Zone1 Why is it so tough to believe in God?

[hadit]

Sure it can.

Well that was easy.

Sure, if you're willing to ignore math.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

The evidence is everywhere if you open your mind and heart.

No it isn't.

Well that was easy.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Sure, if you're willing to ignore math.

Hahahah, an easy thing to reflexively spout. Not so easy to support with something besides a dimestore one liner.

 

[hobelim]

Wishing for a messiah seems like the ultimate cry for help.

OK, I see what you are saying. Even so, considering their plight, what's wrong with that?

Still, I don't see it as a cry for help. I see it as a prophecy that help would come that is being fulfilled right now.

Jesus was not the one hoped for.

Sure, if thats all that you can see. At the time of Jesus the messianic expectations were, and still remain for many, as irrational and bizarre and superstitious as Christian expectations are for the second coming of the Christ.

They expected the messiah to lead them to "the sanctuary of God", which made them think that Jesus was a nut job claiming to be that messiah because the temple was already built. And to Jesus their blind assumption that the sanctuary of God could be made by human hands was as insane as believing that Divine providence can be made by human hands.

The sanctuary of God is the promise of God to all who hear, understand, the Divine commands and do it. Jesus lead people to the sanctuary of God by teaching the only right way to understand and comply with the Law that fulfills that promise of abundant blessings and eternal life in the sanctuary of God on earth.

To eat his flesh is to accept the teaching that the words used in the law are not to be taken literally, to drink his blood is to comply with the law in the same way that Jesus did to enter "the sanctuary of God", the same way that was originally taught by Moses and was lost to time ever since his death when people turned aside from THE WAY he taught to follow the Law and corrupted themselves with the work of their hands by building a temple, a fancy slaughterhouse with a glorified butcher.



There is much more I could tell you about how Jesus fulfilled messianic prophecies, not irrational expectations, but what's the point?

 

[hadit]

Hahahah, an easy thing to reflexively spout. Not so easy to support with something besides a dimestore one liner.

1 in 10^164 odds of randomly assembling a DNA molecule. 1 in 10^41000 odds of randomly assembling a living cell. How many times have you won the lottery?

Again, ignore the math.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Fake news.

Et Cum Potato Tuo

Idaho is shaped like a key; that must be God's message that it is the Key to Heaven.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

What I know is that my God, an unknown God, doesn't give a shit about what people eat, what they wear, or the sexual preferences of consenting adult bipeds. I see the hand of God intimately involved in the daily minutia of human existence reigning over the minds of all people either granting or denying comprehension, life itself

 

[alang1216]

The evidence is everywhere if you open your mind and heart.

I note you didn't include my eyes in your post. So what is the best evidence you have for God?

 

[alang1216]

He's created his own complete belief system in which absolutely none of the Bible is taken at face value, just the interpretation he wants to believe.

One of the early Christian beliefs was Gnosticism. They claimed secret knowledge that others didn't understand. hobelim would have been right at home with them I think.

 

[Lockback]

I note you didn't include my eyes in your post. So what is the best evidence you have for God?

The incredible complexity of living creatures cannot be an accidental mixing of chemicals.

 

[alang1216]

Ah, but Jesus was the one promised, the one Moses spoke of. It wasn't until David was king (about 400 years later) that the prophet, Nathan, spoke of one of David's descendants being a king like David--an earthly king, ruling over a kingdom on earth. Jesus noted his kingdom was not of this world.

Funny that none of the Jews of Jesus' day expected their messiah to die on a tree without freeing his people.

 

[alang1216]

The incredible complexity of living creatures cannot be an accidental mixing of chemicals.

You mean YOU don't understand how the complexity of living creatures could come from natural forces alone.

 

[Lockback]

You mean YOU don't understand how the complexity of living creatures could come from natural forces alone.

Oh, I see.
But YOU do. You have a rational explanation for it.
Well, please enlighten us, then.

 

[alang1216]

1 in 10^164 odds of randomly assembling a DNA molecule. 1 in 10^41000 odds of randomly assembling a living cell. How many times have you won the lottery?

