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I understand that there is no real proof behind religion, but if you consider a few things in the bible as propaganda so that people think that god is only good and all that crap (which seems to have worked pretty well) then most things can seem at least a little plausible.

At 1/5/08 06:34 PM, iamnecromantic wrote: I understand that there is no real proof behind religion, but if you consider a few things in the bible as propaganda so that people think that god is only good and all that crap (which seems to have worked pretty well) then most things can seem at least a little plausible.

lol. So you are saying the Bible is plausible if you take huge chucks of it (you would need to drop the entire Genesis and other things) and say "well, we won't count this part".

Does the same not come true for ALL religions...no, wait....ANYTHING?

At 1/5/08 04:00 PM, Drakim wrote: To me, it's like saying "I believe in equal rights, but black people shouldn't be allowed to be cops". Even though people might find this completely silly, it's much of the same. You argue equal rights for everything but the position of hiring cops, and you argue science for everything but God and miracles.

It's an exception from the main rule, no matter how you look at it. Miracles have never ever been accepted by science, and not because science hates miracles, but because they have turned out to be either frauds or false when we measure their effects.

Here, I don't agree with you. I don't think belief in science must mean naturalism. I personally think it wouldn't be hypocritical or illogical to say "I believe that in some area where science lacks, in some subjects we don't have full information on, there might be something that goes against our theories of the natural laws". I don't believe it myself, but I do think it is a plausible belief.
The problem is when you deny science and say it's wrong because of your belief in a god. For example, believing God created the world in 7 days seems illogical, but believing that a god may have set big bang in action isn't (although having a very strong belief in it might be).

I have an idea, let's put a whole load of scientists on one island, and a whole load of priests on another island. Then we wait for them to start a civilisation, and the ones who don't die get a cookie.

We can put some TV camera's maybe have a few presenters in there.

WE'D MAKE MILLIONS!!

At 1/6/08 04:25 PM, Sajberhippien wrote: in some subjects we don't have full information on, there might be something that goes against our theories of the natural laws". I don't believe it myself, but I do think it is a plausible belief.

'Plausible' is different from 'sensible'. If, when asking 'where did the Universe start', one doesn't research string theory and the Big Bang but answers 'because of a magic man who exists outside time and space, and by the way I've got a book on His laws', then we should be able to point out what nonsense it is.

When it comes to the issue of 'is there a God, what are his properties', I would rather deists and agnsotics and atheists tried to keep it seperate from the subject of organised religion. I really think that religious people are more likely to believe 'everyone who is anti-religious is just an atheist trying to be badass' when other atheists argue against them.

I think it makes little logical sense to say 'the start of everything was an intelligence that was even more complex', but if you insist on arguing that it's valid, I don't care. I'd rather you chose to argue against dogma than against atheism. There's no rational reason to believe in dogma.

alls i know is, Richard Dawkins gave me the best tramp stamp ever

"And here, let me say once for all, that when I speak of God, I mean the being described by Moses; the Jehovah of the Jews. There may be for aught I know, somewhere in the unknown shoreless vast, some being whose dreams are constellations and within whose thought the infinite exists. About this being, if such a one exists, I have nothing to say. He has written no books, inspired no barbarians, required no worship, and has prepared no hell in which to burn the honest seeker after truth."

At 12/31/07 12:49 PM, XeroXTC wrote:

Some stupid creator he is then. Evolution is extremely inefficient. If a creator was really powerful enough to make the entire universe, one would think that he could develop a method of creation that doesn't require billions of years, countless random mutations and the extinction of 99% of all species that ever lived on earth.

you guys are missing one big thing though. everything is relative. you know how einstein told us that time is relative? that means that flies, which are creatures which like what a few days? they don't feel like their lives last a days, they feel like those 7 days are equivilent to the 70 YEARS we experience, because time is only as fast as the mind of the creature thinks it is. billions of years to us may be barely any time at all to a creature of higher being. and just as time is relative, so is size, an elephant may seem huge to an ant, but to an elephant, it's normal size. and a redwood tree (if it could hypothetically think) would think the elephant is extremely tiny in size.

