Very interesting which famous Christian characters don't make it into the top 50 Bible characters, and yet do make it on the top 20 characters in the Quran
I think the bible is pretty clear that Pharaoh is a title. After all, the half dozen pharaohs refered to (thinking of pharaohs in Abraham's time, in that of Joseph, Moses, Ahab, as well as in the prophetic books) are always referred to as pharaoh except in Exodus 1 where the account speaks of a 'new king'. But it introduces him directly as Pharaoh later, without explanation (no 'and his name was Pharaoh'). Its a bit like 'Ben Hadad' for kings of Damascus. Of course, the distinction between name and title isn't always clear.
kalba actually it does say, right at the beginning of the book of Exodus, that a different Pharaoh had arisen by the time Moses was born, and he did not remember Joseph or his family. He was much more cruel than his predecessor(s), as evidenced by his order to throw all Israelite babies into the Nile. The Old Testament is mainly a history of the nation of Israel, so it wasn't seen as necessary to include the specific names of the Egyptian Pharaohs, although specific kings of other nations are mentioned by name. Their existence and details of their reigns are corroborated by plenty of extra-biblical sources.
You do know that if comments after the second comment in a chain are deleted, the ones following still remain, right? And that comments from users who never made any quizzes and have been inactive for over a year are automatically deleted along with the entire account? And that @kalbahamut has been on this site for over five years? It's no wonder really that some of his comments are left consecutive and appearing to follow in from nothing.
The Trinity is made up of three Divine Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I'm assuming this quiz means human persons. Jesus is fully divine, but He is also fully human...so He is a Person, and a person. :)
Yea I havent heard of the bottom 15 ones (at least not how they are written here, maybe in my own language they ring a bell, like jehoiakim looks like joachim, but not sure if that is who they mean) only absolom I have heard of.
Why would anyone be surprised by Adam and Eve not making it to the list? I tried them but as they're only mentioned in the beginning of the OT it wasn't very likely.
Taken this quiz 3 times. Each time I've gotten Jehosaphat and Nebuchadnezzar. That's more often than I've gotten Paul, Solomon or many other much more famous people.
Are these numbers based on mentions in the Protestant or Catholic Bible? i.e. does it include the books of Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, and Baruch?
I win excomunication by 3 faults on spelling nebuchadennazer, missing Abraham and trying to put Mary in all sort of ways, including "that so-called Virgin" and "mother of dragons".
I suggest an easy version with Most Popular Names, in order of appaerance and including Ben Hur or Charlton Heston.
(Richard Gere played a bible character also, didnt he?)
Jew here. I got 29/50 but didn't realize there were New Testament characters as well. I was horrified that I couldn't get the number one person, because I think I know the Bible pretty well! So I was frantically worried and then when the time ran out I saw it was Jesus. lol
It's a very silly book isn't it? Full of silly contradictions and silly story's about people with silly names doing silly things which only a silly person would consider anything other than silly.
Personally, I prefer the pagan gods of old Europe, they too were very silly and fickle, but at least they had the good grace to not pretend they were anything else. Silly bible.
I agree, but it's one of the many things that have been taken out of many bible translations. Often Lord or God is substituted for Jehovah.
I say, "one of the many..." because I will not believe that Jehovah is a misogenist or that there is any reason why Jesus could not have been married. Yet no mention is made of this in our present bible.
I'm atheist, knowing the name of only three Bible books, and having read only the first page because I was bored once. I got 6/50, and I'm happy with that.
@QM, I am appalled at the decision to group any religous quizzes under the fictional somethings. If you personally are not a man/woman of any faith, I ask that you at least respect the massive amount of the population that does. To declare as fact that a religion is fiction will severly undermine your credibility on this site for thousands and thousands of people. On a less severe note, I also ask that you encourage Kalbahamut to refrain from his insulting language towards people of faith. The majority of people respect his decision, and he should respect theirs. As for those that openly criticize him, it is often of his own provocation.
