Prayer is useless?

[dherbman]

I pretty much agree with you on this, but find it interesting that you would make a stand on this topic in particular. It's in the non-scuba forum and you've got to admit that there are a huge number of threads that have as much to do with the theme of this board as this one.

Of course, lack of respect for opposing views does create a volatile environment, for sure.

I believe that board members who feel compelled to start threads regarding prayer on a scuba-diving board should stifle themselves.

I don't go to boards that discuss theology and start threads relating to the benefits of helium for planning wreck dives to depths between 250' and 300' fsw.

It would be rude.

It would also quite likely be against their ToS.

It astounds me that people would come to a board designed to discuss scuba issues and begin a discussion regarding the benefits of prayer.

Other than finding myself at 250' with 50 minutes of deco remaining and having a deco regulator explode on me, I fail to see the connection between scuba diving and prayer.

No offense to anyone of any faith in any country on the planet, but keep your threads on ScubaBoard at least remotely related to scuba issues. I don't give a ratsass whether you think prayer is useless, useful, moderately beneficial, harmful, offensive, inoffensive, humorous, necessary, or glorious. It doesn't belong on ScubaBoard.

[/RANT] :doctor:

 

[jepuskar]

Someone say troll???

 

[Green_Manelishi]

That's fine.

What is important is that (the Judeo-Christian) God created and loves you and desires to have a personal relationship with you through Jesus Christ. And that my friends is what differentiates that (dare I say my) God from false gods.

Among other attributes, false gods demand good works (but who knows how many?),absolute perfection, they are unknowable, they prefer ritual (sometimes human sacrifice) to relationship, they do not care about their creation (they set it in place and now just watch from afar), they are not omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, etc.

 

[Green_Manelishi]

As I already said, I don't believe in a diety. What I believe in is a universe that adheres to certain rules and can have deep meaning for those who seek it. I do not think that order and meaning imply deliberate creation, but if there was/is a being who brought creation into being, I don't think we can understand it's nature any more than we are able to understand the process it used. To say that the creator of an ordered universe must be sentient without understanding the least thing about how the act of creation is carried out is tantamount to anthropomorphic superstiton. If created, the universe could have as easily been planned in minute detail as excreted from some extradimensional oriface.

Personally, I feel that a high degree of order is inevitable in a universe with physical laws, and that moral laws are little more than guidelines for social order and personal fulfillment. Their existance says nothing to me about the presence or nature of any divinity.

What on earth makes you think I'd bring computers into it?

A universe that just "sprang to existance" would not be ordered; unless your evidence that it must have is because there is order and it simply sprang into existance.

Extradimensional orifice? String theory? Quantum fluctuation? All attempts by man to explain what they will not accept as a supernatural event. Of course, their theories (usually not referred to as such and frequently untestable or unobservable) are "science" where creationism (and ID) is "faith".

Actually we can understand Him. Read the Bible. It actually states that the heavens etc declare the works of the Lord. Funny thing ... scientists of yesterday studied to understand God's creation rather than dream up theories about where it all came from.

Anyway, gotta go.

 

[Lisa0825]

WWFSMD??




(I hope this is taken in the manner in which it was intended, as a joke)

 

[BIGSAGE136]

I love the part in the bible that says let US make man, in OUR image. Now thats thinking material

 

[00scuba]

I love the part in the bible that says let US make man, in OUR image. Now thats thinking material

I love the part in the bible that god and and his son wrote.....oh wait...did they??? hmmm

 

[dherbman]

I love the part in the bible that says let US make man, in OUR image. Now thats thinking material

I thought and asked about it quite a bit. Finally, I got the answer that satisifed me.

 

[jepuskar]

If god created the universe than who created god? God can not just merely exist, he had to come from somewhere. By the way, isnt the bible man made?
Green, if you question how this world could just sprang into existence...how could you not question how your god came to be?

It is a rather mute point as nobody will ever know the answer...we can't even get the facts straight about what happened a minute ago let alone billions of years ago.

 

[MSilvia]

Extradimensional orifice? String theory? Quantum fluctuation? All attempts by man to explain what they will not accept as a supernatural event.

In what way are these attempts different from one in which it is supposed that God caused the supernatural event through careful planning, except of course in that string theory and quantum fluctuations are not really creation theories?

You're right though... I don't, and need not, accept creation as a supernatural event.