A big arguement against christianity is that if God exist why hasnt God showed itself to its people.well here is my theory on why God hasnt "appeared" to humans recently. Basically God is omnipotent, it or whatever lives for a infinit of years so one human year is like a nano second to God. So while humans go on ranting on why we cant see God, maby God just went to get a cup of tea or a bathroom break.

Example of this is if you played Sim City or The Sims, one minute in "their" world is one second to ours. so lets say you leave the game running and you take a piss, the "people" are wondering where the hell you are while going on with their normal life. a couple of months pass by while it took you a couple of minutes to take a piss, scratch your ass, and eat a cookie. so maby its the same way with God and humans.

well thats my opinion

[This message has been edited by Vflo (edited 03-27-2006).]

Maybe God just has the most uber computer in the universe, and He minimized the 'Earth' window and started a new planet. He left us running in the background. http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif)

We must find hax for the uber computer of heaven! http://www.totse.com/bbs/mad.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/mad.gif) http://www.totse.com/bbs/eek.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/eek.gif)

Maybe you shouldn't anthropomorphize god or assume that he has any sense of time at all. eternal remember?

If he's omnipotent then he must have the ability to 'go to the bathroom' or 'drink tea' or '[insert what ever action/task you can imagine here]' instantly, in both his and our time-frame.

If he's omnipotent we can, by pure necessity, say that he has the ability to "show himself" whenever he pleases. That he doesn't means that either he doesn't exist, or he does and he doesn't care/'want to'.

Silly theories require silly answers, hence...wait...I take that back...occasionally, silly theories are hardcore believed by some equally silly people (cough creation) but I think I can safely have fun on this one.



I think after humans started doing math, we found a problem God overlooked, and so he's been working on it since- How the hell can you divide by zero? Either that, or he's taking Jesus through rehab or something because Jesus became gay. Wouldn't that have been terrific though? Imagine if Jesus was gay. Boy, that'd make my day. Gay hating christians would have a hell of a self reexamination.

quote:Originally posted by Elephantitis Man:

Maybe God just has the most uber computer in the universe, and He minimized the 'Earth' window and started a new planet. He left us running in the background. http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif)

We must find hax for the uber computer of heaven! http://www.totse.com/bbs/mad.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/mad.gif) http://www.totse.com/bbs/eek.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/eek.gif)

You sir, are entertaining. That was clever. But to the 1st post, God hasn't shown it's self in awhile cause it does not exist. Unless the 1st post was meant to be sarcastic, then I find it funny.

How do you know God hasn't shown himself and you just missed it because you were in the shitter at the time?

quote:Originally posted by Elephantitis Man:

Maybe God just has the most uber computer in the universe, and He minimized the 'Earth' window and started a new planet. He left us running in the background. http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif)

Maybe God just made it to the next level?

He has shown himself in many many occasions..

why don't you hear about this kind of stuff?

because the media, won't advertise it, because they're scared of the public's reaction.. also they think its a cult or something.

Give us an example of these apperances the media have covered up, oh great psychotic one.

quote:Originally posted by The_Rabbi:

How do you know God hasn't shown himself and you just missed it because you were in the shitter at the time?

Because he has the power to show himself, even when I'm in the shitter. That still leaves the same two choices: Either he doesn't exist, or didn't want to show himself to me.

Or maybe God has been trying to show himself to you, and you have just been ignoring it. God doesn't exactly just come down and say, "whats up?" anymore. He is much more subtle about it. I have felt him give me inner peace in times of utmost despair, and I think that this is his way of showing himself to us these days.

quote:Originally posted by The_Rabbi:

How do you know God hasn't shown himself and you just missed it because you were in the shitter at the time?

Quotable quote.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

or didn't want to show himself to me.

That's entirely possible. God could perhaps be giving me something to laugh at, for without God's neglect, we may not have the Rust we see today.

[This message has been edited by The_Rabbi (edited 03-27-2006).]

In other words, you had no point. Great.

