Do you believe in God?

[polysmut]

According to a piece of fiction written ages ago, sometimes I wonder if Star Wars will go down the same path and people will be praising Yoda or some other character in a few thousand years time.

The beginnings may be in place.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_census_phenomenon

 

[Fat Tyre]

The beginnings may be in place.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_census_phenomenon

We're doomed.

 

[Imari]

According to a piece of fiction written ages ago, sometimes I wonder if Star Wars will go down the same path and people will be praising Yoda or some other character in a few thousand years time.

If it weren't for the unholy abominations that are Episodes 1 through 3, perhaps there'd be a better chance.

 

[Fat Tyre]

If it weren't for the unholy abominations that are Episodes 1 through 3, perhaps there'd be a better chance.

Maybe they'll treat it as the OT, the crappy bit that it is OK to skip.

 

[Famine]

According to a piece of fiction written ages ago, sometimes I wonder if Star Wars will go down the same path and people will be praising Yoda or some other character in a few thousand years time.

"May the Force be with you."
"And also with you."

 

[Yttrium99]

According to a piece of fiction written ages ago, sometimes I wonder if Star Wars will go down the same path and people will be praising Yoda or some other character in a few thousand years time.

Would Luke be the equivalent of the messiah?

 

[BrodieBoi94]

Yes.

Although I do not believe in religion of any sort.

I believe that, just as the cars we love so much were created, designed, etc. so to was the world as we know it, so far... (There's a lot we don't know).

Besides my logic saying that nothing could just come into existence, I observe how purposeful so many things are, and can only conclude that they were designed.

Now I can be my own worst enemy sometimes, because the question "If everything is created/designed, then who created God? How did God just come into existence?" pops up.

Then in response, this thought comes along, "To understand the grandeur of God is to understand that God has always been, and wasn't created but is the creator."

And breaking down all of these items, makes me wonder how I would think had I not been influenced by so many individuals as far back as age 3/4. do I just believe in such a thing because it was introduced to me at a young age? Or do I really have this sense of a Godly presence?

Someone respond please, with criticism or appraisal.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Would Luke be the equivalent of the messiah?

No.

 

[Imari]

Besides my logic saying that nothing could just come into existence, I observe how purposeful so many things are, and can only conclude that they were designed.

We'll come back to that piece of logic in a bit, but let's start with the purpose of things. I assume you mean by this that there are objects that perform certain functions particularly well.

This is true. However, that tends to only be the case when you're comparing them to naturally unevolved items. If you think about them as items that have been designed, then you'll find that actually you can find all sorts of what would be considered design flaws.

Even given that we're not necessarily talking about a Christian omnipotent/omniscient god, a being that creates a universe should probably be designing on such a high level that our squishy little human brains shouldn't be able to find much wrong with it.

Take for example the human eye, which often gets used in these sorts of things. Seems pretty amazing, a little ball of jelly that lets us see light. But if you look closer then you find that actually the "wiring" runs in front of the "sensors" in the eye. It's mostly transparent, but it obscures some light and makes our vision worse. There's no need for this, the octopus does it the "proper" way.

Name something that you think is a good example of purposeful design, and I practically guarantee that someone can think of a way that it could be improved.

Now I can be my own worst enemy sometimes, because the question "If everything is created/designed, then who created God? How did God just come into existence?" pops up.

Then in response, this thought comes along, "To understand the grandeur of God is to understand that God has always been, and wasn't created but is the creator."

Here we are back to your first piece of logic.

If you're going to say that causality must be maintained at all times, then you don't get to throw that away because it makes it hard to explain god. If you're willing to accept that god might be eternal and has always been, then you have to be willing to accept that this might be true of other things. Including the universe. To do otherwise is to cherrypick where you want the rules to apply, and that's no good way to find the truth of anything.

 

[rogerthatone]

Created by MAN, for mans to control others. Stop this bull, AND GO HELP SOME ONE. this well make you fell good about yourself.

 

[Dotini]

No.

Demonstrating that Jedi is nothing other than dualism, good vs evil, light vs dark.

