[REASON]

Originally Posted by nutronjon

I am running late and unfortunately don't have time to address all the arguments, but only time to say, prove to me a cup of coffee is a cup of coffee, or that a tree is a tree. Then I will have an idea of how to prove god is the stuff of the universe, and not a supernatural being.

You still do not understand, nutronjon. It is impossible to prove that God is the stuff of the universe.

As it has been stated over, and over, and over again, it is nothing more than a meaningless label from the perspective of science.

It obviously has tremendous meaning for you personally, but science cannot and will not simply adopt your views.

[Overdog]

Originally Posted by nutronjon

...prove to me a cup of coffee is a cup of coffee, or that a tree is a tree...

Oh, such fine words for an epitaph these would make!

[Overdog]

Originally Posted by nutronjon

....prove to me a cup of coffee is a cup of coffee, or that a tree is a tree...

Yes I can see it now...right at the foot of a roadside tree...

"Here lies Nutronjon,
a member of Hypography,
who could not see,
the tree was not a fantasy..."

[Nitack]

Originally Posted by Overdog

Yes I can see it now...right at the foot of a roadside tree...

"Here lies Nutronjon,
a member of Hypography,
who could not see,
the tree was not a fantasy..."

Overdog have you ever considered a career in writing epitaphs on spec?

Just the right blend of truth, creativity, and smart assishness to be a raving success.

hmmmmm.....

[nutronjon]

This is the point of view I have speaking of, I will do my best to find other examples. Of course if you all want to spot talking this, just stop replying and there will be nothing for me to respond to, after I complete all the responses I already have to respond to, to avoid another penalty for not defending what I say.

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.[1]
In the "Declaration of Independence," the founding document of what would become the United States, Thomas Jefferson mentions "nature's God." Unfortunately, this phrase is unclear. The religious beliefs of Jefferson were much debated in his time and still are over two centuries later. Through the letters and other writings of Jefferson, it is possible to construct an outline of his beliefs. Although he supported the moral teachings of Jesus, Jefferson believed in a creator similar to the God of deism. In the tradition of deism, Jefferson based his God on reason and rejected revealed religion....

Jefferson felt that religion was a deeply private matter. People did not need to proclaim their beliefs: "I never told my own religion nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wish to change another's creed."[6] Jefferson saw religion as private and therefore found priests unnecessary. He wrote in the same letter "I have ever thought religion a concern purely between our God and our consciences for which we were accountable to him, and not to the priests."[7] He only spoke about his own religious beliefs when he was asked to, and only in his private letters did he speak clearly of his beliefs.

Without supporting revealed religion, Jefferson subscribed to the moral teachings of Jesus. He stated this belief explicitly in a letter to John Adams in which he wrote that the moral code of Jesus was "the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man."[8] Jefferson even made a collection of Jesus' moral teachings from the Bible which seemed to be in their original simplicity. He used this collection as an ethical guide to his own life.

Jefferson's God was the source of moral values. In a letter to his nephew Peter Carr, he wrote that "He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler, if He had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science."[9] Rather, God made man "with a sense of right and wrong."[10] People were responsible for their actions on earth and would be rewarded or punished in some kind of afterlife.

More important than beliefs to Jefferson was the way people lived their lives. "I have ever judged the religion of others by their lives . . . for it is in our lives and not from our words, that our religion must be read."[11] In a letter to Adams, Jefferson concluded about religion: "the result of your 50 or 60 years of religious reading, in four words 'be just and good' is that in which all our inquiries must end."[12] This emphasis on behavior over belief was at the core of Jefferson's creed, although he did think that morality was connected to belief in God.

Jefferson based his belief in God on reason. In a letter to John Adams, Jefferson wrote that he believed in God because of the argument from design:

I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in it's [sic] parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of it's [sic] composition. . . it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is . . . a fabricator of all things.[13]


Who is Nature's God?