[speechlesstx]

Haha, seriously? you could get a hole in one every time but you don't because you aim for specific pieces of grass? You're that accurate?

How about a hand of bridge? You get a combination of 13 cards out of one deck. The chance of getting the 13 cards that you get is 1 in 635013559600. Now how about with a game of four people? The possible number of games of bridge from the initial deal is 53,644,737,765,488,792,839,237,440,000. Now, every time you deal a game, you get a game that only had a 1 in 53,644,737,765,488,792,839,237,440,000 chance of happening. Completely by chance, no intelligence has gone into making that particular deal happen. By your logic, this is clearly an impossibility. Do you have an explanation?

No, it seems a no-brainer to me that the simple difference is I actually aimed for that area and have the skills and equipment necessary to increase the odds in my favor - as opposed to the chemical reactions necessary to eventually become man happening by chance from a primordial soup of simple organic compounds. What are the mathematical odds of that?

[Fr_Chuck]

Big Bang?? Where did that energy come from, where did all of the matter come from.

[speechlesstx]

The belief is based on empirical fact. Not on a single book.

So is my faith in God based on empirical fact. It seems to me that this is what skeptics don't understand. I can't prove God exists, you have to actually experience God to know.

Belief and faith are different.

True, first you must believe and then you must trust. :)

[GoldieMae]

The answer to all of these questions is FAITH.

Assume the atheist believes that the big bang occurred and led to the creation of all we know in the universe. But what existed before the Big Bang? Did time commence with the Big Bang? Was there nothing, not even time before then? What existed before the Big Bang? What finally made "it" go Bang? Nobody knows. But the belief of what may have or have not existed before is based on faith.

The person who believes in God and science answers this question as follows: God existed before and caused everything we see. This too is based on faith.

The Creationist answers this question as follows: The story of Creation is what I believe, based on faith in God.

Does anyone know the true answer? No. Are we just basing our positions on our most basic beliefs and faith? Yes.

And when it comes to being judgmental. All are equal opportunity offenders, and in general, athiests are just as quick to judge Christians as ignorant something or others as Chrisitans are to declare athiests to be lost.

My personal beliefs are what they are, but they are most definitely based on faith.

(the above lecture, as taught in Existential Philosophy, 201)

[Capuchin]

Fr_Chuck, you seem to have missed a big portion of the conversation. The matter came from energy. This is well understood. Either you can say the energy is eternal, or you can say that the energy was created by god and that god is eternal. Either way you're still stuck with "what created that?". Both speculations have the same unknown, it seems logical to cut out god, because he's an unneeded step that we have no way to measure.

Speechless, you didn't explain my completely random bridge hands.
And as I explained, abiogenesis is not speculated to have happened by chance. It will have happened by chemical eactions which would have always happened in the conditions that were available.

[workcherrie]

I was raised in an extreem religion and my mother thinks she is the most christion person alive and yet she is the biggest gosip and judge you would ever meet!

[otto186]

I was raised in an extreem religion and my mother thinks she is the most christion person alive and yet she is the biggest gosip and judge you would ever meet!

Finally someone understands what I'm trying to point out.

[Capuchin]

Sorry, this thread has gone a long way from your original topic, otto. I do apologise.

[otto186]

Sorry, this thread has gone a long way from your original topic, otto. I do apologise.

LOL that's OK. :)

[excon]

Finally someone understands what i'm trying to point out.

Hello again, otto:

Dude! You didn't mention individuals. You said Christians. Of course there are jerks among the Christians... Just like there are jerks amongst any belief group - like yours. I'm an atheist too, but I'm not angry about it.

Why didn't you suggest that people who eat bread are hypocrites? I know several.

I love to argue when the argument makes sense. This one doesn't anymore.

excon

[workcherrie]

Haha looks like I stepped into something here lol

[speechlesstx]

Fr_Chuck, you seem to have missed a big portion of the conversation. The matter came from energy. This is well understood. Either you can say the energy is eternal, or you can say that the energy was created by god and that god is eternal. Either way you're still stuck with "what created that?". Both speculations have the same unknown, it seems logical to cut out god, because he's an unneeded step that we have no way to measure.

