Bill O'Reilly...tell me you can do better than this... you can't be this stupid...

[dame theory]

[h2]
Look, I know. Bill O’Reilly is a far-right ideologue who couldn’t grasp reality with a hundred meters of velcro and a ton of Crazy glue. He’s mean-spirited, loud, and wrong, wrong, wrong. Debunking him is like debunking the Tooth Fairy; so easy and obvious that it’s almost mean on my part to do it.

Yet here we are.

By now the entire planet has heard O’Reilly’s bizarre litany about tides, and how he claims they prove the existence of God. As he has said on many an occasion, "tide goes in, tide goes out, never a miscommunication." By this he means that the harmony of nature, the amazing interconnection between things, clearly argues for God.

The problem is, he’s wrong. Twice, actually. First because he’s making the "God of the Gaps" fallacy: if something can’t be explained, then God must have done it. That’s pretty silly, since of course the far more likely explanation is simply that O’Reilly can’t explain it. That doesn’t mean I can’t! And in the case of tides, I can explain them, as can my friend Neil Tyson, and pretty much every other astronomer on Earth.
http://
The thing is, either O’Reilly cannot learn, or he hopes his audience won’t. Because on his YouTube channel — yes, O’Reilly has a YouTube channel, I believe that’s the Second Horseman of the Apocalypse — he not only makes this same claim again, he digs himself deeper:




Wow. I guess O’Reilly hasn’t discovered Google. Or any astronomy textbook written in the past thirty years. Because we know how the Moon got there (a Mars-sized planet struck the Earth a glancing blow about 100 million years after it formed, splashing debris into orbit which coalesced to form the Moon). And we know how the Sun got there (a small region of a vast cloud of gas and dust collapsed under its own gravity, compressed in the center, ignited nuclear fusion, and Our Star was born).

It gets worse. He asks why we have a Moon, and Mars doesn’t. Pssst, Bill: Mars has two moons. Venus doesn’t have a moon, but if our theory is correct about how we got our Moon then it was a singular, unusual event, so it’s not surprising Venus doesn’t have one.

Now it’s possible that Bill is being metaphoric; he doesn’t literally mean the Moon, or tides, or anything like that: he means rules and order in general. We have the laws of physics, and we don’t know why those exist the way they do.

That’s true enough, and an interesting field of exploration. But to jump to say, "God did it" is a losing bet. They used to say that about thunder. They used to say that about people getting sick. They used to say that about, oh, why the Moon and Sun are in the sky, and why we have tides. Say.

But now we understand those things. We understand them because we’re curious, we humans, and we developed a method of understanding the Universe. It’s called science. And it went a long way to showing us why thunder happens, why people get sick, and why the Moon and Sun formed, and how their mass and gravity warp space-time around us. There are gaps in our understanding, but one of the big points of science is to narrow those gaps.

Saying "God did it" is not an answer. It’s an evasion. O’Reilly (and so many ideologues like him) wants his ignorance to be canonized, but ignorance is not a goal. It’s an opportunity to learn more.

Look: I seriously and strongly feel that everyone has the right to believe what they want, and to find comfort in it if they need it. But you can’t let that belief narrow your view of the Universe to where it’s simply easier to avoid what you don’t understand. That’s what O’Reilly has done — or is urging his listeners to do — and he’s missing out. Nature is subtle, and amazing, and layered, and complex, and interconnected on levels we’re only just now starting to suspect. That’s where the true mystery lies.

As long as we’re curious, and keep our eyes and minds open, we’ll be able to explore the Universe, and we’ll never run out of things to question and explain.

[size=-2]Tip o’ the self-gravitating disk to reddit.[/size]

[size=-2]
[/size]
[/h2]

 

[mo matik]

I'm talking about the actual information presented. The substance of the articles. The specifics.

 

[mo matik]

I'm talking about the actual information presented. The substance of the articles. The specifics.

 

[dame theory]

[h1]Pakistani student accused of blasphemy[/h1]








Published: Jan. 30, 2011 at 10:28 PM


KARACHI, Pakistan, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- A Pakistani student was arrested on a blasphemy charge for allegedly writing derogatory remarks against Prophet Mohammed in his test papers, police said.

