In the end, it could go both ways I think. Religion could be wrong, "non-religion" could be wrong. But religion provides reassurance, makes people less anxious, more outgoing... it creates self worth for people with low self-esteem, it provides hope for people who have lost close loved ones... and it overall provides help for people who have tough lives. In a way it acts as a coping mechanism, but is, I think, incomparable in its benefits that it offers to millions of people around the globe. As far as its downsides, yes, there have been many tragedies with people who wield religion for their own selfish benefits. People tend to overlook, however, that the New Testament focuses primarily on love and restoration over anything else. To me, personally, I really don't like people who are disrespectful, vulgar, or are jerks in general. So something like Christianity fits pretty well for me. I think the depth of Christianity is very immense, and can offer lots, even to people who act like jerks. The worst thing you can do in my opinion, however, is to be lazy and deny something that you know for fact is truly good, or at least hints to true goodness. I don't really feel like going on tbh since usually: people + internet = crass + disrespectful. And my hope in humanity slowly descends from there lol. Anyways: /my rant
Yes. Why? Because I say so. Also, hi Dax. -Do you believe in a god, an holy higher-up that started the universe and created everything in it? Yes. -Do you believe in the Devil or demonic activity? Yes. -Do you believe in ghosts? You'd have to be more specific. -Do you believe in an after-life? I believe that there is a form of existence that nobody can understand that comes after our death; take that how you will. -If you don't believe in a god, what's your thoughts about the origins of the universe? See above.
The mischaracterization of evolutionary theory is rampant. In every instance I have ever seen a creationist attack it, they have employed a straw man. I won't say anything about your beliefs in god, but when talking about evolution and you get it wrong, I have to correct you. Sorry for being a stickler. Mutations happen instantly when a nucleotide (a basic unit of DNA) is miscopied. It happens at a very low but steady rate. If a mutation happens when you are making new sperm or egg cells (the germ line), it becomes a part of the offspring's genome. Most of the time mutations are neutral, only rarely do they exert a positive or negative influence on the success of the offspring, based on conditions in the environment it is born into. That's where natural selection gets its traction to sort out the bad from the good. So after so many iterations of good mutations accumulating you get noticeable evolution. Mutations are chance but the selection of positive and negative changes is not chance, it is based on how well the new feature fits with the conditions it will operate in. So it is a mistake to say evolution is random. It might take a long time for noticeable change to occur or it might happen very quickly, especially if environmental changes occur. Population genetics have shown that a successful mutation can spread to 50% of a population in 20 generations, which is pretty short for some species. That's a few months for some insects. Also, even though it is often thrown out, it is meaningless to say that humans have been around for x amount of years. The ancestors of humans did in fact live with the dinosaurs (in unrecognizable form), as all species are ultimately derived form the same origin. **** spaiens are distinguishable from a few hundred thousand years ago but the lines that separate a species from its ancestors are misleadingly arbitrary, based on type specimines. In reality our path has been a seamless continuum that goes back to the beginning of life.
If it is meaningless to say humans have existed for x amount of years than it is meanlingless to say our ancestors of humans lived with dinosaurs. What are they both based on...??? Fossils! There are no fossils found of humans that existed as far back as 50,000 thousand years ago but we can find dinosaurs the size of a kitten from earlier than the Jurassic period. So see, your theory is just as meaningless as mine then. Saying Evolution is Law is a direct attack on one's religion. I don't believe evolution created us, I very much believe God, our Lord and Father created us and the dinosaurs. I believe the purpose of all living thins before us was to prime the Earth for human existence. The Earth is still a very young planet when compared to all planets in general. The planet was much hotter when the Dinosaurs lived. If humans were to be born from Evolution during the times of the dinosaurs, I don't see us lasting very long as almost everything around us would be much bigger, faster, and hungrier.
