Proof That God Exists

[PostmodernProphet]

No, I mean I could care less what a ham sandwhich weighs and that's about what all this philosophizing adds up to.

if you don't like philosophizing, why visit a thread where it's happening....you could have just as easily stayed in the shallow end of the pool......

[Canceled]

and from a philisophical stand point you could say the same thing about a ham sandwhich.

No, you can't say much about a ham sandwich. It is ham, bread, and possibly mayo, mustard, or other condiment. That's about all. It doesn't exhibit spirituality, it doesn't have faith in either science or spiritual entities, it doesn't have feelings or reason, it is just a man-made object of sustenance. It basically has nothing to do with this conversation.

Now, DripDrip, let's break down what you said: Faith requires proof about as much as reason requires feelings.

This leads one to believe we are to equate proof with reason, and faith with feelings. But we know that you do have faith in science, even when science can't definitively answer any question. Therefore, faith and feelings do not equal the same thing. Faith is based on more than feelings, it is based on knowledge and understanding, your comprehension, and how much you believe what you have learned. Faith in science and faith in spirituality, are equals, and this is where you have difficulty grasping the truth. Since you reject spiritual faith, you will close your mind to this possibility, but the truth is; faith is faith.

Much the same can be said for proof and reason. Spiritual people have a great deal of spiritual proof for their beliefs and reasons. Because you reject their proof, doesn't mean it's not proof, it just means you reject it as proof. It also doesn't mean their reasoning is invalid, as they have based it on their spiritual proof, it just means that you reject their spiritual proof and don't comprehend the reasoning. None of this changes dynamics of the universe, the truth still remains the truth.

[Rana]

No, you can't say much about a ham sandwich. It is ham, bread, and possibly mayo, mustard, or other condiment. That's about all. It doesn't exhibit spirituality, it doesn't have faith in either science or spiritual entities, it doesn't have feelings or reason, it is just a man-made object of sustenance. It basically has nothing to do with this conversation.

Now, DripDrip, let's break down what you said: Faith requires proof about as much as reason requires feelings.

This leads one to believe we are to equate proof with reason, and faith with feelings. But we know that you do have faith in science, even when science can't definitively answer any question. Therefore, faith and feelings do not equal the same thing. Faith is based on more than feelings, it is based on knowledge and understanding, your comprehension, and how much you believe what you have learned. Faith in science and faith in spirituality, are equals, and this is where you have difficulty grasping the truth. Since you reject spiritual faith, you will close your mind to this possibility, but the truth is; faith is faith.

Much the same can be said for proof and reason. Spiritual people have a great deal of spiritual proof for their beliefs and reasons. Because you reject their proof, doesn't mean it's not proof, it just means you reject it as proof. It also doesn't mean their reasoning is invalid, as they have based it on their spiritual proof, it just means that you reject their spiritual proof and don't comprehend the reasoning. None of this changes dynamics of the universe, the truth still remains the truth.

It isn't proof Dixie, it is still just faith.

[Canceled]

It isn't proof Dixie, it is still just faith.

Maybe this is over your head, sweetie? "Proof" is almost exclusively dependent on your "faith."

[midcan5]

"...To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep...."

An imitation of death comes every time we sleep and resembles those billions of years before that tiny swimmer met an egg it liked and you and all the billions who came before were born and died. Life is natural only our hopes make it otherwise. Be careful so you don't join the trillions who left before.


life chance eternity

Why do you exist.

Schopenhauer thought that animals possessed one wisdom we miss, the wisdom to live in the present moment. “I mean their quiet, placid enjoyment of the present moment.”

If you believe in an afterlife what will you do there for eternity? Eternity is a long time and the idea that a billion years from now you will still exist because two people enjoyed a passionate moment is hard to comprehend. Who will you be then.

Two things amaze me, the past and the future but neither include me. In this moment we live and in this and in this.

I know the exact time and place our second child was conceived. When we moved recently I thought of that as we left. I know why I remember.

Imagine for a moment your parents had been interrupted. Suppose someone had shone a flashlight in the backseat of the car you were conceived in, you would not exist. A knock at a door. Some interruption. If only a few seconds passed a different sperm would have meant a different person and you as you exist now would never have been.

What would the person born in that next minute have been. In a month a new egg, so now who would that person be, it would not be you. How easy it would be that we never were. Some distinctive piece changes but that distinctive part is you.

