It probably sounds like rejection to you because you described rejection, not lack of belief. When you don't believe in something you still recognize that it's possible. It's the difference between agnosticism and atheism.

So for those who do not believe there is a god I have some questions for you. How is order born out of chaos? I find it harder to believe that a room full of chipmunks banging away at a typewriter would ever produce anything worth reading than complex design requiring a complex designer. Thoughts?

I wouldn't say I rejected God. If anything I tried everything I could, including forcing and feigning belief in the Christian God. It never took and I think I'm happier now that I have come to terms that I cannot believe right now.

The weird thing is that in one way or another I felt I was doing the good thing in trying to believe. I guess years of social conditioning told me I had to try because it was virtuous and if I didnt, I'd burn in hell. I'm so glad to be free of that. And, if the Christian God exists, I believe he would not want feigned faith. If he revealed himself to me, I will accept it. But as of now, I don't believe I have "seen the light."

I found myself moving through so many different religions trying to figure out where I fit. The other night I came to the realization that I don't have to pigeonhole myself into some religion just because a group of people believe it. Respectfully, nobody knows anything and if they tell you, they are full of ***** So, is a religion more believable just because more people believe it? Doubtful...group delusion is no better than individual delusion...while it may give a beneficial sense of community, it remains delusion.

Funny thing is that I found myself in a weird trap. I looked at Christianity as a reasonable and semi-rational religion. I would look at other faiths and think "well, they're way off and a little nutty." But why? I would think "the idea of a virgin being impregnated by the Holy Spirit resulting in a man/god that was resurrected and is my only conduit to God and salvation in some afterlife location that defies laws of time and space is a rational type religion, but the nuts in Mormonism or Scientology are just insane." What was that? I've since realized that I've got my beliefs; they tend to lie closer to agnosticism with respect to god with a little paganism, stoicism, Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity mixed in. It works for me.

https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=monkey+typewriter

jonb02 said:

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So for those who do not believe there is a god I have some questions for you. How is order born out of chaos?

---

I don't know.

How did God create existence, or the universe or life? What is an uncaused cause? What does it mean for God to be outside of time, or timeless, or all powerful, or all knowing? If we knew the answers to questions like this, it would be called fact and not faith.

Two things:

1. What order? The universe is chaotic

2. So much of this thread (and discussions on this board) essentially on some level presuppose that God is the Abraham God. Rejection of God is rejection of him. Well, it's all personal opinion and faith and none of it can be backed up by any objective truth. And because you are embracing the God you were socialized to believe in means you are necessarily rejecting other gods. Is there no fear that you might be wrong and should have believed in Shiva? If you can believe in the Abraham god, you can just as easy believe in Shiva.

What do y'all mean by chaotic? Sensitive to initial conditions? Disordered? When y'all say disordered, what do you mean? Thermodynamically? Or is it something subjective?

At the risk of opening another door...guy walks into the CVS youre in buying pampers for your newborn and mows everyone down. That's chaotic to me..at least on the micro level, I guess there might be order in a macro sense that illustrates his abuse as a child, alienation, ability to get the gun all leading up to the tragedy. I don't know.

Robin Hood Was A Thief said:

---

Two things:

1. What order? The universe is chaotic

2. So much of this thread (and discussions on this board) essentially on some level presuppose that God is the Abraham God. Rejection of God is rejection of him. Well, it's all personal opinion and faith and none of it can be backed up by any objective truth. And because you are embracing the God you were socialized to believe in means you are necessarily rejecting other gods. Is there no fear that you might be wrong and should have believed in Shiva? If you can believe in the Abraham god, you can just as easy believe in Shiva.

---

Exactly. How did something as complex as life (order) originate from this chaotic universe? If you want me to believe that order was born out of chaos you would also have me believe that a room full of chimps banging away at a typewriter (chaos) would ever produce a legible sentence let alone a Shakespearean masterpiece. It's much easier to see and understand that a complex design came from a complex designer (God).

I would go so far as to say that complex design requires a complex designer.

kurt vonnegut said:

---

jonb02 said:

---

So for those who do not believe there is a god I have some questions for you. How is order born out of chaos?

---

I don't know.

How did God create existence, or the universe or life? What is an uncaused cause? What does it mean for God to be outside of time, or timeless, or all powerful, or all knowing? If we knew the answers to questions like this, it would be called fact and not faith.

---

Where does any creation originate? As a thought.

God thought about us before he created us.

So basically the apparent chaos of life is proof there is no God?

