Here ya go - the Pope wants mmgw to fix the global economy and help the poor
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I believe the Pope means well but I just can't agree with his socialist views. I think he comes at this with the view of the early church who did have a form of wealth redistribution with churches helping one another but we have to look at history at what works and what fails and socialism is a proven failure in the world wherever it is tried. That type of socialism can work in the church but it does not work in the world. I am glad to see the Pope continue to stand true to traditional marriage and opposing abortion. As for climate change it seemed like his mind was made up already when he refused to listen to any opposing views.
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I believe the Pope means well but I just can't agree with his socialist views. I think he comes at this with the view of the early church who did have a form of wealth redistribution with churches helping one another but we have to look at history at what works and what fails and socialism is a proven failure in the world wherever it is tried. That type of socialism can work in the church but it does not work in the world. I am glad to see the Pope continue to stand true to traditional marriage and opposing abortion. As for climate change it seemed like his mind was made up already when he refused to listen to any opposing views.
I believe the Pope means well but I just can't agree with his socialist views. I think he comes at this with the view of the early church who did have a form of wealth redistribution with churches helping one another but we have to look at history at what works and what fails and socialism is a proven failure in the world wherever it is tried. That type of socialism can work in the church but it does not work in the world. I am glad to see the Pope continue to stand true to traditional marriage and opposing abortion. As for climate change it seemed like his mind was made up already when he refused to listen to any opposing views.
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Hahaha
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Is there an argument for the existence of God?
Is belief in God a rationally unacceptable position to hold? Is there a logical and reasonable argument for the existence of God? Outside of referencing the Bible, can a case for the existence of God be made that refutes the positions of both the old and new atheists and gives sufficient warrant for believing in a Creator? The answer is, yes, it can. Moreover, in demonstrating the validity of an argument for the existence of God, the case for atheism is shown to be intellectually weak.
To make an argument for the existence of God, we must start by asking the right questions. We begin with the most basic metaphysical question: “Why do we have something rather than nothing at all?” This is the basic question of existence—why are we here; why is the earth here; why is the universe here rather than nothing? Commenting on this point, one theologian has said, “In one sense man does not ask the question about God, his very existence raises the question about God.”
In considering this question, there are four possible answers to why we have something rather than nothing at all:
1. Reality is an illusion.
2. Reality is/was self-created.
3. Reality is self-existent (eternal).
4. Reality was created by something that is self-existent.
So, which is the most plausible solution? Let’s begin with reality being simply an illusion, which is what a number of Eastern religions believe. This option was ruled out centuries ago by the philosopher Rene Descartes who is famous for the statement, “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes, a mathematician, argued that if he is thinking, then he must “be.” In other words, “I think, therefore I am not an illusion.” Illusions require something experiencing the illusion, and moreover, you cannot doubt the existence of yourself without proving your existence; it is a self-defeating argument. So the possibility of reality being an illusion is eliminated.
Next is the option of reality being self-created. When we study philosophy, we learn of “analytically false” statements, which means they are false by definition. The possibility of reality being self-created is one of those types of statements for the simple reason that something cannot be prior to itself. If you created yourself, then you must have existed prior to you creating yourself, but that simply cannot be. In evolution this is sometimes referred to as “spontaneous generation” —something coming from nothing—a position that few, if any, reasonable people hold to anymore simply because you cannot get something from nothing. Even the atheist David Hume said, “I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause.” Since something cannot come from nothing, the alternative of reality being self-created is ruled out.
Now we are left with only two choices—an eternal reality or reality being created by something that is eternal: an eternal universe or an eternal Creator. The 18th-century theologian Jonathan Edwards summed up this crossroads:
• Something exists.
• Nothing cannot create something.
• Therefore, a necessary and eternal “something” exists.
Notice that we must go back to an eternal “something.” The atheist who derides the believer in God for believing in an eternal Creator must turn around and embrace an eternal universe; it is the only other door he can choose. But the question now is, where does the evidence lead? Does the evidence point to matter before mind or mind before matter?
To date, all key scientific and philosophical evidence points away from an eternal universe and toward an eternal Creator. From a scientific standpoint, honest scientists admit the universe had a beginning, and whatever has a beginning is not eternal. In other words, whatever has a beginning has a cause, and if the universe had a beginning, it had a cause. The fact that the universe had a beginning is underscored by evidence such as the second law of thermodynamics, the radiation echo of the big bang discovered in the early 1900s, the fact that the universe is expanding and can be traced back to a singular beginning, and Einstein’s theory of relativity. All prove the universe is not eternal.
Further, the laws that surround causation speak against the universe being the ultimate cause of all we know for this simple fact: an effect must resemble its cause. This being true, no atheist can explain how an impersonal, purposeless, meaningless, and amoral universe accidentally created beings (us) who are full of personality and obsessed with purpose, meaning, and morals. Such a thing, from a causation standpoint, completely refutes the idea of a natural universe birthing everything that exists. So in the end, the concept of an eternal universe is eliminated.Philosopher J. S. Mill (not a Christian) summed up where we have now come to: “It is self-evident that only Mind can create mind.” The only rational and reasonable conclusion is that an eternal Creator is the one who is responsible for reality as we know it. Or to put it in a logical set of statements:
• Something exists.
• You do not get something from nothing.
• Therefore a necessary and eternal “something” exists.
