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All well and good but if you have 'faith' in this unknown entity you are imbuing it with human characteristics such as it being 'all loving' and are still left wrestling with the baby cancer conundrum.
And if its just a force of nature like gravity why is worthy of any respect, devotion, obedience etc. I don't know anyone who has faith in gravity - its just there. Are there really people out there who have to pray to the gravity god that when they put a cup of tea down it stays there rather than floating off?
I agree that we don't have all the answers. There are surely forces out there beyond our comprehension but that doesn't mean they are sentient beings and if they're not then its like worshiping an ice cube melting or salt dissolving in water.
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We don't have all the aswers... yet. We may never have all the answers. But we are at least making progress.
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We don't have all the aswers... but at least science has some aswers. Concerning the physical world, religion has none.
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We don't have all the answers... but is that a reason to just invent something higher than ourselves with which to fill in the blanks?
Incidentally, we're all atheists here. There are about 3000 gods or so that man, to our knowledge, has invented. We all agree that at least 2999 of those are horse bugger. That makes us all pretty big atheists. There's just 1 left that we still have a debate over. :-)
The search for answers is something we all experience, sure, but every atheist will stop you to say there there's questioning and then there's believing in something that makes even the Greek myths seem plausible by comparison. To go from, "We don't know everything that's out there, man," to "We were created by a great and powerful Lord who has given our lives meaning and has shaped our world in just a week's time, imbuing us with the meaning and faith and guidance of a shepherd to his herd so that we can end up in his splendrous heaven and not the torturous pit of hell," is a bit much, don't you think?
If I went on the street spouting how I think we are all offspring from a planetary Übermensch who will fly to our planet in the future and stake his claim in our society's morals to make us more freed, aware and self-realized people as our savior, I'd be wheeled off to an asylum where they'd strap me into a straight-jacket and then strap me to a chair in that straight-jacket. But if I talked about the immense fairy tale of God and all that is laid out in the bible, however, which is about twenty times as bonkers as my Übermensch theory, I fit right in. History has justified religion and all the bad things people can rationalize through their belief in it, because it has gone on for so long and each generation has been about as cowardly as the last to abandon it. And here we are, still stuck with it and not enough people want to speak up and say, "This religious stuff-might not be for us, right?
A belief in God or similar beliefs on the hands of people who search for answers can't credibly be compared to Newton's theories. The force of gravity is a daily reality, because it's the only thing gluing us to our positions as we sit and talk now, and the opposite and opposing forces and rules of motion for objects are those that play by the very rules of our planet that have long been backed up and tested to death to prove their validity. There has never been a single sign of a concept of a God that is verifiable, not even a sign, and certainly no phenomenon that is directly provable within seconds of experimentation as Newton's finding are. The God delusion likely couldn't even be considered theoretical (because a hypothesis has to be based on sensible factors that would make sense to ask questions about) whereas what you speak of with Newton is intensely practical and a foundation of our world.
I'm not defending organized religions that claim to know all the answers. These religions which promulgate such notions need to evolve based on what we learn as we progress as a species. They need to reconcile their teachings with the facts. Otherwise they are feeding delusions. The trouble is, they have become institutionalized.
Can you give us your source for this hypothesis?
An R.E. teacher at school. It always stuck with me.
Impressive. Didn't realise you'd gone to such extravagant lengths to establish the veracity of the statement. Well don't know about the rest of you but I'm sold.
Obviously she didn't come up with it, but that's how we learn things through dissemination.
You seem very certain of your views. The difference is I'm not. I'm open to ideas. Open to the fact that what we know is hardly everything. That there are far more surprises about how everything works to be encountered. Where they will take us, nobody knows, yet.
This is not an 'us against them' argument or a 'god vs no god' argument either. It's a 'what we know vs. what we don't know' argument.
I thought it was from studying scripture?
Perhaps that was the ultimate source given her profession. Anyway, I see little point in continuing posting in this thread and I will cease now.
Guess I'm never going to find out about baby cancer then? Just got to accept that He knows best and keep on worshiping Him regardless.
Well, I'm afraid I don't have a direct phone line to God to ask him. I'm sure there are articles online dealing with this if you are particularly interested. I think instead of interest though, you have an axe to grind. Bowing out now.
But gravity even during the times of Newton was a phenomenon we knew about. He didn't write his theory out of thin air. There is a lot we don't know but we won't get any further in our understanding by making up godly explanations.
Already posted said articles and they were ignored as well.
