| Philosophers Corner. |
This is a thread for polite, reasonable discussion of philosophy and theology. Please be respectful of other peoples thoughts and opinions.
Naturally the metaphysical and supernatural will be discussed here seriously and in depth, if such ideas are repugnant to you I advise you to enjoy the rest of the forum, or stay a while and listen, you might hear something you like. Finally, as this is such a sensitive topic, I feel the need to again remind everyone to comport themselves in a respectful manner, as I am sure that if this starts a religious flame war it will be very bad for all involved, especially me. With all of that out of the way, lets begin pondering the greatest questions of the universe!
"Liberty is the Gate and the Key to Prosperity"
My threads: Philosophers Corner The Ice-creamist Movement for Peaceful Unification of Desserts
I have a question? Is atheism right or wrong? Because Im christian but I don't see that wrong, since Im religion and gay/lesbian tolerant.
Deputy Regional Minister of the Planning and Development Agency(March 8-May 19, 2014)
Local Council Member(April 24-August 11) Court Justice of TSP(August 15-December 7)
Well, so that we're clear, I'm not a prophet, or a genius or a visionary or even someone who's majored in this, I'm just a man with a mind, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
But here is what I believe; I am a theist, I believe there is a God, who created the universe and has an active interest in it. I am a practicing Christian Baptist, though I find that my opinions do not always align with this. I, personally, think that atheism is a product of a lack of faith. If you want a factual, "this is true/this is false" answer, well theologians and philosophers have been pondering whether there are gods and spirits since at least the ancient Greeks, and probably longer. I cant say if Atheism's right or wrong, but I can say that it conflicts with my beliefs. Furthermore, some things that atheists have done have been horrible, and historically oppressive regimes tend to abolish religion, or religious freedom. Of course religious people have done horrible things also, so that could just be chalked up to human nature. Now onto the much more controversial topic of how LGBT interacts with Christianity. Now from a strict interpretation of the Bible, every man woman and child is sinful and therefore unworthy of entering heaven and being with God, as we are all descended from Adam and Eve and their original sin of disobeying God, and eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Flash forward 4,000ish years and we get to the birth of Jesus, who lived a perfect life and died in payment for our sins, then was resurrected and ascended to heaven. So in my opinion, whether or not being gay is a sin is irrelevant, as everyone is a sinner from birth anyway, and the only way any human is getting into heaven is through the power of Jesus Christ. Something Jesus was very firm on was love (not relationship type of love, sadly that conflation is an artifact of English, but a self sacrificing type of love.), throughout the Bible he interacts in a kind and loving manner with even the worst of society and people he would have had particular reason to hate, prostitutes, the legionaries who came to take him away, and (worst of all) tax collectors. I think, that as Christians, our main goal should not be to put down any of our fellow humans, but instead to show them the love of Jesus Christ, not the hate that some members of our religion have sadly been perpetuating. I hope that this helps you, and perhaps the best advice I can give is, go to a church, talk to a pastor, and read your bible.
"Liberty is the Gate and the Key to Prosperity"
My threads: Philosophers Corner The Ice-creamist Movement for Peaceful Unification of Desserts
I'd like to leave a few comments about this topic
I'm a strong atheist, and so far time has only increased my stance. I'm not one of the full anti-religious atheists, I'm open to evidence that disproves my beliefs. But let's avoid the messy topic of whether a god exists, or which one does exist, it's an aggressive topic and I don't want to go through it. I've based my opinion off years of studies and reasoning which have revealed many holes in Christian belief and contradictions with established fact that leave me unable to interpret the Christian belief as fact. The problem is "righteousness" is entirely objective. While I hate to invoke Godwin's law this quickly, even Hitler believed himself right. So asking if its right would become whether you believe it's right, making the question redundant.
I can definitely respect your opinion, which is why I took such pains to sidestep answering whether it is right or not because, after all in the absence of evidence it is subjective.
"Liberty is the Gate and the Key to Prosperity"
My threads: Philosophers Corner The Ice-creamist Movement for Peaceful Unification of Desserts
Unless you're Anselm or Aquinas.
The Third Imperium
Journalist, South Pacific Independent News Network (SPINN) Provost, Magisterium Sergeant, East Pacific Sovereign Army Journalist, East Pacific News Service Foreign Affairs Minister, The West Pacific
Hmm... I guess Faragento is right on that... Let's not talk about religion. But I believe in the big bang theory. Its solid. Just as the evolution theory. But a thing Im sure is someone exists. Someone must have put that little molecule because how a molecule can appaer out of NOTHING and then explode? But let's NOT talk about religion right now.
