Author Topic: Searching for GOD...  (Read 3874789 times)

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20225 on: July 18, 2017, 10:31:16 AM »
Read the post Alan.

We choose with the feeling, or illusion, of freedom.  True freedom would actually be nonsensical.  The choices we make are predictable in principle, but not in practice, the computational challenge would be far too great for any computer.
I have never suggested we have total freedom.  Just the conscious ability to choose between viable options.  My choice to follow Jesus is no illusion.  It was taken of my own free will.
The truth will set you free  - John 8:32
Truth is not an abstraction, but a person - Edith Stein
Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. - CS Lewis
Joy is the Gigantic Secret of Christians - GK Chesterton

torridon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20226 on: July 18, 2017, 10:37:47 AM »
I have never suggested we have total freedom.  Just the conscious ability to choose between viable options.  My choice to follow Jesus is no illusion.  It was taken of my own free will.

OK, so you haven't read the post, or you've no intention of reading it, or you have no intention of understanding it.  Fine. Back to bald assertions for you.

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20227 on: July 18, 2017, 10:47:24 AM »
Seems to me you are just creating your own ''science of the Gaps'' then. In the future science will do this and science will solve that.

You either didn't read, or read but didn't understand bluey's post:

Quote from: bluehillside
... that science doesn't have the answer (or the complete answer) tells you nothing [...] about whether science might find the answer in the future.

Bluey's cautious, minimal 'might' seems significantly different to your 'will'.
Quote
I wonder how close to scientism you are getting. Are you prepared to accept that there are or even might be some things science could not possibly answer?
Certainly. But if science can't/doesn't, I don't know of anything else capable of doing the job. Do you?
« Last Edit: July 18, 2017, 10:53:13 AM by Shaker »
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20228 on: July 18, 2017, 10:57:18 AM »
You either didn't read, or read but didn't understand bluey's post:

 But if science can't/doesn't, I don't know of anything else capable of doing the job. Do you?
Well yes, I'm afraid I do.

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20229 on: July 18, 2017, 10:59:21 AM »
Go on then.

Let's hear all about it, with its appropriate methodology of course.
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20230 on: July 18, 2017, 11:06:24 AM »
Will it take long? Only I'm going out tonight.
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20231 on: July 18, 2017, 11:09:42 AM »
Go on then.

Let's hear all about it, with its appropriate methodology of course.
An eternity with God and him sharing his secrets.

On another tack we have still to hear whether Hillside believes that all unknowns will be revealed by science and even if we don't we still have to question the value of his 'Thor and thunder statements'
Human consciousness could be eventually described by science. The beginning of the universe or the eternality of the universe? There are sound reasons to think that science cannot given that it is an attempt to explain something by the things in it rather than the context of the thing......and yet Hillside trots out the Thor and thunder argument as a 'good for anything'.

ProfessorDavey

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20232 on: July 18, 2017, 11:10:12 AM »
Will it take long? Only I'm going out tonight.
I wouldn't waste your breath - it is clearly a 'secret' only known to the 'special people'.

ProfessorDavey

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20233 on: July 18, 2017, 11:10:43 AM »
An eternity with God and him sharing his secrets.
Evidence please.

ProfessorDavey

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20234 on: July 18, 2017, 11:12:44 AM »
I wouldn't waste your breath - it is clearly a 'secret' only known to the 'special people'.
Amazingly I posted this without seeing Vlad's comment - and his comment is about secrets only shared with certain people. Astonishing - you couldn't make it up.

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20235 on: July 18, 2017, 11:13:44 AM »
Will it take long? Only I'm going out tonight.
Wheeltappers and Neitszchian club? or The Bertrand Russell society followed by a night club....or Neitszch club

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20236 on: July 18, 2017, 11:15:12 AM »
An eternity with God and him sharing his secrets.
Replace God with Gandalf and we have two statements of equivalent veridical status.

Where was your alternative way of knowing things and its methodology, by the way?
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

ProfessorDavey

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20237 on: July 18, 2017, 11:16:05 AM »
An eternity with God and him sharing his secrets.
Why on earth would he keep things secret - why not share them with everyone. Then it would be obvious that god exists. Hmm how do you tell the difference between something that is completely hidden and a secret and something that doesn't exist. Answers on a postcard please.

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20238 on: July 18, 2017, 11:16:48 AM »
Amazingly I posted this without seeing Vlad's comment - and his comment is about secrets only shared with certain people. Astonishing - you couldn't make it up.
Vlad did, however :D
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

floo

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20239 on: July 18, 2017, 11:16:51 AM »
But I have the freedom to choose to take a step in faith - as we all have.  God gave us this freedom for us to freely choose to accept Him as our Saviour.

That is a belief, NOT a fact.

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20240 on: July 18, 2017, 11:18:15 AM »
That is a belief, NOT a fact.
Alan's grasp of the difference between the two is still very much a work in progress.
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20241 on: July 18, 2017, 11:18:30 AM »
Evidence please.
He just asked if I knew of anything capable of explaining that which science could not. what I said would.

Why do you guys have problems with that and yet positively moisten when your Lord and master Hillside guffs on about unknown unknowns?


Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20242 on: July 18, 2017, 11:21:04 AM »
He just asked if I knew of anything capable of explaining that which science could not. what I said would.
No, you just came up with some asserted bilge with nary a scrap of evidence or a sniff of a methodology.
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20243 on: July 18, 2017, 11:21:37 AM »
Why on earth would he keep things secret - why not share them with everyone. Then it would be obvious that god exists. Hmm how do you tell the difference between something that is completely hidden and a secret and something that doesn't exist. Answers on a postcard please.
You don't want God and yet he would have all the information.

I'm afraid until we meet him in heaven we all see 'through a glass darkly''

Only some are gifted in science anyway so even in a philosophical naturalist frame nature holds secrets from some. Which rather renders yet another of your arguments a bit silly since even nature does not share it's secrets with everyone.

He shoots He scores.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2017, 11:25:54 AM by Questions to Christians »

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20244 on: July 18, 2017, 11:23:30 AM »
You don't want God and yet he would have all the information.
"Having all the information" is one of the attributes of the traditional omni-everything deity, is it not?
Quote
I'm afraid until we meet him in heaven we all see 'through a glass darkly''
Good luck with that one.
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Rhiannon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20245 on: July 18, 2017, 11:26:26 AM »
I was explaining to my daughter yesterday about how God hides himself. She couldn't stop laughing.

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20246 on: July 18, 2017, 11:27:33 AM »
I was explaining to my daughter yesterday about how God hides himself. She couldn't stop laughing.
Except for finding Alan's car keys. Peekaboo!
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

BeRational

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20247 on: July 18, 2017, 11:27:39 AM »
I was explaining to my daughter yesterday about how God hides himself. She couldn't stop laughing.

Hide and seek champion for the last 2000 years running.
I see gullible people, everywhere!

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20248 on: July 18, 2017, 11:29:06 AM »
"Having all the information" is one of the attributes of the traditional omni-everything deity, is it not?Good luck with that one.
There seems to be a moaning about God not sharing his secrets with everyone. If you have told him to take a permanent hike how could you then share his knowledge.

In terms of complaints about God not sharing his knowledge with everyone, Nature doesn't either since we are gifted differentially.

Rhiannon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #20249 on: July 18, 2017, 11:30:05 AM »
Except for finding Alan's car keys. Peekaboo!

That made her laugh too.