Poll: What type of Creator do you believe in?

[JPinMaryland]

Recent discussion of creation leads to conclude that different people have different visions of what they think the creator was like. YOu can find this discussion somewhere, under the "Secretariat" thread, I think.

Here are the choices:

The One and Done Creator. Best espoused by Chickenhawk, the idea is that the creator kicked off this thing a billion years ago and then sits back and watches. A boring idea perhaps, but for people like me I think: "I dont know what happened 5 billion years ago", anything is possible including some sort of creation, but nowadays things seem to obey certain rules or at least if they dont obey rules they way animals change seems to be obeying some rules, not entirely random but not created by a being either.


The Hibernating Creator. Espoused by conservatives who pt. out that there are no missing links in the fossil record. Bala seems to say it best. He believes in micro evolution, e.g. Darwin's Finches are able to evolve their beaks, but the dont change on the macro level without help from God. Macro evolution has rodents growing wings into bats, or apes getting bigger brains, or fish getting legs. The idea is that every milion years or so, the creator awakes out of slumber to create some entirely different family, after all, no one can find the "missing links." There are no intermediates between homo and australeopithecus for example.

The Busy Body Creator. Seems a natural outgrowth of the ideas here, the idea is that the creator takes an interest in every life form. I.e. He is a busy-body. If you ask me was my baby born by a random process of sperm meeting egg? I would say "no, the creator chose my baby's eyes, her personality, etc". Nothing is left to chance; every soul matters and was made by a creator. Well except for maybe ants and snails and such.

The Hyper Maniac Creator. A natural outgrowth of choice 3. I mean if the creator is so busy that he gets involved in all higher life forms then he may as well be involved in any process that appears to us as random but is really predetermined. Einstein said "God does not play dice with the universe." Thus, every process must be deterministic, every rain cell, every snowflake, every molecules in the sea, if the creator can step into the birth process he may as well get involved in any process that appears to us as random after all it cant be dice, it must be a law or process of some sort.

[singunner]

Austrolopithecus, friend til the end, but it's over, over, over again. The only problem I find with that micro-only thing is extinction. Would a Creator create something only to kill it off later? Wouldn't macro-evolution make you sleep easier at night knowing that you'd be turning into something else rather than waiting for the Creator to show up and make the next step above you? I mean if you believe the hibernating option, think how pissed the pre-humans must have been when the Creator made us!

[singunner]

How about this thread be made SUPER open-minded and you just ask everyone to concisely state their beliefs without intentionally attacking the beliefs of others and we can all peacefully and harmoniously be accepting of eachother and bask in our good will?

Imagine the immense warmth of acceptance we could all feel towards eachother!

I'll try and get the ball rolling:

I don't have any conceptualization of how the universe started, the meaning of life or that sort of thing, nor any great interest in it aside from the scientific value of studying these things. Having never believed in anything nor been compelled by any outside force to believe in anything, I have not felt a spiritual lacking in my life and am quite comfortable accepting the things I do not understand as things I might never understand (not that I won't try).

Come on kids, don't be shy!

[Show Me the Wire]

A better question, I think, would have asked, Do you believe life is purposeful or an accident?"

[Secretariat]

Honestly, who really knows? Religion is based on faith.

Chickenhawk's approach is really Deism which was popular during the Enlightenment and with many of the founders such as Franklin. It has much appeal and where I voted because it gives man the ultimate freedom, the ability to choose his own annihilation or work productuvely for the betterment of mankind. He is not a slave to his own fear of being punished in an afterlife, but acts on this earth without God's intervention because he chooses to act in a moral way.

Science believes it can trace it back to the Big Bang, but then what occurred just prior to that?

Scientology beleives in aliens.

Don't know, and don't pretend to. I don't think anyone else really knows either - they just have faith and beleive in something they've been taught or have an life altering incident that propels them to beleive in something.

Who knows? Maybe the creator has a sadistic sense of humor and gets a good laugh out of everyone trying to figure out what it's all about.

[46zilzal]

where is the none of the above option?

[Show Me the Wire]

Not really an option, only your illusion of an option, and, of course Darwin's.

[46zilzal]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin's_views_on_religion

[Show Me the Wire]

Read his autobiograghy. I forgot you don't read fiction.

