Is There A God Or Supreme Being?

[atbspinner]

Such as??????

I don't like to type a lot but here are just a few ex:

1. Our sun is a star that scientists have been wacthing for over 100 yrs. and is shrinking by about one tenth % per century. Every hour the sun is shrinking by aprox. 2 feet. Of course 2 ft. isn't much when you consider the sun is nearly a million miles in diameter.

If you believe the sun's age is only 6,000 year's old (ceationism) then there's no real problem. In that time

the sun will have shrunk only about 2.4 %. Life on earth would go on quite fine. But if you believe the earth

and sun have been around for nearly five billion years (big bang theory), you have a problem.

If the sun existed only 250,000 yrs. ago it would have been double it's present diameter. At that size with the earth at it's present distance from the sun, it would have been too hot on earth for life to exist.

Thirty million years ago the sun's surface would have been touching the earth!

2. Deep space galaxies appear mature (where they should be young) and much the same as closer galaxies have not evolved, but were all created much as we see them today.

3. Red dwarfs are faint old stars that should number in the thousands if the universe is billions of years old. However, astronomers have reluctantly admitted that the limited number found fits a bibically young universe of 10,000 yrs. or less.

The big bang is a big bust.

If you want to say there is no God, it's your loss. But certainly a God that has the power to create the universe could easily orchestrate the events of the Holy Bible.

If you want to gamble eternity on a man-made theory that can't explain itself then, like I said before,

you have more faith than me.

Merry Christmas

:D

[Rabbit]

The Bible is as someone already pointed out is the Word of God inspired by man to write. It has many facts that science has yet to disprove, infact many of the facts in the Bible were written thousands of years before science had ever dreamed of trying to understand what and why. Here are some examples:

The Hydrologic Cycle

In a good brief description of world-wide air movements and the hydrologic water cycles of the weather, we read, "The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again" (Ecclesiastes 1:6-7). In similar manner, Job 36:27-28 says, "He (God) draws up the drops of water, which distill into rain from the vapor; the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind," which is a statement from 1500 B.C. ---It wasn't until data and measurements were taken all over entire hemispheres of the globe in our modern era that such an understanding of the hydrologic cycle and world air-currents was achieved, and then once again, the Bible is confirmed as correct.

The Number of the Stars in the Universe

In the years 161-126 BC, the man who is said to have first started the study of astronomy, Hiparchus, counted the number of stars in the heavens, and put the number at 1,080. This number was considered to be fairly accurate 300 years later, when Ptolemy announced that the number was more like 1,056.

It wasn't until the invention of the telescope that people realized that the number of the stars was huge ...in the countless millions. The Bible didn't make the mistake of saying that the number was merely a few hundred or thousand, but rather, in about 600 BC, the prophet Jeremiah says the number is "countless as the stars of the sky and measureless as the sand on the seashore" (Jer. 33:22). Also, from the year 1500 BC, the same concept comes from Genesis 22:17. And this is correct, because we now estimate the number of stars to be approximately 10 to the 26th (which may also be a fair estimate of the number of the grains of sand on all the earth's sea-shores), but the actual number is "countless" for us to attempt to precisely count. ---However, God, who is infinite in knowledge, knows the exact number, as the Bible says, "He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name" (Psalm 147:4).

As for the "Messiah" There is only ONE and that is Jesus Christ who died for ALL of us so that all of our sins can be forgiven..... even non-believers, to go to heaven all you have to do is believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for you and that he is your personal Lord and saviour. How easy is that ??? You have nothing to lose but everything to gain especially everlasting life in heaven. Penn & Teller can fake some of the things that Jesus may have done, or explain some of them, but they can not explain all. The one thing that they can not explain is how Jesus Christ died which was witnessed by countless people, then 3 days later rose from the dead and his tomb being empty, appeared before people such as his disciples and actually had them touch and inspect his wounds on his hands, feet, and the side of his chest. Then again witnessed by countless people rise up to the sky to heaven. God Bless.

So if Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, ect. don't believe in Jesus they are condemned to eternal damnation? Is that correct?

Let's see what happens now...

Cheers! Amused Rabbit

[dancetheman]

So if Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, ect. don't believe in Jesus they are condemned to eternal damnation? Is that correct?

Let's see what happens now...

Cheers! Amused Rabbit

allow me to answer you rabbit

16"For God so loved the world,[a] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God." John 3:16-18

people who don't believe in Jesus are condemned to judgement but people who believe will be saved

and i don't think you would call yourself a hindu, buddhist or taoist if you believed in Jesus ;)

[viperman135]

Here are my 2 cents.

