WILL SCIENCE DISPROVE GOD? [Spirituality & Religion]
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXey0X0CxjU]
You know where I stand on this question.
You know where I stand on this question.
61-69, M
This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »
SomeMichGuy · M
No, because disproof depends upon what one is trying to disprove, i.e., the definition.
Since the God of Abram/Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob, of Moses & David, Elijah & Daniel, and Jesus & Simon "Peter" & Saul/Paul is typically defined by the "omni's"--omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent--to disprove the existence of such a being would require disproving all of these.
The easiest to consider is the last, because the typical definition considers God to be beyond the constraints of time & space; while this might make Him inaccessible to scientific investigation, if one considers Him to be able to be any*where* & any*when*, then one would have to observe, simultaneously, all locations at all times in order to disprove this prong of the definition...if He even has an existence which is of the variety with which we are familiar (the obviously-observable variety).
I think the task is so difficult that proof of His non-existence is hard.
I believe personal proof of His existence is much more attainable, as my own experience & that of others through the ages indicates. I also have had corroborating events which directly and indirectly support the existence of this being.
No, they were not voltages, etc., at calculated places and times. They were personal experiences, and I believe these types of experiences are accessible to others, as well.
Do I think that much which has nothing to do with God--even things anathema to Him--has/have been attributed to Him, done in His Name, etc.? YES!
Do I think a lot of people have strained the text of the Bible by trying to make it a perfect historical or scientific record, when it is not, and counter to what is well known to Biblical scholars? YES! (The first 11 Chapters of Genesis--Creation to the Tower of Babel--and the Book of Job are the oldest parts; so if anything has mythic elements, these are the most likely. I don't find my faith undone by science, I don't think God is threatened by an old Universe, evolution, or global warming.)
Do I think a lot of people provide extra-Biblical context when reading the Bible? YES!
Do I still believe in an amazing God...yes!
Since the God of Abram/Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob, of Moses & David, Elijah & Daniel, and Jesus & Simon "Peter" & Saul/Paul is typically defined by the "omni's"--omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent--to disprove the existence of such a being would require disproving all of these.
The easiest to consider is the last, because the typical definition considers God to be beyond the constraints of time & space; while this might make Him inaccessible to scientific investigation, if one considers Him to be able to be any*where* & any*when*, then one would have to observe, simultaneously, all locations at all times in order to disprove this prong of the definition...if He even has an existence which is of the variety with which we are familiar (the obviously-observable variety).
I think the task is so difficult that proof of His non-existence is hard.
I believe personal proof of His existence is much more attainable, as my own experience & that of others through the ages indicates. I also have had corroborating events which directly and indirectly support the existence of this being.
No, they were not voltages, etc., at calculated places and times. They were personal experiences, and I believe these types of experiences are accessible to others, as well.
Do I think that much which has nothing to do with God--even things anathema to Him--has/have been attributed to Him, done in His Name, etc.? YES!
Do I think a lot of people have strained the text of the Bible by trying to make it a perfect historical or scientific record, when it is not, and counter to what is well known to Biblical scholars? YES! (The first 11 Chapters of Genesis--Creation to the Tower of Babel--and the Book of Job are the oldest parts; so if anything has mythic elements, these are the most likely. I don't find my faith undone by science, I don't think God is threatened by an old Universe, evolution, or global warming.)
Do I think a lot of people provide extra-Biblical context when reading the Bible? YES!
Do I still believe in an amazing God...yes!
This comment is hidden.
Show Comment
This comment is hidden.
Show Comment
Carazaa · F
SomeMichGuy · M
@Emosaur Your diagram is not complete, though it is a nice diagram trying to be an all-encompassing flowchart.
This comment is hidden.
Show Comment
Sharon · F
@GodSpeed63 [quote]that chart doesn't prove anything[/quote]
It more than you've even managed to do. Denying the truth won't change it.
It more than you've even managed to do. Denying the truth won't change it.
SomeMichGuy · M
@Carazaa Which translation is that?
I will have to check Nestlé-Aland for where they stand on the certainty of the underlying Greek.
I think Timothy is correct that you CAN learn from Scripture, but this is not the same as saying either that it all has the same weight, or that one MUST get something out of every verse.
RE: weight
Do the works of Elijah compare with what is clearly erotic poetry in the Song of Songs (in spite of attempts to force it into an anachronistic meaning)?
Do most of the court records compare with the crucial story of Abram -> Abraham, or the book of Daniel? Does the story of the she-bear tearing up the 42 children have ANY value, esp. in conparison to the 3x refrain of Scripture to care for the widows, the orphans, the sojourners in one's midst (the obvious source of Jesus' teaching in His Parable of the Good Samaritan)?
