Zone1 A christian-atheist compromise?

[ding]

I'm open-minded to the possibilities that matter isn't all that exists. There could very well be any number of things we couldn't call matter, universes or things we couldn't even call universes...it's just that the evidence against 'God' as one of those things is just...overwhelming. There's no guiding hand apparent in anything and ancient holy texts show no special knowledge of the universe and are filled with incorrect assertions. That doesn't mean there aren't endless possibilities beyond what science has discovered, just that the 'god' hypothesis hasn't earned a rank above the Santa hypothesis in terms of likelihood, that's just the reality of it.

I don't believe you are open minded. I doubt you have ever studied (objectively or otherwise) the evolution of space and time (aka creation) for the express purpose of answering the question was the universe created intentionally. Which is the correct question to ask. I doubt you even have a semi reasonable perception of God (other than fairy-tale magical being) that would allow you to make an honest objective analysis of that question. But I'm willing to accept I might be wrong. All you have to do is tell me what perception of God you considered and what steps you took to answer the question was the universe created intentionally.

 

[ding]

There's no guiding hand apparent in anything

I disagree. The law of compensation never sleeps. Truth is discovered through a conflict and confusion process. We are free to do and believe anything we want but we are not free to avoid the consequences of our actions and beliefs. There's your guiding hand.

 

[ding]

ancient holy texts show no special knowledge of the universe and are filled with incorrect assertions.

I disagree. Ancient man knew the universe was created from nothing and that matter preceded light thousands of years before science proved it.

 

[frigidweirdo]

What you don't understand is that God is not a myth; nor is religion/spirituality magic. Perhaps Greek thought says it best. Our world is the shadow of the reality. Christianity is not only a peek into that reality, but a knowledge and understanding of it.

You are proposing to take children even deeper into the shadows, so I don't think many Christians will see your proposal as any kind of compromise at all. You want to take children deeper into the shadows. We want to bring them into the light.

Neither is Harry Potter a myth, he really exists. I know this, because I've READ THE BOOK and books always tell the troof.

 

[ding]

That doesn't mean there aren't endless possibilities beyond what science has discovered, just that the 'god' hypothesis hasn't earned a rank above the Santa hypothesis in terms of likelihood, that's just the reality of it.

I disagree. An eternal unchanging creator is the most likely explanation for a universe popping into existence hardwired to produce life and intelligence.

There are an infinite number of combinations of structure of matter to produce a lifeless universes. There's only one structure of matter that is capable of producing a universe that is capable of producing life and intelligence. So we live in an unnatural universe that just so happened to be created in an unnatural way; nearly equal amounts of matter and anti-matter. It can't be an accident. It had to be intentional.

The physical world is entirely abstract and without ‘actuality’ apart from its linkage to consciousness. It is physicists who have expressed most clearly this pervasive relationship between mind and matter, and indeed at times the primacy of mind. Arthur Eddington wrote, “the stuff of the world is mind‑stuff. The mind‑stuff is not spread in space and time." Von Weizsacker stated what he called his “Identity Hypothesis; that consciousness and matter are different aspects of the same reality. In 1952 Wolfgang Pauli said, "the only acceptable point of view appears to be the one that recognizes both sides of reality -- the quantitative and the qualitative, the physical and the psychical -- as compatible with each other, and can embrace them simultaneously . . . It would be most satisfactory of all if physis and psyche (i.e., matter and mind) could be seen as complementary aspects of the same reality." If I say, with Eddington, “the stuff of the world is mind‑stuff,” that has a metaphysical ring. But if I say that ultimate reality is expressed in the solutions of the equations of quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, and quantum field theory -- that sounds like good, modern physics. Yet what are those equations, indeed what is mathematics, but mind‑stuff? -- virtually the ultimate in mind‑stuff and for that reason deeply mysterious. Mind, rather than being a late development in the evolution of organisms, had existed always: that this is a life‑breeding universe because the constant presence of mind made it so.

