Religion

[Hoodie]

RadarJammer once said

 

I think that repetitive synchronicity is the #1 cause for *legitimate* and *honest* religious and spiritual conclusions (like you know it instead of just think it or regurgitate it). For some people it crosses the line at some point from being a silly coincidence to being something that their minds can't handle unless they wrap it up with a neat little bow of some kind and how can you blame or argue with them?

 

In that case one might say that god is a: auto-adjusting-feedbacking-algorithm-of-some-kind and be happy that it wasn't ghost tits and spontaneous cumbustion.

 

 

 

Well for those who remember what I wrote circa octobre on here, this is totally what happened to me. Let me refresh to your minds what my situation is. I'm French and am extremely proud we hang clercs highly and shortly during the revolution. My parents were convinced troskists and the reject of religions dates from a while in our family (since generations actually). In October I beneficied/suffered from a series of "synchronicities" that, by making me believe language is highly related to quantum logics, lead me to believe in God. It was rather easy for me since I already had this notion, acquired during several, identical "mystical" experiences, of some kind of ultimate fractal, ie, the fractal that encompass all fractals (or set of all sets). Back in these times I could totally link this idea to that of God, but it remained a rather distant link since the word fractal seemed to fit better what I had in mind : something geometrical, logic that has no real, volutive implication in real life.

Then the synchronicities started. It's pretty hard to explain. The only person who understands me is a friend who has experienced the same fractal mystical experience. Basically, I figured out I had had ideas throughout my life, each independently from the others, and that these ideas converged to some kind of theory I labelled "quantum linguistics" before realizing it already existed, and that the people who are crafting it often share my own views on life/mind/the cosmos/whatever name you choose. This is just one "synchronicity" among many others. I'll list the more significant ones beneath, then will go on on the psychopathological side of this/these experiences :

- So what got me kicked into this is a friends philosophical's method : in a sentence, you switch the subject and the object around the verb. I wash my hands = the hands wash me. I'm watching a movie = the movie is watching me (because the movie needs to be created so that I can understand it and deem it as A movie rather than a series of random footages).

- I discovered some kind of strange attractor, then 3 years later had as a teacher the guy who institutionnaly discovered them.

- The last synchronicity I've had (they don't feel like synchronicities anymore, this is almost banal to me now) is that Ferdinand de Saussure, father of "structuralism" went into some kind of similar trip after having gone through some sort of nervous breakdown. Saussure is the most quoted man in european linguistics. He's some kind of Jesus. He never wrote anything, the only book we have from him is the Cours de Linguistique Generale, which has been written by his students, from the notes they wrote down during his lectures. Saussure has been reevaluated in the 60s when the linguistic community found out about his manuscripts, and around ten years ago, when people started to see in the cours de linguistique generale elements that are closely related to dynamical systems.

During several years he wrapped his head around the phonological/rhythmic aspect of ancient poetry. He thought poets from yore crafted their poems by following a certain rule : a word referring to the poem's theme had to be encrypted in some anagrammatic way into the poem. He was always able to find the word among the poem. It's a bit more varied than just anagrams. I don't have any example under my hand (the notebooks concerning these studies have not been published yet, are almost unreadable and are conserved in some remote safe in Geneva, probably by illuminati that enjoy sacrificing virgins at night), but this goes like

A word is ABxxCxxxD => ABCD is the theme-word.

I read some of Saussure's letters from that era and he's like "Is it by chance that ..", "Is x the product of randomness .. ". And one of his pals replies "In a very surprising coincidental way I found this verse of author X that confirms your theory". You know what I think ? these anagrammatic operations (Saussure called them paragrams) induce synchronicities. And I'm eager to call my synchronicities life-paragrams. They don't really connect two causally different events in the same moment, but rather events(ideas) separated by long distance. I totally recognize the structure of my "synchronicities" in the ABCD example I wrote above.

