What if God evolved?

[Scrutinize]

I think what Faithless is trying to say is that all the examples drawn on by Combat Squirrel etc need to be taken in context of the historical account of not only the whole passage but the previous and later books in the bible. Without doing this the whole essence of the quotes CS used are meaningless.

I could easily pick up a bible or any other religious book and take quotes, misquote them or misunderstand them and totally destroy their meaning and by selecting these quotes and adding my own reasoning to it I would be missing the point of the bible and not putting a balanced argument across.

This isn't saying that you are wrong in your opinions though but consider this……

It would be like me reading an account of WWII and taking specific quotes from that account and making it sound like the allies were the bad guys, for example concentrating on the atomic bomb dropped by the US then ignoring the reason it was dropped and the rest of the atrocities of the war by the Nazis etc.

God never gave us anything of the sort. He didn't give me free will when it comes to "choosing to believe". I'm hard-wired not to believe in what I see as largely contemptuous garbage. If I was able to believe in God and an afterlife, and a meaning to all this, don't you think I would? Don't you think anyone would?

A lot of people do believe in God and the afterlife and its not just Christians, most religions centre around this concept. When you consider the number of people who believe in God you could say that alone is proof enough of Gods existence.

Then if you consider the number of Christians who believe Jesus was who he said he was, is it possible to consider that is proof enough?

The fact is that the faith that many describe is actually them trying to convince themselves that they aren't all alone in the Universe, that they don't face oblivion when they die. It's a hard choice for atheists and those without faith to make, in fact, it's no "choice" at all, which is exactly my point.

What do you feel your purpose is, or the purpose is of the Human race btw?

You don't need God to be better, you are quite capable of achieving that on your own and incidentally, are you making the argument one of hedging one's bets? Worship God just in case? The fact is that if I went to church every Sunday with no real belief in God, my faith would be insincere. Living as I am, lying to no-one including myself, if I'm wrong then at least God will judge me accordingly I would hope. Having a sense of ethics without the fear of a God's judgement arguably says more for one's character than one whose ethics are a result of fearing a judgemental God, wouldn't you say?

This raises an interesting question which got me thinking. Is it better not to believe sincerely in the existence of God like your self, or to think you believe in it with an insincere heart (for want of a better term)?

 

[Combat squirrel]

I think what Faithless is trying to say is that all the examples drawn on by Combat Squirrel etc need to be taken in context of the historical account of not only the whole passage but the previous and later books in the bible. Without doing this the whole essence of the quotes CS used are meaningless.

I could easily pick up a bible or any other religious book and take quotes, misquote them or misunderstand them and totally destroy their meaning and by selecting these quotes and adding my own reasoning to it I would be missing the point of the bible and not putting a balanced argument across.

Your still totally missing the point, the bible DOES say those things, and the entire story that they are written in makes no difference, they still instruct humans to treat other humans in vile and disgusting ways, often for no other reasons than 'the enemy' doesn't believe in there god. The entire bible itself is 'believe my god or die' (infact all religious texts say the same thing). Don't think of god as god, think of him as a character in a book (which is exactly what he is), and that character comes across as a selfish vile warmongering sort on a global scale, makes hitler look like a boy scout

What your also basically saying is the old 'pick and choose' stuff out of the bible, which is exactly what 99.99% of believers do, to suit there own ends, im sorry no matter what a person did, however 'wrong' (in the eyes of those that believe in god) there is NO excuse to KILL them, and take INNOCENT people and destroy there lives (murder, rape, whatever), simply for knowing said person that is your enemy, and thats just one example !

 

[Scrutinize]

Your still totally missing the point, the bible DOES say those things, and the entire story that they are written in makes no difference, they still instruct humans to treat other humans in vile and disgusting ways, often for no other reasons than 'the enemy' doesn't believe in there god. The entire bible itself is 'believe my god or die' (infact all religious texts say the same thing). Don't think of god as god, think of him as a character in a book (which is exactly what he is), and that character comes across as a selfish vile warmongering sort on a global scale, makes hitler look like a boy scout

Yes the bible does say these things but they need to be taken and quoted in context of the whole story to develop the understanding of why they happened and why they have been said. Objectively, your interpretation does not provide a balanced argument but that’s fair enough, if in your eyes it is sufficient to justify your thoughts on the matter.

