Jesus, the Afterlife, Star-Wars?

[RUPERTKBD]

2 hours ago, bishopshodan said:

This is a good read. Science can't throw away intelligent design, in fact it makes things make more sense. I remember reading that even good old Albert Einstein had a few points about it.

 

The Top Six Lines of Evidence for Intelligent Design

https://www.discovery.org/a/sixfold-evidence-for-intelligent-design/

 

Part 2 has always stuck out for me...the fine tuning of the universe.

I don't know Bishop, this seems a lot like pseudo-science to me. The author throws a lot of information out there and then draws conclusions based on it, but it seems to me that he's making a lot of assumptions....something I wouldn't expect a scientist to do....

 

Digging into the Discovery Institute, it turns out that it's a conservative "think tank", the main goal of which is to have Creationism taught in American Schools.

 

The author of the article also seems to have  a lot of skeptics: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Positive_Case_for_Design

[bishopshodan]

1 minute ago, RUPERTKBD said:

I don't know Bishop, this seems a lot like pseudo-science to me. The author throws a lot of information out there and then draws conclusions based on it, but it seems to me that he's making a lot of assumptions....something I wouldn't expect a scientist to do....

 

Digging into the Discovery Institute, it turns out that it's a conservative "think tank", the main goal of which is to have Creationism taught in American Schools.

 

The author of the article also seems to have  a lot of skeptics: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Positive_Case_for_Design

I think you are right.

But I found it a good read about some ideas on intelligent design and the equation needed for this universe in specific. It does pump up some bible folk. 

 

I mean we are talking in a sky fairy thread. 

[True Comfort]

A serious question deserves a serious answer. Thanks for asking! You asked us to assume there is a God and that Jesus is historical. Here's my response to your question(s). Thanks in advance for reading to the end.

 

Your big question appears to be "why" - makes sense. You're trying to get to THE answer behind the answers. As Edgar Andrews put it in his book Who Made God?, "the scientist's dream is to develop a 'theory of everything' - a scientific theory that will encompass all the workings of the physical universe in a single, self-consistent formulation. Fair enough, but there is more to the universe than mater, energy, space and time. Most of us believe in the real existence of non-material entities such as friendship, love, beauty, poetry, truth, faith, justice and so on - the things that actually make human life worth living. A true 'theory of everything', therefore, must embrace both the material and non-material aspects of the universe, and my contention is that we already possess such a theory, namely, the hypothesis of God." 

And so the best place to start is in the beginning. The Bible starts this way: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." This is the hypothesis of God - that he is the Creator, the only uncreated entity there is. This explains the beautiful order and complexity we experience in both our natural bodies and this natural world; it has a supernatural origin. Obviously, the concept of a Creator who has always existed is beyond our ability to comprehend. But it's either believe this or believe that this beautifully ordered and complex world sprung up by chance through trial and error over immense periods of time. And so there is a Creator who has created all things. 

Why create? There must be a purpose, right? Right. And it's a good one! God created us so that we might know him, love him, and live with him forever in a state of perfect bliss.

What went wrong? We did. We took the free will to choose for good (and God) or against good (against God) and we chose to reject the way of life he made us for. It turns out that was a horrible choice since the Creator really did know what was best for his creation and set it up so that we would flourish if we followed the path he laid for us.  So yes, there is truly a battle between good and evil. God is good, and his adversary Satan is evil. Satan is the instigator of our rejection, all that we willfully made the choice to reject God on our own. 

If God is completely good, then part of that goodness is justice. (One of the biggest logical arguments for the existence of God is the existence of a universal, objective moral standard of good and evil. There is no culture in the world that agrees it is good to lie and cheat and steal and murder - the reason for this is because a moral standard exists from the outside, from God. If there is no Creator, then there is, logically speaking, no reason for me to worry about some "man-made concept" of good and evil. If there is no Creator, then it follows that life should be about my survival and my indulgence of my desires. Any altruistic notions you have are rooted in your status as a creature of the Creator.) Back to justice... it is good to be just. We all desire justice to be done, and we hate injustice. When the creature rejects the Creator, justice looks like death. Just think if you made something out of LEGO, had the power to breathe life into it, and then it rejected you and your design for it. You would break it apart and start over, or you would just break it apart and put the pieces back into your LEGO bins. And so humanity deserves judgment for what we've done as creatures rejecting our Creator. This is where the need for salvation comes in.

How can we be saved? If we make things right with God.