Deputy Regional Minister of the Planning and Development Agency(March 8-May 19, 2014)
Local Council Member(April 24-August 11) Court Justice of TSP(August 15-December 7)
The big bang theory is very good explanation for the "How" of the early universe, especially with new information about Inflation. Of course this isn't the Astrophysicists Corner (though they're perfectly welcome to enlighten us further on all the juicy, sciency details), so for our purposes lets think about the "Why" of the creation of the universe. Now before the big bang theory, there were two general ideas about how the universe came to be in its current state;
1) The universe is finite and was created by an eternal God / Yahweh / Allah / Brahman / gods / spirits / flying spaghetti monster / multidimensional alien / what have you. 2) The universe is infinite and eternal, having always existed and will always exist, and requires no supernatural power to create it. Naturally the first idea is repugnant for scientists to accept, and was ridiculed for breaking the law of conservation of mass. The first theories answer for this is something along the lines of "dude, supernatural, as in does not obey the laws of nature yo!". Scientists refuse to accept this theory because it proposes something not scientifically observed, and when we get right down to it science is the art of detection and observation. Remember that, it becomes important later. After the big bang theory the second idea (infinite universe) is considered defunct, and now the "scientific" reason for the universe existing is... 3) The universe is finite and was created by a natural process. I. E. the universe happened because its natural that universes happen. Well this presents a problem. Namely the conservation of mass (ah pesky conservation of mass, it would make everything simpler if it just didn't exist, unfortunately, that's not an option. Yet.), which states that matter can neither be created or destroyed (the same reason that idea number one was ridiculed. Now there's some bittersweet Irony.). The modern working theory now is that during the very earliest parts of the big bang the laws of the universe were not yet set, and therefore conservation of mass did not even exist, which allowed for matter to be created, with basically no cause. Now the real question that these theories are asking can be put into the question "what caused the big bang?". It is here that our science, mighty though it is, finds its limit, where there can never be a telescope long enough, a sensor sensitive enough or a spaceship close enough to tell us what was before the universe. So now we get into the real philosophy, the purely mental task of thinking about what could create the universe. Astute readers will notice that the primary divergence point between the first and third theory is what caused the universe. For our purposes we're going to call the reason for the big bang, the Creation Cause (or CC because typing is hard and I'm getting distrac- ooh shiny...) Theory 1) The CC is supernatural and sentient, meaning that it can decide to do something its never done before, and is self aware enough that it does not have to do it again. Theory 3) The CC is a natural event, either recurring regularly, like, lets say monsoon season. The problem with theory 3 is that if it recurs naturally, and is outside the universe then it should repeat ad infinitum, creating universe eternally, which means both into the past and the future. This would mean that our universe should have an infinite number of older sibling universes. Now the reason that scientists reject theory one is because it proposes an undetectable entity created the universe, and science is all about detecting. So the choice we are left with is an infinite number of undetectable universes, or a finite number of supernatural entities who can create a universe once and stop. Occam's razor states that when given two options the most succinct one is probably true. I see a single God creator as a more succinct option then an infinite undetectable universe spewing natural phenomenon. Therefore I propose that it is more rational to believe in a creator entity then it is to believe that the universe occurred naturally. And with all of that said, if anyone cares enough about my ramblings to form a rational rebuttal, I invite you to do so, as long as you maintain the level of civility and politeness as we have thus far. P. S. GE, thanks for taking the time to comment  Aquinas and Anselm were great men and incredibly skilled at Apologetics, however their proofs, and my proof above are very subjective in my opinion, and I am trying to avoid having a "I say there's a God!" "Well I say there isn't!" *erupts into flame war* argument.
"Liberty is the Gate and the Key to Prosperity"
My threads: Philosophers Corner The Ice-creamist Movement for Peaceful Unification of Desserts
(04-10-2014, 07:45 PM)The Union of Free Individuals Wrote: 1) The universe is finite and was created by an eternal God / Yahweh / Allah / Brahman / gods / spirits / flying spaghetti monster / multidimensional alien / what have you. One questions I can't find an answer to is why? Why did he create us? I mean I partially realize that God's will is unknowable, but there seems to be absolutely no reason for creating us.
I think any answer anyone would be able to give would be very anthropomorphic, not that those answers would be wrong, but they're probably not right. Who knows?
The Third Imperium
Journalist, South Pacific Independent News Network (SPINN) Provost, Magisterium Sergeant, East Pacific Sovereign Army Journalist, East Pacific News Service Foreign Affairs Minister, The West Pacific |
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