A = a;



  • @asuffield said:

    @Cap'n Steve said:

    I had a thought the other day.  I bet 90% of the people jumping on this Internet atheist troll trend have no problem believing in aliens.  I wonder why that is.

    Most likely because you have a poor grasp of statistics. 



    Sorry, I thought you'd know that number was just a guess and I didn't really interview everyone on the Internet.



  • @plazmo said:

    Is it obvious to you are right about your religion being in the 1% that was created by god? Well, why wouldn't you be right, its your beliefs and your always right about what you believe in. Doesnt matter that there are millions others with the exact same faith in god as you but they get to go to hell because the god they learned and developed their lives around was not right.

    The idea that faithfull people believing in the "wrong" god go to hell is, IMO, part of the 99% manmade stuff in every religion. It serves as an excuse to go to war.

    Its a shame god doesn't give us signs about his presence any more like
    he did back in biblical times. 

    Maybe he gives us signs be we are too blind to see them? 

     

     



  • @ammoQ said:

    Its a shame god doesn't give us signs about his presence any more like
    he did back in biblical times. 

    Maybe he gives us signs be we are too blind to see them? 

    Or maybe the Shinto crowd were right all along - the gods are mountains and trees, and they express their presence by being mountains and trees. 



  • @asuffield said:

    Or maybe the Shinto crowd were right all along - the gods are mountains and trees, and they express their presence by being mountains and trees. 

    Unlikely. Mountains and trees have not been observed yet. I don't believe they exist, and even if they did, there could always be a natural cause. 



  • No matter how advanced your equipment or how powerful your science, you can never (as in it is completely impossible) to prove there is no god.  Yes, even if you could know the exact state of every atom in the entire universe, you still couldn't do it.  Because god is said to exist in an existence beyond the physical universe. 

    Any attempt to prove that god doesn't exist is obviously being made in complete ignorance of actual scientific processes.  Don't you think that if god could be proven to exist or not exist, then someone by now (on of the many people much smarter than any of us) would have already done so?  Are you really so egotistical to think that you are the first and only person to happen upon that line of reasoning?



  • @tster said:

    No matter how advanced your equipment or how powerful your science, you can never (as in it is completely impossible) to prove there is no god.  Yes, even if you could know the exact state of every atom in the entire universe, you still couldn't do it.  Because god is said to exist in an existence beyond the physical universe. 

    See my earlier post about unfalsifiable statements and how this one is utterly meaningless. 



  • You can call it meaningless if you want, but that doesn't make it so.  Basically what you are saying is:

    Any statement that cannot be proven to be true or false is a completely worthless statement that need not be considered at all.

    However, what I said was that it's impossible to prove that there is no god. You were not referring to my statement when you said it is an unprovable statement (I assume you weren't, because if you were you are just plain wrong).  You were actually referring to the statement "There is a god."  or "There is no god."  You are free to think that both of these statements are completely worthless, and indeed, they might be a waste of your time.  However, If you were to ask the 6 billion believers in the world, or if you could someone ask the millions who have been killed because of a God or gods, they might feel differently. 

     

    PS.  Anyone that bothers to correct someone's spelling where they inverted an i and an e is being a complete dick and should probably hide their computer from themselves to make the internet a better place for the rest of us. 



  • @tster said:

    Basically what you are saying is:

    Any statement that cannot be proven to be true or false is a completely worthless statement that need not be considered at all.

    Right. This is a conclusion that can be easily derived from first principles. In brief, no unfalsifiable statement can ever be a valid reason for anything, so it can never have any meaning to us. They are usually an indication of a malformed argument - most unfalsifiable statements are concept-fragments that need to be restated by explaining what the bloody hell you're talking about.

    "There is a bug in this program" <-- Worthless, unfalsifiable statement. All of the essential information has been omitted.

    "When I hit the 'go' button, this program crashes" <--  What it should have been. Not necessarily sufficient information to be useful, but this statement is falsifiable so it's possible to do something with it.

     

    You were actually referring to the statement "There is a god."  or "There is no god."  You are free to think that both of these statements are completely worthless, and indeed, they might be a waste of your time.  However, If you were to ask the 6 billion believers in the world, or if you could someone ask the millions who have been killed because of a God or gods, they might feel differently. 