Honesty is not the same thing as disrespect. It is not disrespectful to argue over a difference in opinion; nor is it disrespectful to unapologetically state something that is factual. Disrespectful would be to pretend that something someone believes is factually sound, when it is not, just because you are afraid that they won't be able to handle the truth, or that they will find truth provocative or insulting. *that* would be disrespectful.
Honesty? To claim that in a cosmic scale zero can equal five? I'm sorry, but nothing will never yield something. And unless you want to also claim that time, space and matter are infinite, this math, which I assumed was simple, will quickly prove your honesty to be nothing but arrogance and lies.
Zero doesn't equal five, but there's a very good chance that time, space, and matter are all indeed infinite. If you're extremely smart and you want to have your mind blown, read The Hidden Reality by Brian Greene. Cosmology and quantum physics make no sense at all.
I haven't had a chance to read The Hidden Reality yet, but hope to soon. Back to time, space, and matter being infinite. If time is infinite, it has no beginning and no end. This makes for an interesting time trying to find out what the present is. If a football game never starts, it cannot get to halftime without breaking the laws of time. If time breaks the laws of time, it ceases to be time! The deeper we go, the wierder and more philosophical we get, so I'm going to back up a little. Space and matter cannot exist without time, and vice verse. They are all bound to one another in harmony. A reality that is missing one of these elements is beyond our comprehension. If any one of these elements is infinite, they all must be, and is any one is not infinite, they all are not. Time cannot be infinite without ceasing to be time, and when it ceases to be time, space and matter cannot exist. This, at least, is how I rationalized it. I'm interested to see your take on this.
^Infinite doesn't mean that it doesn't have a beginning. An event / process / whatever that causes time and space to come into existence - for example the Big Bang - can mark the beginning of a Universe which, if it has the right amount of internal pressure expands eternally, i.e. infinitely.
What's the point of your football analogy? Are you suggesting there is a point in time at which the Universe will be exactly half it's final age, so it must have a beginning, in order to have a final age, in order to have a "half-time" age,....? That is a little logical fallacy called begging the question.
Your whole bit about inextricably linking space with time needs some more explaining before I understand what you're trying to say but just because something is beyond our comprehension doesn't make it false and why do you think time would no longer be time if it were infinite?
To claim that an event/ process caused space and time goes back to my 0 = 5 argument. If time has a beginning (I'm pretty sure this is what you are saying here) something had to start it. This means something had to be there. If nothing was there, nothing will come from it. Nothing will happen. If something was there, it very well could have 'created' or caused the creation of time. This promotes the idea that something WAS there, that something did create time. Hence religion. Time cannot come from nothing, so either space, matter, or something else created time. If space created time, it would have to be able to exist without time. The same applies with matter. So, if matter and/ or space created time, they have to be able to exist independantly.
For space and time to exist independantly creates a whole new problem. In the reality we live in, time exists with matter and space. They are constantly affected by time. As beings made of matter, the reality we live in can provide some insight into the effects of time on matter. We cannot conceive of a reality apart from time. As you pointed out, this does not mean that this does not exist. But it does mean that we cannot exist in our present form apart from time. If you do a quick google search, you will find a lot of conflicting answers on "Can matter exist apart without time," but the most common argument seems to be this: Time can only be measured using matter, and matter cannot take form without time, so they cannot exist without each other. Space is the same way. According to Wikipedia, space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. Matter is entirely dependant on space.
Because of this dependancy, space cannot be measured without matter. It ceases to have any meaning if there is no matter to occupy it. The occupant of space is entirely dependant on time to exist, and so, space, meaningless without an occupant, cannot exist without matter, which cannot exist apart from time. All three portions of the cosmos we know are entirely dependant on each other. Take one away, and reality ceases to exist. They bond together in perfect harmony, a perfect trinity.
Also, I think you miss the meaning of my football analogy. I was not implying that the universe has a halfway point in that, I was merely stating that in order for time to reach the present, it has to have a beginning. If time has no beginning, it becomes impossible to reach right now, because there if an infinite amount of time that has to pass before it can get to the present.
You seem to be making a category error - you seem to be arguing:
P1- Everything that exists in the Universe had a cause
P2- The Universe exists
C- The Universe had a cause
Problems with this argument include the fact that the Universe is not in the Universe and so the conclusion does not follow the premises.