RE: MUST get sthg out of each verse
Scripture is vast. There is a lot in it, and a lot of confusing things. I think it is necessary and reasonable to have a very big box with a big question mark ("?") on it, for all the verses which do not seem to easily square with [b]what we know about Jesus from the four Gospels.[/b]
If we are Christians, we shoukd START with reading of how *Jesus* looked at everything--[i]including Scripture![/i]--and use THAT as our touchstone.
Do not worry, but do not add extra-Biblical context. The preachers who spend all their time in Scripture (the OT), often like how fear motivates gifts & tithes.
Our Lord & Savior has not only GUARANTEED our salvation--completing the soteriological problem revealed by the Law, as Paul might have it--He futher offers us the gift of the indwelling Spirit of the Living God...as a Paraclete to help guide us.
Show me His burden: He says it is light. Take up THAT burden--believing in him--in spite of others, etc., but do not then smilingly try to take on other burdens which people who do not seem to understand that salvation is accomplished would have you take up.
Jesus does NOT have a billion rules. Most of his talk can be divided into "analogies of Heaven" (He usually says, "the Kingdom of Heaven is LIKE..." not "IS", so it is an analogy meant to convey a sense of it) and parables/other teachings, often examples about what one should do. Does He require you to only eat tapir if it has purple spots and had been prepared in the Tropics with flint-based utensils and coconut bowls and roasted with peanut oil until it reaches some "holy temperature"? Does He require you to worship weasels or slaughter slugs or conjure cobras or answer to aardvarks or give off gas?
He asks us to believe in Him.
Beyond that, He offers us a walk with Him, guided by the Spirit, and says we should help our fellow humans when we come into contact with them and they need us; to not mistreat children; to not judge others; to try to be better; to pray...
Seems pretty reasonable and a lot less burdensome than what some fire-and-brimstone preachers want you to swallow (as you send them your money).
@Carazaa, you are such an earnest, sincere person. Do not be afraid to concentrate on filling up your mind and soul primarily with the Gospels, for it will help improve your discernment.
God has more amazing things for us than we imagine; if we are heirs to eternity, childish notions of choirs, smocks, halos, wings, zithers are just that: childish and too small & narrow and confining for the vastness of eternity. [b]Do not be afraid, but rather avoid those who would control you with fear, for [u]which Kingdom do they represent?[/u][/b]
Therefore, be of good cheer, for Jesus offers salvation to all who ask for it with a contrite heart. 😊
Accept your sure salvation, then go off and...be the most amazing @Carazaa you can be, with God's help through His Son, Jesus, and His Spirit! 😊🤗
I will have to check Nestlé-Aland for where they stand on the certainty of the underlying Greek.
I think Timothy is correct that you CAN learn from Scripture, but this is not the same as saying either that it all has the same weight, or that one MUST get something out of every verse.
RE: weight
Do the works of Elijah compare with what is clearly erotic poetry in the Song of Songs (in spite of attempts to force it into an anachronistic meaning)?
Do most of the court records compare with the crucial story of Abram -> Abraham, or the book of Daniel? Does the story of the she-bear tearing up the 42 children have ANY value, esp. in conparison to the 3x refrain of Scripture to care for the widows, the orphans, the sojourners in one's midst (the obvious source of Jesus' teaching in His Parable of the Good Samaritan)?
RE: MUST get sthg out of each verse
Scripture is vast. There is a lot in it, and a lot of confusing things. I think it is necessary and reasonable to have a very big box with a big question mark ("?") on it, for all the verses which do not seem to easily square with [b]what we know about Jesus from the four Gospels.[/b]
If we are Christians, we shoukd START with reading of how *Jesus* looked at everything--[i]including Scripture![/i]--and use THAT as our touchstone.
Do not worry, but do not add extra-Biblical context. The preachers who spend all their time in Scripture (the OT), often like how fear motivates gifts & tithes.
Our Lord & Savior has not only GUARANTEED our salvation--completing the soteriological problem revealed by the Law, as Paul might have it--He futher offers us the gift of the indwelling Spirit of the Living God...as a Paraclete to help guide us.
Show me His burden: He says it is light. Take up THAT burden--believing in him--in spite of others, etc., but do not then smilingly try to take on other burdens which people who do not seem to understand that salvation is accomplished would have you take up.
Jesus does NOT have a billion rules. Most of his talk can be divided into "analogies of Heaven" (He usually says, "the Kingdom of Heaven is LIKE..." not "IS", so it is an analogy meant to convey a sense of it) and parables/other teachings, often examples about what one should do. Does He require you to only eat tapir if it has purple spots and had been prepared in the Tropics with flint-based utensils and coconut bowls and roasted with peanut oil until it reaches some "holy temperature"? Does He require you to worship weasels or slaughter slugs or conjure cobras or answer to aardvarks or give off gas?
