Science will not win over Religion

[Muizer]

antaeus,

The problem with what people get out of science usually falls in what the scientists want them to see and for most of these scientists God is not allowed to be part of it, them knowing that what they find is an Intelligent Designer behind anything they study.

The reason it is not allowed is because it is beyond the remit of science. It's not possible to scientifically prove or disprove the existence of an intelligent designer, and thus it is unscientific to hypothesize one. If there is something that cannot be explained other than by an intelligent designer, that will just remain a blank spot on the map of science. Now of course, scientists are asked quite often whether they believe in God, but the answer to that isn't science. It's religion. Problems only arise when a religion makes a claim that falls in the domain of science. For instance, from observations we can construct theories about the origin and history of our planet. A model that allows us not just explain past observations, but also predict future ones (e.g. when prospecting for natural resources). And it so happens that this model doesn't look even a bit like the account in Genesis. That's not science's problem to resolve. That's up to religious scholars to explain.

[Lord Thesaurian]

I think Bart Ehrman summed it up nicely when talking about the resurrection:

All the time I get accused of having an anti-supernaturalist bias. It’s not an anti-supernaturalist bias. It’s the way the discipline works….You cannot have a resurrection without a miracle, which means that God intervened in history. There’s no bonafide historian who talks about God intervening in history. It just doesn’t happen. But try convincing someone of that. If it’s in the past you can prove it.

Historiography studies the past. There are not schools of history that say everything has to agree with a certain religious faith. You look at the what you can demonstrate as having happened in the past, based on criteria that historians agree on. You analyze the data apart from requiring someone to have your faith commitment to agree with your analysis. That’s what it means to study history.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=k2Z37xdpGpI

The same applies to anything in religious canon which is purported to have literally happened in the past. So long as there is alleged to be a Christian God who literally made the universe and set forth a master plan to incarnate himself, die and literally resurrect and ascend to heaven, there should be verifiable evidence consistent with all these themes, regardless of the degree to which faith is required to participate in a particular theology.

[basics]

Lord Thesaurian,

Where the gentleman's statement is wrong is him inferring that God intervenes in history when in fact it is God who is making history even as I write. Every word any person who ever lived and is now living is speaking the words God ordained him or her to say all authored by God before the worlds were made. The world's history has panned out exactly as God wishes or wills it to be, why? Because He is God and He is Soveregn and it is all for His good pleasure. God has always been at the centre of our history and will always be. Oh man may well think that not to be the case but what is man compared to his Creator?

[conon394]

Lord Thesaurian,

Where the gentleman's statement is wrong is him inferring that God intervenes in history when in fact it is God who is making history even as I write. Every word any person who ever lived and is now living is speaking the words God ordained him or her to say all authored by God before the worlds were made. The world's history has panned out exactly as God wishes or wills it to be, why? Because He is God and He is Soveregn and it is all for His good pleasure. God has always been at the centre of our history and will always be. Oh man may well think that not to be the case but what is man compared to his Creator?

Man you make being god sound really depressing basics. look I made sock puppets and all do what I want. However that implies god s likes killing his sock puppets because the all various people he destroys in the OT had no free will and so is kinda like the kid who melts his army men or breaks a toy he is bored with.

[basics]

conon394,

Come on ole fella, man likes nothing more than to see people killed even if it's just for fun. Think about it this way that when you die you are actually going to live on, it's just that it won't be with God as part of His family, rather as a way to remind you of what you dismissed in this life about Him. So death doesn't bring relief rather the full whack of justice where it applies.

[antaeus]

conon394,

Come on ole fella, man likes nothing more than to see people killed even if it's just for fun. Think about it this way that when you die you are actually going to live on, it's just that it won't be with God as part of His family, rather as a way to remind you of what you dismissed in this life about Him. So death doesn't bring relief rather the full whack of justice where it applies.

So you get one chance to live the right way otherwise you spend eternity in damnation? That's quite some time to lock a soul up and throw away the key.

