A = a;



  • @plazmo said:

     

    Take a look at life without god. It really would be no different. The only difference is people would help others because they want to not because they had to. People live equally happy lives believing or not. And the thing that makes me proud about being atheist is i know _everything_ i do is is a result of my own doing and will, without the need to rely on anything else. i.e. i dont need to pray for help for something to happen because i know i can do it myself.

     

    The biggest difference is where we choose to spend eternity. I would like some of you to spend it in heaven, but you're free to choose your own path.



  • @pitchingchris said:

    Going with another post from Heron (about how the brain ticks).  Just think how powerful our brains really are. Sure you can talk about neurons and so forth, but the amount of processing that it does in a short period of time is pretty awesome. I don't see how anybody can deny its a great gift. Our bodies senses working together so flawlessly, like a well oiled machine. Think about pattern recognition software. About the complexity and computing power to recognize complex objects, but with just our eyes and our brain, we can make an almost instantaneous analysis of what an object is. Nothing man made will ever come so close :)

    ( Our brains are good at doing day-to-day things like recognizing physical objects. But computers win in most other areas of pattern matching and computation. Plus computers don't make mistakes. And if we had a real need for computers to recognize physical objects on the fly, I'm sure we'd have some good apps for that by now. But we just don't need them, do we?

    Also, not everyone's bodies work like a "well oiled machine." Many people rely on technology and modern medicine to make up for their disabilities. I mean really, you're just silly.

    It seems to me you would have done better to argue things that humans can do that computers really can't. Like thinking, feeling, loving, etc. )



  • @pitchingchris said:

    @plazmo said:
     

    Take a look at life without god. It really would be no different. The only difference is people would help others because they want to not because they had to. People live equally happy lives believing or not. And the thing that makes me proud about being atheist is i know _everything_ i do is is a result of my own doing and will, without the need to rely on anything else. i.e. i dont need to pray for help for something to happen because i know i can do it myself.

     

    The biggest difference is where we choose to spend eternity. I would like some of you to spend it in heaven, but you're free to choose your own path.

     

    Your right, your goal in life is to do enough right to make it to heaven.  My goal in life is to actually make a difference in the world. My goal is not selfish. I choose to help out of my own free will. If you dont help youll be damned. I am contributing to the advancement of the human race because i want to not because i have to.



  • @Heron said:

    @The Vicar said:

    That is approximately the process which has been accomplished in the case of the human brain. We have well over a century of medical records of people whose brains have been damaged in different ways, and they tally. If your brain is damaged in one way, you lose your long-term memory. Another way, and you can no longer speak. Another way and you no longer care about other people's misfortune. We are slowly but surely learning to differentiate between problems caused by physical dysfunction within the brain (which require a neurological solution) and those which are not (which can be treated psychologically).

     

    You are, of course, arguing under an incorrect assumption of what a soul is (or, if you prefer, would be).  You state that since we can prove that if a certain part of the brain is damaged, then it stops working, for various parts of the brain, that a soul cannot exist.  This is a flawed assumption.

    Take the following example:  You are driving a car.  Someone shoots your car's tire as you drive by - you lose partial control of the vehicle.  (Someone hits you in the head with a baseball bat.  You lose partial brain function.)  Your argument is like saying that since part of the car ceases to function, then it cannot have a driver attempting to control it - you're saying that because part of your body ceases to function when it gets damaged, there can be no soul or spirit in control of it.

    The reason your argument is flawed is quite obvious.


    You aren't even reading my posts -- you appear to be making up something and putting it in my mouth. (Which, incidentally, is how a "straw man argument" actually works in practice. Funny that I'm being accused of making them, but not you.) I am not saying "this can be faulty, therefore it can't be controlled by a soul". I'm saying "this can be faulty, and it exhibits X behavior when it is faulty. If it were controlled by a soul it would have Y behavior, which is different. Therefore it is not controlled by a soul."

    I'm not sure what's going on here -- are you ignoring the actual content of my posts because they make you uncomfortable, or are you genuinely unable to follow an argument?



  • @Heron said:

     Corporate peons are really no different than people who believe in God.  They both believe there are external forces outside of what we know that are giving us help/power [upper management?].  They both have their own books [operations manual, anyone?] that came directly from the sources.  They both have to prove that they are worthy by working as dictated by said books else they will not recieve the benefits they believe were promised to them in the end [end of year raises?].... I could go on.
     

    I guess i didn't stress enough how irrelevant your points are when your comparing apples to oranges. I'm saying both your believes are of something that is true only because you cannot prove it false.  You cannot try to compare a fact to a believe, completely different. You can prove the sources for a manual, you cannot prove the source for the bible.  Think about how crazy a person must be to think they can get powers from a demon to live forever, but you wont think twice about your god doing the same for you.

    @Heron said:


    Unfortunately, there is a strong correlation between increased selfishness of the american public and decrease in religious beliefs.  So your argument doesn't really hold - people won't help because they want to, they'll just do whatever benefits themselves the most.  Because that's what is actually happening.
     

     Wow, i don't want to do the research for the reference again so take this for what it is, but there are countries with far less religious beliefs then America and still have higher morals/respect for each other.



  • @plazmo said:

    @pitchingchris said:
    @plazmo said:
     

    Take a look at life without god. It really would be no different. The only difference is people would help others because they want to not because they had to. People live equally happy lives believing or not. And the thing that makes me proud about being atheist is i know _everything_ i do is is a result of my own doing and will, without the need to rely on anything else. i.e. i dont need to pray for help for something to happen because i know i can do it myself.

