Do you believe there is a God?

Profahoben_212Statistics....every hypothesis has a null and alternative....it is the first step of hypothesis testing

milk_manYes sir!

onenerdykidExactly my point. He did not define a null hypothesis.

milk_manThe null hypothesis is the opposite of what you're trying to prove

onenerdykid"God exists" is not a hypothesis. Therefore, "God does not exist" is not a null hypothesis. That is the point I am trying to make. A hypothesis is a very specific and testable claim that makes a prediction. While a hypothesis is a type of claim, not all claims are hypotheses.

Ultimately, the burden of proof lies upon a person making scientifically unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others. This was our prior argument, and it still stands.

The.Fishhttp://www.catholic.org/news/hf/faith/story.php?id=68497
Here it is

californiagrownYikes. I hope that article is not as far as you have looked into it haha.

The.FishI just heard about it. I didn't really research it but i believe it. That isnt the first time it has happened either.

californiagrownOh really? Proof?

I have no problem with religious faith, or even the possible existence of miracles.

I do, however, have a problem with people taking gossip from a shit source as the absolute truth. You've done zero investigation, and 100% believe an unbelievable story without thinking twice. It's sad you don't feel any need to question.

The.FishI was at some catholic youth conference a few weeks ago and there was a stat that there is a 10 to the negative 384th power chance that our universe is possible based on a list of hundreds of scientific factors like the weight of the carbon atom and the size of an electron. It won't convert athiests but it helps reasure current believers that there is a God since everything was made so perfectly. I did some research into it after to verify the claim and it is true. I also like how an athiest hated the catholic church so he tried writing a boom about how it is wrong. In the middle of the process he converted to catholicism because he realized he was wrong lol.

The.FishObviously i was raised catholic so i am biased against other religions but with my church's high school youth program i became a genuine believer. Some of my friends try to tell me that Catholics are wrong because the pope is wealthy and says the big bang theory isand that we worship

rclover106I haven't read this thread but I would say there is no god at all. I've always felt this way. Science has heavily influenced me I guess.

The.FishThat deleted half of my post^^^

Obviously i was raised catholic so i am biased against other religions but with my church's high school youth program i became a genuine believer. Some of my friends try to tell me that Catholics are wrong because the pope is wealthy and says the big bang theory is true and that we worship Mary but so many false rumors get thrown at me so I have no answer for them since obviously I don't know the Church's view on every single circumstance. However I do know we don't worship Mary lol. We can pray to her but it goes to God. I am still puzzled by how that works but I am a catholic because of the Eucharist mainly. No other religion can offer the true body and blood of Chirst, just a symbolic version.

Profahoben_212Uh what....curious on where it says in the bible that the only way you can have communion is through themail Catholic Church. Oh....it doesnt

The.FishWell the catholic church is Jesus's original church that he built himself. And he gives his priests the power to transform bread into the body of Christ by transforming bread into his body himself and saying "do this in memory of me"

The.FishIm just curious as to what science has influenced you. Religion and science can coexist. They just cant try to make up stuff about eachother, and thats where conflicts begin.

rclover106Honestly, the main reasons are Evolution and the Big Bang. I just can't even comprehend why someone would believe that "god" created Humans when science has multiple theories about how humans evolved from gorillas. So, to answer your question, Darwinism has probably influenced my opinion the most.

rclover106Honestly, the main reasons are Evolution and the Big Bang. I just can't even comprehend why someone would believe that "god" created Humans when science has multiple theories about how humans evolved from gorillas. So, to answer your question, Darwinism has probably influenced my opinion the most.

californiagrownWhy doesn't the idea of intelligent design seem plausible to you?

Profahoben_212Where does he say that it is the Catholic Church to do that? And where does he say that it is only a catholic priest that can do that? And the Catholic wasn't built by Jesus, it was built by his followers.

It never say catholics can do this in memory of me....it says do this in memory of me

Profahoben_212Intelligent design is about a plausible as lonesome evolution..

milk_manhttps://www.facebook.com/NBCNews/posts/1629049327115091

This may cause many people to believe in God

milk_manI can prove it's false. You said people believe in God because of blah, blah, blah. Well, that's not why I believe in God, so you're wrong.

19 but have the accomplishments of 21.