How to do that? Pay the penalty for our rejection (death), and assuming we can overcome death somehow, then live with absolute perfection according to his good design for us. 

Can we do that? No chance. If we die, then the penalty is paid - but we're dead. And even if we could come back to life, we're not perfect. None of us need convincing of this point, I'm sure. We've all experience what imperfection is like...

Solution? God had to do himself what we could not do. He became one of us - the Creator entering into the creation by becoming truly human while remaining true God. He lived a life of perfection (what was needed), but then he still died (also what was needed), paying the penalty for our rejection. But - and here is really the core piece of it all - he didn't stay dead, because death couldn't keep him. The power of his perfect life meant that death had no hold on him. And so he rose from the dead (Easter) to new life, and the great hope of the Christian is (some professing Christians get side-tracked, but biblically speaking, this is the great hope of the Christian) that if we believe in the work that the God-man Jesus did for us, in our place - that is, if we rely on his perfection and the value of his death for us - then we will one day be raised to new life as well. Though we leave this earth through death as all do, for the one who believes in God this earthly death is an entrance to a new and better life, namely, the state of perfect bliss that we were created for in the first place.

Why would God do this? Why not abandon his creation after we rejected him? The answer is love, the character trait that defines God as much as anything. God loves what he has made and desires its good, and so he has made a way that he can both maintain his justice and purity (this is praiseworthy) while showing his mercy and grace (also praiseworthy!). He has worked this out in his time, according to his purposes, in his way. To trust in him can be difficult, but it is the path of truth and life. The alternative is making the best of what we have here, because this is all the life we have. 

 

Happy Easter!

[bishopshodan]

24 minutes ago, True Comfort said:

Just think if you made something out of LEGO, had the power to breathe life into it, and then it rejected you and your design for it. You would break it apart and start over, or you would just break it apart and put the pieces back into your LEGO bins

No, I would not.

 

[JM_]

23 hours ago, bishopshodan said:

This is a good read. Science can't throw away intelligent design, in fact it makes things make more sense. I remember reading that even good old Albert Einstein had a few points about it.

 

The Top Six Lines of Evidence for Intelligent Design

https://www.discovery.org/a/sixfold-evidence-for-intelligent-design/

 

Part 2 has always stuck out for me...the fine tuning of the universe.

So among many issues I have with "intelligent design" reasoning is, when did god stop? is he still designing today? how would we know if he was still in design mode?

 

I don't agree at all that things make more sense under ID. We see many lines of animals that came and went. Were those mistakes? design snafu's? god just doodling? 

 

And by far the biggest knock against it is, we don't need it. We can see its not necessary to create an incredible array of things over long periods of time. 

 

Just because we can't answer, yet (maybe never), the initial origins of things (or if thats even the correct way to think about it in a more than three dimensional universe where time isn't what we perceive it to be) doesn't mean there's a god designing it all. In fact the universe is totally silent on the need for one. 

 

 

 

[Gurn]

 

It is a mammal

that lays eggs

beaver tail

duck bill

 

Doesnèt look like inteligent design at all

 

[bishopshodan]

6 minutes ago, JM_ said:

So among many issues I have with "intelligent design" reasoning is, when did god stop? is he still designing today? how would we know if he was still in design mode?

 

I don't agree at all that things make more sense under ID. We see many lines of animals that came and went. Were those mistakes? design snafu's? god just doodling? 

 

And by far the biggest knock against it is, we don't need it. We can see its not necessary to create an incredible array of things over long periods of time. 

 

Just because we can't answer, yet (maybe never), the initial origins of things (or if thats even the correct way to think about it in a more than three dimensional universe where time isn't what we perceive it to be) doesn't mean there's a god designing it all. In fact the universe is totally silent on the need for one. 

 

 

 

I don't think of it as god.

 

I don't know if the universe has intelligent design behind it, but if it does it doesn't feel to me like the religions have even come close to it's understanding. 

 

To add to your questions, what made god? what was before the big bang? ....people have posted some you tube vids before when I asked that but at the end of the day infinity is mind melting. Can there be infinite (multi)universes? what is going on with quantum mechanics? modern science calls the 4th dimension time itself, 5th possibly being information (whatever that means). M ( string) theory suggests that we have 11 dimensions, with some of them being collapsed in the quantum field. All this goes way over my head. 

 

We live in a universe that is mostly made up of stuff we don't understand...dark matter and energy. We have information transfer that seems to not abide by any rules such as quantum entanglement / spooky action at a distance. 