Absolutely not. I was just remarking that the world is full of chaos.

dermdoc said:

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So basically the apparent chaos of life is proof there is no God?

---

Rather, the complex design of life is proof there is a God.

Another way I like to think about His design is through our genetic "code", our DNA. Any computer programmer knows that codes don't write themselves, they require a coder. I believe the same with genetic code which is infinitely more complex than computer code.

Oh I agree. Just trying to understand other viewpoints.

Cool. Gods fingerprints are everywhere if you know where to look. Dermdoc you mentioned you had a moment in your life when Jesus reached out.

What happened?

When I was in my 20's and 30's my faith was questioned severely.

God would not let me go.

I think all the terms you're using don't mean the things you're using them to mean. "Chaotic" isn't a term that really has anything to do with the argument you're trying to make. Disordered is what you mean, but that argument doesn't really make sense either.

The typewriter thing is dumb. Evolution isn't a random typewriter, and it's independent from the origin of life.

Yall see things the exact opposite of me. To me the universe is ordered and regulated down to the smallest particle. Everything obeys fundamental laws and there are principles and constants that define the entire universe.

Life is the disordered (colloquially chaotic) element. It is fundamentally unpredictable except on a macro level, and it both responds to and causes so many effects that it's impossible to really understand like we understand anything else

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Yall see things the exact opposite of me. To me the universe is ordered and regulated down to the smallest particle. Everything obeys fundamental laws and there are principles and constants that define the entire universe.

Life is the disordered (colloquially chaotic) element. It is fundamentally unpredictable except on a macro level, and it both responds to and causes so many effects that it's impossible to really understand like we understand anything else

---

I agree.

jonb02 said:

---

Robin Hood Was A Thief said:

---

Two things:

1. What order? The universe is chaotic

2. So much of this thread (and discussions on this board) essentially on some level presuppose that God is the Abraham God. Rejection of God is rejection of him. Well, it's all personal opinion and faith and none of it can be backed up by any objective truth. And because you are embracing the God you were socialized to believe in means you are necessarily rejecting other gods. Is there no fear that you might be wrong and should have believed in Shiva? If you can believe in the Abraham god, you can just as easy believe in Shiva.

---

Exactly. How did something as complex as life (order) originate from this chaotic universe? If you want me to believe that order was born out of chaos you would also have me believe that a room full of chimps banging away at a typewriter (chaos) would ever produce a legible sentence let alone a Shakespearean masterpiece. It's much easier to see and understand that a complex design came from a complex designer (God).

I would go so far as to say that complex design requires a complex designer.

---

In order to explain the complexity of life, you've invoked the infinitely more complex existence of God?

One side believes a God that created a giant universe billions of years ago, but put his only creation on a tiny insignificant planet 200,000 years ago. But there was creation before man, man is full of flaws, and God left no physical evidence of this creation. This God can't be understood or explained, he exists outside of time and space somehow.
The other side believes that a huge sequence of coincidences over billions of years ago lead to us now.

If you think too hard about where any of us came from it all sounds ridiculous. Existence is chaos. Nothing makes any sense so we try to make some sense of it.

For the record my money's on the second group, because it doesn't start with the assumption of some unexplainable thing. At least we are willing to say"I don't know"

jonb02 said:

---

Cool. Gods fingerprints are everywhere if you know where to look. Dermdoc you mentioned you had a moment in your life when Jesus reached out.

What happened?

---

If you will indulge me I will briefly tell my story.

Raised and baptized in the Baptist church. At church every Wednesday and twice on Sunday.

Went to A&M and med school and "strayed". Still believed but quit going to church except when at home to please my parents. Surrounded by many different belief systems and death in med school and severely questioned organized religion and whether there was a God or not.

My dad died suddenly when I was 34. The next year my first child was born with severe congenital disabilities. Two open heart surgeries in three years. Moved back to my hometown to put my mom to work and got very active in my old church. Deacon chair twice, head of every committee, taught Sunday School, visited every sick church member in the hospital, took communion to home bound members, monthly church services at the retirement home, etc. During this time both of my mom's parents died and I had been taking care of them. And I had my only law suit ever filed against me which I "won". Of course, also the stress of starting my own practice and further health problems for my daughter. My mom then developed dementia and died and I lost a sister to sarcoma.

Inside I had no peace and questioned the goodness of God because of what I perceived as things He had done to me because of sins of mine in the past. Suffered from insomnia, etc.