This will seem off topic, but will come around full circle, I promise.



Last year I read the Shannara series. To sum up the relevant part, there are druids who use magic and stuff from themselves and it ages them and drains them of their strength and energy. Well, I entertained that concept of being able to channel your own energy into other things- It was fascinating.

Every morning I would have to wait in the cold for the bus to come, and I always lag behind in the seasons so I would never be properly attired. I was in short sleeves and it was cold. I also had time to think.

What this led to was that I eventually discovered through focus, concentration, and belief, I could imagine channeling heat and energy out from my heart and the core of my body (which has the most heat) into my arms, hands, and extremities which were cold.

The most fascinating thing of all- and greatly to my surprise- It worked.

My arms seriously felt warm. I was comfortable and no longer cold. I got better at it in time and although it wasn't perfect, it seriously made my arms feel warm and the cold feeling disappeared.

Now, if I am able to convince myself with nothing but focus and concentration and 'faith' that my arms are warm, and then actually feel that they are warm myself, I am completely positive that someone who wanted to believe in God, and believe that God was speaking to them, and showing himself to them, and comforting them could very easily imagine this and convince himself so- and he would think it actually was God talking to them. Just like how my arms actually would feel warm.

You are not special; Just because you are capable of imagining that God is talking to you, without being aware that you are imagining it and only talking to yourself, does not mean there is a god. In my body, it really did feel like energy was moving from my core to my arms. I was making myself believe in a fascinated sort of way that I could actually do that, and I felt it.

Enough 'talking to God.' If you weren't aware, your subconscious mind is literally the most powerful computer on the planet. Self help tapes speak of how amazing this is, it is all a matter of learning to listen to it and training it to help you.

In other words, your conscious mind lives in a super computer which although is still you, can intuitively organize things in hierarchies and really give you helpful information. Information that seems to come from nowhere because the subconscious super computer is on an operating system that works beyond your control (most of the time).

So quit this 'I know there is a God, I talked to him' crap and start thinking for yourself.

quote:Originally posted by anton_skater:

Or maybe God has been trying to show himself to you, and you have just been ignoring it. God doesn't exactly just come down and say, "whats up?" anymore. He is much more subtle about it. I have felt him give me inner peace in times of utmost despair, and I think that this is his way of showing himself to us these days.

I think you got it.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

In other words, you had no point. Great.

I never had a point, you moron. I was fucking around all along.

maybe Sun Myung Moon is god and we are all going to hell for thinking he's a crackpot.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

If he's omnipotent then he must have the ability to 'go to the bathroom' or 'drink tea' or '[insert what ever action/task you can imagine here]' instantly, in both his and our time-frame.

If he's omnipotent we can, by pure necessity, say that he has the ability to "show himself" whenever he pleases. That he doesn't means that either he doesn't exist, or he does and he doesn't care/'want to'.

There is no such thing as omnipotence. Elaboration: Omnipotent means all powerful, which means that they can do what ever they want which should mean that they can make a boulder so big, that they can't pick it up but if the 'God' were omnipotent then there could be no boulder too big and so omnipotence disproves itself.

quote:Originally posted by The_Rabbi:

I never had a point, you moron. I was fucking around all along.

Even better! Thank you.

quote:Originally posted by jb_mcbean:

There is no such thing as omnipotence. Elaboration: Omnipotent means all powerful, which means that they can do what ever they want which should mean that they can make a boulder so big, that they can't pick it up but if the 'God' were omnipotent then there could be no boulder too big and so omnipotence disproves itself.

As an answer to that question, theists either believe that omnipotence does not entail the ability to do the illogical (and thus that he cannot create such boulder), or that it does (hence he could- however illogical that may seem).

Either of those positions would resolve the problem.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

As an answer to that question, theists either believe that omnipotence does not entail the ability to do the illogical (and thus that he cannot create such boulder), or that it does (hence he could- however illogical that may seem).

Either of those positions would resolve the problem.

