Belief and 'The God Delusion'

[Bankbezel757]

It's kind of funny. Athiests I mean, most of which say there is no absolute truth, which in fact is an absolute statement, so they can't say that.  There's been no true scientific evidence of evolution up to this point, most of the past claims and finding have been frauds. I really don't think evolution is science, it has nothing to back it up, plus, one of the first steps in the scientific method is observation, and they can't really use that in this case.

Both creationists and evolutionists, atheist, etc. Believe what they believe on nothing other than faith, not science, not fact, just faith. Thought the creationist view does have scientific possibility, and as far as I have seen and study, evolution has none, It's still a matter of faith.

Ok most atheist believe there is no absolute MORAL truth. There can and IS absolute factual truth. For example. If you get your heart pulled out...and you are shot in the head....and then blown to pieces by a nuclear weapon...YOU ARE DEAD...Absolute factual truth. The kind of "truth" I don't believe in is absolute moral truth. The kind that says "homosexuality is wrong" "killing is objectively wrong", things of that nature.
Now the thing about ToE is simple. ToE has been proven without reasonable doubt, we see it in the fossil record, we see it through DNA study and through OBSERVING micro species and the evolution of them. We have the dating methods also. Evolution is not a matter of faith and you would know that it you did a Google search on "Evolutionary Biology".
I am not trying to be mean IN ANY WAY. I'm just used to serious debate on the CARM.ORG boards and I deeply dislike  arrogant ignorance (not knowing and loving what is not true)

It seems to me that you have a simple creationist view of ToE. You may think that it is simply "magical changes over time". But it is faaaaar more complicated than that. Once again, I am not attempting to "pwn" you, or "make you look stupid", I am simply correcting what I saw to be logical and factual flaws in your post....

(If anyone thinks i' being arrogant please explain to me how I am and I will truly apologize because I hate arrogance)

 

[Sic Semper Tyranosaurus]

It's kind of funny. Athiests I mean, most of which say there is no absolute truth, which in fact is an absolute statement, so they can't say that.  There's been no true scientific evidence of evolution up to this point, most of the past claims and finding have been frauds. I really don't think evolution is science, it has nothing to back it up, plus, one of the first steps in the scientific method is observation, and they can't really use that in this case.

Both creationists and evolutionists, atheist, etc. Believe what they believe on nothing other than faith, not science, not fact, just faith. Thought the creationist view does have scientific possibility, and as far as I have seen and study, evolution has none, It's still a matter of faith.

Either you're a terrible, unsubtle troll, or you have one of the most disgustingly skewed, mutated views of what science is that I've ever seen. :psy: Have you read any scientific literature not approved by your parents and church? :huh: In what wacky world do you live, where evolution has no scientific validity, but the claim that a big invisible man made everything like POOF does? How the Hell can you observe evidence of creationism? Have you ever heard anything about bacteria/viruses mutating into stronger, drug-retardant forms?

I'm so gobsmacked by this that I have no real answers, only many concerned questions. :psy:

I'm just gonna edit this as I find more insanity.

At to the one above the last, I didn't say that because it was a theory, it proves wrong. And genetics? If I'm not mistaken evolution is an information gaining process, adapting to surroundings, etc. But the only thing happening to any species now is loss of genetic code, they get worse over time, not better.

Congratulations. You have made the startling discovery that most mutations are either harmful or totally benign. Now broaden your mind, and consider that mutations are random, and may give rise to desirable traits. The loss of a certain trait may even be seen as adaptive in some situations.

You also seem to be under the mistaken impression that mutations select for what is adaptive. They don't. If a mutation occurs, and it helps an organism adapt and pass on its genetic material, excellent. However, most mutations do nothing at all, or are harmful.

It's not that there is no evidence, or rather, evidence supporting your belief. I wont pretend to know more than I do right here, but once again I can give you a web site that could explain it much better than I, about the light travel problem and more. Whether you take a look is up to you.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/ar ... ronomy.asp

Thank you for this helpful link to a site dedicated to eradicating decent scientific thought, I guess. This site clearly has a religious agenda, not one rooted in scientific thought.

 

[Anski]

I stopped reading the first post after the "contraversial."

 

[Sic Semper Tyranosaurus]

Good example: Ever heard of Mithra?  Born December 25th, the light of the world, the son of god?  Krishna? Dionysus? Osiris?  They all predate back to the early egyptian mythologies surrounding sun worship, all born December 25th, with immaculate conception and visited by three kings with gifts who followed the North Star.

