Is Satan Real

Quote: Evenbob

Living a full life means
following your heart, not the dictates of
an organization or group. That's a poor
life, not a full life.

This strikes me as the height of egotism. I get to determine for myself what is good. If I follow my heart and do what I want that is what will make my life full. This does not take into consideration the feelings or needs of others, but is completely based on my wants. This radical egoism in my experience leads to misery for myself and others.

Quote: FrGamble

I get to determine for myself what is good. If I follow my heart and do what I want that is what will make my life full. .

Or you can let other people tell you what
to think and believe, that's the alternative.
How does thinking for yourself not take
into consideration the needs of others,
you lost me on that one. You think the
Church has cornered the market on
compassion? Hardly. For some reason, you
believe not having a god in your life means
you will run wild, like a kid on sugar high
in a candy store. Do you have personal demons
that are controlled by your religion, and you
think everybody has them? They don't.

For someone who thinks we are no better than a dog you seem to dislike obedience. Is your dog not trained? Does he go to the bathroom wherever he wants and tear up your shoes and pillows? I imagine he follows the rules and listens to you. This makes your life happy and that of your dog. Listening to other people is not the end of the world. Some people know more than you and can really help you out. We need to trust others and not always just do whatever we want.

Surely you don't need God in your life to have compassion or to think of others but I think you can understand my concern when nothing you mention in regards to the moral life or your decision making seems to include anyone but yourself. When you seem morbidly afraid that listening to what others tell you or following the rules will suck the marrow out of life; yes, I get a little concerned that you are self-centered.

And yes I do have "personal demons" and so do you, they are most dangerous when you don't know them. They are even more dangerous when you give them control and pretend it is you calling the shots.

Quote: FrGamble

You need not wonder. I believe that we are made by a loving God in His image and likeness. God freely made us out of love and offers us the gift of eternal life with Him in the joys of Heaven. This is why I believe humanity is wonderful.

This is a near-perfect textbook non-sequitur.

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If you are impressed as to how far we have come from single cell organisms that is nice.

Nice? can you say that with a straight face?

Let me tell you about some of our earliest ancestors. They were a bunch of uncounted trillions of hydrogen atoms scattered over a vast expanse of space, and millions upon millions of years.

That's how far back we go. Our constituent elements were forged light years away in the hearts of stars.

Nice?

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Do you think we are heading somewhere other than into nothingness and oblivion?

We're heading where we want to head.

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Are you content with where we are now and if we made no more of this upward progress you speak of would you be happy and call us perfect? It sounds like you would say the exact same thing 100 years ago and call humanity all these beautiful things even though the scourge of slavery, injustice, and ignorance existed. An upward line means little if it is not pointing to something.

Injustice and ignorance are quite rampant today. Slavery, alas, still exists. But at least now a larger portion of humanity is repelled by slavery and ignorance and injustice, rather than content to let these exist. Do you deny we're better off now than we were 100 years ago? Do you doubt the future will be even better still?

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In this we are almost 100% in agreement except that I believe in the immorality of this spiritual part of ourselves. Have you ever know the spirit to die? How can the spiritual reality of ourselves die, can you explain that?

The spirit dies when the body dies. Once I'm dead I won't be able to write any more or to dream up new recipes or even to cook an egg. But part of it remains and continues if we leave something behind. When you read a story by Asimov, say, or listen to a piece by Beethoven, you're reading and listening to their spirits. It cannot be otherwise. Yet Asimov and Beethoven are still dead.,

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Do you see the glaring contradiction between the first two sentences of these paragraphs? "I am an accident without any significance in the grand scheme of things." and "My life is what I make of it."

I'm a big fan of Aristotle's law of identity and the impossibility of actual contradictions. I assure you if there were one, I'd see it.

Your problem is that you cannot conceive a rational mind has any power not granted to it by an outside agent.

The fact that something came to be by accident does not render it powerless or purposeless. Less so in the case of a human mind, which by its very nature is capable of creation, real creation of actual ideas and things, and can thus create its own purpose.

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Again you are coming in and out of focus here. I feel your desire to recognize humanity's obvious beauty and wonder, in spite of its continued struggles, but this can't be grounded in anything other than God.

To paraphrase one of my favorite Sheldon Cooper sayings: I do not try to recognize the beauty, awe and wonder inherent in humanity. I recognize it.

You know, it's great when I read a recipe and can make it as well as the person who wrote it. This does not mean I'm capable only of cooking that for which a recipe already exists.

Quote: FrGamble

And yes I do have "personal demons" and so do you, they are most dangerous when you don't know them. .

That's what this comes down to, I'm not
afraid of my demons and you are. I can
control them just fine, and you can't
understand that because you think yours
will run wild without the discipline of your
religion to contain them. I don't need
organized religion, and you obviously do.
So you think everybody does.

Believe me, they do not.

Quote: Nareed

The spirit dies when the body dies.
.

I can't agree with this. The spirit has been
here forever and will always be here. The
thing that animates us, the thing that
gives us life. It can't die, it's eternal. It's
us and it isn't us.

Quote: Evenbob

That's what this comes down to, I'm not
afraid of my demons and you are. I can
control them just fine,...

Famous last words.

Quote: FrGamble

Famous last words.

If I was 17, maybe. I'm retirement age, if
I was going to run wild I think I would have
done it when I had a little more energy
and didn't have a handicap placard hanging
from my mirror because of the bursitus in
my hips. No, my demons are dead or have
given up hope of ruining my life. Like they
ever would have anyway..

Quote: Nareed

Nice? can you say that with a straight face?

Let me tell you about some of our earliest ancestors. They were a bunch of uncounted trillions of hydrogen atoms scattered over a vast expanse of space, and millions upon millions of years.

That's how far back we go. Our constituent elements were forged light years away in the hearts of stars.

