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[Science & Religion]God Created Human Brains to Believe in Him

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by weslinder, Feb 6, 2009.

  1. RudyTBag

    RudyTBag Contributing Member
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    Nice post....


    I am more on the, "I honestly do not know" spectrum.

    God is possible, as are other ideas.

    It is not as much me disagreeing with the idea of God, as me disagreeing
    with the idea of church and religion, and putting your own church or religion
    on a pedastal over others...

    That said, I am still searching for the answer (aka 2001:A Space Odyssey) and I can't seem
    to bring myself to believe in what my family and many others believe in, just because of "Faith".
     
  2. MadMax

    MadMax Contributing Member

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    I watched Jesus Camp the other day. To me, that's a horror flick. If all I knew of Christianity came from things like that, I wouldn't give it the time of day, either. I'd be adamantly opposed to it and angry towards it.

    I believe Jesus to be unique. I believe him to be who he claimed to be. I don't believe that makes me special...I believe it illustrates God loves the entire world....every single one of us...intensely. That reality has changed my view of humanity as I've grown older...and made me value human life far more than I believe I would have otherwise. Religion often gets in the way...it's not religion I'm seeking, though.
     
  3. RudyTBag

    RudyTBag Contributing Member
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    A mindset? No?

    Do you ever wonder about the classic "Why are we here, line?"...

    My answer is simply "I do not know"...

    What would your answer be to that question? Is that not part of religion?
    To explain what cannot be explained?
     
  4. MadMax

    MadMax Contributing Member

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    Religion means something different to me than it does to you, I think.

    To glorify and enjoy God is MY answer. I believe that means a life spent in service of others... Sermon on the Mount. I draw sharp distinctions between religion and following Jesus. Religion seems very uncomfortable with the positions of Jesus, even when it claims him.
     
  5. RudyTBag

    RudyTBag Contributing Member
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    Interesting word choice makes for interesting questions...
    That is most certainly faith to it highest degree.
    If that is YOUR answer, Is there a THE ANSWER?

    If we were traveling through space, and hit a wall,
    In which we realized that we were some boxed up
    species in control by some higher alien being, would
    that be OUR God? Or would that not change YOUR belief
    of another higher power? If you could understand any of that...lol


    Is THE answer secondary to YOUR answer, Or are they one in the same?
     
  6. MadMax

    MadMax Contributing Member

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    I believe Jesus to be truth. I don't know how to prove that to you scientifically. I'm not interested in trying, really. Does that answer your question? There are people who like to "prove up" God. I'm not among them. And I think wonder is a good thing.

    Watch these in order if you get a chance....the guy talking is Rob Bell. Rob wrote a book called Velvet Elvis. When I read that book I felt as if someone had written, much more eloquently than I could, my own thoughts...so sometimes I let him speak for me. :)

    <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/FvavMG-HKdQ&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/FvavMG-HKdQ&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

    <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BjW63LuqYm8&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BjW63LuqYm8&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
     
  7. RudyTBag

    RudyTBag Contributing Member
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    Interesting stuff,


    So what is the difference between being a Christian and a Muslim?


    Will Muslim people simply go to hell for choosing the wrong religion? Despite God loving them...Are the lives they live misspent?
     
  8. Northside Storm

    Northside Storm Contributing Member

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    Islam and Christianity are like cousins, something like French and Spanish. Muslims just place more emphasis on Muhammad then on Jesus, though they recognize Jesus as a prophet. In essence, the Christian, Muslim and Jewish God are more or less the same Divine being.

    The question makes a lot more sense if you apply it to say...Buddhism, where there is no God to worship (Buddha specifically states that he does not want to be worshiped as a God).
     
  9. Dubious

    Dubious Contributing Member

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    It's not luck when all possibilities exist, that takes all the luck out of it. You are only conscious of this one 'possibility' because this is where you exist; this planet, this time, with this set of sensory tools and this capability of cognition (in this dimension!)

    Cutting a deck of cards to the the ace of spades appears to be luck when you see it. But if an endless line of people each cut the same deck, forever, it is inevitable that at least one of them will eventually cut to the ace of spades. And to that one person, it will look like their tremendous luck.

    The human beings of Planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, 12.5 billion years after the big bang, in this dimension, just cut an ace. Somebody, somewhere, sometime, in some dimension, was going to, it was inevitable.
     
  10. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Contributing Member

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    If another reality of me is a millionaire, it wouldn't really be "me" anymore.

    It's good to feel encouraged by your decisions and choices rather than assuming it's a consequence of causality.

    As human beings, it might be the only thing we can rely upon.
     
  11. pgabriel

    pgabriel Educated Negro

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    Religion developed in all kinds of cultures that had no idea of each other, so this seems to make perfect sense.
     
  12. Grizzled

    Grizzled Member

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    The suggestion that humans are hard wired to believe in God seems like a reasonable hypothesis. Virtually every culture believes in one or more gods, and virtually every person that I’ve known has wrestled with the question in one way or another.

    The language the article uses is a problem, however. Supernatural isn’t a very scientific word. Walking on coals without getting burned used to be thought of a supernatural. Tricks that magicians do were also thought of as supernatural. Just because something is unexplained doesn’t mean that it’s supernatural, and conversely if you want to call all unexplained phenomenon supernatural then that doesn’t mean that there won’t later be an explanation for them.

    Actually, the children are right, and if the author doesn’t understand that then she doesn’t know very much about geology and ecosystems. Offhand I can’t think of any evidence to suggest that humans have and “overdeveloped sense of cause and effect”.

    This is a very important point as well.
     
  13. Grizzled

    Grizzled Member

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    Otoh, it could also be argued that it's ludicrous not believe that there are one or more beings out there that are more advanced and more powerful than we are.
     
  14. Northside Storm

    Northside Storm Contributing Member

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    Makes me think of Jung and his archetypes. This certainly gives some credence to the Freudian school of thought; looks like the unconscious drives us in more ways then we would've ever thought. interesting
     
  15. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Contributing Member

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    I think it means that we have an extreme tendency to assume and jump to conclusions.
     
  16. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    Based on that . . ..
    If I travel long enough . . . far enough . . . eventually
    I will run into a VW Bug floating in space perfectly crafted because. .
    yea. .it is POSSIBLE that the parts came together to make it without
    the intervention of intelligent outside forces?

    Rocket River
    just asking
     
  17. wakkoman

    wakkoman Contributing Member

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    I want to know how space was created.

    Space takes up "space" so how was "space" created? :p
     
  18. redao

    redao Member

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    from my favorite movie: Religulouss

    God is a tool.
     
  19. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Contributing Member
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    I think we need to be careful with mistaking "cause" with "purpose". Through understanding geology we can understand how rocks formed that doesn't mean that there is a purpose to their formation.
     
  20. Grizzled

    Grizzled Member

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    You may be right, but that’s really a different idea, and I’m not sure there’s support for it either as something that humans in general suffer from. It’s true that we are inquisitive people. The history of science is based on our desire to explore cause and effect relationships. I just find it very confusing that a scientist would say that, “our minds come with an overdeveloped sense of cause and effect, which primes us to see purpose and design everywhere, even when there is none.” Science is based on seeing possible relationships and exploring hypothesis. How can a scientist say that there is no purpose or design to something until they’ve explored the issue? It’s seems very odd that a scientist would make what seems like an anti-scientific statement like this.
     

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