Agreed (you've just described many of my Jewish friends), but I've met Aumann ... he's very Orthodox, and very religious.

I find this very interesting ... what makes you want to do so?

Personally, like an ex-smoker, nothing could be less appealing to me than the idea of sitting through those ridiculous rituals and / or having to listen to some overly pious and usually pointless sermon.

Maybe, but I've yet to meet a very observant Orthodox Jew who isn't also a rabid and very public believer. In other words, it's highly unlikely that they're observant just for sake of appearances. Not saying there aren't any, but I would say that (from my experience, FWIW) if somebody is Orthodox and observant, then the probability is very high that they are a genuine believer.

OP is another moron who defines the word 'god' universally by his own imagination derived form the bible.

The sun is god, dispute that.

No, my question focused on faith.

In that you and Christians all believe that:
- Jesus is the Son of God
- He performed miracles
- Was raised from the dead
- There's a deity called Yahweh

etc.

For at least some of the major doctrines of Christianity I've been told that I should just "have faith" in them. Or just "have faith" in God/Yahweh.

Since the source of these doctrines is the Bible, I presume I'm really being told to have faith in its truthfulness and reliability. Of course, if you believe there's some legitimate reason as to why the Bible is very likely to be divine then this is void. I've created threads to ask about evidence for this, and it basically distilled down to "have faith" or "we take a different type of evidence" (which wasn't specified).

My questions are: Is your faith in the doctrines of the Bible well-placed? What reason do you have to be so trusting of the Bible and put your faith in it's claims?

Concerto answered this, but unfortunately his answer was "I have faith that my faith is well-placed". I'm not sure he honestly thinks this is a good answer, but it's facepalm worthy.

You keep asking the question in bold. I keep answering that the Bible is not where my faith rests. I am not dodging. I just cannot answer for a position I do not hold.

To ask a question that has actual meaning for me you would have to ask something along the lines of: "How do you know that the teachings of Jesus that express love for God and your fellow humans is the correct approach to God's intent for us?" Now you would be asking something that is related to my faith.

I do believe that you have heard Christians say the things that you have claimed in your post. You would need to debate with them to get answers. Maybe you will not get answers you can use. I do not know. The simple fact is that you cannot insist that I answer for claims that I have not made or charge that I am evasive when I point out that I have not made those claims. Unless of course you can find quotes where I have made those claims at which point I will try to deal with the inconsistency or make some retractions.

So you don't believe Jesus was the Son of God, or was resurrected?

If you do, why do you believe this then?

Just tradition with family. I don't find it overly pious or completely pointless. Most of what the priest talks about during this service is common sense general stuff that everybody could use. I recently attended a Catholic confirmation and did find that to be overly pious and hard to sit through.

For the first question, when one speaks of God then what does "Son of God" actually mean?

In the second, what does the bold word refer to?

Of course it does. All of the anti-God people in here are that way because they reject the notion of some all-knowing being in the sky. I also reject that notion. I also don't believe in "heaven" in the way that many religious people do.

What I know is that, at some point in the past, an origin was created and I think of the creator of that origin as "God." I believe that this creation WAS by design and that there WAS a point to it. I will likely never know that design or that point, but I have faith in them nonetheless.

The point is simple: If there were no creator, we wouldn't be having this (or any) conversation. And I feel like no creator would have taken the time to set life, the universe, etc in motion without some compelling reason. Science has never and will never explain the origin and "God" does. Period.

Hah, don't ask me on the specifics of what "Son of God" means - I'm not the Christian.

This refers to the resurrection, the idea that Jesus is the Son of God, the idea that Jesus performed miracles, and other similar claims made in the Bible.

Assuming you are excluding natural events from the term "creator", then I think this is a pretty unqualified statement to make.

I just created a small set of doodles on a page. This page will be in the bin by tomorrow and I will have forgotten about it. You don't need a compelling reason to create anything other than "I'm bored, lol".

We don't know the origin of the universe, therefore Goddidit. <- Incorrect assertion

You do not 'know' this in the way you 'know' your name, or the colour of your eyes. It seems reasonable to you, right? And the alternative - no creator - seems unreasonable. This I can live with. Baseless assertions of 'knowledge', not so much.