The.FishYea, his followers who built the original church. All of these other Christian churches broke off of the original church so the original cant ordain their pastors are true pastors. I honestly dont blame them for breaking off based on the corruption in the old days. But the way to fix the corruption is through fixing it through the inside and not making a new church. If you really wanna get into it then do the research yourself and catholic experts who study this for a living can explain. Obviously i don't know why we do everything the way we do it but i do know the church has a reason for it and I trust them for that due to the availability of resources and expers now vs back when the church was corrupt so you were forced to believe their view since bibles were really expensive. I am just a 17 year old who just got interested in religion within the last 2-3 years. Everything i have been taught connects and every argument i present has an answer. To sum it up, if you want answers, google it and experts will present the church's evidence. The church has a reason for everythIng they do.

californiagrownNot at all. Evolution say the mutations are random. Why is it implausible that it was god throwing out ideas to see what stuck?

You're not allowed to answer "cause god doesn't exist". We are simply talking about intelligent design.

The.FishI was at some catholic youth conference a few weeks ago and there was a stat that there is a 10 to the negative 384th power chance that our universe is possible based on a list of hundreds of scientific factors like the weight of the carbon atom and the size of an electron. It won't convert athiests but it helps reasure current believers that there is a God since everything was made so perfectly. I did some research into it after to verify the claim and it is true. I also like how an athiest hated the catholic church so he tried writing a boom about how it is wrong. In the middle of the process he converted to catholicism because he realized he was wrong lol.

californiagrownNot at all. Evolution say the mutations are random. Why is it implausible that it was god throwing out ideas to see what stuck?

You're not allowed to answer "cause god doesn't exist". We are simply talking about intelligent design.

LonelyInteresting point. Although to say that evolution is random mutations is oversimplification.

Now I don't know if you're talking about solitary evolution, but evolution in a more general sense is well understood, which is why I don't believ me it is intelligent design.

Mutations usually begin when something is altered in the genes. Now, theoretically, mutations are happening all the time, just not on the macro scale. The idea is that some mutations are useless, and some are useful. The useful mutations give a slight edge, and that gene is reproduced and becomes ever so slightly more common. Combine this with time and you have evolution.

We can prove it all the way down to the genes. Of course there is more to discover, and some of the current knowledge is theory, but it is a fairly well understood.

I apologize for any dumb things I say as I'm typing this at 1 am

LonelyI apologize for any dumb things I say as I'm typing this at 1 am

The.FishI will say that no church is perfect since many humans have to maintain them and it is almost impossible to have a perfect human. I say almost because I can't judge everybody and there is a very slim chance somebody hasnt made a mistake. I have reasons to believe that catholicism is a good way to get to heaven and establish a relationship with God. The relationship is the key in my opinion. The church isnt a rule book to get to heaven but more of guide. A guide that has to be maintained by humans so obviously it isnt perfect. I hope that establishes some things that we agree on.

Bodhisattva_I am good because I know to be good, and it makes me feel good. I am not evil because I know it to be evil and it makes my heart heavy

Profahoben_212Yeah for sure! Only thing is I would say you can't judge anyone. Judging is not up to us, "let he who has not sinned throw the first stone". It's not our job to judge, and that is one thing almost anyone can learn regardless of religion.

Church is a guide to access more resources. Use those resources to expand your personal knowledge...as well a share it. Personally I don't agree with the Catholic beliefs, but that's just me. To each their own.

californiagrownYeah, exactly. Could be god causing all these small genetic mutations. There's a whole bunch and flora and fauna and crazy amounts of interactions and permutations of possible working combinations. So maybe he is just throwing it all against a wall and seeing what sticks.

The.FishIt won't convert athiests but it helps reasure current believers that there is a God since everything was made so perfectly. I did some research into it after to verify the claim and it is true.

LonelyWhat's the most advanced science and or math course you have taken?

Do you have a deep understanding of quantum mechanics?

Do you understand the processes revolving around something being proved?

There's an enormous amount of scientific factors that go into us being able to ski down a hill, and that doesn't make me believe in God.

There's an enormous amount of factors that revolved around the creation of the telephone, did God create it? No.

Once again, another biased, ignorant opinion that is stated as fact. Don't be blinded

Profahoben_212Actually onenerdy, the idea that Jesus is a perfect individual is a largely new idea. People thought he was far from it back in the day, due to the fact that they weren't really reading the bible back then, they were going off of other stories that could have been in the bible.

If you look up the tring tiles, it's a "cartoon" of some of the stories. Jesus kills a kid in one of them and then gets yelled at and revives him. They are actually pretty funny hahaha. But it shows that the early Jesus was far from perfect.

onenerdykidI wasn't referring to Jesus, when I mentioned God but the "actual" God, his Father- the ultimate force of all creation. Jesus, the man and son of God, is exactly that- a mortal being and not the same thing as God.

Profahoben_212Well the argument can be made that Jesus is simply God put into human form, therfore if Jesus isn't perfect then God isn't perfect. Or you could say God isn't perfect because he created Satan, and he created man that could choose to fall to sin.

