Does God exist? (4 Viewers)

[emytaylor164]

well in my opinion if you believe in salvation by good works then you are not a christian as u miss the whole point

 

[*TRUE*]

Don't bother trying to trounce them with logic. It clearly doesn't work.

Thats right. Because the BASIC BUILDING block of Christianity is FAITH.
FAITH in God , and faith in His Word.

 

[cwalker]

There is a creator.

 

[*TRUE*]

... SOME Christians believe that. You believe in faith over works. Orthodox Christians and Catholic believe in good works. Don't you dare claim to speak for all Christians in such a despicable fashion.

It depends?

I believe in good works also. Just not that it is good works that save you.
It says in the bible it is right to do good works , but wrong to rely on them to save you.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

well in my opinion if you believe in salvation by good works then you are not a christian as u miss the whole point

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (James 2:14-18 ESV)

 

[*TRUE*]

You do realise you can't add a layer of abstraction in that sense and have it count as a viable argument. Does god move you or do you move you? I can make a sociological estimate as to the nature of your belief based on the co-ordinates of your birth, fairly trivially. Do you see how this dilutes your claim to unique revelation?

I assume your parents are Christian, yes?

You assume i have parents.

 

[*TRUE*]

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (James 2:14-18 ESV)

EXACTLY!!!!!!

 

[emytaylor164]

ephesians 2:8-9 For it is grace you have been saved through faith this is not of yout selfs it is a gift from God not by good works so that no-one can boast. If you think that good works save you then you are going against Gods word.
As for pre-determination i think that it is out desicion to follow christ God just knows if we do it or not.

 

[Slidey]

*Science says it, I believe it, that settles it.
Fresh Worshiping

Oh? We're worshipping science are we? It couldn't possibly be that we're accepting it because it's based on peer-reviwed rationality instead of blind faith, could it?

 

[Slidey]

You assume i have parents.

What are you claiming to be the fucking second coming of Christ now or something?

 

[Captain Gh3y]

EXACTLY!!!!!!

You should read that again

 

[emytaylor164]

That means that you express your faith through works it is a way of bearing fruit not salvation.

 

[*TRUE*]

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (James 2:14-18 ESV)

Thats it!!!You will notice though that good works do not 'save' a person. It is the grace of God. Remember when Jesus was being crucified , there were two men on either side. One of them acknowledged Jesus as Lord and Jesus said , "today you will be in paradise with me" I cant think that that dude did too many good works

 

[*TRUE*]

By your own logic everything has to have a creator, thus you have to have a creator, sugar.

You can't have your cake and disrupt the universe as well.

I meant parents around to influence you.

 

[*TRUE*]

That means that you express your faith through works it is a way of bearing fruit not salvation.

Yep

 

[Slidey]

Fuck, at least I can be safe in the knowledge that if the Christian god did exist, he'd send people like TRUE and emytaylor to hell.

 

[KFunk]

The idea of a universal consciousness CANNOT be proven or disproved, I think those throwing stones at others for harbouring antiquated religious beliefs should look at the revaluations and revision of what was once 'contemporary' scientific belief, there is no more permanency or solidarity in modern scientific thought, than we can presume for people pointing wands at the sky to call down the sun god, and, on a basic level, you can thank religion for society.

Something I found funny here Kieran was that you criticised someone in this thread for attempting to utilise religion to prove religion, aren't you attempting to use science to prove science? What if the laws and governing elements of science are temporal and dependent on a gracious god allowing them to be constants?

Haha, instant ownage. While I think of it: I reckon you'd get a kick from Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, if only for the iconoclast-factor.

Sure, if you want to strip everything back to basics using a super-charged skepticism then I will conceed that I doubt whether there are solid foundations on which science can stand (note, though, that they don't exist for religion or a cosmic consciousness either). One thing that science has in its favor, I suppose, is that it embraces revision of beliefs. Religious approaches to knowledge strike me as dubious because they involve an ad hoc exercise of denial and reconfiguration in order to make a core set of beliefs fit with the perceived world (whatever that world amounts to). Science, on the other hand, says 'hit me with experiences... let's see what patterns emerge'. Theories are created, hypotheses are tested and rejected, and the whole process repeats ad infinitum. I geuss you might call it a knowledge creating algorithm.

So sure, science has its foundational beliefs too, but I still think that it embraces uncertainty and the possibility of being wrong in a way religion doesn't. Thus even in the face of a science-critical brand of skepticism I feel that religion comes off the worse for wear.

 

[phatchance]

There's probably a lot more to be derived from books of philosophy and science that build upon the concepts outlined in the bible, but that don't require the creator of the text to be divine (Which it clearly isn't).

Hell, Philsophical and Fictional texts have way more to offer than the bible. You're also conflating the base premises of Religion and the base premises of Science.

Also... you do know why a day is called a day, right? It's the period of time it takes the earth to rotate... it's not based on sunrise or sunset otherwise you would have very long days in the poles.

What the hell kind of rationality is that? You are just making grandiose judgement calls based on your limited, human experience of the universe. Why should a philosophical text written in the same time period not hinged on divine creation (which, I think you should remember here, was a progressive and scientific avenue at this point) be worth more than a text based on that divinity? Because the text focused on divinity happened to have a much more effective marketing scheme? Because it was a collaborative work and is the highest grossing book of all time?

This is the flaw in you neocons judgement of religion, is it really about scientific rationale, or is it about burning books you don't agree with?

PS One would presume without the gravitational influence of the other solar bodies the earth wasn't spinning either, so my claim stands, or were you under the impression that Newton was wrong this whole time?

 

[*TRUE*]

Calvinism disagrees with you implicitly, as do quakers and salvation army people.

Thus you are the vanguard to christianity, yes?

This free will argument is always so enlightening. Vicissitudes of an incredulous mob!

Emy isnt arguing for other beliefs. She is a christian who bases her faith on the BIBLE (and her interpretation of it.)

 

[emytaylor164]

well think of it this way.God is omnicient. WE make the decision to follow jesus but because he is all knowing he knows what decision we are going to make