For my Christians Friends

[I am...]

Quote from DerekD:


1. Faith in the finished work on the cross and that there is no other name in heaven or on Earth by which men can be saved

"The cross" is this world, in which bodies are pinned down to serve and suffer with the changes wrought by time and limits. In reality, it is really "finished". Time is a vast illusion, a sleight-of-hand, a magicians trick. The mind that made time and form has been saved from it already, thanks to the work of the Holy [Universal] Spirit [Inspiration], which brought the truth of oneness to every mind that thought it was separated. For this statement to have a saving effect upon your mind, you must believe it. I am the only one teaching it, so you must believe me.

The world is built on the idea of special individuality. The Holy Spirit saves it on the idea of unity and equality. His plan of salvation gives all a role in which each can be equally special and indespensible in salvations universal accomplishment. In this Way, no one can be saved but by me, and equally so, no one can be saved but by you. Let the Universal Inspiration understand how that can be, and let you fulfill your role as you follow his Guidance step by step toward his understanding. Till then, time waits upon you, and will not end without you. God is not complete without you. Yet you cannot be led home as anything other than an equal, for your reality is equality with God. What seems to be delay is really "thy will" being done...till you are done with time.

Jesus

 

[TraderZones]

Quote from stu:

How strange it is then that he was awarded the Nobel prize for work in physics based on the science of fundamental physical constants and not for having faith.

Inasmuch as wikipedia can be trusted:
Max Planck was a devoted and persistent adherent of Christianity from early life to death, but he was very tolerant towards alternate views and religions, and so was discontented with the church organizations' demands for unquestioning belief.

The God in which Max Planck believed was an almighty, all-knowing, benevolent but unintelligible God that permeated everything, manifest by symbols, including physical laws...Planck was interested in truth and Universe beyond observation, and objected to atheism as an obsession with symbols.

It is likely that Planck would have walked away from the Nobel, and from Physics rather than give up his faith.

This is something you could not possibly understand.

 

[Turok]

Y:
>If he said that the spirit tells him to be kind and generous
>and hopeful for an eternal life, and makes him feel good
>deep down, then I would think that he is communicating
>(in my religious framework) with Jesus, or an Angel,
>or a saint.

And the folks down in Tx at the YFZ ranch would, just as earnestly, also want to know if that spirit tells him that woman are to be subservient and monogamous while the men get to control the females lives and lead polygamous lives with underage girls. If he answered "yes", then they would think that he is communicating (in their religious framework) with Jesus or and Angel or a saint.

Now, I'm quite certain (having been raised by a bunch just like that) that to the YFZ folks, the answer you consider correct would wrong and doom him to hell. I'm also willing to jump to the conclusion that the correct YFZ answer would likely turn your stomach.

So, which answer is the TRUE god and which is the false?

JB

 

[volente_00]

Quote from stu:

I stated...
"I can propose a very clear and simple test, based on fact and the scientific method which would convince enough to constitute proof. "

Clarify your gibberish. What does your simple test consist of ?


How can one scientifically test for something that is undefined ?



Better yet, show us how one can use the scientific method to prove that love exists.

 

[volente_00]

Quote from DerekD:

Science cannot be a religion.

The scientific method works something like this:

1. Collect data by observation and/or experimentation.
2. Form a hypothesis about that.
3. Test it.
4. Predict.
5. See if your prediction pans out.

Science is the theoretical explanation of phenomena. So one is using unproved assumptions to explain phenomena.


How is that any different from a theist theory of saying a higher power is repsonsible for the phenomena ?


Neither one can prove their assumption with facts. Only speculate and believe what they think was the cause.


Care to show us how one would use the scientific method to test for whether love exist or not?

 

[Turok]

V00:
>Better yet, show us how one can use the scientific
>method to prove that love exists.

I'm game -- first we must agree on a definition of "love".

I'll give you the first pass.

JB

 

[volente_00]

Quote from smilingsynic:

Imagine a scientific test of the proposition, "Prayer changes things."

One would have to define "prayer", "changes" and "things."

The praying would claim that prayed to their God, and then God took away their illness and healed them.

Of course, if they had lost their leg in an accident, and the leg was not able to be reattached, would they pray that God would make it able for them to grow a new one?

