faith (4 Viewers)

[Riproot]

One does not require the justification of religion to resort to violence.

Yes, but it definitely helps.

 

[boris]

god is pure energy oh ok that explains a lot

 

[alstah]

god is pure energy oh ok that explains a lot

Well, to a theist, what is God? Ignoring religion, ask a theist about God and they will tell you:

God is powerful. God has always existed and will always exist, God can be manifested in a plethora of ways.

Now a small thought experiment.
Replace 'God' in that sentence with (since atheists claim to have scientifically geared minds) the word 'energy'. Notice anything?

Energy is powerful. Energy has always existed (energy cannot be created or destroyed) and energy can be manifested in a plethora of ways (i.e. transfer forms).

So why wouldn't God be energy?

 

[SnowFox]

'God' is pure energy. Energy cannot be created or destroyed.

I would like to point you towards nuclear reactions.

 

[cheese_cheese]

I would like to point you towards nuclear reactions.

<= fails at physics 101

 

[Sammydubbs]

I would like to point you towards nuclear reactions.

And I would like to point you towards a year 12 physics textbook.

 

[antonio primo]

soon god will be

pure light

pure

ENERGY

helios and i

while the illuminati cower in the shadows

 

[Belalan]

And I would like to point you towards a year 12 physics textbook.

I wouldnt pick a year 12 text book; those things are pretty shit. I'd more point you towards some of Feynman's lectures, probably Quantum Electro Dynamics as a base line before these little religious people attempt to utilise aspects of physics they may or may not understand to justify that for which there is no evidence.

 

[funkshen]

alstah you are literally talking nonsense. you keep shifting the goalposts with your esoteric bullshit.

your premise is that theist conceptions of god have resounding similarities with modern conceptions of energy. okay, well, apples similarities have resounding similarities with oranges. it is an ignoratio elenchii to then imply that god is energy, or apples are oranges.

"energy is powerful" is a tautology, considering power is the rate at which work is performed (or energy is converted). you aren't saying anything, you're playing word games, defining something in terms of itself.

an omnipotent god cannot manifest himself in a plethora of ways - he can manifest himself in infinite ways. this is clearly not the case for energy.

you are committing an incredibly rough texas sharpshooter fallacy. the differences between energy and god are far more striking than the similarities, which can indeed be chalked up to pure coincidence and the linguistic curiosities.

p.s. i can bend energy to my will, but quite clearly, not god.

 

[Sammydubbs]

I wouldnt pick a year 12 text book; those things are pretty shit. I'd more point you towards some of Feynman's lectures, probably Quantum Electro Dynamics as a base line before these little religious people attempt to utilise aspects of physics they may or may not understand to justify that for which there is no evidence.

All I'm saying is that he obviously sees nuclear fusion as a way that energy is created, where as if they had actually done year 12 physics he'd know that it is conversion of energy from one form to another not creation of energy.

 

[alstah]

apples similarities have resounding similarities with oranges. it is an ignoratio elenchii to then imply that god is energy, or apples are oranges.

Do you know anything about signs and signifiers? It's basic semiotics. A sign is understood as a discrete unit of meaning in semiotics. Saussure defined it as, "something that stands for something, to someone in some capacity."

Since we can apply signs and signifiers to apples and oranges, and able to differentiate the two, your logic is flawed. However, your logic would be correct if we were able to apply signs and signifiers to God and energy. But since we know very little about both, this logic ceases to make sense. These entities cannot, in any way be differentiated, as we have no signs or signifiers to differentiate them.

an omnipotent god cannot manifest himself in a plethora of ways - he can manifest himself in infinite ways. this is clearly not the case for energy.

An omnipotent God can transform itself in an infinite number of ways. Energy can also transform into a infinite number of forms.

"energy is powerful" is a tautology, considering power is the rate at which work is performed (or energy is converted). you aren't saying anything, you're playing word games, defining something in terms of itself.....

