I miss God

[Muizer]

Deism is a beginning, more productive than Hedonistic materialism at least.

I can't say I see it as a beginning. More like an end. The biggest leap of faith is not the one concerning the existence of deities, but the one concerning the consequences of the existence of deities. In other words, the belief in the divine revelations that detail such consequences. If one does not believe in divine revelations, then faith is without consequence and therefore unnecessary.

[fkizz]

It is true we still don't know many things about how life developed or came about in the first place. But science is ever progressing, and using this lack of knowledge as an argument for a deistic/theistic perspective reduces the noble choice of faith to a mere "god of the gaps". Religion may have mingled with explanatory myths and proto-science in earlier times - it no longer should do so, though.

That shows you rely on Faith aswell to solve the Origin of Life question - difference is Faith is put in the Men in White Robes at Labs rather than Clerical Class, but you're taking a Leap of Faith aswell. The divide has a certain irony to it, because historically speaking the functions of those classes (scientist and cleric) used to be a single one. But point being, you're operating on Faith aswell, except the target of the Faith is not religion or metaphysics.

I say this because you cannot prove that Scientists in lab will figure it out in the end or not - you can just hope for it or adhere to it because you find it likely. In this regard, there's ironical similiriaty.

The Fermi Paradox is not really a paradox and relies on too many unknown parameters, simply claiming there should be other intelligent life within the same galaxy. We don't know what parameters have to fit to create forms of conscious conduct and we may even be "blind" to other such forms because they elude our preconceived notion of "life" or "form".

I can agree that Fermi paradox can have many subjective ways out, but point of it is to display a disappointment in the scientific community. You may not be disappointed or lose sleep over it, but many people in R&D in related ways do.

Metaphysics exist only in so far as they are ideas that people entertain. Silly ideas in my opinion.

Depend how you define it. Metaphysics is beyond the physical, and we have 5 senses that are sharpened the most to dominate the physical world. Metaphysical means there is something beyond your 5 senses. You can see a hint of this observing nature - animals have perceptions you can't sense.

Same goes for faith. If the mere existence of faith in someone's head proved anything we'd have to accept every single religion as more or less truthful and would be in quite a dilemma which gods to worship.

On the issue of "If Divine exists, which religion is real" that would spring a new discussion tree that would de-rail current topics, being honest here.

Arguments for probability don't really work when you talk about something that has already happened

Well it doesn't deny that something happened, it is used to "investigate" what possibly happened. You have lay out scenarios, analyse their probabilities, and as you said in beginning, scientists don't know for sure how was macro evolution and Origin of Life either. Probabilities are outranked by empirical proof, but we have no empirical proof, so trying to quantify the mathmatical likelihood of an event is the best we can afford as a civilization.
It doesn't even disprove abiogenesis and randonmess over macroevolution bringing about life as being impossible, it just states it's mathematically very unlikely.
Rationally speaking often people give the higher probabilities a serious look. That's why and how Casinos and Insurance companies sistematically make profits, giving current life example.

In fact, Ockhams razor would kill intelligent design as a purely scientific assertion. (It would be fine as a tenet of faith, though.)

Ockham was a Christian Monk (and intellectual). Another irony you bring up a Christian Monk to back your points up.
Point being, Ockham himself did not reject God's intervention or any intelligent design in creation.

I can't say I see it as a beginning. More like an end. The biggest leap of faith is not the one concerning the existence of deities, but the one concerning the consequences of the existence of deities. In other words, the belief in the divine revelations that detail such consequences. If one does not believe in divine revelations, then faith is without consequence and therefore unnecessary.

What you say is correct, from a static and logical point of view. But Deism can be seen as an introductory rite to accepting the idea that maybe some superior forces and intelligences exist above us. Modern society has all kinds of indoctrinations to fervently deny such - reaching Deism is not religion nor salvation nor faith, but it's already a sign of de-programming and breaking free from modern indoctrination. And reaching higher degree in freedom of thought.

It's sort of figuring out there's light outside Plato's cave. Sure you're not climbing yet, and in practice still stuck in the cave, but how can you climb without first realizing there's something outside there?

After some time spent in Deism anyone will start asking to himself: "Those superior forces really do not affect daily life in anyway whatsoever? How so? Is there proof for that?"