Right, you place the label 'god' on the explanation that you do not have. This does not constitute an explanation; merely a re-labelling of your (all of our) ignorance.

And all talk of 'knowledge' is dropped. I have no problem with your faith, only with your failure to correctly identify it as such.

Or maybe we would.
You'll forgive me if your feelings aren't especially compelling to me.

Maybe it will, maybe it won't. I don't have much faith in lew189 the Great Prognosticator. As before, 'god' explains nothing, it simply re-labels the question.

There are no natural events (or any other kind of events) without a creator, are there? You seem to be arguing against the fact that, at some point, there was an origin and that the origin was created by some force or entity? Is that right?


I'm sure you're a pretty cool guy, but I think you exist on an entirely different level than whatever entity or force is responsible for the origin. I think you applying your own reasons for doing and not doing things to whatever force is responsible for creating the origin is comical. The whole point is that the force (and its motivations) are beyond you and I choose to believe those motivations are positive. I have faith in that.


That's not exactly my assertion. Anyway, we would need to agree on a definition of "God" to determine if that assertion is false or not. I've given my definition of "God" as the creator of the origin, therefore I am only asserting that whatever force or entity created the origin is what I am choosing to call "God." Pretty sure you're not going to be able to argue that point away.

I know it because I know I exist.


I place the label "God" on the explanation of how the origin was created, that is true. I choose to "re-label" in a positive way that gives me answers and hope about the direction of the universe. I don't understand why anyone would choose otherwise when encountered with an absence of information in regards to an example of this magnitude.


My faith is in the fact that the creator was/is a positive entity/being/force. I have knowledge that there was a creator of the origin based on the fact, again, that we are here and the universe exists. If we're going to start arguing about that, this conversation is going to get really boring, lol.

No, we wouldn't. DUCY?

Seems they are based on your interest in my comments.


I'm not prognosticating anything, I don't think. Your second statement is flatly wrong. My definition of "God" explains many, many things TO ME. If it doesn't for you, that is OK but I don't understand trying to tear down people who have faith in something. It wouldn't be called "faith" if a leap weren't involved...

If you spend your life trying to answer theological questions with science and fact but without any faith whatsoever, you're just going to be disappointed. It seems like many of you already are.

For the first point, I am not sure what it means either. It does not have specific impact on how I live, so I just put my faith into the statement having some meaning and move on. There is no test I can do, there is no action I can take, and it is not the key message anyway.

The second series of claims are also untestable and do not impact how I live my life. They represent events that would be unparalleled in my personal experience, but does that mean they are impossible? And are they critical?

When asked which was the most important commandment, Jesus said;

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
He did not say:

Believe I am the Son or God, or

Believe I walked on water, or

Believe I turned water into wine, or

any of the other things you want to turn into the center of the argument.

Deal with the bold statement. Find the problems and irrationality in that. Look at how Jesus' life reflected this in his focus on the people who were marginalized in his culture; lepers, tax collectors, etc. Then you are talking about Christianity.

But you won't. Because you cannot win that argument. You cannot even draw.

Define "force or entity". It's like you're being ambiguous on purpose, so you can include "big bang" or some other scientific theory into the idea of a "creator".


You've just told me in this paragraph that whatever created the universe is beyond me and my reason. Yet it's not beyond you to ascribe characteristics to it - saying it has motivations and that those are positive?

How am I not allowed to use reason to argue against a creator, but you're allowed to randomly use it to create whatever idea of "god" you want?


So you are being ambiguous in your definition of "God"? If so, why am I even discussing this with you?

No. I'm not. I'm an ***hole. Good day.

Well, I'd take issue with the idea of there being a God in the first place.

But aside from that, no I do not have any issue with it. You seem to be brushing aside all the grandiose supernatural claims that form a large part of Christianity. I have no problem with this, but unfortunately it's nowhere near representative of mainstream Christianity.

Of course it does not. Your thinking is flawed and depending on how adamant you are or if you even care to know why, I'm not sure how much time I want to put into explaining why. I'll just suggest that you read up on the anthropic principle. The fact we exist just means that we exist. It says nothing about gods or miracles.


Okay, so this is what you think. However, it is an unsubstantiated claim. When you have some evidence you can show to an objective observer, let me know. Otherwise, you are arguing from a point of personal incredulity. In other words, you can't think of any other way we could exist, so you plug in an answer that satisfies you. That's fine, as long as you don't expect an objective observer to take you seriously.