Dinosaurs didn't just wreck their ecosystem and kill everything in their presence. We can see this today, that if a predator's food gets thin, so does the predator. Also I said human ancestors were around in unrecognizable form, they would have been a species suited to that environment. The fossil record of ancestral humans is notoriously thin and not completely sorted out, but this does not come close to casting any reasonable doubt on its continuity. I'm not sure where you get that 50000 year figure, there are ancestral hominins dated back as far as the divergance from Chimps, 10 million years ago. We have a mostly coherent record since then, just relatively minor details yet to be finalized. Also, evolutionary anthropology has plenty to say about all aspects of human uniqueness, and what selection pressures caused it, so there is no need to resort to anything supernatural.
Where are your sources? Since you want to base everything on supposed facts, I see no sources to back up your claims. When you do provide sources, if you do, I can promise you there will be loopholes. My religion is based on faith. You must have faith in the lord and the devil will try and distract you from that faith at all means necessary. We can go round and round but until you start backing up your claims with sources, we no longer have a discussion. I base my beliefs on my religion. If you don't believe in my religion (Christianity) that is cool, but don't argue with what I believe. Thought I made that clear. If you're sources consist of a belief or theory of a scientist, then I won't even bother reading it.
What do you mean it's human nature not to believe in chance, It's a word meaning "A possibility of something happening" How can you not believe in a word. It's human nature not to believe in possibility's? I disagree with that, Isn't believing in God just believing in a possibility? (possibility=A thing that may happen or be the case.) and science is all about finding the most correct possibility (it was science that thought the world was flat because it was most plausible possibility) and how do you explain "Odds" in mathematics? or is this wiki page full of lies? If you mean its not random its a deterministic universe then, That is believing in the possibility (aka chance) that deterministic universe is correct because as far as i know human brains aren't advanced enough to comprehend or predict or prove a deterministic universe.
If you're being a smart-ass, then feel free to continue and I'll just have the thread closed as I don't care to have a discussion with ignorant people and tired of doing so. If you're not being a smart-ass, then let me enlighten you. Faith is a religious act. I don't believe that humans came from Evolution. I believe my God created them. I do not need to source that b/c it is a religious belief, one acted on faith. Indie is basing his beliefs on suspected scientific theory and is referring to these theories as facts. I asked him to source his facts. I do not need to source my beliefs b/c it is based on religion and not facts.
Look at what you quoted with different perspectives in different natures and form. We do believe in chance as in "Anything is possible." But what I meant was, we leave nothing to chance... we know we might become extinct due to being struck by a large space rock of w/e form. So we don't just say we 'hope' we don't get hit, we make every effort to prevent our extinction by making the efforts to develop our technology to not only make a solution to deflect the space rock, but to also spread out to different planets in case Earth gets destroyed or w/e. That's the perspective I meant it, not any other. Sorry for not making it clear.
Fair enough on chance thing we do our best to eliminate chance in most cases That made me lol, because I'm a very scientific minded person. Then I realized I don't know what faith is. is there a simple way you could explain what faith to me?
Now you lost me... Where in your quoted text (the text you quoted from me) did I mention faith? Please explain. Oh... ah ha... you changed it. Faith is confidence or trust in a person, thing, deity, or in the doctrines or teachings of a religion. In my religious terms, faith is being confident that what the bible says is true even when you did not witness the events with your own eyes. Used here in example sentence= "You have to act on faith, rather than by sight or touch." Yes, mostly. We may refuse to put on a seatbelt when we know it may result in death. But on more serious premises, where the survival of our species is at stake, we try not to take chances if possible. You guys can try and hammer away all you want at me or anyone else here who has religious beliefs but that is not what this thread is for. I am ultimately in control here and will shut this mutha' down if you so refuse to obey the rules of my thread and that is: "If anyone makes comments insulting or attacking someone b/c of their beliefs I'm sure the mods may notify you of being off-topic." I do feel like I'm starting to be attacked here as everything I say about my religion is starting to be dissected and put under a microscope. The more I defend my belief, the deeper you guys dig. If you have nothing else to say about your beliefs, then feel free to move on, but quit targeting mine. Many atheists don't believe in God because there is no proof, no evidence, no facts. Well, if scientists found some hard evidence that our god does exists, then faith would no longer be needed and the whole 'faith' system would be broken then, wouldn't it? Kind of a 'failure in design' wouldn't you say? I don't look for hard facts and I know none will never be found, it was designed that way. Throw everything, fact, and idea you want at me, I will not waiver.
