"If you can prove God exists, I'll resign"

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Earle Sanborn wrote:

I’ve tried to put into practice the 10 commandments especially the Saturday Sabbath and tithing a full 10%- and not sleeping around, etc. and all I can say is my bank accounts are heavier, my mind is clearer and most people don’t believe I’m 58- my picture is 7 years old – so that’s a good thing too

Lucky you. It’s so easy to not mention all the good people in the world who DON’T get that special treatment from God.

[DavisModerator]

Earle Sanborn wrote:

What has tipped me to strong belief regarding the God of Abraham is the documented evidence of fulfilled prophesy.

I won’t mention the fact that your interpretations of these prophesies are beyond highly dubious. I will mention that most of the biblical prophesies never came true (nor cannot possibly ever come true due to historical changes or circumstances that are well over). If the fulfillment of prophesies is such a compelling reason to buy the Jesus story…would it not be reasonable to expect that at least the majority of the prophesies came true???

 

[UnseenParticipant]

Davis wrote:

Except of course unseen, you’ve mischaracterised those philosophers arguments because you don’t know their arguments because you’ve never read them. It’s one thing to not believe something because someone tells you do…its another thing to not believe something cause you are too lazy to pick up a book and read.

And these books establish as a fact that the nervous system and especially the brain are exempt from the same physical laws that determine the behavior of everything from ping pong balls to planets and galaxies? Amazing!

[DavisModerator]

Unseen wrote:

Amazing!

Who said facts? Who said the brain is exempt from physical laws? You’re the only one who brings this up. In fact, you have always been the only person claiming that something supernatural must be happening for there to be free will. You are so out of the loop…no one talks about that anymore. It’s clear you haven’t even remotely caught up to speed on theories of consciousness, mind, free will etc… you know…stuff that has significantly progressed over the last two decades.

I’m not going to enable your intellectual laziness, pick up a book and read it already. Zheesh

• This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by  Davis.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

@ Earle, I am sure you would agree that we should be very careful in how we interpret prophecies. People have used different sources of different versions of different translations of the Bible. Unless one is familiar with Biblical Hebrew or even ancient Aramaic which certain O.T. books (like Daniel) were written in, certain nuances can and do get lost in translation. I would not feel confident that they were all correct or proved that the God of the Bible was the actual creator of the Universe. That is probably why there are so many thousand different Christian sects.

Followers of the Lord of the Light religion had it wrong for centuries. Melisandre had believed that Stannis Baratheon was to be their saviour, their Warrior of Light. The mistake that Melisandre made was that she did not appreciate that the original words of the prophecy she relied upon were written in High Valyrian and that the word “prince” was actually gender neutral. That might seem strange to us but back then it could mean “Prince” or “Princess”. I suppose it is a bit like the term “Mankind” means “all humans” but to a non-English speaker it could easily be taken to mean “all males”. This is why she went to find Jon Snow when she heard he had come back from the dead but also went to meet with Daenerys Targaryen after she gave birth to dragons.

I can appreciate the problem Melisandre had and she was using much more reliable source material, much of it original writing and written down immediately after the event rather than several years later like much of the Bible. As she was not a scholar of High Valyrian I would not have believed what she told me as she seemed to be “forcing” the prophecy to come true. She herself is reliably quoted as saying to Jon Snow that “The Lord let you come back for a reason. Stannis was not the Prince Who Was Promised, but someone has to be.”

That is my problem with it. Why does someone have to be? Because she desperately needs it to be true so as to continue to prop up her worldview? Maybe she just got so deep into her religion that everything she saw confirmed her biases about the prophecy. Maybe she thought her world would fall apart if she was wrong about her beliefs in ancient prophecies? Personally I would tend to listen to what Jon Snow has to say as everyone knows that he, Jon Snow, knows nothing.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Jon Snow, knows nothing

Dammit, that’s exactly what I was going to say!

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Unseen wrote:

And these books establish […]

Guys, guys… sans all the books (which I haven’t read, yet), I’m taking a new position:

• God fearers have no free will, because God has always been in complete control, in spite of what philosophers are bound to say.
• God non-fearers have free will, in spite of what philosophers may say, and in spite of what anyone claiming to be a scientist may say, because there is no scientific basis for any “no-free-will” claim. Hell, there isn’t even a scientific definition of free will! Or not yet, at least.

There, issue settled!

• This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by  PopeBeanie. Reason: numerous typo fixes and style touchups

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

If Willie Nelson had gone to jail for having pot then I would have been determined be on the road again with my “Free Will” sign.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I do write some silly things at times 🙂

[UnseenParticipant]

Davis wrote:

Unseen wrote:

Amazing!

Who said facts? Who said the brain is exempt from physical laws? You’re the only one who brings this up. In fact, you have always been the only person claiming that something supernatural must be happening for there to be free will. You are so out of the loop…no one talks about that anymore. It’s clear you haven’t even remotely caught up to speed on theories of consciousness, mind, free will etc… you know…stuff that has significantly progressed over the last two decades. I’m not going to enable your intellectual laziness, pick up a book and read it already. Zheesh

No, no, no. Not that easy. The brain is basically an electrochemical machine. It is in FULL control of our choices. So much so that even when it malfunctions, there are causes for those malfunctions.

Anyway, rather than me edifying myself, for the benefit of all those who would like to know WTF you’re talking about, give us the explanation of how to salvage free will.

As you know, my position is that a solution to a philosophical problem that only philosophers can understand isn’t much of a solution.

And I’m not alone:

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. — Albert Einstein

[Iam YbeParticipant]

Which  one do you want proof for.

 

You would have to be more specific, perhaps you could define what you are looking proof for.

[Belle RoseParticipant]

It’s utterly stupid to think anyone can prove or disprove the existence of God to another person.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

It’s utterly stupid to think anyone can prove or disprove the existence of God to another person.

I agree. If we had proof nobody would need faith. Gods are only subjectively real to those that come to belief that they are. It is good that more and more of the younger generations no longer do. It “OK Boomer” to them.

 

[Belle RoseParticipant]

@Reg I don’t agree with that but it’s all good

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

What part(s) do you no agree with?

[Author]

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