Comicsartist

I know we've all touched upon the age old question "does God exist" and I recently found this site. I admit, my post about Google piqued my curiosity, so I searched for "who is God". This link is the second one mentioned, and I don't assume to know where their "truthiness" (all pardons to Jon Stewart) falls on the credintials scale. I can bet they are right wing, but I thought their "answers" (not sure what to call them at this point) were somewhat interesting. What do you all think?

http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html

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The_Heretic

Linking belief- religious belief in particular, with proof flies in the face of both faith and reason. If any religion were dependent on proof then there'd be no religion. People should learn to seperate these two things for their own good [that goes for atheists too].

Besides, any real god has to be greater than one organized religion [Christianity, as explained in the website].

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You won't fight for the Bill of Right? Fine! I won't fight for you in the ballot box!

djack

I know a guy who maintains that if you ask :where did that come from? over and over you will eventually have to admit some force or being created the universe. But the devil is in the details so to speak. No religion that claims to know how it came about can be believed.
Besides truthiness is connected to Stephen Colbert not Jon Stewart.

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Comicsartist

Well, my pardons to Colbert then.

Listen, I'm not saying these guys are right by any means. I'm just wondering what you think about their answers. That's all. Thought it'd be an interesting area of debate/discussion.

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Titanium Cat

Just taking a looking at the start of their evidence:

Perfect is a bad descriptor. It's ideal for life on earth... because life on earth evolved to fit the environment of the earth! This should not be a surprise. And lets not forget about the how many near earth sized planets there might be in the universe where we estimate the number of stars to be around 10^22.

That is overly simplistic. There is a substantial range of size that would allow for a similar sort of atmosphere. The difference between the sizes of Mercury and Jupiter is enormous. And don't forget that Venus is almost the same size of earth.

Our ability to detect earth and near-earth sized planets is in its infancy at this point let alone determine their atmospheres etc. Only larger gas giants make enough of a gravitational effect to be detected. Failing to mention this gives a poor impression of exactly what the author is implying.

Well this again is overly simplistic, there is a range that would be acceptable. The earth's overall climate has varied significantly in the past and life has continued. Many (most in fact) life forms go extinct while others become more common.

This isn't true.

Well this is factually wrong as well, the earth's distance from the sun varies as it orbit becomes more elliptical. When the orbit has maximum eccentricity the earth can receive over 20% more radiation when it is close to the sun than when it is farther away during the year. There is no "perfect" distance.

LOL, all planets rotate on their axis. And how is the entire surface of the Earth "properly" warmed and cooled every day when the polar regions alternately go several months without receiving any sunlight whatsoever? Life on earth evolved to fit the variations of climate including regional differentation.

Again the range of size of moons that would create tides is quite large. Furthmore if you look at various places around the earth like the Bay of Fundy where tides are dramatically larger, well there is still plenty of life to be found both in and out of the water. The claim "our massive oceans are restrained from spilling over across the continents" is pretty silly since it would require a moon orders of magnitute larger to do that. As to moving the ocean waters so they don't stagnate, well ocean currents are primarily caused by wind (surface) and changes in salinity, not tides. And life still exists in lakes and ponds where there is no noticable tidal action.

I didn't even bother to look a the rest. If this is a sample of their "logic" or science, it isn't a very good start.

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Comicsartist

Which is why I wanted to discuss this. Why do they think this, and what is their proof? Why are they so adamant about trying to prove the unproveable? You can't disprove something that you can't prove in the first place, so why bother? Everyone has their own ideas either for the existence of God, or against. My definition of God might be fairly broad, while other's may be more streamlined. Who in their right mind thinks they know what/who God is? Why does God need a definition?

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Titanium Cat

I can't really answer for them, I can only guess. My guess is they want to make an intellectual argument for the existance of god, one which uses a scientific basis, because they feel it necessary in order to "defend their faith".

Clearly there is no "proof" since the usual definition of god is one that exists outside of known physical laws. Using ridiculous juvenile arguments like what I went over though only makes ones position look weaker intellectually, not stronger.

Same as above. Some people certainly need a very specific god. The more specific your god is the more specific his/her/its wishes can be. At least that would be my take on it. Many people, like you Comic, don't need a dogmatic god. Your faith makes you want to be a better person. Alternatively some people want a god that makes other people a "better" person.

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Comicsartist

Seems like yet another case of "do as I say, not as I do" syndrome. What kind of person thinks they need to define God for other people? Maybe that's the bigger question. On this board we have two extremes. One is the eman extreme, i.e the Bible is absolute truth, and this is what God is. The second being, God does not exist, the Bible is complete bullshit. Thankfully there are many people who fall in between these two extremes, but WHY are there extremes in the first place? In my opinion, you are incredibly arrogant to think you have the absolute truth when it comes to matters of the spirit, for or against.

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The_Heretic

Itsmeeee might have a better answer to this than I [she's a salesperson]. But in general when you're trying to sell something and the existing pitch gets you all the customers you can get then you try another advertizing style to draw in those who didn't go for your first ad.

The evidence they'll cite will prove to be subjective, and play heavily on the Euro-Christian cultural bias, but then again because that's the frame of reference they're working it it's to be expected.

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John McCain: "He's in Iraq... with a few centuries to kill."





You won't fight for the Bill of Right? Fine! I won't fight for you in the ballot box!

Comicsartist

But surely they know there will always be people around to fact check, don't they? What does this kind of behavior say to the Christians they are trying to "sell" to? We think you're weak minded? We think you are scared? It doesn't sit well with me that people like this attempt to make a buck off of other people's fears. I know a LOT of people can be blamed of doing this, but I feel the same way about so called "patriots" following blindly as well. I have a soft spot for Christians. I have a soft spot for everyone who accepts what they are shown without asking any questions. I think that once we all realize that there are simply going to be questions that cannot and will not be answered the better off we'll be. Always ask questions, but know the answer might not always exist.

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