Then Jesus came. Told me He loved me. And I felt it way down deep inside. Realized that I was loved no matter what I did or how I failed. Also realized the certainty of eternal life with Jesus which caused me to repent, or change my entire way of thinking. Now I realized God was good no matter what happens in this life. And I loved Him. And the feeling I had to do "works" to somehow absolve my sins and make me righteous melted away. Jesus makes me righteous.

Now about 90% of the time I feel joy and peace and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes Satan comes and bring me back to a dark place of doubt but I return to my Redeemer and Savior.

And I do not want to condemn anyone, just want them to feel the same joy and peace I do.

Thank you for letting me ramble.

And I might add when I went through all my stuff, even though I was faithful in my Christian works, I could not sleep and was terrified of death and hell. Which made sense because I thought my life stresses was God punishing me.

Jesus changed that.

And the fascinating thing is that since I have learned to "rest in the Lord", my praying and witnessing have increased tremendously. And does not feel "forced". Probably because I truly know what I believe and have been "born again".

And if anyone had ever told me 20 years ago that my favorite thing to do would be read the Bible, I would have thought they were crazy.

Quad Dog said:

---

One side believes a God that created a giant universe billions of years ago, but put his only creation on a tiny insignificant planet 200,000 years ago. But there was creation before man, man is full of flaws, and God left no physical evidence of this creation. This God can't be understood or explained, he exists outside of time and space somehow.
The other side believes that a huge sequence of coincidences over billions of years ago lead to us now.

If you think too hard about where any of us came from it all sounds ridiculous. Existence is chaos. Nothing makes any sense so we try to make some sense of it.

For the record my money's on the second group, because it doesn't start with the assumption of some unexplainable thing. At least we are willing to say"I don't know"

---

The idea that God can't be understood or explained is more in line with Islam or modern Jews. The Christian story has clear interactions with God and a personal relationship. With that said the earliest ideas of Christianity do contain the differences of God's essence and energies. God's essence is forever unknowable due to the limitations of man. God's energies are what we can know through His revelations. The secular mind is born right out western Christian societies that were crumbling. The concept of the saeculum, a neutral cultural space cut off from the life of the Catholic Church, originated in the 14th century with Francesco Petrarca. Basically the origins of modern humanism.

So your beliefs come from a bunch of Renaissance men. Take that as you wish.

Robin Hood Was A Thief said:

---

Two things:

1. What order? The universe is chaotic

2. So much of this thread (and discussions on this board) essentially on some level presuppose that God is the Abraham God. Rejection of God is rejection of him. Well, it's all personal opinion and faith and none of it can be backed up by any objective truth. And because you are embracing the God you were socialized to believe in means you are necessarily rejecting other gods. Is there no fear that you might be wrong and should have believed in Shiva? If you can believe in the Abraham god, you can just as easy believe in Shiva.

---

The only reason you think the universe has no order is because Copernicus said the math is better with the sun at the center. There is truth in that but it completely removed meaning in humans which contains greater truths. He said to pay more attention to math and not your experience. The idea was so powerful that it collapsed the previous worldview. People started doubting their senses because of the mathematical truth that the earth is no longer at the center. So humans no longer fit in the universe, as was the case in the Aristotelean worldview that everything had a telos.

Then comes Galileo who doubled down on Copernicus by stating math is the language of the universe. Since this is Galileos reality, he divided the world into primary and secondary properties. Primary is math and secondary is love, meaning, beauty, etc. So everything you experience is an afterthought since it's your isolated will that imposes these things on the universe. Essentially you are at drift it in a meaningless chaotic universe because these guys made claims of meaning that they can't prove. It's a horrible story full of assumptions and it's why we still search for meaning.

My eyeballs are at the center of the observable universe. Not the sun, and not the earth.

We don't know (with certainty) what the size or shape of the universe is, or if it has a center. As far as we can tell, the shape is approximately flat, so it's either infinite or something strange is going on.

dermdoc said:

---

jonb02 said:

---

Cool. Gods fingerprints are everywhere if you know where to look. Dermdoc you mentioned you had a moment in your life when Jesus reached out.

What happened?

---

If you will indulge me I will briefly tell my story.

Raised and baptized in the Baptist church. At church every Wednesday and twice on Sunday.

Went to A&M and med school and "strayed". Still believed but quit going to church except when at home to please my parents. Surrounded by many different belief systems and death in med school and severely questioned organized religion and whether there was a God or not.

My dad died suddenly when I was 34. The next year my first child was born with severe congenital disabilities. Two open heart surgeries in three years. Moved back to my hometown to put my mom to work and got very active in my old church. Deacon chair twice, head of every committee, taught Sunday School, visited every sick church member in the hospital, took communion to home bound members, monthly church services at the retirement home, etc. During this time both of my mom's parents died and I had been taking care of them. And I had my only law suit ever filed against me which I "won". Of course, also the stress of starting my own practice and further health problems for my daughter. My mom then developed dementia and died and I lost a sister to sarcoma.

