BradCube said:
You know what, based on scientific and human logic alone, I would say I am a christian agnostic. Does that send alarm bells ringing?, because it shouldn't? If all you are saying is that God cannot be proved with human rational, then I agree with you. How could God be proved with human logic anyway? The idea is rediculous in that it assumes a creation has the same knowledge as its creator.
Yes, and if it cannot be proved, you should not go around believing in it so assertively.
Note though, that we can attempt to disprove logically some conceptions of god. (The all-knowing, all-good & all powerful combination, for example).
BradCube said:
However I think that agnosticism, without a belief either way, is the stupidest stance to take. While it may be the easiest to prove with human logic, it is not the smartest. The only answer it provides, is that we have no answers.
1. No, because your argument is again based on wishful thinking, not logic or truth. Your argument says "we would have no answers if we did not believe in theism." That may be undesirable, but it says nothing about the truth of theism.
2. Creationism does not explain anything at all. Please see the very first page in this thread, where it was posted:
Claim:
Cosmologists cannot explain where space, time, energy, and the laws of physics came from.
Response:
1. Some questions are harder to answer than others. But although we do not have a full understanding of the origin of the universe, we are not completely in the dark. We know, for example, that space comes from the expansion of the universe. The total energy of the universe may be zero. Cosmologists have hypotheses for the other questions that are consistent with observations (Hawking 2001). For example, it is possible that there is more than one dimension of time, the other dimension being unbounded, so there is no overall origin of time. Another possibility is that the universe is in an eternal cycle without beginning or end. Each big bang might end in a big crunch to start a new cycle (Steinhardt and Turok 2002) or at long intervals, our universe collides with a mirror universe, creating the universe anew (Seife 2002).
One should keep in mind that our experiences in everyday life are poor preparation for the extreme and bizarre conditions one encounters in cosmology. The stuff cosmologists deal with is very hard to understand. To reject it because of that, though, would be to retreat into an argument from incredulity (fallacy).
2. Creationists cannot explain origins at all. Saying "God did it" is not an explanation, because it is not tied to any objective evidence. It does not rule out any possibility or even any impossibility. It does not address questions of "how" and "why," and it raises questions such as "which God?" and "how did God originate?" In the explaining game, cosmologists are far out in front.
BradCube said:
To be only agnostic shows that you have no reason for living, other than the fact that you are in existance.
1. Absolutely wrong. You can create your own meaning in life. You do not need it to be spoon-fed to you by the church (this is one of the reasons religion came to be - because people were afraid of the unknown).
2. Even if what you say is true, your argument is again based on wishful thinking, not truth. "If I was agnostic then I would have no meaning" says nothing about the truth of the theory, rather one what would be desirable to you. It is a case of "ignorance is bliss".
BradCube said:
If this was the case why would we continue to live?
Ever heard of love, knowledge, success, challenge, friendship, pleasure -
fun? There are plenty of reasons to live!
BradCube said:
- We have no hope for the future since our future will end.
1. Again, the wishful thinking. Your point is one of the reasons people turn to religion - they can't deal with facts of life like that.
2. You might say that the fact that our lives end makes them all the more valuable.
BradCube said:
Why bother in this life if it has no meaning? Do you have any reason to continue living if it will all end and be forgotten anyway?
Yes, of course you do. See the above comments.
BradCube said:
I think it is far smarter, despite not being able to prove either sides scientifically, to search them out and find answers that rely on something other than our own understanding. If there is a God there is no way we can humanly understand him or his wisdom. Yet to not look for him simply because you cannot humanly prove him is a weak arguement. Can you undersatnd what I am getting at? You cannot not search for God on the basis that you can't understand Him, because, if he does exist, you will never humanly understand him.
If you have no reason or evidence for believing god, there is no justification for adopting such a belief.
BradCube said:
I am not trying to pressure agnostics to one side or another. I do not have that privilege. In my opinion it seems that it would be foolish to stay only an agnostic in that you have not answered any questions. You have only told yourself that it is not possible to prove scientifically that there are answers.
1. There are some things we just don't know - but some people can't deal with that. In medieval times sometimes sheep would "mysteriously" die in the night. The people would make up myths to account for it. Long ago when volcanoes errupted, people would say the gods were angry. They said these things because they did not know the answer to unknown issues.
2. Again, creationism does not answer anything either. See above.
BradCube said:
If you can't decide after you have searched for God, I would suggest that you have not searched for God completely. If God exists, then you will need to search for him not only intellectually but with your heart. You need to be willing to completely search for Him with everything you have.
That is just emotional blather really. When you break it down it means "use your feelings to find god". We discover truth through reason and evidence, not feelings.
BradCube said:
It is possible to not understand God. It has to be this way since if there is God then we are his creation. The concept that we can understand him and his motivations is rediculous. The reason we can know what he wants for our life is through two reasons. The first, is the bible, because it is what allowed me to come to personally know God.
You cannot use the Bible to demonstrate the existence of god. Please see the first page of this thread,
here.
BradCube said:
(And you cannot argue you all you want, but you cannot prove that I do not know God, only I can know that because I have experienced it).
You
think you have experienced it. If you provide an example of how you experienced god, I am certain that we can explain clearly to you what really occured.
BradCube said:
The second way we know his will for our life is by listening to him and his prompting.
You are suggesting that god has communicated with you in some way. Care to provide evidence of this?
BradCube said:
You question the inspiration for the bible. There is two reasons that I know it to be Gods word and not another text book. The first is that its teaching led me to discover and conitinue a relationship with God.
An extremely vague and unfounded statement - please provide evidence of this "relationship". What is it? How do you know it is a relationship with god?
In my mind what you really have is a relationship with the church.
BradCube said:
The second is that it's teaching match up to what I personally hear from God.
1. Ever consider the fact that human experience
should match up with something humans wrote?
2. You hear things from god? Please explain.
BradCube said:
Making life enjoyable, is not a meaning for life, it is simply a way to carry it out. It seems that it is more a way of ignoring that we have no purpose. ie, I have no purpose, so I may as well enjoy myself while I am in existance.
That's right. But it's not simply pleasure, it is knowledge, love, friendship - trying to help people, trying to find truth, etc. There are many things to live for. Just because you don't have a meaning spoon-fed to you doesn't mean you have no reason to live.
And again, I must sound like a broken record but your argument is one based on wishful thinking. Just because you want something to be the case does not mean that it is.
BradCube said:
God is not a catch fallback. He is a thought through and logical conclusion based on the questions. Simply because you do not want to consider it as an option does not mean that isn't a possibility. At least the conclusion of a God, will provide a way to answer all of these questions, something that I cannot see in any other possibilty.
1. If you claim that your belief in god is based on reason, then why is it that you have not been able to present a single argument in this thread that people have not logically dismantled?
2. God does not answer any questions. Please see the above quote on the "science can't explain anything" claim.
BradCube said:
If such answers never exist in other solutions, what more faith should I put in them then in God?
How about admitting that you don't know the answer? It is more accurate to say you don't know than to follow some text that has no evidence or reason behind it's claims about supreme beings.