At 1/5/08 06:39 PM, Drakim wrote:

At 1/5/08 06:34 PM, iamnecromantic wrote: I understand that there is no real proof behind religion, but if you consider a few things in the bible as propaganda so that people think that god is only good and all that crap (which seems to have worked pretty well) then most things can seem at least a little plausible.

lol. So you are saying the Bible is plausible if you take huge chucks of it (you would need to drop the entire Genesis and other things) and say "well, we won't count this part".

Does the same not come true for ALL religions...no, wait....ANYTHING?

i'm not saying drop gigantic chunks, i'm saying god probably didn't create everything in the universe. i'm saying that it was reworded here or there and it stretched the facts a bit. it's like what politicians say in their speeches, it's the same concept with a little flavor to sound like someone is better than he/she really is.

At 1/6/08 10:24 PM, T-W-I-D wrote:

you guys are missing one big thing though. everything is relative. you know how einstein told us that time is relative? that means that flies, which are creatures which like what a few days? they don't feel like their lives last a days, they feel like those 7 days are equivilent to the 70 YEARS we experience,

lol
So do you have an equation that lets us know how fast time flies by depending on your mass?

At 1/6/08 10:04 PM, Earfetish wrote: "And here, let me say once for all, that when I speak of God, I mean the being described by Moses; the Jehovah of the Jews. There may be for aught I know, somewhere in the unknown shoreless vast, some being whose dreams are constellations and within whose thought the infinite exists. About this being, if such a one exists, I have nothing to say. He has written no books, inspired no barbarians, required no worship, and has prepared no hell in which to burn the honest seeker after truth."

That is fantastic and beautiful and it expresses exactly the way I feel better than I currently could.
Who was it that said that, if you can recall?

At 1/7/08 12:17 AM, Schmut wrote: That is fantastic and beautiful and it expresses exactly the way I feel better than I currently could.
Who was it that said that, if you can recall?

It's from a book called 'Some Mistakes of Moses' apparently (google a line), athough I read it in an essay onthis:

www.ebonmusings.org/atheism

I wouldn't ever even call myselt agnostic to this type of God personally, but I definitely grant it as seeming vastly more likely than the more dangerous, divisive, dogmatic Gods.

Indeed I think one of the strongest arguments against organised religion is pointing out how much more sense irreligious deities make. And one of the most unanswered arguments.

At 1/7/08 12:17 AM, Schmut wrote: That is fantastic and beautiful and it expresses exactly the way I feel better than I currently could.
Who was it that said that, if you can recall?

Here's the essay, esé.
http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/great ergod.html
I think you'll like it

Eh?
The quote hasn't appeared in either of your links, but it does in mine

Religion is out dated. It's theories created by men to explain the unexplainable. Many religions have weathered the tests of time by tradition and in my eyes, fear; Fear of being foresaken by a god their peers hold to be true. But science answers the unexplainable by evidence, not blind faith.

At 1/7/08 01:49 AM, Myko324 wrote: Religion is out dated. It's theories created by men to explain the unexplainable. Many religions have weathered the tests of time by tradition and in my eyes, fear; Fear of being foresaken by a god their peers hold to be true. But science answers the unexplainable by evidence, not blind faith.

Very true, except that it doesn't.
I'm a materialist, philosophically speaking, so science is enough for me, but not everyone is willing to accept that we are naught but flesh and bone. What are our emotions? What is love? But energy in the brain or the soul? What is the soul? What are thoughts? How can we physically describe the act of thinking? What was the First Cause?
Religion goes beyond the physically explainable to the physically unknown and unknowable.

At 1/7/08 01:56 AM, Maxben wrote: Very true, except that it doesn't.
I'm a materialist, philosophically speaking, so science is enough for me, but not everyone is willing to accept that we are naught but flesh and bone. What are our emotions? What is love? But energy in the brain or the soul? What is the soul? What are thoughts? How can we physically describe the act of thinking? What was the First Cause?
Religion goes beyond the physically explainable to the physically unknown and unknowable.