[basics]

antaeus,

Well, think of the number of times you've had the opportunity to take that chance and refused so it's not as though it'll be sprung upon you. Every day that you live and still refuse to believe in Jesus Christ is another chance lost and so on that great Judgement Day the very last thing you want to hear is, " Depart from Me for I never knew you." Do you really think that God sent His Son into the world to die as payment for sin if there were to be no consequences?

[antaeus]

antaeus,

Do you really think that God sent His Son into the world to die as payment for sin if there were to be no consequences?

No, I don't think that at all.

Also... when you compare the average lifespan... 80 something years... yet the period of punishment if one does the wrong thing while alive could be thousands or millions of years... No. Even if I could be fooled into joining this cult, I just can't justify that kind of punishment. That isn't benevolent. That's vindictive to sociopathic degrees.

[Muizer]

No, I don't think that at all.

Also... when you compare the average lifespan... 80 something years... yet the period of punishment if one does the wrong thing while alive could be thousands or millions of years... No. Even if I could be fooled into joining this cult, I just can't justify that kind of punishment. That isn't benevolent. That's vindictive to sociopathic degrees.

"Well, if you're going to be mean, God, then I don't believe you exist". Something's not right with this statement.

[conon394]

conon394,

Come on ole fella, man likes nothing more than to see people killed even if it's just for fun. Think about it this way that when you die you are actually going to live on, it's just that it won't be with God as part of His family, rather as a way to remind you of what you dismissed in this life about Him. So death doesn't bring relief rather the full whack of justice where it applies.

I believe my colloquialism at the start there threw off your understanding of my point. It was not killing by men I was pointing out. Its rather God killing his sock puppets that seeming according to you have no free will anyway. So its kinda boring to be god.

[antaeus]

"Well, if you're going to be mean, God, then I don't believe you exist". Something's not right with this statement.

Ha!

I'm more pointing out the sheer craziness of that kind of punitive regime. It doesn't strike me as a proportionate response to wrongdoing - it doesn't sound at all like the logical behaviour of an all knowing or all powerful being. Which for me calls into question the whole framework.

[basics]

antaeus,

Well, just supposing there was no God the outlook would be very dire indeed because the moment one died, nothing, no recompense for any injustice at all and that would apply to everyone. Now that's what I'd call unfair. On the other hand, there being a God Whose justice is fair, He gives man an out when no man deserves one.

[antaeus]

How is that justice fair?

Particularly if the person believes they have done no wrong, so don't feel the need to repent or confess. Eternal damnation. No. That's not justice, that's just vindictive.

[basics]

antaeus,

If anybody thinks that they have done no wrong in their lives, they are kidding themselves on. The punishment for sin is death no matter how small or large and has to be paid in blood and that before death alas tainted by sin meaning no man or woman can save themselves. Only Jesus Christ had pure sin free blood that could pay the price for sin making Him the Only Sacrifice for lost people. On that cross He took on the sin of all them that would believe on Him. He was their substitute, their sacrifice so that no more could they ever be condemned again. In the Father's eyes He can now say that He never knew them as sinners because in those that are saved, born again, any falling they do the Father sees only Jesus in them. If you think that is an injustice then you are quite wrong so perhaps rather than mocking God you should be honest with yourself that you are the guilty one bound in your sin from which you cannot escape.

[antaeus]

Injustice is eternal damnation without the possibility of redemption. My compassion allows me to forgive someone who has admitted wrongdoing. It appears that once someone dies, God withdraws this compassion. Eternity is a long time. As I said, that doesn't sound like the work of a compassionate entity. It sounds like the work of a cruel and sociopathic entity. You can wrap it up in what ever justification you like. Cruelty is cruelty, and that is way up there.

Even allowing for a literal Biblical understanding of the age of the Earth, a hundred billion people have lived. Most of whom were not Christian and would deny Christianity if offered, many of whom have never even heard of Christianity.

Would your god offer a place for them or are they currently being tortured forever?

