Purpose, Evolution, and Self-Replication

Faith & Science Conversation
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Yes, the laws of nature are derived from scientific evidence, but this evidence comes from the universe, however, the universe is not eternal, as the evidence shows. So the question remains, From whence did the universe come and where is it going? Theists have a rational answer to that question and atheists do not.

There are three fundamental disciplines for understanding Reality, Science for the Natural, Philosophy for the Rational, and Theology for the Spiritual/Moral. If atheists want to reject all three of these disciplines and accept only their own ideology, that is their problem. Christians do not reject any of these disciplines, but seek to know science, understand the rational, and be in right relationship with God and humans.

Ononehandyouseemtorejectmasicalthinking andontheother yourejectattemptstoreconcile rationalityand spirituality. Please clarify.

Againyoudonotknowwhatyouaretalkingabout,whichreflectsverypoorlyonyou.

You do no seem to understand the website that you cite which is not Buddhist, but a syncretistic ideology based primarily on Christianity.

.John 4:24 (NIV2011)
24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

I think you missed something here. Jesus said that we must worship God in Spirit and in Truth. God is the God of Truth (the facts, Mr. Trump) as well as Spirit. God is also the God of Power.

I have never said that the mind is spiritual. I have said that the mind is rational. Computers are not natural. They are artificial. They are rational machines created by rational minds. Minds are rational machines if you will created by God, Who is rational, through a rational process, evolution.

The important aspect of St. Paul’s spiritual body is the body, not the spirit. We will have a body in heaven. We will not be just a ghost without shape or form. We will be able to talk, think, and walk the streets, which requires a body. but that body will be imperishable. We will still have a body, mind, and spirit. .

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Nonsense. To atheist it looks like theists just replace the question with question of “whence did God come?” while they see science explaining how the universe came about by the operation of natural law. I cannot see how the theist approach is the more rational one. As for where things are going, science answers that for the atheists and it looks to them that theist talk about this is rather vague and without evidence.

There are thousands of disciplines for understanding reality according to whatever people think are important and decide to spend their time on, be it chess, football, romance, art, comedy, law, computers… and the list goes on and on… Your division into three you have decided are important just tells us about you.

Wrong… Christians are as varied as anybody else in choosing their interests among the thousands of possibilities… most are not interested in science, philosophy, or theology.

Rationality is the basis of the physical universe: logic->math->physics->chemistry->biology->psychology… human study reflecting the rational hierarchy of the universe. Spirituality is about reality beyond the limits of the physical. Physical things are all a part of one space-time mathematical structure from which they have their existence and nature, behaving accordingly. Spiritual things are not a part of that structure – they are what they are by their own nature alone.

I have not missed the fact that you make additions and alteration of this passage to suit yourself.

But what the scripture says is God is spirit not the God OF spirit or the God of rationality or the God of Truth. John 4:24 doesn’t say any of those things.

And I deny both of these. My mind is pretty rational but that is not the case of all minds – I see plenty which are very far from rational. Rationality is a skill some people learn and use – it is NOT the substance of the mind. The mind is a living organism and its substance is language rather than chemistry like biological organisms.

I do not will so. Machines are designed and manufactured, living organisms grow and learn for themselves. The God of the Bible is a shepherd not the watchmaker of Deism.

While you pick and choose, I do not. Paul uses both words because both are important. And furthermore he clarifies by contrasting it with what it is not. It is a bodily resurrection to a spiritual body not a physical body – because physical bodies are perishable and spiritual bodies are imperishable. The fact that the resurrected body is imperishable is hardly unimportant – so the fact that it is a spiritual body is rather important. The word “body” is used to focus on that part of the spirit and nothing would be more natural than the contrast with the “mind” as the other part of the spirit – for it would be foolish to think that this is a mindless body without thought or direction to guide it.

Yes. These are dead spirits and what we can expect without a resurrection to bring the spirit back to life.

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I hoped to have some meaningful discussion, but this seems to be impossible, because we have very different understandings of Reality. I believe that humans are spiritual beings, which means we have spiritual values and needs. He seems to think that we are only physical.

The God of the Bible created the sheep as the Creator and leads them as the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. I am glad to see that @mitchellmckain thinks that God guides evolution as I have always said.

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Incorrect. As Paul teaches in 1 Cor 15,
44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual.

Paul’s teaching is clear. The physical is the seed from which the spiritual grows. If there is a physical body then there is a spiritual body, but the physical is first.

I don’t think this is what you have always said, and I think there is an important distinction here between God as the watchmaker using evolution as His tool for design, and God as the shepherd guiding the growth and development of living things which happens by evolution. Design is for machines and that which is designed is only a machine, being alive requires participation in ones own creation. But this never happens in a vacuum. It is always in response to an environment which includes parents, teachers, and shepherds like God.

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Ultimately, I think it comes down to faith. For some people, they can’t believe in something through faith. They need evidence, no matter what portrayal of God is being discussed. It isn’t simply the lack of evidence disproving God, but the lack of evidence for the existence of God.

Could they change their mind and believe through faith because of a personal experience? Absolutely. However, throwing out the YEC portrayal of God probably isn’t going to do it.

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When has the supernatural ever been a rational answer to any question? Can you name a single process where we have verified a supernatural mechanism that causes it?

Why do you think atheists are rejecting science and philosophy? By the way, philosophy is used for morality as well.

That’s an arbitrary distinction. Computers are just as natural as anything any other animal or plant creates. A computer is just as natural as a bird’s nest or an bee hive.

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The first step towards talking about reality is understanding that reality does not conform to what we believe. Saying “I believe” doesn’t force reality to change.