    This argument makes no sense at all. It is approximately equivalent to "The question of whether or not I have toast is important because some people have been killed over food" - the two subjects are related but do not combine into any kind of point.

    In general, the following construct:

    1. Unfalsifiable statement
    2. ???
    3. Unrelated conclusion
    is nonsense. You cannot reason until you can compose your initial statements in falsifiable form, in much the same way that you cannot communicate until you can compose your ideas into sentences. I'd suggest how you might restate this one, but I can't find any real purpose to your post other than to shout "I DISAGREE", much like most of the other posts in this thread.



  • Girl: "I love you!"

    Boy: "This is an utterly meaningless statement, as it is unfalsifiable."

    Girl: "You bastard!! I'll leave you forever!"

    Boy: "This isn't a better statement either, since it takes an infinite amount of time to verify the 'forever' part."

    Girl: "Fine, have it your way then. I go." (goes through the door and shuts it loudely)

    Boy: "Finally, a meaningfull statement. Let's have a look... yes, she is gone. Q.E.D."


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @asuffield said:

    1. Unfalsifiable statement
    2. ???
    3. Unrelated conclusion

    4. Profit!!

     ?
     



  • Hitler



  • @tster said:

    You can call it meaningless if you want, but that doesn't make it so.  Basically what you are saying is:

    Any statement that cannot be proven to be true or false is a completely worthless statement that need not be considered at all.

    However, what I said was that it's impossible to prove that there is no god. You were not referring to my statement when you said it is an unprovable statement (I assume you weren't, because if you were you are just plain wrong).  You were actually referring to the statement "There is a god."  or "There is no god."  You are free to think that both of these statements are completely worthless, and indeed, they might be a waste of your time.

    They are a waste of anyone's time. You can split up the statement into two real booleans, but that doesn't make the two new ones any more meaningful.

    @tster said:

    PS.  Anyone that bothers to correct someone's spelling where they inverted an i and an e is being a complete dick and should probably hide their computer from themselves to make the internet a better place for the rest of us.

    You're right. It was a stupid comment to make.

    But please curb your anger, as you may fall into the same trap of becoming a complete dick who should X etc.



  • @ammoQ said:

    Girl: "I love you!"

    Boy: "This is an utterly meaningless statement, as it is unfalsifiable."

    Girl: "You bastard!! I'll leave you forever!"

    Boy: "This isn't a better statement either, since it takes an infinite amount of time to verify the 'forever' part."

    Girl: "Fine, have it your way then. I go." (goes through the door and shuts it loudely)

    Boy: "Finally, a meaningfull statement. Let's have a look... yes, she is gone. Q.E.D."

    Good one :)

    I love trying to talk to "argument geeks."  Any statement you can think of will be shot down by cries of "straw man!" or "red herring!" or "moving the goal posts!"  There's just no reasoning with these ultra-reasoners.
     



  • @ammoQ said:

    Girl: "I love you!"

    Boy: "This is an utterly meaningless statement, as it is unfalsifiable."

    Girl: "You bastard!! I'll leave you forever!"

    Boy: "This isn't a better statement either, since it takes an infinite amount of time to verify the 'forever' part."

    Girl: "Fine, have it your way then. I go." (goes through the door and shuts it loudely)

    Boy: "Finally, a meaningfull statement. Let's have a look... yes, she is gone. Q.E.D."

    I'm probably screwing this up, but my psych 301 teacher used a funny example of how psychologists tend to measure everything with the general example of "the next time someone says "I love you" your response should be "Fantastic!  Would you take your temperature and come over to my MRI machine?""



  • @plazmo said:

    Your right, your goal in life is to do enough right to make it to heaven.  My goal in life is to actually make a difference in the world. My goal is not selfish. I choose to help out of my own free will. If you dont help youll be damned. I am contributing to the advancement of the human race because i want to not because i have to.

    Ironically this is exactly the attitude that is needed to pass, as it were, heaven's entrance exam. 



  • @plazmo said:

    your goal in life is to do enough right to make it to heaven

    That's the American country music version of Christianity right there. 



  • @DaveK said:

    If it's not omnipresent, it's not God, as defined in the debate we're having here, it's something else; I'm addressing the existence or otherwise of the God that Heron is presuming. 

