that page is old **** man. thats 80s stuff. We can now make carbon nanotube blood cells that facilitate circulation and stop you having a stroke. Now thats ****ing crazy.
First off the word stupidity is there because thats how I entitled my argument on Page 5, not against your beliefs. If you had even bothered to read my rant, youd realize. Next, there seems to be an air of ingornance. Its as if some non believing members are being talked down to as if they know nothing about Religion. This however is only a feeling, I cant see anything solid about it. Yet. Also, I can guarantee at least half of the Athiests, or Agnostics, or whatever you bother to call yourselves were religious at one point. I was raised Catholic, and was Catholic up until about a year ago. And a strong one too. But I opened my mind, and started to study into Religion. After learning more about it in the space of 6 months than I did in 14 years, I decided I didnt believe it. Not only were there too many holes to fill, but there were so many contradictions, and the fact that something as sacred as a religion was being constantly changed to keep up with the changing of Society. It doesnt seem Sacred anymore if its changed so much from the way it once was. Also, I need to refer back to some point about Hitler, which I belive needs to be made: According to most people here, God supposedly was against violence, etc. But I need to refer to the old testament of the bible. Both testaments are extremely different. The old testament shows god as...hmm..A ruthless king, for lack of a better euphemism. He was shown as someone who would show his wrath to anyone who defied him. Also, the old testament of the bible seemed to promote killing to an extent, and sexism, and other things that are ruled unjust in todays society. But the God in the New Testament is shown as a peace lover, someone who would run around picking flowers and chanting John Lennon songs if he walked the earth. He is portrayed as a Pacifist, against violence. However, before this, he was completely different. I dont see how something like that could change the way it did. But also, I refer to my earlier point that religion is changing to keep up with Society, therefore losing its sacredness. ANOTHER thing. If you read my last point, youd see where I mentioned my friend. Its time to refer to him again, because most stubborn religious people are alot like him. When I mention anything from the above statement, he mentions that Christians are supposed to follow the New Testament, not the old testament. However, most of the teachings come from the Old Testament, so it doesnt make sense. Basically, in case anyone does, or is thinking of doing it, dont talk down to anyone not of the same belief as you, because chances are, at one point or another, they believed the same. And a closing point: Its funny how most people who are once religious and then move into something like Agnosticism or Athiesm know more about that religion that most people who are devoutly religious. This is probably because the devoutly religious people just belive whats said to them, others actually look into it. Oh yeah the point about Hitler: Someone said something ridiculously idiotic about Hitler not being Christian because he killed so many people. Thats pretty ironic, because if you knew anything about the Reformation, Herecy against Christianty or the Crusades, you wouldnt make that point. Also, one of the main ideas behind the **** Party, and Hitlers regime in itself, was Social Darwinism, and an extreme version of it at that. He belived that those with better technology, or better understanding should overrule those of a lower standing, referring back to Darwins theory of the strongest species survives.
@ Neoshadow: That's why I had organized religion. Yes I go to church and yes I believe in Jesus and yes I have done plenty of studying and looking into it during my own times of doubt. But the organized church has a tendency to lead people in the wrong way. It's why I don't really associate with any denomination (my church is even non-denominational). A lot of big mega church circles will do what you say and change their applications of the Bible, which is why I like the church I am at. They simply preach the Bible and don't add anything to it, it's just back to basics solid truth. Also, when you study the Old Testament and the New Testament thoroughly and get into the real details of context, original manuscripts, original language and meaning, etc you will see that the OT depictions of God mimic and lead up to the NT Jesus. The only reason I have any remote knowledge of that is I once had trouble with it myself and secondly I took some graduate level Seminary courses on the matter and through my studies it made sense to me. And as for the Hitler thing, Hitler didn't do anything in the name of God. Yes I agree the Crusades were messed up and wrong. I won't go beyond that other than saying if you know the true meaning of being a Christian you can make a good educated guess about Hitler's beliefs and even those who were in the Crusades. [br][/br]Edited by merge: Well it's pretty simple. A Christian who loves science can very easily exist. Science isn't this polar opposite of Religion as people think. Science can prove pretty much everything except the existence of God, but at the same time it is impossible to disprove it but whatever that's not my point. My point is that there is no reason someone who devoutly follows God can't be a brilliant scientist. Science doesn't disprove God (I guess that is relevant) so why can't a Christian spend his life studying the things that can be proven?
You completely misunderstand. We are a part of nature. Therefor, whatever we do is an act of nature. I think people want to identify humans as celestial beings, we are not. We are heavily evolved organic constructs with problem solving capabilities designed to do things that would be impossible to occur naturally. In a million years, will we matter? Or will we be replaced with an even more evolved species. The bigger question is, are we alone? Even Stephen Hawking doesn't think so. We may be one of millions or billions of races across the vast Universe, unknowingly competing for perfection.
