Hmmmm..... Shoeshine can continue on this new thread, but doesn't have the time to give me approximate answers on my 5 simple peg scenarios? peace axeman
What kind of person believes in love? Is it irrational and illogical to believe in love? Show me a proof of love based on scientific measurements, then we can talk about what love is, or what God is. You cannot prove love exists beyond an acceptance and agreement of the concept of love. Even if I talk about my experiences of love, and someone else talks about their experiences of love, are they the same experiences? You can show me someone's actions, but you can never prove their intent, as intent can never be measured by scientific measures. Love is in the intent, not in the actions. Actions follow intent, not the reverse. Consequently, no one can know with certainty on the basis of perception that they are loved, they can only guess at someone's intentions behind actions....or they can faith that they are loved. However, we all know what love is, what loves feels like, etc. Children know what love is, even animals know what love is. How do we know? Via the tool that knows and understands love, the human heart. That you either have failed with, or never practiced using tools beyond the intellect is of course your choice, and like the fox who concluded sour grapes because of his failure, you can stand in judgment of the heart's reality on the basis of your intellectual perspective and sensory input alone. It is however, unreasonable in my opinion, and illogical to apply the same tools to knowing love or knowing God that one applies to that which can be measured with the intellect and senses, and vice versa. It is a choice what tools to use. Both are available. If we saw a man licking a CD in order to hear the music, we would think him mad. If we saw a man touching fruit with his hand to see what it smelled like, we would think him mad. If we saw a man stick a flower in his mouth to see the color, we would think him mad. Wrong tools for the job. Those who have used the tools that are designed to know love, and know God report their experiences. Those unwilling, incapable, or having failed with their own experimentations.....they have little choice but to follow the fox's sour grapes conclusion.
if it is or not, my experience of it is the same as yours, even if you believe it is something different than i do. for me, the concept of "love" is still a real experience, which i think is a normal and good thing, regardless of its explanation. similarly, people should do what makes them happy, regardless of its ultimate purpose or explanation. when i was a kid/teenager, all i cared about was doing what i felt like, not caring about its purpose. for example, playing with a toy. as i got a little older, i wanted to only do things that would lead to something else in the future. but now i find myself going back to how i used to be sometimes. now i think it's totally ok to do whatever makes you happy, regardless of what it means or what other people think. a perfect example would be drawing a picture.
"my experience of it is the same as yours, even if you believe it is something different than i do." How do you know this to be true? Can you make a measurement that verifies this statement, that all subjective experiences are the same for each person, and necessarily the same in nature? How do you know that the experience you have when you eat chocolate is the same as mine? Fact is, you don't know to a mathematical certainty. "now i think it's totally ok to do whatever makes you happy, regardless of what it means or what other people think." So if people believe in God, or subscribe to a particular religious belief, and it makes them happy regardless of its ultimate purpose or explanation, you think that is a good thing? If their belief in heaven and/or hell makes them happy, how can you denounce such beliefs as crap? What you say now is quite contradictory to what you have said about people who believe in different religions.
Hehehe... now your forced to theorize that god is making errors on PURPOSE Something which you can't prove, and something which makes the creationist argument seem even sillier. Gee... why doesn't god simply design the animals to regulate their birth rates, instead of doing something silly like building in all kinds of cruel flaws which slowly kills them via horrible diseases, et all?? axeman ______________________________________________ If you truly had been a theist even a moderately knowledgable one then you would know that this is exactly the case. The account in Genesis tells us that we now live in a fallen state. The original design probably didn't have these flaws that were required after the fall. Don't forget death entered earth at that time in theory. Your whole argument seems to be that you know better than God and desire to become as God which started the whole problem in the first place. It is extrememly silly to deny God say He doesn't exist and then blame Him for everything bad in the universe. It also quite ridiculous to point to a complex organism and say I could have designed a better organism. That is the heigth of conceit and that is what started this whole mess to begin with. Refer to Darkhorses' last few posts about who considers themselves to be the center of the universe. That is exactly what I am saying but from a different angle.
all humans experience the same emotions. we're all the same animal. none of us are superman. no matter how much i dislike religion or prefer science, i do think it is ok for people to choose to be religious, as long as it isn't harming anyone else. however, as i have said before, i don't like how it is suggested to children. religious beliefs impact societies a little more than drawing pictures.
Okay, here's my guess. (The little guy is watching a video, so I've got a couple minutes.) Hope I understand you question. 1) 0 2) 0 3) 1.0 4) Very close to 0 5) Very close to 1 All right, let me know how I did. Just don't ask me to calculate it if there are 5,000 red in the bag.
We are all humans true. If you take two humans from birth, and feed them the exact same foods and exact same amounts, do they grow exactly the same amount? If you examined their feces, would they be exactly the same size, smell and appearance? Would these two humans think exactly the same, feel exactly the same? No of course not. For we factor in genetics and environment as factors in human development and human experiences. Yet you hold to the irrational and illogical concept that humans experience the same emotions and feelings, and have no scientific proof to support that statement. It may or may not be true, but there is no proof that it is true necessarily. If I say I am hot, and you say you are hot, how do you even know we are having the same exact experiences? You could record brain waves, but that still doesn't mean the experiences internally are the same. If no two snowflakes are exactly the same, why is it so hard to imagine human emotions and subjective experiences can be different from one person to another, or that someone can experience something real via faith where another cannot? A minority of humans are labeled colorblind because they don't see what the majority sees, but who is to say who is seeing color as it was intended to be seen? Just because the majority says it is so, does that make it so?