    The biggest difference is where we choose to spend eternity. I would like some of you to spend it in heaven, but you're free to choose your own path.

    Your right, your goal in life is to do enough right to make it to heaven.  My goal in life is to actually make a difference in the world. My goal is not selfish. I choose to help out of my own free will. If you dont help youll be damned. I am contributing to the advancement of the human race because i want to not because i have to.

    I can assure you that no one can make it to heaven on his own doing.  Just think about if you died today and had to face God, and he asked you "Why should I let you into heaven?" what would you say ?   For even if we did the most we could to be the best people we could be, we still would be stained from sin.  But there is hope because Jesus is that bridge to cleanse that sin.  It is by the grace of Jesus Christ that we can be cleansed so that we can enter heaven.  It is similar to us being in jail for our sins. Jesus paid the price for our sins by his death on the cross and set us free.  It is this gift that makes us clean enough to enter heaven.  The only reason I'm going on and on is that you say you can try to get to heaven, yet you say you are an athiest.  

    Also, I can assure you that I am like I am because I want to be, not because I have to be. Choosing God is not a force but a choice.

     



  •  

     Wow, i don't want to do the research for the reference again so take this for what it is, but there are countries with far less religious beliefs then America and still have higher morals/respect for each other.

    You are right, but that doesn't apply to all of America, but only to some people. The same to anywhere else.



  • @plazmo said:

    @pitchingchris said:
    @plazmo said:
     

    Take a look at life without god. It really would be no different. The only difference is people would help others because they want to not because they had to. People live equally happy lives believing or not. And the thing that makes me proud about being atheist is i know _everything_ i do is is a result of my own doing and will, without the need to rely on anything else. i.e. i dont need to pray for help for something to happen because i know i can do it myself.

    The biggest difference is where we choose to spend eternity. I would like some of you to spend it in heaven, but you're free to choose your own path.

     

    Your right, your goal in life is to do enough right to make it to heaven.  My goal in life is to actually make a difference in the world. My goal is not selfish. I choose to help out of my own free will. If you dont help youll be damned. I am contributing to the advancement of the human race because i want to not because i have to.

    The question is, though, what are we striving for?  Is the ultimate goal simply a quiet, sustaining, problem-free utopia?  What good is comfort and health once everybody is comfortable and healthy?  To be born, live, and die in comfort?  That sounds horribly dull to me...

    Just being a "devil's advocate" if you'll excuse the expression. 



  • @djork said:

    @plazmo said:
    @pitchingchris said:
    @plazmo said:
     

    Take a look at life without god. It really would be no different. The only difference is people would help others because they want to not because they had to. People live equally happy lives believing or not. And the thing that makes me proud about being atheist is i know _everything_ i do is is a result of my own doing and will, without the need to rely on anything else. i.e. i dont need to pray for help for something to happen because i know i can do it myself.

    The biggest difference is where we choose to spend eternity. I would like some of you to spend it in heaven, but you're free to choose your own path.

     

    Your right, your goal in life is to do enough right to make it to heaven.  My goal in life is to actually make a difference in the world. My goal is not selfish. I choose to help out of my own free will. If you dont help youll be damned. I am contributing to the advancement of the human race because i want to not because i have to.

    The question is, though, what are we striving for?  Is the ultimate goal simply a quiet, sustaining, problem-free utopia?  What good is comfort and health once everybody is comfortable and healthy?  To be born, live, and die in comfort?  That sounds horribly dull to me...

    Just being a "devil's advocate" if you'll excuse the expression. 

    My belief is since there is no god we are just like any other living creature.  Our lives goal is simply to sustain the human races existence.  I know how pointless it makes our lives, but i think its the truth. We are no different then a bacteria or fish, except more intelligent. Everything evolved from a single something and adapted and evolved differently to what it is now. Humans simply developed intelligence to counter other predators and we have evolved from that.  And its our job as humans to reproduce.

    Im just going to throw this in cause its interesting, but do you know why sex feels so good? Because if it didnt there would be no reason to have sex, its the way our bodies developed to entice us into having sex.



  • @plazmo said:

     Everything evolved from a single something and adapted and evolved differently to what it is now. 

     
    So which came first, the chicken, or the egg ?
     



  • @pitchingchris said:

    @plazmo said:
    Everything evolved from a single something and adapted and evolved differently to what it is now.
    So which came first, the chicken, or the egg ?  
    The egg came first. Everyone knows that.



  • @pitchingchris said:

    @plazmo said:

     Everything evolved from a single something and adapted and evolved differently to what it is now. 

     
    So which came first, the chicken, or the egg ?
     

     

    The theory i believe, granted its impossible to tell. Is DNA was created out of random chance. The DNA reproduced faster then it was destroyed, and it all went from there. (Dont think it was exactly DNA but something similar)

    And how did DNA randomly get created? Well think about the Infinite monkey theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem). Given infinite amount of time and infinite amounts of energy, which could be from anything (i.e. infinite big bangs). Anything imaginable has the possibility to be created, and through random occurrence DNA was created. This could have been created infinite number of times, but earth is the only known place were it survived.



  • @belgariontheking said:

    @The Vicar said:

    Forget I spoke. After all, religion clearly is clearly totally harmless with no negative effects on the real world.

