Life, Faith, Religion and a path to finding God?

no matter how hard I look at my iPod and dream of a nice bit of Wensleydale….

look at it harder, concentrate don’t dream. I believe you’ll get there

I was going to berate woppit for his lack of imagination, wit, originality, sheeplike mentality and persistence in ignoring direct questions in favour of attempting to belittle people, but I’m not going to bother, he seems to be doing an excellent job at illustrating this all by himself.

Adamw, is there room in there for a stack of stilton iTurtles, all the way down? 🙂

but then if you consider physics, specifically the Law of Conservation of Angular Movement; which essentially says if something flys off something spinning clockwise in a frictionless environment that jettisoned will also spin clockwise.

The question it then raises is, shouldn’t everything be spinning in the same direction?

Then why does Venus, Uranus & possibly also Pluto all appear to spin backwards?

Also 8 out of the 91 moons in our solar system rotate backwards also Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune have moons rotating in both directions.

This is held up as evidence of creation, in direct opposition to the scientific theory that it imply it is all just the result of one Big Bang.

It appears that both Science and Religion require quite a leap of Faith!

Well? What do you think of that?

NASA suggests the answer is –
http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_plan.html#spinning
Not that I’m suggesting that NASA is the holder of a definitive truth, but the explanation doesn’t seem unreasonable.

As for “Big Bang or Creation?”, I don’t find them mutually exclusive.I’m quite happy with the concept of a creator. The problem with both is that they are conjecture. With the former you can create a fairly reasonable(though far from perfect) explanation of the current world from that conjecture, with the latter it’s a bit difficult to come up with a reasonably cogent explanation from the original conjecture as to why this creator doesn’t want you to use a light switch on Saturdays or creates homosexuals then sends them to hell.

The thing which most folks arguing against God seem to miss is that, things like evolution, Big Bang etc. is that these are not incompatible with the existence of a God. no one is saying that trees move because a god i hking them. They are not even saying that the wind is a god blowing. Only that the nature of the world around us is god created. You can follow this down to any scale you like, be it at inertia scales or molecular scales. Most belief in gods, sit outside of the physical world. To me this understanding of most peoples beliefs is fairly simple, and I’m amazed that Dawkins doesn’t seem to realise it. It’s no good arguing against the existence of a God, by proving that evolution / the Big Bang happened. God believers can happily accept those as fact if necessary, without it affecting their belief in a God.

Woppit, you have yet to address the issue that in claiming that Condell, summarised your attitude, you ended up pointing us at an opinion which was in conflict with your own. Is he no longer the ‘ cat’s whiskers’? What aother points do you disagree with him on?

Charlie – you keep using the singular when referring to a god. Is this deliberate? I guess those cultures with many deities may have something to say about that. The discussion seems very Abrahamic faith-based.

Most belief in gods, sit outside of the physical world

very true

the things is, for me anyway, is that a lot of work goes into trying to understand the Big Bang etc which follows a process which I tried to put in words yesterday (ahwiles did a better job). It’s not about saying ‘god does not exist’ but more about needing (in my case, not that I feel I need to find a God but always open to ideas) tangible evidence that helps understand either God’s existence or how a person can have a relationship with said God.

I know there is also a whole lot of work that goes into this too, probably more so over time than into any scientific endeavour. To me though, like philosophy, it is opinion. And like Clint Eastwood says, “opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one”. This to me causes problems, there is no consensus. Again to me, because the majority of progress (this word could probably be debated a lot too) has occurred through attempting to understand the physical world I feel I need this sort of thinking to even contemplate spirituality of any sense. Being told to open your mind is all very well, but practical ‘tips’ would be better.

Well, in general when i say God, I mean the abarahmic god, when i say god, i mean any god. I tend to use the singular only for simplicity. In general, in my limited understanding, the gods of the “multi-god’ religions is not quite the same, they tend not to be creator gods, and they do seem to be more directly interventionist at least on a local scale. (Hinduism, Shintoism, Taoism) Some forms of Buddhism belive in a Godlike character, but i’m not sure of the details. and the complexity of the meaning of Buddhas as a manifestation of the God-type character is a bit unclear to me. These ‘lesser gods’ don’t seem to be the same kind of thing as the gods we are generally talking about.

