Religion, what do you think?

[silver wind]

No no no, my friend. The fact it Didn't happen, and the fact you refuse to believe it happened--
This proves G-D! I f a poem can't be created by accident, how can a single living creature, not to mention a galaxy of trillions of stars, and millions of species of creatures , be created by accident? Not even by a wind- but by a bang ?!

 

[dadevvtsvre]

We don't know if a god exists. We don't if a god doesn't exist. That much is definite.

We cannot prove whether god exists or not. It's impossible. How can we prove it? We can't, and we won't, because how would we? Now stop saying that God does or doesn't exist and there is proof, because that right there is pure bullshit.

How can we prove how life began? We can't. And we never will. We can say that we are 100% sure how it began, but that would be lying, because unless we can actually travel back in time and find out how life began (which, even with time travel, would still be nearly impossible) we can't say "I'm 100% sure" without lying. Why does it even matter so much, anyway? Why do we have to know how it began? To prove someone else wrong? Just accept the fact that we will never know the exact truth, 100%, and all we will have is theories. And although some theories will have more proof than others, for sure, they're still theories, regardless.

No no no, my friend. The fact it Didn't happen, and the fact you refuse to believe it happened--
This proves G-D! I f a poem can't be created by accident, how can a single living creature, not to mention a galaxy of trillions of stars, and millions of species of creatures , be created by accident? Not even by a wind- but by a bang ?!

See, here's my problem with this: If you say God created the universe, then who or what created God? And saying "God has always been there" is not good enough, since if you can accept this, why can't you accept that the universe has always been there?

 

[silver wind]

You've completely ignored my question.. The beginning of time is a very interesting issue, but has nothing to do with what I said.
This is a paradox, similar to saying: Can G-D create a stone so big he himself can't pick up?
Even if I told you someone created G-D, you'll ask- and who create him? etc, etc. Answering either of this questions is not required to prove the existance of G-D. It's, pardon me, a question favored by atheists, as it clearly cannot be answered, and thus it's a "safe" question. You can always pull this & taunt the other guy saying: Oh but you can't answer this.. !

 

[craybest]

the question he posed isn't a paradox though.
Universe could be infinite, I don't see the problem with that, using the excuse of a god because universe NEEDS a beginning is not needed.
if god can be infinite, so can the universe.

 

[boon]

I'm a fifteen year old brat that thinks he knows everything.

Hammer on the nail there.

What do you actually expect my to do as to not waste my existence on frivilous things like religion and debating whether religion exists? Enough people in the world waste their time, living just to live, screwing around just to screw, why should I do anything different? Too lazy.

not waste your existence on it? Find a talent and hone it? Do well in school?

 

[silver wind]

the question he posed isn't a paradox though.
Universe could be infinite, I don't see the problem with that, using the excuse of a god because universe NEEDS a beginning is not needed.
if god can be infinite, so can the universe.

Interesting claim. Let's examine it, shall we?
The universe has always existed, it was never created, thus no G-D created it.
So, am I, you, animals and plants, all existed since the dawn of time? of course not. Humans live up to 120 years, plants up to a 1000, the planet we live on.. maybe millions. Even our sun will eventually burn itself out and die, (No clue how long suns exist, say 3 trillion years?). So what was 3 trillion years ago? Our solar system didn't exist. We're forced to say it was created! Maybe it was a bang, or maybe it was G-D.
Can a bang create a solar system, or can the wind in my room accidentally compose a poem, you tell me.
Next, let me ask you- Why can't G-d exist forever..? It is not made of material which grows old and eventually grinds up to dust or changes form.

 

[mawk]

So what was 3 trillion years ago? Our solar system didn't exist. We're forced to say it was created! Maybe it was a bang, or maybe it was G-D.
Can a bang create a solar system, or can the wind in my room accidentally compose a poem, you tell me.

except that new stars,etc. are being born all the time from the debris of old ones. it's not like whatever universal creation theory you ascribe to was creation's one pump jump and now everything is uniformly falling apart. we know so little about the universe that it very well could just be cyclically destroying and recreating itself. assuming the universe is a closed system, there's no loss of energy to make the procedure eventually grind to a halt

basically my point is that yes, things die, but new things tend to pop up from the ashes. the cyclic destruction and reformation of a system isn't nearly as far-fetched as wind composing a poem. look at any given ecological system in your backyard!

Next, let me ask you- Why can't G-d exist forever..? It is not made of material which grows old and eventually grinds up to dust or changes form.

I think it's generally accepted that if there is a god, it doesn't die.

although, if god were made of gears and springs and Life had to change his oil and give him a tune up every few billion years, that would be really cool.

