OT: The religion thead...

[MikeK]

Someone stating, given enough time and under the right circumstances a flight ready 747 could just come together by chance out of all of the correct base materials that exist in an industrial junk yard, would be called an idiot.  Yet stating that we (life) immensely more complex than the 747, just happened out of primordial ooze is considered scientifically sound.

Absolutely nobody is claiming that humans just happened out of the primordial ooze.

[robrenz]

Sorry I forgot about the smithsonian institute statue of the rat that we evolved from.

[AntiProtonBoy]

Someone stating, given enough time and under the right circumstances a flight ready 747 could just come together by chance out of all of the correct base materials that exist in an industrial junk yard, would be called an idiot.  Yet stating that we (life) immensely more complex than the 747, just happened out of primordial ooze is considered scientifically sound.

Hahah, straw man argument, and you know it. You can certainly argue that man made machines, such as a 747 are not self-organising, nor it are they capable of self-assembling. The simplest of life forms are 100% autonomous and use chemistry to assemble themselves. The basic constituents for life (such as amino acids) have been proven to exist in hostile natural environments (outside cellular organisms). Some of this stuff was even found in meteorites! Given the abundance of such raw materials and the fact that his planet happens to be in an ideal orbital zone around the sun, life had approximately 3,800,000,000 years to assemble and then eventually evolve into something as complex as we see today. It only takes just a few successfully "assembled" cellular organisms in a sheltered environment to populate the whole globe.

[bazzatron]

I have an interest in the religion debate, so I read a bit. And I find it hilarious. If I need a laugh, I can just put on a Ray Comfort video!

Good to see you have an interest in these matters, hilarity is only a small part of a much larger serious whole though, after all we are talking here of your final destination.

Me personally, or Australia in general?
For the country, a lot of factors and history would come into play I'm sure. I'm not even sure if something like that has even been researched in any depth?

We should be careful when making sweeping general statements because it implies we are privy to knowledge others do not have, giving a condescending impression .
When visiting  Adelaide SA one cannot help but be amazed at the number of churches built in the city both old and new.What i mean is research in depth is not that necessary when the evidence for worship is all around us , all we have to do is open our eyes and see it.

That's famously called Pascal's Wager.
You can't just make yourself believe in something when you don't, that's just, well, bullshit. And surely something a omnipotent god will see right through. Besides, according to Australia's top Cardinal, atheists have just as much of getting into heaven:

You can conveniently disregard basic logic but you do so at your own peril.Pascal`s Wager is not famous rather it is infamous.

You can make yourself believe in anything when you don`t when you arrive at the point where you see it as truth, thats just,well, faith.An omnipotent God sees right through everything there is no "surely".

Australia`s Top Cardinal, for all his high office and grand title, is just like the rest of us a fallible human, what could have ever caused him to presume to know who will enter Heaven?Only God knows or will ever know who is to enter Heaven,be he sinner or saint.Presumption in any form is wrought with danger in this case danger of an eternal nature.It seems to me an unwise choice on your part to quote this man as a valid argument, his statements are in  the very least arrogant and at the worst dangerous for him and others he influences.


[/quote]
I keep asking to see the real evidence, but it's never forthcoming.
Of course, if there was evidence, you wouldn't need faith...[/quote]

"Doubting Thomas" had the same problem with evidence.Paul`s evidence arrived when he was on the road to Damascus to destroy Christ`s followers, in the form of temporary blindness and a fundamental change to his heart and intentions.
The evidence is there for you if you ask the right people and listen with a open heart.
Throwaway lines are easy, just be sure before you use them that it is not yourself that is thrownaway.
Christianity is the only belief that demands you accept it on Faith.God alone decides if you require or receive evidence.


  Bazzatron.

Ps:- "Walk with Faith in the Light of God"

[Time]

I always wondered why religious people believe in a creator as the reason for all existence as if its satisfactorily definitive.  "We didn't come from nothing, we were created by God!"

Couldn't one simply than ask, "Well where did the creator or god come from?"   Maybe some pious zealot here can shed some light as to why this never comes up.

[T4P]

I always wondered why religious people believe in a creator as the reason for all existence as if its satisfactorily definitive.  "We didn't come from nothing, we were created by God!"

Couldn't one simply than ask, "Well where did the creator or god come from?"   Maybe some pious zealot here can shed some light as to why this never comes up.