    I think it's sad that you can only point out the articles that show religion in a bad light.  How about the fact that 90+% of the relief efforts in the world come from some religious background?  Where would it come from if not from churches, synagogues, etc.  Certainly not from our government.  The best schools in America started as religious institutions.

    Furthermore, let's talk about how faith improves onesself.  Not in every case, but in the vast majority of cases, faith serves to encourage the side of us that says "stealing/etc. is wrong."  That side of us would still exist without religion and faith, but would need to be encouraged through other means.  Not to say that in certain sects of certain religions, the wrong side is encouraged (suicide bombings, etc.) but for the vast majority of "religious people," it's a generally positive thing. 

    I'm not sure what you were trying to say with your flame, but religion is not a blanket bad thing.  For as many articles as you can find, I can find as many to show religion does good things.  It's sad to not be able to see the good and great things that faith can do in people and the world. 


    You are saying, in effect, that people are basically evil, and need religion to make them good. (That is, if religion didn't tell them "stealing/etc. is wrong" they would go out and do it.) I hold that most people are basically good, and that religion's primary effect on their behavior is negative.

    We have evidence that the species whose genetics most closely match ours have a [url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4207351.stm]sense of justice and fair play[/url], but they have no religion. It would be very odd if the addition of rational thought somehow turned that off.

    Furthermore, nobody claims that more than one major religion is true. Therefore the majority of religions must be false. Thus they are made up and maintained by human beings. If, as you suggest, religions are actually positive things, then the fact that a majority of religions are derived from humans means that humans do not need the divine to be good. This is supported, as well, by the behavior of atheists. The two greatest U.S. donors to charity in 2006 were atheists, for example.

    At the same time, donating money to a church actually [i]reduces[/i] the amount of money that is given to actual charity. Even ignoring the [url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2625464.ece]outlier points[/url], the average U.S. church/synagogue/whatever, if you go to the census bureau and look at the figures, spends less than $20 per month on actual charitable pursuits, but takes in several hundred dollars during that time. (Most of it goes to things like building maintenance, heat, office supplies, office staff, etc.) If you accept that people would give money to charity anyway, even if they would give a relatively small fraction of what they give to the church, then you accept that the mere existence of religious organizations [i]decreases[/i] the amount of charitable donation that a churchgoer gives.

    You don't need religion to derive the golden rule (and it is true that "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" predates Christianity by centuries). You don't need religion to set up laws and a government -- heck, the U.S. Constitution mentions God precisely zero times; the only place religion arises at all is where it says in the Bill of Rights that the government can't make any religion official. You don't need religion to run a charity --Doctors Without Borders, for example. You can be as good as you like without religion.

    You do, however, need religion to convince people that they will be damned for all eternity. You need it to convince them that they should listen to you and obey you when you have no qualifications for that role. You need it to get money out of people in exchange for nothing, or to make them docile without drugs, or just to keep them from thinking about topics you would rather keep quiet. You need it to convince them to leave their children in your care and not ask questions when those children are abused. (Did you know that in a majority of recent cases, pedophile priests have been defended by the very families whose children they assaulted, and the defenders cited religion as the reason?) You need religion to resist any form of medical research, and to make people refuse treatments that could save their lives. You need religion to convince people not to plan for the future. You need religion to convince people that the private behavior of a tiny minority is a more important issue than public behavior effecting everyone.

    Good people do good without prompting. Evil people do evil without prompting. But to make a good person do evil takes faith.



  • @Welbog said:

    @pitchingchris said:
    @plazmo said:
    Everything evolved from a single something and adapted and evolved differently to what it is now.
    So which came first, the chicken, or the egg ?  
    The egg came first. Everyone knows that.

    So long ago it just went "poof" an egg was there.... weird.



  • @plazmo said:

    And how did DNA randomly get created? Well think about the Infinite monkey theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem). Given infinite amount of time and infinite amounts of energy, which could be from anything (i.e. infinite big bangs). Anything imaginable has the possibility to be created, and through random occurrence DNA was created. This could have been created infinite number of times, but earth is the only known place were it survived.

    Thanks to the invention of the Internet, we can now say, without a doubt, that the infinite monkey theorem is not effective in practice.



  • @plazmo said:

    Infinite monkey theorem

     Where did they get all those typewriters ?



  • @plazmo said:

    Your right, your goal in life is to do enough right to make it to heaven.  My goal in life is to actually make a difference in the world. My goal is not selfish. I choose to help out of my own free will. If you dont help youll be damned. I am contributing to the advancement of the human race because i want to not because i have to.

    So you're saying that noone who is religious wants to help the advancement of the human race?  They only do it because, dangit, God will punish them if they don't?  You seem to think that religious people are actually bad people that are being good only because they feel obligated to do so.  I, for one, object to that opinion.

    It's all about consequences.  I know, for example, that if I show up for work every day, I'll get paid regularly.  I also know that if I work extra hard every day, and make a difference, I'll probably get a raise and perhaps a promotion.  If I don't work, I'll get fired.  None of that means that I can't choose to work hard, or choose to slack off, or that I only work hard because I'm obligated to.  If I work hard, it's because I want to - end of story.  It's the same way with religious people who are obedient to what they see as commandments of God - generally speaking, they obey because they want to.   God, in just about everyone's view of Him, does not force anyone's decisions.  He rewards people who obey him - much as our bosses pay us if we do our jobs.

    So don't go around claiming only non-religious people are genuinely interested in the advancement of the human race.  If you actually believe that, you're sadly mistaken. 



