i can see a lot of assertions, and a series of talk-shows linked together in the above in an attempt to 'prove' that god exists...

a few simple questions, if i may...

1) in the first youtube clip, the narrator went from "the majority of an atom's volume is empty space" to "matter doesnt exist". for some reason, that seems a little odd to me... that would be on par with saying that 99.99% of people who play lotto never win, therefore nobody ever wins. or that because i drink beer at only 5% alcohol content, i cant get drunk. please explain to me how the above makes sense.

2) a lot of the things that standard (i.e. college level) science, which is what most of us are capable of understanding without our brains starting to ache, cannot explain are covered by string theory. please enlighten me as to which areas of science in particular present an unexplained phenomenon that is readily explainable in a religious context (and by that i don't mean telling me that "god did it, now stop asking questions")

3) faith  /feɪθ/ –noun
1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis
would be substantiated by fact.

by it's very nature, religion(s) exist in a fact/proof vacuum... faith and logic are incompatible. facts are based on proof, faith, on belief. Hebrews 11:6 - ergo: God offers no proof, because to do so would imply a lack of faith. if you believe (have faith), why do you need 'proof'?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tINibNfVE4&feature=fvsr

Maybe this helps to understand why logic and faith are incompatible this era
(Kali-Yuga) and if you have the patience to watch it from the beggining, you can also understand our scholar sistem design.

Hope it helps!

ok, lemme give you a rundown of some unsubstantiated assertions in the above clip...

1) 0:20 - 0:27 "The knights Templar arrived in Palestine with one goal: to stop the Muslims gaining any knowledge about the Kabala (sp?)". er no... the Knights Templar were created when Christendom was in control (nominally) of the Holy City, and were in fact headquartered in what was believed to be the ruins of Solomon's Temple. see the wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Templar) for a brief history. in short, they were founded to provide protection for pilgrims to and from the Holy Land.

2) 0:46 - 0:52 "Once they had discovered the magical secrets of the Kabalah, they were dedicated utterly to destroying it's origins" to eradicate the Kabalah so that the Muslims wouldnt get it's secrets would have necessitated the wholesale slaughter of the Jewish population. As possibly the largest military force in Chrisendom, and with a Papal Bull giving them pretty much carte blanche, they could have done so, but didnt.

3) 1:14 - 1:23 "the so-called holy grail, is in fact a set of higher magical teachings, it is not an object". there are several historical records which suggest that the grail was sighted (and recognised as a grail) on a number of occasions. the narrator does not provide any form of 'evidence' that the grail is as he describes above, other than his own opinion.

4) 3:15 - 3:23 "the bottom line is this: everything is conscious. what we call creation is like an ocean of infinite energy". every living thing can possibly be considered conscious... inanimate objects are not. there is no scientific data espousing a belief in infinite energy. all forms of matter and energy are finite. the numbers might be mind-bogglingly huge, but they are still not infinite.

at that point, i decided that the number of errors, omissions and assertions had fulfilled my pseudoscience quota for the day, and stopped watching.

i would appreciate your comments on the above points, before i continue.

Hey, Emmanuel. A few things here.

Firstly, science does (and only can) comment on physical phenomena, as science is about the discovery of the natural world. Science makes no claims either way on the issue of meta-physical entities.

Secondly, your claim that logic and faith is incompatible is simply not true. Faith doesn't necessarily mean avoiding evidence, but rather "filling in" the gap between evidence and proof (Absolute proof is impossible outside of mathematics, I.E. with empiricist data). Surely, if something is true, the evidence will support it (or at least, it will be possible to support the true conclusion).

Thirdly, to meet your argument by design. Your argument goes something like this:
R1. The universe is complicated
R2. Something that is complicated must have be designed
C. Therefore, the universe must have been designed.

I'd like you to do the following things for me:
1. Prove (Or at least, argue) that a designer is necessary for a complex thing. Is it possible for our perception of things to be designed to be wrong?