I'm assuming you are familiar with Albert Einstein’s e=mc^2 (energy equals mass times the speed of light squared) equation. However what most people don’t know is that originally Einstein wasn’t solving for “e”, he was solving for “m” so his original equation was m=e/c2 (mass equals energy divided by the speed of light squared). So what, what’s the difference? With the first equation we learn how to get energy out of mass which has led, for example, to the fission of atoms and getting energy (the atomic bomb and nuclear energy). But in the second equation we learn how mass is created by energy and that, for example, the energy generated by the blastoff of the space shuttle adds mass the weight of a flee to the shuttle


Sources (since you'll probably be skeptical about m=e/c^2) :

Sheldon Glashow, Theoretical Physicist and Nobel Laureate at Boston University: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/expe-glashow.html

Frank Wilczek, Theoretical Physicist and Nobel Laureate at MIT: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/expe-wilczek.html

can get more but cbf

the differences between energy and god are far more striking than the similarities, which can indeed be chalked up to pure coincidence and the linguistic curiosities

It takes a tremendous amount of energy to create mass. So what would we call the energy that would be large enough, powerful enough and pervasive enough to create the universe, the solar system, the planets, the stars, the sun, you, me and everything on earth…come on…that’s right…say it with me…GOD! God is Energy.

Oh and if you insist that this 'energy' was the Big Bang, I'd like to point out that as per the law of the conservation of energy, energy must have existed before the big bang.

 

[Some Vunt]

Well, to a theist, what is God? Ignoring religion, ask a theist about God and they will tell you:

God is powerful. God has always existed and will always exist, God can be manifested in a plethora of ways.

Now a small thought experiment.
Replace 'God' in that sentence with (since atheists claim to have scientifically geared minds) the word 'energy'. Notice anything?

Energy is powerful. Energy has always existed (energy cannot be created or destroyed) and energy can be manifested in a plethora of ways (i.e. transfer forms).

So why wouldn't God be energy?

You tell us to ignore religion when asking a theist, but you assume atheists have scientifically-geared minds, when many don't.

 

[cheezcake]

Please stop attempting to explain god with physics, it's not working for you.

 

[alstah]

You tell us to ignore religion when asking a theist, but you assume atheists have scientifically-geared minds, when many don't.

I never assumed nor said atheists have scientifically-geared minds. I said they claim they do. The majority of atheists I know tend to tell me, science and logic suggests there is no God, and usually state, imply or think that I am ignorant. They think they have scientifically geared minds, doesn't mean they do. I made no such claim/assumption.

Also, what is your point?

 

[Some Vunt]

I never assumed nor said atheists have scientifically-geared minds. I said they claim they do. The majority of atheists I know tend to tell me, science and logic suggests there is no God, and usually state, imply or think that I am ignorant. They think they have scientifically geared minds, doesn't mean they do. I made no such claim/assumption.
Also, what is your point?

Not all of them do. Just because the majority you know do doesn't mean they all do.
You actually made a much worse assumption saying that "since atheists claim to have scientifically-geared minds" when in actuality many atheist new age spiritualities and Buddhist variants don't focus on being scientifically-minded at all. You made a clear generalisation and yet you expected your readers not to "ignoring religion, ask a theist…" and this is particularly hypocritical because religion is the basis of all theists' beliefs in God but science isn't the basis of all atheists' disbelief of God.
My point was that you're a hypocrite and that you're trying to simplify the idea of God to atheists in a way that you think they would understand, clearly neglecting that not all atheists share this "scientific stance" you think they do.

 

[funkshen]

Do you know anything about signs and signifiers? It's basic semiotics. A sign is understood as a discrete unit of meaning in semiotics. Saussure defined it as, "something that stands for something, to someone in some capacity."

