The One True God
Robin Craig, BSc (Hons 1, Univ. Medal), PhD graduated in molecular biology and is now an owner and COO of Australia’s longest surviving private biotechnology company. He has a long-term interest in both science and Objectivist philosophy and has hosted private monthly philosophy salons for over 15 years. His publications are wide ranging and include numerous scientific papers in genetics, philosophically-themed near-future science-fiction novels (the Just Hunter series) and short stories, the chapter “Good Without God” in The Australian Book of Atheism, philosophical essays on Amazon, and twenty years of Philosophical Reflections, a popular and controversial column in TableAus (the magazine of Australian Mensa). His website monorealism.com includes essays and debates on numerous philosophical topics.
SOURCE URL: http://www.thesavvystreet.com/the-one-true-god/
Indeed!!
Check the current one http://www.plusaf.com/
and the link to previous ones... http://www.plusaf.com/homepagepix.htm
Here's one apropos to your comment...
http://www.plusaf.com/pix/homepagepix/pr...
Ignoring this doesn't put you above it in terms of consequences.
Either there are reasons for life or not.
As for your specific questions:
My origins are my parents. My ultimate origins lie in the origin of life on planet earth by chemical processes in an energy-rich environment.
There is no afterlife. The question makes no sense. Life is a process. When the process is ended, there is nothing left of it except its component chemicals.
No I am not a bunch of chemicals randomly arranged. There is nothing random about life or what makes it possible.
Right and wrong are determined by what is right and wrong for the life of a thinking being. If you are truly interested in the question, try this: http://tinyurl.com/6vf9yd7
If the meaning of our lives is determined by some unknowable extra-human being, then nothing has any meaning because it can change at any time dependent only on the whims of that unknowable and reportedly inimical being. The meaning of your life is the meaning you choose for it.
Regarding the change by an extra-human entity, that depends on the entity you are referring to. Has that being communicated to us? You have to get back to established laws (natural laws if you will), that haven't changed since their creation we depend on in life, which if they changed, then live would not exist. Again, if you say these exist because of random, time plus chance events, you still have to deal with where the original matter came from? Either matter is eternally existent or God is eternally existent...
If you are willing to risk your entire life by ignoring the obvious signed of creation all around you and deny you were created, then so be it. I simply accept the obvious for anyone who can think outside themselves.
It is sad that this person is betting his or her eternity on the blind luck of being born into the "right" religion when in fact they have been deceived by a false god :-)
On the other hand, there is major entity overlap involved.
Sorry, I thought that was knowable from the profile, but I guess not!
http://www.amazon.com/Geneh-War-Just-Hun...
By the way...you define my God as a false god...is there a true god in your world, or are you him?
Is murder wrong because our culture says so, or is it always wrong? I define murder as the extinguishment of a human being's life without cause or threat to your life; therefore, some killing is legitimate.
Go back and read anything at all by Rand and think a bit. You obviously have missed most of it.
Just wanted you to know I did that before either one of us gets subtracted again.
Something can't come out of nothing.
There is no oo-ee mystery about how.
Not to me.
And to hell with any subtractions anyone cares to shove down my throat too.
Need to translate to Arabic and letter bomb the Middle East.
I thought I would get a fair amount of grief for this post. robbie must be travelling...:)
"Augustine begins to answer the age-old question why man chooses to do evil by clarifying that what makes humans distinct from animals is the fact that humans have the capability of reasoning and animals do not. Then he points out that some things that men possess uniquely as opposed to animals, such as the �power to jest and laugh� and �the love of praise and glory,� are �of a lower order.� Therefore, when reason rules the soul, �the more perfect [reason] is made subject to the less perfect [desire and passion].� In our day, most people do not even realize they should work toward having reason rule their lives. "
We're not so far apart.
You'll probably find this hard to believe, but I agree with most of what Dr. Craig writes. I just don't believe that it negates the possibility of a deity. See my other post in response to your quip on the Catholic theology. It's not that different. Free will and reason are critical to being moral people.
Then you have the problem that that which is possible in reality still should not be believed to be actuality without evidence that it is more than merely possible, evidence that it in fact does exist. To believe without this and act as if it does exist, much less that it is the most highly important, is not rational.
The problem is that we know just enough about the universe to get us in trouble. But, we're working on it. Instead of using the word God, what about The Intelligence? Where does consciousness lead us? What happens when consciousness meets quantum physics? On and on. Who knows what answers will come to us in a hundred, two hundred years? It might turn out that everyone is right. The only answer that can be given at present is, "I don't know, and neither do you."
Reasoning to the point of nonreason isn't reason at all.
Please consider the faultiness in your statement about reality. Keep emotion at bay and just think through this.
let's start there.
Help me understand what you mean by "own" please.
People believe you can rationally believe in a supreme being because they believe there is valid evidence for one. However there is no actually valid objective evidence for one. Which means that in fact, the belief is an arbitrary claim (one without evidence).
The analysis of such evidence and why there isn't any is quite another topic: and The One True God does not address that issue. It is targeted at a quite different animal: the one which explicitly tries to dodge the need for evidence (the Pascal's Wager/"You don't know there isn't a God"/"You can't prove there isn't a God"/"What if you're wrong, huh?" cluster of thought). It also shows the emptiness of arguments based mainly on "design", especially the "how do you account for the Universe existing" or "how do you account for Life existing" ones: by showing that such arguments prove nothing about any particular version of God and that in fact the One True God fits those "facts" much better than traditional religions do.
In your world, anything is possible except that there is a God who is personal and created you. You reject it for the purpose of self-determination; however, what you forget is that you did not self-determine yourself to exist, therefore, what do you do with all the activity you cannot control? Why are not all the life-sustaining environments and elements and measurements we have observed changed enough to eliminate our lives over the supposed 4+ million or so years life has supposedly been on the earth? In your world, it is chance...only chance.
Frankly, I would venture to better believe in a man from mars seeding man here than just go by chance. Once you get to there, getting to God is not a far stretch.
You have no evidence whatsoever of this God and not even a coherent non-contradictory statement about what this purported God is.
The age of earth is over 4 billion not million years.
You are too ignorant to be worth talking with.
It is from these myths and legends that led to Darwin's concepts, not his explorations on the isles of Galapagos. They still cannot explain ultimate origins. The God of the Bible is self-existent...in your world, matter is self-existent. We are not that far apart, except on that crucial, point conditio sine qua non.
The reason that the God of the Bible is the one, true God and no other is because absolutes exist, which confirm His Word, the Bible, then His Son, Jesus Christ was witnessed by man to have resurrected from the dead, which has never occurred by any man apart from the power of God.
You have to deal with absolutes, else, all theories you derive from relativity fall apart.
Just/justice....now that will open a can of worms now won't it?
God has given us free will, no question, however, it operates only within the realm God has defined and when you have a defined realm to operate, that creates limits within which some desires are not possible. Even God has limited Himself via His character, else, He would not be God (e.g. He cannot create another God, He cannot make a rock He cannot lift, He cannot become nonexistence, He cannot do anything which would be inefficient since inefficience is a result of the fall of man and sin, and on and on).
I have read Job...not sure what you mean.
Once these ground wars are over, the Army team will be back. Not too many kids who might be enticed to an academy are going to go to one where they have a good chance of being shot at in just a few years.
How did sentience occur? Why don't rocks think? They are made up from atoms same as humans, and they've been around much longer than living tissue.
Vengeful?
Compassionate?
Neither... None.?