    Ah, but I never said God was omnipresent.  In fact I don't believe God is omnipresent - I believe his influence is omnipresent, in much the same way the George Bush's influence is (essentially) omnipresent within the borders of the United States and its territories.  This is one point where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints differs from "mainstream" christianity - we do not believe God is some nebulous, all-encompassing thing that is impossible to understand.  To the contrary, we believe God and Jesus Christ each have their own separate physical (immortal) bodies.  And as to the ability to understand God, the New Testament states that eternal life is to know God, therefore if we can't know God we can't have eternal life... so those who believe both a) we can't know God, and b) we can have eternal life, are believing a contradiction.

    Those of you who ask about what I felt...

    I quote:

    @Moroni 10:4-5 said:

    4. And when ye shall recieve these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. 5. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

    @Doctrine & Covenants 8:2 said:
    Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart.

    @Doctrine & Covenants 9:8-9 said:
    8. But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.  9. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong

    @Galatians 5:22 said:
    But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith

    Clear enough?  Someone said it is not repeatable.  How is that not repeatable?  It's a clear series of steps.  Anyone can follow them.

    Someone said something about how I may have simply convinced myself of what I was feeling.  It was not as if I knelt and prayed and boom I felt something that I automatically decided was the Spirit.  I had to pray many times, I had to want to know if these things are true.  And when the answer finally came, it wasn't an unfamiliar feeling - I realized I had felt it many times before, the quite voice of the Spirit telling me all along that the things I was learning were true.

    Call me closed-minded or brainwashed or whatever if you want to, but this I know - I recieved a knowledge of these things from the Holy Ghost, and anyone who desires may recieve the same.  If you think it is not repeatable, the truth is that you do not want to repeat it.  That is quite different.



  • @Heron said:

    @Moroni 10:4-5 said:

    4. And when ye shall recieve these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. 5. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

    @Doctrine & Covenants 8:2 said:
    Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart.

    @Doctrine & Covenants 9:8-9 said:
    8. But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.  9. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong

    @Galatians 5:22 said:
    But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith

    How is that not repeatable? It's a clear series of steps.

    wtf.

     



  • @dhromed said:

    wtf.

    The Real WTF is this: "In the present edition of the Book of Mormon, the phrase 'it came to pass' occurs 1297 times. This phrase occurs 457 times in the KJV of the Old Testament."



  • @djork said:

    @dhromed said:

    wtf.

    The Real WTF is this: "In the present edition of the Book of Mormon, the phrase 'it came to pass' occurs 1297 times. This phrase occurs 457 times in the KJV of the Old Testament."

    Okay. 

    I see.

    What about the word 'pie'?

    Or 'cake'?

    Because we all know that the cake is a lie*

     

    PS.
    What Heron just described is called "opinion".

     

     

    *) kudos if you get that — without friend google & wikipedia. We are of similar mind.



  • @djork said:

    The Real WTF is this: "In the present edition of the Book of Mormon, the phrase 'it came to pass' occurs 1297 times. This phrase occurs 457 times in the KJV of the Old Testament."

    I fail to see how this is relevant. 



  • @dhromed said:

    @pitchingchris said:
    The biggest difference is where we choose to spend eternity. I would like some of you to spend it in heaven, but you're free to choose your own path.


    Conceited. Arrogent. Vain. Judgemental.

    @pitchingchris said:
    athiest


    You misspelled "atheist".

     See what happens when you try to critisize someone for their spelling?

    (And yes, that one was intentional.)
     



  • @asuffield said:

    @Cap'n Steve said:

    I had a thought the other day.  I bet 90% of the people jumping on this Internet atheist troll trend have no problem believing in aliens.  I wonder why that is.

    Most likely because you have a poor grasp of statistics. 

    Well, the other half believe in faeries! 



  • @Heron said:

    @djork said:

    The Real WTF is this: "In the present edition of the Book of Mormon, the phrase 'it came to pass' occurs 1297 times. This phrase occurs 457 times in the KJV of the Old Testament."

    I fail to see how this is relevant. 

     

    Thats easy.

     

    1297-457 = 840

    840 - 174 (the number of posts) = 666

     

    proving that this thread is evil.

     ..belial..

