I didn't read through the whole thread, just reviewed the last few pages. I respectfully submit that it is not true that I cannot explain the creation of human and/or animal life on earth apart from God. In fact I can. Instead, I would suggest that you cannot explain it without making reference to God. Some people claim that it's just as much of a leap of faith to explain life with reference to evolution as it is to claim that God created life on earth. The fact is, however, that at this point, belief in God as creator of life involves a complete leap of faith. There is no way to show that this is true, no way to make an appeal to any facts - one must simply believe it, to know it a priori. Scientists, as dogmatic as they are, try to prove that life on earth had this or that origin. We are looking for proof. Devout people show by the very fact of their belief that they do not need such proofs. Their belief is enough. It is axiomatic to say 'He does not need proof - he has faith'. Also, I do not believe that intellect and faith go hand in hand, if you mean religious faith. Interestingly, I heard that a British scientist recently got a huge grant from the Templeton Foundation ( I think) to attempt to prove scientifically that God must be the creator of life on earth. In a long thread, this has probably been said before, and better than I have said it here.
=============== Aarchime; Certain amount of truth there, Arch,, when i was a litlte kid i remember asking my banker Dad what a FED rate hike was. After he explained it even though we loved each other, i still didnt understand it. Amazing what 50 years will do to clear up understanding; Mark Twain said he wasnt concerned about the part he didnt understand., he was concerned about the part he did understand Most of those different denominational doctrines are non essential; in non esssentials =diversity, in essentials =unity, in all things =charity. [luv=same as charity here]] Essentials like salvation are certainly some what understandable; ''Teach me O LORD'' [actually a super +natural , a supernatural prayer, pray that one more than once],Arch. Psalm 25;4, and John 3;16
Yes, that was Melanchthon , I believe (the diversity / unity / charity bit). However, even when it comes to salvation you have plenty of shouting and an absolute mess: Protestants, Catholics, Calvinists, Arminians, Legalists, Charismatics Gnostics, Adventists, Wesleyans, Southern Baptists, and so on, all willing to beat the crap out of each other over salvational differences, many of which are considered damnable. Confusion on top of confusion born of unclear direction. And not the type of confusion that wisdom and experience can clear up, but rather the intractable kind as a result of important sentences and clarifying points left out, born of dunderheaded oversight and / or deliberate obfuscation. Hard to say which is worse. God is, by evidence of his own writings and his own warring peoples, a God of confusion.
nononsense, You ask me to tell you what natural is. I would sooner offer my opinion... Everything is natural. Moreover, everything is essentially natural and therefor no requisite necessity nor justifiable interpretation I have ever come accross, makes the case for requiring addition or expansion to that basic state. Bolting the word or meaning of -super- to the word -natural- is done for the benefit only of fanciful befuddlement. No purpose can be achieved by inflating or exagerating the meaning of natural beyond its essential definition, other than for reasons to do with imagination, embellishment, confusion or conceit. But then of course it is natural so to do. Natural too that some folks prefer to recognize when that is happening. Were there a Pixie, It would be natural. Were there a God, It would be natural also. Both Pixie and God must essentially be natural. They would both in essence be extraordinary, but not supernatural. They will of course be misleadingly and confusingly described as supernatural in the stories and tales that go along with them.
The future of the human race In this book you have gained a key insight: There is no God. You have proven this to yourself in many different ways. See Chapter 26 for details. From that insight you can derive a great many others. The most important of them is this: You are a mortal being. There is no heaven, and there is no hell. You are on earth for 80 years or so, and then you vanish forever. See Chapter 27 for details. A common philosophical question is, "Why do we exist?" Given these two insights, we can now answer the question definitively: There is no "reason" for our existence. The fact is that we do exist. Through an evolutionary process, nature has created rational creatures called human beings. The question that we should be asking ourselves is the more profound one: "Given that we do exist, what are we going to accomplish with our existence?" Right now, we are largely squandering our existence because we never ask ourselves this question as a species. What is our situation? We find that we are a race of approximately six billion people. We inhabit a chunk of iron, rock and water that is floating though the vacuum of space. The universe we exist within has a volume of perhaps 3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic light years. To our knowledge there are no other intelligent, conscious beings in this universe. Even if there are, they may be millions or billions of light years away, making them completely unreachable for the time being. Now what? The question that we should be asking ourselves is simple: What is our goal as a species? We are, potentially, the only intelligent species in the entire universe. What are we going to do with our existence? Have you ever considered it? Have you ever thought about the goals of the human race? Heaven on earth I would like to make a suggestion. Here is one thing that I believe we should be doing with our existence: we should create Heaven on EarthTM for every human being on the planet. That's right: Heaven on EarthTM. Since God is imaginary, there is no "afterlife" and no "heaven" in the religious sense. Therefore, we should begin to build Heaven on Earth. Why is this important? Because right now, for a majority of people on this planet, what we have created is Hell on Earth. As discussed in Chapter 22: Even in the United States -- one of the wealthiest nations on earth -- poverty is a major problem. