Simple question?

Quote: Nareed

Notify Webster's that "bad" has been redefined to mean "in disagreement with Christian arguments."

I meant bad here in the sense that it is not reasonable or logical and therefore is not true.

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There being no evidence of a creator, I fail to see the need. The infinite regress that stops at the first step is neither infinite nor a regress.

Can you explain what you mean by "the first step"?

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Now it's a being. Later you'll claim you know his name, too, and what he wants, and what he needs, and what means of birth control lands you in Hell for all eternity. Right before you claim you're not claiming all that.

I think being is sufficiently vague enough to capture the possibilities of God as a personal being or an unintelligent force. By the way I do claim to know God's name, what He wants, how He desires us to live, and I have a personal relationship with this God who loves me and all of us equally. He wants the exact same relationship with you as well. However, I would never claim that because I know Him that you who don't know Him need to follow His way. I speak for myself and for Catholics not former Jews who right now doubt the very existence of God.

I will and have been making an argument for the type of birth control that is best for women, couples, and society as a whole. You will notice if you cared to look that it is not because God said so or because the Church's rules. You really should stop trying to say what I believe and what I am saying because you are either not paying attention or you are so angry that it is clouding your reading comprehension.

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This is what is so infuriating about arguing with someone who doesn't understand science: what is your evidence that energy was created?
You cannot substitute argument for evidence, nor philosophy for observation.

This is what is so infuriating about arguing with someone who is a Scientific Materialist. You think observation is the only way to know something. I will ask the same question I asked earlier: If you are witnessing a long, large, and complex domino set falling down and the line of dominos stretches out beyond your sight, can you say with 100% certainty that something caused the first domino to fall?

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Oh, please! You don't think theologians were sure Jehovah created the world in six days?

Oh, please! The literal interpretation of Genesis is a modern invention. Everyone with a brain knows it is meant to be taken figuratively. For God's sake there are two creation stories listed.

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Also, logic tells you two different words with different meanings do not mean the same thing.

On a side note I wish you would listen to logic when it says that one word cannot mean two different things.

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Thus "eternal" does not mean "unchanging." You're letting your biases show. Your gods are supposed to eternal and unchanging, are they not? Therefore you take eternal to mean unchanging. I do not.

If I gave you the impression that eternal means unchanging I misspoke. I agree with your definition of eternal.

Quote: Evenbob

They say we have barely scratched
the surface. Yet the Bible claims
and Christians claim to know it all.
FrG will say 'we never said that.'
But you do, all the time, in so many
ways.

Why don't you see that by you saying there is no God you are the one claiming to know it all. By saying such a ridiculous thing it means that you have searched the whole universe and looked beyond the veil of the Big Bang and you the great Evenbob can say without a doubt that there is no God. Such hubris, such pride, such a know-it-all attitude! Dude, stop claiming to know it all because - news flash - neither of us do.

Quote: FrGamble

by you saying there is no God you are the one claiming to know it all. .

Nope, just the one little thing.

Quote: FrGamble

I meant bad here in the sense that it is not reasonable or logical and therefore is not true.

You obviously mean "disagrees with Christian arguments."

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Can you explain what you mean by "the first step"?

Step 1: the universe has always existed.
Step 2: there is no step 2.

See, no regress, much less an infinite one.

Oops! Quitting time! (finally). See you later!

Quote: rxwine

Ya'll got me scratching my head.

I don't agree with a god premise, except as one possibility out of many.

Something outside of known physics doesn't only leave a god conclusion.

I am also fine with something simply undiscovered. Let's see, the possibility of undiscovered things is what still? How much of the Universe is still unknown for instance. There's a lot still to know.

No one said anything about a God conclusion. I agree with your premise. God or not, the universe is the only thing that can physically exist.

Quote: Nareed

Step 1: the universe has always existed.
Step 2: there is no step 2.

Religions like Hinduism and Buddhism
can accept this just fine. They're more
about living in harmony with a universe
that's always been here. The bully
religions like Islam, Christianity and
Mormonism need punishment and reward
to make people behave, so they invent
gods and devils.

Quote: FrGamble

I think being is sufficiently vague enough to capture the possibilities of God as a personal being or an unintelligent force.

No. See, if we're talking about a dog, for example, or a cat, then it would be a being. If we speak of some impersonal, non-sentient force, like gravity, it would not be.

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By the way I do claim to know God's name,

Now he has a name? I thought it wasn't Jehovah.

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I speak for myself and for Catholics not former Jews who right now doubt the very existence of God.

I don't doubt the existence of your god any more than you doubt the existence of the one true god Athena.

Though if you have doubts about her, get a live goat and perform a sacrifice. I can't guarantee she will want to have a relationship with you, but she will show her favor in other ways.

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I will and have been making an argument for the type of birth control that is best for women, couples, and society as a whole. You will notice if you cared to look that it is not because God said so or because the Church's rules.

If you were, you'd know there is no one best way, and therefore there must exist as many options as possible, including emergency measures like the "morning-after pill" and abortion. Instead you coincidentally side with the one "one best" way prescribed by the church. And you do this all too often.

You know, in an essay about food preferences, Malcolm Gladwell shows there is no "one best" type of any food, but rather a variety of best types people choose from. I wonder if this is a consequence of Christian supremacy in the dominant powers of our era. Consider, Christians claim the "one best" or "one true" way in all matters. Prior to this, in polytheistic societies, people chose such gods and rituals and ways as they wanted (with some limitations), to the point that cults travelled from one culture to others.

