How do you believe we, the world, and the universe was created? -- LiveWire Teen Forums

Quote: from Soren Kierkegaard at 4:24 pm on April 1, 2008

Quote: from TooImaginativeTeen at 3:11 pm on April 1, 2008
Quote: from Soren Kierkegaard at 3:07 pm on April 1, 2008
Quote: from Forever Angel at 2:58 pm on April 1, 2008
Quote: from Shaknbake at 2:21 pm on Mar. 31, 2008
Quote: from exceedinglyrare at 12:16 pm on Mar. 31, 2008
Frankly, I find this to be a stupid argument. Simply because choices are informed and influenced by past experiences does not mean that they cease to be choices.

I don't mean to say that choices are simply informed or influenced by experience. I mean to say that the ego is molded by forces that we cannot control, and that all "choices" must be in line with the ego. You will never make a decision that isn't within you for some reason or another. Those who "choose" to believe or disbelieve, aren't able to choose anything else.
You clearly do not understand the meaning of "free will" in the sense of not following a predetermined path. That choices are influenced by experience or whatever, they are still choices. If free will does not exist, then they fail to be choices at all.
If we're incapable of choosing our decisions regarding religious preference, how then are we fully capable of distinguishing between a sea of theories concerning the scientific process?

What if I propose this claim?
"One illusion is more reasonable and humble and intellectually honest, than other less reasonable illusions."
My disease, by definition, is not an illusion; however, the military is quite indecisive through medical advances as to define how I contracted it during my military service. I have a form of Guillain Barre, which is referred to as Chronic Inflammatory Demylinating Polyneuropathy or simply put as CIDP. It is obviously quite painful. I know that before I joined the military, I lived a healthy life to finally graduate from college without a care in the world apart from fulfilling my bare minimum obligation within the service.
Less than 8 mo. after joining the service, I contracted this disease which I've been treated since March 22, 2007 at 8 separate hospitals ranging from US Army (3), Naval (2), Air Force (1) and Civilian (2) where I quite literally had to learn how to walk once more after my disease hit.
Even if you read up on the disease, the cause is relatively unknown but GB is presumably started by a viral infection which causes your immune system to begin attacking the myelin sheath surrounding the sensorimotor neurons. So, explain to me, oh wise one, how then had my body began being affected by a disease where relatively few doctors knew how to treat, much less how and why it is caused.
Speculation comes to mind even by scientific terms, but sometimes the simplest answer is always the best. And no, according to every neurologist I'd spoken to, it was not a pre-existing condition.
Take The Big Bang theory and apply it to my disease. My disease is medically known to have a starting point where the immune system begins to attack whereas science wishes to explain that the Universe has always been as a finite solution? Once again, interpretation is as freely to decide how and why events happen regardless of how functional or systematic you make them.

You cannot compare the reason for the beginning of a disease based on biological mechanisms with the solution for "what starts the universe?".
If science claims something, it is because the reality it faces, makes it conclude and support said claim.

Your condition has a perfectly natural explanation, which according to you, scientists at present have difficulty in reaching.

Same with the beginning of the universe.
If you think adding a god to a problem without answer, answers anything, you are mistaken.

Your condition will have an answer one day.
The mechanisms will be better understood.
The same might not be said on the matter of the beginning of the universe, but that means nothing on whether a god ought to be postulated or not. You are still left without answers. For to postulate a god is confronting a mystery, with another mystery.

It is increasing the speculation, when all until now has been explained by the methods of scientific "speculation".
Science until now, has not suggested the need for a supernatural entity outside the universe. The universe, without one, can work splendidly.
It expects the reasons for the creation of the universe to be bound by rules, no matter how different they are from those inside the universe, which guided a process which generated the universe we find ourselves in. That would be the most probable, the simplest answer. In no way does a being that "ever was" explain anything. It's like a child saying it owns infinitely more candy than the other one.

For the time being, scientists remain without answers. But of course, they work on the matter as well and as hard as they can.
Unlike believers, who do make a leap, as if it was a virtuous mental action and it was "the way to go", just for the sake of having an answer.
It is folly thinking, in my opinion.
It quite surprised me when I read that Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, which you seem to admire sickly, actually thought that not applying Rationality to Christianity was the way to face this issue.
It is asking for non thinking. It is basically asking what New Agers ask today "Let your mind allow for such possibilities. Have an open mind and put your subjectivity above everything else" as if rational enquiry upon the very structure that creates subjectivity did not exist.

I bet Soren Kierkegaard did not expect to have rationality at the doors of the mind, this fortress whose inner mysteries are being overtaken every decade with scientific "speculation".

If the conclusion of Science is a God, then so be it.

But do not speculate it when there seems to be no need for it at all. Why should you?

As you said, it is often the simplest explanation which is the best.
What is simpler than covering the ground of understanding, steadily and honestly trying to comprehend the world, step by step, verifiable fact upon verifiable fact, constructing a net of corroboration, with which all thinking men can agree with, which leads to the most transparent comprehension of the universe.
What would be simpler than leaving out the postulation of a god, until you are led to believe it by tangible verifiable and provable data?