     



  • @Heron 

    Like I said earlier, I'm quite willing to listen to anyone, including Mormons, with which I had several weeks worth of discussions. When they asked me to pray to god, I did, and nothing happened.

    @the 99% comments 

     Quite a few spiritualism religions believe in multiplurality of god IIRC, ie god reveals himself via different aspects, with different religions simply seeing different 'faces' of god.

    @Vicar

    You seem to have quite a tainted, angry view of religion, did something specific happen to you? Christianity believes in original sin, so of course that means that everyone is born bad. Whether or not that's true, or how you define 'bad' in the first place is open to speculation, but I wouldn't say that religion has a negative effect on people. The numbers of people that have done things and been religious and the numbers of people who have done things and been atheists are probably pretty even in terms of what they did.
     

    If your main problem with religion is deception, I'd have thought a much more worthwhile crusade would be against the corrupt governments that exist in the main global powers.

    If your main problem with religion is forcing their views on you, I've seen atheists do exactly the same thing while screaming their faces off about christians coming up in the street to them and TRYING TO TELL THEM WHAT TO THINK.

    People are twats, quite a few people on this thread should just accept that instead of trying to find excuses for the worst twats.



  • @djork said:

    I love trying to talk to "argument geeks."  Any statement you can think of will be shot down by cries of "straw man!" or "red herring!" or "moving the goal posts!"  There's just no reasoning with these ultra-reasoners.

    Just because you are incapable of reasoning does not mean that nobody else can do it either. It's really quite simple, but first you'll have to accept that you don't reason by repeatedly stating what you want the answer to be. 



  • What I personally find most amusing about the Christian version of God in particular, is that if you look at the original sin story as told by Christians with the mind of a software engineer, it looks like a gigantic WTF on God's part, worthy enough to be featured on this site.

    I mean, he created the angels and the universe. Then he created man. Then one of God's angels (which God created) for some reason became evil (God apparently created them evil-compatible), became Satan, and tricked man (also evil-compatible) to eat from the fruit of knowledge (which, despite God not wanting anyone to touch, was wide open to security threats). This corrupted Man to become aware of evil.

    So, God either created man corruptible by design or by mistake. If we are to assume that God actually knew what he was doing, then the Christian ideology is flawed in it's explanation, since God designed us in a way that we (and Satan) could be evil in the first place, and thus made it with the purpose of it happening. If not, then God has made a gigantic blunder with creation, and is blaming us, the program, for his mistake. It's like if I made a program and it completely didn't work the way I wanted it to, but I leave it running anyway because it's the program's damn fault it didn't figure out on it's own what it is that I thought it was going to do.

    Its a shame god doesn't give us signs about his presence any more like he did back in biblical times.

    Maybe he gives us signs be we are too blind to see them?

    Maybe if God would see that cynicism and disbelief are natural traits of the current day intelligent man (which by the way, he designed), he would realize that subtle vague crap doesn't cut it these days. Which is ironic, because before, he didn't seem to have any problems taking full credit for splitting oceans in half for people to pass, or making it rain fire from the sky, or all sorts of interesting things. Surely knowing the state of our development these days, God would figure out something that people couldn't rule out for coincidence.

    *) kudos if you get that — without friend google & wikipedia. We are of similar mind.

    Delicious and moist...



  • @R.Flowers said:

     

    Conceited. Arrogent. Vain. Judgemental.

    @pitchingchris said:

    athiest


    You misspelled "atheist".

     See what happens when you try to critisize someone for their spelling?

    (And yes, that one was intentional.)
     

    1. buy eggs

    2. extract eggs from box 

    3. break some eggs into skillet

    4. hold skillet above dhromed's head

    5. invert skillet along any horizontal axis

    6. laugh heartily

    7. take remainder of eggs

    8. at the end, there will be cake


  • @dhromed said:

    1. buy eggs

    2. extract eggs from box 

    3. break some eggs into skillet

    4. hold skillet above dhromed's head

    5. invert skillet along any horizontal axis

    6. laugh heartily

    7. take remainder of eggs

    8. at the end, there will be cake

    That seems inefficient, you could forgo step 4 and 5 if you get rid of that superfluous skillet.



  •  

    @Shakje said:

    Quite a few spiritualism religions believe in multiplurality of god IIRC, ie god reveals himself via different aspects, with different religions simply seeing different 'faces' of god.

