

[lazysmurff]

so you accept this to be the best of all possible worlds. cool deal, i'll accept that.

there are imperfections in this world, correct? people born with only one arm? good people dying too soon (MLK anyone)? humanity itself is surely imperfect. come to think of it, i dont think ive encountered anything or anyone that was perfect. especially seeing as prefection is such a subjective thing.

how then can we infer that there is anything that is perfect? at all. where does the concept of a "perfect" god come in? imperfection in a created world begets imperfection in its creator. he may be perfect to you, certainly seems that way. God is not (if s/he exists) perfect for me. you admit this possibility yourself.

then can god exist in two states? perfect and imperfect? we get into the schrodengers cat problem. certainly a truly perfect being would have worked out someway to avoid this very problem in themselves.

oh, and missing links...here we go (i am a philosophy major, not biology or anthropology, so if i screw something up, please feel free to inform me)

the alligator has no changed in x span of time is a false statement. they have definately gotten smaller, and as a result quicker on land, seeing as the huge expanses of water they were used to are drying up. they have changed in any huge ways because they havent needed to in order to survive and propogate their species. same thing with roaches, and snakes.

links have been found in human evolution (lucy for instance) and several neandertal skeletons as well.

i suggest you do further research if your curious, as thats all i have to offer on the subject.

[RedLightning]

Originally Posted by thrasher

I left the Catholic church because it made sense to me than in order to receive communion and partake in "worship," it required full belief in Catholic doctrine. A lot of the stances taken by the Church are absolutely ridiculous, although the Pope has finally admitted that evolution does in fact occur.

I would be interested to know more about what pieces of Christianity and what pieces of Science you synthesize in your beliefs. The two seem largely incompatible to me.

dude the catholic church to me is a piece of crap, it has always and will always be a fasle set up and corrupt, thats why i am a protestant, yet i am a christian.

Originally Posted by thrasher

I left the Catholic church because it made sense to me than in order to receive communion and partake in "worship," it required full belief in Catholic doctrine. A lot of the stances taken by the Church are absolutely ridiculous, although the Pope has finally admitted that evolution does in fact occur.

the pope is all screwed up old guy, other teachings like u need a pope and he is in charge is pplz pardon my words shit. i dont have full belief in the catholic doctrine, in fact not all catholics are christians, you dont have to be catholic to be a christian is what i am saying.

[lazysmurff]

what does any of that have to do with the existence of god?

[Joseph1082]

Hey Lazy,
Yes I said myself, pefect isn't a good word, infinite is... so for the Record God is not "Perfect" which is a subjective and totally not absolute term. Infinite on the other hand is definitely an absolute term, there is no confusion or debate about it, so God is infinite!
Allegators getting smaller isn't evolution, just like humans gettin taller, or living longer, isn't evolution. Evolution is the creation of brand-new sub-species etc. In XX millions of years, allegators have failed to produced any new species, the allegators of yesteryear are genetically identical to those of today, hence we use the same term "allegators" to describe them. In this time, how many new species of mammals mutated and popped-up??? So what went wrong w/ allegators? We need thrasher here!

[Joseph1082]

Oh, and I am not nessesarily sure this is the best possilbe, most perfect world, I was just answer the question of "How could a Perfect God create an imperfect World" well, since whether or not this world is perfect is an opinion, then the question kind of gets thrown out. And how could God make this, well, like I said, God is INFINITE, so he is capable of infinite things, so he could make this world, he could make any world.