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[quote=“T_aquaticus, post:86, topic:43926”]
Can you name a single process where we have verified a supernatural mechanism that causes it?
[/quote

The Creation.

[quote=“T_aquaticus, post:86, topic:43926”]
Why do you think atheists are rejecting science and philosophy?

Because they do not get the answer they want.

The arbitrary distinction is between humans and other creatures, not between computers and other made things.

The problem is not that I believe that Life is good. The problem is that I know that Life is good, but Dawkins tells me that life is not good. What should I say? that which I know from my own experience or that which Dawkins says which is not proven?

I take the stand that in all areas of life, the scientific, the philosophical, and the theological, that I will keep an open mind, but not accept some idea until I have thoroughly examined and tested it.

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Where is the verifiable evidence for the Creation being caused by God?

Atheists reject bad science and bad philosophy because it isn’t supported by evidence, reason, and logic.

Would you agree that a computer is just as natural as a bird’s nest?

Then don’t listen to Dawkins?

In case you haven’t heard, Dawkins doesn’t speak for all atheists, nor for atheism.

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All the evidence points to God. God alone had the opportunity, means, and the motive to create the universe. Guilty as charged!

Yes, neither is natural, both are “contrived.”

The problem is that it is claimed that Dawkins speaks for Science, and thus disagreeing with Dawkins makes me anti-science.

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Then name it.

If you can’t define a bird’s nest as natural then you have a problem with science and philosophy.

Who says this???

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What Paul says is that the body is Transformed from corruptible to incorruptible. In doing so the body remains the body but is composed of incorruptible spiritual matter, whatever that is. The mind is still the mind and the spirit is still the spirit.

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First of all the word is imperishable not incorruptible – it means that it not only doesn’t decay and cannot be invaded, but that it cannot be destroyed or pass away. You apparently don’t see the implications which I as physicist see quite clearly. The physical body is subject to all kinds of forces which can damage, hurt, infect, or destroy it because it is part of a system of natural law. The implication is that the spiritual body is not part of such a system of natural law and that makes it about as different as can be imagined.

Wrong! All the evidence demonstrates that the mind we see is a physical entity and subject to all the same problems as the body: decay, infection, damage, and destruction. It is also a part of that same system of natural laws. AND the physical body is dependent on the mind, so without a mind which is likewise imperishable as the spiritual body is described to be, the spiritual body cannot be imperishable either.

Wrong again! Where is your Biblical references for this? Mine is 1 Cor 15. The resurrected body is explained by Paul to be a spiritual body and that explanation includes the following:

1 Cor 15:44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. 50 I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

To inherit the kingdom of God we must become as the man of heaven which is a life giving spirit. I have shown that the spiritual body must have a spiritual mind and the obvious conclusion from this passage is that together they are the spirit. This three part modalism you are pushing is not the doctrine of the Trinity in Christianity and pushing our existence into this format is misguided also.

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The Man of Heaven is Jesus the Messiah, Who is the First Born of the Resurrected on Easter Sunday.

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I think that you are basically right. If Jenny was taught that Christianity means that God created the universe in 6 days, and then discovers that the universe was not created in 6 days, she would seem to lose her faith. But this is not herd immunity, this is not thinking for herself.

What she needs to do is think for herself and not follow the group. Christianity does not believe that the universe was created in 6 days. It believes that Jesus is the Savior, the Logos.

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Yes. And the point is that 1 Cor 15 says a life giving spirit is what He became… as an example (first of many brethren) of what we become through the resurrection. The first man Adam became a living being of the earth with a physical body, but the second man Adam became a life giving spirit of heaven with a spiritual body – birth and rebirth.

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We definitely disagree.

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Yes we do disagree.

But what exactly do you believe. And why?

You don’t believe God is spirit?

Do you believe God is an alien living on another planet like the Mormons do?

What I read in the Bible, that God is spirit, tells me that spirit is the greater reality, and the physical is more like a simulation. Like pixels on a screen and bits in a computer of a computer game, our physical existence is likewise made of bits/quanta. And Like the NPC confined to the programing of the game, our physical being is confined to the rules of nature. The greater reality is the spirit which is what it is by its own nature rather than because of some coincidental congregation of particles following mathematical equations, and which can and eventually will fall apart.

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I believe in One God in Three Persons, Creator, Logos, and Spirit,

God the Trinity created humans in the Image of God, the Trinity, as one person with body, mind, and spirit.

Just as one Person of the Trinity is no more or no less than another, so no one aspect of the person is more or less than another: body, mind, and spirit are all eternal in God.

Thank you for asking.

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I am a Trinitarian Christian because I agree with the doctrine of the Trinity that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct persons but only one God. In other words, I believe in a trans-personal God. But I do not believe God is three. I believe God is infinite. Thus it is in our infinite potential which I see the image of God. I do not presume that just because Christians know God in these three persons that therefore God must be limited to these three persons. I do not believe in limitations of God to anything. I certainly don’t believe in the restriction of God to Christianity. That is a conceit which I find utterly absurd and like other ways in which some Christians have sought to enslave God to their theology. What I mean by such enslavement is putting the power over who and what God is into the hands of theologians rather than God Himself. After all power over oneself is the most important power of all – demonstrated most dramatically by God becoming a helpless human infant in time and space upon the Earth.

I certainly think God’s power over Himself includes the ability to limit Himself. So it is possible if God chose that He could limit Himself to three persons, but I don’t see any reason why God would do that. In other ways that have to do with choosing good over evil or love and freedom over power and control, then I can believe God has chosen to limit Himself in such ways – particularly in the creation of the laws of nature, life, and free will. So I will not say it is impossible that God has chosen to limit Himself to three persons, but it frankly sounds a great deal more like a Christian conceit to me and not sound theology.