If you are trying to argue for God as a first cause (quote "hence religion") then your own argument precludes the possibility - if everything that exists had a cause, and God had no cause, then God does not exist. If God exists with no cause then it undermines your first proposition (that everything had a cause) and removes the necessity for God in the first place.
I don't know where you are getting this 0=5 thing from or what you are trying to prove with it, nor why you are trying to show that time cannot exist without space and vice versa. And again, just because the Universe had a beginning, does not necessarily mean it will have an end
You seem to misunderstand my argument. I was saying that everything that comprises the universe has a cause, and so, the universe had a cause. If the universe is not what is comprised of, that is the same as saying that a molecule of water is not two atoms of Hydrogen and one atom of Oxygen.
My assuming that God is the first cause does not underming my first proposition. If my first proposition was that everything has a cause, it would, but that was not my proposition. Everything that comprises the universe has a cause. God is not a part of the universe, so he does not fall into the same rules. Since we are part of the universe, this is hard to comprehend, but as you pointed out earlier, "Just because something is beyond out comprehension doesn't make it false." I was using the 0=5 argument to portray that the universe could not cause itself to exist, which I think we agree on. I was linking space and time to prove that the universe cannot be infinite, which I think we also agree on.
Side note: How do you format your comments to make the empty lines? I would like to implement this structure in some of my comments but can't figure out how.
No, I understand - you are assuming that the Universe as a whole has the same properties as its constituent parts do. That is a category error, in this case a fallacy of composition - we have no reason to make that assumption.
You are even stating that your God, being a God which exists as an entity which is not part of the Universe, does not need a cause - why are you then assuming that the Universe does require a cause when it is not itself a part of the Universe?
We certainly do not agree that the Universe could not “cause itself” - I have no idea why the Universe came into existence (or even if there is a why), the difference is that you are stating that you do believe you know but you are basing that belief on knowledge which you cannot possibly have. I also haven't suggested that I don't believe the Universe can be infinite – quite the opposite, I have stated that just because it had a beginning does not mean that it must have an end.
If the universe had a beginning, something had to cause it. This much we agree on. I do not what you mean when you say that the universe can cause itself. As our argument has come down to this, I think it may end here. I do not believe that the universe can cause itself because if it did, the parts that make up the universe would contradict themselves. While the universe may have different properties than its parts, its properties cannot blatantly contradict the fundamental aspects of them. Based on this belief, granted that this can be somewhat subjective, I do not believe that the universe is capable of creating its existance.
We seem to have different definitions of infinite. By my definition, infinite is going endlessly in both directions, past and present, like a line on a graph. By yours, infinite is going endlessly in one direction. It is irrevelant whose definition is right; we both are saying the universe had a beginning.
"If the universe had a beginning, something had to cause it. This much we agree on."
No, we do not. You are assuming it and I am saying that the assumption is not justified - we simply cannot know whether the Universe is subject to the same laws as what it contains.
A very interesting article. I found one major flaw running through it: It 'disproves' God by saying he cannot be exempt from the first cause rule, and then provides an explanation for the universe by saying not everything has a cause. When they say that God cannot be exempt, they forget that, if there is a God, he created the reality which we live in. Reality for us is not reality for God. Anything outside this reality could be subject to not follow any laws of reality, hence God's omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience.
This, I think, is your argument for the universe. Since it is beyond our level of understanding, and probably always will be, it could also be exempt from the laws of reality. This I cannot deny. The universe could be outside the laws of our reality, but it just doesn't make sense to me. Granted it is not hard to confuse me, but I can't believe in what seems impossible without any evidence to support it.
It describes more problems with the idea of God as a first cause than just that one... I was just presenting one of them (the category error) which was fallacious in your reasoning.
But anyway, if you are going to talk about an omnipotent God then we can disprove that right now - could an omnipotent God create a rock too heavy for that God itself to lift? No: not omnipotent as it can't create the rock. Yes: not omnipotent as it can't lift the rock.