 

[boon]

assuming the universe is a closed system, there's no loss of energy to make the procedure eventually grind to a halt

when you consider that hot goes to cold and so forth, large energy transfers to no energy, eventually everything will just be blank atoms floating in space, although not for several trillions of years.

 

[mawk]

oh yeah, I had forgot about that.

 

[silver wind]

So what was 3 trillion years ago? Our solar system didn't exist. We're forced to say it was created! Maybe it was a bang, or maybe it was G-D.
Can a bang create a solar system, or can the wind in my room accidentally compose a poem, you tell me.

the cyclic destruction and reformation of a system isn't nearly as far-fetched as wind composing a poem. look at any given ecological system in your backyard!

Oh but it is. If stars are born, create solar system and die- not too complex(?), But on one of those stars a complex ecological system has developed, where one animal cannot exist without the other. A flower knows to bloom in white in night time to attract the right kind of beetle to pollen it. It doesn't have eyes, and isn't even aware of the fact the beetle exists. It all happened by accident. O RLY??

I have a question to all of you believing in evolution. How did eyes/brain evolve by accident?
If a random cow is born brown instead of white, it's a simple DNA mutation. Also if it's an advantage to be brown, it'll survive more than its white friends and produce more brown cows, etc.
But how did the eye evolve? half an eye won't give any advantage. Did a fully functional eye develop from a single DNA mutation? You may as well believe G-D created it ! Besides, eyes need a brain to translate what it is you're seeing. Else, it's useless. How did it develop? Half a brain is no good either.
The said first eye could not had developed inside the body/on a hand or a foot/before the brain, as it wouldn't be an advantage. What's the chances for that eye to develop ? Say it's even.. 1 in a million.(and I'm being kind) Maybe I ought to buy a lottery ticket, do you think I'll win?
Oh, but when it comes to contradicting G-D people will believe anything.

 

[mawk]

Oh but it is. If stars are born, create solar system and die- not too complex(?), But on one of those stars a complex ecological system has developed, where one animal cannot exist without the other. A flower knows to bloom in white in night time to attract the right kind of beetle to pollen it. It doesn't have eyes, and isn't even aware of the fact the beetle exists. It all happened by accident. O RLY??

you're taking an example of mine and interpreting it as something entirely separate from what was being discussed, but whatever.

also don't play feasibility. between this sort of thing happening spontaneously and by accident and it having been caused by an all-knowing, all-powerful intelligence that presides over the universe as a whole, I'd call it a draw.

I'm not even arguing against the existence of god. I'm just trying to point out that some things can happen naturally. if you're the guy who created the laws of the universe, you shouldn't have to step outside of those laws very often. the big bang and the theory of evolution don't necessitate a godless universe at all -- I'm surprised that so many people take it for granted that they do.

and don't say "o rly" in a serious argument (or at all in fact.) it drags the entire thread down.

 

[silver wind]

lol I always wanted to say that once :biggrin:
I edited my post, btw.

 

[mawk]

to say absolutely nothing. you're still playing with odds -- as far as discussion goes, saying "my argument is correct because lol look at the other argument it's so ridiculous right :biggrin:" is really really useless.

 

[Ellie]

I have a question to all of you believing in evolution. How did eyes/brain evolve by accident?

In the theory of evolution, things don't happen "by accident".

A gene mutates.

If that gene is beneficial to the owner, it is passed on to their young.
If it is not beneficial (here meaning... the thing dies) it obv. isn't passed on as they're dead.

Now over time the genes mutate more and more towards a certain direction, if that is leading the "fittest" in the survival-of-the-fittest scenario have that specific gene.



I'd like to point out though that the evolution theory and the big bang theory don't have anything to do with the god theory - all three could quite easily coexist or not exist at all.

 

[Venetia]

Well there IS a randomness. Mutations themselves are not the children of necessity, but rather, are a lottery. Sometimes creatures will "hit the jackpot". Then the trait may or may not be successfully transferred to their young, because said trait has either made them more potent, or more virile, or more desirable, or more effective, etc. etc. It's a process that is invisible while it is happening and takes tens/hundreds/thousands of generations to produce substantial results on.

Example:

There is a species of hamsters. We'll call them Species A.

In the lowlands of a certain valley in the Gobi Desert, a group of Species A resides. This group is almost entirely blocked off geographically from other Species A hamsters. One day they are introduced to Bacteria X. It causes a fatal disease in hamsters. Many of the Species A are wiped out.