He asks us to believe in Him.
Beyond that, He offers us a walk with Him, guided by the Spirit, and says we should help our fellow humans when we come into contact with them and they need us; to not mistreat children; to not judge others; to try to be better; to pray...
Seems pretty reasonable and a lot less burdensome than what some fire-and-brimstone preachers want you to swallow (as you send them your money).
@Carazaa, you are such an earnest, sincere person. Do not be afraid to concentrate on filling up your mind and soul primarily with the Gospels, for it will help improve your discernment.
God has more amazing things for us than we imagine; if we are heirs to eternity, childish notions of choirs, smocks, halos, wings, zithers are just that: childish and too small & narrow and confining for the vastness of eternity. [b]Do not be afraid, but rather avoid those who would control you with fear, for [u]which Kingdom do they represent?[/u][/b]
Therefore, be of good cheer, for Jesus offers salvation to all who ask for it with a contrite heart. 😊
Accept your sure salvation, then go off and...be the most amazing @Carazaa you can be, with God's help through His Son, Jesus, and His Spirit! 😊🤗
Carazaa · F
@SomeMichGuy True but if you want to be blessed and have your prayers answered then we must be obedient. Did you read my 3rd post, or my 5th post. I do not listen to pastors and believe anything without analyzing for myself. I am the ultimate sceptic.
SomeMichGuy · M
@Emosaur
The tree you have, to my mind, quite masterfully conveys a very simplistic view.
I think it is as useful as the childlike view of Heaven as clouds, white gowns, wings, gold halos, zithers, choirs...
I presented what is a typical definition, and I believe an attack on it fails in the omnipresent aspect. Ultimately, though, your tree doesn't get God's motivation correct, I think; but many "Bible-believing Christians" get this wrong, too, in part because of the Neo-Platonist influence which has affected the typical view of the One Who Is.
My own views are unorthodox, because I believe one of the primary failures of our received theology (as a whole; i.e., the entire sweep of theology proper, anthropology, soteriology, Christology, ecclesiology, pneumatology, eschatology) is that the party of the lesser part, with VERY partial information, dictates to the party of the greater part what "His" attributes are...
I also accept Biblical scholarship, cut extra-Biblical context, and think that Christians should focus on the 4 Gospels as the touchstones by which to measure other books, chapters, verses.
But a central problem we have had is how our desire to KNOW "THE Truth" has made is prey to many variations of cults who claim to have it, and how that has screwed up people, faith, etc. (Examples: besides things like the Branch Davidians, etc., we also have, e.g., Jehovah's Witnesses, the LDS/Mormon church, and many others.)
The truth is, God is silent about a lot of aspects of Who He Is. [In the Old Testament, He claims to be "Almighty" and is "jealous" of us worshipping other things, and of lots of current & historical knowledge, and the ability to accomplish what He says...] In fact, He is silent about lots of things.
It is clear that the Bible is not meant to provide answers about everything. Instead, I join with Benedict de Spinosa in saying that it has "enough" to guarantee salvation; but even to frame it in terms of rule-breaking and punishment completely mistakes God's intent, I think. But it played well for a long time, so some pulpits are still essentially modern Cotton Mathers, but some (many?) televangelists have decided to placate idiots by telling them what they want to hear, and are simply liars proclaiming are the made-up "prosperity Gospel", AKA "name it & claim it"...like the inspirationcampmeeting ppl, who somehow say "you" are going to get rich by sending THEM your money...
I think God is both simpler and more amazing than what the straitjacket of traditional theology has provided. And that squares with my own experiences and revelations. But I believe in an old Universe, that evolution does not threaten God, that global warming is real...and that quantum mechanics provides a built-in mechanism for God to perform miracles.
So I am not an evangelical automaton, though I do believe in the Evangel and in actual evangelizing (and that the "religious Right" has shown that it is really ONLY conservative, and not truly religious...and that they are thus bereft of any moral, etc., authority).
The tree you have, to my mind, quite masterfully conveys a very simplistic view.
I think it is as useful as the childlike view of Heaven as clouds, white gowns, wings, gold halos, zithers, choirs...
I presented what is a typical definition, and I believe an attack on it fails in the omnipresent aspect. Ultimately, though, your tree doesn't get God's motivation correct, I think; but many "Bible-believing Christians" get this wrong, too, in part because of the Neo-Platonist influence which has affected the typical view of the One Who Is.
My own views are unorthodox, because I believe one of the primary failures of our received theology (as a whole; i.e., the entire sweep of theology proper, anthropology, soteriology, Christology, ecclesiology, pneumatology, eschatology) is that the party of the lesser part, with VERY partial information, dictates to the party of the greater part what "His" attributes are...
