Observer of dreams

I have been studying since I have been gone and I have learned a thing or two about human behavior while gone. Atheists join these boards because they feel a need to be right. If they are wrong it destroys everything they have justified in their mind about our world and who we are. Atheism actually gives the atheist a degree of comfort in being able to explain something unexplainable (One of Gods qualities is that he is unexplainable). Also there are atheism boards but no atheists on those boards actually want to talk about how nonreligious they are. They talk about cars, taxes, politics and the occasional stab at Christianity. So my point is the ones that come here are insecure in some way, are looking for God but by challenging those with faith, or are having fun by arguing one of the only things they feel passionate about. They do it in the religious section of yahoo answers as well.

There isn't any problems with logic and rationality except that humans use it to rationalize things to fit their individual view of the world. Believers do it all the time, and so do atheist scientists and protective mothers. I think the real problem is that humans are studying the world which we find ourselves in and using the results to point the finger either at God, or away from him. Evidence for God will always be inconclusive. The bible itself expressly states that human kind will never be able to explain God with their own logic. Now I know all sorts of things started spinning in your mind right now but reserve coming to a conclusion until I am done and allow me to explain with proper concision. "Evidence for God will always be inconclusive. The bible itself expressly states that human kind will never be able to explain God with their own logic." Imagine I give an atheist and a believer something, say an object. Now this object Actually came from God himself (stay with me). Now I look to believer bob and say God gave this to me to give to you as proof of his existence. Believer Bob will either have to take my word on it, or decide I am lying. The same goes for atheist Gary. So this is the problem. Both may decide I am lying because there are too many questions. "Why wouldn't God just give it to me himself?" "Why would he even want to give me anything. Or the closed minded response "there is no God so this couldn't have come from him." LOGICALLY it would seem I am trying to pull something, or I am so diluted that I am now imagining God talking to me. Neither the atheist or believer can properly explain God or account for what he does. The atheist finds him illogical, and since his opinion is his own it must stay that way no matter what. The believer has to take on faith that there is an ultimate authority that knows what it is doing. So regardless of whether or not God exists he can not be explained either way. Even if he could the vastness of the universe vs how much we have explored is implicative of our knowledge. Which brings me to the point at hand which was the opening remark made that scientists are misguided. They are not. There are always things that can and will be studied. The scientists are only misguided to the party in which they will inflict the most damage to their beliefs. Even though damage can be inflicted it will always be brushed off by people who do not like to learn. Here is an example. Observe these two statements. "Scientists and archaeologists have finally made the discovery of a lifetime. Ancient documents older then the bible indicate that the whole story was made up by Fred Bob who lived in Israel and wanted a way to control a massive population with little or no resistance. The transcripts explain how he was to engineer several buildings and put stories to them and use natural disasters as godly displays of power." Now this one "Astronomers today have found heaven. They have several pictures of heaven taken by the Hubble space telescope which, in clear detail show heaven exactly as it is described in biblical text, and another fact is that it was discovered precisely on the date that the bible designates." Were the documents forged? Are the astronomers liars with doctored photographs? is the archaeologist a government employee? This is why logic can be a problem. There is way to much dissonance in the face of just being flat wrong.

"What medical tests do you cite for these different types of depression?" I only have my own experience and observations. My fiance had a lot of issues with a particular woman that mentally abused her for years. as she dealt with the issues her condition improved. Therefore there was a psychological side to depression. Psychological depression has triggers such as being in a stressful environment, or being in a similar situation that caused the original trauma. The chemical depression on the other hand is an actual imbalance and no trigger is needed for one to become so depressed that they will not eat. She could be anywhere and it would just smack her like a truck much in the same way an alcoholic still gets craving from time to time even when there is no longer alcohol around. We visited a psychologist and she said that the medication is used to fix the imbalance and one can stop taking it after it is correct for a long period of time say 1 to 5 years.

My fiance has depression, and it doesn't matter how much faith she has because it is still there. It comes from various psychological things that effected her when she was younger and she has made improvement as she has dealt with those issues. God is there for us but he doesn't do our taxes. Just my 2 cents And just for the record there is psychological depression which can be dealt with on the level of communication, and chemical depression which is more likley to come about in the form of anxiety. Anti anxiety and anti depressant medications are used to correct the imbalance and the patient is eventually weened off the drug. It is kind of like giving the brain training wheels. However medications will never fix psychological depression such as a death that was never managed correctly by a family member which is why it needs to be properly diagnosed.

Gee...I guess just like the "broad generalizations" that atheists afford Christians. And the author backs up his words with his experiences debating atheists. To the first point, that doesn't matter what atheists do to us it still doesn't justify the argument. To the second point his experience with atheists is just that, HIS experience. A better way to make a logically valid point and a sound argument would be to say that the atheists he has debated did not know what they were talking about. The argument that atheists are lousy debaters is a provocative topic. It is attacking their character because even though debating is a skill the generalization qualifies all atheists as incapable of attaining said skill. This is how his logic goes; Bob is a bad debater Bob is an atheist Fred is also an atheist Therefore Fred must be a bad debater It is inductive nonsense at best. In order for induction to work all parts of the inductive statements must be cogent, if they are not, then the statement is invalid. For instance I could make the inductive statement, "I love spring, everyone must be as happy as me during springtime!" The problem is this is not cogent because there are people that like the cold, people that have allergies, and people that basically hate everything. In conclusion since your statement has no validity and is not sound it is your own opinion that you are indeed entitled to and nothing more than that.

I am a christian BTW. Your principle argument comes from a broad generalization and based on attacking the character of the atheists. It isn't valid, there are no facts backing it up.

