How big is the universe?

[JBroll]

Okay, now you just have the persecution complex coming in. It's very unlikely that you'd have encountered this guy anywhere but the US or another very religious country, but correct me if I'm wrong at some point in here. The vast majority of the US population is Christian, the vast majority of the Canadian population is Christian, and any European country where these videos aren't a bloody joke is going to be mainly Christian. I'm in the States, where I can't run for public office in the state I live and I get to deal with either not telling people what I believe or being painted as an immoral communist who eats stem cells by millions of people who have never met me, so if your religion 'isn't popular most places with most people' let's switch places and *you* can deal with fundagelical loons who call people who don't believe like they do with death threats.

Jeff

 

[beyond dead]

what if god was one of us............

 

[lilhermiejobo]

According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the resident population of the United States, projected to 01/23/08 at 00:30 GMT (EST+5) is 303,287,518.
[taken from http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html]
A study which I haven't been able to find the given name of held in 2001 reported that "Most U.S. citizens adhere to Christianity (78.5%[2])."
[taken from wikipedia article "Religion in the United States"]

All the same if interviewed during an investigation what do you suppose a serial killer's answer would be?
"Did you murder these people/children/women/playdough villagers/etc?"
Logic has it that the most likely scenario would be "No, I did not kill those *insert dead here*" Why would anyone do that?
To appear cloaked in wholesome goodness unable to harm a happy bunny in sunshine any given day of the year.
As far as death threats are concerned I can honestly say I haven't read any commandment in the Christian bible that tells us to take anyone's life for being different.

Honestly man, how would switching places change anything or give us any different perspective? There are still people who don't agree or believe with either you or I and up until this point we've always had extremists who disgrace the fundamentals of their belief. I very well wouldn't assume every rum chugging moron burns churches until they come out and say so themselves and even then I'd have to be a narrow minded clone to assume all rum chugging morons go around burning churches without witnessing for myself.
Twice.

 

[lilhermiejobo]

what if god was one of us............

Ironically he was and what'd we do? Kill him.
way to go human race. good job.
:zombie:

 

[JBroll]

According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the resident population of the United States, projected to 01/23/08 at 00:30 GMT (EST+5) is 303,287,518.
[taken from http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html]
A study which I haven't been able to find the given name of held in 2001 reported that "Most U.S. citizens adhere to Christianity (78.5%[2])."
[taken from wikipedia article "Religion in the United States"]

Erm, I clicked on the link and found it.

http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/key_findings.htm

All the same if interviewed during an investigation what do you suppose a serial killer's answer would be?
"Did you murder these people/children/women/playdough villagers/etc?"
Logic has it that the most likely scenario would be "No, I did not kill those *insert dead here*" Why would anyone do that?

If they were still under trial that's obvious, but under anonymity and for the sake of knowledge people will admit to some pretty strange things.

As far as death threats are concerned I can honestly say I haven't read any commandment in the Christian bible that tells us to take anyone's life for being different.

Deuteronomy 17
17:2 If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant; 17:3 And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; 17:4 And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel; 17:5 Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.

Unless you have a different Bible than everyone else (and a quick bit of advice - religious people who turned atheist often got into that mess by starting to learn about their religion and read the book) I think you should look closer.

Ironically he was and what'd we do? Kill him.
way to go human race. good job.
:zombie:

Except for that little problem with there not being any actual existence of his evidence (despite countless faked texts - my favorite being the passage in Josephus that not only is dated to the time of Eusebius, who said that lying for the Holy Spirit was acceptable, but also was written in a completely different tone and with a different approach to the language that made about as much sense as trying to fake an Oscar Wilde story written entirely in ebonics)... whoops.

Jeff

 

[Chryst Krispies]

THIS THREAD NEEDS A SNUGGLE

[ame]http://youtube.com/watch?v=3TcRgqhpGHI[/ame]

 

[lilhermiejobo]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Book of Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy 17
17:2 If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant; 17:3 And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; 17:4 And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel; 17:5 Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.

Unless you have a different Bible than everyone else (and a quick bit of advice - religious people who turned atheist often got into that mess by starting to learn about their religion and read the book) I think you should look closer.

For what its worth to you, the covenant of the old testament and the laws of moses (which by the way applied to jews and not gentiles "non-jews") was upgraded to the new covenant hence New Testament.
I know you meant well and I can appreciate your approach in understanding that your approach is ideally based on physical science.
Where the potential problems lies is in the seperation of spiritual from physical being that you cannot physically grasp ahold of something without physical matter such as the spiritual realm.
Anything that I or anyone else could explain or talk you or anyone else into believing through reasoning can just as easily be reversed by another person as clever or more.
I admit you are right though and I should read the bible more often.