George Wald: Life and Mind in the Universe

 

[john54]

I don't believe you are open minded. I doubt you have ever studied (objectively or otherwise) the evolution of space and time (aka creation) for the express purpose of answering the question was the universe created intentionally. Which is the correct question to ask. I doubt you even have a semi reasonable perception of God (other than fairy-tale magical being) that would allow you to make an honest objective analysis of that question. But I'm willing to accept I might be wrong. All you have to do is tell me what perception of God you considered and what steps you took to answer the question was the universe created intentionally.

I'm hecka open minded. I expect and actually hope that science will never answer even the tiniest fraction of why the universe is as it is. But at the same time I rank flat earth extremely low as a probability because it would take some incomprehensibly omnipotent thing constructing a deliberate deceit on humanity, or just on me, for the earth to be in fact flat. So while I accept flat earth is a possibility in a universe of for-all-we-know-limitless possibilities, I rank it with the Easter bunny and his friends in the preposterous category of unlikely-to-be-true things. As it happens Jesus being my lord and savior falls in that same category because the evidence for that just isn't there.

I don't know where to rank the likelihood of the God you describe because it sounds like you've arbitrarily decided what to take literally and what not to. I guess that would make you God? Ye who knows God's intended interpretation of seemingly-literal texts. Regardless this God I would also find outrageously unlikely because again, the evidence just isn't there.

It sounds like you're describing a God of the gaps. Since we don't have a provable theory on what initiated the explosion of matter, space and time that formed the universe, then there's God, in that gap of unknowing. So what happens if we gain considerable evidence that, say, there are innumerable parallel universes, and that ours is just one of many, so many that it's likely any manner of universe exists, somewhere in the infinitive of realities. Where do you push God back to then? The 'one'who created all those universes? Well what if we fund that out of the static of random fluctuations matter arises and that's how universes form. Or do you just keep pushing it back? Remember Newton thought God actively kept the planets in their orbit and that was once where the gap God sat, before we learned about gravity and he had to be pushed further out.

The fact remains a god isn't necessary as far as we can tell for us to be here.

 

[ding]

I'm hecka open minded. I expect and actually hope that science will never answer even the tiniest fraction of why the universe is as it is. But at the same time I rank flat earth extremely low as a probability because it would take some incomprehensibly omnipotent thing constructing a deliberate deceit on humanity, or just on me, for the earth to be in fact flat. So while I accept flat earth is a possibility in a universe of for-all-we-know-limitless possibilities, I rank it with the Easter bunny and his friends in the preposterous category of unlikely-to-be-true things. As it happens Jesus being my lord and savior falls in that same category because the evidence for that just isn't there.

I don't know where to rank the likelihood of the God you describe because it sounds like you've arbitrarily decided what to take literally and what not to. I guess that would make you God? Ye who knows God's intended interpretation of seemingly-literal texts. Regardless this God I would also find outrageously unlikely because again, the evidence just isn't there.

It sounds like you're describing a God of the gaps. Since we don't have a provable theory on what initiated the explosion of matter, space and time that formed the universe, then there's God, in that gap of unknowing. So what happens if we gain considerable evidence that, say, there are innumerable parallel universes, and that ours is just one of many, so many that it's likely any manner of universe exists, somewhere in the infinitive of realities. Where do you push God back to then? The 'one'who created all those universes? Well what if we fund that out of the static of random fluctuations matter arises and that's how universes form. Or do you just keep pushing it back? Remember Newton thought God actively kept the planets in their orbit and that was once where the gap God sat, before we learned about gravity and he had to be pushed further out.

The fact remains a god isn't necessary as far as we can tell for us to be here.

All you have to do is tell me what perception of God you considered and what steps you took to answer the question was the universe created intentionally.

 

[ding]

The fact remains a god isn't necessary as far as we can tell for us to be here.

The implausibility of a life filled universe says otherwise.

 

[zaangalewa]

Neither is Harry Potter a myth, he really exists. I know this, because I've READ THE BOOK and books always tell the troof.

Let me say it this way: Existence means a cause has effects. Are you really sure Harry Potter not exists although the effects which are caused from Harry Potter (alias Mahatma J.K. Rowling) are much higher than the effects of everything what you wrote in your whole life?

 

[john54]

All you have to do is tell me what perception of God you considered and what steps you took to answer the question was the universe created intentionally.