Inside I had no peace and questioned the goodness of God because of what I perceived as things He had done to me because of sins of mine in the past. Suffered from insomnia, etc.

Then Jesus came. Told me He loved me. And I felt it way down deep inside. Realized that I was loved no matter what I did or how I failed. Also realized the certainty of eternal life with Jesus which caused me to repent, or change my entire way of thinking. Now I realized God was good no matter what happens in this life. And I loved Him. And the feeling I had to do "works" to somehow absolve my sins and make me righteous melted away. Jesus makes me righteous.

Now about 90% of the time I feel joy and peace and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes Satan comes and bring me back to a dark place of doubt but I return to my Redeemer and Savior.

And I do not want to condemn anyone, just want them to feel the same joy and peace I do.

Thank you for letting me ramble.

---

Thank you for sharing your story.

kurt vonnegut said:

---

jonb02 said:

---

Robin Hood Was A Thief said:

---

Two things:

1. What order? The universe is chaotic

2. So much of this thread (and discussions on this board) essentially on some level presuppose that God is the Abraham God. Rejection of God is rejection of him. Well, it's all personal opinion and faith and none of it can be backed up by any objective truth. And because you are embracing the God you were socialized to believe in means you are necessarily rejecting other gods. Is there no fear that you might be wrong and should have believed in Shiva? If you can believe in the Abraham god, you can just as easy believe in Shiva.

---

Exactly. How did something as complex as life (order) originate from this chaotic universe? If you want me to believe that order was born out of chaos you would also have me believe that a room full of chimps banging away at a typewriter (chaos) would ever produce a legible sentence let alone a Shakespearean masterpiece. It's much easier to see and understand that a complex design came from a complex designer (God).

I would go so far as to say that complex design requires a complex designer.

---

In order to explain the complexity of life, you've invoked the infinitely more complex existence of God?

---

Not the complexity necessarily but rather the genesis of it. The Big Bang is an insufficient explanation on the origin of life itself. We did not come from primordial soup.

The Big Bang is not an explanation for the origin of life. The Big Bang was well before the origin of life.

Dilettante said:

---

The Big Bang is not an explanation for the origin of life. The Big Bang was well before the origin of life.

---

Do you think we came from primordial soup?

jonb02 said:

---

Not the complexity necessarily but rather the genesis of it. The Big Bang is an insufficient explanation on the origin of life itself. We did not come from primordial soup.

---

And "God did it" is an insufficient explanation for anything.

What is an uncaused cause? Where did God come from? What is it to be timeless and all powerful? Unless you can answer any of this, you are basically just saying the answer is 'magic'.

Orthodox Texan said:

---

Robin Hood Was A Thief said:

---

Two things:

1. What order? The universe is chaotic

2. So much of this thread (and discussions on this board) essentially on some level presuppose that God is the Abraham God. Rejection of God is rejection of him. Well, it's all personal opinion and faith and none of it can be backed up by any objective truth. And because you are embracing the God you were socialized to believe in means you are necessarily rejecting other gods. Is there no fear that you might be wrong and should have believed in Shiva? If you can believe in the Abraham god, you can just as easy believe in Shiva.

---

The only reason you think the universe has no order is because Copernicus said the math is better with the sun at the center. There is truth in that but it completely removed meaning in humans which contains greater truths. He said to pay more attention to math and not your experience. The idea was so powerful that it collapsed the previous worldview. People started doubting their senses because of the mathematical truth that the earth is no longer at the center. So humans no longer fit in the universe, as was the case in the Aristotelean worldview that everything had a telos.

Then comes Galileo who doubled down on Copernicus by stating math is the language of the universe. Since this is Galileos reality, he divided the world into primary and secondary properties. Primary is math and secondary is love, meaning, beauty, etc. So everything you experience is an afterthought since it's your isolated will that imposes these things on the universe. Essentially you are at drift it in a meaningless chaotic universe because these guys made claims of meaning that they can't prove. It's a horrible story full of assumptions and it's why we still search for meaning.

---

It's been a while since geocentrism got repped on here. Excellent.

jonb02 said:

---

Dilettante said:

---

The Big Bang is not an explanation for the origin of life. The Big Bang was well before the origin of life.

---

Do you think we came from primordial soup?

---

It was actually tortilla soup. So yummy.