One will most certainly get thrown in jail for "Citing Religious Racism" by asking that, at least here

[Kremmen]

Someone stating, given enough time and under the right circumstances a flight ready 747 could just come together by chance out of all of the correct base materials that exist in an industrial junk yard, would be called an idiot.  Yet stating that we (life) immensely more complex than the 747, just happened out of primordial ooze is considered scientifically sound.

So you slept hibernated through the semester in school when they covered evolution, mutation and natural selection? Ah sorry yes, they are reversing the calendar in the US school system - back to the middle ages. I smile at such ignorance, but only because the alternative would be to weep. I'm sure i am not alone.

[Kremmen]

[...]
Christianity is the only belief that demands you accept it on Faith.God alone decides if you require or receive evidence.

Ps:- "Walk with Faith in the Light of God"

Really? How about Islam and Allah? No faith there at all? Allah has outsourced Paradise to God, maybe?

[odessa]

The next great leap in human evolution will be to rid ourselves of religion, all we have to do is get over our fear of death and the unknown.

We certainly know of examples of countries banning religion, and that doesn't work out too well.  Also, there are plenty of religious people who are not afraid of death...suicide bombers sacrificing themselves for their convictions.  I think the important thing is that we continue to move towards basing decisions on evidence.

I didn't mean banning religion, I mean't 'growing up' as a species and leaving it in the past where it belongs. As for suicide bombers not fearing death, they don't fear it because they don't believe they are going to die... rather they will be transported to heaven to have sex with 72 virgins. An idiotic belief so strongly held they are willing to kill and be killed.

[david77]

I really wanted to stay away from this but it seems there's good fun to be had.

Good to see you have an interest in these matters, hilarity is only a small part of a much larger serious whole though, after all we are talking here of your final destination.

What is this final destination you're talking about? Probably Heaven or Hell, right?
As far as I'm concerned they could fling my dead body into a ditch, I wouldn't mind at that point.

"Doubting Thomas" had the same problem with evidence.Paul`s evidence arrived when he was on the road to Damascus to destroy Christ`s followers, in the form of temporary blindness and a fundamental change to his heart and intentions.
The evidence is there for you if you ask the right people and listen with a open heart.

You're not saying we should accept what's written in a book as proof that god exists, are you?
Next you're telling me that Maria's immaculate conception was real and she was not just playing with the milkman while Joseph was away on a building site or something  .

[robrenz]

So you slept hibernated through the semester in school when they covered evolution, mutation and natural selection? Ah sorry yes, they are reversing the calendar in the US school system - back to the middle ages. I smile at such ignorance, but only because the alternative would be to weep. I'm sure i am not alone.

I firmly believe in evolution, mutation and natural selection.  Just not as how we came about were created.

[MikeK]

Someone stating, given enough time and under the right circumstances a flight ready 747 could just come together by chance out of all of the correct base materials that exist in an industrial junk yard, would be called an idiot.  Yet stating that we (life) immensely more complex than the 747, just happened out of primordial ooze is considered scientifically sound.

Absolutely nobody is claiming that humans just happened out of the primordial ooze.

I should have been more clear.  Science is not claiming that humans just happened out of the primordial ooze.

Religion, however, does make this claim.  Adam came from dirt.  Eve came from Adam's rib.  Tall tales indeed!

[G7PSK]

What the Muslims don't realize is that all virgins look like Susan Boyle, The Catholics don't really believe that God will protect them and all of the promises in the bible have not come about.

[tinhead]

v

[MrPlacid]

How dare they claim incest is wrong when Adam and Eve's children are humping each others!

If only they question things will they ever wake up. After Adam and Eve the next logical conclusion is INCEST and LOTS OF IT!

[MikeK]

How dare they claim incest is wrong when Adam and Eve's children are humping each others!

If only they question things will they ever wake up. After Adam and Eve the next logical conclusion is INCEST and LOTS OF IT!

And not only did the Adam and Eve family do it.  Noah did it too!  (Which makes the whole "so-and-so begat so-and-so" thing rather pointless if they all get wiped out in a flood.)  So they've given us not one, but TWO examples telling us to commit incest.  It must be really important.

[Kremmen]

So you slept hibernated through the semester in school when they covered evolution, mutation and natural selection? Ah sorry yes, they are reversing the calendar in the US school system - back to the middle ages. I smile at such ignorance, but only because the alternative would be to weep. I'm sure i am not alone.