"You can't believe in what seems impossible without any evidence to support it" - but that is exactly what belief in a God is...
This argument is based a wrong definition of omnipotence. Omnipotence is, "the quality of having unlimited or very great power." This does not mean God can do anything. There are a great many things he cannot do, for example, he cannot lie, he cannot deny himself, and he cannot sin. Back to the rock. God has infinite power. For a rock to exist that was too heavy to lift with infinite power, it would have to be an infinite rock. This is contradictory, as a material thing cannot be infinite.
The real question is can God create a contradiction. He cannot.
As to a belief in god being without evidence, I will pull from Psalm 19: "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." If you found a pencil laying on the ground, you could reason that a tree didn't grow around a stick of lead and then break off forming a sharp point, which then fell onto a precisely accurate piece of cylindrical rubber encased with metal. No, someone made it.
There is no basis to the teleological argument - it is founded on an argument from incredulity, suggesting that because the arguer cannot see how something complex could arise naturaly it must have been consciously designed. But saying "I don't understand how something could happen, therefore it can't happen" is erroneous and actually quite arrogant.
You raise a good point with the first part of your post though - if we were going to have any kind of sensible discussion about religion, God, etc then we would first need to define what your supernatural beliefs are, including what you believe the nature of your God to be. Until we do that we cannot be sure that we are talking about the same thing and it would be tempting to think that defining words after an argument is raised could potentially be a case of moving the goalposts
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from there He will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Holy Catholic Church,
the communion of Saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.
I am a Protestant believer. I believe in the total depravity of man, and that it is by God's grace alone that any men show some semblance of good. I believe that all men are condemned by sin, and that we can be justified before God not by our works, but by the works of our Messiah, Jesus Christ, who died and took ownership of, and responsibility for, my sins.
And I believe that, by his death, I his righteousness was imputed to me lawfully. I believe that the son of God the Father Almighty, Jesus Christ, who was fully man and fully God, died for me. I believe in the Trinity, that I serve one God, who consists of three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I believe firmly in the absolute sovereignity of God, and that everything that comes to pass is preordained by God, whether it be people like Martin Luther King, Jr., or events like the Holocaust. Yet I also believe that God has imparted to man their own free will, that while God watches over and guides them, they are responsible for their own decisions. But I believe that the total depravity of man prevents them from doing any good apart from God. God, by his Holy Spirit, supernaturally regenerates the hearts of men so that they are willing to accept his free gift of grace.
I am not ashamed of these beliefs, and am willing to defend them, by the grace of God.
Please share any empirically derived justification whatsoever that you have for these beliefs which are, by your own admission, supernatural in nature (read: "fairy tales").
If you truly believe that you do indeed have even a semblance of empirically evinced evidence for the existence of any form of supernatural truth, then please explain why you hold the specific beliefs which you have purported to be true - i.e. why you are a Christian (and seemingly a staunch Bibliolatrist) rather than a Hindu, Parsi,
Jedi, Pastafarian or other. I mean really, the tripe that your last 2 posts consists of reads like a supernatural, horror B-movie at best
Where do you get off presuming the "total depravity of man" and how dare you condemn others with such a sweeping statement? You may be that psychologically damaged but you have no justification in assuming that others are similarly tarnished.
As for empirically derived justification, I believe in two forms, that is Natural and Special revelation. Natural revelation can be seen all around us- it is the convincing factor for spirituality in general. Before fancy science came about, everyone believed in a god of some type. Now I'm not saying science is bad; in fact I believe that science further justifies belief in God- but more on that later. Natural revelation, or simply nature, defies the theory of evolution(which is oddly recognized as fact by the scientific community despite their claims that science cannot prove fact) and rebukes the idea that Earth was a cosmic accident. The biodiversity found on Earth portrays not random mutations of genes, but life that was created to survive and thrive.
Evolution is geared towards saying that life changes as it reacts to stimuli. The problem with this philosophy is that nothing should ever happen. If something comes about that is drastic enough that only the creatures that are properly equipped will survive it, the creatures can only become properly equipped after natural selection weeds out the ones that aren't. Also, Evolution allows no room for morality, perception of beauty, or humans- for humans have no advantages over creatures they supposedly evolved from and have no means to kill other animals except by outside means(weapons).