If it cannot be proven or verified I do not see why it should matter to a being which can thrive well and be happy and be pleased without such postulations in this universe.
If it cannot thrive without such postulations, then I pity such beings.

It is by thinking that rational thought has no saying on these matters that I think the mind makes a curious turn.
It not longer cares for what is the truth. It is comfort it goes for. Stability.
Sure, rationality has no say on the matter of comfort, for the human brain has often, if not constantly, found peace in imaginary constructs to survive.
It is no surprise that this ability has thrived in the brains of the human species.

Rationality has no say on this matter of religious beliefs.
But if rationality has no say on the matter of comfort, those constructs which humans imagine without evidence (the main which are religious-based) has no say on the matter of truth.

And what better for that(comfort) than an unmoving dogma encircled by a thick fog of faith, to remain in the mind of a majority of stability-seeking humans?

On a side note, I have to wonder why you have to spend two paragraphs and a half to make the single, and simple (and otherwise, rather quick) point "consider this disease which I happen to have."

Quote: from TooImaginativeTeen at 10:03 pm on April 1, 2008

Quote: from Soren Kierkegaard at 4:24 pm on April 1, 2008
Quote: from TooImaginativeTeen at 3:11 pm on April 1, 2008
Quote: from Soren Kierkegaard at 3:07 pm on April 1, 2008
Quote: from Forever Angel at 2:58 pm on April 1, 2008
Quote: from Shaknbake at 2:21 pm on Mar. 31, 2008
Quote: from exceedinglyrare at 12:16 pm on Mar. 31, 2008
Frankly, I find this to be a stupid argument. Simply because choices are informed and influenced by past experiences does not mean that they cease to be choices.

I don't mean to say that choices are simply informed or influenced by experience. I mean to say that the ego is molded by forces that we cannot control, and that all "choices" must be in line with the ego. You will never make a decision that isn't within you for some reason or another. Those who "choose" to believe or disbelieve, aren't able to choose anything else.
You clearly do not understand the meaning of "free will" in the sense of not following a predetermined path. That choices are influenced by experience or whatever, they are still choices. If free will does not exist, then they fail to be choices at all.
If we're incapable of choosing our decisions regarding religious preference, how then are we fully capable of distinguishing between a sea of theories concerning the scientific process?

What if I propose this claim?
"One illusion is more reasonable and humble and intellectually honest, than other less reasonable illusions."
My disease, by definition, is not an illusion; however, the military is quite indecisive through medical advances as to define how I contracted it during my military service. I have a form of Guillain Barre, which is referred to as Chronic Inflammatory Demylinating Polyneuropathy or simply put as CIDP. It is obviously quite painful. I know that before I joined the military, I lived a healthy life to finally graduate from college without a care in the world apart from fulfilling my bare minimum obligation within the service.
Less than 8 mo. after joining the service, I contracted this disease which I've been treated since March 22, 2007 at 8 separate hospitals ranging from US Army (3), Naval (2), Air Force (1) and Civilian (2) where I quite literally had to learn how to walk once more after my disease hit.
Even if you read up on the disease, the cause is relatively unknown but GB is presumably started by a viral infection which causes your immune system to begin attacking the myelin sheath surrounding the sensorimotor neurons. So, explain to me, oh wise one, how then had my body began being affected by a disease where relatively few doctors knew how to treat, much less how and why it is caused.
Speculation comes to mind even by scientific terms, but sometimes the simplest answer is always the best. And no, according to every neurologist I'd spoken to, it was not a pre-existing condition.
Take The Big Bang theory and apply it to my disease. My disease is medically known to have a starting point where the immune system begins to attack whereas science wishes to explain that the Universe has always been as a finite solution? Once again, interpretation is as freely to decide how and why events happen regardless of how functional or systematic you make them.

You cannot compare the reason for the beginning of a disease based on biological mechanisms with the solution for "what starts the universe?".
If science claims something, it is because the reality it faces, makes it conclude and support said claim.
Your condition has a perfectly natural explanation, which according to you, scientists at present have difficulty in reaching.
Same with the beginning of the universe.
If you think adding a god to a problem without answer, answers anything, you are mistaken.
Your condition will have an answer one day.
The mechanisms will be better understood.
The same might not be said on the matter of the beginning of the universe, but that means nothing on whether a god ought to be postulated or not. You are still left without answers. For to postulate a god is confronting a mystery, with another mystery.
It is increasing the speculation, when all until now has been explained by the methods of scientific "speculation".
Science until now, has not suggested the need for a supernatural entity outside the universe. The universe, without one, can work splendidly.
It expects the reasons for the creation of the universe to be bound by rules, no matter how different they are from those inside the universe, which guided a process which generated the universe we find ourselves in. That would be the most probable, the simplest answer. In no way does a being that "ever was" explain anything. It's like a child saying it owns infinitely more candy than the other one.
For the time being, scientists remain without answers. But of course, they work on the matter as well and as hard as they can.
Unlike believers, who do make a leap, as if it was a virtuous mental action and it was "the way to go", just for the sake of having an answer.
It is folly thinking, in my opinion.
It quite surprised me when I read that Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, which you seem to admire sickly, actually thought that not applying Rationality to Christianity was the way to face this issue.
It is asking for non thinking. It is basically asking what New Agers ask today "Let your mind allow for such possibilities. Have an open mind and put your subjectivity above everything else" as if rational enquiry upon the very structure that creates subjectivity did not exist.
I bet Soren Kierkegaard did not expect to have rationality at the doors of the mind, this fortress whose inner mysteries are being overtaken every decade with scientific "speculation".

