Is there a god/Allah/Supreme being?

Is there a god/Allah/Supreme being?

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Discussion

CAR 7

43 posts

249 months

Saturday 10th July 2004
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ScoobyZoom said:

So unless you can bring a valid point to the thread - dont even bring yourself.


My sentiments exactly.

Re the thread there are believers and non believers simple as that. None of them can prove there IS or IS NOT a God.
I have gone back through the thread as you suggested.
Ok you have your reasons for not believing in God and that's fine, I can understand that.
But i wouldn't go as far as to say you are talking "bollox". If i didn't agree with you then i would make a "valid point" as so rightly said in your last post.

Just like to say have a good weekend, i'm sure we both have better things to do than squabble over the www with someone we have never met.

PEACE

C7

MOD500

2,686 posts

249 months

Sunday 11th July 2004
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V6GTO said:
This is going to be my last post on this subject as I feel that no more good will come of it, it's getting a little too heated in places and that is a bad thing.

MOD500:- I'm sorry that you thought I spoke condesendingly to you, that was not my intention and I unreservedly appologise for any offence given.

DeadLock:- Your post (the long one) was, as MOD500 said, very well rounded and a pleasure to read.

All:- My opinion follows, so if you're not interested in it turn off now.

I feel that the case for a Supreme being has niether been proved or disproved, I still have an open mind on that one.

The case for the church's view of a kind and wonderful being is shot to pieces.

While churches (irespective of which religion they follow), on the whole are a force for good in the world, they are forever tainted by thier members killing in the name of God(there is hardly one religion that can refute they have spilled blood at one time or another) Hypocrycy is rife, and the bible, as a set of facts, does not hold water.

I'm not a bad person, I belive that everyone has the right to believe what he will, and should be free from persicution for his beliefs unless it causes harm to others.

Martin.


No problem Martin

Is the Noble is still coming on Tuesday?

Thanks

MOD.

spandexx

944 posts

275 months

Sunday 11th July 2004
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What an incredible thread. You are all nit picking and arguing the semantics of a subject without stepping outside the issue and looking at it from the aspect of the human condition.
It is very easy to get drawn into the arguments and post rebuttals to individual comments, facts etc, but no one has really stepped back and taken a look at the subject from a distance.
There are several very important questions that need to be raised, none of which have anything to do with any particular religion, faith, deity etc.
Religion and faith and the resultant paraphernalia, including visions of the afterlife, concepts of the Supreme Being and the legends involved with these are all creations of man. I think no person can deny that religion was not and is not apparent in any other member of the animal kingdom? If this phenomenon is the sole reserve of the human condition then we then need to ask when was the first religious legend told, or the first religious concept born? I think you will find that the first instance will have come along soon after we first learnt to communicate in more than grunts and clicks. The mere fact the so many communicative human cultures from as early as man started to record his history created their own version of religion without even knowing that other cultures exist points the finger firmly toward the fact that religion and all related aspects is a human cultural inevitability caused by some common aspects held within our most primitive but communicative human mind.
The ability to communicate our thoughts to others is a wonderful thing that only humans can do to any great extent and the ability to make up stories with believable narrative is also an incredibly advanced human ability.
Without meaning to patronise I think it is fair to say that all religious happenings have been communicated by humans. We can therefore conclude that all religious creations were created by man’s ability to make up stories and communicate these to fellow man, store this information, manipulate this information and pass this information on. I am not saying these were simple lies, they were useful tools, giving moral groundings, telling of aspirational conditions, warnings of wrongdoings, fears, hopes and creating narative experiences and situations that are always useful for social furtherment – a kind of ancient science if you will – but far more effective as it also encompassed belief.
I think it is incredible that many cannot step out of the raging inferno that is the religious debate and take a truly logical, scientific look at the common human trait that is belief.
Belief is there to satisfy personal psychological desires, probably a hang over from when we were a little more primordial. We all know men still have primitive desires to women based on their looks and that women have natural mothering instincts to their offspring; these are our primeval instincts, unchanged for millennia, but they are not our only ones.
There is the pack instinct, the leadership instinct and the strong instinct to be lead. The human condition cries out for comfort, a guiding hand and reassurance.
As was posted before religion was then seen as a tool to exploit ‘donations’ from scared, hopeful followers and man’s intrinsic desire of greed took over.
Unfortunately man also hates difference and as world travel exposed other cultures it also exposed other religions and we all know what happened next. Unfortunately it is still happening now.
What also happened, in parallel with religious growth, was the development of the understanding of the world around us; science. I can't see why people deny science as a viable concept in this day and age. This just displays a lack of understanding as to what science is; basically using their ignorance of scientific method as a defence. They see it as another faction in the great world religions but, again, can’t step out of the box and look at science and ask themselves the question what exactly is it?
Science and its results are all around us; you perform scientific experiments every day without knowing it and base many of your daily choices on what you have learnt and remembered based on these past scientific experiments without even being aware that you are doing it. Putting fuel in your car, going to Tesco, taking a crap - it is all science; denying the importance of science is denying the importance and relevance of all things.
With the two running parallel in development there was bound to be crossovers and fighting between the factions. As religion became more detailed, elaborate and complex then it was bound to be used to explain the unknown in the world. Science has approached these problems from the other side; rather than starting with an answer and trying to work backwards (always gong to fail) it asks the difficult questions and attempts to find the answers using past experience, tests and evidence that it can prove and repeat.
Below is a perfect example:
308Gt4 I am sorry if what I say in the following paragraph offends you or anyone else in the forum but I feel it must be said: I think you are taking away from your wife the incredible achievement that she has made, it may seem miraculous to you but the human body is still a poorly understood and highly complex thing. What some people will survive many others may not. Unfortunately you have not been a witness to a Godly act; instead you have bore witness to the very core of our biological scientific understanding; what you have seen is evolution in action within you wife; her mutated internal strengths, imposed by her DNA and her family lineage, made her out survive those seemingly stronger around her. The religious bandwagon you have jumped on is ignoring millions of years of evidence pointing to this one constant; strength and advantage out survive the weak and disadvantaged and evolution marches ahead. It does not stop with the human race; your wife is living proof that it continues.
I am sure you are also being slightly insulting to all the good folk of the hospital that cared for you sick wife and the good work they put in to care for her – also using the principals of science that we have learnt ever since the first monkey grunted directions to the nearest good berry bush - to care for her the best they could.
I also think it naïve to think that in times of desperation you think that you alone would be the only person to try a sneaky prayer on her behalf; in times of high distress and powerful human emotion, where logic is put on a back seat, of course you are going to fall back on your simple instincts and look for reassurance and guidance when it is not there; i.e. you are going to pray, especially living in the society we do and being subjected to the religious influences we all do each day – in fact it has become such an ingrained part of our vocabulary that I think a person can rarely go through the day without making reference to Christian faith. But to say that that one prayer you made to God was the sole reason for your wife’s recovery is highly selfish, ignorant and insulting to many.