I'm not even interested in why God does it particularly. Just how you, as a religious person, reconcile the fact that he does it. Is it really enough to say 'Well he moves in mysterious ways' and that's the end of it? Although do I have an axe to grind I'm genuinely interested in why people are happy to think rationally in all areas of their life but then throw all that out of the window when it comes to this one subject.
I'm not defending organized religion's opinion of the origins of the universe. Far from it. I'm just not closing my mind to some sort of methodical (or organized) phenomena beyond our current levels of sensory comprehension or analysis.
@bondjames, which is why we test things to prove their worth. It's why they're called Newton's laws, and not Newton's hypotheses. That they've been proven is what is vital here. The same thing can't be said for the ideas religion is based on and that its followers want to be taught as truth, like a man who can die, but then rise from dead, about a young earth of about 6,000 years, about a savior who has a healing touch, etc.
I don't know about you but I've never heard of a case, at any time from history-and there would be one-where a person died without any doubt and then rose from the dead once again. That people spend time debating if a guy like Jesus really was resurrected tells us how loony the business is. The young earth hogwash has been bulldozed into the ground to an embarrassing degree, with undeniable accuracy thanks to the layers of the earth and the dating of the layers, as well as our whole fossil record. 6,000 years probably wouldn't even be equitable to a millimeter in the measurement of the earth's existence, yet these people want their "theory" to be taken seriously or replaced for science lessons in schools! Thanks to the likes of Criss Angel and David Blaine we've got Jesus's walking on water routine down pat, but I've yet to see anyone who could touch another person and immediately cure them of all illness either, but like the resurrection business I feel myself growing stupider just talking about it.
If so much of what religion holds its stake in and what the faith is attached to is hollow of logic and sense, can you really blame people for thinking everything else is tripe too?
@bondjames, I'm open to ideas too. I just spent a lot of time in my life thinking and reading and when I came across religion I thought and read a bit and said to myself, "Whelp, that's bullshit," and moved on to things worth my time. Like science and proven theory, for instance. Atheists don't wake up the first morning of their life and they are that way, we reach our conclusions based on reading and what impressions we gain from religion. We find none, find it dangerous or find it outdated, or a combination of all three, and that's how we live our lives afterward. We're all open to hearing other sides but the religious and religious apologists (I don't mean you here, just to clarity that for a possible response) are going to need to come up with greater ones than the loony drivel that has been peddled for centuries despite the retorts of science that've ripped the data apart with evidence that those people don't want to bother with presenting.
There's stuff we don't know, obviously, but at the end of the day I think it's far more likely that we'll find our universe was made through a complex and drawn out series of reactions and explosions than that there was an all knowing supreme overlord who did it all, and the same with our genetic development from apes and not as prototype creations on said overload's conveyor line in the sky. There's so many amazing things in our world, like certain animals that evolve to make themselves phosphorescent at night or that breed into new defense mechanisms down their family tree, or how our bodies's systems of microscopic workers learn to fight off viruses like army men, but people just want to credit God with it all and not the proven and backed up knowledge of nature and development that we have open to us that works free from any savior's tampering. Our world is cool enough without having to imagine that a myth did it all.
Yes, but not all people of 'faith' focus on the loony drivel. Some focus on the life lessons, principles and tenets in their religion. Most of that is universal anyway and I mentioned some of it in a previous post. Charity, forgiveness, caring, humility etc.etc. There's nothing wrong with that. We shouldn't assume that just because someone is devout that they are focused on the unprovable elements. They may take something from religion that is helpful to them and their spirit, in which case more power to them. It may uplift them like a good Bond film, a book or a song does you and I. Nothing wrong with that. Not everyone who is religious is necessarily absolute about it.
Yes, that is quite likely but I can't say it's 'far more likely'. It could just be as likely that there is some 'organization' to it all. Some symmetry to what previously appeared random to us. Only time, and increased knowledge will tell.
Using the blind man touching the elephant analogy: Can a blind man perceive space? Can he perceive what he cannot touch or hear? No, because he cannot see. Maybe he can still potentially perceive it however, but not as clearly as you or I.
Perhaps we are all 'blind' when it comes to the workings of the universe, in that our senses do not allow us to experience it fully. That doesn't mean we don't perceive it somehow though, and religion becomes an imprecise approximation for some.
Yes but some of us are trying to learn braille while others are happy to just blunder around bumping into the furniture.
