....haunting, beautiful, sad....

While you view these beautiful pictures of this world we live in, and you hear the haunting melody and lyrics of the depth of one human being's love for another, you tell me...do we have a Creator, or is all of this just a random biological, ecological occurrence? Are we just the result of a tiny bit of dust from a comet (with nothing more of value), or are human beings and the world, the cosmos that surrounds us, something much, much more?

You decide.

"""".do we have a Creator, or is all of this just a random biological, ecological occurrence? Are we just the result of a tiny bit of dust from a comet (with nothing more of value),""""

the fact is nobody know fer sure

Quote from TERA

You decide.

Exactly. It is your reality and you see it the way you think it is. So there is no need to discuss this as everyones reality is different. This book I bought

Amazon.com: How Real Is Real?: Paul Watzlawick: Books


really helped me with discussions on reality or subjectivity. I didn´t read it but it helps to point at the shelve and mention that you bought it.

Anyhow if you are like me and worship Pragnör - Harvester of souls - destroyer of senses - you would know what the holy books of Snölpsgard say when Pragnör himself gave answer to the question if there was a creator......"No"

I hope that was tongue in cheek, Feckless. I took you for a thoughtful chap.

Its a good question Tera. Where does beauty come from? We know it when we see it. We 'experience' it. We are 'moved' by it. We have a tremendous sensitivity that seems to have no Darwinistic survival value at all.

The 'yearning' that humans experience is a 'pull' toward something numenous and coherent rather than a 'push' away from random aggregation of atoms.

Of course it was tongue in cheek *silently lays down his Pragnör worshipping robe* but as I said before it depends on how you see this world. People are often strugling seeking for sense trying to explain what they can not explain and are often resorting on answers that religion and science offer us. It gets interesting if you combine those. Lemaître, a priest and a scientist, wrote a theory to prove that everything there is could have been created by the hands of god in one moment of creation. You might have heard of his theory 'hypothesis of the primeval atom' before. Its known under the name Big Bang theory.

The book "Angels & Demons" by Dan Brown had interesting points on Religion vs Science so here is a quote from a character I really liked:

Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: To the Illuminati, and to those of science, let me say this. You have won the war.

The wheels have been in motion for a long time. Your victory has been inevitable. Never before has it been as obvious as it is at this moment. Science is the new god.

Medicine, electronic communications, space travel, genetic manipulation… these are the miracles about which we now tell our children. These are the miracles we herald as proof that science will bring us the answers. The ancient stories of immaculate conceptions, burning bushes, and parting seas are no longer relevant. God has become obsolete. Science has won the battle. We concede.

But science’s victory has cost every one of us. And it has cost us deeply.

Science may have alleviated the miseries of disease and drudgery and provided an array of gadgetry for our entertainment and convenience, but is has left us in a world without wonder. Our sunsets have been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies. The complexities of the universe have been shredded into mathematical equations. Even our self-worth as human beings has been destroyed. Science proclaims that Planet Earth and its inhabitants are a meaningless speck in the grand scheme. A cosmic accident. Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone. We are bombarded with violence, division, fracture, and betrayal. Skepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history? Does science hold anything sacred? Science looks for answers by probing our unborn fetuses. Science even presumes to rearrange our own DNA. It shatters God’s world into smaller and smaller pieces in quest of meaning… and all it finds is more questions.
The ancient war between science and religion as over. You have won. But you have not won fairly. You have not won by providing answers. You have won by so radically reorienting our society that the truths we once saw as signposts now seem inapplicable. Religion cannot keep up. Scientific growth is exponential. It feeds on itself like a virus. Every new breakthrough opens doors for new breakthroughs. Mankind took thousands of years to progress from the wheel to the car. Yet only decades from the car into space. Now we measure scientific progress in weeks. We are spinning out of control. The rift between us grows deeper and deeper, and as religion is left behind, people find themselves in a spiritual void. We cry out for meaning. And believe me, we do cry out. WE see UFOs, engage in channeling, spirit contact, out-of-body experiences, mindquests — all these eccentric ideas have a scientific veneer, but they are unashamedly irrational. They are the desperate cry of the modern soul, lonely and tormented, crippled by its own enlightenment and its inability to accept meaning in anything removed from technology.
Science, you say, will save us. Science, I say, has destroyed us. Since the days of Galileo, the church has tried to slow the relentless march of science, sometimes with misguided means, but always with benevolent intention. Even so, the temptations are too great for man to resist. I warn you, look around yourselves. The promises of science have not been kept. Promises of efficiency and simplicity have bred nothing but pollution and chaos. We are a fractured and frantic species… moving down a path of destruction.
Who is this God science? Who is the God who offers his people power but no moral framework to tell you how to use that power? What kind of God gives a child fire but does not warn the child of its dangers? The language of science comes with no signposts about good and bad. Science textbooks tell us how to create a nuclear reaction, and yet they contain no chapter asking us if it is a good or a bad idea.