[Iskar]

That shows you rely on Faith aswell to solve the Origin of Life question - different is Faith is put in the Men in White Robes at Labs rather than Clerical Class, but you're taking a Leap of Faith aswell. The divide has a certain irony to it, because historically speaking the functions of those classes (scientist and cleric) used to be a single one. But point being, you're operating on Faith aswell, except the target of the Faith is not religion or metaphysics.

I say this because you cannot prove that Scientists in lab will figure it out in the end or not - you can just hope for it or adhere to it because you find it likely. In this regard, there's ironical similiriaty.

I don't hold any kind of "faith" that science will deliver on this or that. I merely follow its advance and acknowledge that if we'll ever know how life developed it will be by science. As a Catholic I hold faith as to why life developed, which is a wholly different question.

Ockham was a Christian Monk (and intellectual). Another irony you bring up a Christian Monk to back your points up.
Point being, Ockham himself did not reject God's intervention or any intelligent design in creation.

Ockham's Razor is a clearly defined scientific principle that the explanation requiring less premises is the better one. It has little to do with whether Ockham as a medieval monk would think about particular current issues.

[fkizz]

I don't hold any kind of "faith" that science will deliver on this or that. I merely follow its advance and acknowledge that if we'll ever know how life developed it will be by science. As a Catholic I hold faith as to why life developed, which is a wholly different question.

When I say faith, it's not in the worship sense, but in the "future is uncertain. you have to pick which outcome you believe most to happen" sense. You believe and hope that scientists will be the ones to clarify the mystery of origin of life. But there's no empirical proof or mathematical demonstration that it will be such. Therefore, it's faith you are having, in the non-religious sense, faith placed on science and the scientists.

Ockham's Razor is a clearly defined scientific principle that the explanation requiring less premises is the better one. It has little to do with whether Ockham as a medieval monk would think about particular current issues.

The point was that you were using Ockhams razor to disprove something that Ockham himself accepted as truthful and not disprovable. For him existance of God eased up Ockhams razor on that affair.

[Iskar]

When I say faith, it's not in the worship sense, but in the "future is uncertain. you have to pick which outcome you believe most to happen" sense. You believe and hope that scientists will be the ones to clarify the mystery of origin of life. But there's no empirical proof or mathematical demonstration that it will be such. Therefore, it's faith you are having, in the non-religious sense, faith placed on science and the scientists.

Ok, so we're using a rather broad notion of "faith" here - something that in Latin would be differentiated by the verbs "putare" and "credere". Credo in God, and puto that science will find out things. I prefer to use the stricter, purely religious notion of "faith", though, for greater clarity.

The point was that you were using Ockhams razor to disprove something that Ockham himself accepted as truthful and not disprovable. For him existance of God eased up Ockhams razor on that affair.

And why not? The point of valid ideas is that they are applicable independent of what other opinions the original proponent held.

[basics]

I can't say I see it as a beginning. More like an end. The biggest leap of faith is not the one concerning the existence of deities, but the one concerning the consequences of the existence of deities. In other words, the belief in the divine revelations that detail such consequences. If one does not believe in divine revelations, then faith is without consequence and therefore unnecessary.

Muizer,

Sounds reasonable as well as logical, but, and there is always a but, what happens when at the end of your earthly life you do have to account for that life to the Creator? What do you say then? It's not as though God hasn't made provision for you whilst on earth in and through what Jesus Christ did for you at the cross so what reason or logic is going to get you out of that one?

[Diocle]

Muizer,

Sounds reasonable as well as logical, but, and there is always a but, what happens when at the end of your earthly life you do have to account for that life to the Creator? What do you say then?

"What do you want, dickhead? I didn't ask you to be put on this valley of sorrow, I didn't ask you to stay into this land of false hopes and pain, just to discover that at some point I needed to leave, I didn't ask you anything, so, why are you bothering me with your arrogant presumption of judging those you have put in trouble?"

.. this is what I'd tell him, spitting the truth and the infinite pain of millions past, present and future lives, onto his foolish face.

[Muizer]

Muizer,

Sounds reasonable as well as logical, but, and there is always a but, what happens when at the end of your earthly life you do have to account for that life to the Creator? What do you say then? It's not as though God hasn't made provision for you whilst on earth in and through what Jesus Christ did for you at the cross so what reason or logic is going to get you out of that one?

I'll tell him it wasn't your fault.