[kenwoodallpromos]

I hate all 4 of the negative options you list.

[46zilzal]

I hate all 4 of the negative options you list.
set it up to make your point and all the options WILL look bad

[hcap]

46 where is the none of the above option?You're right-only 4 votes. I believe there are other viewpoints, not included. I suspect many haven't voted because of the narrowness of the choices.

SMtW Not really an option, only your illusion of an option, and, of course Darwin's.Your wrong. You are being too parochial.

[Show Me the Wire]

I have to start using those emotion thingys more ;)

Which stands for inside joke?

[kenwoodallpromos]

I favor the theory "Put the soup on and and a pinch here and there for flavor"!

[singunner]

BAM!

[DJofSD]

"I dont know what happened 5 billion years ago"

And what makes you think that a supreme being even has a concept of time as we experience it?

[Tom]

I don't believe in jpinmaryland.

[chickenhead]

this thread raises some serious questions.

Like, am I chickenhawk?

[Show Me the Wire]

this thread raises some serious questions.

Like, am I chickenhawk?

I think so.

[singunner]

And what makes you think that a supreme being even has a concept of time as we experience it?

Well, while I'm a small sample, I'm supposedly made in His image, and I have absolutely no concept of time. Yesterday feels like a year ago and a year ago feels like it either never happened or it was yesterday.

[betchatoo]

Was this thread an accident or created by intelligent design? Certainly doesn't have a "big bang."

[JPinMaryland]

"Was this thread an accident or created by intelligent design? Certainly doesn't have a "big bang."

Yes it is possible to take what is happening on the internet and make an analogy to the universe and other stuff. For example both the universe and the internet appear to many to be infinite. Every time you try to measure how much stuff is on the internet you get a different answer and you go back to another site and its different. They both appear to be expanding in almost limitless directions. But then again, if something is expanding how can it be infinite? I guess they are both expanding adn there seems to be no end point.

Then you ask how they got started. If you didnt know who started the internet it might be funny to ask like a 8 year old how did it all start? what sort of replies would you get?

Another internet analogy is to civilizations. People in Britain drive on the left while people on the continent drive on the right. Niether is right or wrong but at the beginning they had to agree on something and stick with it. So now it is entrenched.

Same with message boards in a website you can find completely different approaches to like an off topic message, or can you post a private email or what to do with spam, etc. Same with attitudes, there's some sort of effect where once a certain poster is labeled as a prankster or as troublemaker that seems to be a recurring theme you can always invoke that guys name. And do not civilizations have their own sets of mores and what they find funny? Jerry Lewis might be extrememly funny to some groups.


***


I am sorry there were not more choices. The interface leaves you with a maximum of only four options. Blame the PA or the creator, not me.

****

I am torn between no. 1 and no. 4. I mean, if no. 3 was possible why not go all the way do no. 4? I dont see any reason to think that the randomness of sperm chasing egg is any different that storm cells and the beating of butterfly wings turning into a hurricane. They both seem somewhat mechanical so...As for no. 2, the lack of fossils in the record can be explained, although it takes a bit of thinking about it to get the pt. (have given some recent examples in other treads) and again if he hibernates for a million years, why not 5 billion.

So either 1 or 4, I guess...


***

I think anytime we try to use these human constructs e..g free will or predestination or infinity or randomness or what was the terms showmewire said... and try to apply them to what is going on we run into problems.

Like what is randomness we think we agree on what it is, it seems understandable in a superficial way but when you start to get right down to it, it becomes more elusive. Perhaps it is just a construct we think we agree on but does not exist in the real world.

LIke is the world random or is it pre destined? does the question make any sense? what appears as random may be some ordered process we do not understand. Like seeing the chaos patterns of a dalmations spots, or the rise and fall of deer populations, or sun spot patterns, or hurricanes, etc. Something like this....

Instead of asking is the world random or ordered or pre destined or...perhaps a better question would be: Why do there have to be rules to govern the universe at all? WHy should gravity act at all?

Do rules of physics preclude a creator? Does it make his job easier?

[JPinMaryland]

Can we set up an alternate poll for those who dont like these choices? You can only have four options so perhaps you should decide among yourselves which four choices to have. And should not have a "none of the above," given space limitations.

