God? Maybe. But we all came from something, right?

[JussiUt]

BalancedOne, that's one way of thinking about it and I don't certainly disagree with you. I think it's pretty poetic. We're all a bunch of atoms and those atoms where there before our birth and they continue to be after we die. They assembled together for a brief period time and gave us this perspective, this conciousness.

A cool way of thinking. It doesn't take a stance whether there was a Creator or not.

[Xylem]

Heres a really really insightive philosophical mind fk.

What created the Atoms??????

Yea, i know im smart.

[BalancedOne]

yukoncpa,

Thanks for your reply. This is kind of what I have come to think. What I haven't decided is whether or not when my physical body dies, if I will instantly be born again as myself. And furthermore, will I be destined to make the exact same choices and then lead the exact same life. The problem, obviously, becomes that this may be the millionth time that I have lived this life and therefore I don't really have free will to make any choices because I am doomed to repeat the same life over and over again. Luckily, so far, in my almost 32 years I have felt very fortunate to have lived a fairly "blessed" life. I guess if I am destined to repeat this life over and over, it doesn't really matter if god exists or not, right? Because the recurring thought (fear) for me is that we only live once and there is no heaven, but if we live over and over again in the same body as the same person, then as long as I TRY and choose the right choices, then heaven doesn't really matter. That would seem to be okay for me but what about the child that is molested by his father, or who's parents die in a car accident when they are 13? I wouldn't want them to have to live the same life over and over. So, hopefully, we DO have free will and every life has the chance to be different, and maybe the molestor will choose to be a good person in the next life.

Thanks!

BalancedOne (Steve)

[JussiUt]

I liked your first post BalancedOne, but I don't really get where you are basing your second post on. We are repeating the same life over and over? Huh? That kind of stuff certainly was not in yukoncpa's link.

[Philo]

[ QUOTE ]
What I haven't decided is whether or not when my physical body dies, if I will instantly be born again as myself. And furthermore, will I be destined to make the exact same choices and then lead the exact same life.

BalancedOne (Steve)

[/ QUOTE ]

Out of curiosity, if you think it is possible that you can survive the death of your physical body, what do you conceive of yourself as?

[Justin A]

[ QUOTE ]
I think that we evolved from apes and that the universe is something like 3 billion years old.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't take the following as an attack because it isn't.

We didn't evolve from apes and the universe is quite a bit older than 3 billion years. You say you have a hard time explaining what you mean, but that may be partly because your background knowledge is incomplete. I suggest you do more reading on the origins of the universe and of life on earth. You may find that filling some of the gaps in your knowledge will clarify your thoughts about your own existence.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think that we evolved from apes and that the universe is something like 3 billion years old.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't take the following as an attack because it isn't.

We didn't evolve from apes and the universe is quite a bit older than 3 billion years. You say you have a hard time explaining what you mean, but that may be partly because your background knowledge is incomplete. I suggest you do more reading on the origins of the universe and of life on earth. You may find that filling some of the gaps in your knowledge will clarify your thoughts about your own existence.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the word 'ape' might be one of the top 5 most abused words in discussions about evolution, right up there with 'theory' and 'random.'

[Prodigy54321]

[ QUOTE ]
Heres a really really insightive philosophical mind fk.

What created the Atoms??????

Yea, i know im smart.

[/ QUOTE ]

they basically created themselves as it became less dense and temperature cooled after the big bang....supposedly

[BalancedOne]

Okay, I was off by about 10.7 billion years on the age of the universe. But really, I still can't imagine 13.7 billion years any better than I could imagine how long 3 billion years is, but regardless, I was wrong with the age. My only point about "evolving from apes" was that we evolved from Australopithecus, which had an ape-like head and wasn't homosapien, and that we weren't just put here by god when he was creating the earth (at least I don't believe that)

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
Okay, I was off by about 10.7 billion years on the age of the universe. But really, I still can't imagine 13.7 billion years any better than I could imagine how long 3 billion years is, but regardless, I was wrong with the age. My only point about "evolving from apes" was that we evolved from Australopithecus, which had an ape-like head and wasn't homosapien, and that we weren't just put here by god when he was creating the earth (at least I don't believe that)

[/ QUOTE ]

He wasn't trying to be too critical of you, but if you spend enough time arguing with creationists you start to get a little short-tempered with people on 'our side' who misuse vernacular, are imprecise with definitions or terms, and falsely describe the actual theories and explanations. If you, a non-creationist, cannot get the current accepted dates and nomenclature correct, this provides lots of ammunition for those who are dead-set on denying and are much more interested in plausible victory/obfuscation than knowledge.