Christians - A Penny For Your Thoughts.

[Stewart]

Well, yes there is really, because if faith was provable then by the very definition of the word it wouldn't be faith

Haha. I like that one. So much so, that for the first time since March 1998, I'm not going to argue that point. I suppose I thought you'd try to big faith up, as it were, not go for the faith is what it is option.

You're not playing fair now. You are using a weakness in your argument as a strength. And you have God on your side.

One thing though - you say you don't believe the Earth is 6000 years old, etc, someone earlier said he was a Christian but didn't accept creation as it is told in the Bible.

How do you decide what bits of the Bible are the word of God, not to be questioned, etc, and which bits you can probably just ignore, and still get a seat in heaven?

Playing a risky game, are you not?

[MadduckUK]

Playing a risky game, are you not?

well the worst that can happen is it turns into belief in "A" god, or a greater being, rather than faith in a particular god. and thats healthy

[autopilot]

"Why not consider that he started life and is happy to let it evolve?"

But the Bible tells us otherwise. kalniel, you dont sound like a Christian to me going by your arguments. You sound more agnostic to me. What exactly do you believe, because you don't talk like a 'hardcore' Christian, you contradict many of the fundamental basics of Christianity.

Because region is all make believe, you can say anything you like. It like that card game sketch in that film (forgot the name). "Sorry, you lose actually. The Ace is only worth 2 on a Tuesday if its windy and the day of the month is an odd number".

You can just make it up as you go along, just as the bible was (and still is).

[Stewart]

Look, this is all getting a bit heated. Lets cool things down a bit.

Christians - Is Homosexuality a sin?

[Byatt]

Joyous thread full of atheist rage.

proven proof blah

Aaaagh, I'm an atheist, but please avoid saying that science ever proves anything! It creates models of the real world, the validity of which are dependant on how accurate they are then observed to be.

To say science has definitively proved that the world is more than 6000 years old is inaccurate - it has merely shown that it is exceptionally unlikely that this is the case.

Your use of the word rational, on the other hand, is excellent

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

is probably one of my favourites, to deal with the Odin issue.

Creationism is, to put it mildly, an easy target, and I'll go as far to say that Dawkins is accurate here - religious fundamentalism on that sort of scale is verging on dangerous.

There are (mostly harmless) sects of Christianity which avoid the other pitfalls outlined in this thread (including my above quote), which I'd presume work on a fairly loose interpretation of the bible (especially the Old Testament, which is basically an old style book of mythic prophecy), and I think kalniel (big-up, fellow scientist, or something) is going to illustrate this quite nicely, given his excellent first post.

[autopilot]

And i have still not got an answer for my previous questions. I wonder why

[Stewart]

To say science has definitively proved that the world is more than 6000 years old is inaccurate - it has merely shown that it is exceptionally unlikely that this is the case.

So you hold the opinion that there is a small chance the Earth may be 6000 years old, and may have been created by a supernatural being?

[kalniel]

One thing though - you say you don't believe the Earth is 6000 years old, etc, someone earlier said he was a Christian but didn't accept creation as it is told in the Bible.

How do you decide what bits of the Bible are the word of God, not to be questioned, etc, and which bits you can probably just ignore, and still get a seat in heaven?

Playing a risky game, are you not?

For starters I'm not of the opinion that God is some malevolent being that only grudgingly 'gives a seat in heaven' if you happen to get everything 100% right. As far as I know that's a more Jewish viewpoint where there are a huge number of established laws etc.

As a Christian I believe that God gave up trying to get us to behave perfectly a long time ago, and instead said 'you know what, although I'm a God of justice, I'm not going to punish *you* for getting it wrong, I'll ask someone else to pay in your place'. So actually we're all 'saved' as it were already - the only thing we need to do is accept that

As far as the bible goes, it's a very odd mix. Some bits are historical, some allegorical, some bits are giving law, while some are just giving advice on how we can enjoy life the most. You have to remember that the Old Testament was written for the Jews - the laws and so on in there do not need to be followed to the letter by Christians - in fact Jesus basically summed up the *intent* of the laws as this: 1) Love God
2) Love/respect your neighbour.

quite simple really.

A lot of the new testament then goes on to basically give advice to churches/people in different situations. Paul says something like 'Everything is permissable, but not everything is beneficial' - so the advice is a) saying that while you're not going to be punished for doing something, you won't be enjoying life as much in the long run if you do, b) relevent to the situation. Sometimes the advice seems contradictory, but you have to put it in context to check if it's specific. One example some people are fond of quoting is the instruction for women in church to be quiet. One first glance that looks like horrific sexism, but look into it a bit closer and you see that it's happening in a church that women weren't allowed in at all, and by being quiet they are minimising the disruption at the change that's being suggested and therefore more likely to make the change stick. The advice is often very wise and does sometimes take a 'softly softly' approach to avoid confrontation.

[Byatt]

So you hold the opinion that there is a small chance the Earth may be 6000 years old, and may have been created by a supernatural being?

Yep, although I ought to emphasize that I think it's a microscopic chance.

This is where your use of rational comes in - my opinion is perfectly justifiable (in fact, it's mathematically sound), but, say you have to act, and the decision on how to act is dependant on how old the Earth is - then I'll take science's best estimate, as that's what the evidence supports.

Any clearer?

[Alex]

I'm not even sure I'm a Christian anymore, but I still don't think you've really got it right here, as to why...

First point, main point, God's apparent 'niceness' has nothing to do with whether or not He exists.

Second point - science is merely a tool for exploring and understanding the natural world. How can you expect it to ever prove or disprove God, who would, if He existed, be supernatural? There are no falsifiable claims about God, so how can you ever prove or disprove Him using science?