Its a bit rich those supporting faith saying "at least we are open to ideas" when time and time again, its organised religion that has turned its back on new ideas. And when these ideas are then so overhwelmed by evidence, they accept those ideas and have to redraw their own doctrines to accomadate the ideas that turn out to be fact. Or reject them and become a bigger laughing stock.
All new inventions were ideas once. Then turned into reality using the method of science.
When was the last big idea religion had? What big contribution to new stuff can we credit religion with?
Suicide bombers? Without religion we'd still be stuck in the dark ages of hijacking planes and taking hostages. It was religion with its virtuous promises of 72 virgins that brought terrorism into the 21st century.
And be fair - where would we be without Songs of Praise?
Microsoft and Boeing have both done more for human progress in 30 years and 100 years respectively than religion in 2000 years.
I don't know. 500 years ago? That's also why I deny theology the right to call itself a science. It's been centuries since theologians came up with new knowledge. If it ever was a science, which I doubt, it certainly is no more.
I also wanted to give my "take" on the question about "baby cancer", though I couldn't find where it was first mentioned. Maybe God or a greater power can't prevent this and so many other tragedies because it's not possible for him, and because ultimately this is our world. This ties in to what I said earlier about purpose, and tending and keeping the garden. If you believe Bible writings (and I don't take everything in it as face value; I think many parts of it are allegorical or poetic, like Jesus walking on the water, though who knows), early on it also mentioned the "Fall" or the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden. Maybe this expulsion, putting people outside the realm they were originally intended to be in, eventually made it possible for a worse experience for humankind and the planet, made it possible for all kinds of ill and ungoverned effects to appear. The hope among many is that, if we live in a creative way now, with love and truth, this could have a beneficial effect further afield. But it starts with one person--me--and how I live. And I find that being open to a greater power helps. In my view, so many of these things can't be proved--that's why I focus on what I can do in my living, which is actually a lot--and what each of you say on this thread is valuable to me too.
I can't prove that Father Chrstmas exists, but I don't think it's possible to prove that Father Christmas doesn't exist.
I can't prove that the tooth fairy exists, but I don't think it's possible to prove that the tooth fairy doesn't exist.
I can't prove that unicorns exists, but I don't think it's possible to prove that unicorns don't exist.
I can't prove that Darth Vader exists etc etc
How many times are we going to see this come up. We have done this to death!! The fact that it keeps coming up is evidence, in itself, of the real lack of thought and consistancy regarding how those of faith seek to justify their own delusions. If people are willing to believe in things on the basis that their non existance can't be proved, then there is not much more to be said.
This is in no way a dig at Dragger's, and I only comment on it as it was a phrase used, well a similar phrase that left me feeling angry.
Some of you will know some of the story of my personal life, but others wont. It's not something that I usually bring to the forum, but in this instance it reminded me of the situation. Back in 2008 my wife and I lost twin girls. They were full term, 40 weeks due to be birthed by caesarean. Sadly we lost them three days before she was due to go in. I had been at work, when my wife called to come to the hospital straight away. On my arrival I learned that we'd lost one, and sadly there was no heartbeat from the other. In an instant my world fell apart. As the news hit us like a freight train, one of the nurses commented as she left the room,
"The lord moves in mysterious ways."
Now I'm generally a placid kind of guy, I try and see the good in everyone and try not to judge someone on sight. But I make no apology in saying I asked that the woman be removed from the room before I get to her. Which they did.
I have never been an overly religious person. I have wondered if there is a higher power. But in the circumstance that changed me forever, I decided that there couldn't be.
I wondered if there was a God, why he would do this to me, why he would be so cruel.
Through a lot of support and counselling (many members of this forum have been unbelievably kind in their support over the years) it is possible to overcome such tragedy. But it never goes away. Every 31st of March we remember our girls. And every time you hear a news story of a young life taken, you're reminded of it. It's always with you, but you learn to live with it. I've never asked for special favours, or a free pass because of what happened. But I lost faith for a long time. I still don't believe. But if someone else does then I'm fine with that. I would never tell someone to stop their beliefs, or that they're wrong. If it brings comfort then I'm happy for you.
What happened to me has made me a stronger person in myself. I tolerate things that I once would of been angered at. But I don't tolerate fools easily. I hate seeing someone upset, and will do whatever I can to make someone smile. And if I see lives taken for no reason I feel rage.
Religion is something I'm okay with. Just don't expect me to be on board with your thoughts.
I don't put this down to anything that God has done for me. If he does exist, and I do happen to meet him when I expire, then he's got things to answer for.