  • @The Vicar said:


    This is supported, as well, by the behavior of atheists. The two greatest U.S. donors to charity in 2006 were atheists, for example.

    I'd be happy to agree with you that your average atheist is also the average person, who is not too terrible in most contexts...

    But "the behavior of atheists" can also bring you wonderful things like Finland's first school shooting, and North Korea.

    @The Vicar said:

    You don't need religion to derive the golden rule (and it is true that "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" predates Christianity by centuries).

    But you would need to go to a religious text to find instructions to go above and beyond that: to love your enemies, to wish for the best for the people that have it out for you.

    @The Vicar said:

    ... listen to you and obey you when you have no qualifications for that role ...

    ... get money out of people in exchange for nothing ...

    ... make them docile without drugs ...

    ... keep them from thinking about topics you would rather keep quiet ...

    I know this is the popular pessimistic view of organized religion, but I've never seen such things.  Maybe I need to hang out with right-wing fundies?  Do you?  Because I don't see these sorts of things coming from religious people.



  • @plazmo said:

    You can prove the sources for a manual, you cannot prove the source for the bible.  Think about how crazy a person must be to think they can get powers from a demon to live forever, but you wont think twice about your god doing the same for you.

     No, you cannot prove the source for the Bible, because you refuse to do what the Bible itself identifies as the method by which its truth can be shown.  Allow me to quote:

    @James 1:5 said:

    And if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

    I don't want to get flamed by any anti-Mormons that may be lurking about, but I'll also comment that the Book of Mormon makes the same type of promise - pray to God to know if it is true, and He will let you know through the Spirit that it indeed is true.

    Go ahead, take it literally - pray to God and ask him sincerely to know that He exists.  He will answer.

    To all you scientists out there, this is a repeatable experiment.  Anyone who wishes can try it.  But I warn you that if you do not pray with sincerity - that means if you're only trying so you can "prove that crazy religious guy wrong" - you will get no answer.

    I got an answer, when I finally prayed sincerely instead of by rote, and not before that.  (Yes, I was raised in this religion, but that doesn't mean I always truly believed.  I had to work it out for myself.)

    Most of you are going to write it off as "tricks of your brain" or something lame like that.  I cannot deny what I felt.  You cannot prove I did not feel what I felt, and you cannot prove that it was not what I say it was.  This time, the evidence is on my side, though few if any of you will believe - I tried what the scriptures describe as the method to learn of their truthfulness, and it worked as described.

    It's like reading a math book or CS book describing the Fast Fourier Transform and thinking to yourself, I don't think that works.  How do you prove it to yourself?  You try it.  When you work through it and find the proof that the FFT works as described, you then know that it is valid.  You wouldn't accept other people telling you "no, you just made up in your head that the FFT works."  You'd get them to go through the math themselves.

    That is how I know God exists - and you can repeat the same experiment if you so desire.



  • just thought yall might be interested in this article about Michal Yang. He is a techie internet multimillionaire.



  • @pitchingchris said:

    @Welbog said:
    @pitchingchris said:
    @plazmo said:
    Everything evolved from a single something and adapted and evolved differently to what it is now.
    So which came first, the chicken, or the egg ?  
    The egg came first. Everyone knows that.
    So long ago it just went "poof" an egg was there.... weird.
    No no no no no. An animal that was not a chicken laid an egg that contained what we now call a chicken. This is basic evolution.



  • @The Vicar said:

    You aren't even reading my posts -- you appear to be making up something and putting it in my mouth. (Which, incidentally, is how a "straw man argument" actually works in practice. Funny that I'm being accused of making them, but not you.) I am not saying "this can be faulty, therefore it can't be controlled by a soul". I'm saying "this can be faulty, and it exhibits X behavior when it is faulty. If it were controlled by a soul it would have Y behavior, which is different. Therefore it is not controlled by a soul."

    And how do you know that X behaviour and Y behaviour are different?  If you cut the arm off a robot (cut the arm off a body) the program controlling the robot can no longer use that arm (the spirit can no longer use the arm).  If you shoot a nailgun at the robot's hard drive, it probably won't be able to store anything long-term - and how do you know Alzheimer's isn't doing the same thing to a person's brain?  (Hint: you don't, because noone knows exactly how Alzheimer's works.)

    My point was that your reasoning about what a soul would do could very well be incorrect - we don't understand how the brain works, so we can't know how something controlling it (assuming such a thing exists) would react when the brain is damaged.

    Basically, if you deny the existence of a soul, you cannot make assumptions about how it would behave under any circumstances, let alone circumstances where the body or brain has been damaged or incapacitated.  (It's the same as the "If there were a God, he would do X" argument.  If you deny the existence of God, you cannot make assumptions about what he would or would not do.)



  • @djork said:

    @plazmo said:

    And how did DNA randomly get created? Well think about the Infinite monkey theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem). Given infinite amount of time and infinite amounts of energy, which could be from anything (i.e. infinite big bangs). Anything imaginable has the possibility to be created, and through random occurrence DNA was created. This could have been created infinite number of times, but earth is the only known place were it survived.

    Thanks to the invention of the Internet, we can now say, without a doubt, that the infinite monkey theorem is not effective in practice.

    Where do you see this?  Granted there are skeptics against everything, but most everything i read says this theorem is mathematically possible.

     

    @pitchingchris said:

    @plazmo said:

    Infinite monkey theorem

     Where did they get all those typewriters ?

    ...

