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Moviefan2k4 (23)
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First, I feel it necessary to fall back on my previous refrain: "I can give you evidence, but I can't force you to accept it." From all you've written so far, it seems to me you are purposely holding to materialism, which rejects the supernatural without question. If you keep that ideological defense up, nothing anyone says will get through to you. Now, I will attempt to tackle the number of your recent objections, as far as I am able...
1) Assigning human traits to a supernatural Creator does not involve "special pleading" from a Christian standpoint, because Scripture says humanity was made in His image. So this begs the question of, "What kind of God says "trust Me", but then makes Himself so hard to understand that we can't?"
2) Your implied assertion that anything happens given enough chance doesn't make much sense when you examine it closely. One counter-example often used is the idea of taking apart a wristwatch, putting all the pieces in a bag, shaking it for a million years, and expecting to remove a watch that's ticking and on time. Another has you walking on the beach, and you see "John loves Mary" carved into the sand, but you're alone. You know a mind made that, even if you didn't witness it. The same things apply to Creation itself; you don't have to experience everything to accept that its true.
3) The "acorn and oak" example isn't about actual creation, because plants have no inherent consciousness. They're more like computer programs, which need a programmer greater than them to start things running. Plants are basically a rejuvenating food source made to produce after their own kinds; they have no inborn life.
4) No one has ever actually seen a star form. We see them die all the time, but the notion that they were formed from gravity and space dust comes from agnostic Harlow Shapley, and dedicated naturalist Carl Sagan who popularized it later.
How can you possibly not like Brad Fiedel? He composed one of the most iconic movie themes of the '80s and '90s, for the Terminator franchise.
But to stay on-topic, I guess that one unpopular opinion I have is my view that Jerry Goldsmith is slightly overrated. Yes, he did great work for much of the Star Trek films and TV shows, but what was he really known for otherwise? People like John Williams are known for legendary music across the board, by comparison.
In no particular order...
John Williams
Graeme Revell
Alan Silvestri
James Horner
Howard Shore
The key to understanding anything spiritual is allowing yourself to be open-minded about the possibility of the supernatural, not just fighting it because you don't like the implications. What you call "special pleading" doesn't apply, because the definition of that term requires leaving out a proper justification. If you want to go the scientific route, consider this: those who study the heavens have concluded that time, space, and matter all came into existence at the same exact moment. Whether you use the term "big bang" for this or not doesn't really matter right now. My point is that without time, there would be no when to set up space or matter. Without space, you'd have a when and what, but no specific location. And without matter, there would be nothing that existed for the purpose of time and space working together.
So per this example, all three are co-dependent. Nature never creates itself from a total void, which means that a cause was needed that exists beyond the boundaries of time, space, and matter. In other words, this cause would have to be timeless (or eternal), spaceless (or unbounded), and immaterial (or not coming from the natural world). Plus, in order to form anything as huge and varied as the cosmos, the cause behind it had to be more powerful than nature itself. There also had to be intelligence involved, because we know from various fields of study that the universe is too organized and detailed to be random. And finally, there had to be personal attributes at play, because making anything requires a deliberate decision. So when you consider the notion of a timeless, spaceless, immaterial, powerful, intelligent, and personal being...what's the first idea that pops into your head? There's a reason many apologists refer to God as the "uncaused first cause", because rationally it makes perfect sense. I'm not against science, but I don't agree with the doctrine of scientism, which insists that only the natural world holds all the answers.
This article explains it fairly well.
https://www.compellingtruth.org/one-third-angels.html
I'd just like to clarify one other thing, that came to my mind after my previous post. When I wrote earlier that I didn't think I could provide an answer to your satisfaction, I meant the last part quite literally. There's a very real difference between evidence and proof; the former is objective, the latter is subjective. I can give you evidence like crazy, but I can't force you to accept it. If you want to find irrefutable 100% proof of anything supernatural in this life, you'll never find it because we are inherently incapable of doing so. Our natural abilities can only take us so far, and we have our limits. God has none, other than His inherent nature and what He has promised to us.
I guess the main so-called "constraints" in my life have to do with my fears and weaknesses.
First off, I'm deathly afraid of snakes, and have been since I was at a zoo once and one of them tried to strike at me through its cage. As a result, I can't watch the Well of Souls sequence in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", and pretty much every scene featuring a snake in the "Harry Potter" series. Interestingly enough, I can watch the end of "Chamber of Secrets", because I saw how they built a practical life-sized basilisk head for that sequence.
My other main fear is heights, and as such I've hardly ever flown in an airplane. Also, when I get above the 2nd or 3rd floor in most buildings, I stay away from railings and windows. I think part of it comes from sleeping on the top bunk bed a lot as a child, and falling to the floor almost every night.
Finally, my last vulnerability is probably my temper. I'm not a mean-spirited person, but I do often become defensive when I'm accused of being something I know in my heart I am not. I have both epilepsy and Asperger's Syndrome, the latter of which causes many of my mannerisms and perception abilities to be easily misunderstood. I have an extensive vocabulary, but I'm not always the best at detecting sarcasm or grasping things non-literally.
Mine is probably the Bible, though to be fair I don't think I've read the whole thing in sequence at all in my life. My folks used to put me to sleep by reading it as a kid, and I attended Sunday school where the teachers would tell us the well-known accounts like the Garden of Eden, Noah's Ark, the Exodus, Samson & Delilah, the reign of King David, Jesus' ministry, etc.
It was only many years later that I started attempting to go through it myself, and I realized how much of the Old Testament is filled with stuff that in all honesty drives me nuts. I love both God and Jesus like crazy, but I have a very tough time caring about things like the dimensions of the Ark of the Covenant, the traditions of the Levite priests, the details of the genealogies, and trying to decipher the various illustrations in Revelation. I'm just glad that God doesn't need perfect people on His side, though...just humble ones willing to listen and obey Him.
I've probably seen the first "Back to the Future" entry at least 200 times since I was 8 years old. My folks taped it onto VHS for me, and I wore it out completely by watching almost every day, until "Part II" came out in the Christmas season of 1989. As for other '80s films, I love the original "Highlander" as well; its a fantasy classic. Most of the sequels suck, but I do have a soft spot for "The Final Dimension", and I watched the TV show quite a bit growing up too.
Rejecting God's authority because you don't like it doesn't mean that He or it don't exist. If God is real, then that's true for everyone whether any of us like it or not...including you and me. As for why God doesn't present Himself to everyone all the time, there's two primary reasons. First, it would interfere with our free will and His desire for us to "live by faith, not by sight". But even more importantly, our fallen bodies can't currently take being exposed to the fullness of His glory anyway; we'd literally be destroyed because of the difference. That's why Jesus came down; He was called "Immanuel", meaning "God with us" or "God in flesh". If you're only willing to accept what you can detect with your natural senses, then you're severely limiting yourself.
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