I grew up in a fundamentalist home, graduated summa cum laude with a minor in Bible from a fundamentalist Christian university, and for year attended Sunday school, Sunday morning worship, Sunday EVENING worship, and Wednesday prayer meetings, and in all those years never ONCE heard someone pray that God would help someone grow another leg, finger, toe, testicle (actually, one can regrow hair without prayer), or any other body part.

Meanwhile, certain amphibians lose a leg, and without praying, grow a new one.

Of course the claims religions make are often testable, but those who are most religious have no interest in reason. They have faith, and that's all they (feel they) need.

I have a relative who was on dialysis for years. He was placed on a kidney transplant list and was told he would have to wait min of 2 to 3 years. This relative went to a healing service 1 month after being placed on the national list. Did God heal him ? No, but the very next morning at 8:15 am, he received a call from the transplant center and said he had 12 hours to get to the hospital and see if the donor kidney would work for him. Perhaps it was just random luck, or just maybe there is something higher out there that not even science can prove. People are pronounced dead at hospitals all the time. Then they defy natural laws and are brought back to life. Sometimes through science and sometimes through other channels when science has already given up.

 

[neophyte321]

Quote from stu:

No. pie r squared does not exist, except perhaps when mistaken for pi..

Pi r² does.
π r² is defined. It is proven. That way it exists.

Pi is an irrational number, it can be argued therefore a perfect circle does not exist.


Your point being what exactly?




Oh, and what DerekD said.

I equated god with perfection. I was informed perfection does not exist. I was also informed that "perfection" was a relative term.

I agreed, I offered that there are ideas of perfecton that literally everyone agrees on, one being a perfect circle. And not unlike god, man's best attempt to define a perfect circle relies on an irrational number.

 

[DerekD]

Quote from volente_00:

Science is the theoretical explanation of phenomena. So one is using unproved assumptions to explain phenomena.


How is that any different from a theist theory of saying a higher power is repsonsible for the phenomena ?


Neither one can prove their assumption with facts. Only speculate and believe what they think was the cause.


Care to show us how one would use the scientific method to test for whether love exist or not?

Does love exist? Well, it's more than just a concept. We can see it manifested in the material world.

What is Love?

(Baby don't hurt me. Baby don't hurt me, no more.)

Seriously though since love is subjective we'd first have to narrow down an objective definition of love. We can do that by sampling what people individually determine what love is then find what is baseline common among all the various definitions.

We'd have to be specific about the relational love we're trying to test for. Let's take love between two people to the exclusion of others. We would then need to analyze its supposed stages such as lust, attraction, and attachment. At each of these stages we'd want to see what happens biologically. We want to make certain that there is a uniqueness that we can associate with what we are testing for in order to define it properly.

Anyway, what we find is that there are certain unique chemical reactions (various hormonal levels, brain chemical set levels, and certain protein molecules levels) at each stage of what people have defined as love and what we objectively (for the purpose of experimentation) defined as love. So now we know that what we call love has a biological manifestation at each of its various stages. In other words, we know scientifically that "love" exists and is not just some ethereal concept like spirituality.

With this knowledge, we could someday soon detect if someone is actually in love or lying about their affections.

The other thing... so you think science is a theoretical explanation of a phenomena? Lets' take the phenomena called gravity. While we may not know exactly what it is, we sure can test for it and more importantly, predict it's affect.

Can we do that with religious assertions?

 

[volente_00]

Quote from Yannis:

I was explaining to my son, a couple years ago, that if someone who is unaware of Christianity or any other of the main religions, is uneducated and lives in the jungle or in the desert, came to me and told me that he can feel the presence, somehow, of the spirit Buku Buku, I would ask what does the spirit encourage you to do and how does that make you feel?

If he said that the spirit tells him to be kind and generous and hopeful for an eternal life, and makes him feel good deep down, then I would think that he is communicating (in my religious framework) with Jesus, or an Angel, or a saint.

Jesus Himself said that the ones to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven are not those who call Him Master, but those who do His will. See the connection?

And what if he is radical muslim and he tells you that spirit just told him to detonate that pipe bomb around his chest while he is talking to you ?