Belief in God - Dawkins Spectrum of Probabilities

[Mr.Canada]

Thanks for providing Exhibit A for why religion has to be kept away from law and government.

Earlier, you informed us that anyone you regard as "left" cannot be a good Christian, so at best we would have one-party rule by "Christian Conservatives." No other opinions would be considered, and if conservative Catholics ended up holding all of the cards, how long would they tolerate Evangelicals, Mormons and other allies on the Religious Right?

Your church does not believe that Protestant churches are real churches, according to your Pope (although he does accept that there may be Christians inside), so what other "God-fearing" religions that are outside of Christianity completely would a doctrinaire Catholic accept? If you really believe that God provides many paths to heaven, then you are out of step with your church's authorities; and in a Catholic theocracy, they would be setting the rules and bringing back the gold old days of the Inquisition and heresy trials -- which is why sane people value separation of church and state.

I don't want to see that at all. Sure I say I do but I know it would destroy Canada just like it would if Socialists had total control. I would like to see something truly in the middle with some things from the right taken into consideration of the powers that be. Not all the ideas Christians have are evil and bad.

Uhhh, I see. You're referring to Protestants being heretics and whores of Babylon I think. Well, the RCC was the only Church started by St. Peter instructed to by Jesus. Plus Protestants believe in Sola Scriptura(Bible taken literally) which in and of itself is flawed as their is no real head of the Protestant Church so no real direction.

[msj]

The left who won't follow the Bible are in fact more evidence of the left wanting only for ME, ME, ME. The left cannot accept being wrong in any sense of the word and are very selfish people. Their way is the only way, the imposition of their values on us. Everything else and all other views are an attack on secular humanity.

That's all good and fine, but would you please stop telling us what the "left" believe in.

You cannot speak for an entire group of people where some believe in God (Jesus and all that, even) and others don't.

Stop behaving like a frickin' child.

People have very different and complex belief systems and you would do better to try and appreciate those different perspectives than tell us what you think they believe in (because what you think just ain't even close to being right).

If I were to simplify your beliefs into being a right wing fundie nutbar who wants to force your religious BS on the rest of Canada and that all Christians are like this and, therefore, are nothing but selfish people for trying to save others souls - well, most of that just ain't true and isn't a fair picture of the Christians that I know and deal with on a daily basis.

[Mr.Canada]

The left at large behave in this manner. The manner I have laid out.

[Smallc]

Mr. Canada, I am tired of being told who I am, what I think, and how I behave. I am tired of you telling me what I do and don't believe and what I should and shouldn't believe. You are becoming completely unreasonable.

[Mr.Canada]

Mr. Canada, I am tired of being told who I am, what I think, and how I behave. I am tired of you telling me what I do and don't believe and what I should and shouldn't believe. You are becoming completely unreasonable.

Explain how I'm becoming unreasonable.

The left does name call when people go against what they say. They do it all the time. I'm not saying anything false.

The left is full of intelligent socially active, enlightened individuals while the right are all rednecks and backwoods raised people. Th is how the left sees it. Tell me this isn't true smallc.

Edited December 29, 2008 by Mr.Canada

[Smallc]

The left does name call when people go against what they say. They do it all the time. I'm not saying anything false.

"The left" is not a person. I could say the same thing about "the right," but it wouldn't be any more correct. You are simply generalizing to the negative in regards to people you don't agree with.

[Mr.Canada]

"The left" is not a person. I could say the same thing about "the right," but it wouldn't be any more correct. You are simply generalizing to the negative in regards to people you don't agree with.

The left is full of intelligent socially active, enlightened individuals while the right are all rednecks and backwoods raised people. Th is how the left sees it. Tell me this isn't true smallc.

[Smallc]

That isn't true. You obviously didn't read what I wrote.

[Mr.Canada]

That isn't true. You obviously didn't read what I wrote.

Of coarse I'm generalizing. Stereotypes are those fr a reason. There is truth in everything on both sides.

[WIP]

I don't want to see that at all. Sure I say I do but I know it would destroy Canada just like it would if Socialists had total control. I would like to see something truly in the middle with some things from the right taken into consideration of the powers that be. Not all the ideas Christians have are evil and bad.

I'm still a little bewildered by this idea that Christianity determines someone's political ideology. Does that mean leftwingers claiming to be Christians are false Christians? Like many other versions of Christianity, Christian socialists have their own favourite bible verses to quote from such as:

ACTS 2:44 And all that believed were together, and had all things common; 2:45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.