I understand what your saying, but we have barely tapped into the human mind and what its capable of. Neurology is a fairly new science. Emotions could simply be electrical impulses responding to a stimulus that does not immediately surface to our conscience. A reflex, if you will, similar to when a doctor taps your knee with a rubber hammer.

At 1/7/08 02:07 AM, Myko324 wrote:

At 1/7/08 01:56 AM, Maxben wrote: Very true, except that it doesn't.
I'm a materialist, philosophically speaking, so science is enough for me, but not everyone is willing to accept that we are naught but flesh and bone. What are our emotions? What is love? But energy in the brain or the soul? What is the soul? What are thoughts? How can we physically describe the act of thinking? What was the First Cause?
Religion goes beyond the physically explainable to the physically unknown and unknowable.

I understand what your saying, but we have barely tapped into the human mind and what its capable of. Neurology is a fairly new science. Emotions could simply be electrical impulses responding to a stimulus that does not immediately surface to our conscience. A reflex, if you will, similar to when a doctor taps your knee with a rubber hammer.

See, that is what I believe. I had a huge argument (in front of the class and I think I won it) with a philosophy teacher once. He was a dualist and argued that you can't based a theory (materialism) on what might happen in the future because we don't know the future. To which i retorted that you can't make a theory based on no solid ground, ground that must be accepted on faith and can never be proven, which leads us back to materialism as the more plausible theory.

Regardless, religion gives answers now. It gives it with the moral authority and certainty that science cannot out of principal of being ever-changing. Science at the lowest level (quantum physics) starts talking about chance rather than laws. It becomes so complex that the avrage person can no longer understand it. And that is why the solidity of religion is so appealing. And that is why religion still has a use: to placate the masses and ease their fear of the unknown much as it did before.

At 1/7/08 02:14 AM, Maxben wrote: Regardless, religion gives answers now. It gives it with the moral authority and certainty that science cannot out of principal of being ever-changing. Science at the lowest level (quantum physics) starts talking about chance rather than laws. It becomes so complex that the avrage person can no longer understand it. And that is why the solidity of religion is so appealing. And that is why religion still has a use: to placate the masses and ease their fear of the unknown much as it did before.

Alas, the perils of "the beginning". But by human nature, we seek truth. And in this day of age, science and religion has clashed together. A battle between scientific method and monotheistic tradition. And as we do not know the future we can predict it logically. How long will limited ancient texts satisfy the ever hungering minds?

At 1/7/08 02:22 AM, Myko324 wrote: Alas, the perils of "the beginning". But by human nature, we seek truth. And in this day of age, science and religion has clashed together. A battle between scientific method and monotheistic tradition. And as we do not know the future we can predict it logically. How long will limited ancient texts satisfy the ever hungering minds?

Until they are proven wrong without a shadow of a doubt. It really is much like a court case and we are the jurors, until we are all convinced we must allow them to roam freely.

At 1/6/08 04:25 PM, Sajberhippien wrote:

At 1/5/08 04:00 PM, Drakim wrote: To me, it's like saying "I believe in equal rights, but black people shouldn't be allowed to be cops". Even though people might find this completely silly, it's much of the same. You argue equal rights for everything but the position of hiring cops, and you argue science for everything but God and miracles.

It's an exception from the main rule, no matter how you look at it. Miracles have never ever been accepted by science, and not because science hates miracles, but because they have turned out to be either frauds or false when we measure their effects.

Here, I don't agree with you. I don't think belief in science must mean naturalism. I personally think it wouldn't be hypocritical or illogical to say "I believe that in some area where science lacks, in some subjects we don't have full information on, there might be something that goes against our theories of the natural laws". I don't believe it myself, but I do think it is a plausible belief.
The problem is when you deny science and say it's wrong because of your belief in a god. For example, believing God created the world in 7 days seems illogical, but believing that a god may have set big bang in action isn't (although having a very strong belief in it might be).

