ReligiON

Christians: 1
Atheists: 0

okemanresu: 1 (thumb)

Christians: 1
Atheists: 0

okemanrsesu: 143 (thumbs

-200

Example:

www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/3729078/That+one+site/

you forgot religioff

Actually, no. Racism and discrimination as a whole is an evolutionary thing.
We do it for protection or some shit.
Google it.

Couldn't of said it any better myself

I read that in Steve Irwin's voice. Is there something wrong with me?

interesting, I've always believed that science and religion dont go separate ways but i didnt knew this

Actually the scientific method was created by Francis Bacon, back in 1561 during the Scientific Revolution.

Honestly, saying there wouldn't be any science without religion is a huge jump. Humans have always asked questions about the natural world, science is the process of experimentation and discovery while religion has been used to fill the gaps. Simply because the early scientists were christians does not mean science would not exist, who know's what their religious preferences would be if they understood Evolution, Nucleosynthesis, The Big Bang, all the astronomic and cosmological discoveries we've made. People back then didn't even know how the Earth was formed or that we were in a galaxy. Back then, there was little reason to not believe in God, but with all the science and understanding we have now, we have much more justification.

First of all, the scientific revolution was sparked by rationalism (Descartes) and inductivism (Locke). Bacon channeled Locke's thoughts on how to find the purpose of anything to strictly science. Locke would argue this: if there were no creator, it does not automatically follow that things should make sense. The careful tuning of everything to mathematical precision does not easily follow evolution by itself. Secondly, (and Locke would not make such an argument), if we did evolve it makes little sense that we can make sense of the universe. We should know our biosphere alone. There is no reason that we have high thinking possibilities such as calculus and philosophy by natural selection alone. And finally, saying "if they knew about evolution, nucleosynthesis and the Big Bang" and such they wouldn't be religious begs the question. If they were not religious, those discoveries would not have been made.

You honestly think that in a 100% secular world, experimentation and science wouldn't prevail? Simply because the first advocates of science were religious does not mean whatsoever that science would not exist without religion. The cosmological argument, that everything is too precise to be created by processes instead of a creator. Many people seem to think this is an argument for a Christian, but it's not, it's an argument for a Deist and it's also been refuted before. I recently heard of a book Stephen Hawking wrote called, "The Grand Design" which explains through the various laws of physics, that the Universe does not need a creator. Are you really questioning the credibility of Evolution? I have to say, when someone denies Evolution, that makes them seem very unintelligent. The amount of evidence behind Evolution is immense, there is no reason to deny it other then it contradicting your religion and that, to say the least, is a stupid reason. I guarantee that if you were to rewind time and make a completely secular world, science would have arose even earlier for all we know, and the Dark Ages wouldn't have precluded scientific thought for 2000 years. Religion was the first way people tried explaining things, thousands of years later science took it's place. In a secular world where the thought of simply asserting things without evidence wouldn't exist, science would be put to use immediately

I did not deny evolution, I said that evolution strictly by natural selection is troublesome to believe in many ways. The first of which is, as I said, there is no reason that higher thinking would develop thro natural selection. We would evolve to best survive, but knowing and discovering things outside in the universe does not make sense. Also, philosophical thinking does not follow from natural selection. There is no edge to survival from considering things like if we and our world is real or not. It, therefore, cannot be produced from natural selection. Scientific thinking itself does not follow from natural selection. Why would a creature ever advance from simply surviving in the wild to hypothesizing how they became or how the world around them became how it is or works. Instead, I believe that a deity guided evolution. This deity intervened at some point and gave humankind the intuition of there being more than surviving and thus true intellect arose. Stating that I believed the deity intervened, I am obviously not a deist. While the cosmological argument explains on its base deism, it is the basis for any theistic argument to continue. The cosmological arguments and also the newer fine-tuning argument are strongly compelling. They do not say the world could not have happened without a deity, but it does say it is very VERY unlikely. Hawkins describes how it could happen while discounting the huge numerical probabilities against his beliefs. Finally, one of Darwin's doubts was that this belief and deep intuition of a God or something larger than our physical realm exists and has persisted throughout all of evolution. That is not something readily explainable, for if religion is a delusion such a gene would surely be wiped out of DNA and memory banks by now.
And if it is at all important to you, I am an evolutionary theist who believes in a synthesis of religions rather than follow one religion strictly.