     

     @Heron said:

    So you're saying that noone who is religious wants to help the advancement of the human race?  They only do it because, dangit, God will punish them if they don't?  You seem to think that religious people are actually bad people that are being good only because they feel obligated to do so.  I, for one, object to that opinion.

    It's all about consequences.  I know, for example, that if I show up for work every day, I'll get paid regularly.  I also know that if I work extra hard every day, and make a difference, I'll probably get a raise and perhaps a promotion.  If I don't work, I'll get fired.  None of that means that I can't choose to work hard, or choose to slack off, or that I only work hard because I'm obligated to.  If I work hard, it's because I want to - end of story.  It's the same way with religious people who are obedient to what they see as commandments of God - generally speaking, they obey because they want to.   God, in just about everyone's view of Him, does not force anyone's decisions.  He rewards people who obey him - much as our bosses pay us if we do our jobs.

    So don't go around claiming only non-religious people are genuinely interested in the advancement of the human race.  If you actually believe that, you're sadly mistaken. 

    Honestly i know a lot of religious people do a lot out of their own will, not because their are obligated. If i had to say one good thing about religion, it would be that it gives people a reason to work together, and their attempt to instill values. But its still something that can be done just as well without religion.



  • @The Vicar said:

    You do, however, need religion to convince people that they will be damned for all eternity. You need it to convince them that they should listen to you and obey you when you have no qualifications for that role. You need it to get money out of people in exchange for nothing, or to make them docile without drugs, or just to keep them from thinking about topics you would rather keep quiet. You need it to convince them to leave their children in your care and not ask questions when those children are abused. (Did you know that in a majority of recent cases, pedophile priests have been defended by the very families whose children they assaulted, and the defenders cited religion as the reason?) You need religion to resist any form of medical research, and to make people refuse treatments that could save their lives. You need religion to convince people not to plan for the future. You need religion to convince people that the private behavior of a tiny minority is a more important issue than public behavior effecting everyone.

    Wow.  I don't know what crappy religions you've been involved with, but none of that describes my church.  I can go point-counterpoint if you want, but I'd rather not take the time - none of that describes my church at all.  Yes, there are some religions that make crazy claims or expound crazy ideas - but to take those groups and generalize them to every religion is just plain dumb.



  • @plazmo said:

    @djork said:

    Thanks to the invention of the Internet, we can now say, without a doubt, that the infinite monkey theorem is not effective in practice.

    Where do you see this?  Granted there are skeptics against everything, but most everything i read says this theorem is mathematically possible.

    It's just a joke.



  • @Welbog said:

    @pitchingchris said:
    @Welbog said:
    @pitchingchris said:
    @plazmo said:
    Everything evolved from a single something and adapted and evolved differently to what it is now.
    So which came first, the chicken, or the egg ?  
    The egg came first. Everyone knows that.
    So long ago it just went "poof" an egg was there.... weird.
    No no no no no. An animal that was not a chicken laid an egg that contained what we now call a chicken. This is basic evolution.

    It seems like people make fun of evolution because they dont understand it. Its slow mutations over time the help creatures adapt to changes in their environment. Strong mutations are passed on through heredity. Think of like a giraffe. They had shorter necks at one time, being a different creature all together. Well through mutation a giraffe got a slightly longer neck and it had an advantage to the other giraffes so i could live longer and mate more, which made more long necked giraffes. Then the process continues till they get to their peek performance, ones that had to long or short of necks died, leaving what there is today.



  • @plazmo said:

    It seems like people make fun of evolution because they dont understand it. Its slow mutations over time the help creatures adapt to changes in their environment. Strong mutations are passed on through heredity. Think of like a giraffe. They had shorter necks at one time, being a different creature all together. Well through mutation a giraffe got a slightly longer neck and it had an advantage to the other giraffes so i could live longer and mate more, which made more long necked giraffes. Then the process continues till they get to their peek performance, ones that had to long or short of necks died, leaving what there is today.

    I'm a macro-evolution skeptic, so maybe you can help me with one major stumbling point: bats.  As far as I know there are no fossil bats that are anything close to resembling anything other than bats.  They're just bats, and have just been bats as far as we can observe.

    Addendum: We know that bats seem to have appeared at a certain point in time.  Obviously I'm not making a claim that bats existed alongside trilobites. 



  • @djork said:

    @plazmo said:

    It seems like people make fun of evolution because they dont understand it. Its slow mutations over time the help creatures adapt to changes in their environment. Strong mutations are passed on through heredity. Think of like a giraffe. They had shorter necks at one time, being a different creature all together. Well through mutation a giraffe got a slightly longer neck and it had an advantage to the other giraffes so i could live longer and mate more, which made more long necked giraffes. Then the process continues till they get to their peek performance, ones that had to long or short of necks died, leaving what there is today.

    I'm a macro-evolution skeptic, so maybe you can help me with one major stumbling point: bats.  As far as I know there are no fossil bats that are anything close to resembling anything other than bats.  They're just bats, and have just been bats as far as we can observe.

    Addendum: We know that bats seem to have appeared at a certain point in time.  Obviously I'm not making a claim that bats existed alongside trilobites. 

    Id like to know that myself. Bats dont seem to have derived from any other creature. But i do know they creep the hell out of me.