    This is a good point. It would make sense that if god was omnipresent that he would reveal himself through different forms to people because he has no defined form. If i was to believe in god i think it would be more believable to have a force like presence rather then an actual being.

     @dhromed said:


    Because we all know that the cake is a lie*

    I <3 my companion cube.

     

    To get off topic on an off topic thread. Does Heron's avatar creep anyone else besides just me out? Every time i see it i scroll by quickly to avoid eye contact. He looks like the stereotypical guy that will walk door to door handing out religions pamphlets. I don't mean to insult you if that is a pic of you, but that thing you do with your eye is creepy...



  • @Sunstorm said:

    So, God either created man corruptible by design or by mistake. If we are to assume that God actually knew what he was doing, then the Christian ideology is flawed in it's explanation, since God designed us in a way that we (and Satan) could be evil in the first place, and thus made it with the purpose of it happening. If not, then God has made a gigantic blunder with creation, and is blaming us, the program, for his mistake. It's like if I made a program and it completely didn't work the way I wanted it to, but I leave it running anyway because it's the program's damn fault it didn't figure out on it's own what it is that I thought it was going to do.

    I believe it was quite deliberate on God's part to allow us (including Satan and everyone else) to choose good or evil, even if it would result in our condemnation.  How else could we learn, if not through choices?  If we were incapable of evil, we would be incapable of choice, and thus incapable of learning.  (If you can't choose whether or not to put your hand in the fire, you'll never learn why you shouldn't put your hand in the fire, whether through your own or other people's experiences).  God may tell us not to put our hand in the fire - but the choice involved there is listening to what He tells us and coming to trust Him.

    I once heard an Evangelical guy (I'm not really sure what the English term for his religion is, I was in the Dominican Republic at the time) say that God could not have known Adam and Eve would partake of the fruit that led to their (and our) mortality.  The problem with this is that a) God is supposed to be omniscient, how could he not know, and b) Adam and Eve would never have had children while they were in the Garden of Eden (as the scriptures say, "Adam fell that man might be; men are that they might have joy."), so if they hadn't fallen, we would not be here.

    @Sunstorm said:

    ...if you look at the original sin story as told by Christians with the mind of a software engineer, it looks like a gigantic WTF on God's part...

    As a software engineer, I must say that the gospel as taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not a WTF at all.



  • @plazmo said:

    To get off topic on an off topic thread. Does Heron's avatar creep anyone else besides just me out? Every time i see it i scroll by quickly to avoid eye contact. He looks like the stereotypical guy that will walk door to door handing out religions pamphlets. I don't mean to insult you if that is a pic of you, but that thing you do with your eye is creepy...

    Haha.  Yes, it's a picture of me.  I was at my uncle's funeral luncheon (that's why I was dressed up), and my sister was about to take a picture of me with her phone so I made a face while she did...  and then I asked for a copy :D
     



  • @Heron said:

    I believe it was quite deliberate on God's part to allow us (including Satan and everyone else) to choose good or evil, even if it would result in our condemnation.  How else could we learn, if not through choices?  If we were incapable of evil, we would be incapable of choice, and thus incapable of learning.  (If you can't choose whether or not to put your hand in the fire, you'll never learn why you shouldn't put your hand in the fire, whether through your own or other people's experiences).  God may tell us not to put our hand in the fire - but the choice involved there is listening to what He tells us and coming to trust Him.

    This explanation works if we assume that Evil was there already, and there was nothing God could do about it. But here's the thing: God created the concept of evil. Why put a fire there in the first place, if not with the purpose of having someone get burned by it? If fire doesn't exist, we don't get burned, we don't need to learn that we shouldn't get burned, and this problem is completely elliminated. But no, God created evil, just so he could trip us up with it. He then designed us humans with a nature that has an affinity for evil, completely opposite to what the Christian thesis says was his purpose for us. Wtf?

    It's like doing this:

    function exist()
    {
      if ( random( 0, this.thresholdForDefiance ) > 30 )
      {
        this.corruptHorriblyAndForever(); // This program is now errored, and sinful in my eyes because it chose of it's own will a number greater than 30.
      }
      else
      {
        this.carryOnBeingPerfect(); // All is fine and dandy!
      }
    }

    Why?! Would you put that code in your program if you did not want it to corrupt, ever?



