Of course not. This melding of the two is quite inexplicable. It's like suggesting that Begonia growing and trail bike riding are related.
We're all pattern seekers, OM. It's what we call the pattern, when seen, that is the only point of difference. And it's entirely irrelevant to the bigger picture .. which is that we ought to know by now that we seek patterns, and recognise that that's what we're doing, when we do it. A lot less human damage would ensue.
When I'm at a dinner table containing religionists, I don't do anything at all to accommodate or interfere with their pre-food rituals. I carry on doing whatever I was doing ... staring out the window, checking my phone for messages, deciding which baked potato I'll go for, etc. It has nothing to do with me, so I stay out of it.
[/QUOTE="Dropship, post: 1067455115, member: 73861"]When I helped sort books at a charity shop I used to sling nonchristian books in the rubbish skip out back after tearing out a handfull of pages first so nobody could fish them out later..[/QUOTE]
Er, no. There is no empirical evidence one way or another wrt the existence of god(s). Empirical evidence requires observation/measurement and since your notion of god exists on a supernatural plane it is as yet IMPOSSIBLE to obtain. Which explains why I am an agnostic atheist. Can't say for sure god does or doesn't exist until the big guy reveals himself or we humans have some amazing scientific breakthrough. You are correct. I have no facts to substantiate the existence or non-existence of god, and funnily enough, neither do you.
You can be "tolerant" and sell books like this if you like mate, but include me out.. [Koran 9.123]- "O you who believe! fight those of the infidels who are near to you and let them find in you hardness" [Koran 5.51]- "O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends, they are friends of each other"
Excuse me? Destroying books is barbaric.. and I would NEVER support flag burning by anyone. What sort of moron would be proud of either?
The Jesuit order has always promoted intelligence, knowledge, reason, logic and faith at the same time. If you knew any Jesuit priest you would know that because every one of them I have ever met was brilliant. It does not surprise me that history includes many Jesuit scholars. So what?
You could hang a term on that, I think. Timelessness. Nothingness. If you did that, one could then reason that time, space, matter, manifested in an event, from timeless nothingness. Then some might say it looks like some kind of miracle. The deepest mystery of them all. Then there seems to be a miracle involved in how the first self replicating molecule arose from a primordial soupy sea. And that self replicating molecule, contained the potentiality of over time developing into the first much more complex self replicating single cell organism. This organism hat the potential of clumping with other cells arising from itself, to arrive at a much more complex organism, which kept getting more complex until it finally became the creatures which were not microscopic anymore. And none of this involved any intelligence, outside, contributing to this procession. And yet in that first self replicating molecule, was the potentiality to develop over time into self aware, thinking, primates, who had the ability to discover its own origins. Or at least guess at it. For the miracles are beyond our ability to replicate, at least the one involving the arise of the most simple form of life. Since we say there was no outside intelligence involved in any of these biological events, it had to basically be a rolling of the dice of matter. The right roll, the right combo, the right environment, yields a self replicating molecule. And yet what happened by chance, we cannot by cheating, manipulating, repeat this thing that looks miraculous. But I can write you a promissory note that one day we will do just that. So, our belief is based upon a promissory note, and with this note we exclaim certainty. So, someone says, to hell with a promissory note which may never mature, I want some proof now that the arise of a self replicating molecule is even possible without something else being involved besides just matter and chance. But what you are given is, since no outside force exists, this deal of matter and chance is the only explanation, so, biologists are right, even if they can never present the proof by replication of this miraculous event. We cannot measure an outside force, so it just cannot exist. Which is saying nothing can be known except beginning at the big bang. Since there was no "before" the big bang, to even mention it, is nonsense. But this is an idea, created by thought, which is of time. One quickly runs out of any foundation upon which one can stand, to make assertions.
I bet you voted for Hillary.. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes Hill, nothing to worry about.. Boston marathon
You may spin your wordplay with fellow atheists, but it means nothing to me. I never said science "claimed to have created the things it studies." YOU said that. Then after fabricating your nonsense and attributing it to me, you claim I "seem confused." Utterly deplorable of you, as usual.
The OP is a logical argument based on empirical evidence. You must be in a state of denial not to see that. Existence of logical arguments based on empirical evidence does not constitute a proof in either way. It is still theology, but not science. I agree, except for some amazing scientific breakthrough. God has to demonstrate himself for you and no amazing science can ever make God to do that. Since the day I figured out that, however disappointing it is, I am no God, I know cannot make him neither. In my religion “faith is the gift of God”. It is his ways, his decisions, his plans, his logic.
No the op has NO empirical evidence. It offers up a thought experiment. That isn't remotely empirical. Funny how you appear to have a handle on god's ways, plans and logic. You don't have to make god, he has been made for you by those that came before. And yes you are damn right that god has to demonstrate that he exists for me to believe in him, because there isn't a single event in human history that cannot be rationally explained. When earthquakes and eclipses and floods and hurricanes and pestilence and death were all attrributed to god's will and plan in your scriptures, I gotta question the logic of continuing to believe in such attributions as proof of his existence.