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Originally Posted by Sayian
Sure u can look the words "luck" or "fate" in the dictionary but God is in our essence.
That's a fairly bold claim to make with nothing but your own belief to support it. The word essence implies that it is required for us to be what we are. Am I not a human being because I'm atheist? To my knowledge, my species is the same as yours regardless of our differing beliefs. If God is in our essence and we all just instinctively KNOW what it means, who it is, then why are there so many different religions in present day? Why are there so many dead religions, all drastically different from yours? Why are there atheists who don't believe in any God at all (In spite of your claim there aren't any, I assure you you're quite incorrect)?
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The difference is u don't need to look God up or do research.
Or is it that you CAN'T look God up or do research, because there is no factual material on the subject to examine?
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but the ONLY thing GOD wrote Himself and would not entrust in man to document on is the Ten Commandments. and all 10 of them are in us.
If it's naturally in all of us, and all of us naturally believe in God and these commandments, then why is it that they are literally being violated by hundreds if not thousands of people at this and every other moment?
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Sound very smart and well thought out if u can, but u cant argue what God wrote Himself in our essence.
I think you'll find that I can.
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No1 cheats on their spouse without knowing they're sinning.
Ever watch Jerry Springer, or Maury, or any of those shows? There are tons of people who don't think twice about such things. However, ignoring that, let's look at the basic flaw in that statement. You use the word spouse, defined as the one to whom you are married. Marriage being a religious thing. Anybody who HAS a 'spouse' must then have some belief in your religion. So yes, any religious person who violates their own religion is probably aware that they are violating their religion. That religion however is not present in all people's lives. I could cheat on my girl all night long if I felt like it. I could probably get away with it. I wouldn't give an aardvark's anus what a priest thought about it, if I felt bad at all, it would be for how my girl would feel if she found out.
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No1 commits murder without knowing they're sinning.
You might be surprised. There are all kinds of extremists who think murder is justified by and committed in the name of the same God you defend. Also something for you to ponder when you consider your God being a part of our 'essence'. How many young men were rushing to join the military to kill enemies for the sake of their country? Some men, depending on the circumstances will kill with a smile on their face and without a second thought.
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No1 uses Gods name in vein without feeling any amount of fear.
I do it all the time. I don't fear 'God' punishing me any more than I fear the Sand Man seeing me naked when he comes to put me to sleep at night, because I don't believe he exists.
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Give me an example of a perfect lie.. u cant.
Duh? If you knew about the lie, you clearly saw through it and realized it was not the truth. It was therefore not perfect. So of course one could not give an example of the perfect lie, if they tried, they only proved the imperfection in the lie. Your asking for somebody to prove a logical contradiction does not prove anything at all.
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No1 steals without trying to be sneaky.. and so on.
And why is this do you suppose? Because they think God won't see them? Their 'essence' must have been missing the knowledge that your God is omniscient and that hiding from it is impossible. Or, we could go with the less ridiculous assumption; that they're trying to be sneaky in an attempt to go undetected by those whom it is possible to deceive. Like, y'know, other people, law enforcement, etc...
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We all know whats wrong, and just as well, we all know whats right... <- you're not gonna find that in the dictionary and u don't even need a bible to know that
Actually, we don't. Some of the smartest philosophers throughout history have argued over the essential nature of morality, and none have proven a thing. In fact, there are more theories of morality than I could even list, but I'll throw some out just for fun.
Hedonism: What is right, is what brings one the most pleasure.
Utilitarianism: What is right is whatever creates the most happiness.
Cultural relativism: What is right is whatever your culture believes is right.
Subjectivism: What is right is whatever the individual believes is right.
"The Golden Rule": What is right, is whatever you would have others do to you.
There are tons. All very different. Most include some of the same rules, but not all. I accept another theory entirely, one known as Moral Nihilism, the belief that there is no right or wrong in any objective sense, and therefore the terms are basically meaningless. In spite of this, I'm not a serial killer, a pathological liar, a kleptomaniac, or anything else you might think would result in a lack of morality. When I choose not to do something, it is because the negative consequences outweigh the positive, not because I feel the divine watching me or because I've considered it unethical or immoral.
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personally, i don't believe there's a single man on earth who genuinely doesn't believe in God. its impossible. they just embrace their sins a little too much and try to come up with excuses to justify their illegitimate denial of believing in Gods existence to make themselves feel less bad about sinning. they'll be trying until they're dead because its in our essence to know and feel bad for disobeying.