Of course there are other differences. Pagan cults were usually not central to anyone's identity, the way Christianity is. That is, people were not defined by belief and rarely indulged in public statements of faith. Something to think about.

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You think observation is the only way to know something.

And I'm certain making stuff up is not a way to know anything.

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I will ask the same question I asked earlier: If you are witnessing a long, large, and complex domino set falling down and the line of dominos stretches out beyond your sight, can you say with 100% certainty that something caused the first domino to fall?

Let's say you see are in some kind of mortal danger. Maybe you have cancer, or maybe someone is holding you at gunpoint, or maybe you're trapped in a collapsed building after some disaster. Now, let's say someone helps you out, a doctor, a cop or a rescue team, depending on the case. Can you say with 100% certainty it was Jehovah, Jesus and their invisible friend who saved you?

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Oh, please! The literal interpretation of Genesis is a modern invention.

Modern as in conceived in ancient times.

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Everyone with a brain knows it is meant to be taken figuratively. For God's sake there are two creation stories listed.

So "Jehovah created the world in six days" should be read to mean "the universe is eternal and has always existed"?

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On a side note I wish you would listen to logic when it says that one word cannot mean two different things.

If I had a dime for every word with multiple meanings in every language, I'd have enough money to buy Bill Gates.

Quote: Nareed

If you were, you'd know there is no one best way, and therefore there must exist as many options as possible, including emergency measures like the "morning-after pill" and abortion. Instead you coincidentally side with the one "one best" way prescribed by the church. And you do this all too often.

I see your point here. What I would like to advocate in the public square is the way of Natural Family Planning. It is overlooked maybe because it is free, maybe because it is associated only with religious people, maybe because it takes a little work. I just think it is a shame we seem to be almost forcing young women to go on the pill when it has been proving to be harmful to them. Why don't we push Natural Family Planning? I really don't want to outlaw other artificial contraceptive methods, that would be pushing my religion on people. What I do want is more recognition for young people and couples of the natural and healthiest form of family planning available to them.

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And I'm certain making stuff up is not a way to know anything.

Then why do you make up stuff all the time?

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Let's say you see are in some kind of mortal danger. Maybe you have cancer, or maybe someone is holding you at gunpoint, or maybe you're trapped in a collapsed building after some disaster. Now, let's say someone helps you out, a doctor, a cop or a rescue team, depending on the case. Can you say with 100% certainty it was Jehovah, Jesus and their invisible friend who saved you?

You sound like Trump in avoiding the question. I can say with certainty that the person who rescued me saved me. To get us back on target can you say with 100% certainty that my rescuer had something to drink within the last three days of rescuing me? Remember you did not observe this person drinking anything so how can you be certain? It is a silly question, I know but since you danced around the domino question I thought I would try to bring it back to the issue at hand. If you see movement than you can be logically sure that something was the first cause of that movement. Don't you agree?

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Modern as in conceived in ancient times.

Don't fall into the Evenbob prejudice of all thinks ancient are stupid and they were just hoping around like monkeys believing anything that came their way. The literal interpretation of Genesis came around the period of the Reformation and the Sola Scriptura and infallibility of the Bible teaching.

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So "Jehovah created the world in six days" should be read to mean "the universe is eternal and has always existed"?

Obviously not. The Scriptures predicts the Big Bang theory about what 4,000 years ago. Please give me one scrap of proof or logical reasoning you have to think the universe is eternal and has always existed.

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If I had a dime for every word with multiple meanings in every language, I'd have enough money to buy Bill Gates.

It can be pretty frustrating can't it? Especially if you are dealing with a word that has legal, religious, and cultural significance.

Quote: FrGamble

maybe because it takes a little work. .

Spoken exactly like someone who's never
had to do it. A 'little work'? Are you joking?
It's a super and I mean super, pain in the
fricking ass. That's why most people quit
doing it after a few months, it's just too
much work, not too little as you claim.

And there's a reason it's known as 'Vatican
Roulette'. It has a failure rate much higher
than any form of man made contraception.
The truth is, some women can and do get
pregnant at any time in their cycle and that
makes Vatican Roulette useless for them.

Quote: FrGamble

What I would like to advocate in the public square is the way of Natural Family Planning.

What's stopping you?

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It is overlooked maybe because it is free, maybe because it is associated only with religious people, maybe because it takes a little work.

Maybe because it doesn't work. Maybe because it's backed by the Catholic church, and everyone knows Catholics tend to have larger families.

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Then why do you make up stuff all the time?

Because I write fiction. fiction by definition is made up. Like Greek myths or the Bible. Only the Greeks had better poets.

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You sound like Trump in avoiding the question.

I flipped the question.

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To get us back on target can you say with 100% certainty that my rescuer had something to drink within the last three days of rescuing me?

I can say with certainty you're not good at flipping questions.

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Don't fall into the Evenbob prejudice of all thinks ancient are stupid and they were just hoping around like monkeys believing anything that came their way.

No, they weren't all... too easy :)

The thing about studying ancient history, is how it can be familiar and alien all at once.

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The Scriptures predicts the Big Bang theory about what 4,000 years ago.

Good joke :)

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Please give me one scrap of proof or logical reasoning you have to think the universe is eternal and has always existed.

Physics clearly indicates all the energy in the universe existed at the moment of the Big Bang. While we don't know what happened prior to a very small fraction of a second after the Big Bang, everything else checks out through observation. The logical conclusion, as I've said a number of times before, is that energy predates the universe. And if time did not exist prior to the Big Bang, which is one strong possibility, then energy has always existed.