Special Revelation, or the Bible, convinces me more or natural revelation and is the reason I am not a Hindu, starwarsguy, Buddhist, etc. I simply believe that everything in the Bible is true, and after reading it and many other things written by men, believe that there is simply no comparison between the writing.
As for total depravity, men would continue to be so totally depraved if not for the widespreadness of Christianity in earlier centuries. The fundamentals of Christianity were imparted to the whole world, and as a result, every nation on Earth has laws promoting morality. To highlight the spread of Christianity, look to the Aztecs. The Inca. The Goths. The Franks. The Celts. The Mongols. People who ravaged countries without giving a second thought. Yet even these were not totally given over to themselves. God limits the depravity of man in every circumstance, so that even though this world is fallen, the average joe is not an animal.
Speaking of animals, surely you can see the difference between humans and animals? For one, clothing. Humans cover their dishonorable parts, and no animals do likewise. Humans make complex contraptions to simplify work. Humans domesticate animals. Harness animals. This is not the work of evolution. If so, what sets us apart? Brain size? Thumbs?
I believe that men cannot do good without God's help. Thankfully for the world, God helps us out a lot. I also believe that everything that happens is an indirect result of God. God, being omnipotent, can work in evil people to create good. I believe that Men(as a race, not a gender) choose their own paths- as we all think independent thoughts- and are responsible for that path. So, it is a little of both, and hard to understand, but Men choose the path they want to take- to follow God or to cast him out- but they cannot do so without God's help.
As for being Catholic or Protestant, you are mistaken. Catholic means worldwide, so when I say I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, I believe in the worldwide fellowship of believers. Very different from Roman Catholic, in which I agree- you cannot be Roman Catholic and Protestant.
No need to apologise - this is a comment section on a quiz site.
Wow, where to start... Revelation, special or natural, is not evidence - it is merely assertion. You "feel like" the only explanation for Life, the Universe and Everything is your God, and the world "looks like" it couldn't exist without your God, therefore you believe your God is the only explanation. That is not evidence.
Natural revelation is not "simply nature” - that is a fallacy of equivocation and if we are being generous then we can assume that you were not intentionally being misleading. Scientific observations of biology in nature very strongly support the theory of evolution, of which much of what you wrote is not even wrong. And FYI, evolution has now actually been observed taking place - Lenski experiment.
Regardless, why are you talking about evolution? If you would like a discussion on evolution then we can do that in a more appropriate quiz forum but we were talking about your beliefs in your God; whether you believe in evolution or not is irrelevant. If you think that attacking evolution strengthens your argument for your God then you are falling foul of a very common false dichotomy So, moving on from that..
What makes you Christian - other religions purport special revelation and have their own sacred texts so that is really no explanation, again it is no more than assertion. Considering the historical and scientific inaccuracies, the frequently self-contradictory details and the terrible moral teachings, the Bible clearly can’t be empirically true (inaccuracies) or relatively true (contradictions), and even if it were consistent and accurate any reasonable person wouldn’t want it to be true (bad morals).
“Depravity” born from original sin is an example of this – it is contradicted many times in the Bible, clearly cannot be scientifically or historically accurate and shows God in a terrible light morally. Cursing all future generations before they are even born for something that someone else did? How can you believe that the story is “true”, and that the God of the story is the one who “helps us out a lot”. To believe that such a ridiculous doctrine is truthful and justified is very insulting and speaks volumes about your own moral shortcomings - how can you suggest that cursing all future people for something that they did not do is anything short of morally reprehensible?
Every society has rules, even those that existed before Christianity came along. Further, Christianity often promotes some immoralities, and fails to condemn many others. Suggesting that Christianity is morally superior to all other creeds and cultures is blatantly absurd.
