Choosing a faith

Yes, the phenomenon of gravity did indeed exist before the earth was inhabited. However, the Law of Universal Gravitation had to wait for a human to create it.Scientific laws do not run the universe and its workings. Rather, scientific laws only describe how the universe works to the best that humans can observe and describe such phenomena. Hence, scientific laws are Man-made.Should be very easy to understand, but I will offer an analogy.I have an atlas of topographical maps of Southern California. Each map is a detailed description of the shape of the terrain. The shape of the terrain is not dictated by the map, but rather that shape is determined by other forces and processes that have operated on it over time. All the map does is describe human observations of the shape of the terrain. The terrain existed long before humans came along to observe it (albeit not entirely in its present form, since that form is dynamic and changes constantly through natural forces and processes). Maps did not exist until humans drew them.All that should be self-evident.

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All of those points do not answer the issue of how they promote ourselves or our gene pool.

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As you should have known ten years ago “promoting ourselves” is irrelevant. For the other you’ve already forgotten that helping the “us” group would have “promoted our gene pool” when we were living as hunter-gatherers. Indeed, the fourth still will help.

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However, they evolve in contradiction to Darwinian principles of survival of the fittest or even survival of the gene pool.

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Obviously that is untrue. You don’t even understand Darwin’s principle.

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Once again, science of the gaps You have to come up with subjective scenarios to fit your beliefs

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Once again a display of arrogance and hypocrisy. Surely considering other possibilities is the opposite of “God of the gaps” thinking - which only allows one answer and demands that it be accepted as fact.

ICANT, it's been a while. Glad to see you here again.dwise1 already answered your question but let me extend his comments.The relationships between matter and energy can be seen in operation. By studying those relationships we have found we can express them in our symbolic language and achieve an excellent APPROXIMAION of what is actually happening in reality.Yes, the relationships have been working since the beginning of time (or before). But until humans charted the relationship with our math, gravity had no meaning. It just operated more or less the ways our math eventually showed.What caused the relationships to operate as we approximate in our models is unknown. As usual, religious types will find some kind of god or other to blame. In reality we don't know. No one does. Since we haven't yet seen the other side to T=0 there may well be a natural explanation for all relationships the universe has shown us. This universe may have had no choice but to operate this way from purely natural causes. We don't yet know. Your god is as ignorant as my nature. No one can draw any conclusions from ignorance.So, yes, the matter/energy operations are universe-old, well prior to the formation of the milky way let alone earth. But the concept of gravity, and our models of gravity as useful tools, are strictly human concepts that didn't arise in this universe until a few hundred years ago (barring an alien or two somewhere that may have developed their own models prior to earth existing).Welcome back. Don't be such a stranger.

Obviously you see the end of life as we know it to be the absolute end. After death it is timeless oblivion.
Let's assume you are correct. Do you wish you had never been born. I'd suggest that the vast majority of people are glad they have been given the life even if this is all there is. You can count me in on that and I have been able to be involved in a number of happy descendants.Yes, I believe that my consciousness in some way lives on but either way I am grateful to have been born.None of this is meant to minimize the suffering that does exist but also we shouldn't ignore the joy people have in their lives. Just look at the joy that Tanypteryx is experiencing with the birth of his first great grand child.

I'm not meaning human life, I'm talking about ALL life. Everything that has ever lived has died. In order to live at all everything that's alive has had to compete to with other life just to do it. In order to survive most of the organisms that have ever lived have had to kill and consume other living organisms. That's a process that's consumed who knows how many trillions of organisms over billions of years.On the scale of things humans are a tiny and utterly insignificant life form that also has to compete, kill just to survive at all - and then simply die anyway.I have no idea how you can think that this massively inefficient, cruel and haphazard system is designed at all, let alone designed by a being that is supposed to love us. I'm struggling to understand why you think that this is an argument for a beneficent creator. No sane human would design such an evil system like this let alone a god.
​ Again, what has that got to do with it? The fact that we humans can extract some pleasures from this appalling system does nothing to explain why it has been set up so that that is all we get. And, of course, if just ignores the suffering of the rest of nature for all those billions of years.Surely you can see that you're simply falling for a human-made rationalisation of why things are set up the way they are. This 'veil of suffering' must have a purpose beyond what it actually is so primitive people invent a better life after death.It makes no sense at all does it? Why not invent the better place to start with? Why make this 100% genocidal system for all life for ever?

I understand that you do not believe in a universal intelligence. Will you agree that you believe in materialism in that there is nothing beyond that which can be physically identified. Or do you hold the agnostic view in that it can't be known. I suppose I'm agnostic from that way of looking at it, however theism, IMHO does represent the most reasonable response to what it is that we can believe. Do you have another option? The situation that we are discussing is the existence or non-existence of a universal intelligence that is the first cause of our existence. I agree that there is no scientific evidence for my beliefs, Nor however, is there any scientific evidence to show that I am wrong. It is what I believe best represents the truth of things. I don't care how many layers of scientific evidence are ultimately discovered. Scientific evidence tells us how things happened which I find fascinating, but it won't give us a first cause. We can only draw our subjective conclusions based on what we do know.The fact that life exists in the form that it does with intelligence, with emotions and with an understanding of right and wrong leads me to believe that we are the result of a pre-existing intelligence. Is it conclusive? No. Is it reasonable? Yes. ..and you also said Thanks for that. Your knowledge in this field obviously far exceeds mine. My point though is that there is randomness in creation through both evolutionary processes as well as what happens as a result of conscious thought.I contend that with this randomness the future is open. For example I contend that there is no way of knowing what I will have for lunch a week from now. It is something that simply isn't there to be known. Given all the facts available we might make an educated guess and possibly even come up with something probable but it can't be known even by any deity.