 

As for your animal doodles...we might be all doodles? I mentioned earlier in this thread that the bible itself describes a simulation in my opinion. If there are different realms like heaven and hell, realms that we exist in and even have beings like angels, demons and a god...then where do we or our souls really exist?

 

I have sleep paralysis. When I was a kid, they told me it was night terrors.

When I am in that state, what I am experiencing is very real to me. Even without this condition, there is a reason we wake up from nightmares with our heart pounding, sweating and afraid. Our mind thought we were really there and the body reacts as such. 

 

I'm agnostic to put a term to it, I do feel that this dog and pony show is not the whole experience. 

[JM_]

6 minutes ago, bishopshodan said:

I don't think of it as god.

 

I don't know if the universe has intelligent design behind it, but if it does it doesn't feel to me like the religions have even come close to it's understanding. 

 

To add to your questions, what made god? what was before the big bang? ....people have posted some you tube vids before when I asked that but at the end of the day infinity is mind melting. Can there be infinite (multi)universes? what is going on with quantum mechanics? modern science calls the 4th dimension time itself, 5th possibly being information (whatever that means). M ( string) theory suggests that we have 11 dimensions, with some of them being collapsed in the quantum field. All this goes way over my head. 

 

We live in a universe that is mostly made up of stuff we don't understand...dark matter and energy. We have information transfer that seems to not abide by any rules such as quantum entanglement / spooky action at a distance. 

 

As for your animal doodles...we might be all doodles? I mentioned earlier in this thread that the bible itself describes a simulation in my opinion. If there are different realms like heaven and hell, realms that we exist in and even have beings like angels, demons and a god...then where do we or our souls really exist?

I think what burns my cookies about intelligent design is, its just another religious power grab. You can't intimidate Galileo anymore, so instead make up stories about how things are too complex to have been the result of natural processes.

 

The edges of ID are pretty funny tho. I mean, if god designed everything, then that means everything, so god is pretty kinky. 

 

6 minutes ago, bishopshodan said:

 

I have sleep paralysis. When I was a kid, they told me it was night terrors.

When I am in that state, what I am experiencing is very real to me. Even without this condition, there is a reason we wake up from nightmares with our heart pounding, sweating and afraid. Our mind thought we were really there and the body reacts as such. 

damn, that must be awful. I often hear things sleeping that aren't there that seem very real in the moment. 

 

6 minutes ago, bishopshodan said:

 

I'm agnostic to put a term to it, I do feel that this dog and pony show is not the whole experience. 

 

I don't know if we can ever get to a full understanding, just because we're pretty limited creatures. Maybe AI can figure it out, but if it did, we may not be able to understand it anyway. 

 

 

[bishopshodan]

17 minutes ago, gurn said:

 

It is a mammal

that lays eggs

beaver tail

duck bill

 

Doesnèt look like inteligent design at all

 

Haha.

Some of the deep sea creatures like the Bloody Belly Comb Jelly here kinda looks at old Ducky Bill and says....hold my beer.

 

 

[bishopshodan]

5 minutes ago, JM_ said:

I think what burns my cookies about intelligent design is, its just another religious power grab. You can't intimidate Galileo anymore, so instead make up stories about how things are too complex to have been the result of natural processes.

 

The edges of ID are pretty funny tho. I mean, if god designed everything, then that means everything, so god is pretty kinky. 

 

damn, that must be awful. I often hear things sleeping that aren't there that seem very real in the moment. 

 

 

I don't know if we can ever get to a full understanding, just because we're pretty limited creatures. Maybe AI can figure it out, but if it did, we may not be able to understand it anyway. 

 

 

Don't get me wrong.

I find organised religion to be nothing more than, as you say...power. It is a means to control

I find it funny in recent years that a lot of 'trucker/anti vax' types are religious...and they have the nerve to go on about freedom. Organised religion controls people like no other. They don't live even close to free. 

 

Look up sleep paralysis when you have time. I kept it to myself until my early 20's when I read about UBC studying it. I thought I might be crazy. It is a very supernatural experience and very, very scary. I actually have a little theory that a lot of  Alien abduction stories are actually people that have had a sleep paralysis episodes. ( also know as waking paralysis) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis#:~:text=Sleep paralysis (plural%3A sleep paralyses,than a couple of minutes.

 

Btw, one of the reasons i smoke pot before bed is to avoid this. Mary Jane helps me get proper, none crazy shut eye. 