What your also basically saying is the old 'pick and choose' stuff out of the bible, which is exactly what 99.99% of believers do, to suit there own ends, im sorry no matter what a person did, however 'wrong' (in the eyes of those that believe in god) there is NO excuse to KILL them, and take INNOCENT people and destroy there lives (murder, rape, whatever), simply for knowing said person that is your enemy, and thats just one example !

I am not saying to pick and choose. If you are going to quote passages from the bible and use it as a demonstration of why God isn’t God, you should take a balanced approach and take examples from all of it, not just the quotes you used which were measured against Gods wrath rather than love.

However if you don’t believe in the existence of God, why quote any of the bible as your justification for your reason to not believe in him, since in your opinion it is all untrue and just a book?

As you state “Don't think of god as god, think of him as a character in a book (which is exactly what he is)” then surely your argument is merely a discussion of a character in a book, the way you would discuss a Shakespearian character in English. In which case since in your perspective it is merely a story and not an actual account of God, your use of the bible to disprove him or to make God out to be vengefull is moot.

If you were asked in a GCSE English exam to discuss the relationship between Romeo and Julliet, then to provide a full argument and get the full marks on the paper by showing a propper undertsanding of the relationship/situation, you would 1)look at their situations 2)look at why there relationship was as it was 3)discuss their relationship 4)discuss why it ended as it did.

 

[Combat squirrel]

snip

Go read the bible, read all of it, think that your reading a book written by some bloke, who's trying to make out its the word of god and then come back to this thread You'll find its a few stories based on a large set of characters, all saying believe or die, and do anything you can to make this so, even murder and a long other list of nasty things, all mixed in with a few 'nice' stories to make it appear that killing people for no reason as its the 'just' thing to do, and your really 'protecting' all that is 'good', its called brainwashing (EDIT: 'faith') for a reason

The above may look a daft paragraph, but read all of the bible and try and say the above isn't simply a short round up of the whole book, you can say that OR oh its a good book, look at all the nice things in it, and well, we'll ignore the blatent abuse of human life just for now

That is a short and to the point round up of the whole book, looking at it in a balanced way, to me, killing people, counter acted with 'he did a selfless kind deed' type of story, that apparently happened isnt an excuse for murdering people

 

[Sleepy]

A lot of people do believe in God and the afterlife and its not just Christians, most religions centre around this concept. When you consider the number of people who believe in God you could say that alone is proof enough of Gods existence.

But you'd be wrong. Belief != Proof nor does quantity of believers indicate the veracity of their belief. It merely demonstrates that large numbers of people can hold views based upon indoctrination as a child that are difficult for them as an adult to ignore.

Then if you consider the number of Christians who believe Jesus was who he said he was, is it possible to consider that is proof enough?

You're repeating yourself.

What do you feel your purpose is, or the purpose is of the Human race btw?

Your question predisposes that there is a purpose to the human race.

 

[Scrutinize]

Go read the bible, read all of it, think that your reading a book written by some bloke, who's trying to make out its the word of god and then come back to this thread

By that, I assume you believe the bible was written by one person? However since you don't believe its a real account and a fictional book with a fictional God, how would me reading this make any difference to this thread or your opinion?

Its like telling me to go and read Lord of the Rings from your perspective. Surely it is much better to try and disprove the existance of God through scientific research and theories reverting to the Big Bang and evolution of the species.

Which is what I was saying, why quote quotes about God albeit in your view a vengeful one from a book that you don't believe in to construct your argument.