>> Edited by spandexx on Sunday 11th July 13:26

andy mac

Original Poster:

73,668 posts

254 months

Sunday 11th July 2004
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Yeah... what he said..

spandexx

944 posts

275 months

Sunday 11th July 2004
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DeaDLocK your post was very eloquent, provocative and seemingly conclusively written, but - essentially - it said nothing.
Your very first sentence asks the classic impossible question posed by all believers. Hardly grounding for a respectable argument.
You then make claim after claim with no supporting evidence with the presumption that science has hit a brick wall of understanding and we will not learn anything more, make any more discoveries or be able to present fresh evidence based on the mysteries of the world to support what we say.
This theme is presented in your argument in point 1. Where is your evidence to prove that science has “…no conventional explanation as to how it happened…”? I seem to remember a documentary on Channel 4 proving this very thing only a few months back.
Then the basic thrust of your argument in points 2. and (b) is; "I know of someone that is well respected (mostly unnamed), they believe in this; therefore God exists," and your argument in (a) is essentially; "I have profound moments of self delusion, therefore God exists."
You then talk in your last three paragraphs as if the spiritual world is a scientifically accepted concept and that because you have been lead to believe in so called spiritual experiences then science can say nothing more on the subject.
I am afraid you have very expressively written the literary equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and going “Not listening; lalalalalalalalalala…”


>> Edited by spandexx on Sunday 11th July 14:38

Thom

1,716 posts

246 months

Sunday 11th July 2004
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spandexx said:
the human body is still a poorly understood and highly complex thing. What some people will survive many others may not [...] instead you have bore witness to the very core of our biological scientific understanding [...] But to say that that one prayer you made to God was the sole reason for your wife’s recovery is highly selfish, ignorant and insulting to many.

While true that the human body is still far from being well understood, I'm not sure people are willing to give doctors a break when they are witnessing their other half passing away. That she/he survives despite doctor's expectations only encourages scepticism towards "truths and certainties" put forward by Science.

By the way, being a non believer doesn't necessarily mean taking everything Science reckons for granted, IMHO.

