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How else could something so beautiful exist?


Likwid

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:D

No "oops" necessary. If that's what you believe in, that's what you believe in. As an observation, I notice that most theological discussions result in someone invoking the Wager, but few people actually know they are doing it and call it by name. Consider yourself enlightened.

Hehe, I do feel enlightened, and I find it funny that enlightenment comes from that concept (is that irony? maybe)

Anyway, doesn't change the fact I believe in G-d... I accept that there is a greater force, but I also do not discount science... makes me a hypocrite maybe, but I don't care :) I like believing in something greater.

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... Id rather fight over oil, but as we have found, that doesnt make it any cheaper.

You might have missed it, but oddly enough, the first and biggest Iraq oil field contract went to a combination of Chinese and American development (American help), with the oil going to China. And the contract went cheap. Go figure that...

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You might have missed it, but oddly enough, the first and biggest Iraq oil field contract went to a combination of Chinese and American development (American help), with the oil going to China. And the contract went cheap. Go figure that...

Hitler

Just saving the time

regarding_mussolini.png

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well this thread had a philosophical twist to it for a while so I thought I'd make a recommendation to anyone who enjoys reading. Probably the single greatest book I've ever read was "mere christianity" by C.S. Lewis. A former skeptic of there being a higher power, became a great advocate for God's existence. In this book, he starts small with amazing analogies and language building the case for the existence of good and evil, moral authority, and principles that unite all religions as well as what unites Christianity rather than divides it. It's an amazing read that will leaving you thinking... wow I've always felt that way but never was able to articulate it... anyways, here's some highlighted passages from the book that I was able to find...

This is the terrible fix we are in. If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless. But if it is, then we are making ourselves enemies to that goodness every day, and are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow, and so our case is hopeless again....God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from.

Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion. Goodness is either the great safety or the great danger — according to the way you react to it.

Now is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It won't last forever. We must take it or leave it.

Badness is only spoiled goodness.

We have two bits of evidence about the Somebody. One is the universe He has made. If we used that as our only clue, I think we should have to conclude that He was a great artist (for the universe is a very beautiful place), but also that He is quite merciless and no friend to man (for the universe is a very dangerous and terrifying place.) ...The other bit of evidence is that Moral Law which He has put in our minds. And this is a better bit of evidence than the other, because it is inside information. You find out more about God from the Moral Law than from the universe in general just as you find out more about a man by listening to his conversation than by looking at a house he has built.

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?

[Christians] believe that the living, dynamic activity of love has been going on in God forever and has created everything else. And that, by the way, is perhaps the most important difference between Christianity and all other religions: that in Christianity God is not an impersonal thing nor a static thing - not even just one person - but a dynamic pulsating activity, a life, a kind of drama, almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance … (The) pattern of this three-personal life is … the great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality.

The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There's not one of them which won't make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide. You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it isn't. If you leave out justice you'll find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials "for the sake of humanity" and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man.

You can put this another way by saying that while in other sciences the instruments you use are things external to yourself (things like microscopes and telescopes), the instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man's self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred — like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope. That is why horrible nations have horrible religions: they have been looking at God through a dirty lens.

The Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or — if they think there is not — at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would be either a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

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well this thread had a philosophical twist to it for a while so I thought I'd make a recommendation to anyone who enjoys reading. Probably the single greatest book I've ever read was "mere christianity" by C.S. Lewis. A former skeptic of there being a higher power, became a great advocate for God's existence. In this book, he starts small with amazing analogies and language building the case for the existence of good and evil, moral authority, and principles that unite all religions as well as what unites Christianity rather than divides it. It's an amazing read that will leaving you thinking... wow I've always felt that way but never was able to articulate it... anyways, here's some highlighted passages from the book that I was able to find...

This is the terrible fix we are in. If the universe is not governed by............

yo cs lewis! i am really happy for you, and i'mma let you finish, but flying spaghetti monster had the greatest human teachings of all time... of ALL time!

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  • 6 months later...

Atheist's perspective: Could it have happened on it's own? (however unlikely)

The answer is yes, from simplicity to complexity. Deities don't simplify the equation any, they complicate it. (being infinitely more complex themselves) you have to account for their existence, and you regress infinitely to a long list of deities creating deities.

edit: I just realized this was an old thread (I wondered how so many people posted already).

Edited by magley64
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Next time I am in Vegas the plan is to visit the Grand Canyon. That pic is awesome.

Do it!!

I rented a new loaded Harley Electra Glide in Vegas last summer and rode my ass off with my GF to the Canyon, stayed there at a lodge, Checked it all out and rode back the next day...Great scenery. Screw standing next to the edge though. It was really cool.

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