I know you're not a theist and as such there is no point in arguing with these stated views, but meh, I'm bored. So anyway; if omnipotence doesn't entail the ability to do the illogical, is it omnipotence, or just something near it? And if God can in fact create said boulder the fact that he cannot pick it up is a lack of a power, so is that omnipotence or just something near it?

EDIT: bad grammar, sorry, I was born that way.

[This message has been edited by jb_mcbean (edited 03-28-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by jb_mcbean:

I know you're not a theist and as such there is no point in arguing with these stated views, but meh, I'm bored, so anyway, if omnipotence doesn't entail the ability to do the illogical, is it omnipotence, or just something near it? And if God can in fact create said boulder the fact that he cannot pick it up is a lack of a power, so is that omnipotence or just something near it?

I would argue that it isn't omnipotence at all, but they would argue that a being can only have powers which are possible in the first place and that "omnipotence" must necessarily be within that context.

So doing the illogical is impossible, and therefore they believe that omnipotence must still hold that to be true, and thus that an omnipotent being need not hold the power to do the impossible.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

I would argue that it isn't omnipotence at all, but they would argue that a being can only have powers which are possible in the first place and that "omnipotence" must necessarily be within that context.

So doing the illogical is impossible, and therefore they believe that omnipotence must still hold that to be true, and thus that an omnipotent being need not hold the power to do the impossible.

Unfortunately for the theists then, if such an argument were used by even non-fundamentalists it would elicit a response such as this; If doing the illogical is impossible then how could God manage to create the universe since doing so requires effort and an omnipotent God would have no need for a universe full of worshippers.

That would mean that he did something which he had absolutely no need for. That's certainly is possible; though, of course, it brings with it the question of why he would do such a thing. Everything an omnipotent and omniscient god does is redundant.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

That would mean that he did something which he had absolutely no need for. That's certainly is possible; though, of course, it brings with it the question of why he would do such a thing. Everything an omnipotent and omniscient god does is redundant.

That's precisely correct it is illogical for an omnipotent omniscient God to do anything and everything religions say they have done, therefore the very concept disproves itself.

[This message has been edited by jb_mcbean (edited 03-28-2006).]

Well, it isn't illogical. As in, it does not violate any laws of logic.

It's abasurd, ridiculous, foolish, and many other things, but not illogical. He could very well do something which is redundant. It's not particularly intelligent or amazing, but he could do it.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

Well, it isn't illogical. As in, it does not violate any laws of logic.

It's abasurd, ridiculous, foolish, and many other things, but not illogical. He could very well do something which is redundant. It's not particularly intelligent or amazing, but he could do it.

More to the point it is completely illogical that said God would create a universe with such obvious flaws, if this god was omnipotent and omniscient it could create everything perfectly, the logical choice between a universe of adhering faithful followers, no human evil, no natural disasters, etc and ours is the former, the act of choosing to create our universe as it is has no logic behind it and so would be impossible. Another point could go out to more liberal believers, if god had an array of powers limited only by logic then why would he choose to create the universe through the slow process of the big bang and evolution? It defies logic as he could just create the universe instantly. And finally for the creationist christians why, oh why, would God, with his unimaginable array of superpowers, choose to create the world in six days, when he could do it in the blink of an eye? The logic behind such a ridiculous choice is non-existant as must therefore be god.

The same applies to those statements. They are not illogical in that they do not violate laws of logic. He could very well choose to create the universe using cosmic events (such as the Big Bang). It would be redundant, needless, wasteful and ridiculous, among other things, but not illogical nor impossible.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

The same applies to those statements. They are not illogical in that they do not violate laws of logic. He could very well choose to create the universe using cosmic events (such as the Big Bang). It would be redundant, needless, wasteful and ridiculous, among other things, but not illogical nor impossible.