Another unsubstantiated claim. Provide a reason why we couldn't be having this conversation without god. Why is god necessary for us to talk about this? Otherwise, it's just an assertion.

Again, you are asserting what you feel. Fine. But again, don't expect others to take your feelings seriously if you can't back them up with objective evidence.

First, you'll need to explain the origin of god and you might be able to get me to take you seriously. Otherwise, you're just making assertions.

That's not totally true. If you go to a Catholic service 90% of what you hear discussed in sermons and even in the choice of Gospel readings in general is related to the bolded portion.

But I will concede that your point has some merit. There are plenty of Christians who focus on the points you are trying to highlight.

You know what your name is because that is what people call you. You know what colour your eyes are because it makes no sense to assume that every mirror and camera in the world is malfunctioning with sole respect to your eyes. You 'know' there is a creator because the idea makes sense to you - a different kind of 'knowledge'.

I don't 'choose' to do anything in this regard - and I doubt that you do either. I have no intuitive 'sense' that a creator is necessary, nor that one is not necessary. I don't even know what such a 'sense' would look/feel like. All I can say is that I don't know.

As for the bolded part, you either misunderstand or are being disingenuous. You do not understand the origin of the universe (no-one does). My ignorance of the universe's origin does not provoke me to invent an explanation - seemingly yours does. That you find the explanation you invent satisfying neither renders your explanation valid nor allows you to properly term it 'knowledge' in the name/eye colour sense discussed above. It is a placeholder for your ignorance - it provides 'explanation' in the same way that thunder-gods 'explained' thunder to cavemen - it is a label that provides relief from the question. Don't take offence at the caveman analogy, BTW - I'm just a caveman who says 'I don't know', instead of 'It must have been the thunder-gods'.

If that conversation seems boring to you, then you really are in the wrong place. In any case, your statement reduces to 'I have knowledge that there was a creator of the origin based on the fact that there was an origin'. That is a fundamentally unpersuasive argument, and I doubt very much that it is even the actual thought process that led you to conclude that there must have been a creator.
The assertion that we necessarily would not exist had there been no creator is unjustified. I'm sure that you 'CY', but if you insist on pretending otherwise, the conversation really will be boring.

No. Perhaps you should do for 'compelling' what it appears you did for 'prognostication'.

I am not tring to 'tear you down'. I am simply pointing out that what you are calling 'knowledge' is not actually knowledge. Or rather, the criteria by which you came to call it 'knowledge' would not compel you to call other things 'knowledge'. I object to the special privileging of a creator's existence.

The origin of the universe is not a solely theological question.

From my own experience in a Christian upbringing, I'd say the points I'm highlighting are completely key parts of the religion.

Of course, the "main focus" if you will, is how to live your life more like Jesus. But to say the idea of him being the Son of God or being resurrected is unimportant is kinda dubious imo. If you remove those aspects, Christianity ceases to be a religion, and becomes "hey, look at this cool role model for kids called Jesus!"

What was the nature of your Christian upbringing, ie. denomination, etc?

The reason you follow Jesus has to be more then the message of love and hope Jesus preached as more people then just Jesus have preached it.

Why is studying (science) Gods (if there is one) creation a bad way to understand God and his creation? You would think studying his creation would be the best way to gain incite into him and it.

Presbyterian.

I had some Catholic neighbours though, and they took the Bible completely literally. They were creationists. Small sample size, but I'd say the Catholics believe in teh Jebus too.

You seem a smart cookie Damaci, but did you just betray a strong religious upbringing which you rejected once you came of age?

Mainly though, I vehemently disagree with what you have said, which does not account for those who are strong and who never "chose" to believe anything, conversely they were left with no choice but to believe after experiencing something leftfield they can only attribute to spiritual causes.

Your point may apply to some, but not to all theists.

Shank - to be fair, i don't think england deserve to qualify, given the staggering level of their under-performance, and even if we did, who are we gonna be beating outside of the group stages, when we can't even put a single goal past a team ranked 30th of 32??

come wednesday i'm happy picking another squad to back, the best thing the current england lot can do is grow too old for international football and move aside for a new crop who might actually perform at an international level.