You're thinking of Horus, actually.

 

[regi]

I think "ignorance" is a reason.

Now, I'm not arguing either side, because both believers and non-believers have some faults. The truth is, humans' minds just aren't complex enough to understand these concepts. Our brains usually try and make up a fact that is within our thinking range. Because we don't know how the world was created, we assume that there was a God that said "Let there be light!" and magicked our world to creation.

This, of course, doesn't apply to all people, but it's basically what the early Church thought. Example: some people were arrogant to believe that Earth was the center of the universe. Of course, modern science happens to prove it wrong, stating that the Earth orbits a sun, and the sun is located in a galaxy, which in fact is a tiny speck of the universe.

I'm not trying to insult anyone, but these are my views of the matter: humans are just simply, too stupid to know these things. Maybe, some day, we will eventually figure out the truth, but it certainly won't happen in our lifetime.

 

[BlackWings]

Humans are born true believers by nature ... but as they grow up they are changed by their parents, friends or society into something else (I'm not saying they change you deliberately; it's just the environment you grow up in changes your views).

I'm just trying to say that everyone believes that there is only one god by instinct; like whenever you're in big trouble & you've tried every solution to no avail do you pray to Jesus, Buddha or Fire ? No ... you pray to God by instinct, & if you've been in that position before ask yourself this (is it fair to just pray to god whenever you're in trouble & forget about god when you're living a good life?)

That is my personal belief & I mean no disrespect to others.

 

[Cruelty]

everyone always forgets to take into consideration that lots of people have the same common sense to not believe something they think hasn't been proven. i used to think that most religious people were just 'blindly following' their religion, when in reality a good deal of them probably have their reasons.

when everything around you is just getting worse, and worse, and worse.. and by some turn of disparity you decide to pray, and it gets a little better.. then you do it again, and it gets better again.. and again, and again.. it's pretty fair to think "well, you know what.. maybe this isn't just a coincidence. everything i've asked to be fixed HAS been fixed EVERY TIME. maybe this isn't really so crazy after all."

one of my friends always say "theres been too many crazy 'coincidences' for me to believe otherwise", and i think it makes a lot of sense to build faith off of that.

 

[mega_man_aXe]

Humans are born true believers by nature ... but as they grow up they are changed by their parents, friends or society into something else (I'm not saying they change you deliberately; it's just the environment you grow up in changes your views).

I'm just trying to say that everyone believes that there is only one god by instinct; like whenever you're in big trouble & you've tried every solution to no avail do you pray to Jesus, Buddha or Fire ? No ... you pray to God by instinct, & if you've been in that position before ask yourself this (is it fair to just pray to god whenever you're in trouble & forget about god when you're living a good life?)

That is my personal belief & I mean no disrespect to others.

Ummm...no.  Humans are born humans with the ability to learn and we grow off of that.  What grounds do you have to say we come out of the womb thinking, "Jesus and God are in heaven and I am a baby."  Its actually more like, "Food....food...food...attention...food...food...diaper...food."  We also don't come out of the womb thinking about evolution...its all taught based on the most reasonable and logical explanations we have come to find and try to understand.

 

[Demosthenes2k8]

It's Pascal's Wager:
If there is a God and we believe in him, our rewards are infinite.
If there is a God and we don't believe in him, we're screwed.
If there isn't a God and we believe in him, nothing lost.
If there isn't a God and we don't believe in him, nothing lost.
Thus, it is best to believe based on this data.

 

[mawk]

Geez, mega_man_aXe, you certainly seem angry about this in your post waaaay up there.

Can I ask that people here try to keep their opinions civil? I thought that this place wasn't supposed to turn into a bunch of god/atheistsmacking. If you would like to point out a logical fallacy someone has made or expand on someone else's argument, that's perfectly fine, but don't come in here guns a-blazing shouting to the heavens "I BELIEVE/DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD AND YOU'RE STUPID IF YOU DON'T/DO BECAUSE IT'S RIDICULOUS."

In other words, this is Symposium -- it's a forum for serious discussion, not a soapbox for anyone with the skill to stand on top.

You can talk about your beliefs, but don't go "oh religion is a fairytale that only the weak of mind believe in for comfort's sake," because it's just... twattish.

(I'm getting really tired of cool kid atheists who act like belief in god is evidence of a weak personality. "hey guys religon is dumb n i m smart for not beliving it" is a subtext I really hate to hear, so let's keep that (and the religious equivalent "oh you poor cynical heathens") out of this thread, okay?)