Anyway, Saussure complained about the impossibility of studying language by using language itself, he kept changing of taxonomy every 15th of the month and eventually resigned : in one letter he wrote that is greatest talent was to stay silent about it.

 

Now back to the psychological side of my experience : remember when I was saying I was a messiah/prophet ? Personally, I remembered hardcore scientist members (and by scientist, I mean science-ist) made fun of me. They thought I was crazy because I was stating I was like Jesus. This is paradoxical. On one hand they think prophets are nuts who talk out of their ass, on the other hand I cannot be like Jesus because deep down they still consider Jesus to be a hero/genius/great-man etc.

Not "I am mad because I think I am Jesus"

But "I think I am Jesus because I am mad"

Just look around : Jesus muhammad, Buddha. They all experienced hardcore hallucinations. They were mad. Like me, like many people who think they are the sons, nthe reincarnation, whatever morphism link them to Jesus, Muhammad or any other prophet.

 

I have to admit my delirium is somehow special. I listened to a radio webcast about synchronicities. One of the interviewee was a specialist of Jungian psychology (ie a guy who has not invented anything and parads around in the media since tv has made the likes of sartres bourdieu etc disappear from the French intellectual scene). To him, synchronicities are natural. But when you start experiencing synchronicities on a daily basis, you're deeply insane and need psychological help. Further more, he added that these pathologies were not based on hallucinations but on interpretative bias.

Fair enough. It fits pretty well what I experienced : a delirium whose modality relies on interpretation. But what was my delirium's object ? Interpretation itself. To put it simply : if your delirium is to think you're mad, are you mad ?

 

scientism :

Science is a religion. I remembered the physics/computer-science centered members said I had no clue about what quantum mechanics are. They read books, majored in physics, did assignments they had to do, but actually they haven't done anything on their own. They don't know much they just parrot around what they ingurgitated. Because before being science-ist they are schoolists.

This series of synchronicities delivered me from several years of mental suffering. I entered a programming school, and as a consequence I'm at the top.My average note in math jump from 9/20 to 18/20 and I'm the only person in my class able to enter a top-rated engineering school. And I won't. I seriously don't want to be with ultra competitive kids who enter this kind of school because they are the "best schools" around and want to be rich in order to propel their fat in a Porsche before laying it over some overcrowded cosy beach of the cote d'azur. I don't want to be with people who conforms to what values expect from them in the hope to get as much freedom as they can, before realizing being an engineer often consists in working 60 hours a week and that's not what they want since they prefer to party, fuck and feel superior.

We often forget what school is. It's not a chance that is offered to you, it's a machinery driven by the State in order to kick the ass of people who are lazy-at-heart. They present you knowledge through a hierarchy. You need to learn the basics before learning what's next. Actually it's all bullshit. I'm far from being a genius and my algorithmic skills seriously suck, but this month, as I'm planning to create a domain specific language meant to ease he creation of domain specific languages ( meta-loop-fractals-barbarism he ), I came across two master thesis and my conclusion is that I totally have the level. Actually I had been beyond what one of them proposed before entering that school. And you know why ? Because I'm passionated.

One of my professor is a kind of hippie wearing cowboy boots. He's definitely atypical almost marginal : he got his phd when he was forty something. He's the only professor who has criticized what we are taught. Some teachers consider him as their guru. And well, at some point I showed him what I coded for a stupid assignment where I decided to use blocks (functions passed as arguments to other functions). So he got interested in what I was doing besides school. Told him about what I was doing, learnt I was programming some kind of MOP then he asked me : are you enjoying it ?

He's the only one to have asked this question. Apart from him it's the good old suffer-to-succes and ingurgitate-the-so-called-perfection-of-the-theory-I-m-teaching you. In short, bear your cross and shut up. like Jesus. This is mainly what western science is about. Bearing a cross while whipping yourself, bring Jesus and Longinus at the same time.

