Why Do You No Longer Believe in God?

by Tenacious 212 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Twitch
    Twitch

    LOL

    *shakes head*

  • Viviane
    Viviane
    ..evidently...the question is not to name a computer program that can evolve...evidently...

    Protip: Adding "evidently" to your own mistake doesn't make me look bad. You screwed up. It happens. You let your feelings for me get the best of you.

  • donny
    donny
    I tried going to several of the more "traditional" Christian routes after leaving the JW's, however when applying the same skeptic tactics to them that I applied to the Watchtower, their belief systems also failed to pass the smell test. After some time I came to the conclusion that is there is a creator, it has no interaction with the material world and is most certainly not the being that is the central figure of what is known as the Bible.
  • LisaRose
    LisaRose

    I stopped believing because I simply saw no evidence that he or she exists. If I had not been raised with a belief in a creator and been told that he existed as an adult I would have not been convinced by the evidence at all. Even if the God of the bible did exist, he hasn't communicated with mankind in thousands of years, and the book he supposedly had written about himself is a contradictory mess that describes a jealous, petty tyrant, so why would I worship him if he did exist?

    The evidence we evolved is overwhelming, our history is written in our DNA, so that explains how humans came to be, and that is a lot more believable that the genesis account, which couldn't have happened the way the bible said it did. A literal, earth wide flood? There are so many logical inconsistencies to that it doesn't merit discussion. We don't know (yet) how life started (abiogenesis), but I have full confidence it will be discovered and explained by science, whereas no one can explain how God came to be.

    I used to wish I could believe in God, but I can no more believe in him than I can believe in the tooth fairy, as both seem equally unlikely to me. I have made my peace with that, feel happy and content in my life and optimistic about the future.

  • Tenacious
    Tenacious

    @ LisaRose - thank you for your candor and explanation on believing and disbelieving.

    I too could not wrap my head around the lack of evidence of a global flood. Then again, science has found that strawberries and bananas DNA have similar characteristics to our own DNA. And in the Genesis account God says we were created from the ground or dust. Then again, Jesus, in Mark 4:30-32 said that the mustard seed was the smallest of all the seeds. So while I still believe, I also have doubts.


    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/humans-share-50-dna-bananas-2482139

    http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/suminst/iii2008/dna

  • Twitch
    Twitch
    Why Do You No Longer Believe in God?

    Why believe in god?



  • LisaRose
    LisaRose
    Then again, science has found that strawberries and bananas DNA have similar characteristics to our own DNA

    So what relevance does that have in the God/no God Debate?

  • Xanthippe
    Xanthippe
    • bohm
      bohm. a day ago
      EOM: Computer programs absolutely can evolve!
      VIV: Awesome, name a computer program that evolved on it's own.

      This is fairly easy. You can find many examples of evolving computer program within the field of evolutionary computing. To start you can go to google scholar and search for "genetic algorithm" (1.9mio hits), or if you prefer an ordering by application domain and specific programs check out the list on wikipedia:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genetic_algorithm_applications

      if you prefer a single current example you can check out evolino, an application where neural architechtures are evolved for control tasks: http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/evolino.html

      I notice you appended "on it's own" to EOM's statement. This would (strictly speaking!) make your statement true since a computer program "on it's own" presumably would be a computer program without a medium to run it, however this would clearly also be a strawman.

      Flag Dislike Like

      Viviane you still haven't answered bohm's reply to your challenge to name an evolving computer program. Debating tactics are quite fun but when you use them rather than replying to a valid answer it points to
      a lack of knowledge of the subject in hand.
  • Half banana
    Half banana

    Lisa Rose, with the twenty first century understanding of the whole DNA coding within the human genome, it is recognised that we share about 50% of our genes... the bits which determine what living things are ...with herbaceous plants such as bananas, delphiniums and strawberries. (That’s why I use the name Half banana)

    What it tells us is that each animal, plant, fish or fungus is not a distinct creation but are variations on a slowly unravelling line of inheritance, a part of a continuum. The degree of difference between species determines their closeness or distance of relatedness. So the strawberry for example shares the same family traits as the rose but is not so closely related to the delphinium so they have different ‘recent’ ancestors. Apes share something like 96 to 98.5% of their genes with humans. The pattern is compared to a family tree or pedigree with new families branching off at intervals over time.

    Perhaps surprisingly, most family lines that have ever existed have died off and become extinct leaving only those alive today most suited to their environments. These developments having taken place over literally millions of years. Life in all its many forms has proved to be a death and destruction derby where only the winners get to breed.

    In essence the fact that we share 50% of our genes with bananas and strawberries means that Darwin’s idea that life has evolved; is the truthful account of the reason for our existence.

  • The Rebel
    The Rebel

    Tenacious " Jesus In mark 4:30 said the mustard seed was the smallest of seeds"

    I believe the explanation for that statement, was that it was the smallest seed a Palestinian farmer might have sowed in his field. So talking in everyday terminology it was correct. For example yesterday I saw the most spectacular sunset, but technically and scientifically that statement is wrong, as we know the sun doesn't set.

    The Rebel.

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