Why do you make tea?
Learning Genesis
- Thread starter TubbyTubby
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And how did I look to you Silk?
In the dream? You looked well pleased with yourself. The establishment where we were at was treating you like a real celebrity. Someone told me that you had been a musician in a third rate band. I asked for your autograph and you signed it son of Stephen. (But your name is Matthew, right?). Strangely enough, before the dream, I couldn't make sense of your avatar. Then I turned my head right, sideways, and voila! 
(Left eye, right?)
(Left eye, right?)In the dream? You looked well pleased with yourself. The establishment where we were at was treating you like a real celebrity. Someone told me that you had been a musician in a third rate band. I asked for your autograph and you signed it son of Stephen. (But your name is Matthew, right?). Strangely enough, before the dream, I couldn't make sense of your avatar. Then I turned my head right, sideways, and voila!
I play guitar but not in a band. That is my left eye. I'm intrigued as to how you found out my first name?
That you read my post that said along the lines of 'that's quite relevant as Matthew is my first name' when someone quoted some scripture from Matthew.
There are no Stephen/Stevens in my immediate family, and none going back several generations so I have no idea how the name is relevant to be honest.
And yes I can say that I have never been in a band. I wouldn't make it past audition I'm afraid.
As to God knowing I would forget, I'll leave that bit to you. If that's a sign from God then I'm a little underwhelmed.
And yes I can say that I have never been in a band. I wouldn't make it past audition I'm afraid.
As to God knowing I would forget, I'll leave that bit to you. If that's a sign from God then I'm a little underwhelmed.
I might be wrong - but I think Stephan was the 1st martyr. He was stoned. And the reason you gave your first name? It had to do with "coincidence", right? So Gene is right? You are afraid to ask God for proof? If you have eyes to see, you will. BTW, I don't think you are underwhelmed.
Sorry Silk, I'm missing something again. You incorrectly guessed the name Stephen and my being in a band and quoted my actual first name after reading it on another post is proof of what?
Flesh and blood cannot reveal it to you Tubby, but I think you should consider the agnostic position...say you do not know but do not discard the possibility of that which you cannot know is not...
What do you really know of for sure...maybe 10% of the knowledge and experience a good encyclopedia indicates? The other 90% is really a huge area you have no knowledge of or experience with.
What do you really know of for sure...maybe 10% of the knowledge and experience a good encyclopedia indicates? The other 90% is really a huge area you have no knowledge of or experience with.
I'll take the agnostic position if you do.
I cannot because I know Him...I speak with Him and He answers, the things He promised if I trusted in Him have and are coming to pass, I see His influence all over the world and in others, so many have had there own personal experiences and observed Him in their lives, His prophetic word regarding verifiable historical events comes to pass, His insight and knowledge about things unknown and unknowable at the time, oh and so much more...my personal healing on one occasion that cannot be explained scientifically...my encounters (witnessed by others, many of whom are not "Christians") with phenomena "outside the natural order" and more and more...
I am just saying it is not rational to believe the premise "There is no God"...it is more rational to say I do not know and do not care, or I have no reason to believe there is one but there could be, or if there is I have never had any experience with one, or we do not need a god to explain anything, and so on, but to dogmatically assert there is none or to just blow God off as imaginary (like fairies) is unfounded and illogical...because you do not know does not equal is not...it is a belief without evidence of any sort (the confirmation of a universal negative as fact)
I am just saying it is not rational to believe the premise "There is no God"...it is more rational to say I do not know and do not care, or I have no reason to believe there is one but there could be, or if there is I have never had any experience with one, or we do not need a god to explain anything, and so on, but to dogmatically assert there is none or to just blow God off as imaginary (like fairies) is unfounded and illogical...because you do not know does not equal is not...it is a belief without evidence of any sort (the confirmation of a universal negative as fact)
From what I've learnt here, you must first have a belief in God without seeing any proof. That belief then manifests itself into the believers proof. Atheists aren't wired up that way.
What if I announced that I completely believed in the Indian God Shiva who is a monotheistic deity from what I read (and seems a pretty cool God as well). You would be as atheistic about my God Shiva as I am yours would you not?
Shiva is Hindu and part of a pantheon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_deities. I haven't seen anyone posting here that says you have to believe first without any proof. More like ask for proof for yourself.
Surely to ask for proof requires some belief in the God you are asking?
Regardless, if I believe in Shiva would you believe in my God or not?
There is only one God, creator of the universe. So we do share, it's just you don't know it.
To ask God for personal proof requires only that you want to know the truth. And are willing to hear and see the answer. I already have personal proof of God's existence and so I know all else are false.There is only one God, creator of the universe. So we do share, it's just you don't know it.
So in a roundabout sort of way of saying, you don't believe in my God Shiva?
You're almost as atheist as I am then. Neither of us believe in the many thousands of other Gods past, present and likely future. I just happen to go one tiny step further and don't believe in yours as well.
Seems EVERYONE is wired for it...
Time Magazine: Monday, Oct. 25, 2004 Religion: Is God in Our Genes?
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Even among people who regard spiritual life as wishful hocus-pocus, there is a growing sense that humans may not be able to survive without it. It's hard enough getting by in a fang-and-claw world in which killing, thieving and cheating pay such rich dividends. It's harder still when there's no moral cop walking the beat to blow the whistle when things get out of control. Best to have a deity on hand to rein in our worst impulses, bring out our best and, not incidentally, give us a sense that there's someone awake in the cosmic house when the lights go out at night and we find ourselves wondering just why we're here in the first place. If a God or even several gods can do all that, fine. And if we sometimes misuse the idea of our gods--and millenniums of holy wars prove that we do--the benefits of being a spiritual species will surely outweigh the bloodshed.
Far from being an evolutionary luxury then, the need for God may be a crucial trait stamped deeper and deeper into our genome with every passing generation. Humans who developed a spiritual sense thrived and bequeathed that trait to their offspring. Those who didn't risked dying out in chaos and killing. The evolutionary equation is a simple but powerful one.
Nowhere has that idea received a more intriguing going-over than in the recently published book The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired into Our Genes (Doubleday; 256 pages), by molecular biologist Dean Hamer. Chief of gene structure at the National Cancer Institute, Hamer not only claims that human spirituality is an adaptive trait, but he also says he has located one of the genes responsible, a gene that just happens to also code for production of the neurotransmitters that regulate our moods. Our most profound feelings of spirituality, according to a literal reading of Hamer's work, may be due to little more than an occasional shot of intoxicating brain chemicals governed by our DNA. "I'm a believer that every thought we think and every feeling we feel is the result of activity in the brain," Hamer says. "I think we follow the basic law of nature, which is that we're a bunch of chemical reactions running around in a bag."
Even for the casually religious, such seeming reductionism can rankle. The very meaning of faith, after all, is to hold fast to something without all the tidy cause and effect that science finds so necessary. Try parsing things the way geneticists do, and you risk parsing them into dust. "God is not something that can be demonstrated logically or rigorously," says Neil Gillman, a professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. "[The idea of a God gene] goes against all my personal theological convictions." John Polkinghorne, a physicist who is also Canon Theologian at England's Liverpool Cathedral, agrees: "You can't cut [faith] down to the lowest common denominator of genetic survival. It shows the poverty of reductionist thinking."
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I can't post more without violating the law. This is about 20% of the article.
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,995465,00.html
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