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#21
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Evidence for the existence of God
On Monday, September 12, 2016 at 8:21:11 PM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrote:
On Monday, September 12, 2016 at 1:25:06 PM UTC-6, Gary Harnagel wrote: I'm afraid I've exposed you to evidence for which you will be held accountable one day. If God is just, given the quality of the evidence you have supplied so far, it would not make sense to hold him "accountable" to a great extent. This sort of thing, instead, is what suggests that organized religion is a scheme to use emotional manipulation to control people's minds. John Savard It makes good money without a whole lot of backbreaking labor. A good used car salesman can do the job with ease. Have you heard about the TV preacher that convinced his flock that he needed a new jet aircraft to "spread the gospel"? And people forked over donations by the bucketful. Turns out he used the aircraft to take his family on vacation to exotic places. And gets a tax break on top of that because, you know, church. |
#22
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Evidence for the existence of God
On Monday, September 12, 2016 at 8:47:38 PM UTC-5, Gary Harnagel wrote:
On Monday, September 12, 2016 at 3:06:43 PM UTC-6, Razzmatazz wrote: On Monday, September 12, 2016 at 2:46:02 PM UTC-5, Gary Harnagel wrote: I may be wrong, but I think these two experiences are indeed connected and were designed by Providence (as George Washington would say) for those whose faith has been eroded by the caustic winds of doubt. Gary Personally I doubt it but YMMV. To me it has the whiff of idolatry or the worship of graven images. It may even have a bit of the "hey I can make money off this" feel to it. Well, Akiane has a website with dozens of her paintings for sale :-) Nevertheless it may also provide comfort to those who wish it to be so. Mostly, I think, it just bolsters their faith a bit. The thing is, if you stick to words, your philosophy has real substance. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words :-) Lemme ask you, do you find anything in these 7 principles to be objectionable? 1st Principle: The inherent worth and dignity of every person; Nope. 2nd Principle: Justice, equity and compassion in human relations; Nope 3rd Principle: Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth; Nope. 4th Principle: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning; Nope. 5th Principle: The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process in society; Not in the present world. Did you ever read anything about "macrolife" by Dandridge Cole? 6th Principle: The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; It's a good goal but there are a lot of disrupters. 7th Principle: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. Do you mean "Gaia"? If you are really interested in what constitutes a free nation run on Christian principles, consider this essay by Bill Moyers, who I consider to be a moral voice of reason, a true Christian in the classic sense: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1761...meri ca/#more Let me know where you think Trump stands, what principles he espouses (besides making oodles of money for himself). I think Pence, or even Kaine, would be much better presidents than the ones running for the office. Kaine I would take in a heartbeat. Pence scares the **** out of me, even more than the Donald. With Pence we would have a theocracy, and a lot of Christians would eventually be very very sorry. |
#23
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Evidence for the existence of God
On Monday, September 12, 2016 at 8:47:38 PM UTC-5, Gary Harnagel wrote:
6th Principle: The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; It's a good goal but there are a lot of disrupters. Try not to be a disrupter and support those who work for world peace. 7th Principle: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. Do you mean "Gaia"? No, I don't believe in Gaia. I'm a realist and scientist, don't believe in rocks having a soul. However, I believe that living things are interconnected and that species that are on the earth have a right to exists, even though we think they're just dumb animals and vegetation. Disrupt enough and the foodchain even for humans can come tumbling down. |
#24
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Evidence for the existence of God
On Monday, September 12, 2016 at 8:17:18 PM UTC-6, Razzmatazz wrote:
On Monday, September 12, 2016 at 8:47:38 PM UTC-5, Gary Harnagel wrote: I think Pence, or even Kaine, would be much better presidents than the ones running for the office. Kaine I would take in a heartbeat. Pence scares the **** out of me, even more than the Donald. With Pence we would have a theocracy, and a lot of Christians would eventually be very very sorry. Oh, come now! Did JFK produce a theocracy? There was much concern that the Pope would rule through him (sorta like the Ayatollah actually does today in Iran). Are you prejudiced against Catholics? :-) 6th Principle: The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; It's a good goal but there are a lot of disrupters. Try not to be a disrupter and support those who work for world peace. I was referring to ISIS, Iran, China, Russia, North Korea, atheists, black lives matter ... in that order. 7th Principle: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. Do you mean "Gaia"? No, I don't believe in Gaia. I'm a realist and scientist, don't believe in rocks having a soul. However, I believe that living things are interconnected and that species that are on the earth have a right to exists, even though we think they're just dumb animals and vegetation. Disrupt enough and the foodchain even for humans can come tumbling down. Yes, we have many balls in the air. Let's hope we don't drop any. |
#25
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Evidence for the existence of God
On Mon, 12 Sep 2016 20:50:24 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote: Kaine I would take in a heartbeat. Pence scares the **** out of me, even more than the Donald. With Pence we would have a theocracy, and a lot of Christians would eventually be very very sorry. Oh, come now! Did JFK produce a theocracy? JFK understood deeply the secular nature of our country. There is nothing to suggest that is the case with Pence, who has admitted to allowing his religion to guide his actions. |
#26
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Evidence for the existence of God
On Tuesday, 13 September 2016 06:51:06 UTC+2, Chris L Peterson wrote:.