  • @The Vicar said:

    Jesus, though, according to his own followers, was human. Humans are completely material. Therefore, Jesus had no non-material parts. The material parts of him are subject to ordinary entropy, which means he is dead. (You can preserve a human's form for a millennium or so, but it requires internal dessication, and the various bits which keep you alive stop working.)
    I think it's not too difficult to imagine a humanoid creature that lives for 2000 years or more. It would just have to be a little bit different than normal humans, and it doesn't seem too unreasonable to expect a god to be able to make those little corrections.
    Anyway, it's a pointless discussion, since beliefers don't think that Jesus is still a human in flesh and blood hidden somewhere in a cave.
     
    Eventually, we would learn the functions of every part of a computer, and have no functions left which a soul could oversee or influence. We would then have to conclude that computers either have no soul or that the soul has no part in actually making the computer work. We still wouldn't know [i]how[/i] a CPU works (or at least, this ignorance would be possible), or how to make a CPU, but we would still know that the computer is completely material.

    And still, since we do not know how the "CPU" part works, it's just as possible that the CPU is just a proxy that uses some kind of wireless network to communicate with the real CPU, which could be located somewhere else. Let's assume such a setup. Is this remote computer a "soul"? Hard to tell, without a proper definition of "soul". But it definitely isn't part of the physical computer we analyze.



  • @asuffield said:

    Which reminds me, this is all religious crack anyway. Science can both prove and disprove statements. A statement which cannot be disproven is deemed "unfalsifiable", which carries the implication of "this statement is malformed; go back and write it properly in a way that can be disproven". An unfalsifiable statement is not scientific, and furthermore is a pointless waste of space that can never carry any useful information. An unfalsifiable statement can either be corrected into a meaningful falsifiable statement, or it is nonsense, depending on whether or not the author has any real point to make.

    "There is an invisible pink unicorn" is unfalsifiable and meaningless - who could possibly care whether this statement is true?

    If religion was just about telling "there is a god", I would call it meaningless, too. But most religions tell us "there is a god, and you should do this and avoid that". Religion offers reasons. Reasons to live, reasons to be good to others. Unfortunately, in many cases, also reasons to hurt other people. A completely material world is IMO inherently meaningless. In such a world, it can't be wrong to believe in god, since "right" and "wrong" have no meaning at all in a completely material world. It might be "wrong" in the sense that it doesn't match the actual facts, but that doesn't matter. There is nothing to gain, nothing to lose. Religion is a waste of time and energy? Maybe, but what isn't? What does "waste" mean anyway in a completely material world?



  • @ammoQ said:

    @asuffield said:

    Which reminds me, this is all religious crack anyway. Science can both prove and disprove statements. A statement which cannot be disproven is deemed "unfalsifiable", which carries the implication of "this statement is malformed; go back and write it properly in a way that can be disproven". An unfalsifiable statement is not scientific, and furthermore is a pointless waste of space that can never carry any useful information. An unfalsifiable statement can either be corrected into a meaningful falsifiable statement, or it is nonsense, depending on whether or not the author has any real point to make.

    "There is an invisible pink unicorn" is unfalsifiable and meaningless - who could possibly care whether this statement is true?

    If religion was just about telling "there is a god", I would call it meaningless, too. But most religions tell us "there is a god, and you should do this and avoid that".

    This thread doesn't.



  • @asuffield said:

    @ammoQ said:

    If religion was just about telling "there is a god", I would call it meaningless, too. But most religions tell us "there is a god, and you should do this and avoid that".

    This thread doesn't.

    Actually, it does. It tells us "Thou shalt write posts about IT and avoid discussions about religion, for trolls and flames await those who do not obey"



  • @ammoQ said:

    Actually, it does. It tells us "Thou shalt write posts about IT and avoid discussions about religion, for trolls and flames await those who do not obey"

    But it's fun sometimes :D 



  • I still cant believe a simple joke based on lyrics from a Bloodhound Gang song snowballed into this.

    I am fascinated. Plus the amount of posts is great.

    ...And TR said no one ever replies to my post(s).

     

    HA!

    And to all of you, just lighten up, who really cares if there is a god, or there isnt? (or Jesus, Buddha, Muhammed, spaghetti monster or whatever else...)

    Just live your life, and let others live theirs. If you are so committed to something you feel the need to push it on others, maybe you should just plain BE committed. 



  • For those things in the provable, scientific realm, I trust reason and science. These are pretty much things in the physical realm.

    For my relationships with my fellow human beings, I rely on reason and emotion. The mixture depends on the situation.

    For things which reason and science cannot provide an answer (or the basis for an answer), I will trust God. For example, science cannot tell us what happens to our 'selves' after we die. The best guess, scientifically, is that we cease to exist. This is because, as scientists, we cannot measure anything relevant to the question. As a reasonable person, I might say that consciousness does not carry on after death. However, I cannot devise a test to prove it one way or another. I am hopeful, and have faith, that my consciousness will carry on. (If I'm wrong --- no great loss --- as long as I've not blown anybody up!)



  • @ammoQ said:

    @asuffield said:
    @ammoQ said:

    If religion was just about telling "there is a god", I would call it meaningless, too. But most religions tell us "there is a god, and you should do this and avoid that".

    This thread doesn't.

    Actually, it does. It tells us "Thou shalt write posts about IT and avoid discussions about religion, for trolls and flames await those who do not obey"

    I like threads about religion in forums other then ones dedicated for it because it beings in so many more varieties of opinion. Also, it a nice place to spread your believes to lurkers who would otherwise not read about this topic. I don't doubt threads like these make more people think about their beliefs then we realize, the internet is powerful.