What are you talking about? Humans are animals – Genus: Homo, Family: Hominidae…. Kingdom: Animalia. That’s a really weird argument - just because we learned to wear clothing (which incidentally we did a long time before Christianity existed) does not make us special in the eyes of some prudish sky censor. Also, we may generally do it better, but other animals have learned to use tools and even farm other animals – as an example, there is a type of ant which farms aphids but I can’t remember what it is called.
TL;DR - assertions are not evidence and attacking one side of a false dichotomy does not promote the other side.
If you observe the things that science generally supports and describe them, this is arrogance, dishonesty, and intentional provocation deserving of punishment and censure.
On the other hand, if you believe yourself to know more about the origins of the Universe than the most brilliant and knowledgeable astrophysicists and cosmologists in the world, discarding their theories in favor of the invisible-magic-man-did-it hypothesis, that's not arrogant at all.
As to honesty- I said nothing at all about zeroes or fives. And the origin of the Universe is irrelevant. The Universe has been around for billions of years. Human religions started to be invented a few thousand years ago. We know pretty well how, where, and why most of these religious traditions began. We can test the empirical claims that each make and find them to be false. And we can acknowledge that, yes, they are all fictions.
Thanks for clarifying this. So, hypothetically, if there was a quiz asking what Leroy Jenkins (A hypothetically famous historian on the Vietnam War) stated were major battles in his book, Vietnam for Dummies, would it also be listed under the fictional somethings?
I'm not religious and it definitely shows here (I only got Jesus, Moses, Abraham, and John), and then when I gave up I did an actual facepalm because I forgot how so many people I know are named after people in the Bible. It really do be like that sometimes.
You should mention that you refer to both old and new testaments. For jews, the word "bible" only refers to the old Testament. Christianity uses this word to describe both.
Here we go again .every time I do a religion/ Bible quiz on jetpunk the same monotonous people on both sides of the argument show up in the comments with their long winded boring tit for tat arguments .who really cares . this is a fun quiz site so live and let live. I am not a religious person myself but respect peoples right to believe in what they want no matter how ridiculous some of it seems. on a lighter note if Noah was in the desert in the middle east waiting for a flood how did he find two kangaroos,platypuses ,wombats or koalas don't think they walked and swam from oz.
Paul and Saul were the same person. Was taking this quiz with my sister and we couldn't fathom who we were missing in the #5 slot. They should probably be combined.
Which I just did and ... hey... I typed Pharaoh and he was not on the quiz but he appears on the list! :P
...And yet they sadly wonder why some are deleted.
I suggest an easy version with Most Popular Names, in order of appaerance and including Ben Hur or Charlton Heston.
(Richard Gere played a bible character also, didnt he?)
Please edit that quiz to be more accurate.
Personally, I prefer the pagan gods of old Europe, they too were very silly and fickle, but at least they had the good grace to not pretend they were anything else. Silly bible.
I say, "one of the many..." because I will not believe that Jehovah is a misogenist or that there is any reason why Jesus could not have been married. Yet no mention is made of this in our present bible.
No skills?
No morals?
Apply to become a priest today
Or something like that.
Yeah, I can't think of a good one either
What's the point of your football analogy? Are you suggesting there is a point in time at which the Universe will be exactly half it's final age, so it must have a beginning, in order to have a final age, in order to have a "half-time" age,....? That is a little logical fallacy called begging the question.
Your whole bit about inextricably linking space with time needs some more explaining before I understand what you're trying to say but just because something is beyond our comprehension doesn't make it false and why do you think time would no longer be time if it were infinite?
Also, I think you miss the meaning of my football analogy. I was not implying that the universe has a halfway point in that, I was merely stating that in order for time to reach the present, it has to have a beginning. If time has no beginning, it becomes impossible to reach right now, because there if an infinite amount of time that has to pass before it can get to the present.
P1- Everything that exists in the Universe had a cause
P2- The Universe exists
C- The Universe had a cause
Problems with this argument include the fact that the Universe is not in the Universe and so the conclusion does not follow the premises.
If you are trying to argue for God as a first cause (quote "hence religion") then your own argument precludes the possibility - if everything that exists had a cause, and God had no cause, then God does not exist. If God exists with no cause then it undermines your first proposition (that everything had a cause) and removes the necessity for God in the first place.