And you never acknowledged or addressed that science would prevail in a secular world

I'm happy you can accept Evolution, I lose more and more hope in humanity whenever I meet people who think it doesn't have any evidence. While natural selection did give us out intelligence, it did not give us all of our ingenuity, I believe that we simply took advantage of our inquisitiveness, creating tools and such increased our brain capacity. One thing that is wrong is that Stephen Hawking didn't take in the fine tuning of the Universe in, he's a cosmologist and the whole book revolves around why that fine tuning does not need a creator and can manifest from the laws of Physics, he absolutely did take it into account. A synthesis of religions? Please explain further

There is a new fine tuning argument that has been unveiled and presented at universities and the Philosopher's Association this past year. It presents new numbers that Hawkins had previously unanswered and this new argument goes beyond simple laws but also to things like the speed of light, thermodynamics, and electromagnetics that if tweaked only a bit would make modern technology almost impossible to create and use. I am (unfortunately) unread in the argument and know only about it because the man who developed is my professor. Google Robin Collins/ Fine-tuning if you want to find more for yourself.
Now as it pertains to my personal beliefs: metaphysically, I am a Christian. Meaning: I believe in an all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing God who is more of an essence and has no physical body but yet very physical powers. I adhere to the Bible, but based on passages in Romans (Romances 14) and Philippians (Philippians 4) I am much more relative in my morals than most Christians. In this way, I am a Neo-Confucian (which in itself is a synthesis of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism). I resemble a Confucian closely in practice. All of my morals are based on universal love rather than strict rules written in a 2000 year old book. I am Daoist because I am not aggressive in my practices but rather respond to happenings as they come. In this way, my morals may evolve with the times and right and wrong is different in every situation rather than a simple yes/no switch mentality. I do believe in a heaven and I do believe we only live once as Christianity preaches, but I am much more inclusivist in approach. If one follows their own faith and is a good man, he will surely reach heaven because my God is all-loving and all-merciful. I am very little concerned with heaven, however. My morals and religious beliefs are to be applied to live a good, wholesome, loving, tolerant life right now today. The real world benefits are my goal, not an eternity spent in paradise.

My God is the Christian God and I do acknowledge Christ. He is a personal God. Christianity, however, simply best describes what every religion describes as their God. The all-loving, unifying experience that all religions that pay attention to metaphysics holds is them experiencing my God in their own way. I believe God judges by how lived their individual faiths. In their world, what was right and wrong. Did they follow what was right? Then they're probably alright in HIs book.
I didn't acknowledge the point the latter point because I ran out of room. I believe science can only explain so much and is insufficient. Think about this: everything we know about science is based on the senses. We see, hear, taste, or feel all results of tests. Our senses are controlled by organs connected to our brain. Should our brain evolve and obtain new senses we no not of know, our entire universe would appear different. In rare medical cases, individuals see sound and hear colors. Their universe is much different than ours and often they can express things we never could. Therefore, as long as science is based upon the senses, which in turn are based upon the brain, science is always insufficient in the long run. There must be something beyond the senses then that is just "real". We all experience the world differently, but we are still experiencing SOMETHING. That mysterious essence of something that can be experienced in all senses in ways that science cannot (and never will) adequately described is the metaphysical realm. Metaphysics is for the religious and philosophers. Religion, then, will always be required to fully understand our universe. (Just for clarification, I speak of intuitions, feelings beyond just chemical emotions, truths, the surge of admiration one gets from a painting, a landscape, music or poetry, and most importantly a love that exceeds all selfish and chemical things of the body. This is where my religion becomes involved).

And the initial point wasn't whether Science was limited and Religion was needed, it was that in a secular world, science would prevail.

I'm really tired so I'll give better response tomorrow, but I skimmed over it, and in some ways we've discovered things beyond our senses through science. Electromagnetic waves out of visible light (Radio, Micro, Infrared, Ultraviolet, X-ray, Gamma). We discovered atoms and quarks through the use of science that are way way way beyond our sight. We can understand thing far beyond our sky, do you realize how insignificant we are to the rest of the Universe? That's one of the reasons I deny all personal gods. We can understand what happens in the center of stars, we can even look back in time through our wondrous tools (Hubble for example). As I said I'll give a larger response tomorrow, have a good night.

