UPSB v4
Serious Discussion / Questions to people who are a) Religous or b) Secular
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Date: Fri, Feb 15 2013 23:49:02
If you are religious, please answer these two questions: Are there any events that would cause you to question the belief that a God or Gods exist? Examples might include - Alien contact or artificial life. Are there any events that would cause you to question the texts on which your religion is based? Examples might include - Discovery of further texts that discredit the book, written by authors around the same period of time or discovery of a newer text, written by the same authors, which states things differently. If you are secular, please answer these two questions. Are there any events that could convert you into a religious person? Examples might include, a bus vanishing from existence that was about to hit you or God him/herself appearing and rearranging the night sky before you very eyes. Are there any events that could cause you to follow the teachings of a religion, or do you follow the teachings of a religion, without believing in God? Rules: No discussion other than about the four proposed questions. No religion bashing. No science bashing. And definitely none of this bashing! :pan:
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Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 00:04:50
secular. A. yes B. I do follow the teachings of Christianity. It sends out the right message in terms of morality.
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Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 02:04:55
A) I am religious, specifically Christian. Ghosts are scientifically real like evolution is scientifically true, but either make God seem very minor and not powerful. So, Christians are supposed to argue against both. Also, Karma does not exist in Christianity, as it would in Buddhism I think it is.
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Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 02:05:01
Christian 1. No. 2. No, The Bible is infallible yo.
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Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 02:35:08
christian (sorta) 1. lol thats a big no. 2. difficult to say... i somewhat already question the claims of the bible, but i do believe that there is great truth in it regarding religion. i suppose my answer is yes to this one.
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Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 02:44:15
The Turtle wrote: Christian 1. No. 2. No, The Bible is infallible yo.
1.'Are there any events that would cause you to question the belief that a God or Gods exist?' (Alien contact For example) No 2. The bible is infallible nigga u just went full retard, never go full retard. -
Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 02:50:22
Sekai wrote: 1.'Are there any events that would cause you to question the belief that a God or Gods exist?' (Alien contact For example) No 2. The bible is infallible nigga u just went full retard, never go full retard.
What are trying to say exactly? That alien contact would make me change my mind? @Sekai -
Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 10:35:58
1. No iirc because god created everything ( and i believe he made the system in which we are living in aka science ) ,he must have created other beings like aliens too. We just make ourselves seems more important than other beings and eventually the people forget about other less common(?) beings like aliens and such 2 No imo the people who recorded the bible are human beings,and we human beings are bound to make mistakes.So the bible is not really exact and the opposing texts are just evidence that it's recorded wrongly *they are all personal opinion*
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Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 10:41:25
@PenwisH Isn't there a rule that says that topics on religion cannot be discussed? (not sure if it's in the forum rules, but I've read it somewhere) Before I begin to answer, I should clarify that I am an atheist; however, I do not reject the idea of a God. Secular A.) Would the presence of God change my mind about God's existence? Absolutely, who wouldn't be changed by it. But it also depends on the presence of God, is it through answering the prayers of someone, miracles or even religious experience? If you were to say that God presence is seeing God physically then that would raise certain questions. To start, it depends on how you would define God and what are God's characteristics. As an atheist I stray away from defining God, but the Christian God usually says that God consists of these qualities: omnibenevolent, omniscience, omnipotent and others. For philosophers, and the use of the ontological argument for God, God must be immaterial and perfect. But for something to be perfect they must not be subject to time, as time measures changes, and if you change you are not continuously perfect. This also means that God must exist outside of time, as God is the uncaused cause. This would mean that God, relating to Aristotle's prime mover, doesn't interact with the world directly, but indirectly. For instance, we have the potential to think which leads us to our actions, but before our potential we must have the actuality to do so. God is pure actuality, and God is whom acts upon us which gives us the potential to do something. On the other hand, whether you have your own opinion of what God is or not, such as if God is immaterial, if you actually see God in front of you, then your opinions are wrong. So to sum up, I would say that my belief of God would change, if I actually saw God for myself and it's not just some parlor trick someone is pulling on me then I would believe in God; however, I believe that this is highly, highly unlikely. But would this change me into a religious person? Probably not, whether God exists or not, I would like to live my life independently of myself, and not governed by rules laid down by religion. B.) The question you ask "Are there any events that could cause you to follow the teachings of a religion" sort of says that you are already not following the teachings of a religion. While some of the ten commandments are very universal, such as "thou shall not steal", that almost everyone is already following it, as we humans are morally grounded people, without even the need to follow a religion. Despite this, it also depends on what you mean by "teachings" of religion. Just the rules that they lay down such as the ten commandments or the beliefs that they teach such as the belief in heaven and hell in Christianity or reincarnation in Hindu and Buddhism. In any case, I doubt that any event will have a significant effect on whether I would follow teachings of a religion. As stated in my previous answer, I would like to live my life independently of myself, and not governed by rules laid down by religion. I know that I rambled on a bit, but as a young philosopher, question such as these really intrigues me.
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Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 11:52:08
Lololol This thread belongs in FPSB
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Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 12:01:15
Tommy wrote: Lololol This thread belongs in FPSB
Explain? -
Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 14:09:40
Chrisitan. Most christian dont see it as a believe, rather a relationship with God. I dont need to see evidence to know he exists. Its faith.
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Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 15:06:58
Pixels wrote: Chrisitan. Most christian dont see it as a believe, rather a relationship with God. I dont need to see evidence to know he exists. Its faith.
^ 100% agree -
Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 16:48:30
b) If god appeared before my eyes and commanded me to do some mission I guess I would convert, but beyond some direct revelation probably not. I don't follow religious teachings but I'll learn about them and consider their value. For example, I liked the book of proverbs and apply some of them to my life, but I don't follow them. I just take some of them as useful advice.
discovery of a newer text, written by the same authors, which states things differently.