 

[JBroll]

For what its worth to you, the covenant of the old testament and the laws of moses (which by the way applied to jews and not gentiles "non-jews") was upgraded to the new covenant hence New Testament.

Matt 15:17-19 seems to take care of that. Yes, I've heard that same argument and he was clearly talking about having to follow Moses' law. Even if you get rid of the Old Testament (which I would agree with, because then you're halfway towards making the right choice with respect to the work... although you do lose the Ten Commandments that apparently make Christians good people and atheists immoral animals), let's throw a few more in there...

"He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. Therefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come."

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.

But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.

he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers...

Connect the dots.

I know you meant well and I can appreciate your approach in understanding that your approach is ideally based on physical science.
Where the potential problems lies is in the seperation of spiritual from physical being that you cannot physically grasp ahold of something without physical matter such as the spiritual realm.
Anything that I or anyone else could explain or talk you or anyone else into believing through reasoning can just as easily be reversed by another person as clever or more.
I admit you are right though and I should read the bible more often.

No, you're wrong on why I don't believe. First and foremost is logic - as the famous dead Greek guy once said, a god that is not omnipotent is a no god and any other god is a failure. The nature of the Christian god, as well as any other omnipotent being, is internally contradictory; if I am to trust logic, which is a much more effective means of gaining knowledge than anything else I've seen, then no such god is possible.

Further, the 'spiritual' realm, on top of being completely unproved, is also undocumentable and supposedly unknowable. This tells me that anyone who claims to know anything of such a world is either a liar or a lunatic (to reference of one the poorer Christian apologists), and I can trust nobody's word of the supernatural or spiritual over anyone else's. It's awfully demeaning to say that someone is unqualified for their position, but when a whole class of occupations (priests, ministers, and other suchlike) is no more qualified to do their job than the man who delivers my mail, I have to be a little skeptical.

And, yes... you should read your Bible more often...

... because the world needs more atheists.

Jeff

 

[STINNETT]

lilhermiejobo, religion doesn't have a leg to stand on in a debate that requires ANY sort of logic or reason to be applied. You can't exclude religion from the accepted standards of empirical evidence by claiming that it is a "spiritual", as opposed to "physical", entity. The Bible makes several very "physical" claims - such as virgin births, resurections, all sorts of astonishing miracles, etc, and those are the foundations of your religion. Those are very scientific claims. If you could accept that all of those are probably false, thereby relegating your book to what is most likely a mere work of mythology, nobody would have much of a problem with Christianity.
In stark contrast to this, and what sets the blood of people like me, (and obviously Mr JBroll) to boiling, is that not only do Christians insist upon the veracity of these very physical claims - but when real science contradicts them they combat real science.

And if you want to truly understand the universe, do as was already suggested and read Carl Sagan. Start with "Cosmos".

 

[Radd]

Further, the 'spiritual' realm, on top of being completely unproved, is also undocumentable and supposedly unknowable.
Jeff

I watch this show called Ghost Hunters on the Sci-fi channel. They try to debunk claims of "activity" and often are able to. They've caught some interesting things on video and even more interesting things on audio.
At times an investigator will ask questions and when the audio is played back there is definite response. They're usually hard to understand but just the fact that there is something there and once in a while the audio is pretty clear. I personally believe that this show is legit also and not a pre written phony.

This whole segment is good and you should check it out but at 6:20 is where the audio is analyzed. Its spirits from the Manson murders:

 

[STINNETT]

Its spirits from the Manson murders:

No it isn't.

It's TV. That's a bunch of methodically staged bullshit.

Those guys put on a thin veil of skepticism just to add an air of credibility - but then they proceed to betray that in every form imaginable.
I literally laugh out loud watching that stuff.

 

[Radd]

No it isn't.

It's TV. That's a bunch of methodically staged bullshit.

Those guys put on a thin veil of skepticism just to add an air of credibility - but then they proceed to betray that in every form imaginable.
I literally laugh out loud watching that stuff.

I don't agree with any of that. I've seen enough of the show now that has me believe otherwise but neither you or I know for sure. It's okay, you don't have to believe it.

 

[abyssofdreams]

The universe is a slightly bigger than my dick.

Unless you're gay I live in a vagina sometimes? Hmm, could be worse.

