₦airaland Forum

What i see in all this inconclusive arguments is the inability of people to simply accept.

I don't know

That you have no idea how the universe started does not mean a deity should be invoked to fill that gap of ignorance.

it simply means You don't know

There is no shame in not knowing only when irrational assumptions and primitive superstitions fills the gap left by ignorance.

Gods may exist or not but If you are only going to hide your god behind the curtain of scientific ignorance (hiding it a premise where science is yet to reach in study) then as more scientific breakthroughs come your god will always be a receding value.

You may find many places to place your Gods not necessarily for universal causality that entails hiding them behind the curtain of scientific ignorance

Tallesty1:
God don't send people to hell, those that will end in hell go there because they chose to.

I have no interest in this discussion you all are having here but i just want to tell a small story in relation to your post above.

You bought a new phone and was enjoying music on your phone while walking on the road, life has never been sweeter.

then out came Mr Yah with a gun pointed to your face, "Give me your phone or i shoot you"

Now you have been given two options either give mr Yah your phone or he shoots and you are dead man.

You refuse to give him your phone then mr yah pulls the trigger.

Now later mr Yah was apprehended and in court his lawyer makes exactly the same case you made above.

"Your honour, mr yah is innocent of murder he didn't kill mr tallesty, in fact mr tallesty committed suicide..." Mr Yah's lawyer said.

"How so?" the judge asked baffled.

"You see your honour, Mr Yah gave mr tallesty a choice, either give him the phone or takes the bullet.
Mr tallesty had the opportunity to save his life by choosing to give mr Yah the phone but he didn't, instead he refused.

So you see, Mr Yah didn't kill mr tallesty rather mr tallesty chose to die..

And then the Judge acquitted mr Yah on the conclusion that you chose to commit suicide and mr Yah didn't kill you.

This is just the same thing you wrote up there "god is equally as innocent of sending you to hell as much as the armed robber is innocent of killing you.

It is not a free choice when you give people 2 nonsensical options, it's rather blackmail.

Amberon11:
I smell confusion.

Christianity [note 1] is an Abrahamic monotheistic [1]
religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ as
presented in the New Testament . Christianity is the
world's largest religion , [2][3] with over 2.4 billion
adherents, [4][5][6][note 2] known as Christians . [note 3]
Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the
savior of humanity whose coming as Christ or the
Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament .

Anyone (atheist) who claims to practice Christianity or Islam without believing that God exists is a fool of the first order. There'd be no greater fools in the history of mankind than such fellows.

ok

dorox:
What you see as chance is what I see as incomplete information. The example you gave of a drop of water and 200,000,000 sieve holes is a good example. With little or no information one would be unable to tell if the drop of water would even hit the sieve, with more information one would start talking about a reasonable certainty of which part of the sieve the water will pass through. And with complete information you will know with certainty which hole the water will pass through.
To believe that the universe came from random chance is even more of a stretch in my opinion. If it is random why do you bother to try to understand it?

In every random process there is a pattern, in every interaction there is a result..

this is the nature of everything, this is the result of what was in the testimony of what is.

Take for instance a Sand Dune, it is very artistic and precise but then from whence did it come?

Was it a planned artistic design?

Not even in the least, just a random and even chaotic reaction of wind on sand and from the chaotic reaction a pattern emerges, a result.

The Penicillin was made from chance yet saved millions and very important in our medical field.

Even where there is will, Chance governs all.

Even when you invoke a God, it is still a subject to chance...

-A chance that somehow outstandingly we've got a God(and not nothing)

-A chance that it is remarkably powerful enough to make something

-A chance that is precisely able and willing.

-A chance that in it's infinite loop of existence it decides to make everything.

2,000,000 sperms on conception night only one made it, it is a remarkable chance, even your day to day life is governed and subjected to chance.

A chance that your car doesn't get hit by another or a meteor doesn't fall right into your head.

So this is not about what feels good that takes us to the scope of theology which in essence is blind.

theology only aims at giving answers to satisfy the questioner while science gives answers to satisfy the question, the question may or may not like it

it is not a matter of believing the universe is a product of chance, believing it doesn't make it true anymore than not believing it makes it a lie.