Imagine the egg split, which of the two would have been you. If you arrived second your entire life would be noted in a brief moment. You would be number two. Or if first you would be number one. How would that have changed who you are now.

Before you were born life existed for billions of years, after you die billions of years will pass without you. You will be conscious in the future as you were conscious in the past, not at all. Think of any place. Right now someone is in that place and someone is in another place. They are unaware of the other. They think they know all there is to know. Most will die and never know each other. Chances are nothing that either believe will impact the other.

You walk into the street and are hit by a car. You live now but only in your mind. You cannot move even your eyes and you lie there fully aware of everything but unable to respond. Weeks go by and soon few come to visit. Soon no one comes but you still live. What do you think of. What is the mind without the body.

Someone arrives and says we have a body for this mind. But the body is a woman, your mind now is in the body of a woman. How will that change you. Now your mind lives in another.

Suppose when you crossed that street you had the opportunity to throw someone else in front of the car. It was them or you. You do not know the future. If you pushed the other person in front of the car would you visit them. For how long. What would you tell them when they became a body.

Imagine a date in the future without you. Do that, then look at what happens next and then tomorrow and imagine you are no longer here. It will not matter. What will you wish you had done. I wonder what Timothy McVeigh would have thought of 911? Weird thought - evil is the reason we wish for hell.

You must select one only: you will live forever ugly and deformed or you will live for fifty years as a brilliant person. Which do you choose. Are you sure. You have three minutes in which to make your selection.

Sleep is so peaceful.

[Canceled]

If you believe in an afterlife what will you do there for eternity? Eternity is a long time and the idea that a billion years from now you will still exist because two people enjoyed a passionate moment is hard to comprehend. Who will you be then.

Hold on here a minute.... Do you think that people who believe in an afterlife, think their physical bodies (the results of conception) will somehow transcend time and space, and reanimate to the "other side?" That's kind of preposterous, don't you think? Especially since we embalm people after death these days! How do they explain the fact we've dug up many a corpse, who are still there in the grave where we left them?

Your physical vessel is the product of human conception, that has not a thing to do with your soul or where it comes from, or what becomes of it when you die.

Imagine for a moment your parents had been interrupted. Suppose someone had shone a flashlight in the backseat of the car you were conceived in, you would not exist. A knock at a door. Some interruption. If only a few seconds passed a different sperm would have meant a different person and you as you exist now would never have been.

Again, you are demonstrating an understanding and comprehension of the physical world, while refusing to acknowledge a spiritual one. You don't know that "a different person would exist" at all, you may believe that a different molecular structure is formed in a physical state, and you're probably correct about that, but you have no way of knowing whether that person would have the same attributes and personality or not.

[Rana]

Maybe this is over your head, sweetie? "Proof" is almost exclusively dependent on your "faith."

You are no St. Augustine, Dixie.

[Canceled]

You are no St. Augustine, Dixie.

You don't need to be St. Augustine to understand that "proof" is largely dependent upon one's "faith."

[apple0154]

Hold on here a minute.... Do you think that people who believe in an afterlife, think their physical bodies (the results of conception) will somehow transcend time and space, and reanimate to the "other side?" That's kind of preposterous, don't you think? Especially since we embalm people after death these days! How do they explain the fact we've dug up many a corpse, who are still there in the grave where we left them?

Your physical vessel is the product of human conception, that has not a thing to do with your soul or where it comes from, or what becomes of it when you die.

Again, you are demonstrating an understanding and comprehension of the physical world, while refusing to acknowledge a spiritual one. You don't know that "a different person would exist" at all, you may believe that a different molecular structure is formed in a physical state, and you're probably correct about that, but you have no way of knowing whether that person would have the same attributes and personality or not.

So abortion merely eliminates the "physical vessel (that) is product of human conception, that has not a thing to do with your soul or where it comes from."

By God, Dixie! I think we've broken through! YIPPEE!

I knew not to give up on you. I knew you would come through. I just knew!!

Well done, Lad. Now you understand that abortion does not kill a human being. Abortion has nothing to do with ones soul, the very thing that makes a person.

Ahh, Dix. I'm proud of you.

Note to those who have debated Dixie in the past. Let's give him a big hand.

As we enjoy a holiday weekend in the Great White North (Queen Victoria's Birthday) or Patriot's Day in Quebec (Journée nationale des patriotes) my sweety and I celebrate as that was the day we met in a park. I wasn't familiar to the area so after sitting on a bench for a while she said, "Let's go for a walk. Follow me", as she was familiar with the area.