I firmly believe in evolution, mutation and natural selection.  Just not as how we came about were created.

OK, putting wiseassing to the side - how is it possible that you do not? You mean that a hypothetical higher being created just us but all the rest happened naturally? And this doesn't strike you the least bit ... odd? I forget the exact percentage in the DNA code that separates us from the chimps but it is like less than one percent. Even things like yeasts share something like half of their genetic code with us.
To me it is a great source of joy and comfort that all life is one family, and there is a crushing mass of proof that this is indeed the case. It would be a sad thing indeed if man was somehow excluded from the great tree of life. How someone can think that it would be a good thing and above all, believe in such a separation facing all the evidence is beyond me. I pity their closed mind. I am sure they are comfortable in their belief and i won't waste time arguing the case. But it is the comfort of a padded cell.

[MrPlacid]

Mikek, good one. I didn't see the NOAH one coming 

[robrenz]

OK, putting wiseassing to the side - how is it possible that you do not? You mean that a hypothetical higher being created just us but all the rest happened naturally?

No, I think God created all of it. Evolution, mutation and natural selection can and does exist but that does not prove that God did not create the starting point.  I also don't believe that evolution, mutation and natural selection occur uniformly and continuously on everything

And this doesn't strike you the least bit ... odd? I forget the exact percentage in the DNA code that separates us from the chimps but it is like less than one percent. Even things like yeasts share something like half of their genetic code with us.
To me it is a great source of joy and comfort that all life is one family, and there is a crushing mass of proof that this is indeed the case. It would be a sad thing indeed if man was somehow excluded from the great tree of life. How someone can think that it would be a good thing and above all, believe in such a separation facing all the evidence is beyond me.

It strikes me as perfectly logical that duplication and similarities would exist in things created by the same designer/builder

I pity their closed mind. I am sure they are comfortable in their belief and i won't waste time arguing the case. But it is the comfort of a padded cell.

27 years ago my mantra was "religion is a mental crutch for spineless wimps who can't cope with life without it". I mocked Christians at every chance I had.  I was Paul before his encounter with God.  Then I had my own encounter,  wasn't looking for it. It just happened.  After that the bible was a living document that was speaking directly to me.  It was not a intellectual decision based on study or logic. I was not brainwashed by some religious group. God had just gotten through to me.  Sorry but I can't go back now.

I know from my own experience that trying to "save" someone or prove the existence of God by argument or logic is a waste of time.  All the attempts to convince me only raised my defenses.  I am not trying to convince anyone now either. I also don"t think I have "arrived" or am better than those who don't believe.  Its kind of like how political parties can't understand how the other party can think like they do.

Thanks for having a civil discussion.
robrenz

[Mechatrommer]

- Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
- Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

evil is his creation. he let it loose so men can choose to follow evil or god.

- Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

you can kill somebody (innocent or criminal) if you want to, but you are not willing. are you malevolent?

- Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?[/i]

he's able and willing. willing to do, and willing not to do.

What you saying dude? thousands of virgin get sacrificed daily my friend, in a new pleasurable way ofby men, not just by those idiotic people. and their blood just come to waste, sad

?? me no understand. What you do to virgin men again?

i said virgin girls get sacrificed by men/boys everyday... get fucked (sacrificed = get fucked, hymen get torn apart, blood splattered around, get fucked without proper bondage (marriage)), of course some people dont call it sacrifice, they call it fun and moral

Besides, we all know the world is flat, carried by four enormous elephants standing on the back of a turtle...

And what is the turtle standing on?
Why it's turtles all the way down!
Dave.

if we based on narrow view of human and knowledge, and this kind of question will come out including the funny turtle and elephant. ok our religion didnt say anything about turtle. but if we say... we are standing on earth, then we may question what earth standing on then? another earth? as science proved its not the case. but when its not proven by science, then people can come up with funny question. dont you think we are hilarious in the eye of supreme intelligent? ie more intelligent creature than us? those who already know what gravity standing on? of course we can always mock around on something we (science) dont know.

How dare they claim incest is wrong when Adam and Eve's children are humping each others!
If only they question things will they ever wake up. After Adam and Eve the next logical conclusion is INCEST and LOTS OF IT!