 

 

So you can quote philosophes or the holy bilble, state that you're a monist (whatever that means), invoke complex theorems whose main advantage is that nobody, including yourself, understand them, work hard the Americans-protestant way (I'm pretty sure I work more than 60 hours a week and never feel like I have worked hard, that would kill me) that won't help you understand what god is for god is what one find in himself before finding out others have found the same thing.

 

Now I'll go sodomize my girlfriend, otherwise she'll try to put her fingers in my butthole, and I don't quite like that since she has long nails. Hopefully she likes to read articles giving advices about sexuality in general (since our newly consumed virginity is regularly tainted with fails which induce some fear or,anxiety in her) so I'm optimist and think I'll manage to have her nails cut. That would allow me to enjoy a perfectly heterosexual fingerfuck pretty soon.

 

Thank you.

 

our brains are pattern seeking machines. very often we see patterns where none exist because it's adaptive to assume things have a cause and effect relationship. your synchronicities are most likely caused by probability (not divine forces) and you interpret them as patterns with a cause.

 

as for the great fractal... i've thought about it before too. it makes a lot of sense if you relate it to this.

[gmanyo]

because they consider evidence to be what well could be hallucinatory experiences, hearing "voices" and "seeing miracles". This may have been considered rational in a day when most people believed there were Gods, it is no longer considered rational and for good reason.

 

For every single definition of faith you provided at the top, simply ask yourself what certifiable, demonstrable, and observable evidence you base that faith on. None? Good, that is blind faith.

 

I'm just saying that "faith" doesn't mean sans-evidence. It usually means trust, belief, or fidelity, at least in the Bible. Those definitions have nothing to do whether the faith is reasonable or not. From what I've seen, science works out really well and has a lot of evidence behind it, so I put faith in science. Doctors have years of training, so I put faith in them when they perform surgeries on me.

 

Again, faith can be blind, and it can be stupid. But it can also be rational.

 

You do not put faith in science, you have trust in science. You do not enter the world automatically believing that science is right in all ways; this trust is earned by observable proofs that such and such is correct or not. Its a constant evolution of thought; just because I trust science does not mean I am always completely in agreement.

 

If we are arguing over semantics, fair enough. But I think your use of "faith" is misleading, because it subconsciously suggests to the listener that "faith" in the Bible/Christianity and "faith" that is evidence based are similar in nature.

 

Yeah, it's just semantics, but I still think it's important to understand that the word "faith" in the Bible does not mean "belief without evidence". None of the Christians in my church think that, and they think that it's really annoying when people use it that way. And if we're going to argue semantics, when you say "you have trust in science", that fits perfectly with the faith definition in the dictionary, "confidence or trust in a person or thing (science)". So that actually is having faith in science.

 

I also think that when people use faith, it's important to realize that people frequently mean putting trust in something because you know it will work, even if you're worried. Like the surgeon analogy I made.

 

edit:

What is up with the font size change? I can't figure out how to fix it.

[Guest RadarJammer]

our brains are pattern seeking machines. very often we see patterns where none exist because it's adaptive to assume things have a cause and effect relationship. your synchronicities are most likely caused by probability (not divine forces) and you interpret them as patterns with a cause.

 

as for the great fractal... i've thought about it before too. it makes a lot of sense if you relate it to this.

 

The idea of repetitive synchronicity is that the odds (can) begin to overpower the minds ability to rationalize it as probability, most people won't jump on the first coincidence and point fingers at metaphysics. What makes it so interesting is that it actually tends to mean absolutely nothing at all, I mean if you were playing backgammon with someone and you rolled a 5 and a 3 eight times in a row you would remember that for the rest of your life but its unimportant, and if weird things like that happen, things that are so fucking weirdly times that you will remember them until you die it becomes like a running inside joke with yourself that definitely adds a vibe or a layer of something to your reality which is a bit incommunicable.

[SR4]

because they consider evidence to be what well could be hallucinatory experiences, hearing "voices" and "seeing miracles". This may have been considered rational in a day when most people believed there were Gods, it is no longer considered rational and for good reason.

