There has been a phrase that has been used to point to evidence that there is a god and Christianity makes the most sense.

It is "The Universal Laws of Logic"

Essentially the claim is that these laws wouldn't exist without a god.

So what would be the effect if these laws were indeed universal?

Let's take the core logic rule of cause and effect. It is a primary one used to claim that god exists. The universe is the effect which requires a cause which believers identify as god.

Now if this law is universal then it applies to every case. If this is true then you are arguing for a mechanistic universe. There can be no manifestation without a cause.

This essentially removes personal responsibility and free choice. If it is universal then there is no action that we take that doesn't have a pre-existing cause. And within the Christian belief system, if we keep going back far enough we eventually have to come to god since god created everything. This means that god is the cause of sin.

We remove consciousness. Consciousness becomes an illusion that is only a complex mechanism that is operating on these universal logical laws of cause and effect.

This pretty much negates much of Christianity or it establishes Calvinism.

I think there is a lot we do not understand about free choice and determinism. I believe cause and effect does lead us back to God. I would not argue that God did not create sin. In fact I believe He did. But I do not see the need to remove our consciousness of ourselves. I think we can be conscious of ourselves without selfishness. That is to say, I believe we can be aware that we do exist without deep and labored analyses of our existence. Of course, if there is no God, then there is no reason for us to exist, and perhaps we don't?

Well, obviously a lot of people function quite well without analysis.

I guess some have said that the uncontemplated life isn't worth living or maybe the Hokey Pokey IS what it's all about.

I guess we can add another one to the list.

Why do we exist?

Deep and mysterious. Answer God

CARDW

I have A friend that is very logical in his thinking
and he belives that every thing about life has to be
proven with logic.....people can not prove that GOD
wants a spiritual relationship with HIS people by logic...

the bible says that worldly mind can not undertand
the spiritual mind....
so how can one prove this with logic?????

if every thing in life must be logical then were is
faith in a persons life????

the bible mentions a lot about faith---faithfulness--
being faithful

so this must be important to GOD

dgrimm60

Well, I think faith is the only option when we don't know everything.

I have faith, but it is a conditional faith.

I think we use faith to function until we have a better explanation, otherwise one can get paralyzed by inaction.

I agree that not all of life is explained by logic and I don't think it has to do with a mind being worldly or secular.

The function of what most people call spirituality is to provide meaning for what logic tells us is a meaningless life. Once a being has feelings a whole set of different aspects of awareness become available.

I think that Christianity is only one of many ways of engaging with the unknown.

CARDW

if we just use faith until we can understand the truth
then we dont need a savior....logic is not the answer
trusting the bible and trusting GOD can not have any place
with logic....to believe that JESUS came down from
heaven to die on the cross to save the human race does
not seem logical....

dgrimm60

That is assuming we can understand and have all truth! Not what Christ taught, we have faith because we don't know all....such as 2nd coming event end point!

I would agree!!!

Believing in Christ is what I use. What you use is different and thats okay by me, and your statement would be true for a variety of belief systems.

I think for me, Jesus certainly has some new ways of approaching life that can be defended rationally and empirically. The problem for me is when I have to accept the idea that this Jesus has to die so that I can saved.

It's not a pride thing, because I was a believer for a long time and if I thought it worked even pragmatically I would accept Jesus as my Savior. Plus all the mental gymnastics I had to put myself through to maintain that belief simply became unbearable.

It is the immaturity of a god who needs to have a sacrifice or can't figure out any other way to balance the universe without the torture and killing of himself that makes it unbelievable to me.

We would never accept that behavior in humans, so I would think even less so with our gods. It makes far more sense to me to realize that what we make up as gods are simply super versions of immature people. Just as we see this in the Greek and Roman god myths, I think we can see this in Yahweh.

And the Christian myth of Jesus and his sacrifice are continuing to evolve to reflect modern understandings. I don't think a lot of the softer more loving theology is really in the text.

Plus we have much more information on how the Bible was put together and the influences on early Christianity. And this information paints a far different picture than what I hear from mainline Christianity.

I think what we really have today is churchianity.

dgrimm,

I think you are talking about faith in the inspiration of the bible.

I think we have to have some system to be able to choose which inspirational book we put faith in or faith in any book at all.

Or I think it's probable that we choose the book or religion we were exposed to as children.