And not only did the Adam and Eve family do it.  Noah did it too!  (Which makes the whole "so-and-so begat so-and-so" thing rather pointless if they all get wiped out in a flood.)  So they've given us not one, but TWO examples telling us to commit incest.  It must be really important.

Couldn't one simply than ask, "Well where did the creator or god come from?"   Maybe some pious zealot here can shed some light as to why this never comes up.

i'm not zios pielot and the real answer is more complex than this (at least not within my domain of knowledge) but i can give an analogy or situation.

let assume you are intelligent enough to build a "actual intelligent robot" one male one female. and send them to mars. you told the robot.. "my name is "Time" (semantically means God) i created both of you and be lived on mars, the male i call you "robot adam", the female i call you "robot eve". you can fuck and ask your son and daugther to fuck (incest) because its the only way you can multiply. you cannot hope for evolution for you to multiply (which one time in the future one robot will come out with evolution theory because he can but not true). its just exception for you and your children. your children's children then can fuck their cousin but not their sibling so on and on down the generation, they then can find their proper mate in hierarchy but not incest anymore since they can have many option then

so the robots live in mars, fucking each other, have childrens and grandchildrens and pass down the story about their god called "Time". long after many thousands of generations, the robot colony have gathered more collective knowledge and become more intelligent, formulate an evolution theory and start questioning God (Time). the robot say, if we are created by God (Time), then who created "Time"? and of course the robot will never have the answer because the "Time" havent told them in the first place, and he (Time) decided not to, since its irrelevant to the domain of robot knowledge. so the robot may start to come up with funny assumption this and that and become hilarious.

and then if somehow the robot become more intelligent and be able to build another type of robot, and tell the same story and send them to pluto, the same questioning will happen again and again until eternity. so the point is... you may ask who created God, its not something within your/our domain/knowledge to ask (but we actually can. we demand/claim that we should be as you have shown/question). but since we havent been told by God who created him, so we come up with anykind of (funny) answer/assumption.

Really? How about Islam and Allah? No faith there at all? Allah has outsourced Paradise to God, maybe?

Allah is God. only muslim call it 'Allah' it means God, just under another name. so "Allah has outsourced Paradise to God" is an irrelevant statement.

[Time]

... since its irrelevant to the domain of robot knowledge. so the robot may start to come up with funny assumption this and that and become hilarious.

...

Ahh yes, the ever so reliable religious fallback of, "It is gods world and only he knows".  Should have seen that one coming.

[Kremmen]

I hope i get my quotations correctly...

OK, putting wiseassing to the side - how is it possible that you do not? You mean that a hypothetical higher being created just us but all the rest happened naturally?

No, I think God created all of it. Evolution, mutation and natural selection can and does exist but that does not prove that God did not create the starting point.  I also don't believe that evolution, mutation and natural selection occur uniformly and continuously on everything

And this doesn't strike you the least bit ... odd? I forget the exact percentage in the DNA code that separates us from the chimps but it is like less than one percent. Even things like yeasts share something like half of their genetic code with us.
To me it is a great source of joy and comfort that all life is one family, and there is a crushing mass of proof that this is indeed the case. It would be a sad thing indeed if man was somehow excluded from the great tree of life. How someone can think that it would be a good thing and above all, believe in such a separation facing all the evidence is beyond me.

It strikes me as perfectly logical that duplication and similarities would exist in things created by the same designer/builder

I pity their closed mind. I am sure they are comfortable in their belief and i won't waste time arguing the case. But it is the comfort of a padded cell.

27 years ago my mantra was "religion is a metal crutch for spineless wimps who can't cope with life without it". I mocked Christians at every chance I had.  I was Paul before his encounter with God.  Then I had my own encounter,  wasn't looking for it. It just happened.  After that the bible was a living document that was speaking directly to me.  It was not a intellectual decision based on study or logic. I was not brainwashed by some religious group. God had just gotten through to me.  Sorry but I can't go back now.

I know from my own experience that trying to "save" someone or prove the existence of God by argument or logic is a waste of time.  All the attempts to convince me only raised my defenses.  I am not trying to convince anyone now either. I also don"t think I have "arrived" or am better than those who don't believe.  Its kind of like how political parties can't understand how the other party can think like they do.