Those things beyond our natural senses are insignificant in comparison to the things we don't understand about ourselves. For instance, you eat chocolate. Chemicals fire and say that you're tasting chocolate. But the joy or hate of what one tastes cannot be found in the brain. It seems then that there are experiences that occur beyond our physical realm. There are other things that are just innately true that are not material, such as mathematical axioms on the most basic of levels. They're just true and have been true, they existed before human invention of such terms. These things hint to me that something must be beyond our physical universe. Neo-Confucians attribute this to a higher realm that is impersonal called the "Great Ultimate." Plato claimed that such a realm existed as well. I am a Platonic Christian, claiming that this higher realm of truth exists within God's mind and the "Great Ultimate" is actually a personal being instead of a realm. This also explains where love came from. Something impersonal could never create such an essence of love. When I observe the outside universe and see how insignificant we are, I am compelled closer to a belief in a god than science. Observing the mechanisms of the universe seems to hint more to me a creator than random luck. And my answer to if science would prevail in a secular world is within my prior response. There is too much that science cannot yet or possibly ever explain for science to exist as the only explaining tool no matter how secular the world becomes. A world of imperials is impossible because of the evidences against simple imperials being all that there is. Something: whether it be romanticism, religion, or philosophy would creep into such a secular society and always battle science. It is inevitable.

Thing is, you should never underestimate certain things. People have always underestimated things because there potential is unknown to them. The potential of science could be unknown to us, who know's what incredible discoveries we can create. "Engines of war have long since reached their limits, and I see no further hope of any improvement in the art of war." Frontinus, A.D. 90. The things that science has discovered beyond our natural senses are significant because your initial argument was that science is only limited to our natural senses. You brought up the thought that our brain could evolve and new senses would arise, why would they? There isn't any evidence of senses beyond natural senses in us or any other animal. Despite that, we have still discovered so much beyond those senses. As you explained, some things are innately true before humans discover them, but we have discovered many of them, who's to say we'll stop? The problem with believing in a personal god is the amount of arrogance it takes. No offense, but one of the beliefs that I despise the most is the belief that this whole Universe was created for us and we were created in the holy glory of a being that favors us. I cannot express in words the amount of resentment I have toward such a belief. Not only that, but the only reasonable argument I have ever heard for a supernatural being is that the Universe is very finely tuned. That does not imply whatsoever that there is a personal god that loves and cares for us. The only thing that does imply is a deist god that in no way hears our prayers, cares for us, loves us, and all the other emotional nonsense people come up with these days. Love is feeling based on benefits. You are attracted to someone when they provide benefits, that's just the natural way of things, it's not just humans either. Animals care for families and such as well. Benefits lead to survival. Continued

You seem to have forgotten the original argument, your original argument was the science would not have existed without religion, not whether science can explain everything. I pointed out that if you were to rewind time, and remove the thought of asserting things without empirical evidence, science would be put to use immediately, despite what forces arise to oppose it. In a secular world, science would arise with or without religion, it's simply a way of explaining things, it is not arm in arm with religion.

Never logged on

true, also, if you weren't religious, you were an outcast and less prone to being well educated, social, etc.. these are kind of prerequisited for not only finding the theories, but also for having them heard.

science would have come without religion.

Whoa. John Locke's idea of God coincides with mine perfectly. Therefore, I am John Locke reincarnate

I acclaim this thread as property of the Arachnid Gentleman.

Aren't you that douche that had the post yesterday about how religion is an evil brainwashing cult that "promotes hatred bigotry and sexism"?

Yea, you don't have to be Nostradamus to predict where you're going to take this conversation. No thanks.

But you have to also consider that it was a time also marked by Catholic corruption. These were mostly just human errors made in the NAME of religion, nothing more....

The Crusades were a war over territory. And the Muslims started it by taking over the Chruch's.

"For, as most of you have been told, the Turks, a race of Persians, who have penetrated within the boundaries of Romania even to the Mediterranean to that point which they call the Arm of Saint George, in occupying more and more of the lands of Christians, have overcome them, already victims of seven battles, and have killed and captured them, have overthrown churches, and laid waste to God's Kingdom."

-- Pope Urban II

It's also important to remember that after the fall of the Roman Empire the Church took over the basic roles of government when the central government had fallen apart. When Europe started to rebuild Christianity was the only real uniting factor between them. In acting as a government they had to preform the functions of a government, namely defending it's territory which was being threatened by the expansion of the powers in the East.

Why this one conflict is seen as such an atrocity is beyond me. The events were completely pedestrian in a time when wars were an every day occurrence. It would be hardly a blip in history if not for the fact that militant atheists have made it a mainstay in their playbook.