1. I dont think there was a god that went bang and we just appeared

2. Big bang find that a little far feched too.

I think that the answer might just be beyond are comprehending. EX. Like an ant trying to understand our world. The answer just might be beyond what the human mind can understand. Hope that made sense, my brain is a little dead after studying for finals.

Just one little idea I have had. Im really not sure at this point in my life to make of religon and god or a higher being idea. Time will tell. The jury is out on this one.

[TheDude]

Here are my 2 cents.

1. I dont think there was a god that went bang and we just appeared

2. Big bang find that a little far feched too.

I think that the answer might just be beyond are comprehending. EX. Like an ant trying to understand our world. The answer just might be beyond what the human mind can understand. Hope that made sense, my brain is a little dead after studying for finals.

Just one little idea I have had. Im really not sure at this point in my life to make of religon and god or a higher being idea. Time will tell. The jury is out on this one.

This is exactly what i think. Very well said.

[TorqueSteer]

Here are my 2 cents.

1. I dont think there was a god that went bang and we just appeared

2. Big bang find that a little far feched too.

I think that the answer might just be beyond are comprehending. EX. Like an ant trying to understand our world. The answer just might be beyond what the human mind can understand. Hope that made sense, my brain is a little dead after studying for finals.

Just one little idea I have had. Im really not sure at this point in my life to make of religon and god or a higher being idea. Time will tell. The jury is out on this one.

Thats exaclty how I feel, what we may think is a supreme being may simply be something that exists in another dimension that the human brain cannot ever possibly comprehend, just like fish in their aqueous environment trying to understand terrestrial life with their miniscule brains.

[steve s]

2."Nope. Just human nature making stuff up"

-->If humans made up the whole thing don't you think that the bible would contridict itself alot? I mean if it is indeed a lie? Lets Its not easy to keep your story straight if you are lying.

religion is a creation. and that is one of humanities greatest abilities. human fallacies to believe, distort thru verbal traditions often creates difficulties in determining the truth. difficulty in understanding the unexplainable often times leads to belief of supernatural powers.

take moses walking thru the red sea..

did he really part the sea?

did he merely walk thru a mirage in the desert?

did he really walk thru not the red sea but the dead sea or some other body downstream of the jordan river because some catastrophic event such as earthquakes caused a temporary cease of water flow thru the jordan river and dried up the body of water?

but bible says it is good and ok to own slaves (leviticus 25:44). so.. then it's ok right? bible has been both wrong and correct.

but the greatest offering the bible has should not be the right or wrong of historic events, but the stories behind them. it offers great lessons upon which one should reflect upon one's own actions. in that respect, any holy scripture deserves to be reflected upon.

7."People have been "inventing" religion and religious beliefs from the dawn of time. They can't all be right can they? There are thousands of religions in the world and each person believes his or her religion is the ultimate truth. I beleve, much as Kevin said, that people create an idea of God, or Allah, or whatever to comfort them in knowing that someday they are going to die. Others need the idea of a higher power to get them through tough times. Thats fine and dandy by me, I just don't subscribe."

-->>Religion has been twisted in many ways, people killing people and forced conversions... And you are correct, they are not "all right" there is 1 true god and only one way into heaven. And God is withe me in the good times and the bad.

yes, religion has been twisted many a times, sometimes accidentally, sometimes intentionally.

if u believe u will be saved by believing in ur way, and all others are ney-sayers.. fine. but don't tell others how to live. just because they don't believe in ur way...doesn't mean they are less ethical, less moral.

i find it hilarious ppl who attend church only to be good for that time they're in the church. where's the good for the rest of the week?

i've said it once and i'll say it again. too bad the server crashed a few yrs back. all religion is the bane of humanity. now.. backstep before u start flaming. religion has and always will provide guidance for both people who have suffered hardship and those who have not. it is one of the greatest abilities of humanity. and it has been tremendously helpful in developing our spirituality.

however, because religion can exert such a presence into ppl's lives, the twisted and the evil use religion to force beliefs and exclude and persecute others who don't. there are numerous religious purges that occurred throughout history (not to exclude, but for other non-religious reasons as well). crusades, jews (religious and ethnic), current jihad (perfect example of twisting the truth)... take the extreme islamic leaders.. bunch of hippocrytes.. those priests who molested children.. that sermon guy who could identify sickness in ppl he's never met and claim healed them, but was in reality getting radio transmissions about their info. etc.

u don't need to be religious to be righteous and moral.. but religion can certainly be the guide to which u live to be righteous and moral.

so.. do i? not exactly.. i am more science oriented. but there are so many things that cannot be answered by science. the questions of spirituality.. soul.. even so, don't tell me that i should believe in a certain way in order to be all that is good and moral.