Thanks for having a civil discussion.
robrenz

Please consider the following more an expression of my beliefs than direct argument against yours.
Basically the grand origin of Everything is unknowable. For starters, why is there something instead of there being nothing? But since there is something and we are proof of it, how does it follow that there must be a creator? As pointed earlier in this thread, it is a recursive question. If life, universe and everything was created by some omnipotent being, who then created that being or how did that being come to be, out of nothing? Any mechanism is equally applicable to the universe directly, without this being in between. If said being existed "always" or out of the concept of time, then so might the hypothetical fireball engine that spits forth universes. To me the question of origin is one and the same with or without a god. Occam's razor favors the simpler explanation.

Regarding evolution, certainly what you say is possible and true in many cases. As to god starting it all, while possible in the purely logical sense, assuming a god exists in the first place, it is not a necessary condition. Creating life from kitchen chemicals in a lab has not been a great success so far. But then the chemists haven't filled oceans with stuff for millions of years either. While the actual event of abiogenesis or life springing from inanimate matter has not been demonstrated (yet) it in no way puts the mechanism and fact of evolution in doubt. That evolution is a fact is proven by actual observation of it happening. Credit to you for not denying that.

I don't really have an argument with people's individual faiths and beliefs. I have mine, others have theirs. But when it gets organized and policies are created and action taken based on faith, not facts then it is time to get worried.
While atheist, i come from a Lutheran protestant culture that abhors idolatry. From that background the organization of say the catholic church is a fabulous monstrosity with its saints and Mary cult and religious orders and whatnot. Talk about an inverted pyramid resting on a vanishing point. They have certainly created a lot of art and architecture and i confess it is significant purely in the secular sense. Also i admire the way they can shed responsibility - just confess to everything, say a few hails to this and that and all is forgiven. Must be good for one's mental wellbeing. Ok, the Lutherans consider all fun a sin anyway so hard to say who's better off there. But at least we still have a triple a credit rating and no risk of being kicked out of the euro union.
Ok if there was a point maybe it was that if an organized religion controls your opinions and actions you are hardly better than a middle east terrorist, whatever the walk of life where you express those opinions and do those actions. Because that's what they do.

[G7PSK]

Chimps have about 97% of the DNA we have, but what makes us US is not so much the different DNA but more of the same. Somewhere about 4 to 6 million years ago the gene SRGAP2a duplicated itself giving our ancestors double SRGAP2a/SRGAP2b then about two and half million years ago the double gene doubled up again giving us 4XSRGAP/SRGAP2b/SRAP2c this is the gene that allows the neurons in the neocortex to expand. It made the spines that neurons use to exchange information with other cells grow thicker and longer and in greater numbers. I don't see that a god is required for this and it still leaves us the problem of if there is a god who the hell created it/him/her. If you have to have cause and effect created by an entity it has to go all the way back or your logic falls flat.

[MrPlacid]

so the robots live in mars, fucking each other, have childrens and grandchildrens and pass down the story about their god called "Time".

you're so silly, mechatrommer, talking about robot fucking..... This is a bad example because we don't have emotion towards robots. Watch those cartoon on tv lately, robots are killed left and right. Robot incest that is nothing.

Mechatrommer, your story is okay, but you forget that the story of "god" could be made up then passed down the generation. UNLESS.... robot are incapable of this.

And why would a "robot colony [that] have gathered more collective knowledge and become more intelligent" would want to believe a story that is passed down from "the older robot colony [which] have less collective knowledge and is less intelligent?"

ROBOT INCEST ROBOT INCEST ROBOT INCEST ROBOT INCEST ROBOT INCEST ROBOT INCEST, see nobody is offended by robot incest.

The holy book shows a god demanding incest to be performed between fathers and daughters, mother and son, brothers and sisters, uncle and nieces. Incest isn't "the only way you can multiply" back then. If only he could only create extra humans. Incest than will not have occurred. Don't forget pedophilia is also present.

The story god and the bible god are different. One is all knowing and all powerful. He should have foreseen incest and created more humans in a mere thought.

[G7PSK]

My pet theory from my school days was that Christianity and more specifically the roman catholic church was created by the Romans when they realized their empire had outgrown govern ability and could no longer be held together by brute force alone. So they created the church which ruled the empire by being part civil service and tax collector and part religious entity which endeavored to keep the populace in line with dire threats to their well being and partly by pacification of their fears which was also being stoked at the same time. This make the Vatican to be ruling the longest running empire of all time.