 

[Combat squirrel]

snip

Well said

 

[Scrutinize]

But you'd be wrong. Belief != Proof nor does quantity of believers indicate the veracity of their belief. It merely demonstrates that large numbers of people can hold views based upon indoctrination as a child that are difficult for them as an adult to ignore.You're repeating yourself.Your question predisposes that there is a purpose to the human race.

Sorry I wasn't repeating myself...There are two distinctions 1) Belief in God shared by many people and most religions and 2)Belief in Jesus being the son of God specific to Christianity.

+ I was asking a question about the purpose of life and the human race. Nothing wrong with that as the question was to be taken at face value. By your answer I assume you mean that there isn’t any?

 

[Combat squirrel]

By that, I assume you believe the bible was written by one person? However since you don't believe its a real account and a fictional book with a fictional God, how would me reading this make any difference to this thread or your opinion?

Its like telling me to go and read Lord of the Rings from your perspective. Surely it is much better to try and disprove the existance of God through scientific research and theories reverting to the Big Bang and evolution of the species.

Which is what I was saying, why quote quotes about God albeit in your view a vengeful one from a book that you don't believe in to construct your argument.

Iv taken those quotes from the said book because people who do believe, say they BELIEVE in that book (I obviously don't) they also use the book as the ONLY argument in favor of what they believe. So quite simply, if you take things from what many many people think of as truth, and they find there 'truth' is highly unsavoury they tend to stumble over there own words,like you are right now.

Nothing can ever be totally 100% disproved, as nothing can 100% ever be proven, thats common sense, however you and religious sorts take that admition as concrete evidence god exists, not very scientific again

Then if you consider the number of Christians who believe Jesus was who he said he was, is it possible to consider that is proof enough?

Not very scientific thing to say now is it, just because a VAST majority of people think something, doesn't mean its true, 1000 years ago everyone thought the earth was flat, hopefully in another 1000 years people will look back at religion with the same thoughts of, 'aww silly people, I can see how they maybe they thought that, but at least we now know better' (EDIT: Infact thats even more of an argument to just how daft religion is, standing on the ground the earth 'appears' flat, its whats observed at ground level, so its easy to see why they thought that, religion has not 1 factual or observed non man made thing to observe, yet people still insist on believing in it, remarkable and worrying) As soon as the general population becomes generally better educated, times will hopefully move on

 

[Sleepy]

Sorry I wasn't repeating myself...There are two distinctions 1) Belief in God shared by many people and most religions and 2)Belief in Jesus being the son of God specific to Christianity.

The first asumes that even though there are many relegions and only a couple being monothiest, that there is value in the total number of believers even though they have wildy disparate views upon the nature of the divine. This would seem to me a cop out. Only those who follow the "true" relegion can be counted everyone else is wrong. Hence the second statement being , at least IMO, a repeat of the first.

I was asking a question about the purpose of life and the human race. Nothing wrong with that as the question was to be taken at face value. By your answer I assume you mean that there isn’t any?

We should allways be aware of our preconceptions when asking questions.

 

[Scrutinize]

The first asumes that even though there are many relegions and only a couple being monothiest, that there is value in the total number of believers even though they have wildy disparate views upon the nature of the divine. This would seem to me a cop out. Only those who follow the "true" relegion can be counted everyone else is wrong. Hence the second statement being , at least IMO, a repeat of the first.We should allways be aware of our preconceptions when asking questions.

I asked the following questions to Phykell, I didn't make a statement there were no preconceptions as you would put it. All that was needed was a simple answer.

A lot of people do believe in God and the afterlife and its not just Christians, most religions centre around this concept. When you consider the number of people who believe in God you could say that alone is proof enough of Gods existence.(rhetorical but yes its a question)

Then if you consider the number of Christians who believe Jesus was who he said he was, is it possible to consider that is proof enough?

What do you feel your purpose is, or the purpose is of the Human race btw?