 

[lilhermiejobo]

No, you're wrong on why I don't believe. First and foremost is logic - as the famous dead Greek guy once said, a god that is not omnipotent is a no god and any other god is a failure. The nature of the Christian god, as well as any other omnipotent being, is internally contradictory; if I am to trust logic, which is a much more effective means of gaining knowledge than anything else I've seen, then no such god is possible.

I'm not sure where you're taking this but our miscommunication is abundantly clear to me now. Firstly, reasoning requires logic in order to reach any decision. Trusting in logic which is bound by physical science, psychology and human reasoning makes faith of the spiritual (as plainly and clearly stated in The Bible to be necessary for anyone to be pardoned of the mistakes of this lifetime) invalid. I say this because Christ didn't appeal to the people of the earth saying "Figure me out and you've got VIP passes to eternity."

The Bible says forgiveness and VIP passes come through belief of Christ being the son of God and dying as the ultimate sacrifice (as opposed to goats and sheep in the O.T.) paying for my sins, yours, everyone else on this forum, your mailman, etc... Rose from the dead and was seen by hundreds of people.
Obviously it'd be a pretty difficult thing for any and everyone to gain access to physical evidence of Christ and to witness the miracles performed and that is why we're called to simply believe and warned not to rely on the logic of men and women's reasoning.
I was directly addressing the use of logic as opposed to faith.

Further, the 'spiritual' realm, on top of being completely unproved, is also undocumentable and supposedly unknowable. This tells me that anyone who claims to know anything of such a world is either a liar or a lunatic (to reference of one the poorer Christian apologists), and I can trust nobody's word of the supernatural or spiritual over anyone else's. It's awfully demeaning to say that someone is unqualified for their position, but when a whole class of occupations (priests, ministers, and other suchlike) is no more qualified to do their job than the man who delivers my mail, I have to be a little skeptical.

And, yes... you should read your Bible more often...

... because the world needs more atheists.

Jeff

Again my response directly to this would be limited to the logic/faith debate.
The Bible says that anyone saved through Christ is made new and that we are now Ambassadors of Christ. I'm not knocking priests, ministers or other "men and women of the cloth" because those are very important callings on a person's life. I'm simply saying that all that are saved through Christ are called to be "ministers" (which, by the way isn't a money paying job for an average joe like myself or millions of other Christians). If being called mindless and things of that nature is all I have to put up with while I'm here for putting my faith in a God who proved himself to thousands upon hundreds thousands of people centuries ago and continues to touch the lives of millions upon millions today as opposed to putting my faith in the logic of a dead greek guy, I'll take my chances. I can't speak for anyone but myself obviously but I tend to value everyday of my life and considering "forever" seems like too long for me to feel comfortable gambling with.

My own faith comes through the 26 years I've been given so far and the countless miracles in my own life and those around me. Some are unexplainable by means of logic, science, reasoning or the knowledge gained through teams of nurses, doctors, physicians, and the likes.

By the way...

After receiving the commandments and returning to Mount Sinai, Moses saw that the Israelites had "defiled themselves", and that his brother, Aaron, had made a Golden Calf and an altar in front of it. Moses, in terrible anger, broke the tablets.[15] God later offered Moses to carve two other tablets, to replace the ones he smashed.[16] God himself appears as the writer.[17] This second set, brought down from Mount Sinai by Moses,[18] was placed in the Ark of the Covenant,[19] hence designated as the "Ark of the Testimony."[20]

The Bible also makes other references to the commandments. References to them and the consequences for not following them are found throughout the book of Deuteronomy. Jesus refers to the commandments in several verses,[21] and condenses them into two general commands:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is the great general commandment that Jesus took from the book of Deuteronomy (6: 5). And a second is like unto it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.[22]

These words quoted by Jesus appear in the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 respectively.

I'm not FOR the deletion of the O.T. rather the point I was trying to make was that the Law of Moses was eradicated and replaced with Christ's Law which started a new covenant. To erase the O.T. would be like getting rid of history books commonly found in schools and libraries and we've all heard the phrase "history repeats itself" which strikes me as reason enough not to get rid of them.

Hopefully this makes sense and doesn't get misunderstood again.

 

[JBroll]

Logic doesn't need to be bound to the physical sciences. It exists entirely in abstraction if necessary, and because I'm a math nerd first and a physics nerd second that's the way I take it. Therefore, miracles and other acts of deities mean precisely donkey balls until a consistent and conceivable god is actually brought about... which hasn't happened yet, and which is as far as I'm concerned pretty much impossible. Going off about your zombie messiah is useless until you can bring about a deity that actually makes sense, and then we can deal with problems of the physical realm (namely, the problem of his existence)...