JFK understood deeply the secular nature of our country. There is nothing to suggest that is the case with Pence, who has admitted to allowing his religion to guide his actions. Many humans seem to have a vacuum which [they feel] needs to be filled. Some choose religion. Most have it thrust upon them out of family habit or bullying by religious hypocrites. Others choose sport, crime, TV soaps, drugs, making money, hobbies, reading, shopping, sex, computer games, knitting, audio, collecting, meditation, gardening, alcohol, etc. Just don't ask me to believe that computer games are real or have any significance. I suppose serial knitting has some local value provided the knitter has good taste and skill. The rest are just time wasters to take our minds off the cliff at the end of the line. How we fill our precious, allotted days is entirely our own business. Forcing us to waste time on your "life hobbies" is grossly unfair. The mere idea that some multi-denominational "heaven" exists is so utterly terrifying that I would seek _any_ other alternative. Wasting yet more time with smug, boring, drooling, hypercritical hypocrites, who can name chapter and verse but nothing else, would instantly drive me to genocide. Or some other form of constructive insanity. Please, please, god, hear my prayer: Make me an ape, or a bacterium first, before offering me the eternal damnation of any sickly-sweet heaven. Sharing heaven with millions of cheerful, name-dropping, religious bigots actually makes hell sound like some sort of exclusive, extended, luxury, tropical island holiday. Somewhere with guaranteed sunshine but an indefinite shortage of sun block! In fact it sound very much like a future Earth. I'll just stand in the shade, thanks. Keep on prayin'... you know it makes [absolutely no] sense [at all.] |
#27
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Evidence for the existence of God
On Monday, September 12, 2016 at 12:49:38 PM UTC-4, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Mon, 12 Sep 2016 09:40:43 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc wrote: On Monday, September 12, 2016 at 10:10:05 AM UTC-6, Chris L Peterson wrote: I don't see anything here that even remotely rises to the level of objective, or even reasonable evidence for the existence of a god. A girl can paint? A boy thinks he went to heaven? Two people have a similar idea what Jesus looked like? If it happens that a number of similar anecdotes come up - and in the majority of those anecdotes, Jesus looks the same, and His appearance is not simply modeled on a commonly-known portrait - that would indeed be objective evidence, even if not ironclad. On the other hand, if there are many similar anecdotes, and in two of them, Jesus looks the same, yes, that isn't evidence. Of course in this case we have only one painting, which looks very much like a conventional representation of Jesus, and everything else is people making claims without evidence. This is hearsay of the lowest quality at this point. The dude in the painting sure looks like Jesus to me. |
#28
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Evidence for the existence of God
On Monday, September 12, 2016 at 6:32:36 PM UTC-4, roland c. wrote:
On Monday, September 12, 2016 at 2:46:02 PM UTC-5, Gary Harnagel wrote: On Monday, September 12, 2016 at 10:46:06 AM UTC-6, Razzmatazz wrote: On Monday, September 12, 2016 at 10:29:02 AM UTC-5, Gary Harnagel wrote: https://art-soulworks.com/pages/prin...peace-painting That's a stunning portrait for an 8 year old to have painted. very talented youngster indeed. For me, images of Jesus have no meaning whatsoever. However, his words are priceless gifts. Razzy I may be wrong, but I think these two experiences are indeed connected and were designed by Providence (as George Washington would say) for those whose faith has been eroded by the caustic winds of doubt. If you are really interested in what constitutes a free nation run on Christian principles, consider this essay by Bill Moyers, who I consider to be a moral voice of reason, a true Christian in the classic sense: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1761...meri ca/#more Let me know where you think Trump stands, what principles he espouses (besides making oodles of money for himself). roland c. Trump once wrote that it isn't the -money- than motivates him, it's the -process- whereby he makes the money that motivates him. It's the journey, not the destination. |
#29
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Evidence for the existence of God
On 13/09/2016 02:21, Quadibloc wrote:
On Monday, September 12, 2016 at 1:25:06 PM UTC-6, Gary Harnagel wrote: I'm afraid I've exposed you to evidence for which you will be held accountable one day. If God is just, given the quality of the evidence you have supplied so far, it would not make sense to hold him "accountable" to a great extent. The minimalist mathematical religion has just two axioms which it shares with all proselytising "our God is better than yours" religions. Axiom 1: All people not believing in The One True Religion(TM) will burn for eternity in hellfire. Axiom 2: It is the duty of all true believers in The One True Religion to minimise suffering. They find it very easy to get from there to applying any finite amount of torture in this world to convert the misguided souls who do not believe in TOTR. The Spanish inquisition were particularly good at it and had invented a version waterboarding (toca) long before the CIA. ISTR It appeared in the SciAm Mathematical Games column in the 1980's. Even within the same nominal faith Catholics and Protestant Christians and Sunni and Shia Moslems have been at each others throats through history since they fractured on their interpretation of sacred scripts. Bhuddists are somewhat more laid back as are polytheists that tended to add any new deities they encountered to their existing Pantheon. This sort of thing, instead, is what suggests that organized religion is a scheme to use emotional manipulation to control people's minds. John Savard Organised religion is a jam tomorrow promise for the proletariat that supported the Divine Right of Kings in return for kick-backs. Not all monarchs played ball. Henry VIII was the original lead theif off church and monestary roofs (though he prefered their silverware). Regards, Martin Brown |
#30
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Evidence for the existence of God
On Monday, September 12, 2016 at 10:51:06 PM UTC-6, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Mon, 12 Sep 2016 20:50:24 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel wrote: Kaine I would take in a heartbeat. Pence scares the **** out of me, even more than the Donald. With Pence we would have a theocracy, and a lot of Christians would eventually be very very sorry. Oh, come now! Did JFK produce a theocracy? JFK understood deeply the secular nature of our country. Nevertheless, there was much concern about JFK at the time, and his understanding as not a consideration in voters minds. There is nothing to suggest that is the case with Pence, who has admitted to allowing his religion to guide his actions. Your delusion about religion is clouding your judgment. |
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