[Show Me the Wire]

JPinMaryland:

Tom does not believe in you, so I am not sure you exist. ;) Even with my reservations about your existence I will answer to your poll.

After talking to the Lord God, and I do not mean talking to God as Pat Robertson and Oral (sp) Roberts express, here is my answer. God is prederministic and he is not, God involves himself and he does not. The answers to your question are in Holy Scripture.

The world has a beginning and will have an end, very deterministic. Read the New Testament and will you see, Jesus spoke what the Father Creator told Jesus to speak.

Jesus taught follow my example and my advice on how to conduct your life. Jesus left the decision to follow his teachings up to each individual. He never forced anyone to obey the Father's word. Every one has free will so God sits on the sidelines when men express their free will, especially if free will is against God's involvement.

However, there is a big caveat. Jesus taught about the immense power of prayer. The power of prayer can move mountains. Ask for God's intervention and you will recieve it, so God will intervene.

To sum it up God is All in All.

[46zilzal]

and here is a yokel trying to sell this so he can drive a big car.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3552314994740921390

[Tom]

46 - this is one of the funniest things I ever saw! I almost hurt myself lauging!:lol:

[singunner]

Does it never occur to anyone that lumping people all into some group might be a bad thing? Do you do this with handicapping? Everyone is an individual moreso than every horse will behave differently in every race. The beliefs of identical twins, raised Christian and espousing the same views will be inherently different based on experience.

[Show Me the Wire]

46 zilzal:

Tsk, tsk. I thought you were a M.D. and you make fun of a person with a gastric problem, which may be very painful and at the least embarassing.

[JPinMaryland]

they were talking about the soul the other day on npr and whether you could cut open a brain and actually find it. And the guy was like incredulous "what would you be looking for exactly?" So we have consciousness and we are the sum off all these tangible parts that are put together. But that consciousness will never be found, it is somehow intangible and yet it is surely connected to a body..

Put them (body parts) together and somehow we have consciousness but take them apart and they are just that a bunch of parts with no consciousness. So where is that soul? It's only there when the parts are put together, when the parts are cut apart there is nothing. Does the soul go somewhere?

Maybe. I mean with this kind of reasoning it is not that hard to believe in reincarnation. Suppose that these souls all inhabit some other world, some other plane or something. I mean, they do seem to exist, I seem to have one and so does everybody else there are a bunch of them it seems.

They join the world when a human is born or an animal is born, then they have to leave when that animal is dead. I mean, put it this way, when I think about myself and my soul, I can see myself as no longer being here, but I think somewhere else that part of me that was contemplating all this could be somewhere else in someone else's body conteemplating it...

Of course with this line of reasoning I think you have to incorporate animals of all kinds into it since I guess they all have consciousness of some sort. ANd it also leaves a tricky question about people who are brain dead or otherwise comatose or perhaps only sleeping? Is there soul gone as well?

ANd then another question would be what happens when the population gets bigger they just keep making more souls?

I dunno, but still reincarnation doesnt sound so way out. :)

[singunner]

My contention is that if you're looking for a soul, the only logical place to look would be the blood. It's the only thing it seems like a person really can't do without. Also, people drink the blood of Christ. They don't munch on his brain... Unless they're zombies.

You can say people can't do without their brain, but I think this forum has plentiful evidence to the contrary.

[Indulto]

... I suspect many haven't voted because of the narrowness of the choices.Not me. I'm still stuck on the chicken/egg dilemma, "Who created the creator?" From the teachings I’ve been exposed to so far, I find it easier to believe Man created God than vice-versa.

As a kid I envisioned God as someone taking a picture of me holding a Cracker Jacks box. I just couldn't imagine who was taking a picture of him. At this stage I’m content with the existence of one or more higher life forms whose description I can't fathom, and which have no interest in me personally or in humans, generally. I just hope they don’t regard me as I regard a house fly. I assume I get only one shot at participation and then some other life form gets my allocation of oxygen

I will direct any further speculation to horseplaying where miracles occur daily. I am religious in my attempts to interpret the scripture contained in the DRF, and I will dwell among those who dwelt at the start of religious instruction forever.

[JPinMaryland]

As a kid I envisioned God as someone taking a picture of me holding a Cracker Jacks box.

Funny I imagined I was holding a Good 'n Plenty box..