Not the fourth crusade

Also: quoting the pope to defend Catholicism is like quoting Fox News to defend republicans

The way I see it there are two types of people in the world:
Ignorant or
Intelligent

I don't care if you seriously believe in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (may his noodly appendages bless you all), if you are an intelligent human and aren't just another sheeple, you're good in my book. The only religious people I have problems with are the ones that use God as a teddy bear. Whenever they don't understand or don't want to face a problem or get scared, they hide their face in the teddy bear expecting it to solve their problems. It's not. Solve your own damn problems. Teddy bears are fine as long as you aren't dependent on them. And the atheists I hate are the kind that...well... do this. You can call me hypocritical, I will often comment saying "leave God out of this" if someone says "may God save your heart" in an argument or something. But at least I say it when I'm trying to actually help someone or when they bring it up unnecessarily. The atheists I'm talking about are huge cunts.

then what religion are the scientists?

Any or none. The point is atheism doesn't automatically equal science like so many anons claim it does.

well, actually, usually it does. Not to be a dick, but name a few famous Catholic scientists from the last 150 years

Dunno, I don't keep that information readily at hand, but there's a couple of religious dudes on my brother's theoretical physics course at uni, and a muslim guy in his flat who does a biology course. Pic unrelated.

Correlation is not evidence of causality. Consider that for several thousand years all of the most forward thinking doctors, researchers and scientists were of a strong Muslim faith, and many of our scientific practices are based on their discoveries and methods. You're limiting your evidence to the past hundred years, which in itself is a fallacy.

If you were an atheist in a medieval country, you wouldn't be ABLE to declare yourself an athiest. Once we got to a state where athiests weren't persecuted as much (the 20th century), all the big scientists came out as athiests.

Non-muslims were suprisingly rather tolerated in the old Islamic world, mostly due to it being the "crossroads of the world" and so a meeting point of a myriad of different cultures and creeds. Sure, there was still racism and persecution, but nowhere near as much as you would suspect. The intolerance is very, very recent. The reason they were Muslim is because they always had been, and their parents were, and their friends were - it was just part of their world view, in much the same way an atheist like you or me's lack of a god is.

As an example: Mohammed, the bloke who wrote the Qur'an, had a mentor and friend throughout most of his life who was non-Muslim and refused to be converted. Mohammed straight up accepted that and left him to his own beliefs (or lack of it). Old Muslims used to take that lesson to heart.

Well you obviously know more about Islam then I do. All I'm going to say is, we had atheists with great minds in ancient Greece (like Democritus), I'm sure there were a few great mathmaticians and physicians in Medieval Eastern Europe, and in modern times, from about the late nineteenth to the early 21st century with a huge scientific revolution came an explosion of atheists. Of course I don't know very much about the prevalence of atheism in the Middle East, but in every time period I DO know of, the scientists were either agnostics (like David Bohm), passive atheists (like Newton), or full blown atheists (like Richard Feynman.) (By the way, I really wish you would stop thumbing down all of my comments.)

Oh, it's not me - I don't know why people are doing it :/

And yeah, it makes sense that people make the connection between atheism and science because scientists have usually been atheist (or at least agnostic) in recent times. It's just it's not true of most of history is all.

Newton wasn't an atheist

PASSIVE athiest

What I mean is, he called himself a catholic, but he wasn't a very strong believer. He rarely mentions God in Principa, and I think it's because he was socially obligated.

(to mention God in a science book I mean)

because when you think you have the answer, you stop looking for it. if you think that God is the answer and prayer cures disease, you stop researching for it. not only that, but most wars are caused by religion. if people stopped arguing about it we could take all the time we spend trying to kill each other over it, advancing instead. so no, it's not the only cause that halts scientific progress, but it quite definitely hinders it.

also, there are many research practices outlawed because a religion finds it "immoral." stem cell research for instance. get off your high horse. or better yet, fall off.

I have no religion and i do have moral standards. you, sir, are assuming things. stem cell research involves aborted fetuses, of whom are dead. We are not burning people alive, which was the main purpose of concentration camps. Are you against organ donation as well? that involved human experimentation. but it also saved lives, as stem cell research might.

I see you are religious, and you find stem cell research immoral. Do you find it immoral because you are pro life? I, personally, am pro choice, therefore i do not find it immoral. Are you pro life because of your religion? Feel free to prove my point.

Also, you say research has made people suffer, are you saying religion hasn't? In the end, research will benefit the masses if used properly. How does your God who destroys cities on a whim (sadam and gamora) help you?

I here only opinions, assumptions and misinformation from you. Please respond when you have something useful to add to the conversation :)

If you think about it his argument really makes sense. If you are 100% convinced that god is in control and parier is the answer then you wont be looking for other solutions. If you "know" hat god will heal your damaged body, then you wont be researching medicine.