>> Edited by Thom on Sunday 11th July 15:28

spandexx

944 posts

275 months

Sunday 11th July 2004
quotequote all
If science knew everything about the human body and knew it to a certainty then why are we not all slim, healthy, long lived pillars of disease free perfection? We are not because the human body is governed by so many different and conflicting variables. Science does not pretend to know what they all are or the effects of them but it can help these variables be influenced to try and get the results we want by the standard of care we can now offer, that standard and the basis of that standard is through learning and knowledge (i.e. science), not prayer. Put it this way I doubt 308Gt4s wife would have survived if she was being cared for in a church with prayer alone.
People die, people get ill and people get better - sometimes beyond all reason and hope. It does not mean they were touched by the hand of God; it means we have more to understand and these extreme situations need to be studied and learned from.
If you want a flip side of that coin then picture me back when I was 11 in a seemingly normal RE lesson at school. I was sat next to my friend, a healthy boy who's dad happened to also be the RE teacher and was stood in front of us, droning on about religion.
Out of the blue Robert collapsed and was rushed to hospital were he was pronounced dead on arrival - in front of his father and his friends in an RE lesson he had died from a brain haemorrhage for no good reason. Shitty (and ironic) things happen to good people.


>> Edited by spandexx on Sunday 11th July 17:29

Thom

1,716 posts

246 months

Sunday 11th July 2004
quotequote all
I get your drift but my point is just that when your wife seemingly passes away while no doctor seems to be able to do anything anymore, you don't give a rat's a*se who should be thanked if she survives, wether it's God, Science or the neighbours' cat.
I'd rather call this Chance and not seek for "responsibilising" anything or anybody for the happy turn out.

I do not find 308GT4 to be insulting, ignorant or selfish at all. For living in a Christan-based culture he had a fairly normal "last resort" reaction since all medical science had been previously used with no effect.

>> Edited by Thom on Sunday 11th July 15:56

spandexx

944 posts

275 months

Sunday 11th July 2004
quotequote all
Good point well made; I fully agree, but I said that it was him basing the recovery entirely on that one prayer that was insulting (to the good doctors that cared for her), ignorant (to the other possibilities of recovery - such as his wife's own strength) and selfish (because he ignores all other possibilities by making this statement).

>> Edited by spandexx on Sunday 11th July 16:01

Pigeon

18,535 posts

245 months

Sunday 11th July 2004
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Science and religion are orthogonal.

cheesesliceking

1,571 posts

239 months

Sunday 11th July 2004
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bloody hell 19 pages & still going.. what a load of shite

-DeaDLocK-

3,367 posts

250 months

Sunday 11th July 2004
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spandexx said:
DeaDLocK your post was very eloquent, provocative and seemingly conclusively written, but - essentially - it said nothing...
Lol!

I thought this thread was laid to rest and buried. I won't say much here - hoping to contribute to its demise.

Yep - you caught me. I'm full of bull - but I'm full of the same regurgitated bull used as ammo in this centuries-old debate.

My basic point was that nothing is conclusive (that is the only thing I wished to be "conclusive" about), and that we all decide whether or not to "believe" (if it matters to you at all) based on the things we know and the things we've experienced.

I believe I did not experience "self delusion" (which is rather offensive, even though it may be your deserved opinion), as you so eloquently put it, and I did not name names because these are people whom I know that you don't. Ok, some you may know (of), like Francis Schaeffer and Michael Faraday, but the people with the most impact on me are dear friends who I respect as successful and rational people. You wouldn't know them.

I did not shoot down the inability of science to discover things. I believe science is merely the mechanism in which a supreme being functions, and hence there is a logic to it all and we will discover everything in due course. But until we do, we have to (or may want to) make decisions and choices in the absence of those discoveries, and I choose, based on all I know and experienced, to believe. It's as simple as that AFAIC.

You're right - I prove nothing in my post. Heh, big deal. As I said, if we could prove anything we wouldn't be talking about it. We're just discussing it, and that was my contribution, regardless of how useless you felt it may be.

Anyway, I think at the end of the day we agree to disagree, and that's it.

D

Sorry, too long again. :P

ultimasimon

9,641 posts

257 months

Sunday 11th July 2004
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All 19 pages and not one person has mentioned the Abyllah Narcrytia.

For thousands of generations, and with conclusive proof from the Natural History Museum, and information correlating from the stars above us, as verified recently by the Sky at Night man himself - historians have proved that Abyllah's are the true desendents of God.

Not Adam, Eve, or any stage of monkey related phenomenom is even close to this the original theory, and it has never been the centre of any investigation. This is because those that know, know that it is the supreme maker and the one that was ultimately and utterly responsible for our creation.