 

For every single definition of faith you provided at the top, simply ask yourself what certifiable, demonstrable, and observable evidence you base that faith on. None? Good, that is blind faith.

 

I'm just saying that "faith" doesn't mean sans-evidence. It usually means trust, belief, or fidelity, at least in the Bible. Those definitions have nothing to do whether the faith is reasonable or not. From what I've seen, science works out really well and has a lot of evidence behind it, so I put faith in science. Doctors have years of training, so I put faith in them when they perform surgeries on me.

 

Again, faith can be blind, and it can be stupid. But it can also be rational.

 

You do not put faith in science, you have trust in science. You do not enter the world automatically believing that science is right in all ways; this trust is earned by observable proofs that such and such is correct or not. Its a constant evolution of thought; just because I trust science does not mean I am always completely in agreement.

 

If we are arguing over semantics, fair enough. But I think your use of "faith" is misleading, because it subconsciously suggests to the listener that "faith" in the Bible/Christianity and "faith" that is evidence based are similar in nature.

 

Yeah, it's just semantics, but I still think it's important to understand that the word "faith" in the Bible does not mean "belief without evidence". None of the Christians in my church think that, and they think that it's really annoying when people use it that way. And if we're going to argue semantics, when you say "you have trust in science", that fits perfectly with the faith definition in the dictionary, "confidence or trust in a person or thing (science)". So that actually is having faith in science.

 

I also think that when people use faith, it's important to realize that people frequently mean putting trust in something because you know it will work, even if you're worried. Like the surgeon analogy I made.

 

edit:

What is up with the font size change? I can't figure out how to fix it.

 

Just because Christians claim that their faith is rational does not make it so. I cannot explain this anymore than I already have; to a rationalist the irrationality of faith claims in Biblical texts regardless of what the speaker means by faith are practically self-evident.

[gmanyo]

Just because Christians claim that their faith is rational does not make it so. I cannot explain this anymore than I already have; to a rationalist the irrationality of faith claims in Biblical texts regardless of what the speaker means by faith are practically self-evident.

 

Oh, I'm not trying to argue whether their claims are false or true. I'm saying that many of the atheist arguments against "faith" are red herrings and in some cases straw mans, because they're not actually attacking what people mean when they say "faith"; you should attack their specific reasons for belief, not the fact that their faith is blind, because it often isn't. It could be backed up by stupid things, but you should attack those or else you're not actually going to prove anything. (Dawkins is the worst with this; he starts off an argument with "faith is belief without evidence, and this is wrong because..." and he's already lost me because no it isn't. And I agree that belief without evidence is stupid, so you're preaching to the choir even when speaking to Christians.)

 

Anyone who believes that their faith is and should be blind is not going to listen to arguments on the internet; someone who has incorrect reasons for their faith might, because at least they have some logical backup, even if it's incorrect. They're still willing to accept objective truth. Therefore you're not going to get very far trying to persuade people out of blind faith.

[Hoodie]

Just because Christians claim that their faith is rational does not make it so. I cannot explain this anymore than I already have; to a rationalist the irrationality of faith claims in Biblical texts regardless of what the speaker means by faith are practically self-evident.

 

Oh, I'm not trying to argue whether their claims are false or true. I'm saying that many of the atheist arguments against "faith" are red herrings and in some cases straw mans, because they're not actually attacking what people mean when they say "faith"; you should attack their specific reasons for belief, not the fact that their faith is blind, because it often isn't. It could be backed up by stupid things, but you should attack those or else you're not actually going to prove anything. (Dawkins is the worst with this; he starts off an argument with "faith is belief without evidence, and this is wrong because..." and he's already lost me because no it isn't. And I agree that belief without evidence is stupid, so you're preaching to the choir even when speaking to Christians.)