I don't know where you are getting this 0=5 thing from or what you are trying to prove with it, nor why you are trying to show that time cannot exist without space and vice versa. And again, just because the Universe had a beginning, does not necessarily mean it will have an end
My assuming that God is the first cause does not underming my first proposition. If my first proposition was that everything has a cause, it would, but that was not my proposition. Everything that comprises the universe has a cause. God is not a part of the universe, so he does not fall into the same rules. Since we are part of the universe, this is hard to comprehend, but as you pointed out earlier, "Just because something is beyond out comprehension doesn't make it false." I was using the 0=5 argument to portray that the universe could not cause itself to exist, which I think we agree on. I was linking space and time to prove that the universe cannot be infinite, which I think we also agree on.
You are even stating that your God, being a God which exists as an entity which is not part of the Universe, does not need a cause - why are you then assuming that the Universe does require a cause when it is not itself a part of the Universe?
We certainly do not agree that the Universe could not “cause itself” - I have no idea why the Universe came into existence (or even if there is a why), the difference is that you are stating that you do believe you know but you are basing that belief on knowledge which you cannot possibly have. I also haven't suggested that I don't believe the Universe can be infinite – quite the opposite, I have stated that just because it had a beginning does not mean that it must have an end.
We seem to have different definitions of infinite. By my definition, infinite is going endlessly in both directions, past and present, like a line on a graph. By yours, infinite is going endlessly in one direction. It is irrevelant whose definition is right; we both are saying the universe had a beginning.
And thanks for the format info.
No, we do not. You are assuming it and I am saying that the assumption is not justified - we simply cannot know whether the Universe is subject to the same laws as what it contains.
You may find this interesting - First Cause
This, I think, is your argument for the universe. Since it is beyond our level of understanding, and probably always will be, it could also be exempt from the laws of reality. This I cannot deny. The universe could be outside the laws of our reality, but it just doesn't make sense to me. Granted it is not hard to confuse me, but I can't believe in what seems impossible without any evidence to support it.
But anyway, if you are going to talk about an omnipotent God then we can disprove that right now - could an omnipotent God create a rock too heavy for that God itself to lift? No: not omnipotent as it can't create the rock. Yes: not omnipotent as it can't lift the rock.
"You can't believe in what seems impossible without any evidence to support it" - but that is exactly what belief in a God is...
The real question is can God create a contradiction. He cannot.
As to a belief in god being without evidence, I will pull from Psalm 19: "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." If you found a pencil laying on the ground, you could reason that a tree didn't grow around a stick of lead and then break off forming a sharp point, which then fell onto a precisely accurate piece of cylindrical rubber encased with metal. No, someone made it.
You raise a good point with the first part of your post though - if we were going to have any kind of sensible discussion about religion, God, etc then we would first need to define what your supernatural beliefs are, including what you believe the nature of your God to be. Until we do that we cannot be sure that we are talking about the same thing and it would be tempting to think that defining words after an argument is raised could potentially be a case of moving the goalposts
the Father Almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
He descended into hell;
on the third day He rose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from there He will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Holy Catholic Church,
the communion of Saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.
I am a Protestant believer. I believe in the total depravity of man, and that it is by God's grace alone that any men show some semblance of good. I believe that all men are condemned by sin, and that we can be justified before God not by our works, but by the works of our Messiah, Jesus Christ, who died and took ownership of, and responsibility for, my sins.
I am not ashamed of these beliefs, and am willing to defend them, by the grace of God.
If you truly believe that you do indeed have even a semblance of empirically evinced evidence for the existence of any form of supernatural truth, then please explain why you hold the specific beliefs which you have purported to be true - i.e. why you are a Christian (and seemingly a staunch Bibliolatrist) rather than a Hindu, Parsi,
Jedi, Pastafarian or other. I mean really, the tripe that your last 2 posts consists of reads like a supernatural, horror B-movie at best
Where do you get off presuming the "total depravity of man" and how dare you condemn others with such a sweeping statement? You may be that psychologically damaged but you have no justification in assuming that others are similarly tarnished.