Invoking what you want to be (believe) in a quest to ascertain what is diminishes your enquiry only to that of emotion and reduces the chance of a truthful deduction.

to borrow your words " To believe that the universe God(s) is from random chance is even more of a stretch in my opinion."

replace the universe with God and you see all again falls back to chance.. why there is something (God) and not nothing.. since it is a chance of nothing and something, it also will be a remarkable chance if something(God) is and not nothing

To continue:

-what makes you think the universe or nature must be designed?

-why do you think there need only be 1 god being and not an entire race of them, if 1 can exist then can't millions of them exist? Or do you think 1 makes a less of an assumption?

-further stretch it, how did you come about the knowledge of God? Is that you could not swallow the weight of everything being a product of chance hence God?

dorox:
Because I don't believe in chance, I think it is the scientific equivalent of God did it. Events only appears random when the limits of our understanding is exceeded.

Don't you see if the world thought as you did then we all would cherish belief over what is true..

This is not a matter of what you believe or want to believe, it's a matter of what is right so the bolded is completely out of it..

Believing or not believing something doesn't make it true or untrue, if it is then it is

by first diminishing your scope of deduction by i don't believe in chance you have already concluded on what you want the answer to be even before looking

So we should judge our progress by the depth of our questions and the sincerity of our answers and our ability to agree with what is right rather than believe what feels good

what is the chance that in a sieve of 200,000,000 holes, a drop of water must pass through one?

Please rephrase your second question, I did not quite get it.

what makes you think the universe or nature must be designed?

God is the universal set, so if there are other Gods, then they would be contained in Him. But if a God or Gods exist outside of Him, they would constitute a disjointed set and effectively be nonexistent to us.

Since they can be 1 then they can be thousands or even millions or a whole race of them even joint in the design set.

so what makes you think 1 is less of an assumption than 1,000

dorox:
That is one way of putting it.
I am sure my grandmother felt the same way when she saw Oyimbo's magic for the first time.

Lmoa... well moving on..

So why then do you think there is need to place a god in the corner of universal causality.

what prompts intelligent design?

And how are there not more than 1 or an entire race of these god entities.

dorox:
Yes, all possible values is contained within God. Nothing exist outside Him.

Ok god pull them right out of himself?

dorox:
I am sure that if the energy that birthed the universe at the moment of the big bang is endosomatic to you, then making a universe would be a matter of finding the right value to give to various constants for the kind of universe that you want.

now for God to make the universe he had to find the right values to give to various constants for make this kind of universe.

so therefore these values were there before god utilized them to fashion a universe?

or there weren't and god first had to pull them out from somewhere before utilizing them

dorox:
By definition being alive means that there is a measure of energy that is endosomatic to you, it is part of you and makes you, you. So also it is with God, He is alive, therefore there is an immeasurable amount of energy associated with His person.
As I said before, God is the universal set, and everything else is derived from him.

This still doesn't answer the question. . We are alive. we live but yet we cannot pull out a watch from ourselves or from no where.

So since there was no universe how did god derive a universe to create, from himself? magic?

He spoke to himself and the universe popped out?

This thread has been turned into a childish one with personal emotion yarns and tantrums flying back and forth.

@realmindz if you have anymore question for me, mention me

dorox:
Energy in the right form will produce any material you need, the stars and planets once existed as pure energy before condensing into matter.

So energy existed alongside God before God fashioned stars out of it?

dorox:
The context of my use of the word contained has little to do with spatial relationship, it is more of a causative relationship.
Since God is infinite, it would imply that the knowledge was within Him.
This kind of discussion tends not to go anywhere, can we just go back to discussing science, or move to the section that is better tailored to it?

it's ok if we discuss it here..

the infinitely conscious all knowing entity thingy is an even bigger problem but i'd leave it and focus on the causality and design premise

You see this re-opens the former problem? there was no universe and you think god caused and designed the universe.

Which means since there was no universe god had to design it out of nothing, there cannot be design if there is nothing to design it from.

so how did this happen?

dorox:
Your statement presumes that the universe and God are disjoint Set, that is not so because God is an infinite personality, hence the universe as vast as it is, is a subset of God and is contained in God.
The statement above is my notion of God. I don't pretend that I can prove this notion to you, or anyone else, but I am happy with my belief.

Fair enough..

Now since the universe is contained within god therefore a part of god, how so then can the universe be designed.

God designed himself?

Raddie:
I guess survival is alien to humanity, according to you?

