Moral Dilemmas

[walterpthefirst]

8 minutes ago, Aibao said:

Exactly. I have a problem with looking at the possibilities rather than the evidence. Or I confuse possibility with evidence. As for the fact that I am not worried about people, for example in Brazil - Recently I was worried about children from Syria because there has been a war there for years - I even cried. I do not know why, for example I used to cry because of hunger in Africa and decided that I would stop eating because others do not have food. This worrying about someone who is not around is perhaps strange and unhealthy, I must admit that it is exhausting, so often I like to be alone and isolate myself from people and take care of e.g. cleaning the house and listening to music - then my mind and psyche rest a bit.

 

I agree that since God gives such evidence to others, such as and not to others, He expects faith from everyone and then sends them to eternal torture, it is monstrous and sadistic. But I am afraid of such a possibility, the more so because when I was still in the church, believers said that God would judge fairly and on this basis how much you know and not everyone will have the capacity to have strong faith, so if little is given to you, little will be expected of you. But I have books, articles, so I have the feeling that a lot has been given to me, so the requirements are high, but it breaks me mentally a bit and it scares me that I have to study the religion that worries and discourages me so much. So even if someone did not have a revelation, God will judge them on the basis of other things, so they are doomed anyway.

 

Aibao,

 

I will answer this in my reply to your second post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[walterpthefirst]

25 minutes ago, Aibao said:

Exactly, I heard somewhere from some apologist that if evolution is true then the whole Bible and all Christianity must be false. But that's 1 person. There is also, unfortunately, something like evolutionary theism or something ... let me explain: there are Christians (such an example are especially Catholics and Richard Deem from godandscience) who agree with the theory of evolution and that the world has not been created for 6,000 years, etc. but they still claim that evolution was led by God and that it was God who started life and everything. As for the flood, in the Cambrian era there was actually a flood and here they refer to Noah's flood that the Bible confirms the Cambrian era. In addition, there is a flood myth in all parts of the world, so the flood was worldwide, so the Bible is true again. And the ancestors of man like the hominids and the Neanderthals were the ancestors of Noah. What to do with this? I thought that when I start discovering the science of evolution, everything will clear up in my head, but it turns out that there are Christians who connect evolution with the Bible, and the word "yom" in Genesis used to describe creation as "day" has different meanings in Hebrew: it can mean a long period of time, years, epochs. So the Bible turns out to confirm the old Earth. Just as I thought I would start to think critically and look at the evidence, religion dealt another blow.

 

 

Godandscience is not to be trusted, Aibao.  I can explain why, but it's rather technical.  Please let me know.

 

 

 

What you heard was true.  If evolution is true, then Christianity is false.

 

Please read this.

 

https://www.ex-christian.net/topic/85825-ten-questions-for-theistic-evolutionist-christians/#comment-1244779

 

I wrote this because evolutionary theism cannot explain these ten things.  Furthermore, anything Christians can claim about evolution can also be claimed by Muslims, Jews and people of other faiths.  So, Christian evolutionary theism does NOT demonstrate that ONLY the Christian god used evolution.

 

Aibao, please understand that scientific evidence does NOT specifically identify ONLY the Christian god.  What happens is that Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus as well as Christians all claim that the scientific evidence supports ONLY their claims and their gods.  

 

But they can't all be right, can they?  Who is right?  There's no way to know for sure.  But there is one thing that is certain and obvious.  Each person from any of those religions will not see any specific sign of their particular god in the workings of evolution.  Instead, each person simply believes by faith that whatever happened in evolution must be caused by their god and not the god of the others.

 

Please get back to me if you would like me to explain anything further.

 

Thank you.

 

Walter. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Aibao]

On 22.06.2022 at 21:42, walterpthefirst said:

 

 

Nie można ufać Boguinauce, Aibao. Mogę wyjaśnić dlaczego, ale to raczej kwestia techniczna. Proszę daj mi znać.

 

 

 

To, co słyszałeś, było prawdą. Jeśli ewolucja jest prawdziwa, to chrześcijaństwo jest fałszywe.

 

Proszę przeczytaj to.

 

https://www.ex-christian.net/topic/85825-ten-questions-for-theistic-evolutionist-christians/#comment-1244779

 

Napisałem to, ponieważ teizm ewolucyjny nie potrafi wyjaśnić tych dziesięciu rzeczy. Co więcej, wszystko, co chrześcijanie mogą twierdzić na temat ewolucji, może być również przyznawane przez muzułmanów, żydów i ludzi innych wyznań. Tak więc chrześcijański teizm ewolucyjny NIE wykazuje, że TYLKO chrześcijański bóg używał ewolucji.