Well I just did tell you...Considering the most basic God, an intelligent designer who set the universe in motion with the purpose of humans eventually coming about, I considered first the obvious fact that there's no evidence of a God anywhere IN the universe, so if we're pushing God back then to having just made the universe and not guided things since, I considered that there are possibilities extremely more likely that could have given the universe its auspicious-seeming properties, with one top-ranking candidate being just that there are a lot of universes making one like ours probablistically likely, and a lot of stars and planets in our universe, making our ideal galactic environment likely. Such a possibility would fall neatly in line with other probabilistic effects we can view in our own universe. There's simply no need for something as unlikely as a God. To the point where it's a question why one is even brought up.

 

[john54]

I disagree. The law of compensation never sleeps. Truth is discovered through a conflict and confusion process. We are free to do and believe anything we want but we are not free to avoid the consequences of our actions and beliefs. There's your guiding hand.

If we have free will, which is a question, then it would be we ourselves who are the guiding hand, at least in as far as we can influence our own environments.

How does our actions having consequences imply a guiding hand? I mean, I guess if you dropped a rock on your own foot there was a guiding hand involved, but, you know, it was your own hand....

 

[Meriweather]

Neither is Harry Potter a myth, he really exists. I know this, because I've READ THE BOOK and books always tell the troof.

Harry Potter falls into the realm of literature, and therefore more correctly classified as fairy tale than myth. Doesn't bother me if people think Harry Potter truly exists. They probably saw him in the movies, too.

 

[Dadoalex]

I have a simple suggestion for a "middle-ground" on which atheists and christians might reach some compromise.

As it is, atheists have no interest in being christians, let alone in teaching christianity to their children, and christians have no interest in giving up christianity and want it to still be passed down the generations. So what if we agreed to all tell our kids stories of god and christian tales, to enchant youngsters in the magic of it all, but then tell them when they're old enough that god and the biblical legends are myths - but myths that they can one day teach to their children. It's true that Christianity would no longer be a religion, but it would join the ranks of beloved children's folklore alongside Kris Kringle and his slay, the storks who deliver babies, the sandman who visits us in our dreams and the like. While Christianity is dying out, notice how these traditional children's tales remain told, and cherished, from generation to generation.

Wouldn't this be a wonderful way to honor age-old christian traditions while still allowing ourselves to grow up and let go of the myths and legends of our intellectual and spiritual adolescence? I understand that the religion elements might be hard to let go of for some, but just imagine some day having "the talk" with your kid when you tell them the truth about god and they roll their eyes and say, "I knew he wasn't real, dad!" and forgive you for your trickery because of the magic you instilled in their heart. This I think could be a cool thing. Give it a chance?

There truly can be no "middle ground" between any of the monotheist religions themselves much less non-believers.

For the record, I believe if there is/was such a thing as "God" it did its thing 14B years ago and hasn't been seen or heard from since.

As Chuck Heston said "My God is God"
In order for your "compromise" to work the monotheists would have to concede their beliefs are false. While Jews, Christian, and Muslims would gladly concede the other beliefs are false, none would make such a concession of their own faith.

Remember, that for any monotheistic faith to be true, all other faiths must necessarily be false.

The best we, as non-believers, can hope for is that they will leave us alone.

 

[john54]

Jesus did not preach or intend that any adult remain as a child. The Apostle Paul who did his utmost to represent the teachings of Jesus accurately would write: "11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." In those verses I quoted, Jesus admonished those he was teaching to not think they were better than or more important than a child. And that was amplified by Luke who wrote: "“Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

We are not to teach our children of any age that their faith in God is childish or inferior or just made up for children. I honestly believe anyone hateful or foolish or dogmatic enough to do that will likely need some serious forgiveness. I also know that a child will naturally grow and mature in his/her understanding just as he/she naturally matures and voluntarily gives up playing with dolls and toy soldiers at some point. But as God is real to the child, so God is real to the man and woman who has a relationship with Him.

Well maybe Paul didn't enter the figurative kingdom of heaven then, because he put those childish things away, since as Jesus says you have to become like a child to enter the fabled kingdom of heaven. I'm wondering if you're maybe missing the allegory here in a story that's clearly meant for children, really to the point that the character of Jesus even spells it out.