[basics]

antaeus,

Yes but, does your compassion also apply to someone who does not admit to any wrongdoing to you? Eternity for us is a long time but to God it is not. As for peoples not knowing I must question that for Noah brought the word out of the deluge and all his subsequent offspring would have known why so many people died. Despite that many built false religions whilst others fell under their lusts, a few continued to be saved mostly out of what became the tribes of Israel. So, they knew of God and they probably knew of the coming " seed " yet still turned to their own designs that were not Godly.

Now as far as justice is concerned, just imagine how you would feel if the killer of say your mother or sister were let go free even though the Law demanded his or her death because that is not what you appear to be demanding of God.

[conon394]

Well, just supposing there was no God the outlook would be very dire indeed because the moment one died, nothing, no recompense for any injustice at all and that would apply to everyone. Now that's what I'd call unfair. On the other hand, there being a God Whose justice is fair, He gives man an out when no man deserves one.

Or assume a different god/Goddess or Gods or ancestral spirits etc. You do like to try and make a binary argument you particular minority view of Christianity and Atheism and just ignore all the other people of belief and often deeply held belief. That's arrogant Hubris.

[Cyclops]

"Well, if you're going to be mean, God, then I don't believe you exist". Something's not right with this statement.

"I died for you to save you from me, but you have to believe in a hyperspecific way and if you get it wrong I will burn you forever. Also the source documents are unavailable to the majority. Sincerely, you loving God"

Something's wrong with this version of the benevolent creator.

Or assume a different god/Goddess or Gods or ancestral spirits etc. You do like to try and make a binary argument you particular minority view of Christianity and Atheism and just ignore all the other people of belief and often deeply held belief. That's arrogant Hubris.

There's an insane level of arrogance in claiming ownership of God and the Bible. "God is what I say he is, and the Bible says what I say its does, and if you disagree its because God hasn't given you the ability to read the secret code."

[antaeus]

antaeus,

Yes but, does your compassion also apply to someone who does not admit to any wrongdoing to you? Eternity for us is a long time but to God it is not. As for peoples not knowing I must question that for Noah brought the word out of the deluge and all his subsequent offspring would have known why so many people died. Despite that many built false religions whilst others fell under their lusts, a few continued to be saved mostly out of what became the tribes of Israel. So, they knew of God and they probably knew of the coming " seed " yet still turned to their own designs that were not Godly.

Now as far as justice is concerned, just imagine how you would feel if the killer of say your mother or sister were let go free even though the Law demanded his or her death because that is not what you appear to be demanding of God.

What you're advocating is eternal vengeance. Not justice. While murder is a hideous crime, my view on it isn't tempered by how close I am to the victim. If I was to let my emotional state be the leading factor on how I punish wrongdoing, that would also be vengeance, not justice.

From what I can see, God is about vengeance and punishment. If I kill someone, should I still be punished for it 50,000 years later? That is not rational or balanced. In my country I am released after 20. Justice is about societal outcomes, not revenge. I see no benefit to society, either here or in the afterlife, in eternal damnation with no chance for rehabilitation. That is 'throwing away the key' and as a compassionate being, if I was spared this damnation, I would always feel guilt that I was chosen while others are punished.

No. It doesn't make sense. Unless you take into account that biblical descriptions of punishment were in fact there to keep the populations of less-bureaucratic pre-modern societies in-line through fear. That does make sense. That it is a coercive story designed to scare ancient people straight.

[basics]

Cyclops,

No, Jesus died to save me from me. I was the sinner as far from obeying and believing God as anyone could be and my mother when alive never stopped telling me so it wasn't that I never knew the consequences for my sin, no I realy thought that I could live with myself and get away with it. It wasn't until God revealed Jesus Christ to me that I realised how wrong I had been for these past forty years and believe me I was glad that He put me on my knees and changed my life forever.

God was never what I said He was/is for God is what the Bible tells of Him and since my conversion has proved to be correct. Knowing your Bible is a work in progress by the Holy Spirit as Peter points out.