"they are responsible for their own decisions", while at the same time claiming that "it is by God's grace alone
that any men show some semblance of good" and that "everything that comes to pass is preordained by God".
So which is it? It seems that with your God it's a case of being damned if you do and damned if you don't.
That is not the mark of any kind of God that I would want to put any faith in.
Make your mind up - are you Catholic ("I believe in ... Holy Catholic Church") or Protestant ("I am a Protestant believer")? You can't truly be both.
As for empirically derived justification, I believe in two forms, that is Natural and Special revelation. Natural revelation can be seen all around us- it is the convincing factor for spirituality in general. Before fancy science came about, everyone believed in a god of some type. Now I'm not saying science is bad; in fact I believe that science further justifies belief in God- but more on that later. Natural revelation, or simply nature, defies the theory of evolution(which is oddly recognized as fact by the scientific community despite their claims that science cannot prove fact) and rebukes the idea that Earth was a cosmic accident. The biodiversity found on Earth portrays not random mutations of genes, but life that was created to survive and thrive.
Special Revelation, or the Bible, convinces me more or natural revelation and is the reason I am not a Hindu, starwarsguy, Buddhist, etc. I simply believe that everything in the Bible is true, and after reading it and many other things written by men, believe that there is simply no comparison between the writing.
Speaking of animals, surely you can see the difference between humans and animals? For one, clothing. Humans cover their dishonorable parts, and no animals do likewise. Humans make complex contraptions to simplify work. Humans domesticate animals. Harness animals. This is not the work of evolution. If so, what sets us apart? Brain size? Thumbs?
As for being Catholic or Protestant, you are mistaken. Catholic means worldwide, so when I say I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, I believe in the worldwide fellowship of believers. Very different from Roman Catholic, in which I agree- you cannot be Roman Catholic and Protestant.
Wow, where to start... Revelation, special or natural, is not evidence - it is merely assertion. You "feel like" the only explanation for Life, the Universe and Everything is your God, and the world "looks like" it couldn't exist without your God, therefore you believe your God is the only explanation. That is not evidence.
Natural revelation is not "simply nature” - that is a fallacy of equivocation and if we are being generous then we can assume that you were not intentionally being misleading. Scientific observations of biology in nature very strongly support the theory of evolution, of which much of what you wrote is not even wrong. And FYI, evolution has now actually been observed taking place - Lenski experiment.
What makes you Christian - other religions purport special revelation and have their own sacred texts so that is really no explanation, again it is no more than assertion. Considering the historical and scientific inaccuracies, the frequently self-contradictory details and the terrible moral teachings, the Bible clearly can’t be empirically true (inaccuracies) or relatively true (contradictions), and even if it were consistent and accurate any reasonable person wouldn’t want it to be true (bad morals).
What are you talking about? Humans are animals – Genus: Homo, Family: Hominidae…. Kingdom: Animalia. That’s a really weird argument - just because we learned to wear clothing (which incidentally we did a long time before Christianity existed) does not make us special in the eyes of some prudish sky censor. Also, we may generally do it better, but other animals have learned to use tools and even farm other animals – as an example, there is a type of ant which farms aphids but I can’t remember what it is called.
TL;DR - assertions are not evidence and attacking one side of a false dichotomy does not promote the other side.
If you observe the things that science generally supports and describe them, this is arrogance, dishonesty, and intentional provocation deserving of punishment and censure.
On the other hand, if you believe yourself to know more about the origins of the Universe than the most brilliant and knowledgeable astrophysicists and cosmologists in the world, discarding their theories in favor of the invisible-magic-man-did-it hypothesis, that's not arrogant at all.
As to honesty- I said nothing at all about zeroes or fives. And the origin of the Universe is irrelevant. The Universe has been around for billions of years. Human religions started to be invented a few thousand years ago. We know pretty well how, where, and why most of these religious traditions began. We can test the empirical claims that each make and find them to be false. And we can acknowledge that, yes, they are all fictions.
That said, apparently only getting half them is a pretty good score on this one!