  • @Sunstorm said:

     Why put a fire there in the first place, if not with the purpose of having someone get burned by it? If fire doesn't exist, we don't get burned, we don't need to learn that we shouldn't get burned, and this problem is completely elliminated.

     We also wouldn't enjoy the luxary of hot food either :)  There is a benefit and a risk for most things we have. For example: fire can keep us warm, cook our food, give us light, etc... at the risk of burning.



  • @pitchingchris said:

    @Sunstorm said:

     Why put a fire there in the first place, if not with the purpose of having someone get burned by it? If fire doesn't exist, we don't get burned, we don't need to learn that we shouldn't get burned, and this problem is completely elliminated.

     We also wouldn't enjoy the luxary of hot food either :)  There is a benefit and a risk for most things we have. For example: fire can keep us warm, cook our food, give us light, etc... at the risk of burning.

    If the designer of humans had been intelligent, their skin would have been made from asbestos. 



  • @pitchingchris said:

    @Sunstorm said:

     Why put a fire there in the first place, if not with the purpose of having someone get burned by it? If fire doesn't exist, we don't get burned, we don't need to learn that we shouldn't get burned, and this problem is completely elliminated.

     We also wouldn't enjoy the luxary of hot food either :)  There is a benefit and a risk for most things we have. For example: fire can keep us warm, cook our food, give us light, etc... at the risk of burning.

    We probably wouldn't need hot food if there was no fire.

    But pray tell, what potential benefit do you see in creating Evil?



  • @Sunstorm said:

    Why?! Would you put that code in your program if you did not want it to corrupt, ever?

    I think you missed the part of my post where I said "Adam fell that men might be; men are that they might have joy."

    In fact I think I'll quote that scripture directly, because it explains the whole Fall of Adam concept better than I can:

    @2 Nephi 2:22-25 said:

    22. And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden.  And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.  23. And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.  24. But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.  25.  Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

    And your pseudocode is wrong in another thing - it's not "corruptHorriblyAndForever", it's "becomeCorruptUnlessTheyRepent".  In no way was it an irreversible process - in fact it was the plan from the start that God would provide a Savior for us so we could return to His presence.  I don't believe in "original sin" (the concept that we are all guilty at birth because of the fall of Adam) as taught by certain churches.  I believe that man will be responsible for his own sins (unless he repents of those sins), and not for Adam's transgression.  Children are clean and pure when they are born, and it is only through their own decisions that it is possible for them to sin as they get older.  That's what sin is - willful disobedience to God's commandments - and God was nice enough to provide a way for us to return to his presence through his son Jesus Christ.



  • @Sunstorm said:

    But pray tell, what potential benefit do you see in creating Evil?

    @2 Nephi 2:11 said:

    For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.  If not so... righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad.

    Put another way, if you never taste any food that is not sweet, how can you appreciate or even understand the concept of sweetness?

    To answer the other aspect of your question, God did not create Satan evil.  He created Lucifer, the Son of the Morning, who was among the first of God's children in the beginning.  God gave his children (us) free agency - the ability to choose for ourselves what action we would take.  Lucifer became evil when he sought to glorify himself above God, when he sought God's glory for himself.  God does not remove our free agency if we misuse it, but we cannot avoid the consequences of our decisions.  In Lucifer's case, he was cast out of heaven forever, and was from then on known as Satan.  His presence here on earth is useful, however, in that he tempts us - how can we make a choice if we are not enticed by one thing or the other? - and we must choose to obey God or Satan.

    Why is temptation necessary, you ask?  Well, if noone ever tempts me, for example, to steal a candy bar, it would make absolutely no sense for anyone to commend me for never stealing candy bars.  If we were never tempted to sin, it would be senseless for God to reward us for not sinning - because we were never faced with the choice.  (Incidentally, this directly contradicts the widely held "mainstream" christian belief that Man is inherently evil.  Man only becomes evil of his own choice.)



  • @Heron said:

    @Sunstorm said:

    Why?! Would you put that code in your program if you did not want it to corrupt, ever?

    I think you missed the part of my post where I said "Adam fell that men might be; men are that they might have joy."