Third, faith, in the biblical sense, is trust in one who is shown to be trustworthy. This doesn't mean 'belief despite evidence', but faith that He answers prayer and such based on the fact that He has before (which is debateable, but many Christians see God in anything positive which they have previously prayed for). Faith is to say that once you believe the bible to be true, and only then, is God worthy of trust based on the death of Jesus, his answers to prayer, etc. Since you cannot prove that things that happen aren't an answer to prayer (or, of course, that they are) you can't say that they are wrong (or right) on this basis to trust in God. It is only possible to, on this point, be agnostic.

Young Earth Creationism is a whole other nutshell. People believe it because they have always believed it, or are under peer pressure to do so. They ignore scientific evidence because they believe it is inaccurate due to being developed with an atheist agenda conspiracy in mind. They view this branch of science in much the same way as we (as brits, at least in general) view our governments stance on WMDs in Iraq. It is stated as fact, they don't agree, and they see no reason to look into whether or not they should agree. It's not a very sensible position to hold, but one can at least see you don't need to be mad to hold it, only brought up with it.

The questions on 'if He did x, then why is y...' are valid philosophical questions, but have no bearing on whether He exists.

Also, an ability to explain a scientific phenomenon does not mean that God is not ultimately behind it. You just cannot know that, whether He is or not.

The bible is not in any way proven to be different to how it was thousands of years ago. Why do people think it is, or that it is translated through thousands of languages? the translation goes something like Hebrew->English, Greek->English, and Aramaic->English. It is translated into thousands of languages, not through them. what do people make of the dead sea scrolls, showing, for example, the accuracy of the book of Isiah we have now to how it was thousands of years ago? How come that book survived intact?

There are loads of other questions and points put out, but the basic reality is this: Whether God exists or not, we cannot prove either way through exploration of natural phenomena. Whatever Richard Dawkins says, you cannot assign probabilities to His existence, and even if you could, they would not effect His existence, in the same way the low probability of our existence has nothing to do with the fact that we exist. His niceness has nothing to do with how we exist. Trust in God based on the fact that you believe He answers prayer is not illogical blind faith, as many seem to believe faith is.

As to why to believe in Christianity, well, that one has me a little more stuck, unfortunately, since Christianity is something of a nicety to me. Oh well.

Why Christianity? Well, its just about the only falsifiable religion, not where some guy said 'here, God told me...', but Jesus claimed to be God, and then proved it through His resurrection. If in fact He wasn't resurrected then He wasn't God, and Christianity is bunk. Quite difficult to falsify now, but less so in the early days of Christianity, where a corpse would probably have done.

Why might there be a God? Dunno really, philosophical arguments seem the best reason really. Why are we here? What is life for? How did it all begin - is it really turtles all the way down? Etc.

I at the moment am agnostic, I don't really see how one can be certain either way. With that in mind, unless you say you don't know, you must admit you could be wrong.

[Stewart]

Yep, although I ought to emphasize that I think it's a microscopic chance.

This is where your use of rational comes in - my opinion is perfectly justifiable (in fact, it's mathematically sound), but, say you have to act, and the decision on how to act is dependant on how old the Earth is - then I'll take science's best estimate, as that's what the evidence supports.

Any clearer?

But there is a microscopic chance that the universe is actually an ashtray used by giant beings on a scale we can not imagine, using that argument.

Actually, there is a microscopic chance that anything you care to mention is anything you care to dream up.

Goes back to the 'you can't actually prove anything' argument. If we say that you cannot prove anything completely, then you either accept that nothing is ever certain, or you accept the most likely as fact, if there is only a microscopic chance of it not being so. Beyond reasonable doubt, if you like.

I don't except there is a microscopic chance the Earth is 6000 years old, nor that it was created by a supernatural being, because not only does nothing so much as suggest this, but the notion is absurd.

Show me a shread of evidence for this microscopic chance, even a microscopic shread and I will accept it, just say 'there is a microscopic chance' and leave it at that, and I will not.

Convince me of the existence of this microscopic chance. Why should the notion of a magical being creating the Earth be given any credit, microscopic or not?

Do Christians \ Muslims accept a microscopic chance that there is no God?

[Stewart]

Young Earth Creationism is a whole other nutshell. People believe it because they have always believed it, or are under peer pressure to do so. They ignore scientific evidence because they believe it is inaccurate due to being developed with an atheist agenda conspiracy in mind.

Do you accept there is a 'microscopic' chance that young Earth creationists are correct though, as Byatt says?

[Alex]

Probably, yeah. But micro microscopic. Nothing in science is ever 100% proven, even if proven way beyond all reasonable doubt.

[Alex]

Look at it this way, have you ever seen A Beautiful Mind? With that in mind, how can you ever say you are 100% certain of anything anyone ever says? You simply cannot. How do you know you are not in a 'Truman Show' type world? You can't KNOW, but it may seem fairly obvious.

How do you know that God didn't just create it to 'look old'? You don't, there is no reason to suggest He did, but you dont KNOW He didn't.

All you can ever know for certain is that these possibilities are infinitessimally unlikely. One in 10 to the power 100 kind of unlikely. But that still allows for the TINY possibility of their reality.

[Stewart]

Do you accept that there is a micro, micro, microlymicroscopic, infinitessimally, minute chance that the Lord God made man from dust, and women from a rib?

Can you name anything that you don't consider to have a microscopic chance of being fact?

[Kezzer]

So Stewart, how did the universe come into existence? I'd like science to prove that. Fact is, it never will, and I think you're aware of that.