Nope every specie on this planets wants to survive but we by ourselves add more dangerous factors that mars the chances of our survival in our arrogant greed and idiocy

dorox:
The universe is too vast and complex for any human and certainly not me to know all of its mysteries, however with continuous study the resolution to this unanswered question will keep getting clearer.
Back to your question, we now know that energy is the great enabler, guided by knowledge one can create anything with enough energy. God had the knowledge to design the universe and the energy to bring it into existence.

You are missing the point here...

If there was nothing there cannot be a design since there isn't anything to design anything from.

we have the energy to design a watch but we cannot pull a watch out of no where, materials needed to make a watch existed long before we designed and made a watch.

So since there was 'nothing' only God at an aboard of literal nothingness, from whence did he design something when there really isn't anything to design..

assuming there was nothing at all only God or God(s) from what
exactly did the God(s) create everything from?

From nothing?

How come we have no money to feed the poor but we have enough to make wars?

How come we don't have enough money to do things for ourselves but we always have money to make things aimed at killing us.

as if the one nature is doing is not enough.

It will not take up to a trillion dollars to alleviate global extreme poverty but unfortunately we use them for something that is more dangerous to our survival and have no effect on our betterment, we don't use them on good science projects that can actually better our lives .. no warfare is the most funded.

-Nuclear weapons
-Hydrogen bombs
-biological weapons

all aimed at annihilation, destruction and death...

Nature is already killing enough of us through several means but we have proven to be natures number 1 tool in killing us.

Humans are mindless and stupi_d all the while claiming intelligence but do not see the foolishness in warfare.

Look around you the threat to this planet is not what we may imagine like vampires, zombies, angry gods destroying it, gods coming to rapture it, aliens invading us.

or every other fantasies we delude ourselves with and fear.. The only threat to this planet is the measly innocent humans

We are both a threat to ourselves, other species that share this planet with us and the planet itself..

Humanity must put an end to war or war will put an end to humanity..

Violence is never the answer unless the question is what is never the answer?

vickylinco:
no offense really, but I think the op is really biased in his write up and assessment

truthful observation

realmindz:
science gave the physical explanation of a being, to explain the formation of the physical body, features, attributes, genes, skin colour, height, hereditary, sex, even disabilities...what of the consciousness? could it ve been another chance?

Like i said above.. If the sperm cell and ovum were different then the individual would have been a different person from you therefore a different conscious entity.

so how can consciousness be different from the information interacting to form that entity since different information will produce a distinct consciousness/entity..

Means that your particular consciousness is directly a result of that same information just like every other natural feature you listed up there..

Check this thread https://www.nairaland.com/3048705/universe-purely-material-physical

Consciousness was discussed.

hahahaha i'm enjoying this ...Enki, Enlil, Yahweh, Ba'al all these semitic deities are same stuff shaaa.

well grabs seat with pop corn and stout to enjoy the show

realmindz:
chai, oga sir..I knw say your own na brutality but abeg take am easy with me, I knw too hear English like that, pls break it down so my lowly mind can comprehend..
simply answer the question, would u ve been in existence today if you as that very sperm did not fertilise that very egg

You are not the sperm not at all rather YOU are a result of the shared information between that Particular sperm cell and Ovum

If the Ovum that was fertilized was changed the result would have been totally different individual

realmindz:
Thanks to the responses..another question I would like to ask..

has anyone ever asked about the biological explanation of reproduction, the fertilisation of an egg by one sperm out of millions of other sperms; "what if I wasn't the sperm that fertilised that very egg and another one did, would I be in existence today?.....
cc all nairaland atheists, johnydon22 coolusername sonoflucifer etc

This my brother is a remarkable pointer to how rare a chance life is and i means extremely rare.

Your question above is a good one and the answer is not far from what you probably had in mind before asking.

During conception no less than 2million sperm cells are injected all vying to fertilize one ovum.

Each SPERM cell has a unique chromosome with unique deoxiribonucleic information ..

If another sperm had fertilized the egg the result would have been a different individual and you would not have existed at all.

the result could have been even a girl if an (X) chromosome fertilized the ovum rather..

so each sperm cell would have resulted to a different individual...

If the ovum cell was different the result would have been totally different too even if the sperm remains same.

So that is a very stupendous brain quaking FACT ... that you are here is a pointer that 2million others are not.

