Why doesn’t everyone believe in God?.....

[Chuckt]

Your belief has nothing to do with objective reality - that's why it's referred to as faith. No reason to get angry over it, rather you should just own your 'belief' and dispense with the righteous indignation.



Perhaps you should inquire with the National Academy of Science to see if they can put you on the lecture schedule. I'm sure your casual observations will be a big hit. Don't be disappointed however if they don't agree that belief in a creator is 'required'.

I will ask you this - can you show me the peer-reviewed and repeatable study wherein the absence of everything was modified to become a universe? Provide me that, and i'll show you a scientist who became a creator. But, since I am 100% certain you cannot show me that, you are spouting more bull#### than you think a believer spouts, because you KNOW what you look to for an answer doesn't provide one, can't provide one, because one does not exist in the construct you've determined to be the way to answer all questions. So, instead of acknowledging the ultimate failure of your god, science, you attack both the belief system and believers of an alternate way of looking at things.

[/QUOTE]

“We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.”— Rabbi Shemuel ben Nachmani, as quoted in the Talmudic tractate Berakhot (55b.)

You go to the movies in order to be fooled.

These tables are the same size but the problem is not that you can't move your hand to draw them but your brain can't see them as the same size:
http://www.moillusions.com/twin-tables-optical-illusion/

If there is anything about which we feel sure, it is that the world we experience is real. We can see, touch and hear it. We can lift heavy and solid objects; hurt ourselves, if we're not careful, against their unyielding immobility. It seems undeniable that out there, around us, independent and apart from us, stands a physical world, utterly real, solid and tangible.

But all is not what it seems.

First, the apparently solid table in front me is, it turns out, far from solid.

And second,we assume that we are directly experiencing the world around; that the colors we see and the sounds we hear are there, around us, just as we experience them. But even an elementary study of the processes of perception show that in this, too, we are much mistaken.

All that I see, hear, taste, touch, smell and feel has been created from the data fed to me by my sensory organs. All I ever know of the world around are the images produced in the mind. I think I am seeing the tree "out there", in the world around me. But all that I am actually experiencing is the image created in the mind.

This simple fact is very hard to grasp. It runs totally counter to all our experience. There seems nothing more certain than the fact that I am seeing the world as it is, around me. But however nonsensical it may sound, this is the conclusion we are forced to make.

http://www.peterrussell.com/Reality/RHTML/R2.php

God seems to be kind of allergic to sin and showing Himself may have caused more problems to the world than not showing Himself. It surely gets rid of the idea that more people are following Him if He shows himself. You know the idea that people in the west only believe in Christianity because they aren't exposed to gods in the east.

The problem is that if He doesn't show Himself then you are seeing only things that are there and not things which isn't there which leads me to the question, "What don't you know and how will you know it?" If you are one of these, "I only will believe what I want to believe and I'm only going to see what I can physically see" then God does a good job of weeding out those who have faith from apart of those who would pose certain problems in the future because when physical reality is greater than you will concentrate on what you are more selfish for then things that you cannot see because you are focused on the material than the immaterial. For example, my English teacher in 102 was sort of an activist and gave us two choices to either focus on the material which makes us money because, "What will you eat or what will you drink?" instead of that which makes no money which is God. In a sense, you are making a choice without being willing to keep an open mind and see the bigger picture and I'll give you an example. I do systematic theology so I take in all the opinions and all the arguments for all of the different opinions and I try to make sense of scripture by choosing the best one. Some things I have decided not to decide like spiritual gifts. I won't take a position on spiritual gifts because, "what if I am wrong?" God doesn't want to show Himself and you want to make a decision so maybe your not knowing is not the right choice. You are limiting yourself timewise and you are wasting a lot of time. We had an elevator at work and someone broke it. I had this impression that we had to fix it. Call this impression "God" or that God gave me the idea that we needed to have it fixed. The building management decided they wanted to make it a passenger elevator instead of a freight elevator and then L & I came into the building and said we couldn't do everything that we wanted to do in the building because the building codes were old. My boss failed because the boss couldn't see. My boss couldn't see the future. Look backwards as far as you can and then look forwards as far as you can. You can only see as far as history and then there is a vanishing point. Should I not believe in what is behind the vanishing point? Just because you can't see doesn't mean I shouldn't believe that something is there or will be there. You are in a sense blind and until you admit you are blind, you will never see.

 

[Amused_despair]

“We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.”— Rabbi Shemuel ben Nachmani, as quoted in the Talmudic tractate Berakhot (55b.)

You go to the movies in order to be fooled.

These tables are the same size but the problem is not that you can't move your hand to draw them but your brain can't see them as the same size:
http://www.moillusions.com/twin-tables-optical-illusion/



http://www.peterrussell.com/Reality/RHTML/R2.php

God seems to be kind of allergic to sin and showing Himself may have caused more problems to the world than not showing Himself. It surely gets rid of the idea that more people are following Him if He shows himself. You know the idea that people in the west only believe in Christianity because they aren't exposed to gods in the east.