 

Aibao, proszę zrozum, że dowody naukowe NIE identyfikują konkretnie TYLKO chrześcijańskiego boga. Dzieje się tak, że Żydzi, muzułmanie, sikhowie, hinduiści i chrześcijanie twierdzą, że dowody naukowe potwierdzają TYLKO ich twierdzenia i ich bogów.  

 

Ale nie wszyscy mogą mieć rację, prawda? Kto ma rację? Nie ma sposobu, aby wiedzieć na pewno. Ale jest jedna rzecz, która jest pewna i oczywista. Każda osoba z którejkolwiek z tych religii nie dostrzeże w działaniach ewolucji żadnego konkretnego znaku swojego boga. Zamiast tego, każda osoba po prostu wierzy przez wiarę, że cokolwiek wydarzyło się w ewolucji, musi być spowodowane przez ich boga, a nie przez boga innych.

 

Proszę, wróć do mnie, jeśli chcesz, żebym wyjaśniła coś więcej.

 

Dziękuję Ci.

 

Waltera. 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you before I read the links you gave me here - I learned a long time ago that in the Book of Genesis it did not have to be that on the first day it was written, on the second it - disorder was said to be specific among historians of that time, e.g. Josephus added inserts in their texts, which were detached from the main topic, are also confirmed by the so-called Testimonium Flavianum as true and not interpolation, since mismatched inserts in the text were then quite common and used. Josephus, Flavius, wrote about something in one place, and suddenly in another, he wrote about another thing, and everything was disordered chronologically, but that was the written history then. So we can arrange the creation story in Genesis chronologically, and then a scientifically conformable creature will come out - so again it may turn out that the Bible is telling the truth. The same evangelists who wrote the Gospels wrote without chronological order, but then this was the method of writing history, so the Gospel can be arranged in chronological order, for example, to postpone the dates in time and everything will be correct?

 

Here is the main problem and therefore I can't go any further - please, if you can help me with that, explain it to me.

 

Another point is the godandscience website - could you explain to me where the author of this website makes mistakes? He writes quite convincingly, and I do not want to be fooled if he is cheating, although he himself places information somewhere that not all Christian websites are honest and you should not believe everything what Christians write - but you have to believe him, right?

 

I get lost again, and that's always when I start to see a way out ...

 

[◊ Weezer ◊]

  HANG IN THERE!

[walterpthefirst]

On 6/26/2022 at 1:05 AM, Aibao said:

Thank you before I read the links you gave me here - I learned a long time ago that in the Book of Genesis it did not have to be that on the first day it was written, on the second it - disorder was said to be specific among historians of that time, e.g. Josephus added inserts in their texts, which were detached from the main topic, are also confirmed by the so-called Testimonium Flavianum as true and not interpolation, since mismatched inserts in the text were then quite common and used. Josephus, Flavius, wrote about something in one place, and suddenly in another, he wrote about another thing, and everything was disordered chronologically, but that was the written history then. So we can arrange the creation story in Genesis chronologically, and then a scientifically conformable creature will come out - so again it may turn out that the Bible is telling the truth. The same evangelists who wrote the Gospels wrote without chronological order, but then this was the method of writing history, so the Gospel can be arranged in chronological order, for example, to postpone the dates in time and everything will be correct?

 

Here is the main problem and therefore I can't go any further - please, if you can help me with that, explain it to me.

 

The order in which the six day creation occurs is irrelevant, Aibao.

 

If Genesis is historical fact then it tells us that the universe was created in six days.  But science tells us that this is false.  According to science the universe is 13.72 billion years old.  The two cannot be reconciled.  One must be false.

 

On 6/26/2022 at 1:05 AM, Aibao said:

 

Another point is the godandscience website - could you explain to me where the author of this website makes mistakes? He writes quite convincingly, and I do not want to be fooled if he is cheating, although he himself places information somewhere that not all Christian websites are honest and you should not believe everything what Christians write - but you have to believe him, right?

 

I get lost again, and that's always when I start to see a way out ...

 

 

I will need some time to put together a proper answer for you about godandscience, Aibao.

 

Please be patient.

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

[walterpthefirst]

OK Aibao,  here are two examples of where godandscience cheats.

 

Please note that these two are enough to completely demolish the credibility of that site.  

 

1.

Godandscience uses many statistical examples of how incredibly fine-tuned the universe appears to be, claiming that this shows the hand of god as the designer and fine-tuner.  But this is false. 

 

The number of blue-eyed, left-handed, divorced dentists in Poland can only be known if the sample can be properly defined by a boundary.  The borders of the Polish nation are this boundary, allowing us to count up the number of blue-eyed, left-handed, divorced dentists within it.  Without a definite boundary, no such statistical sampling is possible.