Strange – Nuttjob wants a “starters” guide to Quantum Physics. Gets one. Ignores it in favour of being a t1t…

Most belief in gods, sit outside of the physical world.

Which is where, exactly?

I’d always assumed that beliefs lived in people’s minds, produced by their brains. Silly me.

Name calling? Really?
Why so literal Woppit? The beliefs are not about the physical world.

Cant believe this is still going

With the former [big bang]you can create a fairly reasonable(though far from perfect) explanation of the current world from that conjecture

Conjecture means to speculate with little hard evidence so it is not really fair to call the big bang a conjecture. A theory with quite a lot of supporting evidence – there is never “PROOF”.

things like evolution, Big Bang etc. is that these are not incompatible with the existence of a God

Well it runs counter the claims of creationism, it runs counter to the claim of god making us in his image – given how much DNA we share with chimps and even a banana. Geology time lines, dinosaurs etc are all missing from the bible. If the first claims are not true it is hardly reassuring for the rest of the good book. Yes they can and do say so what but that is because they dont require objective evidence to support the belief and challenging it with conflicting evidence wont change their opinion/faith as it is irrational [not used as a loaded term here or negatively] as it requires faith in thing known but not proven*. Interestingly those with false beliefs[ schizophrenics] also dont respond to direct challenge of their false belief- not saying believers are mentally ill as it is a culturally accpeted and therefore falls outside classification 😉 see also astrology,psychicpowers for similair belief systems that evidence wont change the opinion of the faitful flock.

Most belief in gods, sit outside of the physical world

there is nothing outside the physical world – now that is conjecture to claim non physical stuff. What is this non physical stuuf? What part of the physical human allows us to interact with this non physical stuff we cannot physically percieve? how do we translate it to our physical self ? etc.

*Hebrews 11

1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

CharlieMungus – Member

Name calling? Really?
Why so literal Woppit? The beliefs are not about the physical world.

Yeah well, I just thought if I used Nuttjob’s language, he might understand me better… 🙄

Your own use of language is, er, “original”.

“Darwin and Condell are your gods” doesn’t mean “Darwin and Condell are your gods”.

“Most belief in gods, sit outside of the physical world.” actually means “There are beliefs about things outside the physical world”.

it’s almost like shouting down a well – “Hello? Is there anybody there?”

Anyway, just to dip briefly back into the subject matter – there’s still no evidence for unsupported claims of invisible and undetectable phenomena from those who prefer the superstitious view…

there’s still no evidence for unsupported claims of invisible and undetectable phenomena from those who prefer the superstitious view

What, like ‘directional’ hi-fi cables then?

LOL @ the little elfinman ! 😀

Where you been geezer ……….another 2 day ban, or is there shedloads going on in Santa’s workshop this time of year ?

Why would I be banned? I don’t go round upsetting folk unlike some people…

Nah, just couldn’t be arsed, as there was bugger all interesting going on on here. Same old same old.

Interesting how, in one post, Kaesae makes more sense than Woppit has in several days…

Nah, just couldn’t be arsed, as there was bugger all interesting going on on here. Same old same old.

Interesting how, in one post, Kaesae makes more sense than Woppit has in several days…

Elfinsafety, “making sense”…

…. as the thread follows zed to it’s grave……

STW should start televising these threads…

Well, in general when i say God, I mean the abarahmic god, when i say god, i mean any god. I tend to use the singular only for simplicity. In general, in my limited understanding, the gods of the “multi-god’ religions is not quite the same, they tend not to be creator gods, and they do seem to be more directly interventionist at least on a local scale. (Hinduism, Shintoism, Taoism) Some forms of Buddhism belive in a Godlike character, but i’m not sure of the details. and the complexity of the meaning of Buddhas as a manifestation of the God-type character is a bit unclear to me. These ‘lesser gods’ don’t seem to be the same kind of thing as the gods we are generally talking about.