In a sense that fits in with why I started this thread. My point was that it isn't about the name we assign to a deity but what matters is the nature of that which we deify.The problem with most of religion is that we are looking for a god to serve our own personal needs. We used to have a sign on oir fridge that said this: "Most People Want to Serve God but Only in an Advisory Capacity". ")

I use wiki as a source so as to try and stay clear of quoting people who have a biased view. It seems to me that wiki is as close as I can get to presenting an unbiased view.

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I use wiki as a source so as to try and stay clear of quoting people who have a biased view.

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You fail to understand the criticism. It’s your misuse of Wikipedia as a source that is the issue. You only used it as a source for out of context quotes to try to prop up your position. You didn’t bother to understand it at all.Not that that stops you quoting people who do have a biased view either. And you abuse them as sources too.The problem - again - is that you don’t care about the truth.

I just said life. I didn't specify human life. My personal belief, right or wrong, is that consciousness , (soul, spirit or whatever), is eternal. As I get older I find that it is still just me. The same me as I was when I was 19. Sure, my body is subject to entropy and decay, but I'm not. Make of that what you want. I certainly understand why this is a probelm for you and I agree that you have nailed the biggest problem that Christians have to seal with and why over the centuries the majority of deities have been angry ones that need to be appeasaed.My point was that there is suffering but there is also a lot of joy to be found.I'll make a couple of points. I don't think I'm any different than you in this so I would say that when we see people in Sudan suffering as they are now we empathize with them and to some degree suffer with them. We don't want the world to be like that. Why, is that? Sure we are culturally conditioned but, and I know we disagree, I believe that there is more to it than that. Why does our culture care at all?We know that there are creatures including humans that are prepared to suffer in order to minimize the suffering of others.Also, I do see this world as being a precursor, or entry point to a renewed existence that does not know suffering and where metaphorically speaking the wolf lays down with the lamb and where the law of the land is peace and love.In the end Christianity as I understand it makes more sense to me than any other religious or non-religious belief about or lives and the world we live in.

Right. I just described the fact that all of life for billions of years has suffered and died just in order to survive itself. It has to consume other life just to live itself. All life that has ever been has died and all life that there will ever be will die.All so that a few humans that have only been around a few thousand years can find a moment of joy every now and again?Really? You're just going to shrug it off like that? And it's just a happy accident that you were born to Christian parents in a Christian country?None of this bothers you at all?

Whereas, by contrast, you are using it to serve your personal need for an intelligent designer

Phat, I have been really busy the past ten days or so.
Today was the first for me to see that the other post has
been locked down.I did not get to make my last reply. So here it is.You insist that it is "nonsense" to make the assertion that
we can become members of God's family.Phat, this is not my claim. This is what the Apostles who
wrote the Bible assert, and very strongly, with words
that could not be any clearer.Dozens of times the Apostles state emphatically than we
can become the "sons" of God.Jesus, who created us, states that He is pleased to call us
brethren (plural for brother). I had five brothers; they are
all dead now, but they are members of my family.Romans 8 states the the universe is in a state of decay. It
is longing for the "children of God" to come into our glory.Read, very carefully, all of Roman 8. We as the son of God,
with full access to His Holy Spirit, will go about restoring
the universe to unimaginable beauty.Like Him, we will work. We will have countless angels
under us. We will be far greater than angels, and we will
rule over them.The angels, including Satan, never had access to the Holy
Spirit. We will have total access to it.In 2 Corinthians 6:18 God states "I will be a Father unto
you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the
Lord Almighty."Who should I believe here? You or God.Do you think that God was confused about our
relationship with Him?Jesus loves us so much that He died a horrible death in
order to spare us eternal death.I would give my life in order to save my wife, my sons, and
my grandkids. They are members of my family.I would not give my life for those who are not members of
my family. I would risk my life, but I would not give it for
them.The Prophets, Apostles, and others who were called by
God, had power to heal the sick and to raise the dead.
Angels were never given this power.Luke 24:49 states that the Apostles were to wait to be
endowed with power (Holy Spirit) from on high.Acts 1:5 states that they were to be baptized with the
the Holy Spirit. They were to receive the very essence of
God's divine nature.There are dozens of verses that states we can become
the very sons of God. And, that He will be our father.Why is it that God led these men to use terms that are
clearly connected with family and endearment if this were
not His intention?

You have one final message pending on the other topic. Then the topic will close. Why not post this over there?