 

Godandscience treats the edge of the universe as this hard boundary.  But this is false.  The edge of the universe is simply a visual horizon, limiting how far we can see.  This is very similar to how a sailor in the middle of the ocean sees things.  He can only see to his particular horizon, but the world extends far beyond this.  And this is how science treats the edge of the universe.  As a visual boundary and not a boundary where the universe ceases to exist.  Science assumes that the universe extends far beyond the ‘edge’ that we see, possibly being infinitely large.

 

So, do you see what this means, Aibao?

 

With no definite boundary to the universe nobody can make any kind of statistical argument about how likely or unlikely anything is.  Which means that all fine-tuning arguments like this are false.

 

2.

http://www.leaderu.com/truth/3truth11.html This link from godandscience takes us to the work of Reverend William Lane Craig.  Craig claims that a science paper by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose proves that the universe began from nothing, just the Bible says.  But this is false.

 

In 1970 Hawking and Penrose publish their paper, The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology.  In this paper they assume that the universe contains an energy field called the Cosmological Constant, which has a negative or zero value.

 

In 1998 two teams of astronomers independently discover that the universe has a positive Cosmological Constant.  This means that Hawking and Penrose’s paper is ruled out and cannot apply.  Therefore, it cannot be used to predict or prove anything about our universe.  This means that Craig is making a false claim that the universe began just as the Bible says. 

 

There is no further need to investigate anything else in godandscience Aibao.  Everything that is written there is suspect because they are making false claims.  Have you heard the expression, 'Liar for Jesus'?  This is what Christians do to try and get people to believe in their god.  They make false claims, which are nothing but lies.

 

Please do a Google search using the words, Liar for Jesus and see how many examples there where Christians have been caught lying by making false claims.

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.

[Aibao]

On 6/27/2022 at 10:32 AM, walterpthefirst said:

 

The order in which the six day creation occurs is irrelevant, Aibao.

 

If Genesis is historical fact then it tells us that the universe was created in six days.  But science tells us that this is false.  According to science the universe is 13.72 billion years old.  The two cannot be reconciled.  One must be false.

 

 

I will need some time to put together a proper answer for you about godandscience, Aibao.

 

Please be patient.

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

I no longer remember whether it was on the godandscience page or on another page, but there was an explanation that the word "yom" for "day" was used for "days" during the creation of the world in Genesis. The author further explained that the word "yom" has many other meanings, and that it was used in Genesis to mean billions of years at the time of creation, not days, as reportedly incorrectly understood. So it turns out that the Bible speaks of the creation of the world in billions of years, as the science confirms. Unless the word "yom" actually means "day". But how do you check it? First, you must learn the ancient Hebrew in which the Old Testament was written ...

[Aibao]

In general, I was scared that I found new information that I will have to read to examine precisely Christianity, but it turns out that it is probably an old godandscience website, but changed on the forum: https://www.godandscience.org/
Either something is displayed wrongly or the website has actually been converted in the forum.

[walterpthefirst]

On 7/3/2022 at 3:17 PM, Aibao said:

I no longer remember whether it was on the godandscience page or on another page, but there was an explanation that the word "yom" for "day" was used for "days" during the creation of the world in Genesis. The author further explained that the word "yom" has many other meanings, and that it was used in Genesis to mean billions of years at the time of creation, not days, as reportedly incorrectly understood. So it turns out that the Bible speaks of the creation of the world in billions of years, as the science confirms. Unless the word "yom" actually means "day". But how do you check it? First, you must learn the ancient Hebrew in which the Old Testament was written ...

 

Yes, I know about this Aibao.

But I also know that other religions have similar ways of reconciling science with what their holy texts say.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalpa_(aeon)

 

The real question here is why you keep trying to find ways of keeping what you most fear alive, so that it can continue to torture you.  There is an expression often used by atheists and sceptics when they are debating with Christians and other religious people.

 

"How many hoops are you prepared to jump through to excuse the inconsistencies of your beliefs?"

 

It looks like you will jump through any number of hoops, chasing down even the remotest possibility that Christianity might be true.  But, why?  Even if you don't know why, do you really consider this to be normal behaviour?  Do you really think that this is an indicator of good mental health?

 

Surely, like an alcoholic who can do nothing about their addiction until they admit they are an addict, you must realize that your can do nothing about your fear until you admit that it controls you?

 

I can keep answering your questions for as long as you can keep asking them.  In a similar way, you can keep finding new ways of trying to keep Christianity true for just as long.  There is no ultimate answer that I can give you that will stop your fear from finding new questions to ask.

 

It's up to you to seize control of your life, not me.  If you can't or won't do this, then you and I will be stuck in this cycle of questions and answers and more questions, with no end in sight and no possibility of escape.

 

I'm sorry to be blunt, but I think that deep down you realize this is true.

 

Walter.