Police in the port city of Karachi said the student was taken into custody following a complaint from the head of the education examination board who allegedly found the remarks on the student's answer sheets, the Daily Times reported.

Pakistan's blasphemy law has been much in the news following the assassination early this month of Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province. Taseer, a prominent leader of the ruling Pakistan People's Party and a noted liberal, allegedly was killed by one of his security guards for seeking reforms in the law.

Under the law, a person can even be sentenced to death for criticizing Islam, the Koran or Prophet Mohammed.

The Daily Times report quoted a police official as saying the student's answer sheets were obtained before he was taken into custody and that the accused had since written an apology statement.

The Express Tribune reported a judicial magistrate ordered the student be sent to a juvenile detention center. The report said the student told investigators he had became troubled after discussing issues with his cousins visiting from Norway.


[emoji]169[/emoji] 2011 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...phemy/UPI-65251296444491/print/#ixzz1Cl1TqRgM






Mo Matik, where you at?







Don't tell me about apostasy being misinterpreted. Who cares if its in your holy book or not? People are oppressed for opposing it alone. I guess you didn't hear about the Pakistan govenor murdered around new years for opposing apostasy laws. Nah, but you wanna post some thing that is really irrelevant. I don't care HOW was supposed to go but the fact of the matter is that people are suffering at the hands of religious oppression. Surely you can see this. 

 

[dame theory]

[h1]Pakistani student accused of blasphemy[/h1]








Published: Jan. 30, 2011 at 10:28 PM


KARACHI, Pakistan, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- A Pakistani student was arrested on a blasphemy charge for allegedly writing derogatory remarks against Prophet Mohammed in his test papers, police said.

Police in the port city of Karachi said the student was taken into custody following a complaint from the head of the education examination board who allegedly found the remarks on the student's answer sheets, the Daily Times reported.

Pakistan's blasphemy law has been much in the news following the assassination early this month of Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province. Taseer, a prominent leader of the ruling Pakistan People's Party and a noted liberal, allegedly was killed by one of his security guards for seeking reforms in the law.

Under the law, a person can even be sentenced to death for criticizing Islam, the Koran or Prophet Mohammed.

The Daily Times report quoted a police official as saying the student's answer sheets were obtained before he was taken into custody and that the accused had since written an apology statement.

The Express Tribune reported a judicial magistrate ordered the student be sent to a juvenile detention center. The report said the student told investigators he had became troubled after discussing issues with his cousins visiting from Norway.


[emoji]169[/emoji] 2011 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...phemy/UPI-65251296444491/print/#ixzz1Cl1TqRgM






Mo Matik, where you at?







Don't tell me about apostasy being misinterpreted. Who cares if its in your holy book or not? People are oppressed for opposing it alone. I guess you didn't hear about the Pakistan govenor murdered around new years for opposing apostasy laws. Nah, but you wanna post some thing that is really irrelevant. I don't care HOW was supposed to go but the fact of the matter is that people are suffering at the hands of religious oppression. Surely you can see this. 

 

[dame theory]

SCIENCE[h1]Are You There God? It's Me, Brain.[/h1][h2]How our innate theory of mind gives rise to the divine creator.[/h2]By Jesse Bering
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2011, at 12:15 PM ET

---

The scientific jury is still out on whether our species is unique among social mammals in being able to conceptualize mental states—other species, such as chimps, dogs, scrub jays and dolphins, may have some modest capacity in this regard. But there's absolutely no question that we're much better at it than the rest of the animal kingdom. We are natural psychologists, exquisitely attuned to the unseen psychological world. Reasoning about abstract mental states is as much a trademark of our species as walking upright on two legs, learning a language, and raising our offspring into their teens.