[basics]

"What do you want, dickhead? I didn't ask you to be put on this valley of sorrow, I didn't ask you to stay into this land of false hopes and pain, just to discover that at some point I needed to leave, I didn't ask you anything, so, why are you bothering me with your arrogant presumption of judging those you have put in trouble?"

.. this is what I'd tell him, spitting the truth and the infinite pain of millions past, present and future lives, onto his foolish face.

Diocle,

The bad news is that I will be there to see you saying those things as you lie prostate and heaving before Him.

Muizer,

My fault for sure is that I couldn't convince you otherwise.

[Admiral Piett]

I hope you realize I passed exams to join engineering university, and had the option to join biology or biochemestry based degree, before seeing the calling in something more accounting related.

Point being, while I'm not a professional biologist or medic, you're not talking to someone who does not know those areas. Even Pope Francis has a Masters Degree in Chemestry. So much for le science "Disproving" religion.

A well established education does not necessarily render a cure to personal beliefs about the world, religious or otherwise.

[fkizz]

A well established education does not necessarily render a cure to personal beliefs about the world, religious or otherwise.

I agree more than I should. But a certain user was implying I didn't pass such type of examination in a "poison the well" attempt to discredit me.

[Elfdude]

Religion inherently provides no answers. Theology is deductive reasoning, and poorly applied deductive reasoning at that. Religion is nothing more than an enjoyable fairy tail some people choose to tell themselves to help them cope with the reality that exists around them.

Who cares what they tell themselves. All I care is when they act upon those fairy tails and torture and brainwash children, when they deny reality in favor of the imaginary, or when they discredit humanity because of obscure dogmas.

[basics]

Religion inherently provides no answers. Theology is deductive reasoning, and poorly applied deductive reasoning at that. Religion is nothing more than an enjoyable fairy tail some people choose to tell themselves to help them cope with the reality that exists around them.

Who cares what they tell themselves. All I care is when they act upon those fairy tails and torture and brainwash children, when they deny reality in favor of the imaginary, or when they discredit humanity because of obscure dogmas.

Donald J. Trump,

Funny that the one whose name you have taken does believe that there is a God. So what is this reality that is being denied by those that have had a genuine experience with God? You know your answer to that one can only be assumptive and not experimental.

[fkizz]

Religion inherently provides no answers.

Morbid as it may sound, Religion is designed to exactly Not provide answers to those who don't adhere to its rules at least a little bit. It's working as intended. It sounds awkward to say this, but it's exactly like this. To any Religion.
On a more "cheer up" mood, protestant side will talk to you about being saved and whatever else. But they throw an optimistic outlook at the same thing.

Let's say even if I'm not a Buddhist, but want to understand Buddhism minimally, I have to at least value the idea of being un-attached and un-interested in wordly desires as something worthy of achievment, otherwise the whole rest will seem utter non-sense.
Even if you're not Christian, you have to entertain the idea of a Creator having designed the Universe and concept of Earthly Life so that struggle felt against adversity here, including the one unseen by others, eventually pays later in some way.

Who cares what they tell themselves. All I care is when they act upon those fairy tails and torture and brainwash children, when they deny reality in favor of the imaginary, or when they discredit humanity because of obscure dogmas.

You won't understand necessity of dogma looking on a superficial manner. Later on you find they are major pieces of the machinery. To the point that having a religious group that breaks them eventually creates a new type of church or even religion.

But on a more serious sense, even atheists try to reap benefits from religion, albeit with some secular flavour. "Mindfullness to increase your work performance" "Yoga to reduce your stress" "Social values based on valuing the collective over yourself while respecting and valuing hierarchy" are respective extractions from buddhism, hinduism and christianism used in daily secular life.

[Elfdude]

Says the person who doesn't understand the bible. I'm sorry but I understand the theology of the bible intently and the justification of it all relies upon shoddy propositions and deductive reasonings and fallacious logic jumps. It has it's basis in cultural attitudes which do not exist today and the idea that you can understand it by believing it is almost as hilarious as your lack of understanding of it. With regards to religious benefits, religion is not the origin of these things, religion merely utilizes them. There's a confusion of cause and effect here and nothing more.

Nice try though, perhaps you should study your bible more?