 

[BrodieBoi94]

We'll come back to that piece of logic in a bit, but let's start with the purpose of things. I assume you mean by this that there are objects that perform certain functions particularly well.

This is true. However, that tends to only be the case when you're comparing them to naturally unevolved items. If you think about them as items that have been designed, then you'll find that actually you can find all sorts of what would be considered design flaws.

Even given that we're not necessarily talking about a Christian omnipotent/omniscient god, a being that creates a universe should probably be designing on such a high level that our squishy little human brains shouldn't be able to find much wrong with it.

Take for example the human eye, which often gets used in these sorts of things. Seems pretty amazing, a little ball of jelly that lets us see light. But if you look closer then you find that actually the "wiring" runs in front of the "sensors" in the eye. It's mostly transparent, but it obscures some light and makes our vision worse. There's no need for this, the octopus does it the "proper" way.

Name something that you think is a good example of purposeful design, and I practically guarantee that someone can think of a way that it could be improved.



Here we are back to your first piece of logic.

If you're going to say that causality must be maintained at all times, then you don't get to throw that away because it makes it hard to explain god. If you're willing to accept that god might be eternal and has always been, then you have to be willing to accept that this might be true of other things. Including the universe. To do otherwise is to cherrypick where you want the rules to apply, and that's no good way to find the truth of anything.

For a few examples, I think about things such as the pollination process, as well as the decomposition process. How even something dead can be recycled to improve something living.

Also the way our earth "runs", it reminds me of a well built machine. Not perfect but still amazing... how all of these variables were just right for it to exist you know?

I just couldn't see and experience something so great without thinking this.

As a car enthusiast (since age who knows when) I relate the earth to a car in that way.

One thing I think about is, imagine if you had never seen a car, or anything like it. Say for whatever reason you spotted one, would you believe that it happened into existence?

Now I know some things evolve and/or come to exist through nature as time goes on, but the principles that allowed it to happen, and/or the basis for the organism/natural occurrence that allowed it to take place, make me think of a "God".

 

[Scaff]

For a few examples, I think about things such as the pollination process, as well as the decomposition process. How even something dead can be recycled to improve something living.

Also the way our earth "runs", it reminds me of a well built machine. Not perfect but still amazing... how all of these variables were just right for it to exist you know?

I just couldn't see and experience something so great without thinking this.

And all of the other planets that don't support life?

As a car enthusiast (since age who knows when) I relate the earth to a car in that way.

One thing I think about is, imagine if you had never seen a car, or anything like it. Say for whatever reason you spotted one, would you believe that it happened into existence?

And in that regard you're comparing apples to hippos.

Now I know some things evolve and/or come to exist through nature as time goes on, but the principles that allowed it to happen, and/or the basis for the organism/natural occurrence that allowed it to take place, make me think of a "God".

Shame you have no evidence to support such a hypothesis.

 

[BrodieBoi94]

And all of the other planets that don't support life?



And in that regard you're comparing apples to hippos.



Shame you have no evidence to support such a hypothesis.

I think about the other planets too, and have asked the same question.

And ok, apples to hippos but can you answer the question, "would you believe that it happened into existence?"

I wouldn't think anyone who knows even the slightest about science would need evidence of evolution, but ok.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...s-causing-extinctions/?utm_term=.5501b6ce8b8d

http://listverse.com/2013/03/25/10-weird-cases-of-incredible-animal-evolution/

 

[mistersafeway]

I wouldn't think anyone who knows even the slightest about science would need evidence of evolution, but ok.

Not sure if you deliberately misunderstood that.

 

[G.T.Ace]

If it weren't for the unholy abominations that are Episodes 1 through 3, perhaps there'd be a better chance.

Why not? The old testament yadda yadda.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Why not? The old testament yadda yadda.

That's the trouble with Jedi as a faith, the old testament is far newer than the new testament which is older. Help me, Obi-wan.

 

[mistersafeway]

That's the trouble with Jedi as a faith, the old testament is far newer than the new testament which is older. Help me, Obi-wan.

