The Ontological Argument.

[PortraitOfSanity]

But Western religion is also really about power and/or money. So arguing that religion hasn't caused said wars/genocides is rather silly.


I exclude Buddhism and Hinduism from this argument, like I said, Western.

[PortraitOfSanity]

Originally Posted by HumanePain

And here you have the crux of where the arguments, the scientific logic and everything else goes off the tracks laid down by Christ. You hit the nail on the head without realizing it.

Since the relationship with God is a personal one, one between the individual and Christ, it SHOULD BE that person's construct of what He is like. It should not be what somebody else tells you. It should be what you feel in your heart.

The Bible, the Ten Commandments and for that matter, the Qu'ran and the Bhagavad Gita or whatever faith you subscribe to, is a guide to living, not a scientific whitepaper or blueprint to the Universe. There is a Muslim saying, "the Qu'ran tells how to go to heaven, not how the heaven's go" and that in my opinion is the best way to describe my perspective.

All of this debate and argument of whether or not an agreed upon construct that people everywhere can use is defined as this or that is completely missing the point.

I am not a follower of other people who tell me what or who God is, I am a follower of Jesus and try to obey what He said.

If we are all debating whether or not the surface of Mars is habitable with only an oxygen tank, that is a tangible challenge that can be explored, experimented on and proved to others.

But proving the existence of God? If He is a guide to living, then our individual lives MUST define the criteria, the context of the arena in which he operates, so that we may apply His teachings and subsequently effect change in our lives.

Applying what worked for someone else to our own problems is inefficient and probably a waste of time.

In simplest terms: It is like arguing that Jillian likes lemon meringue pie. I can argue all day that he eats other dishes containing the same ingredients as lemon meringue pie, but if Jillian doesn't like it, not me or anyone else is going to be able to make him eat the pie and like it. It is his choice to accept or reject it. Logic has no place in that decision process.

EDIT: thanks JCC for creating this thread, I love debating this topic. When I have time that is, these debates can go on for freakin' forEVER.

I also have to say, that even though I disagree with you, this was the only post worth reading in this thread. The Ontological argument is beating a dead horse nowadays.

[JCC]

Originally Posted by PortraitOfSanity

But Western religion is also really about power and/or money. So arguing that religion hasn't caused said wars/genocides is rather silly.


I exclude Buddhism and Hinduism from this argument, like I said, Western.

Buddhism is one of the worst.

[LiUsAiDh]

Originally Posted by PortraitOfSanity

But Western religion is also really about power and/or money. So arguing that religion hasn't caused said wars/genocides is rather silly.


I exclude Buddhism and Hinduism from this argument, like I said, Western.

They're just the organisations, which, um, organise the bureaucratic side of the religion.

I consider the religion itself to be the beliefs and deities etc. The power/money side is just a corruption of the original cause created by humans. It's not the religion's fault.

[HumanePain]

Originally Posted by LiUsAiDh

They're just the organisations, which, um, organise the bureaucratic side of the religion.

I consider the religion itself to be the beliefs and deities etc. The power/money side is just a corruption of the original cause created by humans. It's not the religion's fault.

Succinctly said.

[LiUsAiDh]

Why thank you .

[PortraitOfSanity]

Originally Posted by JCC

Buddhism is one of the worst.

How do you figure? I have no beef with either Hinduism or Buddhism simply because there's no politics involved in either, unlike Christianity.

[JCC]

Originally Posted by PortraitOfSanity

How do you figure? I have no beef with either Hinduism or Buddhism simply because there's no politics involved in either, unlike Christianity.

You so sure about that? Did you know that Buddhist countries have the highest amount of child prostitution in the world? And the mere concept of the Dalai Lama makes me sick.

[JCC]

Actually, that's probably not enough, so I'll add some more stuff in.

One of the main points of Buddhism is that all life is suffering, and suffering comes from desire. So basically, you want to fuck, and have lots of cool shit, but really you're just hurting yourself. So you deprive yourself of what you want. Political. Completely and utterly political, boils down to saving resources and making people miserable and servient. How can you save yourself from suffering? Following the commandments of Buddhism, and the eight paths to happiness, all that bullshit. Commandments, effectively laws, political again, hello corruptive Monotheism, so good to see you.