Well, as she got up from the bench and started to walk away I noticed the most subtle wiggle, barely discernable, but from that moment, like an antenna mast, I beamed in on the signal. And like the gentleman I am I rose to the occasion.

[Canceled]

So abortion merely eliminates the "physical vessel (that) is product of human conception, that has not a thing to do with your soul or where it comes from."

Abortion eliminates the vessel which holds the soul. It's as if you are sinking boats on the high seas, claiming that you aren't effecting the lives of the people on board, you are merely sinking their boats. In other words, this takes the cake for most preposterous and outrageous strawman ever constructed! Well done!

[Canceled]

Now you understand that abortion does not kill a human being.

A 'human being' is a living human organism in the state of being. Abortion ends that process, by definition.

Abortion has nothing to do with ones soul, the very thing that makes a person.

No, a person is the same as a human being. Abortion stops the person from being, by destroying the vessel. (See boat analogy above.)

[apple0154]

Abortion eliminates the vessel which holds the soul. It's as if you are sinking boats on the high seas, claiming that you aren't effecting the lives of the people on board, you are merely sinking their boats. In other words, this takes the cake for most preposterous and outrageous strawman ever constructed! Well done!

Just when I thought we'd had a breakthrough. You wrote, "Your physical vessel is the product of human conception, that has not a thing to do with your soul or where it comes from, or what becomes of it when you die." That's what you wrote and now, when I repeat it, you say it's the most preposterous and outrageous strawman ever constructed.

[apple0154]

A 'human being' is a living human organism in the state of being. Abortion ends that process, by definition.

An organism has to be able to carry on the processes of life. We have no idea if fertilized cells can carry on the processes of life and considering 50% of them spontaneously abort it's reasonable to conclude many of them don't have the ability to cary on the processes of life.

No, a person is the same as a human being. Abortion stops the person from being, by destroying the vessel. (See boat analogy above.)

So what happens to the spirit, the soul. It stops "being"?

Try a bus analogy. If a soul is waiting for a bus and misses it, it will catch the next one.

[Canceled]

An organism has to be able to carry on the processes of life. We have no idea if fertilized cells can carry on the processes of life and considering 50% of them spontaneously abort it's reasonable to conclude many of them don't have the ability to cary on the processes of life.

So what happens to the spirit, the soul. It stops "being"?

Try a bus analogy. If a soul is waiting for a bus and misses it, it will catch the next one.

We've been through this same argument before, and my mind hasn't changed. You have not convinced me, and you won't. We know that an egg cell is fertilized by a male sperm cell, so once fertilization transpires, there is no longer "a" cell, fertilized or otherwise, there is a fusion of two cells, the egg and sperm. If those two fused cells produce a cell, they have met the criteria of an organism, because they carried on the process of life by reproducing another third cell. Science says this is when the criteria for a living organism is met, and you have never offered any evidence to refute science. Sorry.

Now you've done a splendid job of misinterpreting the "carry on the process of life" part! But you somehow think that this means the carrying on has to continue for some indeterminate amount of time or something, I have never understood that. Once the cells reproduced another cell, they carried on the process of life, it's as simple as that. If they expire afterward, that ends the cycle of life they carried on. If the cells are aborted, that ends the cycle of life they were carrying on. The point at which they stopped being a cell, was at conception, when two cells merged. Technically speaking, the term "fertilized cell" when referring to a human, is incorrect, as the cell has already become two cells when fertilization happens, through the process of conception. Now... these two fused cells may not ever produce another cell, in which case, they are discarded as decayed cells, like a fingernail or skin cells. They never met the criteria for a living organism because the two fused cells never replicated. It is only when the two cells are able to "carry on the process" by producing another cell, that a human organism begins. It will be a living human organism until it dies, whether it's through natural spontaneous abortion, or intentionally terminated, or perhaps when it has reached a ripe old age of 112... but it never stops being a living human organism and doesn't turn into something else.

As for the "soul" and if/when it enters the human body (or vessel), this is outside the realm of physical science, and is part of the spiritual realm. Therefore, it is largely dependent upon spiritual faith, and not physical science faith. There is no way to "prove" it, at least not with scientific proof, because this doesn't relate to the physical realm.