Nah, we're talking about it as a serious religion which would likely be centuries from now, what's a couple of decades? There'll probably be holy wars to decide which really came first.

 

[Fat Tyre]

Nah, we're talking about it as a serious religion which would likely be centuries from now, what's a couple of decades? There'll probably be holy wars to decide which really came first.

The funny thing is what George Lucas' role would be, Would he be taken as the guy who had a revelation and wrote it all down? In that case would he be a Joseph Smith or more of a prophet Muhammad?

 

[Scaff]

I think about the other planets too, and have asked the same question.

And ok, apples to hippos but can you answer the question, "would you believe that it happened into existence?"

I wouldn't think anyone who knows even the slightest about science would need evidence of evolution, but ok.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...s-causing-extinctions/?utm_term=.5501b6ce8b8d

http://listverse.com/2013/03/25/10-weird-cases-of-incredible-animal-evolution/

I don't need evidence for evolution, nor did I ask for it.

I asked for evidence to support your hypothesis of a deity magicing it into existence.

You also seem to be confusing evolution with autobiogenesis. We don't know for sure what caused live to first appear, that however doesn't then provide a mandate to make stuff up or start claiming nonsense.

Do you think that sciences supports the notion that fully developed species simply popped into existence?

 

[UKMikey]

The funny thing is what George Lucas' role would be, Would he be taken as the guy who had a revelation and wrote it all down? In that case would he be a Joseph Smith or more of a prophet Muhammad?

I'm not sure, how does Scientology officially view Ron Hubbard?

 

[Exorcet]

For a few examples, I think about things such as the pollination process, as well as the decomposition process. How even something dead can be recycled to improve something living.

They are made of the same materials though, so it's not really much of a surprise. Looking outside decomposition, some organisms kill and eat other organisms. They do this because those organisms they kill contain the materials they need to keep living. From that perspective, what does being alive or dead matter?

One thing I think about is, imagine if you had never seen a car, or anything like it. Say for whatever reason you spotted one, would you believe that it happened into existence?

If you never saw example of advanced technology before? Then it would certainly be a possibility that you thought it was a naturally occurring thing. Using human made products to show that engineering and construction are innately obvious to an observer doesn't work because most people know what's man-made and what's not. This is a more interesting question for people who don't know the answer already.

 

[BobK]

For a few examples, I think about things such as the pollination process, as well as the decomposition process. How even something dead can be recycled to improve something living.

This is generally through a process commonly known as "eating".

Also the way our earth "runs", it reminds me of a well built machine. Not perfect but still amazing... how all of these variables were just right for it to exist you know?

That's what'll happen when you have 4 1/2 billion years to adapt to your environment.

A lot of people confuse the cart for the horse in this. They think that since we (life on earth) fit so well into the conditions on earth that the conditions must have been designed specifically for us. But it's really more like we (life, still) have spent an awful long time adapting to whatever the conditions happen to be.

Was the Arctic environment created for Arctic flora and fauna, or did "normal" (for lack of a better word) life adapt to conditions in the Arctic? How about deserts? Swamps? etc, etc...

 

[Imari]

For a few examples, I think about things such as the pollination process, as well as the decomposition process. How even something dead can be recycled to improve something living.

Those are the two most well designed things you could think of?

K. I think we might be done here pretty quickly.

Also the way our earth "runs", it reminds me of a well built machine. Not perfect but still amazing... how all of these variables were just right for it to exist you know?

The earth doesn't run. It's a rock. It has a bunch of stuff on it that is all doing it's best to survive.

Any variables in particular that were surprisingly just right for the earth to exist? You might want to look up the anthropic principle before answering if you haven't heard of it already.

One thing I think about is, imagine if you had never seen a car, or anything like it. Say for whatever reason you spotted one, would you believe that it happened into existence?

Now I know some things evolve and/or come to exist through nature as time goes on, but the principles that allowed it to happen, and/or the basis for the organism/natural occurrence that allowed it to take place, make me think of a "God".