However, a few of the hamsters possess a gene mutation which makes them immune to the effects of Bacteria X. These hamsters live on, and reproduce. Eventually, after several generations, all the hamsters in this valley are immune to Bacteria X, because the ones who weren't, died.

They have now become Species B (or, Subspecies A... Won't get into that), because they have become genetically divergent from Species A as a whole.

Evolution isn't about necessity, but the products you see SEEM to produce that result. This is because you're seeing the end product of a test/fail/test/fail/test/fail/test/fail/test/fail cycle which has lasted millions of years. In the example, if none of the hamsters had been resistant to Bacteria X, then they all would have died, and that would have been it. It came down to luck.

People don't like to think of their coming into being as being the result of an immeasurable number of lucky draws. But I think it's extraordinary. The mere mathematical possibility of your reading this message at this point in time is so incredibly miniscule, it can almost be classified a miracle.

Perhaps God isn't so much a being, or a force. Perhaps it is a system of luck, a pattern, which has brought you, and our species, to where it is now. But that idea is probably too tenuous or insubstantial for people to consider.

 

[Venetia]

Also, I'll never understand why people are resistant to the idea of God and evolution co-existing. Perhaps "God" "spawned" the items to produce evolution, and then evolution took care of it after that? Just because some guys 2000 years ago said it happened 6000 years ago doesn't mean it's the truth. I mean they also believed that the Earth was the center of the universe, and that women got "hysteria" because their uterus WANDERED to their BRAINS periodically, and that the Earth is flat. Why on earth would they be right about the amount of time that's passed between the beginning of the world and now?

 

[silver wind]

Mawk: First of all, I apologize if my post was offensive.
What I was trying to say is: why do people have different standards- In every day life, if I told you the story about the poem, you won't even consider the option it's true. If I told you I won the lottery, same thing. But these things have way more chance to happen than 'big bang creating a galaxy' or 'spontaneous evolution of an eco system'. Yet people gladly believe in those theories.

The mere mathematical possibility of your reading this message at this point in time is so incredibly miniscule, it can almost be classified a miracle.

Why? I am a member of this forum, I check it regularly and I read threads that interest me.

But that idea is probably too tenuous or insubstantial for people to consider.

Exactly.

Edit: Actually, in the Judaism's old books is it said the earth is round. Way before it was proven by science. Many, many other things that were not known back then were said by the jew's "Rabi 's".
Not only that, but non of the things they said were proved to be nonsense until this day.

 

[Venetia]

The mere mathematical possibility of your reading this message at this point in time is so incredibly miniscule, it can almost be classified a miracle.

Why? I am a member of this forum, I check it regularly and I read threads that interest me.

I meant that the fact that you, YOU, yourself, as you are, in this world, in this society, sitting in THAT chair, receiving the signals you're receiving, looking at THAT monitor, browsing THIS forum, at this minute. Think about all the generations of people that came before you, all the inventions that came before the computer. What if your great great great grandmother never existed? What if the guy who invented that model of computer decided to change something about it? What if the host of this site decided not to host it somewhere along the line?

There are a lot of factors at play here and the chances of all of them happening in such a way are infinitesimal. And yet, they happened.

It was my way of being deep without actually having to get into detail about it. Carry on. :O

 

[Venetia]

Also: People stop saying "proved" or "proof" or "proven" or "proves". NOTHING IS PROVEN. Nothing. Not even empirical data is proof. Nothing.

Once again: Science is not the pursuit of proof, but rather the pursuit of getting as close to it as possible!

"proof" in a science v. religion debate is ridiculous because it doesn't exist!

And IT NEVER WILL.

Even if God himself came out of the clouds on a white stallion and said, "yep! I created everything! lol!" That wouldn't PROVE jack shit. It wouldn't incontrovertibly prove that HE is GOD, or that he is speaking, or that he ACTUALLY DID IT.

Even if science magically figured out why we're here, it wouldn't be PROVEN. We weren't there to see it happen, and even if we could magically teleport back in time it wouldn't be guaranteed that what the time travelers saw was what really happened in the correct stretch of time or in the correct place!

@_@

 

[boon]

consider that if you have a few short birds, and they eat bugs that hide in the cracks of rocks. Due to overfeeding, the bugs intelligently move upwards, to a point that only the taller birds can feed on them. This means that the smaller birds die, and the taller birds reproduce with taller young.

Natures evolution is just survival of the fittest. And there are random mutations. My best friend has a gene mutation called 'Cystic Fibrosis' which means she won't live over 35 - that's not gods creation is it? Why would he do something like that to a good person?