So its like I have confidence(The feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something) in science that science is doing science well. I'm not smart enough to know most of what science does but I trust in the system of science to figure out how gravity works etc etc without me having to see it with my own eyes?
So your 'bible' is the tongue of a scientist and what he says is true, basically. If that is what or who you believe, then cool, I have no problem with that. I respect that and have no issue with it. If you want to say something is fact though, then that's another story, but you altered the whole thing. The only facts we have so far is I believe in my religion and you believe in your scientists and now we have nothing further to discuss b/c we both respect one's beliefs. But let me say this... The human mind tries to create order of of chaos. If you see something wrong, it is very natural to want to fix it. If you don't know the answer, you are motivated to find the answer. That's why we have science. Like gravity... before we wondered why we were always pulled to the ground and then the law of gravity was thought up and we no longer had to think 'why.' Same thing goes with religion. The pastor tells you to believe b/c the bible says so. Your mind then sends off an alert b/c that is chaos to the mind... it doesn't make sense. You try to set your mind free of it by trying to find real facts but there are none. So then you choose to make the final decision, am I man of faith or do I choose to make sense of it all and choose not to believe in something not proven real. Many atheists don't believe in God because there is no proof, no evidence, no facts. Well, if scientists found some hard evidence that our god does exists, then faith would no longer be needed and the whole 'faith' system would be broken then, wouldn't it? Kind of a 'failure in design' wouldn't you say? I don't look for hard facts and I know none will never be found, it was designed that way. If you really think this remarkable, one-of-a-kind planet that is of perfect size, perfect distance from the sun (perfect size sun), with a perfectly sized and placed moon to inhabit humans (to create tides and wind) is all by chance then you have ultimately created the most amount of chaos to your belief in science and no way to back it up. You really have to think of all the things that are perfect to allow humans to even exist, the 'evolution' of events to happen, and to say it is all by chance is ignorance at best. We, humans, have only existed for a few thousand years and already have left a footprint much greater than any species that has existed for millions of years, before us. We may have had 'evolution relatives' like apes, but they were not humans. They existed for a lot longer time and failed, miserably. They. were. not. humans. Not matter how closely you want to compare them to us, there is a solid line between them and us. Science has made many theories and what many scientists strongly believed has been proven wrong by new findings and evidence. For that reason alone, science is broken . The existence of our God and the events of our bible has never been proven wrong, other than by theories of science, which is a broken system. I am a man of faith, a faith that will not be broken. I make order to the chaos by believing in the rule of faith, not gravity. I know the rules of faith and the faith system shall never be broken b/c it is something science can never prove right or wrong. But... if your believe in the words of scientists, and don't ultimately say their words are facts, who am I to argue.
The word sentience here is rather distracting. How are all mammals and other animals insentient? I would think that there is just as much sentient biomass in the oceans as on land, and this trend will be expected for possible life on other planets. Has anybody picked up on how anyone from any background feels the need to give their two cents when it comes to the most advanced scientific theories, even though they know nothing about the process or the evidence, yet so many are automatically humbled and silenced when ideas of the soul, morality and the existence of god are asked, even though little evidence of philosophical understanding has been provided in thousands of years. Also i'd like to see some evidence (because i've looked and articles i've read duck the question), of where, how, why it is electromagnetism that we are attributing to the soul, the divine, the ghostly etc. Why is it that the most commonly detectable, universally available and unfortunately ethereally present field is picked when there are many candidates that suit equally to the task, of being with you when your alive, and gone when you're dead. Why also Boltzmans laws of thermodynamics, formulae that we apply to energies in a gas, are being used to explain how the energy of the soul escapes the body at the moment of death. This is hocus pocus science. This is a complete god-of-the-gaps argument, only you have taken things we have already explained/understood and reducing them back to the notion of 'perfection' in support of a deity. There is nothing perfect about the shape or size of the Earth, Moon, Sun or any other orbital body. I digress, what is it you think is so perfect about them? The orbital arrangement is actually so complicated to explain that Newton, perhaps humanities greatest contributor to science, with all of the tools he'd