 

[Clockwise]

First off I think intelligent people can come to different conclusion when looking at the same thing (though in the end often only one can be right, like Demosthenes2k8 mentioned [i love that quote from pascal]).

That being said I'm going to side step away from the scientific side of things as its very hard to PROVE scientific theories (on either side), and instead focus on the philosophical side.

Things that heavily rely on there being a greater power:
Beauty - what makes something beautiful, and why should it exist

Ethics/Justice - without measuring an act against something outside humans anything is pretty much game, one can't say something is right or wrong because it would simply be an opinion. At best we could say whats right is what benefits the planet and the majority...but then again that would be based on an opinion.

Meaning to Life - hmm whats the point of living if death is the end of the story, and if it truly is the end then a life of overly self-centerednedd would be very appropriate. 

Side thing...
What to do with Jesus?
(most ppl agree he existed and whatnot cause theres lots of historic records of him outside the Bible)
couldnt have been just a "good man" due to the fact he believed he was God and then died for it, so at best he was very crazy or worse.

But anyways

 

[mawk]

couldnt have been just a "good man" due to the fact he believed he was God and then died for it, so at best he was very crazy or worse.

Or maybe he just thought that his teachings were more important than his life. You don't have to be crazy to give something up for a good cause. It just takes a little altruism, something which Jesus evidently had in abundance.

 

[Clockwise]

yes but less the dying for and more why he did, cause lots of good people died for good teachings.
But He didn't die because he taught good morals (which would be pointless if there were no high power), but because he claimed he was God and expected others to believe so too. Which isn't something a sane good person does...or dies for....or expects other ppl to die for.
Though assuming he's telling the truth leads to a very different conclusion as well as many others.
(note: Idea comes from CS Lewis' book - Mere Christianity, though he does a better job presenting it).

 

[mawk]

Nonono. Jesus never claimed he was God. All that came later when Paul was organizing Jesus' teachings into a fully-fledged religion.

Please read up on the subject matter before coming to conclusions? It's bad enough hearing people who still think that as a Muslim I'm going to kill people in the name of my heathen god. :x

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

Seriously Miek when I heard you were Muslim the only thought that came to my head was "okay, why is so-and-so telling me this?"

On the subject matter at hand - even though I'm NOT touching the subject matter only directing a bit to an argument that was partly in this thread, but not wholly - though  generally will be anyway (they always are):

I believe in a god and an after life and in all that stuff... when I'm horribly scared.  I do.  I'll admit it.  When I was hospitalized - oh yeah, you better bet i believed in some rudimentary level that I could bargain my way out of this.
I might've not prayed, but the thought was there.

Now remove me from that.  Let's just say I'm where I am now.  Horrible financial ability, equally bad living conditions, and at times equally bad health.  I'm fine.  I don't believe.  I'm back to my skeptic nature.  Someone says something, I'm already to deny it.  I won't insult them for it.
Unless you're 25 years old and still believes in the tooth fairy (oddly enough Santa Clause is fine)

Religion is like having a political pull to one side.
Are you left winged?  Right winged?  Maybe a Jeffersonian?  Are you a commie?  Either way, your belief is in some magical little order that the country can fall into to make it better.  Remove the word country, replace with "world" - maybe just your own "soul".  There.  You have religion.  Aww, how nice.

I used to say: When it came to religion, I'm a Libertarian, and when it comes to politics I'm an atheist
I still love that quote.  I wanna put it back in my signature.  And it's true.  The belief in a divine order, god, gods, God, or not - it's a magical order.  So is having faith in a political party trying to get one man in power.

To not believe in religion, and to down trodden someone simply because they have it, is the same as giving as much grief over someone who voted for someone else.

In the end our loved ones will all have to pay taxes over our death anyway.
If you believe you might have to as well, that's fine.  There's NOTHING wrong with believing in a religion - so long as you don't pretend that your faults can be placed on it.

Very few people in the world kill on a huge scale FOR their religion.  No.  They pretend to.  They kill for other reasons, and try to sneak it on religion.  Religion is an innocent thing, it's like picking up a baby and smacking someone in the head a thousand times until they die - and then blaming the baby.
"The baby cried. It told me to do it"


That's the only bad thing about having a religion.  It's so easy to blame.

 

[Clockwise]

Nonono. Jesus never claimed he was God. All that came later when Paul was organizing Jesus' teachings into a fully-fledged religion.