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, more than 26 million children in the United States participate in the National School Lunch Program, which provides low-cost or free lunches to children at or near the poverty level. [ref] 26 million children represents about half of all the children in the United States. One thing that you quickly realize, if you allow yourself to think about it, is that the number of people living in abject poverty on this planet is staggering. A "fifth of the worldâs people" is more than a billion people. You also realize that $1 a day means that these people are living in hopeless, wretched conditions. Think about how little food you can buy for $1. Now consider the fact that the $1 is spent on that little bit of food, so there is no money left for housing, clean water, restroom facilities, clothing, shoes, health care, education, infrastructure, etc. etc. Disease runs rampant. Starvation is common. This level of poverty is nearly unimaginable to most people in the United States, yet more than a billion people live this way today. Now consider the fact that, if you raise the bar to $3 a day -- still an extremely meager amount -- half of the people on the planet are living at that level of poverty. More than three billion people. As discussed in Chapter 5, 10 million children die every year as a result of abject poverty. For these billions of people, eliminating Hell on Earth and replacing it with Heaven on Earth would be a major blessing. What would Heaven on EarthTM look like? We would take many of the common conceptions from the imaginary heaven and attempt to create them here in reality. For example: No one in the imaginary heaven would get sick. In the same way, in our real Heaven on EarthTM, medical technology will cure all diseases, reverse the effects of aging, etc. No one in the imaginary heaven would be an amputee. In the same way, in our real Heaven on EarthTM, we should find a way using stem cells, limb cloning, nanotech or prosthetics to recreate the limbs of amputees at a level equal to or exceeding their natural limbs. In the imaginary heaven, everyone has eternal life. In the same way, in our real Heaven on EarthTM, people will not die. Or they will live far, far longer than we do today, without the debilitating effects of aging. In the imaginary heaven, no one would be poor. Starvation, malnutrition, etc. would not exist. Everyone in the imaginary heaven would have identical "wealth" -- the same access to everything good about heaven. In the same way, in our real Heaven on EarthTM, we would find solutions to global poverty and the concentration of wealth. Everyone on the planet would have equal access to the world's wealth and the same standard of living. In the imaginary heaven, no one would have to work. Each person would have true economic freedom. In the same way, in our real Heaven on EarthTM, we should eliminate work and allow everyone to go on perpetual vacation. In the imaginary heaven there would be no pollution, extinction, habitat loss, Global Warming, etc. In the same way, in our real Heaven on EarthTM, we would solve all of these problems. In the imaginary heaven there would be no crime, and "bad" people would be cast into hell. In the same way, in our real Heaven on EarthTM, we would eliminate crime with a much swifter and stronger criminal justice system. And so on... Is it possible to create Heaven on Earth? Yes, it is. We are already heading in that direction to some degree. For example, medical researchers are busy ending disease and lengthening life. If we made Heaven on Earth a point of focus for our society, we could greatly accelerate the process. We would also find a way to spread the benefits of medical technology inexpensively and universally to everyone on the planet. There are a number of different ways that we can create Heaven on Earth. For example, we may be able to use capitalism to get there. It's not clear, however, that capitalism is up to the task. After all: The United States is one of the most capitalistic countries in the world. Yet, as noted above, half the kids in the United States can't afford lunch. It is also the case that capitalism, in its modern form, has been in place for over a century. Yet, as noted above, there are still three billion people on the planet -- half the world's population -- living in startling poverty. Capitalism does not seem to be very quick in getting the job done either. China is rapidly taking on capitalistic tendencies. Yet we know that many Chinese workers work in conditions that in America could be compared to slavery. The number of hours worked and the meager amount earned gives anyone in America with a conscience a reason to pause and question what is going on. If capitalism can adapt to the challenge, great. If not, let's invent something new. We are intelligent people, and, when we put our minds to it, we are good at solving problems. Human beings are fundamentally good, and none of us like the fact that three billion people live in such crushing poverty. If we design our economy properly, the advent of robots, nanotech and other advanced technologies will give us the opportunity to create Heaven on Earth in the very near future. In the process we should be able to completely eliminate poverty, raise the standard of living for everyone and give each person on the planet true economic freedom. But that will happen only if we make the conscious decision to do it, and then we follow through. It is time for the human race to grow up and embrace reality. It is time for us to discard our imaginary gods and move to the next level of our intellectual evolution. It is time to understand our place in the universe and take control of our destiny. It is time to create Heaven on Earth for everyone. There is no God, and there are so many good things that we can accomplish as a species. Let's make the most of the opportunity that the universe has given us. THE END http://www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com/god-toc.htm
this is interesting to me. are you defining God's writings as in the writings of the new testament or are you saying jesus teachings were dunderheaded. I think jesus made some very clear statements with respect to eternal life (salvation). In fact I bet my eternal life on them.
are you sure? funny thing. most believers of every religion are sure they are "in". have you sold all of your posessions and given the money to the poor? Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?" "Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments." "Which ones?" the man inquired. Jesus replied, " `Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,' and `love your neighbor as yourself.'" "All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?" Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." "
vhehn, exactly, when i did a study of Jesus teachings on eternal life, I found 3 or 4 to be very difficult for me to follow well enough to think I would attain salvation. I found one to be very interesting because it was based on faith and action, and very difficult for most to believe. But to say Jesus teachings were dunderheaded is very strange to me. Now if he were to argue some churches have made a mess of them well that is a different story.