And I don't agree with you either :p

I think it's stupid to live and rely on science 6 days a week, with cars, Internet, electricity, heat, air condition and medicine. And, on the seventh day, go to church and deny all things of science that collides with what the church says. What if the church had said that the sun was made of sprits? Would the buildup of the sun be a contravetional subject like evolution today?

I have no respect for people who claim to support science, but only does so in the areas that science doesn't collide with anything. I would hardly call that supporting science at all. It's like the Christians who only supports those parts of the Bible that doesn't require them to do anything that takes effort.

It's like saying you support Republicans/whatever as long as they don't dissagree with you. It simply a missuse of the word "support".

At 1/7/08 02:50 AM, Drakim wrote: And I don't agree with you either :p

I think it's stupid to live and rely on science 6 days a week, with cars, Internet, electricity, heat, air condition and medicine. And, on the seventh day, go to church and deny all things of science that collides with what the church says. What if the church had said that the sun was made of sprits? Would the buildup of the sun be a contravetional subject like evolution today?

I have no respect for people who claim to support science, but only does so in the areas that science doesn't collide with anything. I would hardly call that supporting science at all. It's like the Christians who only supports those parts of the Bible that doesn't require them to do anything that takes effort.

It's like saying you support Republicans/whatever as long as they don't dissagree with you. It simply a missuse of the word "support".

The religion/science conflict arises when two unknowns collide. To think the sun as spirits would be an argument won by the scientists because its not a theory on the unknown, but truths through evidence. Issues like the beginning of humans is unknown, thus, conflict.

To those saying that science is irrelevant to religion, would you honestly keep this assertion if say, forensic archaeologists found DNA evidence to prove Jesus had no biological father?
That's what I thought.

At 1/7/08 02:58 AM, Myko324 wrote: The religion/science conflict arises when two unknowns collide. To think the sun as spirits would be an argument won by the scientists because its not a theory on the unknown, but truths through evidence. Issues like the beginning of humans is unknown, thus, conflict.

Actually, the idea of common decent is quite supported, and not really unknown anymore.

At 1/7/08 04:17 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: To those saying that science is irrelevant to religion, would you honestly keep this assertion if say, forensic archaeologists found DNA evidence to prove Jesus had no biological father?
That's what I thought.

If science proves it, than it is right. But so far there is no proof of it even being a possibility in science!
The thing about science is that it can change. What was right today may be wrong tomorrow because of new evidence and new information. Religion is rigid, it cannot change without a major fight. If the DNA proved Jesus to have no biological father, I would have no problem converting to Christianity until (and if) evidence comes out to go against that proof. You have to know how to adapt.

At 1/7/08 04:55 AM, Maxben wrote:

At 1/7/08 04:17 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: To those saying that science is irrelevant to religion, would you honestly keep this assertion if say, forensic archaeologists found DNA evidence to prove Jesus had no biological father?
That's what I thought.

If science proves it, than it is right. But so far there is no proof of it even being a possibility in science!
The thing about science is that it can change. What was right today may be wrong tomorrow because of new evidence and new information. Religion is rigid, it cannot change without a major fight. If the DNA proved Jesus to have no biological father, I would have no problem converting to Christianity until (and if) evidence comes out to go against that proof. You have to know how to adapt.

Yes, exactly. But what would happen if DNA proved Jesus DID have a father? Would any Christians reconvert?

Science seems to be ignored if it argues against people's religion, and claimed to have nothing with religion to do. But should it support religion, the religions would refer to it all the time. It's dishonesty in my eyes.

At 1/7/08 01:56 AM, Maxben wrote:

At 1/7/08 01:49 AM, Myko324 wrote: Religion is out dated. It's theories created by men to explain the unexplainable. Many religions have weathered the tests of time by tradition and in my eyes, fear; Fear of being foresaken by a god their peers hold to be true. But science answers the unexplainable by evidence, not blind faith.