Yea actually religion did stop scientific progress. Many people with own opines and new great ideas got killed, many of them ideas which sciences was involved for example.

A women gets killed because she develops a medicine that cures a man. Religions explanation of this? She's a witch! There for we need to kill her.
Bitch you just killed the only person in that time period which knew how to cure that disease.


Though that doesn't happen anymore in our time period, it did not for such along time ago.

The Puritans for about a 40 year span killed woman for things like that in the 1600s. Women were actually not oppressed very much during the middle ages when Christianity flourished. The huge oppression of woman happened in America.

And the lack of scientific progress was not at all due to religion. It happened because the Roman Empire fell and Europe was conquered by "barbarians." While they did eventually advance past their barbaric ideas and style of life, the original disbanding of the huge central authority plunged Europe into chaos and slowed scientific progress. Also, the church didn't kill people for believing in science (for example, the Earth being round). During the middle ages, virtually every scholar knew it to be true and knew that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe. The church shunned Galileo because he said the bible wasn't true because of that information, not because he believed in it or even preached about it.

Actually it wasn't only under the 1600 they were killed for those kinds of things but mostly plus it wasn't only woman's that got killed by those kinds of things it was also men, but you are right it was maybe not religion that brought up stuff about witches and such things, but christianity has the devil in their story's thought so i dunno.
On a sidenote they killed around 40 000 to 100 000 people for thinking they are witches (And yes it still slowed down science progress)

But i do agree that Europe was conquered by barbarians did a more impact than what the witch stuff did and yea maybe the church didn't kill people but damn they did torture people. Another thing they actually tired to assassinate Paolo Sarpi for religious reasons (not the church).

Religion also started alots of wars which slowed down science progress (Like the Thirty year old war).

I understand what you're saying, but I'm just saying the Dark Ages being caused by religion is a misconception, because they were caused by the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Yea, but i'm speaking of all time periods over all, over the hole planet (that means not only Europe in that time period you are talking about). But i do agree on that the Dark ages as you call it is a misconception.

sorry for bad english.

oh wait. it's a joke. quit your butthurt.

I'm pretty sure that the pea plant experiments were dont by gregor mendel. unless darwin did it too.

Or you can believe in intelligent design. Too bad i'm not a "true" christian. Evolution is true. But what sparked life? How was the first atom created? I believe, God created the first atom.

I say, logically there is no evidence for or against God, therefore I won't even amuse the topic of such. I'll say there may be a God, but since it doesn't matter and we can't prove it, who cares. And then I look back and say "where did time and space start?" And then I realize, I don't give a shit. There is no possible way humanity can ever figure it out without directly observing the event or being told by someone who directly observed the event. Maybe time and space have always existed, there was no beginning? Maybe a super intelligent species in another universe created this universe, the possibilities are endless, so let's not bother arguing about it. You believe God created the universe? That's perfectly reasonable, whatever helps you sleep at night. Good day sir.

So... Who created the god? Another God? Or he just appeared from the nothing? Is more likely to there was appeared a god from nothing than a simple atom?

Sorry for my english.

You do realize that a Theory is the 2nd highest title anything scientific can get right?

I don't think he means all religions, but I mean come on. Even in England muslims are following their Sharia laws which are worst than medieval torture methods.

I understand that you think too much control of people by religion is bad, and may or may not be anti-islamic, but honestly some people like that feeling of stability in their life, and in some ways too much freedom can be bad. I am a Christian, but I believe all people should be able to practice any religion or lack thereof as long as their execution of religious freedom corresponds with secular law. People need to find a healthy balance between control and freedom when it comes to religion, just like all things in life.

Oh no, I wasn't dissing religion. I myself am agnostic, I find that neither religion or science can provide me with satisfactory answers to the questions I have, and so I tend not to stray either way, if you get what I mean?

What I believe is that if someone wishes to be religious/spiritual then so be it, their life isn't my problem, my problem is when you have mass stonings and horrendous executions of people who more often than not didn't do anything particularly wrong. Like for example on the news not too long ago in the UK there was a teenage girl who was stoned to death according to Sharia law for apparently having been a 'devil child' because she was caught listening to 'non-traditional music' like Lady GaGa.

Romans 13:1-2

what people don't realize is that you cant tie all religion together.

just about every single one of them says the other one is wrong.
It's pretty damn stupid.

also,
<------ noah's ark

o really?

u mad

hug?
:D

yes a hug :D