Religion Debate

OK, so..... using your skill & judgement, the challenge is to choose your favourite deity, plus runner-up fun deity(ies) if monotheism isn't your thing.

My serious choice is the Flying Spaghetti Monster (http://www.venganza.org/), with fun runner-up Sheela-Na-Gig, goddess of fertility (http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/celtic-mythology.php?deity=SHEELA-NA-GIG.)




Over to you, DLOUTH. Undecided? Browse here:

http://www.godchecker.com/

 

Naughty Me Devil

Quite happy to have a serious debate/discussion but this thread and the other you have posted lead me to think you just want to cause mischief and take the piss. Sorry but I am not up for that kind of debate.

So serious discussion ? Or taking the piss and no debate your choice ?

And try and be honest.

D Louth 77

 

You've indicated that you believe in a creator god, so who created the creator? It leads to an infinite regress.

P.S. What's wrong with my gods?

 

Facts

Firstly none of your deities are that.

Your Sheel-na-gig is not anything of the sort. If you took the trouble to look( 2 seconds is all that would be required). Yes it is a fertility image but is not a representation of any Celtic (Irish/Cornish/welsh/Scottish/Spanish/French ) deity. As I said you could check very easily and you have not, poor research. In some parts of Europe it is used like a Gargoyle on Church buildings(Medieval or earlier, mainly Norman). The image has an earlier Celtic origin but is not associated with any actual deity. And is used later as a morality image( not something I would agree with ) but as the populace was illiterate ( and actual Bible study was not encouraged) some misguided clergy decided to use folk lore to try and teach morality. A mistake only sorted out later at the time of the Reformation, when many gave their lives to translate the Bible into English for the common man to read and thus avoid such errors.

D Louth 77

 

The FSM can be regarded as a creator god.

Please answer who created your god. Also is your god omniscient & omnipotent?

 

Origins of God ?

Firstly you asked who/which God.

This is a good question. In to days secular/pluralist culture it has become normal to use God as a name for an amalgam of beliefs so as to cause no offence. However for the purpose of this discussion I will use the name that the creator used for himself. I am that I am. The Hebrew is YAHWEH.

Yahweh has always existed. Only finite, contingent things need a cause. Yahweh didn't have a beginning:He is infinite and he is necessary. Yahweh is the uncaused cause of all finite things. If Yahweh needed a cause, we would begin as you say an infinite regress of causes that would never answer the question. Yahweh is the first cause. You can't go back any further than a first.

D Louth 77

 

Well, I would say the big bang was the beginning of it all, and there is very good scientific evidence to support that theory. Rather than "scripture", which seems to be the source of your ideas about things. How do you know that only finite things need a cause, and what isn't finite?

Is the putative yahweh omniscient & omnipotent?

 

Gone to Bed

I suppose even the devil must sleep. Continue tomorrow ?

Yes the big bang is that moment that Yahweh brought all things into existence ( CAUSED and FINITE, VISIBLE REALITY). I find study of this topic very interesting and as hard as scientists and Cosmologist try, they can't get back any further than a few seconds before this event and thus its origin remains a mystery to them. The answer lies in the Tanakh/Old Covenant. The most telling question and answer I heard about this was when a cosmologist was asked how they could learn more about this event. He answered by saying I would have to ask God ? It is totally illogical to believe that this spark just happened. That everything that now exists was just a random set of events. Billions of events, in fact an almost infinite set of random accidents. If you believe that then you have more faith than I do.

As to whether Yahweh is all seeing and all knowing then the answer to that is Yes. That state does not preclude freedom of choice/will. Everything is not predetermined in this area as Yahweh has not ordained what mankind MUST do.

Only Yahweh is infinite. Everything else came into existence because of a cause. Nothing known can just occur without a causation. IF you know of such a thing, then what would it be ? You ,may say matter never ceases to exist that it is only changed but as the Universe has a beginning and a definite end this energy is not infinite but finite.

D Louth 77

 

Tomorrow

We can continue tomorrow, If you wish ?

Good Night

D Louth 77

 

So basically you are saying that your god just, er, is. No causation required. Why not simply say that the big bang just is? The beginning of space and time, with nothing beforehand.

If your god is all-knowing and all-seeing, then it can't be all-powerful. The reasoning being that if the god is all-powerful, then it has the power to intervene and alter world events, but if it already knows its future decisions or interventions, then it finds itself powerless to alter those preordained interventions when the time comes to make them. If it can change its mind about things, then it is not all-knowing. On the other hand, if it can't intervene at all, then it is also not all-powerful.

