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A false dichotomy. Science does have beliefs, and religions do have facts. The most fundamental belief of science is that all phenomena can be observed and explained, which simply is not true. There are phenomena beyond both our observation and our capacity for explanation.

And what about historical facts? Even the most hard core scientist would never attempt to argue that Jesus of Nazareth never existed. They might try to argue that he didn't rise from the dead, but without direct observation of the event, they could never prove it one way or the other.

I make these points for this reason: sometimes the so-called scientific view is too narrow in its scope. Or, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Personally, my observation as a pastoral caregiver confirms Augustine's philosophy of the purpose of human existence: "Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee."

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Heh, good thing I went to bible study last night, because I now have ready answers.

You see, when God made the world, He intended it to be perfect. There would be no sickness, no pain, no death. Nothing of that sort. No sin. When He created us, He put us above all animals and gave us free will.

However, when Satan got into the Garden of Eden and tempted Eve, she used her free-will to eat the fruit. Eating the fruit from that tree was a sin, because God told Adam and Eve never to eat that tree's fruit. Sin is anything that seperates us from God, so they couldn't have a relationship (Adam, Eve, and God). Sin entered the world and everything changed. All the pain, sickness, and death came to being. God didn't lock them out because He was made, but because He couldn't have a relationship with them.

So, the bottom line is that now there is sin, and that we were created with free will. God allows us to use our free-will to do those things you said, but it saddens Him when we do use it that way.

And, his will for us is right in The Bible. It's in Jeremiah 9: 11-14. It basically says in vere 14 that His will for us is to bring us to Him. How do we come to Him if there's sin, though? We ask Him to come into our lives, as I stated. It won't make you perfect, but it covers your sin with Jesus' blood, so when you die and go to Heaven, God will see you as His son and invite you in: Remember, Jesus never sinned.

Also, what you have to realize is that death is the ultimate healing. However, if you want the healing from the sin, you have to, you guessed it, invite Jesus into your life with a sincere prayer, then let Him take control of your life (i.e. go His way instead of your way). If you don't you'll perish in hell, so I can't stress how important it is for you to let him in your life.

OK, stop right there. How can somebody commonly said to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent end up creating something one way and it turns out to end up another way? Wow, that could be an encouraging slogan for youngsters: "Even God makes mistakes."

^No, it's not that. If you read the post, I said we had free-will, which lets us choose do that.

Certainly he'd know we'd make the choices we do?

Yes, but He gave us free-will because He loved his creations (us) so much that he felt he should. He trusted us with that.

What if science proves, without a doubt, Darwins theory of evolution? Will you still deny it ?

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Even if science proves "without doubt" that evolution is true (whether it is even equipped to do so remains to be seen), then it still does not disprove the intentions or designs of a Creator.

Incidentally, Darwin's theory of evolution? The idea of evolution was not original with Darwin. The theory of evolution goes all the way back to the early Enlightenment period. However, Darwin's theory of Natural Selection cannot be proven true beyond doubt because, in order to demonstrate it as an absolute, you would have to be able to prove beyond doubt that no Creator exists. And, as stated above, one of the limitations of science is that there are phenomena beyond both our ability to observe and explain. Science, by its very nature, cannot address the realm of the unseen.


The old "Problem of Evil" argument again. Haven't we already hashed this out on other threads? The argument is flawed in this way: it tries to use God's divine attributes to somehow obligate him to act contrary to his design and to create a different world than the one he has given us. In essence, it robs God of his right of free choice. The mistake was not God's, but mankind's, and the best way to fix that would be to eliminate mankind. But God's MERCY (a divine attribute you conveniently left out of your argument) motivated him to allow mankind to exist anyway, despite our error, and in fact, to allow him the chance to show an even greater mercy by redeeming us. In other words, God's love was so great, that he chose to love us, even though we would eventually become entirely unlovable.

In short, the Problem of Evil argument falls short because it attempts to force God to conveniently fit our limited understanding of his nature.

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Bingo. You took the words right out of my mind, at least the second part of your post.

That's why I'm Agnostic. Science can never disprove God, and religion can never really prove him. I straddle the middle ground.



Wow. Somehow this topic has become a "Is there is or is there ain't a God?" type thing... which I don't think was it's original intention.

In my experience, this is the destiny of all religious discussion. Although in any other forum that I frequent it would've derailed much more violently by now

I beleive that, in both theories of evolution and creation, there was probably some form of divine force involved somewhere. The chance of all creatures(that term includes everything from humans to the annoying little virus that has left me with a cold) turning out exactly as they have is several million to one. there was, most likely, one(or perhaps multiple) divine being(s) decided have a laugh and see which groups of creatures could keep going for longest.

