Choosing a faith

Perhaps you don't understand my point. Scientific law exists and has existed without humans. We simply learned the theory and law which proved what already existed and which had been operational in practice. Discovered does not equate to "Created". There are numerous...perhaps infinite relationships between notes that have not yet been composed or defined to the satisfaction of human understanding or enjoyment. To argue otherwise would place humans on the level of creators. And yet there is nothing new under the sun.Your warped deification of human reasoning explains your anti bent.

Were's the conflation? this is a Christian belief system. They believe exactly what you believe with the only addition being that they think it's best to kill yourself early to meet Jesus rather than wait.

Not unless you show me another sentient species in this universe that preceded humanity.Do relationships exist among the particles and processes in the universe? Yes.Does the math and the reasoning explaining those relationships exist outside the human mind? No. Give or take an alien or two.You see a realm where undiscovered laws, medicines, patents and songs reside in unrequited knowledge. That would be a nice place to work but it doesn’t exist. As far as anyone can tell our laws are human conceptions of our observations. They are not the mental regurgitations from an diaphanous cosmic classroom.Please remember that these human-created models we have are only approximations. In a curious twist on what people think about the laws of physics, our models like general relativity and QFT are such that an actual occurrence can be off by orders of magnitude but still be within 3, 4, 5 decimal places of the model. The universe IS NOT a precise clockwork though it sometimes appears to operate damn close.The point is, our laws are good tools but they are not the kind of “perfect” someone would expect of a divinely crafted law. They have too much “human” written all over the symbology and reasoning and results.

All of those points do not answer the issue of how they promote ourselves or our gene pool. I'm not denying that altruism and empathy evolve in a culture. However, they evolve in contradiction to Darwinian principles of survival of the fittest or even survival of the gene pool.

I have no doubt that my understanding of the Bible is flawed in one way or another. I simply don't know on which way my views are flawed. I frankly don't worship my way of understanding the Bible. Yes, I do use the Bible as a way to help me understand the nature of God and his desires for humanity primarily through the life of the man Jesus.Ultimately it is about faith and my belief that there is a God who cares for us, has an ultimate plan for creation and desires that we our foundation for how we live our lives is based on the so called "Golden Rule"I accept that the Bible is written by fallible human beings and not always well intentioned ones as we can see in the promotion of genocide and public stoning. So yes, every Christian has things that they will disagree on and as our world evolves so will our beliefs. In the last 70 years or so there has been a great deal more emphasis based on the cultures and times in which the Biblical texts were written and as a result much of our theological thinking is evolving.As far as my believing in the God I desire goes, the question is why is that the case. Is it because I concocted my ideal of how I want God to be or is it because that "still small voice of God" has influenced me to desire that nature for God?

Give me a break. I have done more than skim wiki pages. Yes, just like everyone else here I find quotes that are consistent with my conclusions.

Absolutely and along with the suffering and death I see a life form that is called to minimize suffering.I also understand a world where there is only physical death and not the death of the self.Do you see a world where intelligence exists that is not the result of intelligence?

Yes of course, that's why there are so many gods and why they change as society changes. We invent our own gods to suit our personal needs. There is no voice, still or otherwise. Obviously.

quote:

---

Give me a break. I have done more than skim wiki pages.

---

I go by what you write and the level of understanding you show. Form that, so far as I can tell, skimming a Wikipedia page is all you’ve done on the subject. If the only thing you quote is Wikipedia and you don’t even fully understand the quote - or the most basic facts - then what else am I to conclude? That you know better? That you’re lying ?

quote:

---

Yes, just like everyone else here I find quotes that are consistent with my conclusions.

---

Not like everyone else. Most of us regard quote mining as a bad thing.

Wellll Excuuuuse Me!

No, we will not excuse you or anyone else for quote mining, as that is basically lying and is not an honest attempt at discussion or discourse.

We? We schmee....I recognize no group authority here.kick rocks

And you wonder why you get no respect here.

So you are a man of no integrity then but we all already knew that per your posts.

Hi Paul, I have a follow up question to Phats question.Did gravity exist before the earth was inhabited?God Bless,