Theism vs. Atheism ... will it ever be settled?

Can a theist answer me this simple question.

Who created god?

The answer is in the Book of Revelation:

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - July 29 2010 at 01:23

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: The answer is in the Book of Revelation:   Revelation 1:8  'I am the Alpha and the Omega,' says the Lord God, who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.   Hard to understand from human perspective.   Iván

It's surely a poetic line. But it surprises me that a Catholic would quote from the book of revelation of all old testament books ...

"Nineteenth-century agnostic Robert G. Ingersoll branded Revelation "the insanest of all books".^[82] Thomas Jefferson omitted it along with most of the Biblical canon, from the Jefferson Bible, and wrote that at one time, he considered it as "merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams."^[83] George Bernard Shaw described it as "a peculiar record of the visions of a drug addict".^[84]"

whew boy....is this still going on....

^ Man take a Kiwi cookie Do not question his faith for goodness sake. Shame on you.

Mr ProgFreak wrote: Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: 3.- Even when the data of the Talmud is not exact, but Jewish and Catholics have a perfect coincidence that some species existed before the first man created at the image of God...In other words, the first man with soul. So.......Not as contradictory with evolutionist as people may believe. Iván   They might be slightly off on the number of generations though ... and does the Talmud even mention apes?

Hmm, the Talmud is a relatively recent document, written in the 2nd century of the common era (200CE) and the figure of 974 is back-calculated from interpretation of the OT. In Psalm 105 it is stated that god had a covenant with man that had lasted for 1000 generations and there are 26 generations between Adam and Moses (Adam begot Seth begot Enosh etc), so 1000-26=974 ... of course this implicitly contradicts the notion that Adam was the first hominid with a soul, unless god is in the habit of creating covenants with soulless creatures. (As I don't hold with the concept of a soul anyway this doesn't bother me).

Edited by Dean - July 29 2010 at 05:45

Textbook wrote: Of course I'm going to question his faith. The sanity of faith, its definition, whether it even exists as a defined and understood concept, is central to this whole issue. Faith is belief in things which are not supported by evidence and I find it to be BS. If you don't like it, again I don't know what you're doing in the thread, read the title.

I don't find it necessary or ultimately productive or beneficial in any way to question faith as a concept. I'm more interested in the documentation and data used to support that belief rather than the belief itself. There is nothing rational or logical about faith than can be analysed by reason and deduction so direct questioning is predestined to fail - it may be all smoke and mirrors to us, but the question is why do we think that? What thought processes and deductive reasoning resulted in our dismissal of mysticism as a central concept to our lives? Is it an extrapolation of all childhood fairytales and once-held truths (like the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus), or the parallels to older ancient religions that have now been discarded that makes surviving religions appear just as mythical as the Greek Pantheon or Egyptian Mythology?

Edited by Dean - July 29 2010 at 06:12

Textbook wrote: Life is fundamentally a practical thing. Survive. Feed and clothe your children. Have a warm, safe, place to live. Work to ensure future generations will be in a good position. The teachings of Jesus (though not entirely uncontroversial) could be said to be useful as a guide for achieving these aims in a peaceful and considerate way. However, the actual religious part,  "Believe in magical sky genie who runs holiday resort for ghosts" distracts and confuses people and creates divisions in humanity that aren't really there. The gulf between Muslims and Christians is as real as the border between two countries- it's only there because we think it is. There's nothing substantial or real about it. It's a dream but it's a dream people fight, kill and hoard/waste resources over.

What you are describing is a tribal/cultural consequence of man the pack hunter who needs community to survive. In that context religion is just another team-building method alongside family, tribe, nation etc. and if you removed religion from that equation something else would fill the void and the fighting, killing, hoardinf and waste would continue.

It is very simple. God doesn't exist therefore nobody created him.

Whew! Now i know you're lying.

i went to high school with a Harry Callahan and Merlin is my brother-in-law's name (honest, it really is).Since I found contradictions in one part of the statement I can safely throw the whole thing in the trash. right Mike?


Edited by Trademark - July 29 2010 at 09:42