 

Anyone who believes that their faith is and should be blind is not going to listen to arguments on the internet; someone who has incorrect reasons for their faith might, because at least they have some logical backup, even if it's incorrect. They're still willing to accept objective truth. Therefore you're not going to get very far trying to persuade people out of blind faith.

 

that's weird, because i've heard from a lot of religious people (mostly preachers that stand outside my university's library) that faith does not require evidence and that's what makes it so special--because you feel it's right in your heart even though you have nothing objective to support it. they said that engaging in faith is difficult, but that's why you get rewarded by god. it's not supposed to be easy and that's why faith helps you grow as a person.

 

i think there are two definitions of faith--one being the more colloquial "have faith" or "trust this person/thing" and the other being faith in religion, which is defined more as a deeply held belief that is not supported by evidence. your church might not use the second definition but a lot of religious people do.

[gmanyo]

that's weird, because i've heard from a lot of religious people (mostly preachers that stand outside my university's library) that faith does not require evidence and that's what makes it so special--because you feel it's right in your heart even though you have nothing objective to support it. they said that engaging in faith is difficult, but that's why you get rewarded by god. it's not supposed to be easy and that's why faith helps you grow as a person.

 

i think there are two definitions of faith--one being the more colloquial "have faith" or "trust this person/thing" and the other being faith in religion, which is defined more as a deeply held belief that is not supported by evidence. your church might not use the second definition but a lot of religious people do.

 

Definitely true. I actually posted the definitions of faith on the last page, and the first one was "trust this person/thing" and the second one was "believe without evidence". Plenty of Churches talk about faith like that; most, probably. But those people are not likely to even listen to logical arguments, and I don't think that idea actually comes from the Bible. I also don't think those people even get the main points of Christianity most of the time. I'm not sure where the idea comes from, or why people believe that it's smart.

[SR4]

that's weird, because i've heard from a lot of religious people (mostly preachers that stand outside my university's library) that faith does not require evidence and that's what makes it so special--because you feel it's right in your heart even though you have nothing objective to support it. they said that engaging in faith is difficult, but that's why you get rewarded by god. it's not supposed to be easy and that's why faith helps you grow as a person.

 

i think there are two definitions of faith--one being the more colloquial "have faith" or "trust this person/thing" and the other being faith in religion, which is defined more as a deeply held belief that is not supported by evidence. your church might not use the second definition but a lot of religious people do.

 

Definitely true. I actually posted the definitions of faith on the last page, and the first one was "trust this person/thing" and the second one was "believe without evidence". Plenty of Churches talk about faith like that; most, probably. But those people are not likely to even listen to logical arguments, and I don't think that idea actually comes from the Bible. I also don't think those people even get the main points of Christianity most of the time. I'm not sure where the idea comes from, or why people believe that it's smart.

 

ok, this should be easy to conclude then. What is your logical evidence that Jesus is the Son of God, died by the hand of the Romans and was resurrected?

[gmanyo]

that's weird, because i've heard from a lot of religious people (mostly preachers that stand outside my university's library) that faith does not require evidence and that's what makes it so special--because you feel it's right in your heart even though you have nothing objective to support it. they said that engaging in faith is difficult, but that's why you get rewarded by god. it's not supposed to be easy and that's why faith helps you grow as a person.

 

i think there are two definitions of faith--one being the more colloquial "have faith" or "trust this person/thing" and the other being faith in religion, which is defined more as a deeply held belief that is not supported by evidence. your church might not use the second definition but a lot of religious people do.

 

Definitely true. I actually posted the definitions of faith on the last page, and the first one was "trust this person/thing" and the second one was "believe without evidence". Plenty of Churches talk about faith like that; most, probably. But those people are not likely to even listen to logical arguments, and I don't think that idea actually comes from the Bible. I also don't think those people even get the main points of Christianity most of the time. I'm not sure where the idea comes from, or why people believe that it's smart.

 

ok, this should be easy to conclude then. What is your logical evidence that Jesus is the Son of God, died by the hand of the Romans and was resurrected?