ACTS 4:34 Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,

4:35 And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.

4:36 And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation,) a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus,

4:37 Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet.

And in the next chapter of Acts, we find the story of Ananias and his wife Sapphira, who committed the sin of trying to hold back some of their money from a land sale -- the Apostle Peter accuses them of lying to the Holy Ghost and they both drop dead for their attempt to hold on to some of their wealth........not a very free enterprise message in these chapters.

Uhhh, I see. You're referring to Protestants being heretics and whores of Babylon I think. Well, the RCC was the only Church started by St. Peter instructed to by Jesus.

The Protestants used to call the Catholics whores of Babylon since from the time of Martin Luther, they were claiming that the Church of Rome was an apostate church prophesied in the book of Revelation. What I was referring to was the statement by the Pope that Protestant churches can't be true churches since they do not follow the apostolic succession and recognize the present vicar of Christ as their leader:

restates key sections of a 2000 text the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, "Dominus Iesus," which riled Protestant, Lutheran and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the "means of salvation."

"Christ 'established here on earth' only one Church," said the document released as the pope vacations at a villa in Lorenzago di Cadore, in Italy's Dolomite mountains.

The other communities "cannot be called 'churches' in the proper sense" because they do not have apostolic succession -- the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ's original apostles -- and therefore their priestly ordinations are not valid, it said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288841,00.html

Plus Protestants believe in Sola Scriptura(Bible taken literally) which in and of itself is flawed as their is no real head of the Protestant Church so no real direction.

That gives you a pretty big ace to play against anti-Catholic Biblical literalists, since the Bible that they consider to be divinely inspired and inerrant was put together by the Catholic Church and all of the manuscripts used as source material were hand-copied by monks for centuries before the printing press was invented and made possible for the first time, the mass production of identical copies of a book. There are no original manuscripts of any of the books in the Bible, and most of them were made centuries after the original manuscripts would have been written; so that leaves the literalists pretty dependent on the Catholic Church for the authenticity of their Bible.

[charter.rights]

If the Catholic Church could still get away with conducting their sermons in Latin, they would. The Catholic Church has always been about secrecy and obedience, not enlightenment. It is no wonder that priests were able to manipulate the masses, including getting away with into adultery and pedophilia over the centuries. No one could ever tell what was true and what was not with any priest. Up until about the 60's the Bible wasn't even read by most Catholics because the Church was the only one that could interpret it.

Yet, I have survived that era and understand the Bible and the teaching of Jesus much better than most. That could only have come about through my own personal enlightenment, and faith in God, rejecting the Church for the heretic and devil it has turned out to be. I no longer consider myself Christian, but apply The Christ in everyday life.

[Mr.Canada]

If the Catholic Church could still get away with conducting their sermons in Latin, they would. The Catholic Church has always been about secrecy and obedience, not enlightenment. It is no wonder that priests were able to manipulate the masses, including getting away with into adultery and pedophilia over the centuries. No one could ever tell what was true and what was not with any priest. Up until about the 60's the Bible wasn't even read by most Catholics because the Church was the only one that could interpret it.

Many want a return to Latin Mass. That's what the Pius movement is about, pre VII Catholic CHurch, even though they were all excommunicated they believe they are the purest for of Catholicism and most likely Christianity. Fact is VII happened because they wanted to RCC to be more accessible to more people without having to understand Bible Latin.

Yes the RCC hid deep homosexuals who sometimes had pedo urges. This happened during the 60's in order to appear more accepting of homosexuals as long as they didn't partake in homosexuality acts. As it's the act of homosexuality that's a sin not homosexuality itself. Homosexuals were to remain chaste. Since the late 80's and early 90's deep homosexuals are no longer allowed to become Priests.

Yet, I have survived that era and understand the Bible and the teaching of Jesus much better than most. That could only have come about through my own personal enlightenment, and faith in God, rejecting the Church for the heretic and devil it has turned out to be. I no longer consider myself Christian, but apply The Christ in everyday life.

I pray one day you realize that noo one or any group is perfect and come back to the one and only true Church. The CHurch of the Holy Mother, the RCC.

[LesterDC]

The left is full of intelligent socially active, enlightened individuals while the right are all rednecks and backwoods raised people. Th is how the left sees it. Tell me this isn't true smallc.

here we go again...

[LesterDC]

I am about 80% positive that there is some form of a supreme creator.. On the other hand, lately, I don't know where the idea that this creator should "love" us came from ..