The bible has 4 accounts of Jesus's life; each with differences. Two of them even have him say "My god, my god, why have you forsaken me" as his dying words so I would be surprised if anyone said yes to this. -
Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 16:55:46
I mean very differently, like for instance (if we take Christianity) a new book that claimed things such as: -There were several sons of God. -There are multiple Gods In a book written by the same people.
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Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 17:23:14
That's a good question, but I don't think you could prove authorship on something so different from so long ago. If a book contradicted the original so much everyone would just assume it was someone else writing.
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Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 18:03:43
This thread is not really about the practical aspects of actually achieving these things, only a 'what if... ' without taking too much consideration into the probability and/or difficulty of such circumstances arising.
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Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 19:13:54
As a politics student, the only meaning of the word secular to me before now was the seperation of religion from government. Threw me off a little. A ) If God appeared to me in a vision, I'd go see a psych because that's more likely to be a hallucination. So seeing him or jesus isn't actually a good enough explanation, that's not scientific proof. If we discovered a super-large, conscious amount of energy in our universe, then we could question if that would be God, but we would have detected it by now. I'm not going to say 'No' but the chances are insanely low, and entirely unbased on theory. There is more chance of you through quantum mechanics suddenly appearing on Mars than a god having made the universe, from a scientific view B ) Some teachings of religions are good, but others are not. People cherrypick out of those scriptures to decide what they want to do, which I think kind of undermines the belief of that religion. We don't need religious texts to figure out what we need to do, so I would prefer to go with a more real approach rather than something written 2000 years ago. [B]Additional[/B]: To religious people who say 'No' to answer A. Your religion is not the first, and neither is it the most backed up, as you all have zero evidence or real studies. So why do you not believe in other religions, I don't believe any religious person should say that they believe in something without having taken ALL of those religions into account, rather than choosing the most popular or well known (argumentum ad populum).
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Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 19:18:33
eurocracy wrote: but we would have detected it by now.
We are living in an age where some 80% of the mass of the universe is totally unknown and unaccounted for. What makes you think we would have detected by now? Furthermore, what if there are energies beyond the four fundamental forces of nature (strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism and gravity) that we haven't detected? -
Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 19:19:11
Hail Satan
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Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 19:29:10
Mats wrote: We are living in an age where some 80% of the mass of the universe is totally unknown and unaccounted for. What makes you think we would have detected by now? Furthermore, what if there are energies beyond the four fundamental forces of nature (strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism and gravity) that we haven't detected?
Because something able to create the entire universe from nothing (which IMO would only be explained by reversing e=mc^2 so it reads m=e/c^2) would be massive, we're talking about so much energy you would be able to see it brighter than the sun anywhere in the universe. I could do the calculation to explain just how much energy would be needed to make the universe (With enough left over to be able to traverse it properly and stay alive for 14 billion years). When it comes to those forces, with the 99% chance discovery of the higgs boson, that means that it's effectively 99% sure we know how those forces operate and why it is extremely unlikely for there to be others. We haven't got all the evidence but we have a pile more than religions. HOWEVER That was not my point, my point was why do you believe in one religion and not the other, if you choose without researching all of them that;s illogical, science does not choose which theories are the most accurate by how many people believe them (Thus we bitchslapped world is flat people) -
Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 19:47:04
eurocracy wrote: Because something able to create the entire universe from nothing (which IMO would only be explained by reversing e=mc^2 so it reads m=e/c^2) would be massive, we're talking about so much energy you would be able to see it brighter than the sun anywhere in the universe.
You have a big misunderstanding of science here. 'Dark energy' accounts for the most energy in the universe. Can you see it? No. Not all energy is in the electromagnetic 'shine brightly' part. lolWhen it comes to those forces, with the 99% chance discovery of the higgs boson, that means that it's effectively 99% sure we know how those forces operate and why it is extremely unlikely for there to be others.
We have no idea how these forces operate. The discovery of the Higg's boson is a very very small piece in an uncomprehendingly large puzzle. -
Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 20:11:37
Mats wrote: You have a big misunderstanding of science here. 'Dark energy' accounts for the most energy in the universe. Can you see it? No. Not all energy is in the electromagnetic 'shine brightly' part. lol We have no idea how these forces operate. The discovery of the Higg's boson is a very very small piece in an uncomprehendingly large puzzle.
Ah yes, Dark Energy (Which is disputed of it's existence). This part of physics starts getting really scary:
However, our understanding of it is increasing, so although we have not proved it's existence yet, the theory is based upon pretty good reasoning; dark energy and dark matter are far from being a consciousness operating the universe.
(Dark matter and dark energy are rather elusive, but they solve a problem that has not really been solved with another theory, and continue to do so, it's horribly consistent)
You could worship dark energy and dark matter though, it wouldn't care much, though.
As with the Higgs boson, it works as an interesting example as to how powerful modern theories get, such as how something predicted in detail 50 years earlier can be proved to be true. Exceptional reasoning.
So yes, while you would not be able to see it with your eyes, we would definitely be able to see the forces acting upon the universe if it did exist. If it did exist, it would have to have completely disintegrated billions of years ago, and even then we may still detect remnants.
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Date: Sat, Feb 16 2013 21:00:59
[quote=eurocracy]Which is disputed of it's existence.[/quote] No scientist would dispute its existence, as to do so would be to reject Edwin Hubble's discovery of universal expansion. Anyway, enough science. This is a thread about religion !
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Date: Sun, Feb 17 2013 09:09:21
Mats wrote: No scientist would dispute its existence, as to do so would be to reject Edwin Hubble's discovery of universal expansion. Anyway, enough science. This is a thread about religion !
Agreed! Just to my original point: Why choose your religion without looking into others?