So, we've got deprivation that apparently leads to happiness (which actually leads to starvation), and following laws. Sounds a lot like Christianity to me so far.

Okay, so, list of Buddhist countries:

Cambodia
Sri Lanka
Thailand (bustling child sex trade)
Tibet
Bhutan (rife non-Buddhist discrimination)

Yeah, good to see how the substantial Buddhism is helping the population of those countries to civil strife and general fucked-upness. The politics behind Buddhism is there and it FAILS MISERABLY.

[PortraitOfSanity]

I'd pick some different sources for your information on Buddhism if I were you, assuming you have sources. You do realize, that Buddhism is non-theistic, right? Your association between child prostitution and Buddhism couldn't be further off, people do sick shit all over the world, regardless of religion or lack thereof. And what exactly makes you sick about the Dalai Lama?

[Godslayer Jillian]

What sources can you ask when he spoke about the one main tenet of Buddhism?
I do not agree with what he said, but your demand on different sources for the tenets of Buddhism sounds ridiculous to me.

"Christians believe Jesus is God." "Oh yeah? tell me what Christian says that."

Or maybe I just misunderstood you, and for that, sorry.


As for the Dalai Lama, what is not sick about a cult of personality? Tibetan Buddhism is extremely feudal and makes people only happy through religion. There's no pursuit of equality or liberty, or even human achievement. There's only the pursuit of the inner space by a chosen few.
Families work hard so that one sole member can have a chance at becoming a monk.

The exploration of the inner space , I find beautiful. But the elitism of it I find sad.

[JCC]

They just fucking take a little child out of an orphanage, say he's the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama and send him to the mountains where he has to live his life in chastity (at least the Buddhist proles can fuck) and become more of a political figure than the Pope. The Dalai Lama is sickening.

[James Most Bizzare]

The ontological argument is retarded. It's nothing more than a word-trick. It can be used to prove the existence of any god one chooses to believe in, indeed anything one chooses to believe in, from the most perfect sandwich to mythical creatures like fairies and unicorns.

[PortraitOfSanity]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

What sources can you ask when he spoke about the one main tenet of Buddhism?
I do not agree with what he said, but your demand on different sources for the tenets of Buddhism sounds ridiculous to me.

"Christians believe Jesus is God." "Oh yeah? tell me what Christian says that."

Or maybe I just misunderstood you, and for that, sorry.

I wasn't asking him to provide sources to me, I'm telling him to read elsewhere because wherever he's getting his information, is way off.

[Joker_in_the_Pack]

The idea that any human being can comprehend the origin of all known existence is arrogance to a level that is staggering. Most people don't have a grasp of how their circulatory system works, and they're trying to understand all of existence?

[Scareebowfairy]

I'm probably going to sound like a moron (I'm use to that) I'm a bit of a scatter brain, but my parents are Jehovah's witnesses. And I asked my dad about the perfection thing, he said the bible said god did not say he created all things perfect, rather he was pleased with his creation and said it was good, please bear with me I'm simply trying to understand here.
scientists have a theory called the chaos theory. The chaos theory involves cosmic events that appear to be destructive and chaotic but on closer analysis of the cosmos you will see order.
An exploding star for instance will create something else that perpetuates the existence and expansion of our universe.
Also the chaos theory involves a random process within a set of physical universal laws.
He says the reason the creator might of done things in such a way was so that not one body, whether it be living or inanimate would be the same, but unique.
Take the big bang theory, scientists say that all matter came from a chaotic event as a result of an enormous amount of energy being released from a singularity.
Yet we have galaxies, solar systems all working in "relative" harmony, within the laws of chaos and randomness.
He also says perfection is measured by Relativity from a perspective of the creator.
Our perspective of perfection simply would not match gods because of our lack of understanding and knowledge.
Say a man made a robot to work perfect from his relative perspective, then someone came along and damaged it. That's what Satan did, he caused the human race to be flawed, which was amplified by man's lack of insight and understanding without proper knowledge and guidance.
God did gives us all free will thats why the knowledge of the good and bad tree was planted in the garden of Eden. But he needed to show us that if we exercise our free will in the wrong way there would be inevitable consequences.
For instance if we were to exercise our free will and jump of a cliff without a parachute what would be the result of you defying the established law of gravity?