There is a scientific term for this way of thinking—"theory of mind." It's perhaps easiest to grasp the concept when considering how we struggle to make sense of someone else's bizarre or unexpected behavior. If you've ever seen an unfortunate woman at the grocery store wearing a midriff-revealing top and packed into a pair of lavender tights like meat in a sausage wrapper, or a follicularly challenged man with a hairpiece two shades off and three centimeters adrift, and asked yourself what on Earth those people were thinking when they looked in the mirror before leaving the house, this is a good sign that your theory of mind (not to mention your fashion sense) is in working order. When others violate our expectations for normalcy or stump us with surprising behaviors, our tendency to mind-read goes into overdrive. We literally "theorize" about the minds that are causing ostensible behavior.

The evolutionary significance of this mind-reading system hinges on one gigantic question: Is this psychological capacity—this theory of mind, this seeing souls glimmering beneath the skin, spirits twinkling behind orbiting eyes, thoughts in the flurry of movement—is this the "one big thing" that could help us finally understand what it means to be human? Could it tell us something about how we find meaning in the universe?

As a human being, you're prone to overextending your theory of mind to categories for which it doesn't properly belong. Many people remember fondly the classic film Le Ballon Rouge ("The Red Balloon," 1956) by French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse, in which a sensitive schoolboy—in reality Lamorisse's own 5-year-old son, Pascal—is befriended by a good-natured, cherry-red helium balloon. Absent dialogue, the camera follows the joyful two, boy and balloon, through the somber, working-class streets of the Ménilmontant neighborhood of Paris, the glossy red balloon contrasting sharply with the bleak old-Europe atmosphere while adults, oblivious to the presence of an inanimate object that has apparently been ensouled by an intelligent gas, are largely indifferent, even hostile, to the pair. Eventually, a mob of cruel children corners the boy and begins pelting the "kindhearted" balloon with stones, ultimately popping it.

The plot of Le Ballon Rouge exemplifies how our evolved brains have become hypersocial filters, such that our theory of mind is applied not only to the mental innards of other people and animals, but also, in error, to categories that haven't any mental innards at all, such as ebullient skins of elastic stretched by an inert gas. If it weren't for our theory of mind, we couldn't follow the premise of the movie, let alone enjoy Lamorisse's particular oeuvre of magical realism. When the balloon hovers outside Pascal's flat after his grandmother tries to get rid of it, we perceive a charismatic personality that "wants" to be with the boy and is "trying" to leverage itself against the window panes; it "sees" Pascal and "knows" he's inside. Our theory of mind is so effortlessly applied under such conditions that it's impossible to see the scene any other way. In fact, part of what makes the movie so effective is that the young boy in the lead role genuinely believed that the balloon was alive. "The Red Balloon was my friend," recalled a much older Pascal Lamorisse in a 2007 interview. "When you were filming it, did you really feel that way?" asked the reporter. "Yes, yes, he was a real character with a spirit of his own."

As a direct consequence of the evolution of the human social brain, and owing to the importance of our theory-of-mind skills in that process, we sometimes can't help but see intentions, desires, and beliefs in things that haven't even a smidgeon of a neural system. In particular, when inanimate objects do unexpected things, we sometimes reason about them just as we do for oddly behaving—or misbehaving—people. More than a few of us have kicked our broken-down vehicles in the sides and verbally abused our incompetent computers. Most of us stop short of actually believing these objects possess mental states—indeed, we would likely be hauled away to an asylum if we genuinely believed that they held malicious intent—but our emotions and behaviors toward such objects seem to betray our primitive, unconscious thinking: we act as though they're morally culpable for their actions.

Some developmental psychologists even believe that this cognitive bias to see intentions in inanimate objects—and thus formulate a very basic theory of mind—can be found in babies just a few months out of the womb. For example, Hungarian psychologists György Gergely and Gergely Csibra from the Central European University in Budapest have shown that babies, on the basis of their staring response, act surprised when a dot on a computer screen continues to butt up against an empty space on the screen after a computerized barrier blocking its path has been deleted. It's as if the baby is trying to figure out why the dot is acting as though it "thinks" the barrier is still there. By contrast, the infants are not especially interested—that is, they don't stare in surprise—when the dot stops in front of the block, or when the dot continues along its path in the absence of the barrier.