Example:


Designed? No.


2. Prove (Or at least, argue) that the designer, assuming (1) is a specific being, having certain traits. Pick the traits you assign to your designer, and logically deduce them.


Thanks alot,
St.Even

Well, Battle Dawn is a good example of world creation An intelligence behind is in control of the worlds he create, but even that, He allows many souls to contribute on the expontanious creation of it. The creator creates the program, with his own rules, and if we want to participate harmoniously on this game, we should follow the rules, even moral and ethic rules, like "NO inflamatory or racist remarks or use of foul words allowed!" or "Failure to follow rule #1 will be PUNISHED by a permanent ban" etc.

wich means I am not able to change that rules just because I want to, but if I suggest something to this Admin God, like a new update or change, for his will and if he likes the idea, he can manifest the updates later.

Same way, God creates this universe with specific rules, man can´t change them just because he wants to also have prohibitions, like "do not fornicate", "do not steal", "do not lie", "do not kill" and why?, because those are activities that bring an authomatic punishment, so it is our choice if we follow those rules or "Failure to follow God rules will be punished by a permanent confussion, insatisfaction and frustration" Even there, when we want to create some machine or any tecnology, God help us to manifest our wish if that is his will.

Now...

What Admin wants from us by visiting Battle Dawn? Well, our Money what else?

What God wants from us by visiting Earth? Well, our Love, is the difference between this two Gods.

How can someone think Battle Dawn needs an intelligent creator but the universe doesn´t? the principles of BD creation are just an imperfect copy of a perfect one.

Another example.

You pick a video camera and you start making a film. those who watch the film know there is someone recording, we know there is someone behind the camera but we can not SEE.

I am pretty sure, by logic, there should be an intelligence outthere coordinating the hole universe, but not alone, I am sure Admin create some jobs for tasks like check out the forums and search for multis and other stuff he don´t do any more.
God create 33 million demigods according to vedanta sutra doing all this minor tasks like sustain the universe and give sun light and oceans etc.

I say logic and faith can´t be combined this era (kali Yuga), because most people is leaving a dream, living in illusion, if we want to really connect logic and faith, we need to see throug the illusion and connect both emispheres.

Emanuel, you have fallen prey to the religious blunder of horrible and irrelevant analogies....

You are comparing something that is KNOWN and supported by EMPIRICAL data, to something that is an unknown. There are countless theories about how this universe came to be, and "God did it" is only one of them, as is the Big Bang Theory. Some people think that our universe was created when two other universes actually collided. What can you do to disprove that? Nothing, and that is because we just cannot know at this moment in time.

You even say that, by praying, people can bring about changes to the doctrines of "God". Last time I checked, religions don't make changes to their entire foundation because someone thinks that God agreed with them.

Then you take the "when we see a painting, we know there is a painter" argument that creationists and intelligent design theorists love so much. Yes, we do know that there is a painter. However, there are plenty of natural phenomena that appear to have been created by man, but actually haven't, such as the example posted by Steven. Also, you compare the natural universe to something that was altered by a known source, as I stated above.

This all brings us back to the same argument... where is the proof for god? You are asking me how there could not be a god, but isn't the burden of proof upon you? If I say that I have a baseball, it is up to me to present the evidence that I do actually have a baseball. But by your logic, I could just say, "I'm at a baseball game, why wouldn't I have a baseball?", and that would be proof enough for you. Or I can even take a line from a cartoon about religion and say, "You can't prove that I don't have a baseball." And that's true, you cannot disprove something that isn't there. As I'm sure I've stated before, you can't disprove my hypothesis that there are fairies at the bottom of my garden making the flowers grow. This is because if the fairies are not there when you look, I could say that you just can't see them. And that my friend, is the basis of religion.

"My God is there, whether you choose to believe or not."