    In fact I think I'll quote that scripture directly, because it explains the whole Fall of Adam concept better than I can:

    @2 Nephi 2:22-25 said:

    22. And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden.  And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.  23. And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.  24. But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.  25.  Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

    And your pseudocode is wrong in another thing - it's not "corruptHorriblyAndForever", it's "becomeCorruptUnlessTheyRepent".  In no way was it an irreversible process - in fact it was the plan from the start that God would provide a Savior for us so we could return to His presence.  I don't believe in "original sin" (the concept that we are all guilty at birth because of the fall of Adam) as taught by certain churches.  I believe that man will be responsible for his own sins (unless he repents of those sins), and not for Adam's transgression.  Children are clean and pure when they are born, and it is only through their own decisions that it is possible for them to sin as they get older.  That's what sin is - willful disobedience to God's commandments - and God was nice enough to provide a way for us to return to his presence through his son Jesus Christ.

    So, if the "fall" and if Evil is neecssary for life, then why is it a bad thing? Why are we being blamed for it, rather than just saying that that's just the way the whole thing was meant to be? For once I actually think that the 'it's not a bug, it's a feature' thing actually applies. I mean, we're obviously better off fallen than otherwise.

    To answer the other aspect of your question, God did not create Satan evil.  He created Lucifer, the Son of the Morning, who was among the first of God's children in the beginning.  God gave his children (us) free agency - the ability to choose for ourselves what action we would take.

    And among the selection of actions that we, and Lucifer are capable of taking, he included actions that he obviously didn't want us to do. WTF?



  • We're not being blamed for the fall of evil. You're kind of missing the point. Without the existence of Evil, we never really know what good is.  We have that choice to dictate whether or not we are going to follow God or follow Satan. You might not feel and experience things you have in life without it. Without the presence of evil, how do we guage our ability to resist temptation and follow God ?  People have talked about how science measures things in this thread, but God does put us to the test to see how we choose good in spite of worldly temptations.  It all goes back to being God's servant because we choose to be. The risk that God took by not making us his puppets was that sometimes we might choose evil. Would you have rathered it any other way ? Think of the movie "Pleasantville".



  • @Sunstorm said:

    Why?! Would you put that code in your program if you did not want it to corrupt, ever?

    Consider you were to write an AI program (the turing-test-capable kind of AI, that is). You would want it to make it's own decisions, roughly based on the input it is given. Although you could hard-code well-behaviour, it would limit the capabilities of the program. My take on the question is: If god wants us to be intelligent, he must make it possible for us to sin. Whatever "sin" means, since most descriptions of "sin" were IMO at least 99% man-made.

     



  • @pitchingchris said:

    You're kind of missing the point. Without the existence of Evil, we never really know what good is.

    An amusing bit of religious zealotry, but it's based on the fallacy of the excluded middle. Since you are operating under the assumption of moral absolutes, you have defined a scale from +n to -n along which actions can be placed. Hence there must be a neutral zero point, and you can understand everything by comparison to that point, rather than to one of the extremes, so there is no requirement to define one extreme in terms of the other. The scale would function just as well if only half of it were present.
     



  • @ammoQ said:

    Whatever "sin" means

    It means eating shrimp.



  • And your pseudocode is wrong in another thing - it's not "corruptHorriblyAndForever", it's "becomeCorruptUnlessTheyRepent".  In no way was it an irreversible process - in fact it was the plan from the start that God would provide a Savior for us so we could return to His presence.  I don't believe in "original sin" (the concept that we are all guilty at birth because of the fall of Adam) as taught by certain churches.  I believe that man will be responsible for his own sins (unless he repents of those sins), and not for Adam's transgression.  Children are clean and pure when they are born, and it is only through their own decisions that it is possible for them to sin as they get older.  That's what sin is - willful disobedience to God's commandments - and God was nice enough to provide a way for us to return to his presence through his son Jesus Christ.

    So you accept the portions of the Bible you particularly find convenient and then subsequently discount decades of research and consensus by storied theologins whose works and studies are strutinized on a daily basis by thousands?  Original Sin is a fundamental doctrine within the Christian religion and denial of it is denial of the very premise upon which the entire religion is born.  You can't simply redefine it because you feel like it.  What you describe is much similar to what is preached by Mormons.