And thus, our purpose is technically being some being's racehorse.

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The meaning of life? The answer to life, the universe and everything? Why are we all here?

That's a pretty loaded question. I could give a religious answer, that we're hear because whatever god there is or is not created us to fulfill his or her purposes, to populate the earth, or because he or she loved us. I could take the purely scientific road, and say we're here to breed and then die. But I'm not going to. I'm just going to say what I have belived for a while now.

There's no way for any human t odefinitavely answer that question. But since we, can't, we might as well enjoy it while it lasts. Live, laugh, love. Be happy. I'd like to quote one of my favorite movies on this one.

"Hate is baggage. Life's too shot to be ****** off all the time. It's just not worth it."

American history X

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the answer is..........................42
no,no,no,no,no, seriously the emaning of life is to find out what you love to do, and do that.

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There is no meaning to life inm my opinion. Because of that, we might as well make them best of it. Use yoru life to help; help others, help the world, and ta the same time helping yourself.

In my views most religions show that you are HERE as a test for what kind of afterlife you recieve. But in my views, thats cockamamy (sorry for offending anyone)

But really, if we had a reason to be here, its procreation. I mean isn't that the reason everythign else is here? Most animals onl build up to mating season anyways. But thats just me I'm coming into this topic late.

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TIRES TIRES TIRES

This was addressed a very very long time ago, but the reason that God gave us free will, and let us ruin the Earth as we have (really it was sin), is because you can't recieve love from a robot. And my belief is that God created us to be his best friend and to love him.

Or as St. Augustin put it, "Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in thee." Or as Jesus put it, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as you love yourself."

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We're not here for any 'reason', there's no logical evidence for that. People only think that because their egos make them want to feel important. We're just here because we were born, for no particular reason at all. There's no point in thinking about that kind of thing, just do the best you can to live your life the way you want.

"If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning." - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

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DISCLAIMER: The preceding post was the opinions of Nate, and should be taken as his two cents. Actual exchange rate may vary by location, see stores for details, void where prohibited under penalty of torture.

It's not like I can easily give up...the feelings...of needing her. - Sohma Hatsuharu

If it can be said that life has no purpose at all, then it must be considered equally possible that there is, but mankind has failed to discover it or to live by it. In other words, if you yourself have not discovered meaning or purpose for your life, then you still do not have the right to discount the discovery of those who have.

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We also haven't discovered that the core of Jupiter is made out of tomato sauce, does that mean that there's an equal chance that it is?

Ridiculous statement. Not a valid criticism of my point.

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It's an analogy. Of course it's ridiculous, because the purpose is to show that YOUR statement is ridiculous.

You can't just say that something is not a valid criticism of your point without even addressing why it is not.

I'll tell you why it's not a valid criticism of my point. Because you cannot make a claim that something does not exist just because it is beyond your experience. Your statement is essentially like trying to tell a cat owner that there are no such things as cats, based on the fact that you do not own one yourself. AT BEST, you can only claim that you do not believe that there is any such thing as meaning or purpose, because you yourself have not discovered what they are yourself. You cannot make the unsubstantiated (and in fact unprovable) claim that they simply do not exist at all.

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The same way you can't claim that the core of Jupiter is not made of tomato sauce. Have you ever been to the core of Jupiter? I don't think so. So how do you know?

Simple: Logic.

I know for a fact that cats exist, they have been observed, many people own them, I have seen them myself. We have overwhelming evidence for the existence of cats. However, believing in something for which we have absolutely no evidence at all is illogical. Just because something hasn't been proved NOT to exist hardly means that it does. Otherwise, you would have to believe in Thor, Zeus, Odin, Brahma, Bigfoot, UFOs, and an imaginary tie - dyed elephant that lives on Pluto.

I'm assuming you don't believe in any (or at least most) of those things, so what's the difference between them and believing that humans have some hidden 'purpose'?

Trog-dork, my logic is real simple: I already know what the purpose of life is. Your coming on here and telling me there is no such thing doesn't convince me in the least. Silly attempts at arguments aside, just because you can't see that and have not experienced it for yourself is beyond my control. Nevertheless, I will not tolerate you trying to tell me that I do not know what I'm talking about.

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Then provide objective, scientifically verifiable evidence of that purpose.

You're the one trying to prove life has no purpose. Shouldn't you provide proof? The burden of proof IS on the prosecution, after all.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

I'm not trying to prove there is no purpose, I'm merely saying there is no evidence to suggest there is one. It's impossible to completely disprove something like that, but it is not logical to believe in something for which you have no evidence.