• The only two options are an eternal universe and an eternal Creator.
• Science and philosophy have disproven the concept of an eternal universe.
• Therefore, an eternal Creator exists.
Former atheist Lee Strobel, who arrived at this end result many years ago, has commented, “Essentially, I realized that to stay an atheist, I would have to believe that nothing produces everything; non-life produces life; randomness produces fine-tuning; chaos produces information; unconsciousness produces consciousness; and non-reason produces reason. Those leaps of faith were simply too big for me to take, especially in light of the affirmative case for God's existence … In other words, in my assessment the Christian worldview accounted for the totality of the evidence much better than the atheistic worldview.”But the next question we must tackle is this: if an eternal Creator exists (and we have shown that He does), what kind of Creator is He? Can we infer things about Him from what He created? In other words, can we understand the cause by its effects? The answer to this is yes, we can, with the following characteristics being surmised:
• He must be supernatural in nature (as He created time and space).
• He must be powerful (exceedingly).
• He must be eternal (self-existent).
• He must be omnipresent (He created space and is not limited by it).
• He must be timeless and changeless (He created time).
• He must be immaterial because He transcends space/physical.
• He must be personal (the impersonal cannot create personality).
• He must be infinite and singular as you cannot have two infinites.
• He must be diverse yet have unity as unity and diversity exist in nature.
• He must be intelligent (supremely). Only cognitive being can produce cognitive being.
• He must be purposeful as He deliberately created everything.
• He must be moral (no moral law can be had without a giver).
• He must be caring (or no moral laws would have been given).
These things being true, we now ask if any religion in the world describes such a Creator. The answer to this is yes: the God of the Bible fits this profile perfectly. He is supernatural (Genesis 1:1), powerful (Jeremiah 32:17), eternal (Psalm 90:2), omnipresent (Psalm 139:7), timeless/changeless (Malachi 3:6), immaterial (John 5:24), personal (Genesis 3:9), necessary (Colossians 1:17), infinite/singular (Jeremiah 23:24, Deuteronomy 6:4), diverse yet with unity (Matthew 28:19), intelligent (Psalm 147:4-5), purposeful (Jeremiah 29:11), moral (Daniel 9:14), and caring (1 Peter 5:6-7).One last subject to address on the matter of God’s existence is the matter of how justifiable the atheist’s position actually is. Since the atheist asserts the believer’s position is unsound, it is only reasonable to turn the question around and aim it squarely back at him. The first thing to understand is that the claim the atheist makes—“no god,” which is what “atheist” means—is an untenable position to hold from a philosophical standpoint. As legal scholar and philosopher Mortimer Adler says, “An affirmative existential proposition can be proved, but a negative existential proposition—one that denies the existence of something—cannot be proved.” For example, someone may claim that a red eagle exists and someone else may assert that red eagles do not exist. The former only needs to find a single red eagle to prove his assertion. But the latter must comb the entire universe and literally be in every place at once to ensure he has not missed a red eagle somewhere and at some time, which is impossible to do. This is why intellectually honest atheists will admit they cannot prove God does not exist.
Read more: http://www.gotquesti...l#ixzz3dY2idIHe -
ugh, first of all this line "To date, all key scientific and philosophical evidence points away from an eternal universe and toward an eternal Creator."
- So every piece of scientific evidence that says the universe had a beginning, magically also supports there being a god?
- What the hell is "philosophical evidence"?
"For example, someone may claim that a red eagle exists and someone else may assert that red eagles do not exist. The former only needs to find a single red eagle to prove his assertion. But the latter must comb the entire universe and literally be in every place at once to ensure he has not missed a red eagle somewhere and at some time, which is impossible to do. This is why intellectually honest atheists will admit they cannot prove God does not exist."
- And last I checked, no one has been able to prove the existence of a god either....
Philosophy is not a science. Last I checked, "I think, therefore I am" never followed through the scientific method.
Basically, your post boils down to, "I don't think something can come from nothing". "I think a god made the universe." "Why not my god?" "My god is real!"
If something can't come from nothing, where did your god come from? Oh, "He" is eternal? What is the greater multiverse has always been and our universe is just a new branch off of that. An explosion create positives and negative (matter, dark matter) and results in a net nothing.
You can't really prove the existence of god. You can't really prove there is no god. If someone think some higher being, somewhere, exists, I can't really fault them for that. But if you believe that God is exactly as your book describes him, and he's your BFF Jesus, then you've made a GIANT leap that we can start to scientifically disprove. It becomes even easier when you believe things like "a man lived in a big fish" or "the story of Noah's ark is completely true"....
.... then you just sound like an idiot..
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I prefer my fictional characters to be less stuffy.
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God is beyond human comprehension.
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That is what I would say too if I wanted people not to think too hard about their beliefs.
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That is what I would say too if I wanted people not to think too hard about their beliefs.
That is what I would say too if I wanted people not to think too hard about their beliefs.
You can believe what ever you want.......
But those beliefs should have ZERO o do with the law of this country
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That is what I would say too if I wanted people not to think too hard about their beliefs.
You can believe what ever you want.......
But those beliefs should have ZERO o do with the law of this country
You can believe what ever you want.......
But those beliefs should have ZERO o do with the law of this country
Really?
I think there are probably a hundred examples of why that's not true at all.
WSS
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