    (The previous statements are based on my potentially inaccurate inference that you are Christian.  If not then that would make perfect sense :))



  • @Heron said:

      That's what sin is - willful disobedience to God's commandments - and God was nice enough to provide a way for us to return to his presence through his son Jesus Christ.

    I ain't getting involved in this discussion, too many minefields, but seeing this brought to mind a bit of stand-up comedy I saw recently.

    The performer was going on about how Jesus had died for our sins, and pointed out "if you don't commit any sins, that means Jesus died for nothing, so get out there and start sinning."
     



  • I still think the sad fact is that (based on this thread) if Jesus came today, he still would be rediculed and crucified just as he was over 2000 years ago.



  • @Sunstorm said:

    So, if the "fall" and if Evil is neecssary for life, then why is it a bad thing? Why are we being blamed for it, rather than just saying that that's just the way the whole thing was meant to be? For once I actually think that the 'it's not a bug, it's a feature' thing actually applies. I mean, we're obviously better off fallen than otherwise.

    I think you missed the part where I said "man is responsible only for his own sins, and not for Adam's transgression".

    @Sunstorm said:

    And among the selection of actions that we, and Lucifer are capable of taking, he included actions that he obviously didn't want us to do. WTF?

    So you're saying that it's a WTF to let my son do things I don't want him to do?  Say, for example, I want my son to avoid alcohol.  Rather than force him to abstain from alcohol (by restraining him, for example), it's far better to let him choose for himself.  This has one of two results.  Either a) he'll drink alcohol and figure out for himself why I wanted him to avoid it in the first place, or b) he'll think about it beforehand and decide against it.  Both of these results are preferable to restraining him because both ways, he learns something from the experience.  The Real WTF(tm) would be forcing him to do what I want him to do, rather than letting him choose for himself.

    It's the same with God - rather than force us to make only good decisions, He wants us to actually learn.  The best (and really, the only) way to learn is through someone's experience, whether that experience is my own or of someone I observe.
     



  • @ShadowWolf said:

    So you accept the portions of the Bible you particularly find convenient and then subsequently discount decades of research and consensus by storied theologins whose works and studies are strutinized on a daily basis by thousands?  Original Sin is a fundamental doctrine within the Christian religion and denial of it is denial of the very premise upon which the entire religion is born.  You can't simply redefine it because you feel like it.  What you describe is much similar to what is preached by Mormons.

    You missed the part where I said I'm Mormon ;)  However, I can redefine a doctrine that is held by many Christian sects, given that their interpretation of said doctrine is wrong.  Who cares if there are "decades of research and consensus by storied theologins whose works and studies are scrutinized on a daily basis" if said works and studies are wrong?  In science, if we find that something we have believed to be fact for decades is flawed, we accept the change and move on.  In religion, God's opinion trumps Man's opinion, end of story.  Just because a man or a group of men says "Original Sin is 100% correct according to the Bible" does not mean it is.

    The Real WTF(tm) is you referring to "the Christian religion".  There are so many Christian religions with conflicting and outright contradictory doctrines that there is no such thing as "the Christian religion".  There are various Christian sects - and not all of them hold to the Original Sin concept.  Original Sin is primarily a Catholic doctrine, with various protestant churches agreeing or disagreeing with it.

    All this doctrinal conflict is why we need God's guidance now, not just the records of his interactions with people two thousand or more years ago.  If there were a prophet on earth today, a man like Moses or Isaiah or Peter or Paul (etc), then we could be sure of what we believe (in fact the Bible says specifically that God will always send prophets before he does things on Earth, see Amos 3:7).  If there are no prophets today, then either God has given up on us, or we're so good that we don't need God's guidance.  I doubt you'll meet anyone who believes in God that believes either of those two things, so it is only logical that there should be a prophet on earth today.

    People fight tooth and nail at the suggestion.  I don't get it.  You'd think [Christian] people would be happy to receive more guidance from God, instead of insisting that he's done guiding us.



  • Isn't the real WTF is we got from a = a; to religion?



  • @BiciBella said:

    Isn't the real WTF is we got from a = a; to religion?

    You can thank me for that. Oh, and religious freaks that have to freak out whenever god or jesus is mentioned in a less than flattering manner.

     

     


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