You know what the difference between a car and an evolved being is? A car cannot procreate. Evolved systems get to be where they are because the can continue their own species. As such, each generation is impacted by it's environment and the general range of capabilities within that species will shift.

A car cannot create another car. When a mummy car and a daddy car love each other very much...nothing happens. A car requires a creator not of it's "species". That's not complicated. One might be confused if one had never seen a car before and assumed it to be some sort of animal, but probably not afterwards.

I think you need to do some more reading into how stuff comes to be and how the world works. You will be enlightened. If you still want to believe in god after that then sure, but at the moment you're simply assigning stuff to god because you don't understand it correctly.

 

[niky]

Part of the problem with our well-oiled, smoothly-running global ecology is that it isn't and it doesn't.

Species don't simply evolve in elegant, linear ways over long periods of time. They clash, crash, die off in massive extinction events caused by both natural catastrophes and ecological imbalances caused by species that are too successful, decimating other species before destroying their environs and dying out.

Those that don't die off experience massive population loss, followed by accelerated mutation and speciation, as happened to H. Sapiens, at one point, where there were merely a few thousand people left on the planet... right before we exploded across the face of the Earth... killing off other human species and large mammals in the process.

Nature is not a gentle mistress.

 

[BrodieBoi94]

Not sure if you deliberately misunderstood that.

I thought he was referring to evolution.

 

[BrodieBoi94]

Part of the problem with our well-oiled, smoothly-running global ecology is that it isn't and it doesn't.

Species don't simply evolve in elegant, linear ways over long periods of time. They clash, crash, die off in massive extinction events caused by both natural catastrophes and ecological imbalances caused by species that are too successful, decimating other species before destroying their environs and dying out.

Those that don't die off experience massive population loss, followed by accelerated mutation and speciation, as happened to H. Sapiens, at one point, where there were merely a few thousand people left on the planet... right before we exploded across the face of the Earth... killing off other human species and large mammals in the process.

Nature is not a gentle mistress.

So just because they don't evolve in "elegant linear ways over long periods" doesn't mean that they aren't a great thing. The fact that they are able to evolve and come into existence is what makes it so great. Our own technoligies despite how refined they may be, fail often, and are not perfect at all, but that doesn't mean they aren't amazing and that they don't serve a purpose no matter how small.

I never mentioned perfection. So mutations and setbacks aside, we have still been able to make it here today. And the killing off of other homo sapiens and mammals was a decision that those before us made out of their own free will.

I believe in something greater than us, greater than what we know, because despite the fact that we can figure out how many things work via science, no one has proof to say how all of these variables just happened to come into play allowingfor things such as the big bang (theory), and solar systems...etc... what I am trying to explain is the fact that all of these things are even ABLE to exist is something we can only theorize about.

 

[mistersafeway]

So 'we can't explain this, therefore MAGIC'? What's wrong with admitting you don't know something?

 

[Dennisch]

What's wrong with admitting you don't know something?

Because god has all the answers.

 

[Danoff]

I believe in something greater than us, greater than what we know, because despite the fact that we can figure out how many things work via science, no one has proof to say how all of these variables just happened to come into play allowingfor things such as the big bang (theory), and solar systems...etc... what I am trying to explain is the fact that all of these things are even ABLE to exist is something we can only theorize about.

Ok, so in the gazillions of universes simultaneously spawned by the big bang, most of them collapsed right back on themselves due to unstable characteristics. You're not contemplating your existence in one of those because they weren't stable enough to survive. You're contemplating your existence in a stable universe because stability is required for life to have enough time to develop to contemplate its own existence.

There are gazillions of rocks orbiting stars in our universe - most of them can't harbor life. You're on one that can precisely because it can. Roll the dice enough times (which the universe absolutely did) and you end up with a planet that can harbor life. Life shows up there and then wonders why conditions are so well suited for it... because life doesn't show up where conditions are not well suited for it.

Flip a coin enough times and you'll get heads 10 times in a row. The 10th heads will then sit there and wonder how it is possible that it exists given the improbable odds of a 10th heads being thrown. That's because it didn't see all the coins there were flipped before it arrived.