If you look then you shall find.

Samuel
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If you look then you shall find.

On my "Prayer and Relying on God" blog I gave a link to another blog where someone was asking us to rely on God. Well, that user recently sent me this message:

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Way of the Master
Date: Aug 2, 2006 9:01 PM

When we finally understand the truth of God, we find that He is in control of everything. Through His great love for us, He gave us free will. So you are correct, it is dishonoring to God to just sit back and be lazy, waiting for God to make things happen. The bible is most definitely against this type of behavior.

But once we have admitted that we have failed His perfection, in other words we humble ourselves, then we begin to draw closer to God. To tell if you have failed to live up to God's standards, there is a simple test here. As we grow closer to our creator, we then realize that all along, HE had the perfect plan. We begin to hear His direction and see what He wants us to do. We find His perfect timing.

Waiting on God's will is not being lazy or depending on someone else to do the work we need to do in life. It is simply relying on Him for the direction, the timing, and the perfect plan.

Also, there is countless "proof" and "evidence" of God's existence. All you have to do is look around. He is born in your soul. All you have to do is seek Him on your own and you will find Him. When we see a painting, even though we can't see the painter, touch the painter, smell the painter, etc..., we still know there is a painter because there is a painting. Same with a building. We know there is a builder because there is a building. So it just goes to reason, there is creation, there is a creator.

Which is harder to believe? There was a creator that created the earth and everything on it, or that it just popped out of nothingness. And if so, who created the nothingness? We put our faith in so many things every day. Faith in the brakes of our cars to stop us on the road. Faith in the idea of a stoplight to stop speeding cars from coming the opposite way... Why is it so hard to put faith in our creator?

Search and you will find Him brother.

Have a blessed day.

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My response:

"Also, there is countless "proof" and "evidence" of God's existence. All you have to do is look around. He is born in your soul. All you have to do is seek Him on your own and you will find Him."

Are you asking me to substitute out evidence with emotion? That's fallacious, appeal to emotion.
Also, going out to seek a certain thing isn't science, and cannot be used to ascertain truth, it will be riddled with observers bias as well as many other fallacies. You must first notice an observation and study it before you can ascertain a conclusion, not the other way around. Only someone who really, desperately wants something to be true would do it the other way around.

I was religious once and said the exact same thing you did for "proof" of God. Deep down I knew I was being fallacious at the time.

"Same with a building. We know there is a builder because there is a building. So it just goes to reason, there is creation, there is a creator."

Are you offering me the famous "watchmaker" argument? That was my favorite argument when I was theist, but it is fallacious. The watchmaker argument goes, "if we are walking down a road and find a watch, a complex thing, we can assume it didn't just pop into existence, that it had an intelligent creator."

However the watchmaker argument has been refuted several times. For example, people, just to indulge the argument, went out to find the watchmaker.

They go to a store. The man says he just bought it from a factory, and he wasn't the actual watchmaker. The factor says they compile the pieces, they aren't the actual watchmaker, and the pieces are compiled by machines, which are compiled of their own pieces, all designed with plans which evolved over time since the sundial - which was discovered via natural phenomena and human intellect, which, too, evolved over time thanks to natural phenomena and the like.

There is no watchmaker, there is no building maker.
They evolved over time just as animal species has.

Who created the very natural laws then? Surely they had an intelligent creator? I hear that, and knowing what I know of evolution of watches, buildings, and animals, I laugh. The initial thought of "it must have a creator" is proven shallow at best.

The truth on where existence in general came from is, and always truly was, "I don't know."

And you don't know either. You just pretend you do because you really, really want to know the answer, and you really want it to be a loving, caring God. I don't blame you.

You posed me with "either you believe in a God or you believe things just popped into existence."

I don't believe either, I do not know if either is true - or both - or neither. The answer is: "I don't know." I am intellectually honest and I preserve my veracity.

And besides, you DO believe things just popped into existence, as I don't. You use God as an explanation for all things, but you are left with nothing actually explained. You are left with something even more wondrous and complex unexplained. Where did God come from? You have a worldview, you have a belief, and it includes things popping into existence. Mine does not, I do not have a belief. I am no fool - I don't believe something until I know it is true.

"We put our faith in so many things every day. Faith in the brakes of our cars to stop us on the road. Faith in the idea of a stoplight to stop speeding cars from coming the opposite way... Why is it so hard to put faith in our creator?"

Because I know breaks exist. I have experiences with breaks. I can easily logically prove breaks.
There are two different versions of the word faith.
Faith as in "strongly believing in something."
Or faith as in "blindly believing in something without question."
Don't mix the two. The latter is religious faith, the former is faith in things like breaks. They are not the same thing.
I have "faith" in the former's sense, not in the religious sense.
I have faith in breaks and other things I know, to a reasonable extent. And when I can, I question them, and I doubt them.
I do not have faith in things that may not exist. I have questioned them and they have been found wanting.

"Search and you will find Him brother."

I've always said, "If you look then you shall find." A human physiological phenomina, observer's bias and the rest. You see what you want to see, hear what you want to hear. I don't think that way, however. I don't chose a conclusion then go looking for evidence and observation to support it. I notice an observation and find evidence to discover a conclusion. Again, I am no fool. Please don't assume I am one.

"Have a blessed day."

You too.


LeftofLarry
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If you look then you shall find.

one of the points I usually make with theists when they argue the whole "watchmaker" Intelligent design etc...etc... example is this:

If god is so great, and "intelligently" created us, then explain cancer, our susceptibility to disease, etc... Doesn't seem so intelligent for him to have created a body that's so flawed as for it to actually dysfunction in such a manner that it is self detrimental. This shows two things, IF there was a god, she/he/it is not so intelligent, and I have a hard time "worshipping" someone/thing who is so fundamentally flawed in their engineering...what else is she/he/it flawed in...or 2..(the most probably one) there is no god and we were not created. Either way..the idea of worshipping a being based on the "watchmaker"argument is flawed in many ways...both in logic, and in "design".

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