[JM_]

1 hour ago, bishopshodan said:

Don't get me wrong.

I find organised religion to be nothing more than, as you say...power. It is a means to control

I find it funny in recent years that a lot of 'trucker/anti vax' types are religious...and they have the nerve to go on about freedom. Organised religion controls people like no other. They don't live even close to free. 

 

Look up sleep paralysis when you have time. I kept it to myself until my early 20's when I read about UBC studying it. I thought I might be crazy. It is a very supernatural experience and very, very scary. I actually have a little theory that a lot of  Alien abduction stories are actually people that have had a sleep paralysis episodes. ( also know as waking paralysis) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis#:~:text=Sleep paralysis (plural%3A sleep paralyses,than a couple of minutes.

 

Btw, one of the reasons i smoke pot before bed is to avoid this. Mary Jane helps me get proper, none crazy shut eye. 

thats fascinating, and scary. The sleep stuff, not the truckers, that stuff is hilarious. 

 

Why did you keep it to yourself? 

[bishopshodan]

27 minutes ago, JM_ said:

thats fascinating, and scary. The sleep stuff, not the truckers, that stuff is hilarious. 

 

Why did you keep it to yourself? 

I hadn't heard of it from anyone else. 

Didn't know what it was. 

 

 

[The Lock]

4 hours ago, bishopshodan said:

Don't get me wrong.

I find organised religion to be nothing more than, as you say...power. It is a means to control

I find it funny in recent years that a lot of 'trucker/anti vax' types are religious...and they have the nerve to go on about freedom. Organised religion controls people like no other. They don't live even close to free. 

 

Look up sleep paralysis when you have time. I kept it to myself until my early 20's when I read about UBC studying it. I thought I might be crazy. It is a very supernatural experience and very, very scary. I actually have a little theory that a lot of  Alien abduction stories are actually people that have had a sleep paralysis episodes. ( also know as waking paralysis) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis#:~:text=Sleep paralysis (plural%3A sleep paralyses,than a couple of minutes.

 

Btw, one of the reasons i smoke pot before bed is to avoid this. Mary Jane helps me get proper, none crazy shut eye. 

I think one of the factors with all of this is how little we know about the brain. I'm personally agnostic, but what I do believe in more potentially is the paranormal. I think the paranormal in some cases could happen simply because of the brain. In a lot of cases, it's likely fiction still, but in some cases, there may very well be something real about it. I can't really explain to you how it would be real but I also can't explain how it wouldn't be real either, at least not without some intangibles thrown into the mix.

 

As far as organized religion goes, I can see a benefit perhaps socially for those who wouldn't be social otherwise, but beyond that, it seems more controlling to me than anything as you've mentioned.

[Sharpshooter]

[Sharpshooter]

On 4/16/2022 at 8:50 AM, LTC123 said:

Serious question for the metaphysical, spiritual, and religious types:

 

Let me start with some facts that we'll assume true for this question and debate:

 

1.  There is a God (could be defined in many many ways, I suppose)

2.  There was a man named Jesus that walked the the Earth.   His purpose?  Save mankind.  Show us unconditional love and mercy?  Save us from "sin"?  Take all our burdens on himself?....but why?

 

If the above are true, then why?

 

A)  Is there truly a battle between good and evil that is beyond our Earthly realm?

b)  Why would a Jesus figure wait until 2000 years ago (and not intervene when humans walked the Earth tens of thousands of years ago?

c) Why would a race of humans need "saving"?  from what?    

d) Afterlife?  Save us from our afterlife?  

e)  When we die, do we "wakeup" from our VR game on another planet?

f)  Why would God send "down" a representative to interact with Humans?  to teach?  to inform?  to heal?  to save?...save from what?...the upcoming galactic war?   why?    Why then would be be required to die a human death only to be resurrected as a spiritual being?

 

 

Happy Easter!

 

 

[Putgolzin]

On 4/18/2022 at 6:43 PM, bishopshodan said:

This is a good read. Science can't throw away intelligent design, in fact it makes things make more sense. I remember reading that even good old Albert Einstein had a few points about it.

 

The Top Six Lines of Evidence for Intelligent Design

https://www.discovery.org/a/sixfold-evidence-for-intelligent-design/

 

Part 2 has always stuck out for me...the fine tuning of the universe.

 

I haven't ever really looked at Intelligent Design enough to really understand it.