Edited December 6, 2005 by steve s

[Volvokiller]

I don't like to type a lot but here are just a few ex:

1. Our sun is a star that scientists have been wacthing for over 100 yrs. and is shrinking by about one tenth % per century. Every hour the sun is shrinking by aprox. 2 feet. Of course 2 ft. isn't much when you consider the sun is nearly a million miles in diameter.

If you believe the sun's age is only 6,000 year's old (ceationism) then there's no real problem. In that time

the sun will have shrunk only about 2.4 %. Life on earth would go on quite fine. But if you believe the earth

and sun have been around for nearly five billion years (big bang theory), you have a problem.

If the sun existed only 250,000 yrs. ago it would have been double it's present diameter. At that size with the earth at it's present distance from the sun, it would have been too hot on earth for life to exist.

Thirty million years ago the sun's surface would have been touching the earth!

This is about as flawed logic as you can get. Do you know how insignificant 100 years is when looking at the history of planet Earth? Evolution and change isn't linear. You can't look at the sun shrinking 2ft in 2 hours and then apply it back thousands of years. Who's to say the sun wasn't shrinking 10,000 years ago? What if it was growing 100,000 years ago? You just don't know.

What you're proposing is like turning on Monday Night football last night, watching the Eagles complete a pass, consider that the trend of the night, and shutting it off and going to sleep. Who won? Oh the Eagles were completing passes so they muct have won. Oh wait, they lost 42-0.

Also, you say that according to your sun formula that 250,000 years ago life couldn't have existed on this planet. What about bone and rock samples that have been carbon dated far older than that? And Carbon dating IS a much more linear method of time tracking than the size of a star.

[whitev70r]

Religion, without a question, is something that humanity created to try to understand the divine. And I'm saying this as a person of faith. So as a result, there are a lot of errors in religion BUT those human errors should not reflect on the nature of God or the existence of God. Case in point, we would all admit that violence and crusades were errors committed in the name of religion but that is no indication of the nature of God. Crusades were human errors committed in the name of religion. We (humanity) misunderstood. But we shouldn't dismiss religion entirely just because there has been some errors. Like SteveS said, there is value in it for guidance, spiritual strength, goodness, etc. My point is this: even though there are errors in religion, lots of them, of which I contribute many, it is not a reflection of the existence of God or the nature of God. Errors occur precisely because religion is humanity's attempt to understand God. Religion should be dynamic, never static.

Scientist in the pursuit of finding out facts about our universe makes errors all the time (Structure of Scientific Thought - Thomas Kuhn). But we don't dismiss the contribution of science, do we? At one time, the scientific community thought that everything revolved around the earth. (I know, I know about Galileo and the church, I'll concede that to be another error in the name of religion) But now we think we got it right, eveything revolves around the sun. Then we find out that even the sun moves in the galaxy and the galaxy is moving in the universe, etc. But no one dismisses the value of science even though there appears to be errors made in the past yet some people dismiss religion as for the weak, crutch, blind, etc. etc.

Edited December 6, 2005 by whitev70r

[RAzOR]

IF YOU BELIEVE THAT RELIGEON IS BUNK:

So you believe that the big bang just happened? (What happened right beofre that?)

and

That the edge of the known universe (which is from the big bang expansion moving outward) will continue to expand forever. (And what is beyond that edge to infinity?)

and

That randomly through evolution and natural selection, from primordial soups, that single cell life formed and through a random process, humans, with 25,000 genes with each gene containing hundres of thousands of protein DNA strands just evolved the way it did. Sure it did.

Finally,

My advice to those who believe this is all there is: Burn reefer, turn down the lights, and watch two or three episodes of Cosmos. You will think differently.

Edited December 6, 2005 by RAzOR

[atbspinner]

This is about as flawed logic as you can get. Do you know how insignificant 100 years is when looking at the history of planet Earth? Evolution and change isn't linear. You can't look at the sun shrinking 2ft in 2 hours and then apply it back thousands of years. Who's to say the sun wasn't shrinking 10,000 years ago? What if it was growing 100,000 years ago? You just don't know.

What you're proposing is like turning on Monday Night football last night, watching the Eagles complete a pass, consider that the trend of the night, and shutting it off and going to sleep. Who won? Oh the Eagles were completing passes so they muct have won. Oh wait, they lost 42-0.

Also, you say that according to your sun formula that 250,000 years ago life couldn't have existed on this planet. What about bone and rock samples that have been carbon dated far older than that? And Carbon dating IS a much more linear method of time tracking than the size of a star.

