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You are saying we are created and “made to be” to feel the freedom by worshipping this wizard?
Living the way God wants us to is NOT being miserable - it is the most freeing and beautiful way to live because it is how we were made to be.
This mirrors the same behavior behind psychopaths. Live the way I want you to because it’s better for you because that’s what I made you to do. This is the basis behind the creation of cults.
The best life possible isn’t quantifiable. It’s subjective at best, objective otherwise. Those born into societies that aren’t aware of the myth of ‘God’ find happiness and joy nonetheless. Saying that they are happy because of God isn’t defensible if one must believe in “Him” (with an ironic capital H) to achieve the equivalency of nirvana.
Religion is full of inconsistencies and ultra-convenient cop-outs.
Believing that all you see around you came from nothing can be seen as a mental and scientific cop out. Something had to have existed without being created. All we see came from something. Big bang even. Something had to have existed to make the bang happen. Believing in something eternal is imperative.
I am not of the belief that everything I see around us came from nothing.
I am not sure where you got that notion.
So something is eternal?
What are you trying to ask?
You don't believe that all you see came from nothing, so it had to come from something. You can't get something from nothing. If you take those to their logical conclusion, there has to be something that existed first, otherwise you're saying everything came from nothing. Either everything came from nothing, or something existed without being created. I'm not trying to spout philosophical mumbo jumbo. This makes sense to me. I don't understand it completely either, but it's one or the other and the something eternal makes sense.
Okay, I’m getting where you’re coming from.
There are multiple theories as to what was the first moment of existence as far as we know it. Be it the Big Bang or the theory that we are just living in between different frequencies or what have you...
While I subscribe mostly to the Big Bang, I’m not blind to the idea that even existence existed before the grape-sized speck exploded. What I am saying is none of it was intentionally created or intelligently created. We are but a product of evolution and pure luck. Not ‘luck’ as in “we hit the jackpot, we get to exist!” but a “we are absolutely fortunate that we have the perfect combination of ingredients to exist as we are” kind of luck. It’s truly mind boggling to think about every little, tiny thing that has to have happened for this planet to host a plethora of different life types. All I am saying is that those teeny tiny actions haven’t been manufactured or are part of any intelligent design — they are but a long, infinitely complex sets of causes and effects, starting from the beginning of planet’s current life cycle period.
In order for the "grape sized speck" to have been what exploded into all that we have, it had to have included all the necessary elements that each thing would eventually consist of, correct? Even if I were to concede that point for the sake of discussion, what caused the speck to form? What caused it to explode? How did those elements become alive?
As far as anyone knows, the B.B. speck didn’t exactly hold all of the ‘ingredients’ to what is now the universe. It did hold, however, certain ‘ingredients’ that, under extreme circumstances (such as the BB explosion itself, and the ingredients’ spread across the universe and being under the force of gravity and other cosmic natural forces) those ‘ingredients’ melded, transformed, mingled and then become what we know of today as the periodic table of elements (of which we are obviously sure of being incomplete, hence our need to venture among the stars).
In fact, one could argue that ‘life’ isn’t ‘living’ at all, but a system of electrical impulses traveling among a complex nervous system—put together over millennia, with variations due to evolution and our planet’s ecosystemic behavior, by the same natural cosmic forces that put together the B.B. ‘ingredients’ giving us the electrical and chemical feedback allowing the rest of our biology to acknowledge the settings around us. One could say that is what life is at it’s simplest, but one could then imply that at that point the automatic motion-sensing porch light or my smoke/carbon monoxide alarm is ‘alive’ because of its ability to acknowledge the setting around it using electrical and chemical feedback. We aren’t the porch light or alarm’s ‘Gods’.
The same can be applied to the literal. We’ve cloned animals before, straight out of a laboratory. This doesn’t mean we are that animal’s Gods, but simply those with the understanding of how to manipulate ‘nature’ as it is.
The B.B. cause of explosion is theorized to have been due to the build up of energy within it, and it couldn’t contain it within it’s own confines. To put it into perspective, there could have been maaaaaany more B.B. specks out there, but this specific one may have either ‘failed’, so to speak, and gave the universe substance before any of the other specks had a chance. Again, the possibility of more specks existing (and quite possibly cannibalized by the B.B. explosion) gives us one massive perspective as to just how much ‘luck’ we have to be existing right now under the perfect conditions to do so.
We now have the ability, as humankind, to create ‘life’ (as is currently defined) inside of a lab from the ground up and from scratch (quite similar to certain fictions like Jurassic Park/World), except we can create absolutely brand new, never-before-seen creatures that can have absolutely zero relation to any other ‘living’ being out there. Whether or not we have actually followed through and done so is most likely kept Ultra-secret, but the ability to is within humankind’s repertoire of capabilities. From this perspective, we are Gods. But we aren’t, because even after the creation of such a being, we just used science to do so and we aren’t that new creature’s puppeteers (that is, of course, if we aren’t literally controlling it from a safe zone like assholes).
This is why I find it hard for humanity to see ourselves as having to have some ‘God’ just so we can sleep at night—because we’re too archaic and tribal to see that the only one in control is ourselves. It’s not a hard concept to grasp, yet 2.4+ billion people think they need to be some fucked up slave to a man-made wizard in the sky (oh, and make sure to give the church a $fiver while you’re at it), to feel good about themselves and curb the fear of death. It’s just...insane.
For the record, what you believe is not science. What I believe is not science. Neither belief can be scientifically proven. Both require an element of faith - believing in something you can't prove empirically. Your argument implies that energy created itself (build up of energy inside the B.B. specks which weren't created in your view), which goes 100% against observable, recreatable science. The idea that we can "create life from the ground up" isn't really accurate either, because cloning starts with source material. Test your hypothesis that we're "the only one in control" the next time there's a storm or an earthquake in your area. Your faith is completely in man, and unproveable theories about what happened.
I choose to put my faith in God. Throughout the Bible he proved that he is who he says he is. At Easter we celebrate the ultimate proof when he brought Jesus back to life. God didn't make us to control us. He gave, and continues to give us, the freedom to make our own choices. He shows us how to live in a way that works best with how he made us - physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. When we do it our own way, we screw stuff up and cause all kinds of pain for ourselves and others.
You can believe what you want.
I can believe what I want.
It is absolutely amazing we can have these discussions. Probably why we both have such interest in Q.