The problem is that if He doesn't show Himself then you are seeing only things that are there and not things which isn't there which leads me to the question, "What don't you know and how will you know it?" If you are one of these, "I only will believe what I want to believe and I'm only going to see what I can physically see" then God does a good job of weeding out those who have faith from apart of those who would pose certain problems in the future because when physical reality is greater than you will concentrate on what you are more selfish for then things that you cannot see because you are focused on the material than the immaterial. For example, my English teacher in 102 was sort of an activist and gave us two choices to either focus on the material which makes us money because, "What will you eat or what will you drink?" instead of that which makes no money which is God. In a sense, you are making a choice without being willing to keep an open mind and see the bigger picture and I'll give you an example. I do systematic theology so I take in all the opinions and all the arguments for all of the different opinions and I try to make sense of scripture by choosing the best one. Some things I have decided not to decide like spiritual gifts. I won't take a position on spiritual gifts because, "what if I am wrong?" God doesn't want to show Himself and you want to make a decision so maybe your not knowing is not the right choice. You are limiting yourself timewise and you are wasting a lot of time. We had an elevator at work and someone broke it. I had this impression that we had to fix it. Call this impression "God" or that God gave me the idea that we needed to have it fixed. The building management decided they wanted to make it a passenger elevator instead of a freight elevator and then L & I came into the building and said we couldn't do everything that we wanted to do in the building because the building codes were old. My boss failed because the boss couldn't see. My boss couldn't see the future. Look backwards as far as you can and then look forwards as far as you can. You can only see as far as history and then there is a vanishing point. Should I not believe in what is behind the vanishing point? Just because you can't see doesn't mean I shouldn't believe that something is there or will be there. You are in a sense blind and until you admit you are blind, you will never see.[/QUOTE]

Insert ChuckT for Billy Madison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQCU36pkH7c

 

[This_person]

Theory, hypothesis, and the scientific method of establishing and validating models that describe nature and the universe should not be confused with or compared to a religious styled 'belief' or 'belief system'. This should be obvious but apparently is not. Science is ever evolving, and the limits of science today will not be the limits of science tomorrow. Conversely, religion makes truth claims with no evidence, and is limited by its dogma. Religious 'beliefs' and dogmas have no utility in advancing knowledge, or advancing civilization. Religion is retrograde to both.

Religion is not science, and neither pretends to be nor acts like it. Not sure why you'd say otherwise, unless you're trying to obfuscate the discussion with worthless jargon from the culture in which you live.

Science is full of theory, this is true. As to the origins of the universe and the origins of life, I ask you again to show me the peer-checked, repeatable tests that validate any of those theories. Without that, it's really just a belief system to say any of those theories should be accepted. I will say the same for macro-evolution. We have proven over and again micro-evolution exists, but all we have for macro-evolution is untested and unproven theory based on some random observances that have been proven inaccurate repeatedly.

The argument you've been using is referred to as 'God of the Gaps' argument, i.e., god fills the gaps in scientific understanding - a favorite of religious types. To say that science cannot disprove the existence of 'god', therefore he exists, or the universe must have a 'creator', is a non-sequitur argument. It's incumbent on religion to prove its own claims. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." -- Carl Sagan

Carl was a great guy - a respectful non-believer. I never said science cannot disprove God, therefore He exists. I said science can't prove what it says, therefore it's little more than a belief system based on arrogance - a trait you've shown over and again here. You have absolutely zero more actual proof of the origins of the universe than I have in my belief system, but you think yours is somehow better. You have conjecture based on observation, so do I. Yours is more detailed, but no more proven.

Did you watch the movie "Contact" - based on Sagan's book? In it the religious man asks the scientist if she loved her dad. She of course says yes. He replies, "prove it." Of course, she can't.

As I alluded to before, if you wish to hold a 'belief' for which no objective evidence exists, it does no one any harm unless you radicalize and subsequently attempt to impose your beliefs on others by force. Otherwise, knock yourself out, 'believe' in anything you want...just remember, if faith is ever right about anything, it's right by accident.

While I greatly appreciate your giving me permission to believe as I choose, I really don't need your permission. That you feel comfortable offering it, though, speaks volumes to your arrogance on the subject. I'll ask you again, where is your objective "evidence" that "proves" your theories? If you don't have any (which you don't, you have observations that tend to agree with the theories, which is ENTIRELY different), yet you "believe", you are nothing but a believer. If you simply accept that you don't know, then you're in the same boat I'm in - but you have faith it's likely true, just like me!

 

[This_person]

No pithy, arrogant, condescending reply, ProximaCentauri?

 

[This_person]

No pithy, arrogant, condescending reply, ProximaCentauri?

PC, you STILL have no proof of your religion either?