Very true, except that it doesn't.
I'm a materialist, philosophically speaking, so science is enough for me, but not everyone is willing to accept that we are naught but flesh and bone. What are our emotions? What is love? But energy in the brain or the soul? What is the soul? What are thoughts? How can we physically describe the act of thinking? What was the First Cause?
Religion goes beyond the physically explainable to the physically unknown and unknowable.

I agree with the general idea, but you're kind of going over the top with the description. here's my view of what you just said (correct me if i'm wrong): science has pinpointed major functions of the human brain to specific parts, but science has yet to find where the human element comes in. can we place every aspect of our persona in the brain alone? let's face it, the brain is a big wad of neurons.

At 1/7/08 05:01 AM, Drakim wrote: Science seems to be ignored if it argues against people's religion, and claimed to have nothing with religion to do. But should it support religion, the religions would refer to it all the time. It's dishonesty in my eyes.

Muslims love to pretend that the Qu'ran has lots of scientific revelations in (although of course it doesn't). I think it's very telling of the divine inspiration of religion, that they don't contain any new scientific information. Imagine how many more believers there would be if God, in His inspiring, had decided to let the desert nomads know about gravity or the solar system. But no.

I think science and religion are bound to collide, they have done throughout history, and people who are 'striking a balance' are all heathens and blasphemers who have let The Devil tempt them away from the true word of God.

At 1/7/08 06:33 AM, Earfetish wrote:

At 1/7/08 05:01 AM, Drakim wrote: Science seems to be ignored if it argues against people's religion, and claimed to have nothing with religion to do. But should it support religion, the religions would refer to it all the time. It's dishonesty in my eyes.

Muslims love to pretend that the Qu'ran has lots of scientific revelations in (although of course it doesn't). I think it's very telling of the divine inspiration of religion, that they don't contain any new scientific information. Imagine how many more believers there would be if God, in His inspiring, had decided to let the desert nomads know about gravity or the solar system. But no.

I think science and religion are bound to collide, they have done throughout history, and people who are 'striking a balance' are all heathens and blasphemers who have let The Devil tempt them away from the true word of God.

As much as your views on Muslims are interesting, what, may I ask, do you know about the Qu'ran? Have you read it at all or just heard somebody talk about it? As you refer to The Devil and are not a Muslim you must be a Christian, have you read your Bible. If so, which one? Catholic? Lutheran? Southern Baptist? I mean, what is the true word of God?
It bothers me when people speak of other religions when they have not read that religion's texts, the basis of the religion, for themselves. I hate it even more when people say "the true word of God." This is the basic way of saying, everything but what my religion tells me is wrong, which brings us back to the awful rigidity of religion that holds man back from progress!

And iamnecromantic,
You get it (I like going over the top :) ). What you hit on is the main argument of the metaphysical viewpoint known as Dualism, the belief that there is matter AND non-matter as opposed to materialism (only matter) and idealism (only non-matter).

At 1/7/08 06:33 AM, Earfetish wrote: Muslims love to pretend that the Qu'ran has lots of scientific revelations in (although of course it doesn't). I think it's very telling of the divine inspiration of religion, that they don't contain any new scientific information. Imagine how many more believers there would be if God, in His inspiring, had decided to let the desert nomads know about gravity or the solar system. But no.

Yeah, I just love the way anything can be twisted in order to be "scientific". When somebody points out that their holy scripture says that the world is a circle, they take it as evidence for the holy scripture saying that the world is round instead of flat.

However, that is completely up to interpretation. You can argue that circle means spherical, but you could equally argue that circle means a flat world that doesn't have any corners (like a giant pizza).

The real question is then why God would chose to use such vauge terms. Being omnipotent, he would surely know about the problems that would arise by using the world circle to describe a sphere (which is an clear error. Only uneducated people and children would think that a circle and a sphere is the same thing).