The most famous example of this cognitive phenomenon of seeing minds in nonliving objects, however, is a 1944 American Journal of Psychology study by Austrian researchers Fritz Heider and Mary-Ann Simmel. The scientists put together a simplistic animated film depicting three moving, black-and-white figures: a large triangle, a small triangle, and a small circle. Participants watched the figures moving about on the screen for a while and then were asked to describe what they had just seen. Most fell back on a human social behavioral narrative—for example, seeing the large triangle as "bullying" the "timid" smaller triangle, both of "whom" were "seeking" the "affections" of the "female" circle.

So it would appear that having a theory of mind was so useful for our ancestors in explaining and predicting other people's behaviors that it has completely flooded our evolved social brains. As a result, today we overshoot our mental-state attributions to things that are, in reality, completely mindless. And all of this leads us, rather inevitably, to a very important question: What if I were to tell you that God's mental states, too, were all in your mind? That God, like a tiny speck floating at the edge of your cornea producing the image of a hazy, out-of-reach orb accompanying your every turn, was in fact a psychological illusion, a sort of evolved blemish etched onto the core cognitive substrate of your brain? It may feel as if there is something grander out there . . . watching, knowing, caring. Perhaps even judging. But, in fact, that's just your overactive theory of mind. In reality, there is only the air you breathe.

After all, once we scrub away all the theological bric-a-brac and pluck the exotic cross-cultural plumage of religious beliefs from all over the world, once we get under God's skin, isn't He really just another mind—one with emotions, beliefs, knowledge, understanding, and, perhaps above all else, intentions? Aren't theologians really just playing the role of God's translators, and isn't every holy book ever written a detailed psychoanalysis of God? That strangely sticky sense that God "willfully" created us as individuals, "wants" us to behave in particular ways, "observes" and "knows" about our otherwise private actions, "communicates" messages to us in code through natural events, and "intends" to meet us after we die would have also been felt, in some form, by our Pleistocene ancestors.

Consider, briefly, the implications of seeing God this way, as a sort of scratch on our psychological lenses rather than the enigmatic figure out there in the heavenly world that most people believe Him to be. Subjectively, God would still be present in our lives. (For some people, rather annoyingly so.) He would continue to suffuse our experiences with an elusive meaning and give the sense that the universe is communicating with us in various ways. But this notion of God as an illusion is a radical and, some would say, even dangerous idea because it raises important questions about whether God is an autonomous, independent agent that lives outside human brain cells, or instead a phantom cast out upon the world by our species' own peculiarly evolved theory of mind. Since the human brain, like any physical organ, is a product of evolution, and since natural selection works without recourse to intelligent forethought, this mental apparatus of ours evolved to think about God quite without need of the latter's consultation, let alone His being real.

Then again, one can never rule out the possibility that God microengineered the evolution of the human brain so that we've come to see Him more clearly, a sort of divine LASIK procedure, or scraping off the bestial glare that clouds the minds of other animals.

Either way, this cognitive capacity, this theory of mind, has baked itself into our heads when it comes to our pondering of life's big questions. Unlike any science-literate generation that has come before, we now possess the intellectual tools to observe our own minds at work and to understand how God came to be there. And we alone are poised to ask, "Has our species' unique cognitive evolution duped us into believing in this, the grandest mind of all?"

Like Slate on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.
Jesse Bering is an evolutionary psychologist and director of the Institute of Cognition and Culture at the Queen's University, Belfast. His new book, www.jessebering.com[/i].

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2283372/

 

[dame theory]

SCIENCE[h1]Are You There God? It's Me, Brain.[/h1][h2]How our innate theory of mind gives rise to the divine creator.[/h2]By Jesse Bering
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2011, at 12:15 PM ET

---

The scientific jury is still out on whether our species is unique among social mammals in being able to conceptualize mental states—other species, such as chimps, dogs, scrub jays and dolphins, may have some modest capacity in this regard. But there's absolutely no question that we're much better at it than the rest of the animal kingdom. We are natural psychologists, exquisitely attuned to the unseen psychological world. Reasoning about abstract mental states is as much a trademark of our species as walking upright on two legs, learning a language, and raising our offspring into their teens.

