What is God?

[Truthspeaker]

Brilliant? or Ignorant?

 

[We Are They]

Brilliant? or Ignorant?

As opposed to thinking that god is an alien from another planet?

 

[AllieBaba]

So we're all agreed modern man descends from one man?

Could it be...ADAM?

 

[Kalam]

So we're all agreed modern man descends from one man?

All humans living today share a common patrilineal ancestor and a common matrilineal ancestor. However, they existed at different times and existed within populations of other humans. Every human that has ever existed does not share a common human ancestor.

 

[AllieBaba]

Lol.

 

[KittenKoder]

So we're all agreed modern man descends from one man?

All humans living today share a common patrilineal ancestor and a common matrilineal ancestor. However, they existed at different times and existed within populations of other humans. Every human that has ever existed does not share a common human ancestor.

I think Allie's point was that the first ones could be named Adam and Eve without disturbing science. To me they could have been named anything, but there did have to be a first set, whether they were right next to each other or whether the myths simplified a much larger scheme could be debated, but again, science and religion are not exclusive, depending on the religion, and christianity taken as it is in their book does work with science.

 

[Kalam]

I think Allie's point was that the first ones could be named Adam and Eve without disturbing science. To me they could have been named anything, but there did have to be a first set, whether they were right next to each other or whether the myths simplified a much larger scheme could be debated, but again, science and religion are not exclusive, depending on the religion, and christianity taken as it is in their book does work with science.

All human ancestry does not trace back to a single human couple... Adam and Eve are mentioned in the Qur'an as well. I simply don't feel the need to insist that they actually existed. Their myth was presumably included to make a moral teaching more easily understandable to early Jews, Christians, and Muslims; it served its purpose. I find it funny that many people act as if the Bible's historical inaccuracy undermines its legitimacy as a source of moral guidance... Why is it not possible to be a Christian without believing in history exactly as it's written in the Bible?

If the words of the Qur'an and the Bible are simply taken at face value, they're fundamentally incompatible with modern science. That's why they shouldn't be regarded as sources of scientific knowledge. That isn't the purpose they were intended to serve.

 

[AllieBaba]

Hogwash.

 

[We Are They]

Allie prefers the story that we are all inbred and come down from Adam & Eve. So when A&E had children, they copulated and had children who did the same...

Kalam, why don't you live in muzzyland?

 

[JBeukema]

What is God? God is JB's pen name when he decides to trick millions of stupid people into making the world a more horrible place

 

[Kalam]

Allie prefers the story that we are all inbred and come down from Adam & Eve. So when A&E had children, they copulated and had children who did the same...

Kalam, why don't you live in muzzyland?

My ass would be on the chopping block in a matter of minutes.

 

[foggedinn]

For the philosopher, defining God is as easy as defining the Tao.

For the physicist, it's as easy as defining both the location , and vector of a sub atomic particle.

 

[JBeukema]

What is god

 

[Polaris]

The best essay at saying what God is, that I have come across, is found in the following passages from Ecclesiastes:

7, 24: What exists is far-reaching; it is deep, very deep: who can find it out?

and

3, 11: He has... put the Eternal into their hearts, without men's ever discovering, from beginning to end, the work which God has done.

"What exists" - God (or better, really, the Tao, the Void) - is the far-reaching deep, the Eternal - more intimate to us than our own selves, and yet never something we can consummately grasp. All the talk about "revelation" is nothing but vanity and a chase after the wind...

 

[JBeukema]

In other words, the bible's answer can be summed as: 'Fuck if we know'?

 

[Polaris]

In other words, the bible's answer can be summed as: 'Fuck if we know'?

Well, look, JB... first of all, I'd say that in a very real sense, the message of Ecclesiastes is not the message of "the Bible." Ecclesiastes, as best as I can tell from my reading, was written by a skeptic (certainly not "Solomon," to whom it's traditionally been attributed), a person who was a contemporary of the ancient Testament authors, but who unlike them looked at the world, and then at the scriptures, and said "nope, don't think so." This book's potential to be subversive of faith was too great, so it was dubbed "pre-Messianic wisdom," and folded into the main texts of the scriptures. It's presence there is meant to serve as sort of an innoculation for the faithful against unbelief. But read in its own right, "Ecclesiastes" is one of the great proof-texts against faith in any of the gods.

Second, just because a person is secular in outlook shouldn't mean that they be deaf to the mysteries that are at the heart of life - why there is something rather than nothing, what life is the best kind for us to live, etc. There's a qualitative difference in attitude between the deep existential uncertainty of Ecclesiastes, and the casual "who knows? who cares? Pass the beer nuts" attitude of those who never bother to wonder. But knowledge, as Aristotle says in the Metaphysics, begins in wonder. And, as those profound passages from Ecclesiastes remark, it also ends in wonder...

 

[KittenKoder]

The christian bible, and all other bibles, are written by human hands, period. Like all books of fiction, it was written how those who wrote it wanted it to be written, period. It could have said to gut babies and drink their blood and so many of it's followers would have done it even today.

 

[YWN666]

The christian bible, and all other bibles, are written by human hands, period. Like all books of fiction, it was written how those who wrote it wanted it to be written, period. It could have said to gut babies and drink their blood and so many of it's followers would have done it even today.

Stupid, gullible people gravitate towards extremist religion so it is no surprise to see what these people will resort to when they are told to.

 

[AllieBaba]

Actually, the more stupid a person is, the more convinced they are that everyone else is stupider than they are.

 

[YWN666]

Actually, the more stupid a person is, the more convinced they are that everyone else is stupider than they are.

That makes no sense whatsoever.