P.S. On your note about the individual demigods controlling separate aspects of the universe, we don't need to create stories to ease our thirst for knowledge anymore. We understand why certain things, like the sun appearing to rise, happen.

scientists have theories, true enough... but a theory is something backed with an amount of supporting evidence.

it starts with a hypothesis, which is an unsubstantiated idea, and a series of experiments are performed to produce data, which will either support or refute the hypothesis.

once sufficient supporting empirical evidence has been gathered, it can be progressed to a theory. a theory is then (usually) tested by independent scientists, so that the results can be a) verified and b) replicated.

if the experiment, when repeated under identical circumstances, produces the same result, then the theory can be said to be proven.

scientists have conducted many experiments over the years, dealing with the ability for genetic traits to be passed on to offspring (aka heritability), and the effect of mutations at the genetic level and heritability. they have proven that change can and does happen at the DNA / RNA level, and that these changes can be passed on to offspring.

further experiments have repeatedly shown that external influences (radiation etc) can cause genetic mutations, in addition to 'spontaneous' mutation.

when taken together with analysis of the fossil record, and genetic structures of similar species show sufficient correlation with known results of genetic mutation to be considered solid 'evidence' that the theory of evolution stands a fair chance of being the closest explanation for the proliferation of species as we know it.

science has theories, but you are incorrect in your assertion that it doesnt have laws.

the laws of conservation of energy is one such immutable law. funnily enough, gravity isnt a law, but a theory... the basics are good enough for general work, but the smaller in scale you get, the less able it is to describe the observable effects, so we have to devise quantum theory... and the further you go, the weirder things get...

so... taking the above into account, can you offer me a verifiable, repeatable experiment that can be performed that will indicate the presence of a divine being? (i would require some form of quantifiable, empirical evidence, not a 'feeling' etc)......?

Sure, I have one it is called Bhagava-Gita as it is by God explained by Srila Baktivedanta Swami Prabhupad go ahead and put yourself as an experiment subject and then we talk again : )

By the way tell me wich scienthist creates life from the separated elements.

I don´t mean those who take DNA and from there they create a living been, but One who create DNA itself. If you tell me who he is discussion is over, but the fact is that our modern science is based most on teory and teory can be breaken by new consideration like happened many times in the past, the Theory that live become from elements shocked by a light and DNA appears is many times consider as a fact, but it is not until someone can do it and many other examples of theorys that become a truth and then someone appear with new facts that crush the old theory, meanwwhile those lies actually divide the world.

I exsort you to study the proof I am reveling to you before you answer again, you are asking for a proof and I am giving it to you, so you must study it to be sure it is not a proof before you tell me again it is not.

And this is for all scientific comunity wich only purpose is finding the truth, There is an absolute one in Bhagavad-Gita.

Thanks!

My invitation is still the same, Atheist most time take us to study their proofs but most times when we say words like God or Spiritual Bliss, they feel unconfortable well, I exsort you to go and study my proof Bhagavad-Gita as it is by Srila Prabhupad, then when you have your proofs and mine in the discussion table, I will keep talking, because I am giving you a proof of existance of God and you should go and analize by yourself before you reject it, that is the cientific prosess.

Reverse accident fallacy. The fact that some, most or all things we know of are intellegently designed doesn't mean that everything is. In the same way the fact an atom is 99.99% empty space doesn't mean an atom doesn't exist.



You claim that our lives are illusions? Or that what we view is an illusion? That's very Cartesian and hyper-anti-empiricist. It is possible that our lives are illusions, but from our perspective it hardly matters: our lives are the same regardless. Also, Absense of evidence about whether we actually exist is not evidence of absense of it.

Thanks,
St.Even

EDIT: Evolution and Theism (Or Deism) are not mutually exclusive. Evidence for evolution is evidence for evolution, not evidence against any sort of deity. As I said before, Metaphysical entities by definition cannot be tested by science, which focuses on natural phenomena. We have to look elsewhere for evidence either way.