It was a slim probability and you are the lucky one.. Enjoy the rare one chance you've got

Very intriguing and curious thought that is very nicely done ....The dusts has been raised.

Anyway let me seat for a while and enjoy the discussion first for a while

lordnicklaus:
You are smart in noticing such but I consider a city of just 20 years to be new. They had enough time within that dispensation to repent. Lot was righteous and might have preached to them but they refused. It is also possible that they had refused to have children within that dispensation.

Hahahahaha now we are discussing newer assumptions..

Lot founded a city of Gays and stayed it sounds as if Lot is gay too to have stayed comfortably in a city of homos.

never got assaulted, was ready to offer up his children to a mob to rape... what a righteous man.

Bro there really is no more need stressing this any further or we will arrive at more outright absurdity

lordnicklaus:
The case of Sodom is unique compared to that of the Benjamites. But it is important to also note that the bible makes mention of a faction of Israelites who were involved in religious prostitutions and in homosexualities, so the Benjamites referred to in this case might have fallen under this category. Also the Sodomites had time to repent of their deeds just like the Canaanites had 440 years of grace before God decides to hand over Canaan to Israel.

lordnicklaus:
The city was scarcely populated. Lot might have been one of the founders of the city (just probating) and so, it was a New City with no children in it.

-following the new excuse..

(1)..it wasn't up to more than 20years Lot and Abraham separated
(2)since Lot came with His wife means others too might also have ...so it cannot be a new city of only gays cus lot wasn't.
(3)New cities doesn't mean there were no children.

Now for the red parts.
You need to choose between the two contradictions that just emerged.

-Was it a new city then they didn't have time yet for repentance having not even exceeded 2 decades and probably don't have children.

-or was it an old city therefore had enough time to repent and surely must have children?

which is it?

lordnicklaus:
The case of Sodom is unique compared to that of the Benjamites. But it is important to also note that the bible makes mention of a faction of Israelites who were involved in religious prostitutions and in homosexualities, so the Benjamites referred to in this case might have fallen under this category. Also the Sodomites had time to repent of their deeds just like the Canaanites had 440 years of grace before God decides to hand over Canaan to Israel.

This still doesn't make every person in Sodom or Gomorrah gay like you'd have us think.

Sodom and Gomorrah was a city like every other with a socio-political and religious setting.

Must have children like every other where the question is derived.

Since they are checking for just 10 good people to spare the city in a city of millions of children.

Doesn't the children count?

lordnicklaus:
But the topic is worth addressing. I am a theist but I do not think bad about atheists. You are free to have your doubts but I would love to discuss that topic with you perhaps I could give a few points to digest.

I already gave you my mind about the whole tree thing, it is an outright myth similar can be found in many other cultures and beliefs.

Believing one doesn't make it true, it's still a classical myth as others...

I do not really see what to discuss there, you can open threads though and invite me over

hahahahaha funny well before we get talking lets wait to hear more

lordnicklaus:
Yea, really childish to debate for "winning" sake. Johnny, you could also create a topic and let us discuss the Garden of Eden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I think your signature might be like a question saying "Since God knows the future, He would have known that Adam and Eve would disobey Him"

Yes brother. about the tree of good and evil and immortality as found in genesis story is a classical myth like Gilgamesh Immortality sea weed or the greek golden apple of immortality.

I do not need discuss it brother

lordnicklaus:
You seem not to get my point. I was saying that there were possibly no children as at that time because the Sodomites engaged in same sex marriage. Children might have once existed but they became grown men and joined in the evil of their ancestors. The people were all grown...... So, God knew there were no children in Sodom then,

Now there isn't one place the story mentioned Sodom and Gomorah were all Gays and not heterosexual relationship.

-Secondly the story never even asserted they were destroyed for homosexuality it was a later assumption from the incidence of Some men of the city asking to have sex with the angels.

So asserting Sodom and Gomorrah is a city of homosexuals is ridiculous, Lot lived in that city like every other and he was not gay.

Sodom and Gomorrah were thriving cities as others, that they are good with homosexuality doesn't make them all gay.

there is also an instance men of the tribe of Benjamin tried to have sex with a levite but he gave them her concubine too this doesn't make all benjamites gays.

There cannot be a city of thriving societal, political and even religious cultures without children or the city would simply cease to exist within a few years.

So this excuse is really out of line with reality..