 

[Scrutinize]

Iv taken those quotes from the said book because people who do believe, say they BELIEVE in that book (I obviously don't) they also use the book as the ONLY argument in favor of what they believe. So quite simply, if you take things from what many many people think of as truth, and they find there 'truth' is highly unsavoury they tend to stumble over there own words,like you are right now.

Odd thing to say as I am just trying to reason where you were coming from, where was I stumbling? It seemed very odd for you to be taking quotes from a book you don't believe in, to justify your argument, that in your eyes a God that doesn't exist, is in essence not a nice God.

Nothing can ever be totally 100% disproved, as nothing can 100% ever be proven, thats common sense, however you and religious sorts take that admition as concrete evidence god exists, not very scientific again

Is this in relation to your argument about the non existence of God? Either it can or it can’t be proven. You have stated that God is a character in a book so, from your posts in your argument its 100% proven in your eyes that God doesn’t exist. It’s not a rational process to say he doesn’t exist and then make the assumption that nothing can be 100% proven or disproven. Surely it has to be one or the other?

Not very scientific thing to say now is it, just because a VAST majority of people think something, doesn't mean its true,

I asked a question, I didn’t say this as a statement, you made the assumption.

1000 years ago everyone thought the earth was flat, hopefully in another 1000 years people will look back at religion with the same thoughts of, 'aww silly people, I can see how they maybe they thought that, but at least we now know better' (EDIT: Infact thats even more of an argument to just how daft religion is, standing on the ground the earth 'appears' flat, its whats observed at ground level, so its easy to see why they thought that, religion has not 1 factual or observed non man made thing to observe, yet people still insist on believing in it, remarkable and worrying) As soon as the general population becomes generally better educated, times will hopefully move on

Do you think everyone who is religious is uneducated?

 

[Combat squirrel]

Odd thing to say as I am just trying to reason where you were coming from, where was I stumbling? It seemed very odd for you to be taking quotes from a book you don't believe in, to justify your argument, that in your eyes a God that doesn't exist, is in essence not a nice God.

Again ill say the same thing, im taking quotes from a book that the person I am debating with believes in, so its using there own evidence to counteract there own arguments, a very difficult thing for anyone to argue with, do you understand that now ? Correct I dont believe in that book, so its not taking much of my time or effort to take there evidence and simply show it to them, they did there research showed it to me, I said, what does this part of your research mean ? usual reply is, 'im not talking now' or 'darn it just have faith!' i.e. backed into a corner with nothing more to say as they have nothing else they can say

Is this in relation to your argument about the non existence of God? Either it can or it can’t be proven. You have stated that God is a character in a book so, from your posts in your argument its 100% proven in your eyes that God doesn’t exist. It’s not a rational process to say he doesn’t exist and then make the assumption that nothing can be 100% proven or disproven. Surely it has to be one or the other?

Never at all said once that god doesn't exist 100%, I believe the chances of him existing are next to non, hence my many posts in this thread of this interesting topic, one thing for sure 100% is that so far (to date in human history) has not been one shred of evidence that indicates he does exist, so therefore the chances of him existing are ?

I asked a question, I didn’t say this as a statement, you made the assumption.

It was written:

'Then if you consider the number of Christians who believe Jesus was who he said he was, is it possible to consider that is proof enough?'

Short answer to that is, NO its not proof enough just because many people think it is so

Do you think everyone who is religious is uneducated?

I think everyone who is defiantly religious is misguided/brainwashed, many of which it probably was from childhood, so its not necessarily there fault, its the fault of there elders to hammered it in to them, threatening eternal pain if they did not believe or follow what was said. I myself was bought up in a family that wasn't religious, nor was it scientific I was simply bought up to assess the world around me and draw my own conclusions, thanks there to my mum and dad for such a balanced upbringing.