Again, ignore the math.

You don't understand math or science.

 

[alang1216]

Oh, I see.
But YOU do. You have a rational explanation for it.
Well, please enlighten us, then.

Evolution by natural selection is the process by which organisms with heritable traits that make them better suited to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce, causing those advantageous traits to become more common in a population over time. This mechanism of evolution, famously proposed by Charles Darwin, leads to species adapting and changing over generations. Key principles include variations within a population, heritability of those variations, a "struggle for existence" where not all offspring survive, and differential survival and reproduction based on an individual's traits.

How it works

• Variation: Individuals within a population have unique, heritable variations (different alleles).
• Struggle for existence: More offspring are produced than can possibly survive, leading to competition for limited resources.
• Differential survival and reproduction: Individuals with traits that are more advantageous in their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce. This is often referred to as having a higher "fitness".
• Inheritance: The advantageous traits are passed on to offspring, causing the frequency of those traits to increase in the population over subsequent generations.

Key concepts

• Adaptation: A trait that improves an organism's ability to survive and reproduce in its environment.
• Fitness: In a biological sense, fitness is determined by an organism's ability to reproduce and pass on its genes, not necessarily by its longevity.
• Evolution: The change in the genetic makeup of a population over time, with natural selection being a major driving forc

 

[Lockback]

You don't understand math or science.

Oh.
So sorry!

 

[Lockback]

Evolution by natural selection is the process by which organisms with heritable traits that make them better suited to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce, causing those advantageous traits to become more common in a population over time. This mechanism of evolution, famously proposed by Charles Darwin, leads to species adapting and changing over generations. Key principles include variations within a population, heritability of those variations, a "struggle for existence" where not all offspring survive, and differential survival and reproduction based on an individual's traits.

How it works

• Variation: Individuals within a population have unique, heritable variations (different alleles).
• Struggle for existence: More offspring are produced than can possibly survive, leading to competition for limited resources.
• Differential survival and reproduction: Individuals with traits that are more advantageous in their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce. This is often referred to as having a higher "fitness".
• Inheritance: The advantageous traits are passed on to offspring, causing the frequency of those traits to increase in the population over subsequent generations.

Key concepts

• Adaptation: A trait that improves an organism's ability to survive and reproduce in its environment.
• Fitness: In a biological sense, fitness is determined by an organism's ability to reproduce and pass on its genes, not necessarily by its longevity.
• Evolution: The change in the genetic makeup of a population over time, with natural selection being a major driving forc

We're not talking about evolution here.
We're talking creation.
Two different things.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

1 in 10^164 odds of randomly assembling a DNA molecule. 1 in 10^41000 odds of randomly assembling a living cell. How many times have you won the lottery?

Again, ignore the math.

"If You're So Smart, Why Haven't You Made the Rich Richer?" Blocks Progress

Those odds are based on how many events in Earth-like planets over the whole universe. Just as with the lottery, with that many players, one planet is bound to win.

Another possibility involves a mother universe that erupted in Earth's region and transmitted Intelligence from outside into Earth's inanimate matter. That is the theory of Intelligent Self-Design, a forbidden answer in this controlled debate. Intelligence overcomes all odds that non-life can't cope with. Intelligence is the only supernatural being, because it conquers nature when the lower intelligences aren't ruling over it.

 

[hadit]

You don't understand math or science.

Post it. Show how these truly astronomical odds are overcome. I love science. Show how the environment on earth was stable long enough for proteins to randomly assemble trillions of DNA molecules. And while you're at it, show which came first, cells that needed DNA or DNA that needed cells to be useful?

It's not sufficient to just say, "It took a long time" when you're talking about a very unstable earth with constantly changing seasons, climate, and composition.

 

[hobelim]

One of the early Christian beliefs was Gnosticism. They claimed secret knowledge that others didn't understand. hobelim would have been right at home with them I think.

Yes, except for the minor detail that they 'believed' that the material universe was inherently evil. I don't.