To science, I say this. The church is tired. We are exhausted from trying to be you sign posts. Our resources are drying up from our campaign to be the voice of balance as you plow blindly on in your quest for smaller chips and larger profits. We ask not why you will not govern yourselves, but how can you? Your world moves so fast that if you stop even for an instant to consider the implications of your actions, someone more efficient will whip past you in a blur. So you move on. You proliferate weapons of mass destruction, but it is the Pope who travels the world beseeching leaders to use restraint. You clone living creatures, but it is the church reminding us to consider the moral implications of our actions. You encourage people to interact on phones, video screens, and computers, but it is the church who opens its doors and reminds us to commune in person as we were meant to do. You even murder unborn babies in the name of research that will save lives. Again, it is the church who points the fallacy of that reasoning.
And all the while, you proclaim the church is ignorant. But who is more ignorant? The man who cannot define lightning, or the man who does not respect its awesome power? This church is reaching out to you. Reaching out to everyone. And yet the more we reach, the more you push us away. Show me proof there is a God, you say. I say use your telescopes to look to the heavens, and tell me how there could not be a God! You ask what does God look like. I say, where does that question come from? The answers are one and the same. Do you not see God in you science? How can you miss Him! You proclaim that even the slightest change in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would have rendered our universe a lifeless mist rather than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies, and yet you fail to see God’s hand in this? Is it really so much easier to believe that we simply chose the right card from a deck of billions? Have we become so spiritually bankrupt that we would rather believe in mathematical impossibility than in a power greater than us?
Whether or not you believe in God, you must believe this. When we as a species abandon our trust in the power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faith… all faiths… are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable… With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. If the outside world could see this church as I do… looking beyond the ritual of these walls… they would see a modern miracle… a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control.
Are we obsolete? Are these men dinosaurs? Am I? Does the world really need a voice for the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the unborn child? Do we really need souls like these who, though imperfect, spend their lives imploring each of us to read the signposts of morality and not lose our way?
Tonight we are perched on a precipice. None of us can afford to be apathetic. Whether you see this evil as Satan, corruption, or immorality, the dark force is alive and growing every day. Do not ignore it. The force, though mighty, is not invincible. Goodness can prevail. Listen to your hearts. Listen to God. Together we can step back from this abyss.
Pray with me.

Bravo, Stefan.

I asked about the tongue in cheek, knowing the answer.

Your selected quote was a wonderful cry of the heart. I don't think science has won. A battle maybe, but not the victory or the war. There is an eon yet to unfold, reversals to go through, further advances of our understanding to achieve.

Whether or not you believe in God, you must believe this. When we as a species abandon our trust in the power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faith… all faiths… are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable… With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. If the outside world could see this church as I do… looking beyond the ritual of these walls… they would see a modern miracle… a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control.

And we are becoming aware. By various routes. Spritual included.

Quote from Percy

Bravo, Stefan.

I asked about the tongue in cheek, knowing the answer.

Your selected quote was a wonderful cry of the heart. I don't think science has won. A battle maybe, but not the victory or the war. There is an eon yet to unfold, reversals to go through, further advances of our understanding to achieve.



And we are becoming aware. By various routes. Spritual included.

Thank you....the character from the book didn´t think so too....but well I won´t spoil for you (the movie is comming out this year I guess anyhow buy the book)

I understand every thing is explained in the concept of M but no one can decypher what M means