There is a scientific term for this way of thinking—"theory of mind." It's perhaps easiest to grasp the concept when considering how we struggle to make sense of someone else's bizarre or unexpected behavior. If you've ever seen an unfortunate woman at the grocery store wearing a midriff-revealing top and packed into a pair of lavender tights like meat in a sausage wrapper, or a follicularly challenged man with a hairpiece two shades off and three centimeters adrift, and asked yourself what on Earth those people were thinking when they looked in the mirror before leaving the house, this is a good sign that your theory of mind (not to mention your fashion sense) is in working order. When others violate our expectations for normalcy or stump us with surprising behaviors, our tendency to mind-read goes into overdrive. We literally "theorize" about the minds that are causing ostensible behavior.

The evolutionary significance of this mind-reading system hinges on one gigantic question: Is this psychological capacity—this theory of mind, this seeing souls glimmering beneath the skin, spirits twinkling behind orbiting eyes, thoughts in the flurry of movement—is this the "one big thing" that could help us finally understand what it means to be human? Could it tell us something about how we find meaning in the universe?

As a human being, you're prone to overextending your theory of mind to categories for which it doesn't properly belong. Many people remember fondly the classic film Le Ballon Rouge ("The Red Balloon," 1956) by French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse, in which a sensitive schoolboy—in reality Lamorisse's own 5-year-old son, Pascal—is befriended by a good-natured, cherry-red helium balloon. Absent dialogue, the camera follows the joyful two, boy and balloon, through the somber, working-class streets of the Ménilmontant neighborhood of Paris, the glossy red balloon contrasting sharply with the bleak old-Europe atmosphere while adults, oblivious to the presence of an inanimate object that has apparently been ensouled by an intelligent gas, are largely indifferent, even hostile, to the pair. Eventually, a mob of cruel children corners the boy and begins pelting the "kindhearted" balloon with stones, ultimately popping it.

The plot of Le Ballon Rouge exemplifies how our evolved brains have become hypersocial filters, such that our theory of mind is applied not only to the mental innards of other people and animals, but also, in error, to categories that haven't any mental innards at all, such as ebullient skins of elastic stretched by an inert gas. If it weren't for our theory of mind, we couldn't follow the premise of the movie, let alone enjoy Lamorisse's particular oeuvre of magical realism. When the balloon hovers outside Pascal's flat after his grandmother tries to get rid of it, we perceive a charismatic personality that "wants" to be with the boy and is "trying" to leverage itself against the window panes; it "sees" Pascal and "knows" he's inside. Our theory of mind is so effortlessly applied under such conditions that it's impossible to see the scene any other way. In fact, part of what makes the movie so effective is that the young boy in the lead role genuinely believed that the balloon was alive. "The Red Balloon was my friend," recalled a much older Pascal Lamorisse in a 2007 interview. "When you were filming it, did you really feel that way?" asked the reporter. "Yes, yes, he was a real character with a spirit of his own."

As a direct consequence of the evolution of the human social brain, and owing to the importance of our theory-of-mind skills in that process, we sometimes can't help but see intentions, desires, and beliefs in things that haven't even a smidgeon of a neural system. In particular, when inanimate objects do unexpected things, we sometimes reason about them just as we do for oddly behaving—or misbehaving—people. More than a few of us have kicked our broken-down vehicles in the sides and verbally abused our incompetent computers. Most of us stop short of actually believing these objects possess mental states—indeed, we would likely be hauled away to an asylum if we genuinely believed that they held malicious intent—but our emotions and behaviors toward such objects seem to betray our primitive, unconscious thinking: we act as though they're morally culpable for their actions.

Some developmental psychologists even believe that this cognitive bias to see intentions in inanimate objects—and thus formulate a very basic theory of mind—can be found in babies just a few months out of the womb. For example, Hungarian psychologists György Gergely and Gergely Csibra from the Central European University in Budapest have shown that babies, on the basis of their staring response, act surprised when a dot on a computer screen continues to butt up against an empty space on the screen after a computerized barrier blocking its path has been deleted. It's as if the baby is trying to figure out why the dot is acting as though it "thinks" the barrier is still there. By contrast, the infants are not especially interested—that is, they don't stare in surprise—when the dot stops in front of the block, or when the dot continues along its path in the absence of the barrier.