If it's not all-powerful and all-knowing, then why worship it?

 

The Big Bang was an event within space. Space is infinite, the universe is not. It is a bounded mass within space. Space goes on forever the universe does not. Space has always been here and had no beginning, the universe had a point of origin from which all is measured. Time started with the Big Bang as a point of reference. Time is an interval between two events. The origin was the Big Bang. Clear...???

 

My understanding is that there was no space or time. The big bang arose from a singularity which had no dimensions. So there is no "before" the big bang, as time/space did not exist.

 

Space Universe Infinite ?

Both the Universe which includes space is Finite. It is true that at present we can't see far enough back in the universe as we don't yet have big enough telescopes and while Humble is a good attempt the mirror it uses was flawed ( I know it was fixed but it still is not perfect ). In order to see to the very edge of the universe's Past we will need a much bigger telescope. However some scientists/cosmologist now feel that the Speed of light is not a constant and that the value may/is changing with the speed having been faster in the past. This would of course mean that the Universe is young and not very ancient as is the commonly held belief by evolutionary scientists. It is impossible to see to the very edge of the universe as is now as it is in constant movement forward and the light traveling to our telescopes is always from the pastnot the future or even present. The distances are so vast and the light issue from those objects will always mean our vision of the universe is past not future. The limits of the known universe are therefore limited and any thing else is guess work not fact. Our knowledge is therefore limited. The Universe is not infinite but finite as it expands it is running out of energy and will either eventually fly apart and grow cold or contract. Some scientists believe that it was a universal, crunch/contraction that caused the Big Bang to happen. The theories of cosmic strings and dark matter try to attempt a reconciliation of the flying apart theory, because as the bodies in the Universe move apart, gravity would get weaker, thus as it is the force that holds everything together it would fail. Scientists have therefore come up with these concepts to try and account for missing mass/gravity and allow the Universe to keep in existence. However I feel that neither theory is correct in that Yahweh who exists outside of linear time and space was the causation for our current reality and its finite boundaries and also the sustainer of it as well. There was a beginning, a point of creation and there will at some time in the future be a winding up of history. This current reality will cease to exist and the original model will be brought back into existence. The only viable answer is that Yahweh is the missing factor in current scientific understanding.

Before the Enlightenment (I would refer to this as the Darkening ), Theology was the queen among science and all other sciences sought to unlock the mysteries of Yahwehs creation, not pull them down and try and prove He does not exist. There are to many Yahweh sized holes existing in current scientific theory and these can only be filled and truly understood when you place the eternal I am that I am back into the equation.

Evolution is a classic example of this. Firstly does Natural Selection exist. Yes but in a limited form. Animals do survive when dramatic changes occur and those not suited don't survive but this does not lead to animals suddenly deciding to grow gills or wings to deal with a climatic change etc. These events happen to quickly for this to be a reality. Even if you take cellular mutation into the equation. The simple fact is that there is evidence to support the deaths of animals/extinction but there is no evidence to show that animals have changed from one type into another. If this were true then there would be current evidence for one species changing into another. The fossil record shows that plenty of life has come and gone but does not show any animals changing form,type or species. One type only produces its own kind and no other, if it fails it dies and becomes extinct. Life is robust but can't just will itself to alter.

according to the evolutionary biologists early conditions on this planet were very harsh and the simple logical fact is that life could not have come into existence and survived on its own. The first simple cell would have died, end of story. Think of all the complex things around you, all our supposed to be the results of accidents and cellular mutations. To believe this is to stretch credibility to destruction. The Giraffe is a classic example of how evolution can not exist. The number of systems in place which keep it alive could not be random chance. The first animal to grow along neck would have died instantly as either its neck muscles would have failed, it did not have a big enough heart to pump blood up its neck to its brain. The moment it lowered its neck it would have died because of all the blood hitting its brain( It has a special valve that reduces the blood flow into its brain). To many factors would have to occur at once for it to survive. Even if we had one animal which was perfect and alone the mutation would be bread out within a short space of time as no other of its kind would exist to keep it around and produce more genes. Necks would get shorter and vanish. A Giraffe is a particular created species,and is unique and can only produce its own kind and nothing more.

I was waiting for your points Mr Devil, this is why you asked the question. The answer is fairly simple and not contradictory.

Time and space did not exist before the big bang because Yahweh created them and sustains them now but He was before these caused realities. Imagine a circle which is Yahweh. Time Past and Future and the Universe exist as linear lines within the circle in straight lines back and forward. They are never outside the circle and remain finite.

Is God all seeing, all knowing and therefore not all powerful ? The answer is No.