The amazing thing is the sheer plurality of this. All believing something slightly different. I wond which one, if any, is correct? I still tend to back the theories that can be tested and disproved.

When the Buddha was asked about the creation of the universe He stated it was something on which He did not have an opinion. Dependent upon the Buddhist ‘flavour’ being a god is much worse than being a human, as only humans are in the correct state to meditate, show compassion, destroy karma and thus achieve nirvana, which in some cases means nothingness, leaving the wheel of live. Others have ‘pure land’ beliefs which means you go to a type of heaven after you die before being called for rebirth. The closest you tend to get to gods are boddhisattvas (bad spelling, sorry), which are those who have achieved enlightenment and have decided to hang around to help everyone else do the same instead of leaving the wheel.

Faiths themselves are fascinating, and the dogmas that become created around them can be pretty bizarre!

PS it’s still an iPod, dammit!

it’s almost like shouting down a well – “Hello? Is there anybody there?”

Anyway, just to dip briefly back into the subject matter – there’s still no evidence for unsupported claims of invisible and undetectable phenomena from those who prefer the superstitious view…

It certainly is, all I’m hearing is an echo. You’ve not addressed the points about Condell saying soemthing different to you.

as gods are concerned, when you hear someone referring to a ‘cycling god’ do you really think they think of them as theists think of God? Life must get really confusing for you. You need to familiarise ourself with metaphor and allegory.

Seems to me that you haven’t addressed any of the points that have been raised. No when you get stuck, you revert to repeating your opening lines about evidence, which is pretty much where you came in. This has been discussed, but you have not been able to provide a reasonable response. no pint in just saying it again. Move the argument on. Recently all you’ve done is name calling. This is obviously something you feel strongly about, otherwise you would have felt the need to question MrNutt. So, try to be productive. There is nothing contradictory about the “physical world statements” Given the extent to which I have to explain everything but the most simple use of language, that you prefer name calling to discussion and that every time anyone has required you to think about something you seem to have ignored it, I’m thinking that I overestimated you.

My Bayesian nature means that your next post will have to be pretty awesome.

Good luck.

Don’t forget there is always the ‘I CBA’ back door

no pint in just saying it again

So I’ve heard… 😆

“Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.” – Thomas Jefferson

I’ve learned lots from this thread, mainly to avoid getting sat next to some people at parties.

Tedious….

+1

😆

Excellent!! After trawling through this interesting then bickering then tedious debate, I was beginning to wonder if I’d just wasted a bit of my life. Perseverance has paid off!! The fact that Mr Woppit seems to think that the he is exempt from the previous post is delicious! Made it all worthwhile after all!!!

Beautiful!

Glad to know that you think you know what I think…

HA! Post 666… It’s miiiiiiine…. 😈

😆 😆

Sorry comrade Woppit, youre’ not pulling me in here, though it might even be funnier that you realise that it did refer to you and still felt the need to comment!.

You!!

😆 😆

HAHAHAHAHA!

HEHEHEHEHE!

😯 😡 😀

Pulled you in, there…

to find god.. look within yourself

that is all

Having been in the old god team, I can say that it’s a huge cop-out and allows you to give up any responsibility for your direction in life.

Good random stuff = god’s hand
Bad random stuff = the devil himself
With god allowing it all to happen for your own good

God people have a cop-out answer for everything from cancer to earthquakes to the good stuff too. They’ll tell you the timing of it all is for a higher purpose.

When you move from reason to faith you’re undercutting your own consciousness and your mind becomes something that you can no longer trust. If you can’t trust your own mind in the matters of daily life, and you farm out reason to some ‘theological’ standpoint determined by ‘faith’, you lose all self-esteem. If the universe is at the mercy of some ghost, you’re not just trying to live with unknowns but with the unknowable.

No thanks.

Life doesn’t need to have meaning to have value.