created at his disposal (calculus) failed to understand the relationship, leaving a gap of 100 years before Laplace picked up the mathematics that he'd created and used it to provide a complete explanation of the orbital bodies, and in so inventing the orrery (Newton could easily have achieved this, he had developed calculus in a weekend practically as a dare, the only thing stopping him was his obsession with mysticism and alchemy). Indeed we know much more now, but still not enough to determine just the history of our solar system. Planets do fall into more simplistic arrangements yes, thanks to the conservation of angular momentum (energy), but it is very clear that some rather catastrophic event has taken place, and disturbed the orbits of almost every planet, sending many flying outwards into the colder regions of space. We know this because the larger gas giants had to have formed much closer to become so large. This could have well been, us doomed from the start, so if you want to attribute perfection to it then i ask, do you attribute them to the asteroids and meteorites too? Tides and winds exist everywhere, indeed solar wind could be threatening our electronic advancement very soon. You suppose that weather, geological activity and tides are all perfectly tuned for the proliferation of humans, and instead not natural laws and events that we must (and have been) struggling against for a far longer amount of time than you seem to comprehend. **** sapiens have walked the earth for somewhere between 1 and 2hundred thousand years. We have direct links to tens if not hundreds of other species of primitive man. Apes are our common ancestors, not our ancestors. We are not descendants of apes, but we share descendants previously in history, and so does every species through common genetic links. In this way we have not outlived any other species, nor has any other species outlived anyone, because all species are changing through those millions of years. Alas, it is clearly you who is looking at the chaos of what you do not understand and associating it to a monotheism you apparently understand completely. It's insane.
...who dafuq has been humbled and silenced about god n stuff? I think you're thinking about admitting who farted when in a crowd of people. Then people don't give their toots sense. Religion people won't shut the hell up about their religion or lack their of (atheists don't shut up either). @Fenix Also, I'm pretty sure you can't use the "faith is beyond explanation and scientific inquiry" argument and then call someone else ignorant. Since, you know, the definition of ignorant is lacking knowledge or awareness of information and faith's definition is essentially, purposely forcing one's self to lack information on the belief of something that can by definition not be proved or disproved.
"Source your facts" "No, source your facts but don't use evidence, just your personal opinion" "No, my entirely unsupported claims about the nature of the universe based on a book written by a peasants two millennia ago are better than YOUR claims supported by a system I don't believe in explicitly because it conflicts with what the accuracy off my book (which is rife with inaccuracies and outright contradictions, which even the barest amount of time using a search engine will prove)" There are people out there 10 times more devoted to god than you, and it's not even your god they're believing in, and praying to, and pledging their faith in. I just proved that all that faith and belief and devotion and effort they put into worshipping was wrong. "It was misplaced faith though. They're wrong about what they believe and can't prove and I'm right about what I believe and can't prove". I'm glad we had this talk.
I don't have faith in any specific person to be true, I have faith in the scientific way of things. If someone says world is flat and this is the past and everyone believes that and for all intents and purposes and causes me no problems, I'm fine with that, Because anyone can critique anyone if someone thinks world is round and can prove it then everyone will believe the world is round. The way I see science as humans critiquing each other to find the most feasible common truth, I don't have faith in anyone I just believe if someone is bsing in science it will be called out by someone who knows better and be correct to the best of there ability so I trust the outcome of that process to be fairly reliable(I have confidence that w/e science tells me is something i can trust, I wont take it as 100% fact but I take a innocent till proven guilty approach to science) With religion, I don't know if there is a god i don't discount it but I don't understand why anyone would have faith in it. (Believing in=/=Having faith in) It would make much more sense for you to believe in god but not have faith in it imo. A lot of people believe in religion so believing something because a lot of people or authority figures believe in something makes sense. (Just like I believe in science because authority figures in science says something, But i don't have faith in it) You don't know there is a god neither do I and to have faith in something you can't know for sure because "someone told me, A lot of people believe it,Authority figures believe it" Seems like staying intentionally naive and you can get taken advantage of by anyone if you hold that view. (I'm not a atheist crusader or anything I'm innocently curious)