That's the rub my friend, you think it's logical to cut God out of it and I don't, for the simple fact that I cannot reconcile sentient beings emerging out of nothing without a guiding hand any more than I can imagine the new Dallas Cowboys stadium rising from the ground without architects, engineers and builders. It's just plain common sense - no science needed.

Speechless, you didn't explain my completely random bridge hands.
And as I explained, abiogenesis is not speculated to have happened by chance. It will have happened by chemical eactions which would have always happened in the conditions that were available.

I don't want or need to explain bridge hands. You can throw out any number of mathematical odds for things with known values, give us the odds for the unknown values that led to man rising from a primordial soup? Where did those chemicals come from? How did the right conditions come to be? Give us the odds...

[otto186]

Hello again, otto:

Dude! You didn't mention individuals. You said Christians. Of course there are jerks among the Christians.......... Just like there are jerks amongst any belief group - like yours. I'm an atheist too, but I'm not angry about it.

Why didn't you suggest that people who eat bread are hypocrites? I know several.

I love to argue when the argument makes sense. This one doesn't anymore.

excon

I'm not angry about it either. I never said I was.

I understand there are jerks amongst any belief group, but Christians believe in the Bible, and the Bible considers it to be wrong to be judgemental. Where I come from is a small town, everybody there is a pronounced Christian, but yet could write for a New York City tabloid.

The argument I'm trying to make is, if Christians believe in the Bible and what it says, why are they so judgemental when the Bible considers it to be wrong?

[speechlesstx]

Finally someone understands what i'm trying to point out.

Do you seriously think we didn't understand what you were talking about, because after that it seems you were just waiting for someone to agree with you.

[otto186]

Do you seriously think we didn't understand what you were talking about, because after that it seems you were just waiting for someone to agree with you.

I don't care if anyone agrees with me or not, all I'm doing is stating my opinion.

[speechlesstx]

Hello again, otto:

Dude! You didn't mention individuals. You said Christians. Of course there are jerks among the Christians.......... Just like there are jerks amongst any belief group - like yours. I'm an atheist too, but I'm not angry about it.

Sweet :D

[workcherrie]

Just because some one thinks christians are hypocrites doesn't mean they can't or don't believe in god! I do but he dose say in the bible that the wolves live among the sheep, so I find it easier to believe on my own instead of part of an organized religion that care more about "being right" than actually being right!

[Capuchin]

I'm not talking about it being logical to cut out God to explain sentient beings. (Don't take that as meaning I think that we need God to explain sentient beings). I'm talking about it being logical to cut out God to explain where the energy came from at the big Bang. These are separate issues.

You need to understand the bridge analogy for me to get any further with you. Humans do not have an innate understanding of statistics. In statistics, we expect the unexpected to happen. If the expected happened all the time, there would be no need for statistics, because every time you rolled a die, it would always land on the same number. That isn't the world we live in.

Just because you do not know how life evolved from molecules doesn't mean that it's impossible. The odds are low of getting a specific hand in bridge, too, but if you deal enough times, you will get it. The cards to determine if life will form have been dealt many many times since the beginning of the universe. However, It's generally thought that life had a high chance of forming, and probably formed many times before it finally thrived.

[otto186]

Just because some one thinks christians are hypocrites doesn't mean they can't or don't believe in god! I do but he dose say in the bible that the wolves live among the sheep, so I find it easier to believe on my own instead of part of an organized religion that care more about "being right" than actually being right!

I never said that Christians don't believe in God.

so I find it easier to believe on my own instead of part of an organized religion that care more about "being right" than actually being right!

I do agree with this 100%

[workcherrie]

I think people created odds to deal with the fact that they don't know what is happening in there lives and can not predict there future happenings... just an opinion