 

Bro, don't want to get into that. Cop out, I know, but any Atheist vs. Christian argument always ends in back and forth nothingness bullshit. It's likely that I hold on to my beliefs because I want them to be true or because my friends are Christians, but at the same time I've heard many arguments from atheists and Christians that seem logically sound. I think I'd lose in an argument agains a learned Christian or a learned atheist (assuming I was arguing against them). I'm pretty damn unsure about my beliefs; I have very little faith in anything at all. I wish I was someone who could just believe something blindly and think that that was okay. I have an atheist friend who tried to convince himself that Christianity was true just because he thought it would make him happier.

 

I hate ontological uncertainty. My first post was about that. I'm proud of my analogy at the end:

 

I would imagine that I'm one of the few Christians on this forum, although I'm not completely decided on my beliefs and I certainly don't follow it closely enough. I have heard what I perceive to be logical and legitimate arguments from both Christians and Atheists. But are they really logical? How can I tell whether logic is logical using logic? Am I only a Christian because I was brought up that way and am too afraid to leave, or do I really believe what I do? Is rebellion, the desire to have no one above me control me or tell me what's right and wrong, the main factor behind me considering atheism? Such is the postmodern crisis; how can I know that my model of reality is accurate? How can I tell what reality really is when my view of it is so distorted by the subjective? It's like I'm in a cathedral, looking at the world around me through the stained glass windows of patron saints.

 

edit:

I mean, I do know of some arguments. There's the predictive prophesy arguments, the argument that the disciples would be really dumb for dying for something that they knew to be false, the argument that our nature as humans and our view of objective morality combined with the "start of the universe" argument (What the fuck is the name for that? I feel dumb for not knowing.) lends itself to a monotheistic world (this one I am a bit weary of, though). There are some others, too. But again, I don't have the knowledge or time to back them up in an argument.

[SR4]

ok, so now you realize that you are being deliberately evasive about your previous claims in order to sidestep the ultimate confrontation or demonstration that what you say is Christianity and the belief system that is ultimately derived from central tenets of Christianity has logical merit to it.

 

Your analogy is akin to solipsistic nonsense and it seems logically dishonest. How do you know that you are logically being logical by using logic? By other individuals using the same shared systems based upon observable, demonstrable evidence and coming to a common conclusion. There is a reason why the scientific method is preferred above most other modes of "understanding", because if we eschewed the scientific method as nonsense, so goes absolutely EVERYTHING else in terms of our capacity to understand. If what you said earlier is to be taken seriously, we might as well all be comatose robots devoid of anything and everything.

 

If you'll excuse my bluntness, yes, it is a cop out, not only to me but to yourself as well. Im positive you realized the logical trap that you had set for yourself and it pains me greatly to see you refuse to acknowledge it.

[SR4]

ok, then i would say, if you are at least aware of these arguments, I would suggest looking deeply into them and testing them against your own logical capacities to see where the truth lies, and not on bias or what you "hope" to be true. I could point out to you many of the logical fallacies of the arguments you allude to, but Id rather you do it on your own...some of those have already been pointed out earlier in the thread.

[marf]

i think religion was a way to govern people in a time when the government couldn't be everywhere at all times

[SR4]

lol, theres certainly a great argument to be made on that point

[gmanyo]

ok, so now you realize that you are being deliberately evasive about your previous claims in order to sidestep the ultimate confrontation or demonstration that what you say is Christianity and the belief system that is ultimately derived from central tenets of Christianity has logical merit to it.

yeah, mostly

 

Your analogy is akin to solipsistic nonsense and it seems logically dishonest. How do you know that you are logically being logical by using logic? By other individuals using the same shared systems based upon observable, demonstrable evidence and coming to a common conclusion. There is a reason why the scientific method is preferred above most other modes of "understanding", because if we eschewed the scientific method as nonsense, so goes absolutely EVERYTHING else in terms of our capacity to understand. If what you said earlier is to be taken seriously, we might as well all be comatose robots devoid of anything and everything.

