How could something perfect (God) create something so imperfect? This planet is full of beautiful things, sunsets, flowers, mountains, women,etc... but on the other side of beautiful there is disease, starvation, earthquakes, etc... If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed. Is there a God? Or did everything just happen by chance? I am interested in everyone's opinion. ------------------ "When your dead, anything's funny."-John Lennon
Imperfect? Hardly. How could you not be impressed? Our ecosystem is one of the most beautifully perfect things in existence. Perhaps the only thing perfect in existence. Earthquakes, diseases, starvation, and the like? You have to have methods for population control and a way to replenish the planet's resources. Even if you don't believe in God, you should be impressed at the amazing intricacy of the environment. Everything fits in so perfectly together it's ingenius! But also, let's try not to blame God for starvation, the spread of diseases, murder, bad people, or any other man made problem. God gave humanity free will, and with the freedom and power free will brings comes a tremendous burden. Humans are the master of their own fate and blaming God, genetics, or anything else is a complete cop out. True, sometimes **** happens, but we can't control accidents even though they are a product of free will. As for this being the best God can do; I seriously hope not. If it is, Heaven sure will be disappointing. ------------------ WE WILL WATCH THEM FALL... next year, at least. [This message has been edited by AntiSonic (edited July 05, 2000).]
Deep, Bob. Deep. I see all matter and anti-matter and all that exists and anti-exists(LOL )as perfection spun from God's hand. Perfect because it can always be explained....even if we do not understand "it" yet. How can everything being attributed to scientific explanations not also be God's doing? Just maybe science is the personification of God. Everything is constantly expanding and evolving....God's hand is everlasting and reaching. We are the matter which makes up the energy filling the universe. An imperfect world does not make for imperfection. Ultimately...hmm...we either die from another major asteroid/comet hit and start over OR we eventually evolve into perfection and rejoin the matter and energy and God when the universe can no longer expand and collapses....or the asteroid/comet hits again . Then, we will just be a massive ball of energy and in with God where we still have conscious thought and a form of being. Told you it was deep. please join my cult or sign-up for my newsletter! wearetheborg Surf ------------------ [This message has been edited by Surfguy (edited July 05, 2000).]
Antisonic, You couldn't have said it better ... It also depends on what one person calls perfection ... ------------------
While on the subject, <A HREF="http://bbs.clutchcity.net/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000449.html">here's</A> a great thread that I found is still online. Makes for really good reading... and God even proves his own existence in it... well, sort of. ------------------ WE WILL WATCH THEM FALL... next year, at least. [This message has been edited by AntiSonic (edited July 05, 2000).]
If the world was meant to have total perfection, it wouldn't have imperfect humans lamenting the lack of perfection. Mango ------------------ 1. Put new topics in the proper forum 2. Use clear wording for new threads 3. No duplicate threads The Serious Police are watching All will be assimilated. [This message has been edited by Mango (edited July 05, 2000).]
Mango, Technically, this is a duplicate thread from months ago (and then again more recently) - better hand out some fines. AntiSonic, That was a good thread you referenced, but how did "God prove his own existence"? Not attacking or anything, just curious. ------------------ rimbaud post-a-thon 2000 *Your Ad Here*
rimbaud, Compared to all of the duplicate threads on the Rockets 2000 Forum, this thread is fresh. This topic has a different mix of posters and is more challenging. I read the link that AntiSonic provided and remembered that I was out of my league with that group when that thread was active. Mango ------------------ 1. Put new topics in the proper forum 2. Use clear wording for new threads 3. No duplicate threads The Serious Police are watching All will be assimilated.
rimbaud & BobFinn- I was just joking about His existence being proven. Sir Scarvajal just posted under the user name "God" and gave a hillarious testimonial. ------------------ WE WILL WATCH THEM FALL... next year, at least. [This message has been edited by AntiSonic (edited July 05, 2000).] [This message has been edited by AntiSonic (edited July 05, 2000).]
True Mango, who am I or we to judge whether something is perfect of not. Anti, thanks for that link. I was a visitor to the BBS, not posting yet, at that time. I must have missed that thread. As far as proving whether God exists or not, it cannot be proven or disproven. Einstein spent most of his life trying to find order in the universe. Since his death in 1954, other scientists have taken up the cause, only to come up empty also. (so far) With the discovery of the entire human genetic code, it now seems possible that someday we may find the answers to the universe. ------------------ "When your dead, anything's funny."-John Lennon
lol Will So, where did God come from? ------------------ "When your dead, anything's funny."-John Lennon
VERY good question... One I can't even dare to try to answer... But do you remember when your parents told you where babies come from? I'm sure it's a little like that proportionately to us now but alot more complicated. [This message has been edited by AntiSonic (edited July 05, 2000).]
