pay attention please. i accept your definition of him. but that has nothing to do with anything. you explain his definition as if that has some bearing on his existence. i can tell you the definition of santa claus if you want, but who cares? if i ask you how god is omnipotent, you cannot say "because the dictionary says he is". again this leads to brutal honesty. i dont think you have it in you to overcome your indoctrination. you cannot apply rational thinking to these questions. you take wild assumptions as givens. i have asked you numerous times how you think you know god has no beginning, you only answer with nonsense. you want to believe. you have to. otherwise your life is meaningless and you rot in the earth after you die.
That's an absurd question. What do you mean "how is god omnipotent"? That's what the word means. As far as santa claus goes that's a good question...who cares about the definition of santa claus? The people having a conversation about santa claus care about the definition of santa claus. It's so they can communicate with one another which seems pretty tough for you to do. If you mean that santa claus is fictional and that by some odd association in your head that God is fictional then fine. Please don't act like what you are engaged in is logical, though. You don't apply any logic to anything....you just say who cares, what does that mean, you don't know that..... -there is no nonsense involved......that is what the definition of God is....it's really not as difficult as you are making it out to be. It's amazing really, at the beginning of your last reply you claim to accept the definition. Then you go right back to claiming you don't understand the characteristics of God. There is really nothing I can do to help you understand that. I think what your trying to say is that I have no demonstrable proof that God exists. That's a different question. If that's the question you have then ask that one and stop asking about how does God not have a beginning, it's pointless. I apologize if this post sounds testy, I'm just trying to be more direct about it, that's all.
The thing that gets me about this whole conversation, is flabengal's belief that she knows in absolute truth that her God exists. Muslims, Buddhists etc. all know that their God exists. Are they wrong? Why is your God the only God, and how do you know this absolutely? Religious people refuse to believe that they could be wrong. The movie Dogma said it best, something along the lines of people screwing up faith by making it a belief. Once people believe in God & pour their soul into religion, they aren't willing to give it up - regardless of facts or any logical argument. The thing about martin is, he freely admits that he doesn't know the answer. He makes his decisions based on what he sees and makes rational decisions. You can discount any "brainwashing" and it makes it alot easier to understand his point of view. You, on the other hand, assume that we all will convert to your religion and eventually learn of your God. Your arguments and their reasoning are all tainted because of faith - it's the only thing that could make your arguments reasonable. The problem with that is, you can't argue faith and thus your arguments will never be reasonable to a person without faith. Another thing, the part about gay people really bothered me. You are close-minded and I have pity for you. Homosexuality isn't some type of disease and those people can't just "get better." It's none of your business if God doesn't like it. Let him deal with it. He's all powerfull and can strike them down with lightning at any time.
A couple of corrections: -I'm a guy not a chick. It's supposed to be "florida bengal tiger" but somehow I left the tiger part out. No problem, I can see how you'd think that. -If you want to debate whether God is the Chrisitan one or Muslim or Buddhist that's fine. It's clear to me that I could be wrong and they could be right. My only point is that there is a Supreme Being. Whether the Christians have it 100% right is open to debate. Either way there has to be a Creator. That's my point. As far as the Christian part, I think there are good arguments in favor of it but I'll leave that for another post. -Sorry about that whole subject. I probably shouldn't have brought it up. I know it's pretty stupid of me to do that. Nothing good comes out of it, I should have thought of another example. I was just trying to point out that there is another party to the behavior of human beings and just because its consensual doesn't necessarily make it a good thing. I don't assume any particular person is going to convert at all. I have no idea about that type of thing, all I'm saying is that there is an absolute truth. My faith does not generate my belief in absolute truth. If anything it's just the opposite. My understanding of truth allows me to conclude there must be a Supreme Being.
i know you cant answer that, because it is the starting premise that you take as a given, but i do not. it has no reason. it isnt absurd question. in fact few questions in the history of the planet are better.
Well, in any case it's been an interesting discussion. I think I'll just see if I can't dig up a little evidence of Pontius Pilate for Red and leave it at that.
Sorry about that, I was reading it "flaben gal". If there's an absolute truth, then you believe that we shall learn of it, either before or after death, but ultimately you believe that you will be proved right and that martin and others will be forced to recognize that. Wouldn't that be the premise of the absolute truth? How can your faith not generate your belief in this absolute truth? How can you come to understand this "absolute truth" if not through faith?
cparso is right. flaben gal's conclusions flow from faith. a non-religious person has no reason to care about gays other than they are disgusting. and what do i care if you are disgusting when i am not around? from your perspective you arent even disgusting. fine by me. unless i am religious, it has zero effect on me. well, i guess a sexy lesbian who refuses to do dudes is a sad thing, a loss to the male community. and i admit that i find overly flamboyant gay personalities to be pretty damn annoying, but that is a different issue. point: many conlusions about political and social policy flow from irrational beliefs in religion, not a realistic appraisal of the way things are.
That's not what I meant by absolute truth. I meant only that there are certain things in life that we as human beings can recognize as true or not true. Like math, or geometry or some aspects of life in general (men not giving birth and all that, I assume you read the earlier posts). If we really were the result of a purely random universe, etc. then we would never be able to come to the conclusion of something being true or not. Your thoughts would just be a result of atoms bouncing around in your brain. That's what most of the "relativist" thought ends up being. You know, when they tell you,"that's your opinion and I have mine, you can't tell me what I'm saying is incorrect because my opinion is as good as yours." That's really not the case unless you talking about some pretty mundane stuff like food or actors, etc. If your talking about something like math it's pretty cut and dry. If your talking about laws and justice it's less cut and dry but still fairly clear. Like that BTK killer they caught today. (I'm going to make an assumption so get ready to pounce all ye who must wait until the almighty court has spoken...) I think the guy did it and they are going to nail him on it. And then all the people in the courtroom decide together, "this is an evil act and must be punished" or something along those lines and sentence him to life in prison or the death penalty. Can you imagine his lawyer saying to the judge, " that's the jury's opinion, your honor, but it doesn't really matter because there is no truth, it's all relative, etc." They would laugh his ass out of the court or tell him to find a new job or something. Why? Because that stuff doesn't fly when you get down to serious matters. Words have meaning, actions have consequences and the truth exists as well as good and evil. Those are the facts and if they are then it's a short leap to concluding that there is a Supreme Being. If there is a Supreme Being then what's he like? Well, that's where you get into the different religions, competing theories on his nature, etc. I'm comfortable with Chrisitanity, though. It seems to me to be the basis of some of the best parts of Western Civilization. Not all of the good parts but a great deal of it. I don't see why people are so quick to discount it.
good and evil are human constructs. i agree with the general ideas of them, but they only exist because we need them to avoid chaos in a rational system where we can make ourselves happy. there is no divine truth or morality. our opinions on good and evil mean something to us, because we made them up. they were not divined to us by god. they are rational concepts. our ideas on good and evil make our world work in the same sense that the rules of baseball make baseball work. that is all. the "short leap" to concludig there is a supreme bieng. you describe isnt really that short.