I meant the cathedral analogy. My first post in this thread was about internal dilemma, not an argument; I can't tell if the arguments I take as being logically correct really are or not.

 

As far as my "faith" arguments go, I'm not saying anyone is right or wrong about their beliefs, or even logically consistent; just that arguments against faith are, in some cases, red herrings, because you're talking about completely different things from the people you are arguing with.

 

I frankly can't even make decisions based on logic. I wish I could. I think the reason I still cling to Christianity is mainly because many of my friends believe it and it's how I was raised and I've heard Christians make logical arguments, and the main reason I consider atheism is because many smart people are atheists and I've heard logical arguments from atheists. I think that very few people are actually able to believe something purely due to logic. Even logic is a feeling, really.

 

ok, then i would say, if you are at least aware of these arguments, I would suggest looking deeply into them and testing them against your own logical capacities to see where the truth lies, and not on bias or what you "hope" to be true. I could point out to you many of the logical fallacies of the arguments you allude to, but Id rather you do it on your own...some of those have already been pointed out earlier in the thread.

 

Yeah, I'm pretty weary of many of the arguments, but at the same time I see some of the points in them. The prophesy one is the most challenged, but I actually think that the prophesy one has more weight than many other arguments if you really look into it; I've met multiple atheists who agree that there are at least some weird-as-fuck coincidences in the Bible. There's also one prophesy in particular which is almost perfect and super specific, but there's a huge debate about when it was written. Daniel 9, I think.

[goDel]

Can we please stop the comparisons between religion and science. They're both very distinct things (although not so much in prehistoric times).

 

Although talking about the science of religion would make sense, the reverse wouldn't. The religion of science simply wouldn't make sense. Science is a method, not a belief system. And there is no final definitive method. Scientific method is an ever evolving methodology. There may be people having more faith in one scientific method or another, but that hasn't got anything to do with science in and of itself. Sticking to one method purely based on faith would be unscientific.

 

That's fundamentally different to saying that believing only in one religion would be unreligious. Religion is not a method.

[SR4]

thank you.

[chenGOD]

i think religion was a way to govern people in a time when the government couldn't be everywhere at all times

lol, theres certainly a great argument to be made on that point

 

many good arguments to be made on that point. :)

[gmanyo]

Sorry, Daniel 11, and it has some questionable stuff apparently. I haven't looked into it enough. I should get around to that.

[SR4]

if i could recommend a good site to browse on this and similar subjects surrounding Christianity, check out talkorigins.org. Lots of stuff to start with and most of it is fairly in depth.

 

theres another one thats more about disproving cosmological theories/william lane craig nonsense but i cant remember it off the top of my head.

[gmanyo]

I believe in the cosmological argument, although I don't think that it proves in any spiritual thing. I think it makes sense that our universe had a beginning, but whatever came before it doesn't necessarily need one. This doesn't even need to be an intelligent creator, just some sort of something-ness "before" the big bang that doesn't require a beginning. I don't even think it's a very good argument to use as evidence for religion.

 

edit:

Bedtime now. Already up too late. Thanks for discussing, it's been fun.

[SR4]

its a horrible argument from all fronts.

 

Its a case of special pleading, amongst about ten other things wrong with it.

[goDel]

Evidence for religion...we already agree that religion exists, right? Could we please leave it at that? Yes, it's that simple.

 

edit: fucking autocorrection..

[SR4]

Religion exists, yes. I don't see what that has to do with anything we have been discussing. I don't think anyone in here denies that religion exists.

[goDel]

lol

 

 

i believe in the truths the autocorrection program produces....

 

 

and i pray it will correct many of my mistakes as brilliantly in the future.

[goDel]

Religion exists, yes. I don't see what that has to do with anything we have been discussing. I don't think anyone in here denies that religion exists.

 

OK, I can't change it back to resists now.

 

;p