Or you could make the argument that all of those "mistakes" weren't actually mistakes at all, and God knew what he was doing.

onenerdykidSeriously, Fish. If you look at the universe, you will see it is FAR from perfect. How many clumps of gas and dust have yet to form a rock, let alone a planet? Billions, upon billions. Whenever you have an event and you examine every single preceding cause of that event you will notice that the event would not take place if even the slightest cause was missing. If I don't exactly use enough force to knock a book off the table, it won't fall off the table. There is an exact amount of force required to do this, and if that force is not reached the event of the book falling off the table will not happen. This is known as determinism and the universe follows exactly this same principle. If the axis of our planet was tilted 2° more, then it would be disastrous. Or if our planet was X-miles closer to the sun, it would be disastrous. It doesn't prove that God exists. It only proves that if you change the variables in your equation, you will not get the same answer.

Look at how many planets we have found that also have life. None so far. There are billions of galaxies in our corner of the universe alone and we have yet to find any signs of life, let alone intelligent life. That we are so far the only living beings known to exist in the universe just shows how wildly improbable it is that life comes into existence. If the radiation is slightly too high, or the amount of nitrogen is too low, or the planet is too close/too far from a sun-like star, or any number of variables that will kill life on our planet is present, you will not have life the way we know it. The universe shows us that for every Planet Earth, then there are billions upon billions of planets that came together the wrong way. In terms of probability, you need to have those billions of "improper equations" before the right organization of variables comes about. And that is exactly what we see in the universe.

Moreover, look at how many life forms have gone extinct due to their own genetic weaknesses. Look at all of the deformities found in current life forms. Look at all of the disasters that take place on our planet and across the universe. Imperfection is everywhere, there are mistakes and "almosts" and "not-quite-good-enoughs" everywhere.

Now this is not to say that there is not an intelligent being at the cause of all things. There very well could be such a being. But if we judge this being based on what it has created, then it is clearly not all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, or all-perfect. It would instead be incredibly knowing, incredibly powerful, incredibly good, and not fully perfect. That is the type of intelligent designer you will arrive at if you judge such a being by the universe around us. And unfortunately, that is not the God of Christianity or Islam or any religion that claims God to be all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, and all-perfect.

onenerdykidAccording to New Testament scripture, Jesus is not God in human form. He is the son of God. If it's someone's belief that Jesus is God in human form, then they can believe that all they want. All I can do is go off the written ideology. But there are some philosophical & theological problems with God being human, which Aquinas and Augustine go into good detail and why they as well come to the conclusion that Jesus was a mortal man. Very interesting, very detailed, and very long argument that I don't feel like hashing out here. But if you care to delve into it, they (especially Aquinas) are the ones to look into.

Your second argument is straight from the famous "Problem of Evil"- Since God is all-perfect, all-knowing, all-good, and all-perfect he would without question know what the perfect world would be, he would be able to make it, and it would be perfect. Since God made the world we have, the world we have is therefore perfect. Any change, even one less mosquito or one less child with terminal bone cancer, would be a less perfect world. If someone truly believes this and that the current world is perfect, then I don't think they actually understand just how good and how perfect it should be if an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, all perfect God were at the helm. Additionally, such a God wouldn't need to try or to experiment with life a few times in order to figure it out. He would by definition already know how to do it and be able to do it. There would literally be, as you noted, no mistakes.

mirozAre you trolling? What's the point of these what ifs?

We know how gene mutations arise. To say that god designed the universe in such a way that gene mutation was possible so that evolution could occur would be a better (albeit, baseless) claim.

milk_manTalking about "the problem of evil" will be a never ending loop.

The fall of man is what caused evil and pain in the world. God gave us free will, and that is what created pain and suffering. This is VERY different than God "allowing" or "creating" evil, pain, suffering, etc.

The entire point was that the mechanics of our world are incredibly precise and perfect. Not that all human interactions and lives are perfect. No one is making that argument--we know exactly where suffering came from.

As for Jesus not being God--where are you getting this from? Have you read the New Testament?

onenerdykidFurthermore, not all suffering comes from a misuse of free will. By what act of free will is a baby born with terminal cancer? There is plenty of suffering that is not a result of free will.

milk_manA lack of evidence for something is not evidence of the opposite. You have no evidence that there isn't a God, so someone who specifically believes that there's isn't a God is indoctrinated. You don't have sufficient evidence.

So no, a disbelief in God is not founded on sufficient evidence.

milk_manA lack of evidence for something is not evidence of the opposite. You have no evidence that there isn't a God, so someone who specifically believes that there's isn't a God is indoctrinated. You don't have sufficient evidence.

So no, a disbelief in God is not founded on sufficient evidence.