The most famous example of this cognitive phenomenon of seeing minds in nonliving objects, however, is a 1944 American Journal of Psychology study by Austrian researchers Fritz Heider and Mary-Ann Simmel. The scientists put together a simplistic animated film depicting three moving, black-and-white figures: a large triangle, a small triangle, and a small circle. Participants watched the figures moving about on the screen for a while and then were asked to describe what they had just seen. Most fell back on a human social behavioral narrative—for example, seeing the large triangle as "bullying" the "timid" smaller triangle, both of "whom" were "seeking" the "affections" of the "female" circle.

So it would appear that having a theory of mind was so useful for our ancestors in explaining and predicting other people's behaviors that it has completely flooded our evolved social brains. As a result, today we overshoot our mental-state attributions to things that are, in reality, completely mindless. And all of this leads us, rather inevitably, to a very important question: What if I were to tell you that God's mental states, too, were all in your mind? That God, like a tiny speck floating at the edge of your cornea producing the image of a hazy, out-of-reach orb accompanying your every turn, was in fact a psychological illusion, a sort of evolved blemish etched onto the core cognitive substrate of your brain? It may feel as if there is something grander out there . . . watching, knowing, caring. Perhaps even judging. But, in fact, that's just your overactive theory of mind. In reality, there is only the air you breathe.

After all, once we scrub away all the theological bric-a-brac and pluck the exotic cross-cultural plumage of religious beliefs from all over the world, once we get under God's skin, isn't He really just another mind—one with emotions, beliefs, knowledge, understanding, and, perhaps above all else, intentions? Aren't theologians really just playing the role of God's translators, and isn't every holy book ever written a detailed psychoanalysis of God? That strangely sticky sense that God "willfully" created us as individuals, "wants" us to behave in particular ways, "observes" and "knows" about our otherwise private actions, "communicates" messages to us in code through natural events, and "intends" to meet us after we die would have also been felt, in some form, by our Pleistocene ancestors.

Consider, briefly, the implications of seeing God this way, as a sort of scratch on our psychological lenses rather than the enigmatic figure out there in the heavenly world that most people believe Him to be. Subjectively, God would still be present in our lives. (For some people, rather annoyingly so.) He would continue to suffuse our experiences with an elusive meaning and give the sense that the universe is communicating with us in various ways. But this notion of God as an illusion is a radical and, some would say, even dangerous idea because it raises important questions about whether God is an autonomous, independent agent that lives outside human brain cells, or instead a phantom cast out upon the world by our species' own peculiarly evolved theory of mind. Since the human brain, like any physical organ, is a product of evolution, and since natural selection works without recourse to intelligent forethought, this mental apparatus of ours evolved to think about God quite without need of the latter's consultation, let alone His being real.

Then again, one can never rule out the possibility that God microengineered the evolution of the human brain so that we've come to see Him more clearly, a sort of divine LASIK procedure, or scraping off the bestial glare that clouds the minds of other animals.

Either way, this cognitive capacity, this theory of mind, has baked itself into our heads when it comes to our pondering of life's big questions. Unlike any science-literate generation that has come before, we now possess the intellectual tools to observe our own minds at work and to understand how God came to be there. And we alone are poised to ask, "Has our species' unique cognitive evolution duped us into believing in this, the grandest mind of all?"

Like Slate on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.
Jesse Bering is an evolutionary psychologist and director of the Institute of Cognition and Culture at the Queen's University, Belfast. His new book, www.jessebering.com[/i].

