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Originally Posted by Derek
1. What is your stance on vestigial organs? Many scientists claim that through evolution some organs have lost their purpose but a lot of fundamentalists would say these organs still have uses and thus are not vestigial (such as someone without tonsils is 4 times more likely to contract disease even though doctors deem it perfectly safe to remove them).
2. Through quantum physics, there's been massive support that particles can form out of nothing, somewhat showing that the universe could be uncaused. What do you think about this?
3. Do you believe that a higher entity indeed created us entirely or rather that an entity planted the seeds for our growth and we simply evolved over time? Or is it that your religion is simply a spiritual quest and does not conform to the views of a Christian God?
4. God is often depicted in a human form, explained by people's needs to make God relatable to them. Do you think this is right or is the idea of 'god' simply a force outwith our comprehension?
Coming from a non-religious background, I'm interested in gaining some perspective that's not simply a teacher talking as you could understand. This thread isn't to denounce either religion or science, but rather to observe each other's views, remember.
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1) How does evidence of evolutionary change in the human body somehow disprove the concepts of spirituality and the existence or providence of a Deity?
That is like saying, "Ah Ha! There is no such thing as music, the sound simply comes from vibrating strings, there is no art at all!"
2) You are wrong, energy can be neither created or destroyed, and all matter in the multiverse is energy (which was proved by the atom bomb), therefore nothing can be formed of nothing, all of the vibrating strings are
something. All that exists always has existed, and more than likely always will exist. In Christian doxology the saying affirmation of the Laws of Conservation of Energy are chanted, "as it was, is and shall be unto the Ages of all Ages."
3) Your theology is naive. Get more specific, you exist in a multi-layered, multi-dimensional world. Forces beyond comprehension determine every single aspect of our existence, and we can only cooperate within their parameters. God(s) is like gravity, it fundamentally determines EVERY possible outcome of our existence, and yet entirely gives us freewill to operate within God(s) parameters, just as we operate fluidly in a world of fundamental cosmological forces beyond our sensory perception, none the less crucially crucial. Physics class was more enlightening to me than an acid trip..
4) What you are talking about is anthropomorphism, and right or wrong it is an understandable theology. The center of religious understanding like Hinduism or Christianity is that Deities beyond the scale of our Multiverse, can operate within it, even in a physical, human form. While Thomas Jefferson may have been uncomfortable with the concept of a personal, human God(s) and preferred a kind of indifferent Deism, I do understand why this is a hard concept to grasp. The Incarnation has been a cornerstone of theological and spiritual discussion for thousands of years. It is literally impossible to conceive of Infinity taking on the limits of the Finite, of the Divine manifesting itself in Flesh, but this is the Mystery of God(s). The real issue is simple as basic science, if you do not understand something at the moment due the circumstances of limited perspective, it does not necessarily negate the possibilities. Just because we can not fully understand the Infinite, should not limit the Infinite, and if the the Infinite can indeed do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING, than easily the Infinite can also readily become Finite.. But again, this has been a quarrel for a long long time.
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Originally Posted by knox
many gods are evil and enjoy hatred more
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Thats not really a fair assessment, is the weather or the solar flares honestly capricious or intentionally malicious? Is natural selection intentionally out to get everything? Doubtful, more than likely its the indifference of the roll of the dice, and we should not misinterpret divine as being good or evil, for those distinctions are made from our own, hopelessly limited perspectives. Human beings are such control freaks, that we even need to control God by somehow learning all of how He ticks and to follow all of His rules, like you would to manipulate any other human relationship, whereas is is all rather amusing to any God(s), because how could the finite control the infinite?