I can see your logic via your belief system. Although a constant like the sun does not draw a fair comparison

in relation to Monday night football. Especially the Eagles!

You totally missed the point. No pun intended

If you believe in creation by God, then you have to accept the fact that this universe is not a product of

billions of years of evoulutiuon. Therefore, God made what we see today and much of it was "born" with

age. ie. Adam and Eve were not infants. Can God not create something that has "age"? The world we see was brought into existence with a purpose that is beyoud what we as humans can understand even with "faith".

The scientific community has studied other things like the magnetic field of the earth, population growth, and many others that just don't suppot the evolution "theory".

But if you do not believe in God then it really does not matter to you. It certainly won't mean a thing in a hundred years.

[gdizzle]

Religion, without a question, is something that humanity created to try to understand the divine. And I'm saying this as a person of faith. So as a result, there are a lot of errors in religion BUT those human errors should not reflect on the nature of God or the existence of God. Case in point, we would all admit that violence and crusades were errors committed in the name of religion but that is no indication of the nature of God. Crusades were human errors committed in the name of religion. We (humanity) misunderstood. But we shouldn't dismiss religion entirely just because there has been some errors. Like SteveS said, there is value in it for guidance, spiritual strength, goodness, etc. My point is this: even though there are errors in religion, lots of them, of which I contribute many, it is not a reflection of the existence of God or the nature of God. Errors occur precisely because religion is humanity's attempt to understand God. Religion should be dynamic, never static.

Scientist in the pursuit of finding out facts about our universe makes errors all the time (Structure of Scientific Thought - Thomas Kuhn). But we don't dismiss the contribution of science, do we? At one time, the scientific community thought that everything revolved around the earth. (I know, I know about Galileo and the church, I'll concede that to be another error in the name of religion) But now we think we got it right, eveything revolves around the sun. Then we find out that even the sun moves in the galaxy and the galaxy is moving in the universe, etc. But no one dismisses the value of science even though there appears to be errors made in the past yet some people dismiss religion as for the weak, crutch, blind, etc. etc.

Well said.

[TorqueSteer]

That randomly through evolution and natural selection, from primordial soups, that single cell life formed and through a random process, humans, with 25,000 genes with each gene containing hundres of thousands of protein DNA strands just evolved the way it did. Sure it did.

I love how creationists regard evolution as random.

Evolution and Natural selection are not a random process, they are based on which variation is best suited for the environment.

[whitev70r]

I love how creationists regard evolution as random.

Evolution and Natural selection are not a random process, they are based on which variation is best suited for the environment.

I know of scientists, who are people of faith who have no problems with creation alongside of evolution. This, to me, is not the central issue that separates people of faith and atheist. Evolutionary principles like natural selection through variations that are best suited for the environment, can be seen as natural laws just like gravity. I am very open to that. In fact, I think it is very hard to dispute micro evolution, variations within species that adapt to their surroundings.

What I have the most difficult time with in evolutionary theory (and I remain open to this) is the change of one species to another, what some people call macro evolution. I still don't understand this and I'm not trying to be facicious (sp?). If humanity evolved from apes, then why are there still apes? If 4 legged amphibians came from snakes, then why are there still snakes? Presumably, the ones with variations that could not adapt to the environment should have died off, ie. not pass their variation through their genes to the next generation. The Darwinian principle says the strongest will survive, the ones who can't adapt dies. That's what I'm puzzled about.

Edited December 6, 2005 by whitev70r

[beachnut]

If you are going to claim broad generalizations that the bible "sort of" got right as proof that it is inspired truth by God, then you also need to look at the historical context that the bible was created in. You are aware that the modern bible as we know it was comprised about 300 years after Christs death. Think about that, THREE HUNDRED YEARS. Its been argued that the development of the Christ Resurrection story was created to fuel persuasion to the Christian Faith around the same time that the Church had enormous oppurtunity to grab political power in the Roman Empire. As it turns out, this is exactly what historically happened. Around the time that the bible came to be, the Church grew powerful both in numbers and in political influence. Who's to say that political influence didn't sculpt the stories in the bible to their favor. Think anyone was alive 300 years later to refute or confirm the stories?

While the bible may have been compiled and versed many years later into the book we have today, most all of the gospels and epistles were written by Christ's apostles and disciples within 30 years of his crucifixtion, some within 10 years. These letters and testimonies, which eventually became the core of the new testament, were eyewitness accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, given within the the same generation. My point is there were many non-believer's and those who hated Christianity at that time (not 300 years later) who wanted nothing better than to be able to refute the resurrection but were not able to do it.