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2283372/

 

[dame theory]

 

 

[dame theory]

 

 

[megachamploo]

Originally Posted by Dame Theory

Originally Posted by kix4kix

Originally Posted by whiterails

Originally Posted by megachamploo

Don't really have a stance in this discussion, but...

just wondering, do any of you guys actually read scientific publications? or does everything that shapes your perspectives come from something posted online that was digested by somebody else? This is just my own experience, but I have yet to meet a religious individual who would deny the merits of scientific theory. The majority of people in my eeb class are christian (ironic). People in these arguments tend to dwell on the idea that a person with a faith = denying all academia. As people of science, I think we all know that things aren't simply as black and white as these discussions seem to portray. A lot of you guys are more absolute in your opinions than that of the evidence that you bring forth. that isn't very scientific. I believe in evolution, it has a lot of evidence and support from different concentrations in biology. but I have never thought of evolution as a means of disproving creationism, that's a bit of a leap. I believe that it tips the scale in favor of one over the other, but in no way is anything certain. My evolution textbook does not say that birds evolved from reptiles. It can only say that there is much evidence that suggests that birds evolved from reptiles. I have never, while reading an evolution textbook or archived article, thought "oh, this disproves everything that has ever been said for religion, ever." I don't know anybody that's made a weak connection like that. That kind of logic has never been encouraged in any science class I've taken. that's foolish. To be able to equate the supporting evidence of evolution to the absolute disproving of anything else isn't really scientific at all.

This is more of an atheist debate than a science debate and it's hardly objective.

A lot of you guys seriously think you're scientists and and super logical and stuff. stop it.

....
It clearly does, if my understanding of the creation story is accurate.

One states that humans, in their current form, were put on earth by God.

The other states that humans are the result of billions of years of natural selection, starting as relatively simple, single-celled organisms.

Can't be both.

Who created the single celled organisms? It really CAN be both.

If you knew about how micelles and bilipid layers form from the energetic confirmations of their component molecules then you would be aware of the lower energy confirmations enabled by the formation of cells. 
Its all explained in an intro bio course. 

Sorry, for gravedigging my post, I forgot I posted in this thread.

Dame theory. Your post is true. However, you're making it sound like we know this is what actually happened. This is a possible explanation. Given how much scientists can ACTUALLY confirm about the beginning of life to be true, a theory that aliens came and pooped in the water is an equally sound explanation.

When I see these threads, I can't tell if it's a debate on the legitimacy of religion or a debate in the existence of god. There is a difference in my opinion. The latter is probably more important to atheists and yet it seems that most atheists dwell on the former. To me, the latter is much more interesting.

Evolution is so well supported, I don't think anyone could really argue with it. At it's basic level, it's an idea of life, something that already exists, changing over time. But it does not cover creation. I suppose the theory of creationism conflicts with evolution, but the idea and possibility of creation by a higher being, does not. How does life come from nothing? The standard scientific theory brought up above certainly is a reasonable explanation, but at its best it's only speculation and there are a billion other explanations including creation that are equally relevant considering the evidence we have. What I'm trying to say is... it's anybody's guess. How can atheists and bible-thumpers be so sure about what did/didn't really happen? What is the truth? and how are you so sure you have it?

Somebody enlighten me. Maybe I'm in the wrong thread, but I'm looking for a scientific discussion of God, not how science and religion aren't compatible. Religious zealots tend to show me bible passages and atheists tend to post lots of seemingly scientific articles that are usually nothing more than thought experiments. The one I just read above by Jesse Bering hardly makes any convincing arguments of anything.

 

[megachamploo]

Originally Posted by Dame Theory

Originally Posted by kix4kix

Originally Posted by whiterails

Originally Posted by megachamploo

Don't really have a stance in this discussion, but...

just wondering, do any of you guys actually read scientific publications? or does everything that shapes your perspectives come from something posted online that was digested by somebody else? This is just my own experience, but I have yet to meet a religious individual who would deny the merits of scientific theory. The majority of people in my eeb class are christian (ironic). People in these arguments tend to dwell on the idea that a person with a faith = denying all academia. As people of science, I think we all know that things aren't simply as black and white as these discussions seem to portray. A lot of you guys are more absolute in your opinions than that of the evidence that you bring forth. that isn't very scientific. I believe in evolution, it has a lot of evidence and support from different concentrations in biology. but I have never thought of evolution as a means of disproving creationism, that's a bit of a leap. I believe that it tips the scale in favor of one over the other, but in no way is anything certain. My evolution textbook does not say that birds evolved from reptiles. It can only say that there is much evidence that suggests that birds evolved from reptiles. I have never, while reading an evolution textbook or archived article, thought "oh, this disproves everything that has ever been said for religion, ever." I don't know anybody that's made a weak connection like that. That kind of logic has never been encouraged in any science class I've taken. that's foolish. To be able to equate the supporting evidence of evolution to the absolute disproving of anything else isn't really scientific at all.

