Do you believe in God or evolution? (Page 10 of 15)

Indeed. Which is why the symbolic point of view has a problem as it is hard to  make everything into a symbol. That said however If someone cannot accept a book no matter what, is it not better to take what they can from the book rather than ignore it completely. Obviously you disagree with the whole idea of not accepting a book no matter what, so I suppose my suggestion is void in advance.

He didn't, He created a world with good in it which by default had to include a deficiency of good in it. A deficiency in good is bad.

Allow me to provide an example. How would you know you were happy if you had never been "not" happy?
Surely you would just consider happy to be "normal" if you hadn't experienced an alternative that was not as good as happy.

A metaphorical reference to this is "How would you know you were alive if no one died?" If there is no other option to consider it is just considered "normal"

Likewise God cannot create a good world without bad. How would we be able to know when what is good is good if there is never any bad to compare it to.

The classic comeback to what you have said is why would God have created man if he knew he would sin? Why did he not create man so he did not sin, then there would not be death, pain, disease and suffering? Better yet why did he create the forbidden tree? These are similar questions. Surely if God created a world in which there was temptation to take fruit from the tree then God created a little bit of bad in there. It depends whether you consider temptation bad.

At the end of the day, I don't think any of these questions matter. You can take one of two responses to this

The first I call the Ivan way (after Ivan Karamazov from The Brothers Karamazov)
There is evil in the world. This evil can be against people who by human standards are innocent and undeserving. Therefore I reject God, God is unfair, unjust and does not deserve worship.

The second is the Job way (after Job in the Biblical Book: Job)
There is evil in the world. This evil can be against people who by human standards are innocent and undeserving. However I am not God, I do not know what God knows, all I have is faith that God is good. Therefore I trust God is doing right and worship him as a result of this trust.

So some big things to consider there. Once again I'm not trying to cross any lines here, I respect your beliefs. I just enjoy philosophical and therefore theological discussion.

Good. Bad. OK, if you know your Bible(which I am very happy to talk to someone who knows what they're talking about), then you know that there was no good or bad. It was a perfect world before sin. After Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they realized that they were naked. That was when bad came into the world. The tree was called The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. There was no good, or bad. There was no such thing as a conscience.

Hehe.  Predestination vs. Free will.  Another debate for another entirely different time.  Good points you raise.

Pandora's box, as in evil is released but not without hope?

I'm sorry I didn't make it clear, but I was trying to put forward an opinion or reasoned argument that some would put forward. Although, I don't particularly see what the distinction between "God created good so there must be bad" and "Evil was allowed to exist in order to balance things"
Unless I am mistaken, that's what I meant.

I do know my Bible.
You misunderstand me. The opinions I was putting forward were if "Genesis" and the "Adam and Eve version of events" are not accepted. i.e. Where evil came from if it didn't come from eating the apple in the garden of eden.
What you are saying is true according to Genesis, but I we are talking cross-purposes unfortunately.

Yes indeed. One of the main problems with internet chatting unfortunately.

If you don't mind me saying so, I find that idea that you are not a Christian because you don't want to be a hypocrite really quite fascinating. In a good way.

Yes. I understand all of what you say and there is this idea that God knows all and therefore we cannot have free will, our choices, our actions, everything is predetermined and understood by God. God is not temporal, that is, he is not "in" space and time, therefore he cannot "know something before it happened" because for God there is no "before" or "after" as there is no time. Following on from that, we are all predestined to go to Heaven or predestined to go to Hell.

Now, in my mind, whether you believe and accept that idea as truth, one must act as if one does have free will, as if one can change the future and as one can get oneself to heaven. As while God may know which of us goes, we don't, so from our point of view in temporal existence we still have a choice.

And yes, in relation to your second point on talking about God and I realise this is a slight tangent to what you were saying. Some people have said it is pointless and foolhardy to speak of religion or God because neither can be verified and we cannot possible hope to understand either should they exist. I don't agree with that view as I enjoy talking about it, I enjoy hearing of people's views, thoughts and feelings on God and to an extent that gives my own faith strength.

Now what my faith is....that's another story.