Since we can apply signs and signifiers to apples and oranges, and able to differentiate the two, your logic is flawed. However, your logic would be correct if we were able to apply signs and signifiers to God and energy. But since we know very little about both, this logic ceases to make sense. These entities cannot, in any way be differentiated, as we have no signs or signifiers to differentiate them.

are you arguing that we cannot differentiate energy from god linguistically? then why are you even talking?

yes, i am aware of saussure. but you seem to have a strange understanding of the semiotic triangle. a signifier is a component of a sign, the other being the signified. we DO have signifiers (allah, yahweh, brahman) corresponding to the signified (god). this all breaks down because the 'object' is not object at all, and you are not talking about signs anymore, but things in and of themselves such as 'energy' or 'god', which are then both the signifiers and signified. indeed, if the subject, concept and object are all one and the same, semiotics is useless. all you seem to be saying is that linguistics are futile in proving and disproving the supreme metaphysical. well, yeah, okay, i agree. 'god' cannot be proven or disproven to exist linguistically. but God, and Yahweh, and Allah most certainly can.

you did not address your tautologies and a contested linguistic theory does not a god prove

An omnipotent God can transform itself in an infinite number of ways. Energy can also transform into a infinite number of forms.

what? what does this even mean re; energy? prove that energy can transform into an infinite number of forms. otherwise you are just waffling. energy is physical and thus hypothetically discernible to the sense. do you suggest that 'god' is too? energy has no discernible purpose. if it does have a purpose, and guides our every action like the hand of God, we have no free will. as i have said, energy's 'similarities' to the metaphysical are superficial. and what are the practical implications of your energy god, if there are any?

I'm assuming you are familiar with Albert Einstein’s e=mc^2 (energy equals mass times the speed of light squared) equation. However what most people don’t know is that originally Einstein wasn’t solving for “e”, he was solving for “m” so his original equation was m=e/c2 (mass equals energy divided by the speed of light squared). So what, what’s the difference? With the first equation we learn how to get energy out of mass which has led, for example, to the fission of atoms and getting energy (the atomic bomb and nuclear energy). But in the second equation we learn how mass is created by energy and that, for example, the energy generated by the blastoff of the space shuttle adds mass the weight of a flee to the shuttle


Sources (since you'll probably be skeptical about m=e/c^2) :

Sheldon Glashow, Theoretical Physicist and Nobel Laureate at Boston University: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/expe-glashow.html

Frank Wilczek, Theoretical Physicist and Nobel Laureate at MIT: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/expe-wilczek.html

can get more but cbf

first of all, einstein didn't even prove e=mc^2, and his intentions are irrelevant. i appreciate the links, but surely you know that mass is not 'created', this is a complete misnmoer. by einstein's definition, mass IS energy (relative to the constant of light squared). and if this framework is correct, we KNOW energy was converted in to mass. and that's all there is to it.

It takes a tremendous amount of energy to create mass. So what would we call the energy that would be large enough, powerful enough and pervasive enough to create the universe, the solar system, the planets, the stars, the sun, you, me and everything on earth…come on…that’s right…say it with me…GOD! God is Energy.

i could also call it Samuel L. Jackson, or 'you bloody cunt'. you do realise we don't have to call it anything at all, right? that it doesn't need a why, and we are limited by our inability to observe this system from without? this is another ignoratio elenchi. all you've concluded is that energy exists. ok cool.

Oh and if you insist that this 'energy' was the Big Bang, I'd like to point out that as per the law of the conservation of energy, energy must have existed before the big bang.

the big bang explains the universe as it is now, not before (was there a before?). please read this article http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/27/how-did-the-universe-start/

the general relativity model is flawed, and you are ignoring quantum probability. probability is in and of itself inexplicable.

tell me, science and logic suggests there is no God

this is a mistake on anyones part. they might suggest or disprove the existence of yahweh, or allah, or vishnu. but by definition science or logic/linguistics cannot prove or disprove the transcendental, the supreme metaphysical hierarch. that is absurd.

 

[scuba_steve2121]

 

[boris]

Well, to a theist, what is God? Ignoring religion, ask a theist about God and they will tell you:

God is powerful. God has always existed and will always exist, God can be manifested in a plethora of ways.

Now a small thought experiment.
Replace 'God' in that sentence with (since atheists claim to have scientifically geared minds) the word 'energy'. Notice anything?

Energy is powerful. Energy has always existed (energy cannot be created or destroyed) and energy can be manifested in a plethora of ways (i.e. transfer forms).