[basics]

Says the person who doesn't understand the bible. I'm sorry but I understand the theology of the bible intently and the justification of it all relies upon shoddy propositions and deductive reasonings and fallacious logic jumps. It has it's basis in cultural attitudes which do not exist today and the idea that you can understand it by believing it is almost as hilarious as your lack of understanding of it. With regards to religious benefits, religion is not the origin of these things, religion merely utilizes them. There's a confusion of cause and effect here and nothing more.

Donald J. Trump,

The strange thing is that Peter knew quite well of persons like you and wrote of you all. Understanding Scripture requires the help of God the Holy Spirit and clearly you don't have Him supporting your argument. You are on the outside lokking in, making your assertions without really seeing or knowing what is there. You see only the dead letter of Scripture and so calculate that that is quite enough, but strangely it is not enough as any born again person would tell you. But if you really want to understand the Scriptures go onto youtube and search out Chuck Missler's Learning the Bible in Twentyfour Hours and learn about the exactitude that God put into making the Scriptures. It's certainly just another eye-opener for all them that are on the outside.

Nice try though, perhaps you should study your bible more?

[Elfdude]

Typical fair weather christianity. "I interpret the word anyway I want because I have god with me!" Meanwhile the trinity which you so desperately try to profess your love for is directly disregarded and degraded by your cherry picking.

Interpret a book anyway you want but every time you try to debate it understand you're tightening your own noose.

[basics]

Typical fair weather christianity. "I interpret the word anyway I want because I have god with me!" Meanwhile the trinity which you so desperately try to profess your love for is directly disregarded and degraded by your cherry picking. Your self-righteous vanity is astonishing.

Interpret a book anyway you want but every time you try to debate it understand you're tightening your own noose.

Donald J. Trump,

My reply is in assuming your post is directed at me so let me give a fair answer to it. I am not a fair weather Christian and I don't know anyone who is a born again Christian who could be called that. I think being on these threads and having been called all sorts proves that fair weather is not how one would describe me. As I have witnessed here a few times, I have survived a great fall with only a broken collar bone, survived being nearly run over by a train, survived four major car crashes, survived a growth in my pallet, survived four hernia ops, survived six cancer ops, survived an aortic valve replacement plus a bypass, survived an open surgery removal of my gall bladder plus other things that remain in me. But God's grace has been good enough that I survived them all and am still here capable of telling of the wonderful Gospel of Jesus Christ and His saving grace. So, as long as He puts breath into me I'll carry on knowing that He is with me and not even the Devil has any input there.

[Iskar]

Can you give some difficult examples. The compatibility of the tale of Exodus and science/the laws of nature for instance.

Also, as an aside: Would you agree that faith can only meaningfully exist concerning the unbelievable, ie. if it is believable/rational then it undermines and demeans the essential qualities faith?

I promised I'd think of something interesting, but then got carried away with others stuff and rl matters, so please excuse that this reply comes somewhat late.

To answer your last question first, I do think there needs to be at least a core of unbelievability requiring a Kierkegaardian leap of faith to accept it, but around it the further elements of faith (doctrine, orthopraxy, morals, etc.) can well be arranged in a logical/rational manner that ensures the system of faith actually functions in real life. One might think of it like... soap, I guess. Practical every day life and the ultimately transcendent core of the faith are incompatible like water and lipids, and the system of faith forms a layer of practices and implications around the core that is compatible with everyday life by its rational/plausible structure but is ultimately founded on the irrational premise at the core.

Now, about Exodus and exegesis in general. When I look at biblical stories there are several layers I consider:

The narrative layer: What is the plain content and structure of the story?
The hermeneutic layer: How does the story embed into our historical knowledge of the time it refers to? How accurate is it? What influence did the experiences of the first editor/narrator have on it?
The revelational layer: What theologic content is there beyond the contingencies of the narrative?