[WIP]

I am about 80% positive that there is some form of a supreme creator.. On the other hand, lately, I don't know where the idea that this creator should "love" us came from ..

And that's the problem with the Dawkins Spectrum of Probabilities; a lot of people, even many centuries ago, started getting skeptical about the concept of a personal god being involved in our lives, but the concept of an intelligent force designing the universe is not ruled out by as many skeptics since there are physicists speculating about the possibilities available if a multidimensional supersymmetry string theory model of physics is correct, it would allow the possibility that intelligent, advanced life forms could produce the conditions needed to seed a new universe and the designers could set the physical laws of the new universe they have created: http://www.biocosm.org/ .......although just as the god of the deists disappears after he has created the universe, the creators of a new bio-friendly universe will never be able to interact with their creation, since they would remain stuck inside the dimensions of their own universe and unable to interact with the new universe they have seeded. If it's possible, it will almost certainly happen, and then everyone can agree on a definition for a creator!

[Moonlight Graham]

Do i believe there is a "God", as defined by Christianity, Judaism, Islam etc.? I believe there is a decent probability but i'm not 100% certain. Maybe 60% certain.

But do i believe there is a higher power, a higher being or beings or force that created this universe (but not as the Bible says)? Yes i do believe that.

[capricorn]

Most of us don't know if there is a God, so we speculate. Nothing wrong with that. What I have found is that people want to believe in something...anything...because otherwise what is the point of being born and spending life on earth, especially if that life is wanting and unhappy. So most of us cling to a belief, be it Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, what have you, that there must be something better than what we are experiencing here on earth and that there must be a purpose to it.

As I have said elsewhere, it's better to believe in something than to believe in nothing. Believing is akin to hope.

In my own experience, I was raised in an extremely poor environment. Early on, I believed that there was something better to life if only I could break free from the hopelessness and heartache of my circumstances.

The reason I was able to lift myself out of my predicament is that I was intelligent and had hope. I have concluded that the intelligence I was gifted with came from my parents. They were very intelligent but circumstances were such that they could not apply the gift they passed on to me to their own lives and they died unhappy.

So with my gift of intelligence and belief that a better life awaited me, I worked hard and eventually carved out a fairly comfortable life for myself. I could not have done it alone as the odds against me were too great. I am not a practicing Catholic yet my faith was there even though I never actually acknowledged that it was. In the end, I believe that faith, in all its manifestations, impacts on our success while we are on earth.

[WIP]

Most of us don't know if there is a God, so we speculate. Nothing wrong with that. What I have found is that people want to believe in something...anything...because otherwise what is the point of being born and spending life on earth, especially if that life is wanting and unhappy.So most of us cling to a belief, be it Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, what have you, that there must be something better than what we are experiencing here on earth and that there must be a purpose to it.

Does wanting to believe something make it real? Some of these people with unhappy lives may have been motivated to improve the life they have instead of wishing and dreaming they have a new life somewhere else. This life is the only one we can be sure of, so why not make the best of this one?

And that question can be flipped around: what is the point of this life on earth, if it's just a trial run for an eternal life in heaven? Think about it, why would God bother creating a mortal, physical world filled with death and suffering, when he could have just created immortal creatures free of the pitfalls of living in this world?

[White Doors]

The left at large behave in this manner. The manner I have laid out.

You're not entirely sane are you?

[Mr.Canada]

You're not entirely sane are you?

It's the Socialists who are decidedly insane. I honestly view the NDP as quite insane, they're quite mad.

[eyeball]

The left at large behave in this manner. The manner I have laid out.

You do realize Jesus was a lefty don't you?

[Mr.Canada]

You do realize Jesus was a lefty don't you?

Jesus basically says believe in me or suffer for all time in hell. Yeah sounds like a socialist.

[Smallc]

Jesus basically says believe in me or suffer for all time in hell.

Where did he say that?

[Mr.Canada]

Where did he say that?

You don't know the bible?

Whoever shall believe in me shall not suffer but have eternal life.

You don't know it? It's a basic premise of Christianity. Perhaps you should learn what it's about before disagreeing with it smallc.

[DrGreenthumb]

You don't know the bible?

Whoever shall believe in me shall not suffer but have eternal life.

You don't know it? It's a basic premise of Christianity. Perhaps you should learn what it's about before disagreeing with it smallc.

I think someone's been drinking a little too much komunnion Kool-aid.