So why wouldn't God be energy?

ok then energy = god

so we must do x (x being whatever my priest/2000yr old book says to do in z situation)
or else energy will send us to hell instead of heaven

ok

 

[boris]

oh yes e=mc^2

god = mass

god is mass

praise mass

 

[alstah]

a signifier is a component of a sign, the other being the signified. we DO have signifiers (allah, yahweh, brahman) corresponding to the signified (god)

In relation to the so called signifiers (allah, yahweh, brahman) etc. these are not signifiers to 'God', we don't know what God is like at all! How can the perceptions of people (of what God is) be remotely symbolic of 'God'. One must make the distinction between religion and God. There is no distinction between the Abrahamic God, Amun, Hindu Gods etc. This is because religion was created by societies who attempt to comprehend a transient God, so they found religion as a means to achieve spiritual salvation. Religion and religious ideologies are man made, but this does not mean God is. Religion is not a signifier to God! If that's so, then everything we know of on this planet can be a signifier to an omnipotent God, which is obviously not the case.

what? what does this even mean re; energy? prove that energy can transform into an infinite number of forms. otherwise you are just waffling. energy is physical and thus hypothetically discernible to the sense. do you suggest that 'god' is too? energy has no discernible purpose. if it does have a purpose, and guides our every action like the hand of God, we have no free will. as i have said, energy's 'similarities' to the metaphysical are superficial. and what are the practical implications of your energy god, if there are any?

It was in response to what you said earlier,

an omnipotent god cannot manifest himself in a plethora of ways - he can manifest himself in infinite ways. this is clearly not the case for energy.

I argued, that this was indeed, the case for energy. Of course energy can transfer forms. It can transfer forms into anything.

You see, physical objects such as a stone or a desk or a plant have a very static [energy/information/consciousness] field (well, at least on the macroscopic realm that we perceive). In terms of metaphysics, at a very basic level of consciousness (of which all things are composed), this is because the energy field is very "habituated" to its reality. It has a very high "cohesiveness of association" to its current reality. It's very focused and specialised in other words.

The energy of your consciousness is different from the consciousness of for example, a stone. It could be said that ur consciousness is "higher" as you have more freedom in awareness than the stone. It's free will is very constricted. It's pretty much stuck being focused as a stone. The cohesiveness of association of your consciousness is not as high as the stone, so you aren't glued to one specific reality. Because of this, the energy of your consciousness is malleable and can be directed toward a variety of things. This is what makes manifestation/creation possible.

by einstein's definition, mass IS energy (relative to the constant of light squared). and if this framework is correct, we KNOW energy was converted in to mass. and that's all there is to it.**

I agree, one of Einstein's great insights was to realise that matter and energy are really different forms of the same thing. Matter can be turned into energy, and energy into matter. Should we treat them as interchangeable terms, if they are equal?

Matter is made of atoms. But at a sub-atomic level, scientists tell us all atoms comprise of quarks. But do quarks even exist?

The deeper Quantum physicists explore, the more they are realising there are higher realities within infinite dimensions of intelligent energy.

i could also call it Samuel L. Jackson, or 'you bloody cunt'. you do realise we don't have to call it anything at all, right? that it doesn't need a why, and we are limited by our inability to observe this system from without? this is another ignoratio elenchi. all you've concluded is that energy exists. ok cool.

But that's the thing i'm arguing, this energy is 'God'. Why should this same reasoning NOT be applied to the possibility of existence of spiritual realms and to the existence of God?

We don’t even know exacly what energy, space/time is even though its right infront of us just like we can’t imagine what another spacial dimension or colour (not in the colourwheel) would look like first hand.

What theory can explain a finite amount of energy appearing out from nothing without cause? Why that specific amount? If an event caused the event that created the universe then what caused the event that caused the event that created the universe? and so on. So going back to the gist of this thread: boris says faith "is it the most retarded concept in history...science says yes". But does science really say yes? Doesn't thought and reason and science reveal that the universe had a beginning and we have no idea what caused that beginning? The Big bang doesn’t explain the specific amount of energy we observe. Why would a singularity pop out a specific amount of energy? Why do we have these specific parameters? In my opinion, science will always have limitations and when science reaches its limits, faith takes over.

Also, I will not be replying for a while. I need to study for my HSC!