Christians - A Penny For Your Thoughts.

[Stewart]

Do you count not knowing with 100% certainty that there is no God as the same as being wrong about it? Or do you claim to be 100% sure?

'God exists' and 'God does not exist' are equally valid, as neither can be disproven 100%. I use my free will to come down on one side or the other, otherwise you'd never be able to have an opinion.

And my choice is to come down on the side of God not having created the Earth 6000 years ago. However, I do not just pull this out of the air, I accept that the evidence suggests that the Earth is not 6000 years old, but billions of years old.

So I use scientific method to break the stalemate, and play the odds. And the odds tell me that there is no God, on the basis that the basic claims made in the Bible have been shown to probably be not 100% true.

In short - it is more likely that the Earth is billions of years old because this is what the evidence as we can best understand it points to. Why would I go against that and believe in God?

I will believe what is more likely to be true, also if I can avoid a supernatural explination for something I will, because you can observe scientific happenings all the time, you can not observe supernatural happenings, unless you are one of those weird people who claim to have seen a ghost, spoken to dead people, or most weird of all - had a cosy little chinwag with a big magic man who lives in the sky, who made all the frogs and stuff that live on our planet.

[TeePee]

You're forgetting the naturalistic nature of science.

Science is about studying nature and finding laws which define it. If we see something which doesn't fit scientific laws it means our laws are wrong and we have to find new ones. Science doesn't allow for anything suernatural which exists outside our laws.

How does this apply? Well theres always a chance that a scientific law or theory is wrong. But that just means we have to find a law which works, it's not proof of the supernatural.

[Alex]

I'm not suggesting that you should, in fact I agree with what you said in that post, pretty much entirely.

God does, however, either exist or not. We just cannot know either way for certain.

However, to say that God does not exist because what you view the bible say saying doesn't match up to reality doesn't make much sense either, you could, for example, misunderstand the bible as being literal and scientific where it is being allegorical. maybe.

[BlackDwarf]

I've read through the entire of this thread, and guys, please keep going, its hilarious.

I don't believe in religion, and I'm not going to get into why, or what I do believe in, but its nice to see other people's opinions, and laugh at some of the stuff Stewart's coming out with

Good chap

[MadduckUK]

so where would you draw the line, and who would draw it? if we each drew our own conclusions then christianity would cease to be an organised religion.

[Alex]

Each drew our own conclusions about what? Draw which line?

[kalniel]

Well it seems this discussion was/is going down the route of questioning whether the universe exists or not, and sollopsism is such fun

'God exists' and 'God does not exist' are equally valid, as neither can be disproven 100%. I use my free will to come down on one side or the other, otherwise you'd never be able to have an opinion.

And my choice is to come down on the side of God not having created the Earth 6000 years ago.

So you're entire premise is based on the assumption that for God to exist he must have created the Earth 6000 years ago? If I say that the age of the earth has nothing to do with God's existance does your view change?

And the odds tell me that there is no God, on the basis that the basic claims made in the Bible have been shown to probably be not 100% true.

Now you are taking on a new premise that says God's existance is 100% reliant on the literal interpretation of something writen by fallible man? Again, if I assert that God's existance does not depend on the entirety of the Bible being interpreted literally, does that change your view?

In short - it is more likely that the Earth is billions of years old because this is what the evidence as we can best understand it points to. Why would I go against that and believe in God?

You don't have to go against that to believe in God

I will believe what is more likely to be true, also if I can avoid a supernatural explination for something I will, because you can observe scientific happenings all the time, you can not observe supernatural happenings

Scientific observations increase my beliefs that God exists, not decrease them. Science and faith are perfectly compatible IMHO.

[MadduckUK]

Each drew our own conclusions about what? Draw which line?

which bits of the bible are literal and whch should be classed as "Aesop's Fables with less animals"

also: almost pub time, ill catch up later

[Blitzen]

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

Christians - Is Homosexuality a sin?

It can't be......If it was you wouldn't get priests fiddling with little boys would you?

Supporting Manchester Utd is though and should be punishable by castration

and MadduckUK...I love your sig..... When that statement was made i laughed for ages.

[kalniel]

Agreed, only thing worse is supporting Nott Forest

[Alex]

Its called hermeneutics.

We should study who the book was written by, in what society, with what cultural presuppositions and beliefs. This should be true of any historical document, not just the bible. We can't say 'this bit is allegorical' or 'this bit is factual', but rather figure out which bits are compatible with an allegorical and which are compatible with a literal understanding. Genesis as a standalone text is compatible with either understanding, but science shows us that a literal understanding is not the case. Therefore, the book must either be allegorical or wrong, which is not the same as 'therefore the book is wrong'. The Gospels, by contrast, are only compatible really with a literal, historical interpretation. Thus, to falsify the Gospels would not leave open a 'well, it's just allegorical anyway' statement.

It really isn't that hard for those who study the original Hebrew and such to decide which interpretations are and are not likely to be valid. As for Genesis, how poetic is "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."

I'm not saying I necessarily believe it (or that I don't, for that matter), but it is wrong to say that to say this is allegorical is 'picking and choosing', as if deciding that if something falsified is then 'just allegorical'. The idea that Genesis may not be literal was around over a thousand years ago, a view held by some very early Christian theologians.

[nichomach]

It can't be......If it was you wouldn't get priests fiddling with little boys would you?

So, as far as you're concerned, homosexuality is synonymous with paedophilia, then...?

[Stewart]

So you're entire premise is based on the assumption that for God to exist he must have created the Earth 6000 years ago? If I say that the age of the earth has nothing to do with God's existance does your view change?

This claim is made in the Bible, the Bible is the word of God. So long as the evidence as we understand it goes directly against the claims made in the Bible, I will choose to believe that they are not true.

Other areas where there is no real evidence one way or the other, such as God or the Big Bang, will not sway me either way, as our ability to carbon date a rock is probably more reliable than our ability to make an educated guess as to how the Universe itself was created.

I have no faith that God exists, without faith all that is left is proof. Until proof is offered I will not believe. The evidence, such as it is, goes against the claims made in the Bible, so it is more likely, in my opinion, that God does not exist.

[autopilot]

I leave this thread for an hour to go and play squash. I get back to find its sunk into a strange argument about maths.

[Alex]

Yeah, um, sorry about that

[kalniel]

But you do not allow for anything other than a literal interpretation of the entire Bible?

Fair enough that you have no faith that God exists - that's a perfectly reasonable viewpoint. But to say that the Bible is can only be seen as a literal, historical source is a very narrow viewpoint which in fact leaves you no room to make a free choice.

Your arguement that it should be literal seems to be based on this 'word of God' thing. If you don't believe in God, then something being the 'word of God' shouldn't matter, so you should be free to apply interpretation. If you do believe in God, then you wouldn't presume to know for certain how God intended you to interpret something. Literal it certainly ain't.