  • @plazmo said:

    @ammoQ said:
    @asuffield said:
    @ammoQ said:

    If religion was just about telling "there is a god", I would call it meaningless, too. But most religions tell us "there is a god, and you should do this and avoid that".

    This thread doesn't.

    Actually, it does. It tells us "Thou shalt write posts about IT and avoid discussions about religion, for trolls and flames await those who do not obey"

    I like threads about religion in forums other then ones dedicated for it because it beings in so many more varieties of opinion. Also, it a nice place to spread your believes to lurkers who would otherwise not read about this topic. I don't doubt threads like these make more people think about their beliefs then we realize, the internet is powerful.

    TRWTF is trying to 'spread your beliefs'. Especially on the internet.

    On a related note: 

    Jehovahs witnesses are getting their spam bots all warmed up!

    "Make your p3n1s larger! V1agra for all! Oh, and believe in my God!"

     



  • @plazmo said:

    @ammoQ said:
    @asuffield said:
    @ammoQ said:

    If religion was just about telling "there is a god", I would call it meaningless, too. But most religions tell us "there is a god, and you should do this and avoid that".

    This thread doesn't.

    Actually, it does. It tells us "Thou shalt write posts about IT and avoid discussions about religion, for trolls and flames await those who do not obey"

    I like threads about religion in forums other then ones dedicated for it because it beings in so many more varieties of opinion. Also, it a nice place to spread your believes to lurkers who would otherwise not read about this topic. I don't doubt threads like these make more people think about their beliefs then we realize, the internet is powerful.

    It is possible to have a discussion about religion without being a bunch of bloody idiots. This thread is not such a discussion, it's just a handful of people shouting their opinions under the assumption that the one who shouts loudest will be right. Nobody ever learned anything by shouting.



  • @pitchingchris said:

    I do not believe in gods but in God (singular).

    Which precisely is the proof that religions are just a big nonsense, "God" giving different guidelines for the different religions.

    So now, either there is only one God, which would mean all religions that fight each other are doing it for the same God who's having a lot of fun directing them against each other and watching them on the battlefield, or there are different Gods - which would also be contradictory as each religion is fighting to say "mine's the right one". If there's more than one, this should already fall apart as the other ones would supposedly not exist, thus all their believers would be in the void...



  • @pitchingchris said:

    The biggest difference is where we choose to spend eternity. I would like some of you to spend it in heaven, but you're free to choose your own path.


    Conceited. Arrogent. Vain. Judgemental.

    Be quiet.

    @Heron said:
    Corporate peons are really no different than people who believe in God.  They both believe there are external forces outside of what we know that are giving us help/power [upper management?].  They both have their own books [operations manual, anyone?] that came directly from the sources.  They both have to prove that they are worthy by working as dictated by said books else they will not recieve the benefits they believe were promised to them in the end [end of year raises?].... I could go on.


    Management has been observed.
    Bonuses and raises have been observed.
    Operations Manuals have been shown to work.

    @pitchingchris said:
    athiest


    You misspelled "atheist".

    @Heron said:
    To all you scientists out there, this is a repeatable experiment.  Anyone who wishes can try it.  But I warn you that if you do not pray with sincerity - that means if you're only trying so you can "prove that crazy religious guy wrong" - you will get no answer.


    Not repeatable. Not an experiment. Not worth my time.

    There's a dragon in my garage -- but he's inobservable. So you can't ask for observations.

    @Heron said:
    I got an answer, when I finally prayed sincerely instead of by rote, and not before that.  (Yes, I was raised in this religion, but that doesn't mean I always truly believed.  I had to work it out for myself.)


    So what did you observe?

    @Heron said:
    Most of you are going to write it off as "tricks of your brain" or something lame like that.  I cannot deny what I felt.


    Cool. What did you feel?

    @Heron said:
    You cannot prove I did not feel what I felt, and you cannot prove that it was not what I say it was.


    Fair enough. So, come on, say what it was.

    @Heron said:
    This time, the evidence is on my side, though few if any of you will believe


    Yes, I get it -- now please, provide that evidence.

    @Heron said:
    I tried what the scriptures describe as the method to learn of their truthfulness, and it worked as described.


    So describe it already, for pete's sake.



  • @Heron said:

     Same with God.  Unless you can prove
    He does not exist anywhere in the universe (which, again, would require
    observing the entire universe simultaneously), you cannot say with
    scientific certainty that God does not exist.

    Not so, it's easier than that.  Since God is meant to be omnipresent,  you only have to show that there is one place in the universe, however miniscule,  where he does not exist.



  • @dhromed said:

    @pitchingchris said:
    athiest


    You misspelled "atheist".

    Dude!  He's the athiest there is!




  • @DaveK said:

    @Heron said:

     Same with God.  Unless you can prove
    He does not exist anywhere in the universe (which, again, would require
    observing the entire universe simultaneously), you cannot say with
    scientific certainty that God does not exist.

    Not so, it's easier than that.  Since God is meant to be omnipresent,  you only have to show that there is one place in the universe, however miniscule,  where he does not exist.

    True, but even if you could prove that, it would only prove that all possibly existing Gods are not omnipresent. 



  • @Kilrah said:

    @pitchingchris said:

    I do not believe in gods but in God (singular).

    Which precisely is the proof that religions are just a big nonsense, "God" giving different guidelines for the different religions.