More later.

Jeff

 

[lilhermiejobo]

lilhermiejobo, religion doesn't have a leg to stand on in a debate that requires ANY sort of logic or reason to be applied. You can't exclude religion from the accepted standards of empirical evidence by claiming that it is a "spiritual", as opposed to "physical", entity. The Bible makes several very "physical" claims - such as virgin births, resurections, all sorts of astonishing miracles, etc, and those are the foundations of your religion. Those are very scientific claims. If you could accept that all of those are probably false, thereby relegating your book to what is most likely a mere work of mythology, nobody would have much of a problem with Christianity.
In stark contrast to this, and what sets the blood of people like me, (and obviously Mr JBroll) to boiling, is that not only do Christians insist upon the veracity of these very physical claims - but when real science contradicts them they combat real science.

And if you want to truly understand the universe, do as was already suggested and read Carl Sagan. Start with "Cosmos".

I don't understand why it is too hard for you to understand that believing and having faith in the spiritual would require the physical claim you mentioned (virgin birth, resurrected dead, and other astonishing miracles) as means for people who witnessed them to believe. Key point that you should re-read several times to get the full effect is "people who witnessed them to believe".
Not to be an ass, but this simply means that the people who were physically there and were physically able to witness these things would have spiritual faith. Obviously now that we're living in 2008 we can't go back and walk around with Christ watching Him do all these cool and bizarre things.
That is a very key element in why it requires faith which isn't something that can be measured or experimented on through scientific means or logic.
If you and I were hanging out in the local market a couple thousand+ years ago and Jesus walked up and brought some dude back to life of course logic would first have us doubt it, question, and then come to some sort of decision. Unfortunately we don't have that luxury today because Christ is no longer physically on earth and now we're forced out of our comfort zone into this spiritual realm that we can't see, feel, touch, smell, taste, etc.
My faith isn't based on real science so I can see where this would cause a problem since your logic and reasoning appears to be.

Its like george michael said and fred durst repeated man
gotta have faith.

While I do sometimes find the universe to be interesting, I'm not all that interested in learning about it, its just not my type of thing really. I'm sure Carl Sagan was a really smart dude though and I can understand why people such as yourself and JBroll would look up to him in the manners that you've shown in this thread.

 

[abyssofdreams]

Here, let the master himself teach you how big the universe is:



This short clip might be the best 4:30 minutes you'll ever spend.

 

[lilhermiejobo]

Logic doesn't need to be bound to the physical sciences. It exists entirely in abstraction if necessary, and because I'm a math nerd first and a physics nerd second that's the way I take it. Therefore, miracles and other acts of deities mean precisely donkey balls until a consistent and conceivable god is actually brought about... which hasn't happened yet, and which is as far as I'm concerned pretty much impossible. Going off about your zombie messiah is useless until you can bring about a deity that actually makes sense, and then we can deal with problems of the physical realm (namely, the problem of his existence)...

More later.

Jeff

I totally agree that logic doesn't need to be bound to the physical sciences. That wasn't what I said though.

Trusting in logic which is bound by physical science, psychology and human reasoning makes faith of the spiritual (as plainly and clearly stated in The Bible to be necessary for anyone to be pardoned of the mistakes of this lifetime) invalid.

What I meant by this is that relying on phsyical science, psychology and human reasoning IS what bounds logic. Logic itself is only bound by our own perception and reasoning.

 

[lilhermiejobo]

I watch this show called Ghost Hunters on the Sci-fi channel. They try to debunk claims of "activity" and often are able to. They've caught some interesting things on video and even more interesting things on audio.
At times an investigator will ask questions and when the audio is played back there is definite response. They're usually hard to understand but just the fact that there is something there and once in a while the audio is pretty clear. I personally believe that this show is legit also and not a pre written phony.

This whole segment is good and you should check it out but at 6:20 is where the audio is analyzed. Its spirits from the Manson murders:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7-1ywK7XfA

I used to watch that when I was back in the states. The ones that freaked me out the most were always the old fashioned hotels for some reason. I'll check this out after my chick wakes up... I might have seen this one but I can't remember. It sounds familiar though.

 

[JBroll]

Perception doesn't need to play a role in mathematical logic. The bound of reasoning limits what we can do but it in no way invalidates conclusions arrived at logically.

And you're missing my point... 'faith in the spiritual' is completely indistinct and nobody has any idea about what that should be better than anyone else, so you're literally just pulling things out of your ass to have faith in - and I'd rather have no answer and accept a good idea than insist that I have an answer that's no better than any other.

Jeff