tobiast88, can we have a civilized discussion here? Really, you sound not like an aethiest who doesn't believe so
much as one who is angry at God.
Anyway, i'll adress the most interesting of your statements first:
Quote by tobiast88Which
creator? The christian one? The islamic one? The jewish one? Why do you respect one over the other? Why is your
particular one the truth?
Well, this one is interesting because not only as our Muslim friend said "there is only one God" but all those
religions believe in the same God anyway. As you probably know (I should hope) christianity developed out of Judaism. In
fact was a sect of Judaism until after the fall of the temple when the Pharasees (in power at the time) kicked them out
(some think to be a root of some of the pharasee bashing in the bible, a little bitterness). The Muslim community, of
course, traces their roots back to Abraham, although Ishmal instead of Isaac I believe (correct me someone of the
Islamic faith if I'm wrong), and also uses much of the Jewish and Christian scripture, i.e. new and old testaments
or torah or writings or bible or whatever you wanna call it, along with their own additional set of books, especially
the Quaran.
Now, if you wanted to make a point, it would have been better to say something along the lines of the Hindu creator, or
the Cheyane creator or something, instead of picking the 3 major religions who have the SAME creator.
Next, onto who you tried to blast me:
Quote by tobiast88Your point
is ridiculous and has already been addressed. It sums up as "We exist, so goddidit". Its proofs? They
don't exist, unless you count the fairy tale book of ignorant shepheards from two thousand years ago which is
chock-full of impossibilities, contradictions, outright lies and general idiocy. The alternative, which has countless
scientific discoveries to back it up, is evolution. These scientific discoveries fit right into the theory of evolution,
and if the proofs don't fit, then the theory is corrected and improved.
You say "our existence relies on another source". Unless you're talking about the planet, you're not
making sense and not backing up your claim. Give proof that a deity sustains our existence (which doesn't seem to
be going very well, incidentally), and we'll talk.
Alright, it seems to me that you have some ill concieved notion (likely from the fundamentalists and fideist christians
who get so much media atttention) that science, particularly evolution, has some conflict with religion, theology, and
God. In fact, it doesn't, and often serves as a support rather than a challange. And, as I recall, the centers of
learning on such subjects were in fact religious institutions because of this fact that they understood the study of
science to also be the furthing of understanding of God, which is why the Muslims and the Catholic Church kept much of
the learning of the ancient world when it was lost for a few centuries and furthured it. In fact, to offer another
example in the relm of evolution, some of the greatest works in early genetics was done by a monk, Gregor Mendel, maybe
you've heard of him and his work on alleles using plants. Anyway, it was declared many years ago that Evolution has
no conflict with Catholicism, and other christian sects have not opposed it for a long time as well, and other religious
groups as well, who did not need or have the means for an official declaration. I know at least Catholicism actually
supports evolution to the extent of scientific reason (i.e. in the way that science is NEVER actually certain, just
becomes continually more certain or disproves what is not). And in fact, the theory of evolution can fit in very well
with christian theology and such. You seem to think that we take the creation myths as fact, when that would be
illogical since there are 2 and we don't believe the earth was made twice by any means. No, those were myths,
although not in the sense that for some reason our modern popculture society has assigned to the term myth. A myth as
anyone who has studied them knows is not ment to be fact, but a story that points to or helps to explain a deeper Truth.
The parables did a similar thing, and we do similar stories when books or movies are made that no one is ment to believe
is real but is supposed to convey a deeper message. In fact, alot of this notion of facts and history came from the
greeks who hadn't begun their influence of the Isrealite community till much later, and in the eastern lines of
thinking myths were appriciated and not usually mistaken for anything other than what they were.
On another note: "ignorant shepherds"? for one, some of them are from 3000 years ago, for another, few books
of the bible were written by shepherds. the earliest books were written in the time of David and Soloman when Isreal was
at a kind of height of power and exploration and had time and wealth enough to have scholars and such who then started
writing books and such. The Christian writers weren't many shepherds either, they were leaders of the christian
communities or they were scholars who studied under them and wrote their teachings down, and the very fact that they
could write in that time should give you some indication of their class, occupation, and level of education. And
theological work doesn't stop there by any means, in fact, as you certainly know, Thomas Aquinas was and is
concidered one of the greatest theologians, and at his time he was concidered to know all there was to know (or at least
more than anyone else) from what the world knew in all areas. I could go on with others, but i think its clear that,
although some througout history have been ignorant, and maybe shepherds, on the subject, their generally not the ones we
hold. (well, other than the quaran I suppose, wasn't Muhamad supposed to be dumb[unable to speak] and
illiterate[unable to read and write] before he was pressed into writting down the Quaran and could suddenly speak, or
something along those lines?)
As for your attack on my little statement, as I said when I posted, i wasn't offering any proof, i was offering an
idea, I didn't have time to give you proofs or fool around with whatnot. You also apparently didn't quite
understand it. For one, you said it was an argument that "we're here so godidit", well, in fact, that
wasn't my point at all, and I'm sure Plato would see your flaw and scoff. You see, the way you put that makes
God's existence rely on our existence, when what I said was the other way around. This is to say that even if we
weren't God would still be. Which is also to say that God does not in any way rely on us for his own existence, He
Himself is the only real representation and proof of His Own existence. And, as I said, I was not trying to back up my
claim, i was throwing something out there, since at the time I was waiting for my professor in a philosophy class. The
statement is not ment to give proof of anything anyway, as i said its not a proof of God exists. Its actually a proof
that WE exist. God doesn't need such a statement, we do. If you had looked at the context you would have seen that,
and yes I went a bit further to apply some basic algebra to it and say that maybe the reverse could be possible, along
that logic, however it was not ment to be a proof in that sense, but a way of making people THINK.
Now, i have a question for gaara-no-shukaku: Do you say that the bible now is not the real bible because it has been
translated? I ask because to my knowledge the Muslim community does not believe that the Quaran is the real Quaran if it
has been translated, and I wonder if you provide the same principal to the Holy Bible (I say Holy Bible as to clearfiy,
since really, a bible could be any collection of books). Or do you mean that there has been some parts lost or
mistranslated? I know that the Catholics had a problem with the King James Bible because of alterations made to it in
"translating" it to english, and that for a long time they wanted to keep everything in latin (which made a
bit of sense when you think that those who translated it into other languages translated it from latin and not the
original languages of Hebrew and Greek). Or do you mean for some other reason? Although even at the time of Jesus
translations had been made. The community at that time for a large part had been using the Sepptuagent (sp?), the greek
translation of the primary books of prophets, torah, etc. by many scholars, from hebrew. Afterwards, and maybe during,
there was a large push for hebrew and ridding of the greek because some believed the community had become too greek.