Consider the common theme of children's fantasy where once you grow up you lose access to the magic of youth - think Peter Pan, Kris Kringle, stories involving the "fairies' wood" which only children can enter. As these benevolent and mystical forces protect and delight children, they are no place for adults to tread. It's allegory, for growing up, and that seems clearly to be the message of Christianity and the tales of the Bible - rich and fantastical, cherished stories meant to delight and raise kids' imaginations up, with protectors like Jesus, God, angels, and with timeless symbols of bad-doers like the great villain in the form of the sinister satan, the sneaky snake, the scary demons - it's like a swirling world of surprises and enchantments, meant to impart lessons to children as well as entertain and bring them joy. But eventually the children become adults, and as the character Jesus says, they can not enter the kingdom because the time has come to mature, and move on from the stories of childhood to face the world of adulthood.

 

[john54]

What I stand in awe of is our ancient ancestors, the lessons they taught, the stories they told. Their advice is solid, especially when seeking God.

And what of these ancestors? Where is your awe for our ancient grandfathers who survived the wild, swung from branch to branch searching for food, living and dying so we could be here? You stand on their shoulders and yet only look up. Or what of our fish ancestors who swam the oceans? Our early eukaryote ancestors from whence all plant and animal life stemmed, who swam the chaotic mix of the primal stew to produce those who came before us? Where do they fit into your awe?

 

[Meriweather]

Where is your awe for our ancient grandfathers who survived the wild, swung from branch to branch searching for food, living and dying so we could be here?

You do understand I was speaking of recorded stories? If so, why the need to change the subject?

 

[john54]

You do understand I was speaking of recorded stories? If so, why the need to change the subject?

Well it just sounded like favoring one parent over another. As far as the lessons taught by ancient ancestors go, why favor the more recent over the truly ancient? What of the lessons our greatest grandfathers have taught us through their remains, in fossil, and DNA, of ion-long unguided evolution? Of a world that's happy to be uncontrolled, unmonitored, unguided and still came to produce us as life swam and crawled and swung its leisurely way to becoming us, having this conversation? Why besmirch their long fight, demean their long journey with mere tale and fictional retelling? Why not honor our hairy and scaled forefathers with honesty?

 

[Meriweather]

Well it just sounded like favoring one parent over another.

So if someone points out what a specific group contributed to literature, everyone else should get a participation trophy? Noting the talents of one group, is insulting to everyone else. Oh dear. A student got a special award the other day, and by presenting that award I was insulting several hundred other students. I must go do penance.

 

[john54]

So if someone points out what a specific group contributed to literature, everyone else should get a participation trophy? Noting the talents of one group, is insulting to everyone else. Oh dear. A student got a special award the other day, and by presenting that award I was insulting several hundred other students. I must go do penance.

I'm not saying the authors of the Bible shouldn't get credit for their work, or that, let's say George R. R. Martin is taking away from the stories of real medieval people with his stories of knights and dragons and all that - I am not denying them credit for a good story, but ultimately, what is a story compared to the real deal? We can all lap up our fantasy and entertain ourselves with daydreams but what of the real deal? No matter how pleasing a story is, ultimately it can't match up to the billion-year story being told, a story that's not even nearly all about us:

 

[Meriweather]

We can all lap up our fantasy and entertain ourselves with daydreams but what of the real deal? No matter how pleasing a story is, ultimately it can't match up to the billion-year story being told, a story that's not even nearly all about us:

What is your point? I get that you are dismissive of the Bible and in your own mind you decided to classify it as "fantasy". None of the accounts fit that category. I already enumerated the various forms of literature that are used in the Bible. I understand that some even take all words literally. While I don't agree with that, I agree with it more than I agree with you, because those who see it as literal descriptions at least get the point of the story! You are not even that far yet.

There are plenty of other books, plenty of other information that is available about the billion year history of the earth. Complaining that this is not in the Bible is like complaining a math books doesn't have any chocolate chip cookie recipes.

Are you also miffed that the Bible doesn't explain calculus and trigonometry, let alone the grammar of the pre-Columbian languages in South America?