They are illogical choices by your definition of logic. Creating a rock so big that you can't pick it up has the same amount of logic behind doing it as creating a universe does, it's possible for a single human to build a house, but they can't pick it up, what they are doing is not illogical. Perhaps the presence of "omnipotence" does make there be less logic behind such a choice. But to follow modern Christian teachings God is perfect. Perfection requires perfect logical choices and it is a fact that God would therefore choose a more logical option in creation. For God to exist as creator of matter and life, he would have to be neither completely omnipotent nor flawless.

quote:Originally posted by jb_mcbean:

They are illogical choices by your definition of logic. Creating a rock so big that you can't pick it up has the same amount of logic behind doing it as creating a universe does, it's possible for a single human to build a house, but they can't pick it up, what they are doing is not illogical. Perhaps the presence of "omnipotence" does make there be less logic behind such a choice. But to follow modern Christian teachings God is perfect. Perfection requires perfect logical choices and it is a fact that God would therefore choose a more logical option in creation. For God to exist as creator of matter and life, he would have to be neither completely omnipotent nor flawless.

1. What do you mean by saying "has the same amount of logic behind it"?

Logic is a set of rules. Something either conforms to those rules or it does not. Someone building a house, in and of itself, has absolutely nothing to do with those rules of logic - nor does lifting a rock. Logic isn't something that is behind an action, it is something which we use to assign values of 'true' or 'false' to statements which allow us to assign such values.

2. The choices are not illogical.

Again, the god could very well choose to do those things. As such, we can assign a value of 'true' to any statement which says god can do those things. Anything else is superfluous to logic, as it doesn't concern itself with what is redundant or stupid, only to what is true or false. In this case, it is true that they could do those things. Yet on top of that being true, we could hold the opinion that doing those things would be stupid, but the fact would remain that doing those things would not be illogical or impossible.

3. The only statement which you could argue nets a logical contradiction is that of a perfect god creating the earth imperfectly; but ultimately, it is not a contradiction.

You see, either perfection is absolute, in which case if a perfect god exists then what he creates is undoubtedly perfect - however ridiculous his creation might seem to us; or it is subjective, in which case your claim that it isn't perfect doesn't hold water - or it holds just as much water as someone else calling it perfect.

[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 03-28-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

1. What do you mean by saying "has the same amount of logic behind it"?

Logic is a set of rules. Something either conforms to those rules or it does not. Someone building a house, in and of itself, has absolutely nothing to do with those rules of logic - nor does lifting a rock. Logic isn't something that is behind an action, it is something which we use to assign values of 'true' or 'false' to statements which allow us to assign such values.

2. The choices are not illogical.

Again, the god could very well choose to do those things. As such, we can assign a value of 'true' to any statement which says god can do those things. Anything else is superfluous to logic, as it doesn't concern itself with what is redundant or stupid, only to what is true or false. In this case, it is true that they could do those things. Yet on top of that being true, we could hold the opinion that doing those things would be stupid, but the fact would remain that doing those things would not be illogical or impossible.

3. The only statement which you could argue nets a logical contradiction is that of a perfect god creating the earth imperfectly; but ultimately, it is not a contradiction.

You see, either perfection is absolute, in which case if a perfect god exists then what he creates is undoubtedly perfect - however ridiculous his creation might seem to us; or it is subjective, in which case your claim that it isn't perfect doesn't hold water - or it holds just as much water as someone else calling it perfect.





It doesn't defy the rules of logic to have the power to completely take away all of your power, then does it? It is a fact that the rules of logic don't always have a definite position (use logic to solve 5 divided by zero) and the rules of logic as we know them would not exist outside of the big bang, time matter space and all observable laws of the universe were created during this event. And Christians believe God has always existed which of course is impossible, but lets say, for the sake of argument God existed outside time and space and matter before the creation, logic would not apply to him or anything else in this non-location, and therefore if he was always, as christians believe, omnipotent he should be able to create a stone that he could not pick up, in an illogical undefined non-location but the very fact that he cannot pick it up means that he is not omnipotent.

What are you trying to say? Because it isn't coming off at all. You've just gone full circle. You're now repeating the very same argument that was answered already.