The explanation to follow a bit later.

D Louth 77

 

It is not true to say that any reputable scientist believes that the speed of light is not constant.

For an easy, well-known example of evolutionary change occurring in living memory, how about MRSA? It's a seperate species from common-or-garden Staph Aureus, and arose because of antibiotic use (environmental/evolutionary pressure).

This is simply laughable. The giraffe evolved to have a long neck because the ones with shorter necks died off, because of environmental stress (high leaves). Organisms don't "decide to mutate", gene mutations are random events, some of which will confer a survival advantage on the organism concerned. A long neck in giraffes being a very good example. The mutation arises by random chance, but there is no "luck" involved in evolution. Evolution usually occurs over a very long time period - many generations of animals & plants go by. It's not something that happens in the blink of an eye. MRSA evolved over many generations of SA, but bacterial generations are very short, hence we have observed this evolutionary change in our lifetimes.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but your understanding of science seems limited to say the very least!

 

True or not

In Science who is and is not a reputable scientist changes as the weather does. It is very unfair and rude of you to state this about your fellow colleagues ? At many times in history great scientific discoveries have been treated as such until accepted as fact. Many do feel that the speed of light having changed is a likely explanation for certain observed things. This would prove a young universe and Earth.

It is true that the use of Anti-biotics has caused a change in this microscopic life but it has not become a new form of life, it is still a form of bacteria. It has not grown wings or decided to crawl out of the petri dish or grow along neck. I am sorry to say that your argument just does not hold water. The events that lead to the Giraffe growing along neck is flawed. The first animal to be born with such a neck would have died within seconds the moment it lowered its neck there are just to many life functions required to produce one viable new life form. You stretch credibility to far in this instance and if evolution fails here then it fails everywhere. It is a flawed imperfect theory that has become a fact( and taught as such by those who have an anti-theist agenda). What they claim to be the truth. I am interested in Science as a subject but would approach it from an entirely different angle.

You are correct I am not a scientist you may be such or a Doctor but that does not reduce the absolutely ridiculous stretch it takes to argue that Evolution is a fact. How can you with a straight face say this is true. It is as impossible as you would say Yahwehs existence is. As I stated elsewhere you have more faith than I do. To believe in something coming out of nothing and then changing into ordered forms is crazy IMHO.

D Louth 77

 

MRSA actually is a new organism - it's distinct from all the other varieties of SA.

The giraffe did not suddenly sprout its neck overnight - this is what you are totally failing to grasp. The neck has very gradually become longer, over many, many generations. Animals with longer necks had a survival advantage over their shorter-necked rivals, and therefore became more numerous. This is an extremely slow process, taking place over many thousands of years.

I would suggest you do some reading about evolutionary biology.

 

Name a single reputable physicist who "feels" that the speed of light is not constant.

I didn't mean to be rude - in fact I am doing my very best to avoid this!

 

Reputable or not

Reputable or not will depend on your point of view.

The claims made for evolution in regard for the Giraffe do not work, for one to my knowledge no fossil evidence exists to show any such development. I understand where you are coming from at one time I held similar views but when I looked into it with an open mind I just could not accept this ( Evolution as being fact,/proved). I should point out that this change in view did occur after coming to belief in Yahweh.

If as you say Evolution is a slow process( if you believe in it ), where say in Humanity is there proof of evolutionary changes. The DNA differences among primates are so radically different as to indicate that Humanity could not have come from any of these. Homo Sapien's are a unique species just as the other primates are as well. They have been around for (supposedly many tens/hundreds of thousands of years and yet only produce their own kind ). The fossil record shows what has come before and is now extinct it does not show evidence of transition from,Fish to amphibian to reptile to mammal to bird etc. Bacteria produces bacteria its own kind. Yes there may be some differences but it is still bacteria. this is proof of adaptation not evolution.

D Louth 77

 

What is your knowledge of the fossil record? What research have you carried out, and from which sources?

I'm sorry, but you are coming across as almost completely ignorant about physics & biology.

Have you solved the omnipotent/omniscient paradox yet?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0831_050831_chimp_genes.html

 

As you are unwilling to state your credentials.

As you seem/are unwilling to state your credentials in regard to any debate on this forum I to am not willing to reveal my credentials either.

I am aware of the Dna % still this 4% does translate into a massive difference between Humanity and Chimps. It also stands to reason that there will be certain similarities as Yahweh has used the same and similar building blocks for all life on Earth

As to the other questions I will answer shortly. I want to avoid a lengthy essay,but so far to answer fully will result in such.

I will return soon, Food beckons.

D Louth 77