The Faith & Religion mega Thread

Originally Posted by MrCode Say goodbye to all your hopes and dreams, then: your life has already been laid out for you by the laws of physics.

This argument again? Dude, you sure enjoy depressing yourself. You hate predetermination, and yet you find a reason to see it everywhere. If there's no reason to see determinism, you invent it.

Add just a small element of randomness, and entire predetermination goes out of the window, even if "life is just a machine". I don't understand why you refuse to see that.

Originally Posted by MrCode Maybe take it into consideration…

Maybe take it into consideration that your "science implies determinism" assumption is wrong.

There is absolute scientific proof of God's existence. And here it is:

Do you believe in light? You couldn't read this without light. In 1John1:5 it says, "God is light". Science knows that light is energy. God is energy. There are two things in the universe: energy and "information". and information is the conformation of energy.

We got consciousness in finite time. In our brains, consciousness was caused by the capacitance and ectropy of the arising reticular formation of the medulla oblongata, which is simply the interference of information by virtue of the inevitability of orthogonality.

The First Law of Thermodynamics is, "Energy can neither be created nor destroyed". Energy is eternal. Certainly, in eternity it is inevitable that information would cause energy (God) to be conscious. Would you think that God doens't want boredom. That is why He doesn't interfere with free will.

To answer another question, information can be created and destroyed. That is what the Second Law of Thermodynamics says when it says, "In the universe, entropy always increases". The entropy of the universe, at any one time, is the proportion of photons to nucleons, that is, entropy is the extent of polarity cancellation.

Information, the conformation of energy? Take a cloth sheet. It represents energy. Wrinkle the sheet. The wrinkles represent information. Pull the sheet out straight, and, "fump", the wrinkles become nonexistent. They "perish". Look in "Roget's Thesaurus", perishing is synonymous with becoming nonexistent.

Such a universal sheet exists on the eighth, ninth, and tenth dimensions; and, it is called the Ricci Curvature. Where there is no Ricci Curvature there is no matter. It says in the Bible, "Only He (God) is immortal"; and, "The soul that sinneth shall die". Crooks have profited on the fear of Plato's immortality of the soul.

There is the "aioniu amartematos", the "aeon of failure", mistranslated into English, "eternal damnation". A Greek professor told me that an "aeon" is only a hundred years. Spirit is matter in bent timespace, and, matter is spirit in flat timespace. Our soul is that portion of our being in the fifth dimensional spheres of bent timespace. Theoretically, -n+n=0, the soul is still perishable information.

A Jehovah's Witness told me, "Eternal punishment is infinite injustice. God in not unjust". By the way, if Jehovah's Witnesses get on your case, just tell them that you want to become nonexistent; and then, they will immediately go away. I am only 99.9990 % sure I can someday become nonexistent.

Originally Posted by aizkorri When I was young I believed there was a god, it was outthere, had a book called the bible, and was omnipotent, omnipresent, etc. The values they had were and are really good, that is something that will be with me forever. When I was young I also believed there were dragons and ghosts, I believed there were lots of things..., and imagination an fantasy will also be with me forever. But... Then I grew up. And asked for evidences so that I could trust or not in someone/something. Then I saw that lots of things were just fantasy..., they were amazing, great, but they were fantasy. No ghosts, no dragons, and of course no God that would take care of me (I do not mind if there is one billion people, a book, or whatever telling me that God exists, I won't believe because there is just no evidence). So... Everytime someone tells me to "believe", or to have "faith" in God I feel that they are trying to fool me. Why? Well, because then there is no option to argue, How could I argue with anyone that would tell me that something IS like that cause God said it in a bible, or whatever book. They are making an assumption there, "There exists a God", or "There exist some Gods" They ask me to believe in something, to have faith..., I answer, I can have faith in my friends, in myself, in my team in a soccer game..., but do not ask me to have faith in something that IS still fantasy. Maybe more a rant than a thread, but I felt I had to share this with you (believers, and not believers, with all due respect)

My friend Jacinto (if my memory wasn't so bad I could name a hundred or more), was a drunk, dope addict, woman chaser. He had a lovely wife and (at that time ) about 9 kids, but he spent his money on drink, women, and drugs, and then came home to rob his family and spend their money on the same. He had a pretty good job, and managed to hold it provided he stayed at least a little bit drunk all the time.

