Where is God hiding?

[binary solo]

dsgrue3 said:

cunger said:

Science doesn't disprove God and God doesn't disprove science.   One provide answers to questions like how and when while the other provides answers to questions like who and why.  I can't wait until all of us have evolved to the level of being able to understand this concept.

Religion does not answer any questions dude. That's philosophy not theology.

Bong Lover said:

Your exclusive list and assumption that science has somehow encroached on the possibility of God exsisting or not is misguided. A misguided belief that you share with Stephen Hawkin by the way, so you're in good company.

As for the side question:

Yes, it makes as much sense to worship an impersonal god as a personal god. Just like it makes sense to worship the game library of the PS3 or any number of things people want to worship.

Finally, I guess some could find an image of God dressed up as Waldo a little offensive. Myself, I think considering the flawed premise of the thread that it's quite funny.

 

And your assumption that my meaning was to address the existence of God is entirely misguided. This was simply a rebuttal to the "God of the gaps" argument that has become ubiquitous.

I don't go to Sony US headquarters every Sunday and listen to the VP talk about how great it is and how it is a way to salvation. Loose definitions of worship won't save you here I'm afraid. That's called being a fan - no different from supporting (not worshipping) your favorite sports team.

richardhutnik said:

Problem in this individualistic culture, about the only thing that unites people now is human tragedy.  On the religious front, at least you get some positive fellowship, rather than that of suffering.  You get some unity that does't require a bomb going off.

And pardon my being very blunt here, but I am disappointed by threads like this.  They are generally simplistic in their views and really are just rehashing.  I can run the book of Job ending and have people get back to me when they understand everything.  Issues in regards to theological stuff generally is far more involved with limits of human reasoning and capacities than with the God side.  Free will vs determinism?  Where did everything come from?  Where are we heading?  Is there life after death?  Why is there evil in the world?  All these also show how stupid and weak humans are in the big picture.  Plug in other ones also.

lolwut, suicide bombers are exclusively theistic.

Questions such as those are best left to philosophy, not to theology as you're making quite the assumption to state that they are theological by nature.

binary solo said:
You can cross out life from non-life.

But you left out the most important thing: the universe, existence itself.

I'd love to see a source about life from non-life, so far as I know the Millery-Urey experiment is as far as abiogenesis has come. It's the chemistry -> biology that is missing.

The Universe is in there - it's crossed out due to the plausibility of a Universe from "nothing."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EilZ4VY5Vs

 

Groan. I can't be arsed watching a 1 hour youtube going over one of a various version of how the universe *might* have come into existence without an act of will. So which particular version of the no-God creation myth does that video cover? A plausible suggestion does not qualify the creation of the universe to be crossed out.

Life from non-life: a liquid medium + a base element capable of making polymeric type compounds, e.g. carbon + environmental conditions able to facilitate the formation of complex molecules capable of self replication, such as geothermal vents. It's not hard, it just takes time. In fact it's so easy that current theory suggests life is almost a guaranteed outcome whenever those conditions exist for a long enough period of time. It's certainly got a lot more going for it than the hypothetical musings about how the universe got started.

I feel sorry for those hard working athiests in their ultimately futile attempts to preach atheism. God exists: they are pushing shit up hill. God doesn't exist: there are so many people in the world who are otherwise completely sane and normal who have God affirming spiritual / religious experiences, that billions of people are willing to accept their anecdotes at face value and thus join religious communities. All the, ultimately weak, "you can't disprove a negative" argumentation in the world is going to be meaningless to those who's own personal experiences are absolute proof (to them) of a spiritual existince and the presence of the divine. I'm not talking of the charlatans who are out to make millions from gullible people, I'm talking about every day people who have ordinary jobs and ordinary lives (like some of my friends and family members) who have non-chemically enhanced spiritual experiences on a regular basis (not seeing ghosts and crap like that), who have no desire to make anything out of their experiences.

If perception is reality, then the perception of things spiritual is reality. To address individual spiritual experience you need to provide solid proof that those experiences have a non-spiritual cause. You can't just surmise that it's stuff going on in the brain.

"Religion does not answer any questions dude. That's philosophy not theology." Ha Ha! Theology pre-dates philosophy by centuries, and philosophy has its origins in theology. People think our modern western culture and philosophy originates from ancient Greek and Roman culture, and significantly Greek philosophy (which was never separated from spirituality). But ancient Greek and Roman culture owes much of it's origins to the even more ancient Jewish culture. So it is impossible to divorce theology from philosophy. And of course all of the Eastern philosophies are grounded in theology too.

All of our Western laws, can be traced back to the morals and 10 commandments of the Old Testament. To try to separate the influence of theology from modern civilisation is a pointless exercise in futility. In effect the Old Testament provided the answers for how to build a modern Western civilisation, and since then it's been a mater of refinement and rejeuvenation of those basic building block. Eastern civilisation got it's start from the even more ancient Hindu, and then Buddhist, origins. The history of civilisation IS the history of religion.