___________________________________________ We live in a nuts and bolts culture that thinks only inside the box. As you say other peoples and cultures have a much greater understanding of the supernatural world than we can imagine. Go live with them and you will see and come back with a whole new understanding.
This may sound crazy, but I'll tell you something. I was raised Lutheran. I went to church every other Sunday while growing up. I even went to bible school for a little while. I have since renounced my religion. I do not believe Jesus Christ is the messiah any longer. I want to convert to Judaism at some future point. I need to find an understanding Rabbi to help me with the process, though. It was a very big decision for me. If I do this, I will upset many people in my family. However, I cannot lie to myself and my own beliefs. I simply do not believe that there has been a messiah on Earth. Out of all the organized religions, Judaism is the one that fits my beliefs. Whether or not anyone who is born non-jewish and converts gets accepted into that society is something I have no clue about. All I know is that I want to proceed with the change for many many reasons.
Of course, I am saddened to hear that, but it is an interesting comment. I have a "close family member" who has said something similar, although in his case he came from a more secular humanist background. If you go this route, you'll have to decide if you want to be a orthodox, conservative or (since I can't remember the term) "liberal" Jew...
Here you are so close to discovering the flaw of your logic, and just barely miss it. You see... I agree with you. If any of these parameters were just a little bit different, then life would not have evolved. But your logic is perfectly backwards. Let me explain. ANY life which evolves in universe X, will obviously have enough attributes which are compatible with universe X to thrive in universe X, or at least survive in universe X for some time until it changes. ( If it didn't have these attributes it would have perished in Universe X) Let's pick ONE entity that evolved in Universe X, and call it Entity Y. Your argument now boils down to the following: If any of the variables of Universe X were just a little bit different, which would make it Universe Z, then Entity Y would not be able to survive in Universe Z. To which I would agree. It's a no brainer. Entity Y probably can't survive in universe Z because Entity Y never evolved under those conditions. Now let me restate this a little differently so there is no flaw in my(your) original statement: If any of these parameters were just a little bit different, then OUR KIND of life would not have evolved. That is obvious. But in no way does this imply a creator of any sort. It simply shows that you cannot take one entity that has been "designed" through a process like natural selection, or similar processes, and expect it to also thrive in a very different environment that never molded that entity in the first place. Therefore, there is no evidence of an intelligent creator here. peace axeman
This is not necessarily true and is what I was trying to explain to GG. If the other universes are universes that are governed by the same laws of physics (and if we don't assume this then we're into science fiction) but with modified parameters, then noone knows what will result. It is entirely possible that our universe is the only universe capable of bearing life assuming the same laws of physics. Noone knows. Perhaps no other set of parameters would allow information storage? We don't understand well enough the first 10 -35 seconds, mstrings, etc. and the subsequent fallout to subatomic particles to even begin to guess at this. And that leads to my next point. Appealing to alternate universes is doing to a theist the very thing that you hate most. Skeptics have long complained that Christians, when backed into a corner with an argument, will try to escape with, "Well, I admit this is paradoxical, but I believe it by faith. It must come from the spiritual realm." Imo this is exactly what you guys are sounding like. The universe looks designed, sounds designed, smells designed and your response is "Well, I admit this is paradoxical, but I believe it by faith. I can explain this by appealing to alternate universes." Is it too much to ask that we talk about the evidence contained within the only universe that we actually know about and not speculate about something that is, for the time being, one step away from science fiction? It's not that I mind talking about alternate universes - it's an interesting topic - but one can't reasonably at this point base one's cosmology (or theology) on them.
Just communicating emotion - I'm not sure why...Probably not a bad idea since a lot of your relatives will feel the same way.
"...it matches the astronomical and fossil record perfectly". Does it? Perfectly? Genesis 1:6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning-the second day. Are we to believe here that the earth was a solid ball of water with no atmosphere at one point? Genesis 1:9 - And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good. Here are we to believe that land only appeared after there was nothing but water? My science references claim the earth was molten at one time which would lead me to believe that at best we had water vapor present. As the earth cooled enough, then it was possible for water to collect. Also, in Genesis 1:1 god said let there be light....but in genesis 1:14 he creates the sun and moon. Hmmmmm.... I could go on, but in any case, we certainly cannot refer to this as "perfect" by any means. There is another issue which bothers me. You seem to imply that if mythical story happens to match modern knowledge, then this is rational reason enough to believe the mythical story must be true. I disagree. I could simply produce a religion with a more accurate series of events, and then would expect you to be my first follower. I could lie and say my religious text is 5,000 years old, and has been kept secret forever...blah blah.... You would also have to review ALL OTHER RELIGIONS known to man to make absolutely SURE their creation stories are not a better match. Have you done this?? A third problem I have is this. The bible is KNOWN to have numerous contradictions and problems with modern knowledge. Usually these are argued away with some very creative interpretation by theists. But a book which is so ambiguous that not even the religious leaders can ever agree on the "true' meaning of it, could never hold up to the standard of evidence for a belief so grand. In another post, you said: "...but I am saying it is an amazing "coincidence" and it is the only creation story that I know about that even comes close to matching the scientific record" Here you admit "that you know of", and secondly, it does not match the scientific record. We could claim it was close at best, and sounds like it was written by a poorly educated man, in very simple terms. Think about it... if you were the original author of a creation myth, knowing what ancient man knew, how would you write it? I would write it like this: 1) God snaps finger, earth appears (since im aware of the earth I must explain it) 2) God snaps finger, the lights turn on (since ive already seen light I must explain it) 3) God snaps fingers, ocean appears (since ive seen the ocean, I must explain it 4) God snaps fingers, fish appears, animals...man and so on and so on... Now this begs the question: Why doesn't the list look a little more realistic. For example: 1) God snaps fingers, basic building blocks of mass and energy appear 2) God snaps finger, Sun 1 appears ...skip a few steps.... 174,343,534) God Snaps fingers Sun # 384,764,234,768 appears 174,343,535) God snaps fingers, Milkyway galaxy forms ...skip a bunch of steps.... ...and finally...... 556,234,667,998,553,113) God snaps fingers and creates planet #454,678,673,290,003,466 called EARTH Isn't it interesting that the ONLY things which appear in this simple creation story ARE THINGS WHICH a simple ancient man would ALREADY BE AWARE of??? Coincidence? The simplicity of the story, and the contradictions of order which I already pointed out, lead me to believe that this is actually just another run of the mill creation story. peace axeman
Sorry, I didn't write enough to accurately explain myself but then that's pretty difficult in one post. Here's the sequence of verses 1-3: verse 1) The words here for "heavens and earth" are "shamayin erets" which when placed together in Hebrew always refer to the "entire physical universe". Verse 1 describes imo the Big Bang - everything was created in the very beginning. verse 2) This establishes the viewpoint of the observer for the rest of the chapter: on the surface of the water/earth. verse 3) From the standpoint of a surface observer, the earth's atmosphere will go at an early point from opaque to translucent and light will show through but not well enough to distinguish the moon/stars described later in the chapter. I know you disagree with me, but I am amazed how well it matches science.
I did not mean to imply this is a proof that I am right. All I am saying is that if JudeoChristianity is true, then you would expect any references to science to be correct which I believe is the case in Genesis 1. I have read a number of creation stories, but no I have not read them all. But I'm really not trying to convert anyone! I really just want people to see the fact that theism is not intellectually bankrupt, in fact far from it. Many people on et like to slam anything theistic and I am just pointing out that their arguments are often based on fear and prejudice...