Any physicist doesn't think so. The universe is just far too large to comprehend. There is enough room for every concievable outcome you could possibly imagine to exist in the same space, and because it's so huge, these microscopic probabilities may as well just be an every day occurance.
Oh, I totally agree with you, what I was saying is that anyone who demonstrates faith in the scientific field will be shunned and frowned upon. It is very difficult for someone to be open about their faith in said field. I'm not saying that Christians don't exist in any scientific field at all.
Thats absolute horse **** mister. Why the hell would people so intelligent and interested in human advancement shun their peers because they have faith. Faith is a natural thing.
I was under the impression the only thing faster than the speed of light was the speed of the universes expansion? Maybe Im wrong, I could have sworn I heard that somewhere. And if it is truly the case, no matter what you say, the human mind CANNOT comprehend everything, the same way the human mind cannot comprehend that something has existed forever.
That's not true either. Galaxies are travelling (generally) outwards at varying speeds, like an explosion, however the galaxies further out are accelerating, however that is due to something that i wont explain now. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Nothing can even travel at the speed of light, except for light. Some galaxies which are travelling in an opposite direction at speeds near the speed of light appear to be travelling away from us at faster than the speed of light, because we are also travelling away from it at some pretty insane speed. This is the Hubble Constant.
Here is a very good article written by Stephen Hawking. You don't have to agree with it, but it is a very good read; Why God did not create the universe - by Stephen Hawking
Ah I get what you mean, and yes I would have to agree with what you say there. [br][/br]Edited by merge: Pretty good read, not the first time I've read it but something new stuck out at me this time and it was this statement: That's false as the traditional Christian viewpoint is stemmed from writings that are dated long before Aristotle was even alive. So if anyone was influenced it was Aristotle, but I honestly think Aristotle came to his own conclusions on his own accord. But it is incorrect to assume that the Christian view is influenced by a man who lived long after the writings that Christians base their views on were written.
It's not fair to say that. You can't really blame science due to christianities own tendancy to not date things and just say they are all the unanymous 'word of god'. Christian ideology has obviously advanced tremendously since creation, and a lot of the supposed truths probably originate during medievil times when they had the greatest power.
I'm not sure I understand what you are talking about here. The writings and their respective dates I am talking about have been dated using scientific methods to determine the age of the text on the paper and they are dated to before Aristotle so when I say that the writings that Christians base their beliefs of the origin of life are before Aristotle I mean just that. They were physically in existence before Aristotle, and that is where I disagree with Hawking's statement that Christianity's viewpoint is influenced by a man who lived after our ideas were already written.
Ok so I did some double checking on my research and I actually goofed a bit, the texts I was thinking of did not contain the story of Creation so ignore my comments about the texts existing before Aristotle, my bad on that one. So since I was mistaken in that matter I went ahead and did some digging and found this article that I found most interesting and I think it offers some good insight. In essence Aristotle, through basic human observation, saw what many Christians see: evidence of a divine Creator. Even so, historically speaking the stories in the Bible and the cities and cultures that have been discovered do predate Aristotle so when you put those things together and also include the idea that Aristotle was on the right track one can deduce that, while Aristotle came to the conclusion of an "unmoved mover," the concepts of the God in the Bible were a part of cultures other than Aristotle's before Aristotle's time. Again, my apologies for having my info mixed up on my previous posts.
While we ourselves extensions of nature, what we do are not necessarily acts/extensions of nature. You see, an Act of Nature is something completely unstoppable, and not premeditated by a conscious being. Though we are not celestial beings, we are not an instrument of nature. Nature does not control the things we do. Influence, yes. Control, no. Based on this, the things humans do are not extensions of nature. Definition of an Act of Nature: "An event which is caused solely by the effect of nature or natural causes and without any interference by humans whatsoever." "designed to do things that would be impossible to occur naturally." If we are doing something that cannot occur naturally then it is not an act of nature
But you are speaking in the context that humans are not a natural event, that we are in fact super natural, or above nature. That is where science is conflicted with religion. I understand the contradiction. But, looking at it with the mindset that humans were born naturally through millions years of evolution, it implies that everything we do is actually an act of nature, because we are as much a part of nature as any other organism that has existed before us.
David Gallo on life in the deep oceans | Video on TED.com Towards the end they discuss what could be the origin of mankind. It's quite old school, 1998, so i cant comment on the process of this theory as of now. Just thought it might be relevent.
I fundamentally disagree on your reasoning Nossirom. I can see where your logic is coming from, but from my own mind it seems quite flawed indeed. While Humans aren't above nature, I do believe that our own actions are separate from it. The separation is our ability to reason. Thats what makes us different from nature. We are the only living organism on earth that has the ability to reason, and that is what sets us apart from the classification of natural. Because reason stops things from occuring naturally. For something to occur naturally, it is without thought. For instance. Does a bear standing over a river think "Hey is it right to kill these salmon for food? Could I perhaps scavenge or somehow quench my hunger with some sort of plant?" No. Nature has a flow to it, and reason is something that disrupts it.