    So now, either there is only one God, which would mean all religions that fight each other are doing it for the same God who's having a lot of fun directing them against each other and watching them on the battlefield, or there are different Gods - which would also be contradictory as each religion is fighting to say "mine's the right one". If there's more than one, this should already fall apart as the other ones would supposedly not exist, thus all their believers would be in the void...

    It's obvious that religions are at least 99% man made. Even if there is just one god, who tells the same instructions to all men, people in different regions of the world will interpret it differently, and those who want to fight will find a reason to fight. Hell, even christians of different churches kill each other sometimes, muslims of different denominations kill each other. Definitely not because God or Allah told them so. But then, if God or gods exist, humans stupidity probably wont make them go away.



  • @Heron said:

    Go ahead, take it literally - pray to God and ask him sincerely to know that He exists.  He will answer.

    Or
    you may end up deluding yourself that that has happened, since what you
    describe is basically auto-suggestion.  "Pre-assume your
    conclusion".  A guaranteed recipe for observer bias.

    @Heron said:

    To all you scientists out there, this is a repeatable experiment.  Anyone who wishes can try it.  But I warn you that if you do not pray with sincerity - that means if you're only trying so you can "prove that crazy religious guy wrong" - you will get no answer.

    So in other words, it's not actually repeatable after all.  It's not science if the result is always exactly what you expect it to be - it's looking into a mirror and seeing only your own reflection. @Heron said:

    I got an answer, when I finally prayed sincerely instead of by rote, and not before that.  (Yes, I was raised in this religion, but that doesn't mean I always truly believed.  I had to work it out for myself.)

    Most of you are going to write it off as "tricks of your brain" or something lame like that.  I cannot deny what I felt.  You cannot prove I did not feel what I felt, and you cannot prove that it was not what I say it was.  This time, the evidence is on my side, though few if any of you will believe - I tried what the scriptures describe as the method to learn of their truthfulness, and it worked as described.

    Sure, you know how you felt, but you can't infer from that to what caused your feeling.  How do you know what it would feel like for God to answer you?  You're claiming to have immediately recognized an experience that you had never experienced before - you can have no grounds for faith in your interpretation of your sensum.

    @Heron said:

    It's like reading a math book or CS book describing the Fast Fourier Transform and thinking to yourself, I don't think that works.  How do you prove it to yourself?  You try it.  When you work through it and find the proof that the FFT works as described, you then know that it is valid.  You wouldn't accept other people telling you "no, you just made up in your head that the FFT works."  You'd get them to go through the math themselves.

    But it's not like maths, because maths works whether or not you believe in it, unlike your "experiment" above. 

    That is how I know God exists - and you can repeat the same experiment if you so desire.

    That is how you have convinced yourself God exists.  Big difference.  You are attempting to point at a private ineffable experience inside your own head and claim it as evidence based on a presumed link to a causative agent.  That's really not a good way to go about doing ontology, it's little more than wish-fulfillment.



  • @ammoQ said:

    @DaveK said:
    @Heron said:

     Same with God.  Unless you can prove
    He does not exist anywhere in the universe (which, again, would require
    observing the entire universe simultaneously), you cannot say with
    scientific certainty that God does not exist.

    Not so, it's easier than that.  Since God is meant to be omnipresent,  you only have to show that there is one place in the universe, however miniscule,  where he does not exist.

    True, but even if you could prove that, it would only prove that all possibly existing Gods are not omnipresent. 

    If it's not omnipresent, it's not God, as defined in the debate we're having here, it's something else; I'm addressing the existence or otherwise of the God that Heron is presuming. 



  • @ammoQ said:

    It's obvious that religions are at least 99% man made. Even if there is just one god, who tells the same instructions to all men, people in different regions of the world will interpret it differently, and those who want to fight will find a reason to fight. Hell, even christians of different churches kill each other sometimes, muslims of different denominations kill each other. Definitely not because God or Allah told them so. But then, if God or gods exist, humans stupidity probably wont make them go away.

    Is it obvious to you are right about your religion being in the 1% that was created by god? Well, why wouldn't you be right, its your beliefs and your always right about what you believe in. Doesnt matter that there are millions others with the exact same faith in god as you but they get to go to hell because the god they learned and developed their lives around was not right. Hopefully the person who taught all these people the wrong god burns in a super hell for making all these poor people burn in hell for doing nothing wrong except having complete faith the person teaching them their entire life was correct. Its a shame god doesn't give us signs about his presence any more like he did back in biblical times. Maybe even send in a couple angles again to destroy wrong faiths so we all can worship the right god.

    You can definitely say it is gods fault people are dieing because of god.  Religions say that if you die in the name of god, then thats like an instant ticket to heaven. Well if god didnt tell the religions this, how did it become a practice.



  • I had a thought the other day.  I bet 90% of the people jumping on this Internet atheist troll trend have no problem believing in aliens.  I wonder why that is.



  •  

    You can definitely say it is gods fault people are dieing because of god.  Religions say that if you die in the name of god, then thats like an instant ticket to heaven. Well if god didnt tell the religions this, how did it become a practice.

    People have been saying that to other people for as long as there have been despots. There is no better way to get a bunch of young idiots to go and conquer you a field of oil wells than to tell them that it'll get them into some 'heaven'.



  • @Cap'n Steve said:

    I had a thought the other day.  I bet 90% of the people jumping on this Internet atheist troll trend have no problem believing in aliens.  I wonder why that is.

    Most likely because you have a poor grasp of statistics. 


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