I also accept Biblical scholarship, cut extra-Biblical context, and think that Christians should focus on the 4 Gospels as the touchstones by which to measure other books, chapters, verses.
But a central problem we have had is how our desire to KNOW "THE Truth" has made is prey to many variations of cults who claim to have it, and how that has screwed up people, faith, etc. (Examples: besides things like the Branch Davidians, etc., we also have, e.g., Jehovah's Witnesses, the LDS/Mormon church, and many others.)
The truth is, God is silent about a lot of aspects of Who He Is. [In the Old Testament, He claims to be "Almighty" and is "jealous" of us worshipping other things, and of lots of current & historical knowledge, and the ability to accomplish what He says...] In fact, He is silent about lots of things.
It is clear that the Bible is not meant to provide answers about everything. Instead, I join with Benedict de Spinosa in saying that it has "enough" to guarantee salvation; but even to frame it in terms of rule-breaking and punishment completely mistakes God's intent, I think. But it played well for a long time, so some pulpits are still essentially modern Cotton Mathers, but some (many?) televangelists have decided to placate idiots by telling them what they want to hear, and are simply liars proclaiming are the made-up "prosperity Gospel", AKA "name it & claim it"...like the inspirationcampmeeting ppl, who somehow say "you" are going to get rich by sending THEM your money...
I think God is both simpler and more amazing than what the straitjacket of traditional theology has provided. And that squares with my own experiences and revelations. But I believe in an old Universe, that evolution does not threaten God, that global warming is real...and that quantum mechanics provides a built-in mechanism for God to perform miracles.
So I am not an evangelical automaton, though I do believe in the Evangel and in actual evangelizing (and that the "religious Right" has shown that it is really ONLY conservative, and not truly religious...and that they are thus bereft of any moral, etc., authority).
This comment is hidden.
Show Comment
SomeMichGuy · M
@Sharon
I cannot speak for other Christians, and I would even caution them to only prayerfully consider my notions, not to ever simply embrace them, because I am a fallible human.
However, *my* belief is supported by my own personal experiences, including my own test which proved to *me* His existence. It did not provide His size, weight, favorite color, etc., but it gave me evidence of His existence. I have also had...confirmatory evidence.
Lots of Christians misunderstand & misread the Bible. Lots of them have been misled, esp. in recent years, and led into what I personally consider grave error.
But there are strident non-Christians here on SW who misrepresent Christianity, which also does not help.
And sorry, but even the traditional understanding of God has enough in it to make atheism the unsupportable position (agnosticism I can understand, but not atheism).
I cannot speak for other Christians, and I would even caution them to only prayerfully consider my notions, not to ever simply embrace them, because I am a fallible human.
However, *my* belief is supported by my own personal experiences, including my own test which proved to *me* His existence. It did not provide His size, weight, favorite color, etc., but it gave me evidence of His existence. I have also had...confirmatory evidence.
Lots of Christians misunderstand & misread the Bible. Lots of them have been misled, esp. in recent years, and led into what I personally consider grave error.
But there are strident non-Christians here on SW who misrepresent Christianity, which also does not help.
And sorry, but even the traditional understanding of God has enough in it to make atheism the unsupportable position (agnosticism I can understand, but not atheism).
SomeMichGuy · M
This comment is hidden.
Show Comment
This comment is hidden.
Show Comment
Sharon · F
@SomeMichGuy [quote]However, *my* belief is supported by my own personal experiences, including my own test which proved to *me* His existence. [/quote]
Exactly, it is [b]your belief[/b], nothing more. Other have different beliefs, supported by [b]their personal experience[/b]. In my experience, many (admittedly not all) christians present their beliefs as proven facts. You were doing that (possibly unconsciously) in your previous replies.
[sep]
[quote]The tree fails to comprehend God's motivation and the origin of evil.[/quote]
As the Abrahamic god is present as the origin of everything, it must be the origin of evil. The bible says as much in Isaiah 45:7 and alludes to it in 1 Samuel 16:14
Exactly, it is [b]your belief[/b], nothing more. Other have different beliefs, supported by [b]their personal experience[/b]. In my experience, many (admittedly not all) christians present their beliefs as proven facts. You were doing that (possibly unconsciously) in your previous replies.
[sep]
[quote]The tree fails to comprehend God's motivation and the origin of evil.[/quote]
As the Abrahamic god is present as the origin of everything, it must be the origin of evil. The bible says as much in Isaiah 45:7 and alludes to it in 1 Samuel 16:14
This comment is hidden.
Show Comment
GodSpeed63 · 61-69, M
This comment is hidden.
Show Comment
This comment is hidden.
Show Comment