If god can do the illogical, then he could pick it up. If doing the illogical isn't a requirement for omnipotence (and some Christians believe) then the fact that he couldn't is meaningless.



[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 03-28-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

What are you trying to say? Because it isn't coming off at all. You'e just gone full circle. You're now repeating the very same argument that was answered already.

If god can do the illogical, then he could pick it up. If doing the illogical isn't a requirement for omnipotence (and some Christians believe) then the fact that he couldn't is meaningless.





What I am trying to say is that before the Big Bang the rules of logic did not exist, or at least not as we know it so if God, as some believe, created the Big Bang probably from outside it as we can't see him here(outside being the best way to decscribe it as it wasn't a place.) then logic would not apply to him as all of the laws of the universe including everything else within it were created during the Big Bang.

If this is the case, that no logic exists outside the universe would he be able to pick up the stone that he made that he couldn't pick up, the answer I suppose could be undefined but it still seems unlikely.

The fact is if the laws of the universe outside of it didn't exist the materials of it, which triggered the big bang could have just bubbled out of nothing, and there would be no need whatsoever for a deity to do anything. In fact to believe in a God who created the universe with the Big Bang is almost more ridiculous than creationism as it creates unneccessary complications, and Okhams Razor states that we should try and answer problems in the neatest way possible.

Occam's Razor says that the simplest explanation is often the correct one, yes, but the explanation must fit with the evidence at hand. Everything points to a "Big Bang" (what model exactly we use is up to debate of course) but everything points to some cosmic event such as the Big Bang. Everythin points to the universe being much older than a few thousand years.

So no, it wouldn't be more ridiculous at all; nor would it be simpler!

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

Occam's Razor says that the simplest explanation is often the correct one, yes, but the explanation must fit with the evidence at hand. Everything points to a "Big Bang" (what model exactly we use is up to debate of course) but everything points to some cosmic event such as the Big Bang. Everythin points to the universe being much older than a few thousand years.

So no, it wouldn't be more ridiculous at all; nor would it be simpler!

I'm not quite sure if I am following you right here. I wasn't applying Occams Razor to the evidence that points to the begining of the universe through the Big Bang. I was using it on the widly accepted notion that the Big Bang created all matter time space and physical laws of the universe. It is more simple that in a location without any of these things (including logic; which was not in existence yet) the base materials of the Big Bang bubbled out of nothing into existence, than a superpowered living entity manged to exist in this void and created the universe.

EDIT: I'm tired.

[This message has been edited by jb_mcbean (edited 03-28-2006).]

I always thought that occams razor was about unfounded assumptions, not simplicity.

quote:Originally posted by Fundokiller:

I always thought that occams razor was about unfounded assumptions, not simplicity.

Not really, the wikipedia definition does say that a conclusion should be reached with the smallest possible number of assumptions though.

quote:Originally posted by jb_mcbean:

I'm not quite sure if I am following you right here. I wasn't applying Occams Razor to the evidence that points to the begining of the universe through the Big Bang. I was using it on the widly accepted notion that the Big Bang created all matter time space and physical laws of the universe. It is more simple that in a location without any of these things (including logic; which was not in existence yet) the base materials of the Big Bang bubbled out of nothing into existence, than a superpowered living entity manged to exist in this void and created the universe.



Yet you also said that creationism would be a more reasonable position that believing a god caudsed the Big Bang, which is ridiculous.

"In fact to believe in a God who created the universe with the Big Bang is almost more ridiculous than creationism as it creates unneccessary complications, and Okhams Razor states that we should try and answer problems in the neatest way possible."

Well, you actually said "almost more", so you're probably not saying that it is more reasonable, but that's what I was replying to.

I agree completely with your point, (the one you reiterated here now), not with the idea that creationism would be more reasonable that believing god created through the Big Bang - which is what I thought you were saying, but now see that you may not have been.

[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 03-29-2006).]

My head is going to explode http://www.totse.com/bbs/confused.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/confused.gif) I just read this whole thread.