[apple0154]

We've been through this same argument before, and my mind hasn't changed. You have not convinced me, and you won't. We know that an egg cell is fertilized by a male sperm cell, so once fertilization transpires, there is no longer "a" cell, fertilized or otherwise, there is a fusion of two cells, the egg and sperm. If those two fused cells produce a cell, they have met the criteria of an organism, because they carried on the process of life by reproducing another third cell. Science says this is when the criteria for a living organism is met, and you have never offered any evidence to refute science. Sorry.

So, according to you and science the fertilization of a cell is not the start of a human being's life. Therefore, we can scrap the anti-abortionist argument that life begins at fertilization. The fertilized cell or the fusion of two cells have to produce a third cell. At least we've managed to come that far.

Now you've done a splendid job of misinterpreting the "carry on the process of life" part! But you somehow think that this means the carrying on has to continue for some indeterminate amount of time or something, I have never understood that. Once the cells reproduced another cell, they carried on the process of life, it's as simple as that.

That's where logic disappears. How does anyone know if the cell that is produced is a "good" cell? I understand your position that a "good" cell can die from some unknown cause but let's suppose the cell is missing the necessary ingredients. Neither scientists nor anyone else knows if the cell that is produced is whole so no one knows if it's an organism that could carry on the processes of life.

For example, scientists are considering removing the nucleus of an elephant cell and implanting the nucleus of an extinct mammoth. Cloning. (Excerpt) The scientists plan to extract cell nuclei from a frozen mammoth they dug up in Siberia and implant them in egg cells of the mammoth's closest living relative, the elephant. They are hoping that the elephant will give birth to a real-live woolly mammoth.(End) http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/woo...7#.T7hLmUVYtQQ

When the nucleus is removed from the elephant cell it is, for a time, still "living". It is neither an organism nor an elephant as it has no nucleus. It is elephant material. Similarly, we do not know if the cell produced by a human fertilized cell has a nucleus or part of a nucleus or a nucleus so genetically damaged it isn't and never will be a human being. We just don't know so for one to unequivocally state that every cell produced in that fashion is an organism or human being is absurd. They have absolutely no idea.

If they expire afterward, that ends the cycle of life they carried on. If the cells are aborted, that ends the cycle of life they were carrying on. The point at which they stopped being a cell, was at conception, when two cells merged. Technically speaking, the term "fertilized cell" when referring to a human, is incorrect, as the cell has already become two cells when fertilization happens, through the process of conception. Now... these two fused cells may not ever produce another cell, in which case, they are discarded as decayed cells, like a fingernail or skin cells. They never met the criteria for a living organism because the two fused cells never replicated. It is only when the two cells are able to "carry on the process" by producing another cell, that a human organism begins. It will be a living human organism until it dies, whether it's through natural spontaneous abortion, or intentionally terminated, or perhaps when it has reached a ripe old age of 112... but it never stops being a living human organism and doesn't turn into something else.

You're assuming the cell that is produced by the two fused cells is a complete cell and no one knows that. Science can not or has not been able to thoroughly examine and understand that particular type of cell to determine if it has the necessary ingredients to become a human being or is a human being and considering half of those cells spontaneously abort there is definitely reason to at least question it.

Human beings produce cancer cells. Can we say with 100% certainty that the cell produced by the two fused cells is not simply a cancer cell? No, we can not.

As for the "soul" and if/when it enters the human body (or vessel), this is outside the realm of physical science, and is part of the spiritual realm. Therefore, it is largely dependent upon spiritual faith, and not physical science faith. There is no way to "prove" it, at least not with scientific proof, because this doesn't relate to the physical realm.

I agree. In the same vein knowing if every cell produced by a fertilized cell or two fused cells is a human being is currently outside the knowledge of science. One can not take such a cell, analyze it, then state with absolute certainty it contains all the necessary ingredients to be considered an organism or human being or has the potential to become a human being.

We've barely scratched the genetic code. There are thousands of genes of which we know absolutely nothing. We don't know what is required to be a human being. We don't know what a cell has to contain but we do know that 50% of the cells that some people claim are human beings or organisms spontaneously abort for reasons unknown. At the vary least we can say it's a bit premature to claim all such cells are human beings. If we were to produce such inconclusive evidence to support any other position it would be summarily dismissed, yet, there are people who offer up such flimsy evidence in support of denying half the population a most basic right, a right to ones own body. That is the outrage.