 

That first point seems inescapable though at least from a logical point of view - everything we know and observe is an effect that had a cause behind it.

If I treat a dude like a prick, I get punched in the head.

If I see a carved duck, I assume somebody made it.

Something doesn't come from nothing.

 

So then 'whatever' that started the Big Bang (or whatever was the start of everything) had to have existed outside of all this cause and effect.

 

That's not necessarily GOD or even The Force or who knows what - but it seems logical that there has to be something outside of our known existence.

 

 

 

[The Lock]

On 4/21/2022 at 5:29 AM, Putgolzin said:

 

I haven't ever really looked at Intelligent Design enough to really understand it.

 

That first point seems inescapable though at least from a logical point of view - everything we know and observe is an effect that had a cause behind it.

If I treat a dude like a prick, I get punched in the head.

If I see a carved duck, I assume somebody made it.

Something doesn't come from nothing.

 

So then 'whatever' that started the Big Bang (or whatever was the start of everything) had to have existed outside of all this cause and effect.

 

That's not necessarily GOD or even The Force or who knows what - but it seems logical that there has to be something outside of our known existence.

One thing I will admit to is I'm not really a strong believer of the big bang theory. I get why people think it's plausible but it is, of course, what it directly states itself to be: a theory. While it's true that we can see objects from billions of years ago now the discern them through the wave of light they emmit, it doesn't strike me as enough evidence for the big bang theory to exist. There could easily be things we cannot see at the moment that could lead to an entirely different theory against the big bang.

 

That being said, I also think that believing it's "god" is perhaps even more far-fetched than the big bang theory. At least the big bang theory has some form of scientific evidence behind it. Who knows, maybe we'll find some evidence on there being a god eventually, but I'm not holding my breath on that. lol

[bishopshodan]

On 4/19/2022 at 8:27 PM, The Lock said:

I think one of the factors with all of this is how little we know about the brain. I'm personally agnostic, but what I do believe in more potentially is the paranormal. I think the paranormal in some cases could happen simply because of the brain. In a lot of cases, it's likely fiction still, but in some cases, there may very well be something real about it. I can't really explain to you how it would be real but I also can't explain how it wouldn't be real either, at least not without some intangibles thrown into the mix.

 

As far as organized religion goes, I can see a benefit perhaps socially for those who wouldn't be social otherwise, but beyond that, it seems more controlling to me than anything as you've mentioned.

Speaking of paranormal

I have zero fear of ghosts. None.

If I saw a real confirmed ghost, I would jump for joy. It would mean that there is something else, that your life doesn't end when you die. 

Even if the ghost tries to hurt or even kills me. No problem, I'll find that spirit and F' it up in the afterlife. 

[The Lock]

7 minutes ago, bishopshodan said:

Speaking of paranormal

I have zero fear of ghosts. None.

If I saw a real confirmed ghost, I would jump for joy. It would mean that there is something else, that your life doesn't end when you die. 

Even if the ghost tries to hurt or even kills me. No problem, I'll find that spirit and F' it up in the afterlife. 

This is immediately what I thought of with your post...

 

[Putgolzin]

19 hours ago, The Lock said:

One thing I will admit to is I'm not really a strong believer of the big bang theory. I get why people think it's plausible but it is, of course, what it directly states itself to be: a theory. While it's true that we can see objects from billions of years ago now the discern them through the wave of light they emmit, it doesn't strike me as enough evidence for the big bang theory to exist. There could easily be things we cannot see at the moment that could lead to an entirely different theory against the big bang.

 

That being said, I also think that believing it's "god" is perhaps even more far-fetched than the big bang theory. At least the big bang theory has some form of scientific evidence behind it. Who knows, maybe we'll find some evidence on there being a god eventually, but I'm not holding my breath on that. lol

Yeah, me neither. It's not that I don't believe it, it's just another realm of thought/theory/study that I don't have enough study (or knowledge of even how to research) to know for myself. So, I suppose I believe it, but only inasmuch as smarter people than I say it's so and there doesn't seem to be much debate around it. That still doesn't necessarily mean it's fact though I guess.

As it relates to this discussion though, I wasn't referring to the 'Big Bang Theory' per se, but simply whatever the first/initial thing that happened in the realm of everything we know.

And that thing wouldn't be god.

But whatever caused that thing must (logically) exist outside of cause and effect (ie: everything we know) - what old-school philosophers called an un-moved mover

As far as my brain can take me - that would in fact be evidence for something "other-world-ly"