That's the problem. Folks like you have it all figured out and you chose to do it your way. Look behind you, gotta love it. The David Westerfields are snatching up our children, Saddam Hussein is looking to nuke us, Osama is trying to kill us off, need I say more. Are you happy with life, Mr. Gecko?
Regarding the Existence or Absence of God
- Thread starter rs7
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Lobster,
Agree. However, God need not be hidden in the closet. He should be the center of our lives so everyone knows it. I know why the world is in its present condition and I'm going to defend him. Best of luck to you and everyone when your salvation is at stake.
Agree. However, God need not be hidden in the closet. He should be the center of our lives so everyone knows it. I know why the world is in its present condition and I'm going to defend him. Best of luck to you and everyone when your salvation is at stake.
in the past i was someone who would reply to something like this in detail (yes, i know this is a response), but after you argue with a religious person about 100x, you realize it just ain't worth it.
i will say though, i find it funny you think i'm claiming i have it all figured out, when actually...it's the non religious people like me who keep an open mind. it's the people like you who think you have it all figured out. whatever the bible says, must be! right?
amen
YOU'RE FLAT OUT SCARY!!
I knew you had no firm ground to stand on.
well it seems my theory is proven to be correct.
any thread can transform into anything. if it is about trading, it will transform into something entirely different as i have seen. i wanted to see how much faster a non trading (yes, this is in the wrong forum) thread could go out of control.
i now have my answer. no time at all!
Peace and good trading, good genetics, and good prayers to all,
Rs7
any thread can transform into anything. if it is about trading, it will transform into something entirely different as i have seen. i wanted to see how much faster a non trading (yes, this is in the wrong forum) thread could go out of control.
i now have my answer. no time at all!
Peace and good trading, good genetics, and good prayers to all,
Rs7oh boy.
rs7 did you wake up feeling devilish this morning or what? Or did you just secretly want to see how I would answer that question?
monkeys fight off leopards at their own cost, yes. animals who warn the herd do so for the benefit of the herd at cost to their own life and limb, yes, because in being first to raise the alarm they invariably have to pause in doing so and catch the eye of the marauding predator. certain animal groups have altruistic tendencies built into their genes because it is understood to be a tradeoff that is valuable for the survival of the group over the long term. this can be interpreted as a moral code. great. so what?
Does such 'altruistic programming' work for man? No it does not. Because man can turn it off, and in his selfishness and pride he does turn it off, and in following his base instincts he does evil things and stupidly selfish things and just plain dumb things and thus fouls his paradise.
The practical difference between man and animal is that animals are basically 100% instinctive. They act in a way that makes sense to them without pondering their actions and without considering the possibility of overriding their natural instincts.
If a monkey feels a desire to protect the herd and fight the leopard, he will do so. There is no questioning his course of action. He does not think, he reacts in the way his programming has told him to.
Now put a man in the monkey's place. Man has the ability to weigh the consequences of his actions. He can "choose" in a way that the monkey cannot. The man does not have to stay and fight the leopards. He can put 2+2 together, decide his own skin is worth more than anyone else's, and let the women and children get mauled instead of himself, thus overriding his 'herd preservation instincts'.
Being made in the image of God is presented as a binary thing- 1 or 0. Man is made in the image of God, animals are not. One, zero. I think this is misleading- it's more like a sliding scale. The more "Godlike" qualities you cultivate- and by that I mean creativity, intelligence, logic, strength, mercy etc., not super powers- the more you reflect that image. The less you evince those qualities, the less your image shines. It is possible for men to intentionally put themselves on a path of gibbering, self interested doom. All they have to do is stop thinking with their heads and start thinking with their stomachs, lose interest in everything but themselves, and sink deeper into a morass of stupid pathetic self interested defilement until the point at which they end up raping or murdering someone or even losing their faculties of coherent thought. Because the image of God is on a sliding scale, there are instances where men act like animals and where animals act like men.
And again, anyone who thinks 'Christians are dumb' or 'the bible is dumb'- if you have not realized by now that you have no idea what you are talking about, you need to wake up and smell the coffee. There are dumb people in every belief system and every walk of life. Pointing to that contingent and extrapolating that all are thusly dumb is a very, very stupid thing to do. Consider the very real possibility that you have set up a straw man, that the 'holes' you see are flaws in your perception, and that what you think you see or what you think I think is wrong.