Mango, Well, that is why I do not have the power you have. I cannot even be a dispatcher - jump too soon. AntiSonic - Well, I missed that twice, once when I was posting in the thread and second when you just brought it back up. That was funny... Well, I will chirp in. As can be guessed by the thread AntiSonic brought up, and the other Jeff started a few months ago, I am not a big follower of religion, for various reasons. A few quick beginnings: Religion as tool... from a IWW song: long haired preachers come out every night try to tell you whats wrong and whats right but when asked about something to eat they will answer in voices so sweet, "you will eat by and by in that glorious land in the sky work and pray live on hay you'll get pie in the sky when you die" This does a decent job of summing up a major purpose of religion. There were always the priveleged fewe who controlled religion (by controlling churches/places of worshp, etc). This was never a people-run institution - no matter how it started. The impoverished outnumbered the elites by huge amounts. This was a way to help control them - creating a system of rules/guidelines, etc for the masses to follow. Failure to follow these guidelines led to damnation, pain, forever. This worked on an extremely uneducated, supersticious population. It also worked to appease them, "you may be suffering now, but if you do as we say and don't complain, you will be rewarded tenfold when you die. This way, if there is no reward, the Church cannot get in trouble - no one will know. Religion was created by man, guided by man, edited by man (the Catholic Church, for exampl, has supressed certain gospels that they did not like). I emphasize man, because women have nothing to do with religion. How any woman could be religious is beyond me. Because of this man element, there are contradicions, erroneous facts, etc within various holy writings. This is just one foundation for my concern with religion. If a lot of it defeats itself, why buy into any of it? AntiSonic: Population control - if God is a purely benevolent being, aren't there better ways of limiting population besides death? I can think of many and I am not "all knowing". Evil - How can this be man made if men are made by God? Just because we have free will, does that mean we can create new concepts within ourselves. In other words, if God has no evil in him, how can he create something that has evil within or has the potential to perofrm evil acts? It would be like an engineer that only knows how to make a car, make a car that has the proper mechanics and knowledge to fly. Not possible. If God made the Earth to be a wonderland so he could admire beautiful life, why did he create an ecosystem that relies on death to promote life. Many animals must kill others to survive. Why create something just to watch it die? That is a bit sick. If someone got a dog pregnant only kill the puppies that were born - that person would be locked up. I am trying not to repeat myself from the other threads, so I will stop this line of thought. If, indeed, we are imperfect creatures (which we are) and know very little (which is also true), then is it not just as flawed to think that we can uncerstand the concept of God - a supreme being? That the human mind could ever reach that certain level of consciousness? By definition and by form, we cannot. Why be so arrogant (this is not directed towards anyone) as to say we really know anything, much less what God wants, said, will do. etc. Most early religious figures heard voices. They were made saints and revered (Hildegard, Joan of Arc, to name a few). People hear voices still to this day. Only now, they are medicated or locked up. Which is right? ------------------ rimbaud post-a-thon 2000 *Your Ad Here*
I know you guys won't believe me but I am ........... ------------------ Stuff BBS, the Rockets and you guys It's all Clippers these days, come join the bandwagon and visit http://www.ClippersCity.net
I think what God (for lack of a better word) did was great because he gave us free will. Think about it. I bet God said, "Here's a reality you can exist in. Do whatever the hell you want with it. But remember, what you do will affect you." Can't ask for a better gift than that. It's man who makes the screwups, not God. ------------------ "One who conquers others is strong; One who conquers himself is mighty" - Lao Tzu
"How any woman could be religious is beyond me." LOL!!! I find that hillarious on a much more cynical level! Oh well... Rimbaud- your arguments against religion are very compelling. In fact, they were compelling enough to give Lenin control of Russia 90-something years ago! While it is a distinct possibility that religion is a creation of man, it's also just as likely that this theory was concocted by the power-hungry, disillusioned Bolsheviks so they could get the support of the proletariats. As for the cycle of life and death: I had a conversation with my best friend the other day who just happens to be a former Atheist and is now a Catholic. I found it extremely hard to accept that dogs did not have souls and he kept hammering that idea into my head. Somehow, the conversation led to dinosaurs. He said that God(being omniscient) knew even hundreds of millions of years ago, that mankind would need fossil fuels to run their cars. So voila- eons of life where no intelligence forms. Mankind evolves and develops civilization in its first million years and we have all of those wonderful trilobites, tyranosaurs, and dimetrodons to run our cars off of! Point beeing, since man(according to the Bible) is the master of all animals, they(and humans themselves) die so that man can continue to live. If you take the admittedly rather cold-hearted approach where animals don't have souls(I to this day find it hard to believe that my loving dog is void of one, but that's the breaks) it isn't really that sick and twisted at all. Even if you're an Atheist, you'd have to agree that the life cycle is beautiful and perfect because new life is able to spring forth from that which has died. And on the population control issue, yeah it is pretty inhumane. But again, I probably just unfairly pinned that on God. While humans a lot of times don't know when the Earth is going to tremble, erupt, etc. God gave us the ability to eventually be able to defend ourselves from such catastrophies(such as creating intruments to detect them, and just having the common sense to move away from those areas). On God being Evil because he created Evil. That's another toughie. I think it was in The Inferno that I read God already created Hell before he created man. Now it's just a novel, but it does bring up a good point. God is omnicient. He knows everything that will ever happen. God knows man will be bad, but he doesn't stop them because he gave them free will. I know it's a little redundant, but should God just give everyone a free ride to Heaven? Which brings up another notion I'm sure you or someone else might try to counter with: "If God truly loves His children, then why does he let them have free will if it only winds up getting them in Hell?" That in itself is a very good question. Parents often lay down rules for their children, and once being children themself, they know that it won't be easy for their kids to follow those rules. But, the parents still expect them to, teach them to, and punish them if they don't. Now granted, no parent would ever give their child eternal damnation, but they would give them every opportunity to let them off the hook. God did this in Jesus and gives everyone a chance to repent. Sorry about the length of that last one... I'm sure this threadis going to get a lot more interesting because I almost know what philosophical question you're going to throw out next, but I'll shut up for awhile. ------------------ WE WILL WATCH THEM FALL... next year, at least.
Oooh oooh!!! Is it the one that goes : If God is ominpotent, and can do anything, can he create a rock he can't lift? If so, then how can he be omnipotent? If not, then how can he be omnipotent? Huh? Right! ------------------ Just shut up and post [This message has been edited by Dr of Dunk (edited July 06, 2000).]
I am not impotent, how dare you say such a thing Dr of Insensitivity. ------------------ Stuff BBS, the Rockets and you guys It's all Clippers these days, come join the bandwagon and visit http://www.ClippersCity.net