Thats the answer to those that ARE religious, however most people are simply on the fence, fearing eternal pain (what most people tell them) so remain kind of stuck in a limbo, wanting to learn what they observe, but also somewhat fearful for ignoring religion, perhaps its these people that can be reached and shown all evidence, then they can make up there own mind

 

[Scrutinize]

Again ill say the same thing, im taking quotes from a book that the person I am debating with believes in, so its using there own evidence to counteract there own arguments, a very difficult thing for anyone to argue with, do you understand that now ? Correct I dont believe in that book, so its not taking much of my time or effort to take there evidence and simply show it to them, they did there research showed it to me, I said, what does this part of your research mean ? usual reply is, 'im not talking now' or 'darn it just have faith!' i.e. backed into a corner with nothing more to say as they have nothing else they can say

Never at all said once that god doesn't exist 100%, I believe the chances of him existing are next to non, hence my many posts in this thread of this interesting topic, one thing for sure 100% is that so far (to date in human history) has not been one shred of evidence that indicates he does exist, so therefore the chances of him existing are ?

KK I understand where you are coming from now as when you said “Don't think of god as god, think of him as a character in a book (which is exactly what he is)” I understood it at face value as your opinion.

It was written:

'Then if you consider the number of Christians who believe Jesus was who he said he was, is it possible to consider that is proof enough?'

Short answer to that is, NO its not proof enough just because many people think it is so

As I have said, this was originally a question to Phykell and part of the three questions I asked, but thanks for your answer

I think everyone who is defiantly religious is misguided/brainwashed, many of which it probably was from childhood, so its not necessarily there fault, its the fault of there elders to hammered it in to them, threatening eternal pain if they did not believe or follow what was said. I myself was bought up in a family that wasn't religious, nor was it scientific I was simply bought up to assess the world around me and draw my own conclusions, thanks there to my mum and dad for such a balanced upbringing.

Thats the answer to those that ARE religious, however most people are simply on the fence, fearing eternal pain (what most people tell them) so remain kind of stuck in a limbo, wanting to learn what they observe, but also somewhat fearful for ignoring religion, perhaps its these people that can be reached and shown all evidence, then they can make up there own mind

Interesting perspective and you are right, it can depend a lot on your up-bringing. Imprinting, conditioning and the environment. These things effect everyone as they grow up shaping their views, opinions and life direction.

What is so interesting about the different religions and faiths is how each of them interact with and affect the people brought up within them, and how people not brought up in them come to choose them. And equally people's perceptions about their own beliefs.

A lot of people would disagree with what you say here "I think everyone who is defiantly religious is misguided/brainwashed, many of which it probably was from childhood, so its not necessarily there fault" but equally there are many who would agree with you. Some religions can be seen as very oppressive or dominating/dictating in peoples lives, the same way some regimes can be seen in the same light.

Equally religions within themselves, have different branches and have denominations that are run differently and have different perspectives. Even within religion, there is a lot of choice and uncertainty. Its good that you are sincire in what you believe though.

 

[Vonhelmet]

I'm still waiting...

Wait for another thread. I'm not even supposed to be in this one any more.

At the end of the day, I could argue every point you come up with and you still wouldn't believe, so there's really little point at this juncture.

 

[phykell]

Wait for another thread. I'm not even supposed to be in this one any more.

Actually, you said that you'd get to me, and that was before you said you were leaving the thread, so AFAIC I've yet to receive a reply.

At the end of the day, I could argue every point you come up with and you still wouldn't believe, so there's really little point at this juncture.

1. I'm sure you could, but whether your arguments would be reasonable is quite another matter.
2. So I'm not worth arguing with because I'll never believe. Oh dear, there's no hope for me then

 

[phykell]

I think what Faithless is trying to say is that all the examples drawn on by Combat Squirrel etc need to be taken in context of the historical account of not only the whole passage but the previous and later books in the bible. Without doing this the whole essence of the quotes CS used are meaningless.

It seems a lot of interpretation is needed to make sense of it all. Have you heard of Occam's razor though? My belief is that whoever wrote those passages wanted people to be in fear of their God, and that furious wrath and suffering would befall the non-believers.