His wife, in desperation, turned to Jesus, where she found strength and peace to carry on with her children. And she prayed for Jacinto. One day a mutual friend said to me, "Have you heard what happened to Jacinto?"

I hadn't heard, but knowing him I began to think - Did he overdose on drugs? did he kill himself? or maybe his wife? But no! Jacinto had also committed his life to Christ. That was more than thirty years ago. Neither Jacinto or his wife can read, but they could through this encounter find peace and an honorable way forward in their very difficult lives.

For the moment forget arguments like "first cause" or "original designer". For me the most powerful evidence in our day for God (the God of the Bible). I the transformation of the lives of so many 'hopeless' human beings when they trust Him.

"After that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."

We are Borg...resistance is futile!

Originally Posted by dugan Maybe take it into consideration that your "science implies determinism" assumption is wrong.

Maybe not as a whole, but with regard to the brain and the free will/determinism argument, some have already come to conclusions.

By the way, you were destined to read this, just as I was to write it.

Many philosophers and scientists have argued that free will is an illusion. Unlike all of them, Benjamin Libet found a way to test it.

EDIT: See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Wegner#Free_will

Originally Posted by MrCode some have already come to conclusions.

Some != all.

Moderator note:
Dear Lahunken, there's no need to post the same content THREE times.

Originally Posted by Mara Moderator note: Dear Lahunken, there's no need to post the same content THREE times.

To which I would add, "especially if it's internet copypasta," because it's found nearly word-for-word in so many other places, particularly Yahoo Answers.

This post looks like someone flipped straight to the glossary of a college physics textbook and started borrowing words.

To be honest I do believe in higher powers but i stopped believing in Bible and church version of God because it's full of stuff that contradicts itself and is just too much mind and flesh control and the way they portrait God is like little human kid who punishes people when things don't go as planned even though it was the one who created them like that in first place. Higher power should be above human level right? For example they say God want everyone to be happy but at same time threatens with hell if you walk just 1 step wrong and also in real life innocent people suffer way more than evil ones. How can that be according to what priests claim? That makes Devil look way better to hang out with because he doesn't force stuff. It's like UFO - sure we want to believe but we are missing evidence - even little. After some time we loose point of believing and hoping in allmighty who will watch over us. Zeitgeist movies point out God is actually Sun and also Penn & Teller show about Bible makes good enough arguments that they are hiding important details about truth. I think people who believe in God just don't want either be punished or loose "afterlife" when they die.

Discussing religion in a scientific context is meaningless. Science is about being skeptical to established truth (It's the philosophy, not necessarily the practice), reasoning and testing. Religion is about believing, dogma and accepting. They are quite contradictory.

I do find religious people extraordinary fascinating though. Here you have a book that is supposedly the truth. The word of God. The all mighty being. Either you accept it as the truth or you don't. So we should think. Could you doubt the word of a perfect being? In most cases, it seems they can. I often encounter religious people that can second guess the all knowing, perfect and all mighty God. Talk about nerves. There definitely isn't lack of ego.

One more thing i find wierd is..if 2 or more people meet from different religions they start fighting trying to claim their God is real, better and only one and other religion is nonsence. Again - if there is God - why make 100 versions of it and fight for it?

Originally Posted by Arcane One more thing i find wierd is..if 2 or more people meet from different religions they start fighting trying to claim their God is real, better and only one and other religion is nonsence. Again - if there is God - why make 100 versions of it and fight for it?

Yet another reason for supporting the claim that all religions are man-made. The origins of religions' fragmentation is probably the same as that of political parties, ie. difference of opinion.

Originally Posted by Arcane One more thing i find wierd is..if 2 or more people meet from different religions they start fighting trying to claim their God is real, better and only one and other religion is nonsence. Again - if there is God - why make 100 versions of it and fight for it?

Not only that, but the three most brutal religions, which cause the most suffering on the planet, believe in the same God. Quite ironic.

I just stumbled upon this video. It might explain things like some religious experiences or some discrepancies in scientific interpretations of data.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bG7...layer_embedded