My earlier post brings to mind another reason I can't consider myself a christian...."only the Sith deal in absolutes." I have a hard time seeing the world in black-and-white terms and that's what a question like, "do you believe in evolution or creation" forces people to do, not on this list but I mean in a more general way. These kinds of debates are starting to break apart society and the world. No matter how you put it, if you consider yourself a born-again christian, everyone that is not is going to hell, and that is not something anyone wants to hear.

What I am saying is that modern christianity can be off-putting if the delivery is not handled in a delicate way.

I hope God is there but I can't be positive so I am not going to commit to something without being convinced.

Hmmm you see the future...please dream that my parents will take me to a Japanese grill on Sunday = ) Pleeeze?

But as for free will,  agree with you, and you too Humorbot. I think like you CCDF, in the part about free will. We make our own choices. But I think that God knows what choices we will make. And as for you HB5, good job on expressing how God is not bound by time. Saves me some for not having to write all that.

It's FUN! JK! That's a good idea. But it'll probably never stop. Evolutionists and Christians are some of the two most hard-headed people around! But you know regimas, Fettism, which you profess to believe, is not without it's problems...LOL!

You know...there is another aspect to all of this that we may all be missing...
Maybe the Hindus are right and we are all doomed to go around-and-and around in the endless cycle of samsara until we finally reach enlightenment.

I'm not really sure about that either...but as I was saying above, I think it is pretty foolish to think you have it all figured out just because what you believe is written in a book. I mean, after all, there's the book of Mormon, The Koran, the Bagavad gita, The writtings of Baha Ula, even Dianetics...

I tend, personally, to take Homer Simpsons' view on religion...I worship God in my own way and I am sure that God being God understands that...if he doesn't then he wouldn't be God.

There is a lot of psychology, philosophy and metaphysics behind this kind of discussion but it really comes down to is something one of my professors said when I was at university...

"You should never "believe" anything, you should be convinced"  and if you are that should be enough.

I find that the people who bark the loudest, on both sides of the debate, are those who's convictions are most at question.

As Yoda says, "you will know when you are at peace, calm."

Yes. I am very sure that for some God is real and he has a plan buuuut...

There is no one on Earth who can convince me that God is real other than myself. And, this is true for everything for everybody almost all of the time.

Again, as I said above, people on both sides of the argument tend to see things in absolutist terms.  I believe this helps no one and creates divisions among the world's people.

I think it is great that people can find comfort, guidance and security in religion. I studied anthropology in grad. school and I have a pretty solid grasp of the cultural patterns of religions.  I enjoy studying about religion a great deal. However, all of my studies have left me with only two conclusion.

1.) Everyone, everywhere, thinks their way of living life, especially religion, is the correct, true way to do so.
(So what gives one religion the right to claim dominance over any other?)
2.) There are far more similarities between most of the major religions in the world than differences. (For many great discussions on this topic I recommend reading Joseph Campbell's MASKS OF GOD  series.)

Long-story-short: Just because you love Vishnu does not mean you hate God and are going to Hell. I feel very confident that God will make his own decisions about who goes where, and everything else as well.  Being self-righteous doesn't help anybody and it can be very derisive.

P.S. Homer Simpson, ya know yellow cartoon character, you never saw that episode I guess?

See, that really doesn't make sense--it disagrees most major religions today. You can't have more than one true religion. That is what give people the reason to say that their religion is the only way.

You can't expect your version of god to accept you simply because you believe that he exists, especially if you don't even know what god you're "worshiping". Thats just making up your own god. You can't tailor a god to your own desires. If you don't know what god you worship, how can you follow the laws he's laid down? How can you follow him?

Its one thing to follow a religion, another to make your own up.

This is why I've not gotten involved in this. I knew It'd end badly. Sorry for coming across antagonistic, but it makes no sense no matter what direction your coming from.

You are kind of making my point for me here...I don't believe in organized religion on any level because it is, in the end, all arbitrary! People believe whatever it is they want to believe. There are people who consider themselves christians who follow rules and dogma that are not even in the Bible.

But more importantly, what I was trying to say was
1.) that people shouldn't judge others' religious views.
2.) No one should be a slave to ideology. ( and I will never, ever believe there is only one true religion, I think that is ethnocentric, self-centered and myopic!)
3.) People should have a sense of humor, I am sure God does.