Nice?

What do you want me to say? It's amazing and unbelievable. But why does it matter? Do you get some cosmic award for being made of some old stuff from stars. If it is just random would you be saying the same thing if one trillion years ago a hydrogen atom bounced a different way and we were all green ooze? Of course not because we wouldn't be thinking or able to have this conversation at all. When you remove a creator and purpose and design and a finely tuned universe set up to create life as we know it you are left with incredible chance. What makes you or I more special than rolling snake eyes at the craps table 100x in a row?

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Injustice and ignorance are quite rampant today. Slavery, alas, still exists. But at least now a larger portion of humanity is repelled by slavery and ignorance and injustice, rather than content to let these exist. Do you deny we're better off now than we were 100 years ago? Do you doubt the future will be even better still?

I don't know we just came off the bloodiest century in human history and we are quite surely destroying the only planet we live on. It is a dangerous fallacy to think that the future will always better than the past. The more our society drifts away from God the worse things seem to be getting. Yes we have amazing technological improvements but these will not be our salvation or the cure to the rampant injustice and ignorance you speak about.

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The spirit dies when the body dies. Once I'm dead I won't be able to write any more or to dream up new recipes or even to cook an egg. But part of it remains and continues if we leave something behind. When you read a story by Asimov, say, or listen to a piece by Beethoven, you're reading and listening to their spirits. It cannot be otherwise. Yet Asimov and Beethoven are still dead.

The body and the spirit is dead, yet their spirit lives on? What about all the great music or stories that Beethoven and Asimov inspired after their bodily deaths? There seems to be evidence here that the spirit lives on, though limited in what it can do outside of the body. As you once said we are really a combination of body and spirit. In death when those are separated we are not completely ourselves, yet we are still alive. That is what we await the glorious resurrection on the last day when our immortal souls will be reunited with a glorious body no longer subject to the ravages of sin, suffering, or death.

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I'm a big fan of Aristotle's law of identity and the impossibility of actual contradictions. I assure you if there were one, I'd see it.

I am too so that means one of us is wrong.

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The fact that something came to be by accident does not render it powerless or purposeless. Less so in the case of a human mind, which by its very nature is capable of creation, real creation of actual ideas and things, and can thus create its own purpose.

Do you see it again? How can a random collection of hydrogen atoms and other stuff from stars trillion of light years away have the power to create? To be consistent you should embrace the materialistic viewpoint you hold as the creation of all things and follow that thought through to its logical conclusion. This would mean that our brains are nothing but electronic impulses that are dependent on what we ate, our brain chemistry, and our genetics and are ultimately out of our control. Or you can embrace the mysterious design and purpose of our universe that has gifted to us, human beings, the capability of freedom, creative thought, and actual unique ideas. I don't see how you can have a spiritual being created by materialistic random forces.

Quote: FrGamble

When you remove a creator and purpose and design and a finely tuned universe set up to create life as we know it you are left with incredible chance.

I'm going to use a phrase I don't care for: it is what it is.

These are all facts: we're here, we posses a rational faculty, we are spiritual beings. This is all so, beyond any doubt, whether or not there is a creator.

So what need is there for one? Living is amazing.

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I don't know we just came off the bloodiest century in human history

Yes. But this was also the century that saw other imperial powers quietly and peaceably give up their empires. It was also the century that saw liberty spread from a handful of states in Europe and North America to the every corner of the world. Not to mention the XX Century saw more technological development than all previous human history combined (and the rate of change is increasing).

Consider this: the average person on Earth today has better nutrition and health than the kings of Europe did a century earlier. This person also has access to devices, entertainment and transportation that no money in the world could have bought in the XIX Century.

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and we are quite surely destroying the only planet we live on.

I just have to smile. Like this: :D

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It is a dangerous fallacy to think that the future will always better than the past.

Well, yes. There are no guarantees in life.

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The body and the spirit is dead, yet their spirit lives on?

A part of their spirit has been preserved and it can be accessed by millions of people. This part is as powerful as when it was alive and perhaps as effective. It can still inspire and create awe and wonder.

If I am capable of this, to the extent of my abilities and the effort I make, what need is there for a "higher" purpose?

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As you once said we are really a combination of body and spirit.

Yes, in the same sense that we are a combination of genes and gene expression, or that we are a collection of cells and the result of cellular processes. Genes themselves, cells themselves, do nothing. But gene expression is a property of genes and cellular processes of the cells. The spirit is a part and property of the body.

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In death when those are separated we are not completely ourselves, yet we are still alive.

No, we cease to be. We are no longer alive. We're, you know, dead.

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That is what we await the glorious resurrection on the last day when our immortal souls will be reunited with a glorious body no longer subject to the ravages of sin, suffering, or death.

It makes for a nice but pointless dream. I like the original ancient Egyptian version better, mired as it was in literalism and superstition.

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Do you see it again? How can a random collection of hydrogen atoms and other stuff from stars trillion of light years away have the power to create?

"How" is not relevant. Oh, it's an important question and no doubt we'll learn a great deal else trying to answer it. But not knowing how a car is made makes cars no less real. Not knowing how consciousness works doesn't make it less real. See above: it is what it is.

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To be consistent you should embrace the materialistic viewpoint you hold as the creation of all things and follow that thought through to its logical conclusion. This would mean that our brains are nothing but electronic impulses that are dependent on what we ate, our brain chemistry, and our genetics and are ultimately out of our control.

But it's not so.

A great deal depends on pre-existing factors, like genetics. But it's plain that I have free will and can direct the course of my thinking (though thinking is largely subconscious).

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I don't see how you can have a spiritual being created by materialistic random forces.

The "how" is not relevant.

I find it easier to believe we developed as we evolved because of random chance, than we were created by a non-existent entity.