[mizery]

I once wrote a paper along those lines when my mom put me in a Catholic school, i got into a lot of touble. This is why I always say that God, or any other form of him/she/it was created so that we have hope. But hope was twisted and people killed and died for it, therefore, hope is a demon.

[JCC]

The Bible is a political text, not a gross misinterpretation of a figure of hope.

[Despanan]

Ya know, I was going to say something about the sheer amount of misinformation in this thread, but I think I won't. JCC is in full on rabid, vitriolic, eye-rolling mode. This is a perfect example of the danger of regurgitated knowledge and how truly twisted, dogmatic, fanaticism is a disease which does not exclusively infect theists. He has managed to reach a level of idiocy on par with any froth-mouthed street preacher, and is thus, unworthy of reasonable conversation at this time.

I could spend an few minutes pointing out the various flaws in his anti-Buddhist rhetoric, his misunderstanding of their doctrines, and the many, many, irresponsible and illogical leaps he's taken in his attacks upon a religion in general (and possibly an hour re-stating them) but in the end I'd just be arguing religion with a fourteen year old on the internet, and that is not a prospect I find particularly enjoyable at this time. When people reach this level of irrationality, it's best just to point and laugh. So instead, I'll link THIS and THIS.

[LiUsAiDh]

I prefer the cosmological argument.

[JCC]

Originally Posted by LiUsAiDh

I prefer the cosmological argument.

You mean the one where Theists admit that because they don't know how shit happens, God did it?

Despanan]I could spend an few minutes pointing out the various flaws in his anti-Buddhist rhetoric, his misunderstanding of their doctrines, and the many, many, irresponsible and illogical leaps he's taken in his attacks upon a religion in general (and possibly an hour re-stating them) but in the end I'd just be arguing religion with a fourteen year old on the internet, and that is not a prospect I find particularly enjoyable at this time. When people reach this level of irrationality, it's best just to point and laugh. So instead, I'll link THIS and THIS.

Point them out. I don't see why taking one of the foremost tenets of Buddhism and criticising it is a massive leap, but I'm not particularly surprised that someone has jumped to its defense, Buddhism is as popular in the West nowadays as skinny jeans and side fringes.

[LiUsAiDh]

Originally Posted by JCC

You mean the one where Theists admit that because they don't know how shit happens, God did it?

I mean the argument which, is rather less woolly, and harder to argue against, than the ontological one.

I wasn't meaning a 'God of the blanks' type thing.

[JCC]

Originally Posted by LiUsAiDh

I mean the argument which, is rather less woolly, and harder to argue against, than the ontological one.

I wasn't meaning a 'God of the blanks' type thing.

The Cosmological argument doesn't give any sort of evidence or even point toward the existence of a God. It just states that an effect has a cause. Easily refuted as an argument for God's existence, and fairly obvious as an argument for anything else.

[LiUsAiDh]

Originally Posted by JCC

The Cosmological argument doesn't give any sort of evidence or even point toward the existence of a God. It just states that an effect has a cause. Easily refuted as an argument for God's existence, and fairly obvious as an argument for anything else.

Not really, there must be a necessary non-contingent being (or object, I suppose) which caused things to happen, from no cause.

= God.

Although it doesn't have anything to do with omnipotence, etc etc, and the generally accepted ideas of what God is, it still comes up with a better argument for a Creator's existence than 'I can think of God, so He's there'.

[JCC]

Then what created God, if everything has a cause? If God can just be there, then everything else can, and if he can't, then there's creators ad infinitum. That's basic Atheist rhetoric, but it's also true.