Please read up on the subject matter before coming to conclusions? It's bad enough hearing people who still think that as a Muslim I'm going to kill people in the name of my heathen god. :x

In fact I am a practicing Christian and have "read up" on the matter many many times and I can say comfortably that He does claim so repeatedly.

Matt 16: 17-19, Matt 26: 57-67, Matt 27: 43, Luke  1: 32, Luke 12: 8-10, Luke 22: 70, John 25: 25, John 11: 25, John 19: 7, John 5: 31-47, etc.

@ sixtyandaquarter  : I totally agree about war in the name of religion rarely being about religion as most of the ones that have been waged have been done in a way that goes against what is taught within it.

 

[mega_man_aXe]

Geez, mega_man_aXe, you certainly seem angry about this in your post waaaay up there.

Can I ask that people here try to keep their opinions civil? I thought that this place wasn't supposed to turn into a bunch of god/atheistsmacking. If you would like to point out a logical fallacy someone has made or expand on someone else's argument, that's perfectly fine, but don't come in here guns a-blazing shouting to the heavens "I BELIEVE/DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD AND YOU'RE STUPID IF YOU DON'T/DO BECAUSE IT'S RIDICULOUS."

In other words, this is Symposium -- it's a forum for serious discussion, not a soapbox for anyone with the skill to stand on top.

You can talk about your beliefs, but don't go "oh religion is a fairytale that only the weak of mind believe in for comfort's sake," because it's just... twattish.

(I'm getting really tired of cool kid atheists who act like belief in god is evidence of a weak personality. "hey guys religon is dumb n i m smart for not beliving it" is a subtext I really hate to hear, so let's keep that (and the religious equivalent "oh you poor cynical heathens") out of this thread, okay?)

I never called you dumb and that was not my intention, but more so just wondering how people can actually believe in a religion and trying to understand that and describe it to the best of my ability.  For I myself so strongly don't believe in religion and I can simply not find it in myself to believe these things, so when I see threads like this or people who do believe I just can't understand.  Like I said I'm very curious and trying to understand those who do believe, what their mindset is, and what is that defining factor that makes us so different even though we may have a lot of other common interests and are generally good people.
So if you are asking me to stop what I am doing, then I must ask you to stop with the "cool-kid atheist" stuff.  I'm sorry if I come off strong in my opinions, but in no way am I trying to be "cool."

 

[rexxzecutioner]

One of the big mistakes creationism commits is the idea that a mindless process such as evolution has a goal or that it strives to achieve something, humans perhaps. No it doesn't.

The same goes for this "life force" or whatever it is. That's just assigning a purpose on something that has none. Tree-hugging hippie crap at its best, I say, and probably something a pot-smoker might find very profound at some point.

Mutations, either by radiation, chemistry, bad luck or anything, create new genetic variation, and while most new alleles are certainly useless or outright detrimental, and get pruned in the process, occasionally some of them turn out to be good modifications. There's no need for any mysticism, it's all randomness combined with a mindless, more or less statistical sieves that weed out the bad and leave the good stuff, the sieves including the environment, competition from other species and the members of the same species, and a lot of little details; also, the other genes in the same individual. It really is as simple as that, but the consequences are mind-boggling, and much more awesome than some "intelligent designer", a "creator" or an unnecessary "life force" that people seem to need as an explanation in the face of real marvels.

 

[moog]

But He didn't die because he taught good morals (which would be pointless if there were no high power), but because he claimed he was God and expected others to believe so too.

Wat.

What version of the bible are you reading, as I would like for you to kindly point this out with some evidence.

 

[Clockwise]

Wat.

What version of the bible are you reading, as I would like for you to kindly point this out with some evidence.

Ok, well since the thing that mainly lead to Jesus' death was because he was accused of blasphemy (calling himself the Messiah)
[John 18: 33-36, Matt 20: 18-19, Matt 15-16, Luke 12: 8-10, etc.]
[trials: Matt 26: 62-68, Luke 22: 66-71, John 19: 4-7, etc. ]
Also He could have very easily said "oh no no guys, I'm just a teacher and stuff", if he wasn't claiming to be God ("Son of Man") when they asked him (but he does the opposite when ever people do).

Or, you could talk to most pastors, theologians, etc and they'll probably tell you that he claimed that position as well.
(Oh and my Bible is currently a NLT though I've owned a NKJ and NIV in the past).