The first two can be answered by solid philology and strict historical science/archaeology to a considerable degree and require no religious conduct. In the case of Exodus it is the story of how the Israelites left Egyptian serfdom under the leadership of their newly revealed god ("I am YHWH.") to find a new home in Canaan (not without slaughtering the local population there, n.b.) after wandering through the desert for 40 years, being given a pact in stone by their god, quarreling with him nonetheless and finally being reconciled.
The story takes the form of a historical record, but is set much earlier than the first date considered for the canonisation of the Pentateuch around 440 BC, although many stories will have been passed on orally for a long time. It is far from accurate in that we have no evidence there was a whole foreign people enslaved in Egypt, that the ten plagues happened as described, let alone the Red Sea opening and closing, to name but a few. However, we need to consider that at the time the first redactor presumably lived the modern notion of accurate historiography would be pretty misapplied, and the recipients of such stories back then might have been well aware of the usual degree of distortion/simplification/idealisation that came with narrativising historical events. Often there were in fact historical events that inspired certain elements of the biblical narrative (like, e.g. the explosion of Thera and ensuing tsunamis in the eastern mediterranean being presumed related to the emergence of Great Flood stories in many cultures there.) In that vein a certain part of strata of the Israelite society (or whatever nomadic semitic tribes may have acted as its predecessors) may well have settled in or been taken as hostages to the Sinai/North-Eastern Egypt at some point of time which was simplified to the entire people being enslaved there, and there may well have been a couple of irregular climatic or ecological phenomena. Besides the clearly climactic last plague both infestations with cyclically over-reproducing pests (frogs, locusts, flies, other arthropodes and reptiles) and environmental anomalies (polluted or eutrophic water, diseases of men and livestock, hailstorms, solar eclipses) may well have happened and would have found their way into oral traditions as events of note. A posteriori structuring of the narrative would have grouped such events together and ascribed further meaning to their occurence.
So much for the narrative and historical contingencies.

Now the third layer is the truly interesting one from a religious perspective. It comes with an inherent problem, though. If we take the narrative at face value and make its statements religious teaching we risk the compatibility of our faith with everyday reasoning in case historical evidence contradicts our story. If we discard the entire thing as just a historically contingent piece of writing we on the other hand drop the faith component entirely. Therefore the primary task of exegesis is to sort out the contingent elements of the narrative that are simply due to the redactor's personal experiences and socio-political environment and those elements that carry religious meaning beyond even the personal scope of the first writer.

As per our faith there are two main moments active in both the writers/redactors of the texts and us doing the exegesis now: Free will and the holy spirit. The latter is believed to be what enables both the writer and the reader to convey and discern glimpses of the divine, while by the former it does not force them to do so, so there can be divine truths in the texts, but not everything in there necessarily contains such, so both reading and writing the holy scripture is subject to the contingent existence of the reader and writer. (In that regard our doctrine differs from say, the Kabbala reading of the Tanach, or neo-evangelical/literalist readings of the Bible, both of which assume the holy scripture to be free of contingency and planned by God to the last comma.)

There are several aspects of the text to consider for sorting the divinely-necessary and the humanly-contingent apart:
Historical accuracy - Ahistorical additions/changes may indicate that some message needed to be conveyed that was more important than correct representation of historical events. On the other hand, if amidst (e.g. politically motivated) historical distortions one account sticks out in its accuracy (despite contravening the overarching political agenda of the writer) it might again be of exegetic importance.
Structure/Style - Rhetorical figures and literary topoi may just be that: Contemporary means of making the text more enjoyable to readers, but they may also serve to point the reader to the theologically important sections, or underline an important theologic thought.
Language - Theological meaning may be literally lost in translation, but it may as well be the case that hitherto hidden meanings only emerge when translating the holy texts to other languages. I personally can say that my experience with the same texts differs depending on whether I hear/read it in German, English, French or Latin, and that is further added to by what my brother (who kinda knows Greek and Hebrew) tells me from time to time.

The interplay between (literal) divine inspiration and free will is also why I believe the community of the church to be necessary. Humans are fallible and what any single one of us might read from the holy texts might be misinterpreted, and, as per our faith, the holy spirit is active in the church as a whole, not in any single individual on its own, so we need the community and its exegetic discourse to approach what glimpses of the divine might be had from those texts. Since people still have the free will to say non-inspired things this is a never ending task, although by our faith in the holy spirit we believe it to be one that in toto moves in the right direction.

I kind of lost sight of Exodus now, but I think that is enough text for now anyway.

[basics]

Iskar,

The veracity of the story is always going to be questioned and has been since man separated himself from God for we can read that from the beginning it was always the few who kept the story alive and the ones who generally paid with their lives to do so. But the thing is that it just doesn't go away no matter what the opposition says or does about it. The world today is in a mess but no greater mess than it ever was in yet through it all the story of Christ's coming, His sacrifice and rising to glory is still reaching places that it was denied for many years. And the strange thing is that the counterfeits appear to be even stronger in their opposition to Him and all this was also written of many centuries ago.