2500 years of history has still proven the case and no amount of biblical journalism has ever dis-proved its existence.

Therefore I am correct and you lot are wrong. All of you, sadly.

Go do the research - the answers speak for themselves, yet everyone is so wrapped up in their heated discussions that they have completely missed the only true religion, and thus the true maker.

And I thought it was going to be a sensible debate?

You lot are no better than 'thieves in the temple' or 'judas' to his countryman - to paraphrase.

You all know where the answer lies as time and time again the answers are right infront of you, day in day out.

Shame on you all you have placed a great shame on our every existence.

spandexx

944 posts

275 months

Sunday 11th July 2004
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-DeaDLocK- - why kill the thread?

cheesesliceking - why?

ultimasimon - what?

looks like i have killed another religion thread

bugger



>> Edited by spandexx on Sunday 11th July 22:15

deeen

6,079 posts

244 months

Sunday 11th July 2004
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19 PAGES ???


Answer : No, of course not, dont be silly

ScoobyZoom

6,578 posts

247 months

Sunday 11th July 2004
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www.1anunnaki.com

film based on a rather interesting theory...

madmike

2,372 posts

265 months

Monday 12th July 2004
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I never got in on this one...showed up too late to the dance I suppose.

I do not believe in any god or supernatural force. All that is can be explained in scientific terms. We haven't discovered all those truths yet, but that doesn't mean a scientific answer does not exist.

However, if 98% or better want to believe, that's no skin off my back. I understand and fully accept that I live in a religious world. I don't expect the overwhelming majority to bend to my whim.

That's how I feel about it...

308gt4

710 posts

259 months

Monday 12th July 2004
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spandexx said:
Good point well made; I fully agree, but I said that it was him basing the recovery entirely on that one prayer that was insulting (to the good doctors that cared for her), ignorant (to the other possibilities of recovery - such as his wife's own strength) and selfish (because he ignores all other possibilities by making this statement).

>> Edited by spandexx on Sunday 11th July 16:01


Hi Spandexx,

I was never insulting or ignorant of any of the doctors efforts (I took them all gifts for getting my wife well again and they ALL admitted that they can tell when people will normally die and she was definitely one in a million unexpected results).

All I am trying to say is that she was in a coma with minimal brainwaves (suggesting low will to fight for life - I firmly believe in the human spirit to recover from these things but you need to be conscious or even sub-consciously aware of your predicament and she wasn't).

The doctors had given up hope and the nurses, for all their great effort knew it was only a matter of time.

I'm sure there are some doctors on here that will tell you that when the kidneys are not functioning and the blood pressure is diving then it's game over.

I'm a firm believer in science but there are unexplainable occurrences for people regaining their health and I had lost my faith in any supreme being many years before this (He didn't save my father who was in a similar situation and is far more of a fighter and was conscious of his predicament than my wife was.

I found it very hard to acknowledge the coincidence and the exact happenings will never leave my mind, I know what happened, I am more of a believer in fate as I see unexplainable things happen that only make sense many years later.

When I was young I was forced to believe, when I got "wiser" I knew there couldn't be but some things have happened in my life that prove to me that there are paranormal happenings which no science will ever explain.

Telepathy is a good place for beginning to weaken the non-believer assumption but I have only found mild cases of this but I'm sure they must be explained by science somehow.

You were right though, I was selfish, science had given up but I refused to ever give in, I'm stubborn like that

BTW Gidday Thom, nice to see you here again, haven't sent any PM due to lost email addresses when drive got formatted and I didn't backup, and I'm suppose to be an IT person ....sorry

spandexx

944 posts

275 months

Monday 12th July 2004
quotequote all
308gt4. I don't doubt the validity of this amazing feat of human recovery but what I doubt is that it was down to the hand of God.
I am also very surprised that you have dismissed the reasoning of the logical world and fallen into the cushy, 'spiritual' trap because of a moment of extreme emotion. It is insulting to the world of science and logic that you have turned your back on it so easily, and then to peddle out your trauma and your wife’s suffering as some sort of proof of the almighty to a bunch of car enthusiasts is bordering on evangelical.
Do you not realise that these emotions are internal, that there is a scientific reason to your wives recovery, no matter how strange and rare, and that you should now just get on with your life and enjoy your time together?




>> Edited by spandexx on Monday 12th July 14:13

juk

580 posts

250 months

Monday 12th July 2004
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Hear about the Dyslexic, Agnostic , Insomniac?

Used to lie awake at night wondering if there really was a dog.