When I talk with people about my faith, often they will say 'but don't you think this?' or 'but don't you people all think that?' and eighty percent of the time it seems I will say "no, you've got that all wrong, I don't believe that at all." "No, that's a crazy assumption, that is not how I see it at all." "No, you're logic is all wrong there, you have barely scratched the surface of how it really is." See a pattern there?
rs7 did you wake up feeling devilish this morning or what? Or did you just secretly want to see how I would answer that question?
monkeys fight off leopards at their own cost, yes. animals who warn the herd do so for the benefit of the herd at cost to their own life and limb, yes, because in being first to raise the alarm they invariably have to pause in doing so and catch the eye of the marauding predator. certain animal groups have altruistic tendencies built into their genes because it is understood to be a tradeoff that is valuable for the survival of the group over the long term. this can be interpreted as a moral code. great. so what?
Does such 'altruistic programming' work for man? No it does not. Because man can turn it off, and in his selfishness and pride he does turn it off, and in following his base instincts he does evil things and stupidly selfish things and just plain dumb things and thus fouls his paradise.
The practical difference between man and animal is that animals are basically 100% instinctive. They act in a way that makes sense to them without pondering their actions and without considering the possibility of overriding their natural instincts.
If a monkey feels a desire to protect the herd and fight the leopard, he will do so. There is no questioning his course of action. He does not think, he reacts in the way his programming has told him to.
Now put a man in the monkey's place. Man has the ability to weigh the consequences of his actions. He can "choose" in a way that the monkey cannot. The man does not have to stay and fight the leopards. He can put 2+2 together, decide his own skin is worth more than anyone else's, and let the women and children get mauled instead of himself, thus overriding his 'herd preservation instincts'.
Being made in the image of God is presented as a binary thing- 1 or 0. Man is made in the image of God, animals are not. One, zero. I think this is misleading- it's more like a sliding scale. The more "Godlike" qualities you cultivate- and by that I mean creativity, intelligence, logic, strength, mercy etc., not super powers- the more you reflect that image. The less you evince those qualities, the less your image shines. It is possible for men to intentionally put themselves on a path of gibbering, self interested doom. All they have to do is stop thinking with their heads and start thinking with their stomachs, lose interest in everything but themselves, and sink deeper into a morass of stupid pathetic self interested defilement until the point at which they end up raping or murdering someone or even losing their faculties of coherent thought. Because the image of God is on a sliding scale, there are instances where men act like animals and where animals act like men.
And again, anyone who thinks 'Christians are dumb' or 'the bible is dumb'- if you have not realized by now that you have no idea what you are talking about, you need to wake up and smell the coffee. There are dumb people in every belief system and every walk of life. Pointing to that contingent and extrapolating that all are thusly dumb is a very, very stupid thing to do. Consider the very real possibility that you have set up a straw man, that the 'holes' you see are flaws in your perception, and that what you think you see or what you think I think is wrong.
When I talk with people about my faith, often they will say 'but don't you think this?' or 'but don't you people all think that?' and eighty percent of the time it seems I will say "no, you've got that all wrong, I don't believe that at all." "No, that's a crazy assumption, that is not how I see it at all." "No, you're logic is all wrong there, you have barely scratched the surface of how it really is." See a pattern there?
I can only agree. The greatest sin is exactly what we can see on this forum: Rejection of God due to feelings of mental of intellectual superiority. I don't think it's the worst kind of sin because it hurts God most, but because it is that very attitude which makes it so hard to accept one's own incompetence and ask for forgiveness. And if you don't want it, I have afeeling God won't force it onto you. And we all know what that means. The punishment for sin is death.
But the atheists here have a point, too. If you get caught up in wanting to serve God with every breath you take, you can easily be fooled and try to lead a "battle against the infidels". Is it reasonalbe to say evolution did not happen, because then Genesis could not be true if you interpret it "literally" (using the most primitive and "real" meaning of each and every word of it)? Is it reasonable to lynch a man who says the earth revolves around the sun? Is it reasonable to say: "You are wrong thinking this plant grows because it has water and light! It grows only because God wants it to grow"?
Is it reasonable to bring God into a discussion about game theory? It probably is, but just because you are a believer and want to spread the gospel doesn't mean you have to end every sentence with "because God wants it to be."
That being said, Jesus rules!
hey what do you know, two religious people agree!
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