First thing is first. I understand where caustic is coming from. Though I disagree with his views I UNDERSTAND them and why he has them. He was very diplomatic in his responses and avoided the typical flame wars that tend to take place on these boards between believers and non. I think human beings tend to dumb God down when we try to explain him. He, for example ends up as "he" or "She" or "Tree" or "rock" or whatever, but our problem is that God is everything, and we are trying to use everything we know to describe him, but everything we know isn't everything there is. The God I follow is not A God, he is, "God", or "the father" the God I often hear described by people always has defects. One question I hear is "why would an all loving God allow hatred in the world?" My answer to this is that God created beings capable of making decisions just as he makes decisions. We are responsible for the hatred in the world because God has put us in charge of the world and everything in it. He owns it but we are the managers. It is OUR fault there is hatred in the world because God created us to be independent of himself. That was off topic but illustrates my point. The questions we ask about God are unjustified in the grand scope of things, yet they are necessary to us as human beings. God is the same God no matter how he changes his appearance, who he speaks through, how we choose to see him, and what religion we use to get close to him. We as humans care about these things and the proof is with Jesus, with every person stoned by the early Christians and some modern Muslims, how people TRULY react when someone dresses in Hot topic pants and goes to church. until people can love each other, and I mean agape love, they will never truly understand how God sees this world. We will also never truly know God because he has not shown us his power. God can do all that he wills, but will never do all that he can, because if he did, mistakes would be made, and the perfection that is God is made full circle in his extraordinary ability to use his powers in just the perfect way. If he interfered with the hatred there may have been something positive that would be lost. "when you do things right, people wont be sure that you've done anything at all."

I would imagine there would be a smoking gun. I am no physicist, but regardless if a ball with paint on it just sits there it looks like a ball of paint, but if it is rolling, then we see the line of paint that was left by the ball, though we are not observing the ball of paint itself......honestly I have no idea, that is just a shot in the dark.

Imagine a basketball turning inside out without its surface breaking. Such things are possible in a fifth dimension of space and time, but why can't we perceive such things in our mind? The answer is because we are not 5th dimensional beings, we are 4. width, length, height, and time. A fifth unnamed dimension can very plausibly exist, as well as a 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and so onth. Let me explain using Mario, a very high brow and intellectual man lol. Mario is a two dimensional being living in a two dimensional world. Mario cannot perceive the third dimension that gives everything volume. Filling a cup for him is impossible just as a basketball turning inside out without breaking its surface is impossible to us. Sure likenesses of the cup can be made out of two dimensions using various shapes, but it is just not a cup, it has no volume at all. Therefore what would happen when another two dimensional buddy tries to break the "fourth wall" and tell him there is a whole other world full of these objects that have mass, and we can turn in a full circle and behold our environment, and things fill other things...well if he were an expert at math he could perceive the third and fourth dimensions as we have with our algebra and calculus. If he were not an expert at math he could not fathom the difference a couple dimensions make. [http://www.physorg.com/news88699794.html] <<<visit this link for more info. I am talking specifically about "[The] proof of the famous Poincar

The outer darkness and the lake of fire are just a way of speaking. They are attempting to describe something beyond our understanding.

Someone said, "why would it matter if there was something out there that had no bearing on our existence?" Because we are human and we have to stick our noses into everything. There is plenty of garbage here on earth that we have to try and figure out what it is. The worlds deepest trench is an example. It has no bearing on our existence yet we have to try and figure out what it is. I already know what it is! its a stupid hole in water! Jeeze.

Science requires 2 fundamental things in order to have a test, regardless of whether or not the test is successful, a constant and a variable. We humans say to one another, "Science says god existing is improbable." We humans also say to one another, "Faith says god existing is probable." The problem is that they are both devices of man. Attempting to discover the totality of oneself is equally as impossible as attempting to discover the totality of the universe.

keilan I think that is exactly what happens.

It seems we have reached a paradox to which the answer will remain hidden for a very long time. The fact that God is capable of anything and everything means that science finds him unfalsifiable. I brought this up in another argument by the way so if it sounds a little repetitive I am sorry. The fact God cannot be falsified and thus unprovable actually improves the argument for his existence from the Christian perspective while simultaneously improving the argument for the atheist side as well. This is because the bible splits the 2 sides apart. The philosophical and moral lessons of Jesus show us that there is more to life that meets the eye. The bible introduced the concept of faith first proof later. Meaning that if you have faith now, proof will come to you. This idea creates quite a conundrum when science and faith face off. Now I'll go through my analysis. A. I make the observation that faith is required in order to later find proof of God. B. Using the scientific method I then have to test the observation that faith is required to later find proof of God. C. In order to test the observation I have to come to a conclusion first and then use inductive reasoning. The results of said tests have been positive for me, and this is because the inductive reasoning, though volatile as to its reasoning is cogent. Meaning that there are universal truths and values that must be in play that the reasoning must be in touch with. An opposing observation must be made with the premise that truth is relative. If truth is relative then no truth can be certain, and if no truth can be certain than no argument can be sound, but both may be valid. So based on these things I can make two deductive statements. 1. If truth is relative there is no truth and God cannot exist, because no universal truth means no universal being. 2. If truth is not relative than God must exist, for universal truths and the values that must follow will have to come outside of humanity. In other words universal truths/values cannot be created by the humanity in which they will be placed as it infringes on inalienable rights and freedoms of others. Inalienable rights and freedoms would be a basic universal truth, and for another human to create universal truths it could or would infringe upon other inalienable rights. (side note) In the second point the list of reasons why universal truths cannot be created by humanity is not exhaustive. The reason given is just an example.