If the conclusion of Science is a God, then so be it.
But do not speculate it when there seems to be no need for it at all. Why should you?
As you said, it is often the simplest explanation which is the best.
What is simpler than covering the ground of understanding, steadily and honestly trying to comprehend the world, step by step, verifiable fact upon verifiable fact, constructing a net of corroboration, with which all thinking men can agree with, which leads to the most transparent comprehension of the universe.
What would be simpler than leaving out the postulation of a god, until you are led to believe it by tangible verifiable and provable data?
If it cannot be proven or verified I do not see why it should matter to a being which can thrive well and be happy and be pleased without such postulations in this universe.
If it cannot thrive without such postulations, then I pity such beings.
It is by thinking that rational thought has no saying on these matters that I think the mind makes a curious turn.
It not longer cares for what is the truth. It is comfort it goes for. Stability.
Sure, rationality has no say on the matter of comfort, for the human brain has often, if not constantly, found peace in imaginary constructs to survive.
It is no surprise that this ability has thrived in the brains of the human species.
Rationality has no say on this matter of religious beliefs.
But if rationality has no say on the matter of comfort, those constructs which humans imagine without evidence (the main which are religious-based) has no say on the matter of truth.
And what better for that(comfort) than an unmoving dogma encircled by a thick fog of faith, to remain in the mind of a majority of stability-seeking humans?

On a side note, I have to wonder why you have to spend two paragraphs and a half to make the single, and simple (and otherwise, rather quick) point "consider this disease which I happen to have."

Questioning how something occurs within biology has everything to do with questioning how and/or why the Creation of the Universe resulted. You're absolutely right by saying that my first two paragraphs could have easily been merged into one, but I have as much right to embellish my disease due to the very life I've been forced to lead while you continually belittle and dismiss my beliefs casually by referring to them as ignorance.
And yes, I can compare how a series of biological mechanics within the body can be comparable with the foundation of the Universe, itself. To Scientifically state that the Universe had presumably always been is directly correlated by informing me that I've always had my disease. But from your position, guesswork is strictly dismissed as theological babble and/or rhetoric without any foundation within the scientific community.
David Hume would also agree by stating how both religion and science were in folly for presuming the very nature of Causality as the foundation for both disciplines. Logically, you cannot assume that creation requires a beginning as our Universe has always been.
(*Note: Not exact wording; Paraphrased*)
Which brings me to my fascination with Soren Kierkegaard, if I'm not mistaken, he was a proponent for Christian Existentialism, which focused primarily what clearly defines existence for the sake of accepting Christ. Before you insinuate your utter disgust with me, I am most certainly not here to impress you, nor befriend you. Although I have chosen his name as mine within LiveWire, I had no reason, nor desire, to beg of your permission in order for me to do so, my friend. He is my personal hero over how he criticized his Lutheran community for not adhering to the teachings of Christ by becoming too inwardly focused upon their own affairs within the community.
He would have, logically, disagreed with your decision to dismiss Christianity solely as comfort second only to the power and majesty of Science! As you pointed out earlier, medical mysteries and mysteries beyond recent scientific explanations have as much to do with the overall understanding of those merely questioning. Ignorance is not superstition, but merely the inability to know otherwise; however, Science requires more faith within a functional approach of discovery than actual religion has.
How? With every treatment of a disease, you'll run into a series of results which will appear. Vaccines are discovered after a legion of bodies are buried as a result of rigorous testing while even more and more diseases are mutating and/or forming in their wake. And yet every single time a patient is treated for an ailment, a doctor has as much an obligation to treat each and every situation with dignity and respect for their actions directly impact the quality of lives of their patients before them. These doctors are not gods, themselves, nor are they fully capable of healing every ailment that comes to them. What they do is merely work and hope that their actions will have a lasting impact for the lives of those they treat. Nothing more, nothing less.
And how about theoretical astrophysicists? What lasting impact has the Big Bang theory dealt with the average lives of farmers about to lose their livelihoods due to famine, drought, and/or foreclosure? You denounce faith quite literally as a crutch for those incapable of understanding what science logically assumes to provide so. Merely dismissing faith as ignorance has more to deal with arrogance, or Hubris for you to even imply that Science becomes a God, itself!

Can I write more? Yes, but I know that no matter what I write as a rebuttal toward you, you'll merely denounce me once more as being incapable of answering this dilemma adequately. Therefore, feel free to answer this for yourself at a later time.

-------
God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say.
Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful:
he makes saints out of sinners.

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