This is possibly one of the most arrogant claims I've read anywhere. Because you can't fathom yourself without your faith, doesn't mean anybody else feels the same way. It is in fact quite possible. Not only possible, but for those who like logic and reason, quite easy actually. Your labeling of anyone who claims not to share in your beliefs being a sinner 'embracing sins' is quite frankly, pathetic. You wanna talk excuses, how about the excuses the religious come up with to cling to their beliefs when logic, reason, and science blast it full of holes? Something like...
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Yea, argue about the bible and fight over what the bible translates into or that it contradicts itself all you want because its not entirely about the bible. Argue about religion this or that all you want because its not about religion. Sound very smart and well thought out if u can, but u cant argue what God wrote Himself in our essence.
For the record, I don't feel bad in the slightest about 'sinning' as your religion defines it. In fact, in most cases, I find it quite enjoyable. If I didn't gain something from it, I wouldn't bother. I also don't believe in any kind of essence, let alone your biased, unproven definition of it. There's another fancy theory a very smart man put forth referred to as existentialism, the theory that there is no essential nature to man, and that man's only 'essence' is defined by his own existence, not before it.
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So for the ones who act like they don't know... Y'all know! For every argument we can come up with, point you prove, or religion you dont support or understand... We dont need any of that.. Gods word is in us already, and He wants us to apply it.
You throw the word 'know' around pretty flippantly, I'm beginning to wonder if you actually understand what it means. Knowledge is generally defined as having three three parts.
1: A belief about something in reality.
2: A reason for that belief.
3: The truth of that belief.
Thus far, you've got 1/3. The easy one unfortunately. In fact, in the statement above, you openly reject the second, and arguably most important part of knowledge. And then you conclude with some circular reasoning. Circular reasoning and strong belief, no matter how good they make you feel, can NEVER take the place of knowledge.
By all means you're entitled to your beliefs, and I apologize if I've offended you with any of this, but to those seeking knowledge and truth, it takes a lot more than what you've offered here to satisfy them.
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Originally Posted by Rowan
I trust my car will be where I parked it because I have locked it, and that gives me reason to believe that someone cannot break into it. You cannot apply faith to this logic because faith (in its very definition) is a belief based on nothing. If you have a reason, you can have trust. If you have no reason, then you have faith.
I know you and I have argued on this one before, and I don't wanna spend too much time here, but I think I've finally figured out the best way to explain my view on this to you. Logic in it's purest form is absolute certainty established by airtight deduction, without the slightest degree of inaccuracy in the evidence, its analysis or interpretation. We don't see much of this in reality, as we established in our arguments in VMs a while back. We also don't mean this when we use the word logic, we're referring to the mixture of logic and faith which is dominated mostly by the logic, because that is the piece we prefer to use, even when we can't make our ideas purely out of logic.
Faith in it's purest form is exactly as you suggest, belief without any knowledge whatsoever of the subject. We also never see this in reality, even the most ludicrous views are based on something, no matter how irrational, there is some semblance of knowledge contained in the belief. Even when the logic is faulty or incomplete, there is some logic mixed in. For example, the argument from design, no matter how many holes we can poke in the logic, there was still an attempt at using logic to establish the conclusion from what a person knew. To have pure faith, one would have to have literally no knowledge, no experience, no reason. Anybody with any of the five senses functioning and memories is therefore incapable of basing something purely on faith (other than the fundamental beliefs we discussed in our previous arguments that have to come even before the senses). So as with logic, when we say faith, we don't really mean pure faith, just a the mixture of logic and faith which we believe to be lacking in sufficient logic for the mixture to serve its purpose of reaching a reasonable conclusion.
Trust, probably the best word for it, so I'll use your word here, is any mixture of faith and logic. Here's where you and I differ, you see trust as some homogeneous mixture of faith and logic, perhaps even a compound that no longer has the same traits of either of its parts, I see it as a system of the two functioning together to accomplish the common goal of reaching a conclusion, but still as separate pieces. Trust is not pure faith, but faith is inseparable from it. You can not have trust without having faith to mix with your knowledge, experience, and logic. Faith in this sense, is nothing more or less than what we use to bridge the gap of uncertainty left in our logical explanations for things. Back to the car example, you don't KNOW your car is there, you can't make the claim based solely on logic unless you have absolute certainty (which we know we don't), but you have sufficient faith to account for the uncertainty, and jump to the conclusion. Some beliefs require more faith than others to account for uncertainty, but all beliefs do. Religion acknowledges this faith in the same way that a good scientist acknowledges the possibility that he is wrong.
