Riddle me this

[Plane]

There is a reason for everything,.......

If ....

If there is a reason for everything , this defines God.

[Xavier_Onassis]

No, it does not. That is a foolish statement.

The world is as chaotic as the laws of physics allow it to be without flying apart. That is not God.

The Universe is not a completely orderly system, and can never be, because constant and unpredictable change is a  part of the system.
That is why there can be no Paradise. Change is essential. Stagnation creates nonconformity, nonconformity explodes if change is not adequately orderly.

The Christian view of God is that humans are at the center of the purpose of all Creation.  No one is claiming that Jesus is on tour, getting himself crucified on one planet of humans after another to somehow absolve the most distant ancestors for the sin of making unwise culinary decisions based on temptations by a talking reptile.

It is obvious that we are NOT at the center of creation or its purpose. We are here to make decide own purpose and fulfill it as best we can with extremely limited powers.

[sirs]

Your human opinion hss been duly noted, weighed, measured, and summarily discarded

Let me evaluate a bit before you discard.

Oh believe me Plane, this issue has been thoroughly evaluated.

Xo thinks he's being "smart" by trying so hard to make the case that God has scientific boundaries, limited by physics, that humans should be able to then understand.  But since God doesn't and can't be, then by design, God is a delusion, and must not exist, except in the supposed warped minds of those who believe

So, not only does he take scripture out of context to claim what believers must believe and support, the other avenue he wastes so much time on is the ongoing attempt to connect God with science, all the while ignoring the limitations of human intelligence.  In fact, while he proclaims that believers must have the mindset of both the Taliban, and the belief that man is the center of everything, its ironically xo who's implying that humans are the center of everything, based on science and our level of human intelligence.  Apparently we can think ourselves thru anything, and anything we can't must then be a delusion

That's why his latest opinion has been summarily discarded.....its just more of the same AMBE, dressed up as rational thought, all the while ignoring the limitations of the human mind

[Xavier_Onassis]

Do you think we are really the only sentient beings in the Universe?  I consider the odds quite against it.
I imagine that the sentient beings on some populated world, say Gamma Omicron 4, also believe that they were created by their own Deity.
I really doubt that the religions practiced by extra terrestrial beings would involve  the same mythologies as those of Earth.

Logic tells me that we are but a tiny fraction of sentient beings in the universe who we shall probably never meet or communicate with because of the huge distances involved.  The odds  that all of these beings believe in a Holy Trinity is sure to be minuscule.

[sirs]

Do you think we are really the only sentient beings in the Universe?

Of course not.  Nor is what they believe or not believe relevent to this discussion.  That's pure speculation.  The fact of the matter here is that God isn't constrained by your tiny little human brain of science & physics.  Nor am I required to prove that either, since God isn't a science project

[Xavier_Onassis]

It is entirely relevant, because  God must be the God of the entire Universe, while the Bible does not even acknowledge that the Universe as we know it to be even exists.
All thoughts along these lines are speculation,but better rational speculation than Mumbo-Jumbo speculation.

[sirs]

Your non believing parameters of God and what must be, don't apply to me, OR ANYONE OF FAITH......get that yet??     

[Xavier_Onassis]

They apply or they do not, and if they do, they apply to everyone, everywhere in the friggin universe.

You can continue to believe in original sin caused by talking snakes, of course.

[Plane]

Your human opinion hss been duly noted, weighed, measured, and summarily discarded

Let me evaluate a bit before you discard.

Oh believe me Plane, this issue has been thoroughly evaluated.

Xo thinks he's being "smart" by trying so hard to make the case that God has scientific boundaries, .......

   Even science does not have scientific boundaries.

     But I don't think it out of bounds to discuss and speculate on the nature of God, as long as one keeps clear that speculation is much less authoritative than scripture or evidence.

[Plane]

The world is as chaotic as the laws of physics allow it to be without flying apart. That is not God.

This is a very interesting statement to examine.
What sets a boundary at flying apart?
Why does any existence exist at all?

If Gravity were a tad weaker or electrostatic repulsion a bit stronger the universe might be entirely chaos, with no stable surface for life anywhere.

With very little other change all matter could be located in black holes, with no chaos of any sort for life to thrive in.

Stop thinking of chaos as an undesirable factor , chaos is a feature of creation which in the right amount helps life to thrive.

[Plane]

.

The Christian view of God is that humans are at the center of the purpose of all Creation.  No one is claiming that Jesus is on tour, getting himself crucified on one planet of humans after another to somehow absolve the most distant ancestors for the sin of making unwise culinary decisions based on temptations by a talking reptile.

This "Christian" view is not supported by scripture, rather the opposite.

You may be thinking of Pythagoras or Plato, which is interesting stuff , but is not really Christian guidelines.
"Man is the measure of all things" is a Greek idea.
"What is man oh God that thou art mindful of him?" Is more like the old Hebrews.

[Xavier_Onassis]

What I said about Christian guidelines has been supported by the RC Church  and pretty much the rest of Christianity.
The Mormons are the only major group that talks about other planets.

Man is the Measure of all Things is a Greek idea, but that is not Geocentrism, which states that Man is the greatest of all of God's creations and the Earth is the only world there us, and we are the Number One inhabitants of God's Terrarium,
The Sun circles the Earth and the Moon, planets and stars are more or less decorations.

You appear to be confusing Humanism (the classic Greco-Roman concept, which provoked the Renaissance) with Geocentrism (what Galileo was punished for denying).
Christianity is Geocentric. Humanism is after Copernicus and is not.

[Plane]

   You are badly out of order.

Humanism (the classic Greco-Roman concept, which provoked the Renaissance)

   Isn't there a millennium in between "  Humanism the classic Greco-Roman concept" and,  the Renaissance?

    Seems as if the Renaissance thrived in an atmosphere of Roman Catholic sponsorship and then Protestant reform. 

    If the more ancient texts provoked the Renaissance, why not sooner?


   Seems like more enlightenment era people were reading the Gutenberg Bible than copies of Plato musings that you would rather blame the for the  Renaissance.

[Xavier_Onassis]

The Renaissance was brought on by the defeat of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The intellectuals of that area came to Italy as refugees. There were thinkers, teachers, artists, writers, sculptors and so forth. Venice was the first to receive them. Being as the Greek Church and the Roman church had a number of differences, there were discussions about philosophy and cosmology and the like. The priests in Venice did not have the power they had in Rome and other parts of Italy, and the doges that ruled it promoted discussion of what is art, what is literature and so forth.

[sirs]

They apply or they do not, and if they do, they apply to everyone, everywhere in the friggin universe.

That's just it....THEY DO NOT.  YOUR limited application of perceived non-believing parameters of God do NOT apply, to me nor everyone else.....that includes the universe