I could easily pick up a bible or any other religious book and take quotes, misquote them or misunderstand them and totally destroy their meaning and by selecting these quotes and adding my own reasoning to it I would be missing the point of the bible and not putting a balanced argument across.

You can hardly claim that the quotes were misquoted here. Not even close. You can say what you like but the Bible, if it is one thing in particular, it's clear about what type of God it describes. A vengeful and sadistic one.

This isn't saying that you are wrong in your opinions though but consider this……

It would be like me reading an account of WWII and taking specific quotes from that account and making it sound like the allies were the bad guys, for example concentrating on the atomic bomb dropped by the US then ignoring the reason it was dropped and the rest of the atrocities of the war by the Nazis etc.

Are you saying that an omnipotent being should be excused for using weapons of mass destruction and genocide? That there could be some mitigating parallel with our own Earthly conflicts? Now that's grasping at straws surely?

A lot of people do believe in God and the afterlife and its not just Christians, most religions centre around this concept. When you consider the number of people who believe in God you could say that alone is proof enough of Gods existence.

A lot of people believe petrol is only taxed at 80% instead of 400% (the real figure) but it doesn't make it so. Most religions exist because there is an almost invariably powerful group of people behind them, all with vested interests for one reason or another, usually money and power. The masses regard religion as succour for their otherwise spiritually empty lives.

Then if you consider the number of Christians who believe Jesus was who he said he was, is it possible to consider that is proof enough?

Of course not, that's 2,000 year old hearsay.

What do you feel your purpose is, or the purpose is of the Human race btw?

Arguably, it's arrogance of the human race to believe they even *have* a purpose when in fact they may be nothing more than relatively intelligent animals. Life is tenacious, and thrives where it can, just as air fills a vessel. Why ascribe some spiritual dimension to it at all?

This raises an interesting question which got me thinking. Is it better not to believe sincerely in the existence of God like your self, or to think you believe in it with an insincere heart (for want of a better term)?

IMO, it is better to be true to yourself and try to live a good life, respecting others and harming none. If you are not a true believer, if you go to church every Sunday despite leading a sinful life otherwise, your God will know anyway so better that you develop your own sense of ethics and argue your case with your God on judgement day. That's what I plan to do!

 

[Scrutinize]

Are you saying that an omnipotent being should be excused for using weapons of mass destruction and genocide? That there could be some mitigating parallel with our own Earthly conflicts? Now that's grasping at straws surely?

I think you misunderstood what I was saying, I wasn't making a parallel or reference between WWII and God, I was just saying that by quoting the passages without the full context would be no different to me taking any historical account of something and only using part of it to formulate my argument.

I simply picked the atomic bomb scenario off the top of my head.

 

[phykell]

I think you misunderstood what I was saying, I wasn't making a parallel or reference between WWII and God, I was just saying that by quoting the passages without the full context would be no different to me taking any historical account of something and only using part of it to formulate my argument.

I simply picked the atomic bomb scenario off the top of my head.

The "context" you talk of cannot possibly mitigate the clear acts of genocide and other crimes against humanity which litters the Bible.

 

[Vonhelmet]

Actually, you said that you'd get to me, and that was before you said you were leaving the thread, so AFAIC I've yet to receive a reply.

I'll consider it. To be honest, if it's just Ezekiel you're fussed about, the answer would pretty much be about God's holiness and intolerance of sin, and the altogether brutal nature of life in that part of the world at that time.

1. I'm sure you could, but whether your arguments would be reasonable is quite another matter.
2. So I'm not worth arguing with because I'll never believe. Oh dear, there's no hope for me then

1. If by that you mean my answer would be coloured by my understanding of God's holiness and right to judge, then yes, perhaps that is unreasonable to you when your views are likewise coloured by your lack of knowledge of God's holiness and so forth.
2. Well, there comes a time when I have to question the value of arguing till I'm blue in the face. People can't be argued into believing in God, so it's not really worth pursuing it simply in the name of being "right". That's not really the point of Christianity.