This is more of an atheist debate than a science debate and it's hardly objective.

A lot of you guys seriously think you're scientists and and super logical and stuff. stop it.

....
It clearly does, if my understanding of the creation story is accurate.

One states that humans, in their current form, were put on earth by God.

The other states that humans are the result of billions of years of natural selection, starting as relatively simple, single-celled organisms.

Can't be both.

Who created the single celled organisms? It really CAN be both.

If you knew about how micelles and bilipid layers form from the energetic confirmations of their component molecules then you would be aware of the lower energy confirmations enabled by the formation of cells. 
Its all explained in an intro bio course. 

Sorry, for gravedigging my post, I forgot I posted in this thread.

Dame theory. Your post is true. However, you're making it sound like we know this is what actually happened. This is a possible explanation. Given how much scientists can ACTUALLY confirm about the beginning of life to be true, a theory that aliens came and pooped in the water is an equally sound explanation.

When I see these threads, I can't tell if it's a debate on the legitimacy of religion or a debate in the existence of god. There is a difference in my opinion. The latter is probably more important to atheists and yet it seems that most atheists dwell on the former. To me, the latter is much more interesting.

Evolution is so well supported, I don't think anyone could really argue with it. At it's basic level, it's an idea of life, something that already exists, changing over time. But it does not cover creation. I suppose the theory of creationism conflicts with evolution, but the idea and possibility of creation by a higher being, does not. How does life come from nothing? The standard scientific theory brought up above certainly is a reasonable explanation, but at its best it's only speculation and there are a billion other explanations including creation that are equally relevant considering the evidence we have. What I'm trying to say is... it's anybody's guess. How can atheists and bible-thumpers be so sure about what did/didn't really happen? What is the truth? and how are you so sure you have it?

Somebody enlighten me. Maybe I'm in the wrong thread, but I'm looking for a scientific discussion of God, not how science and religion aren't compatible. Religious zealots tend to show me bible passages and atheists tend to post lots of seemingly scientific articles that are usually nothing more than thought experiments. The one I just read above by Jesse Bering hardly makes any convincing arguments of anything.

 

[dame theory]

Originally Posted by megachamploo

Originally Posted by Dame Theory

Originally Posted by kix4kix

Originally Posted by whiterails

Originally Posted by megachamploo

Don't really have a stance in this discussion, but...

just wondering, do any of you guys actually read scientific publications? or does everything that shapes your perspectives come from something posted online that was digested by somebody else? This is just my own experience, but I have yet to meet a religious individual who would deny the merits of scientific theory. The majority of people in my eeb class are christian (ironic). People in these arguments tend to dwell on the idea that a person with a faith = denying all academia. As people of science, I think we all know that things aren't simply as black and white as these discussions seem to portray. A lot of you guys are more absolute in your opinions than that of the evidence that you bring forth. that isn't very scientific. I believe in evolution, it has a lot of evidence and support from different concentrations in biology. but I have never thought of evolution as a means of disproving creationism, that's a bit of a leap. I believe that it tips the scale in favor of one over the other, but in no way is anything certain. My evolution textbook does not say that birds evolved from reptiles. It can only say that there is much evidence that suggests that birds evolved from reptiles. I have never, while reading an evolution textbook or archived article, thought "oh, this disproves everything that has ever been said for religion, ever." I don't know anybody that's made a weak connection like that. That kind of logic has never been encouraged in any science class I've taken. that's foolish. To be able to equate the supporting evidence of evolution to the absolute disproving of anything else isn't really scientific at all.

This is more of an atheist debate than a science debate and it's hardly objective.

A lot of you guys seriously think you're scientists and and super logical and stuff. stop it.

....
It clearly does, if my understanding of the creation story is accurate.

One states that humans, in their current form, were put on earth by God.

The other states that humans are the result of billions of years of natural selection, starting as relatively simple, single-celled organisms.

Can't be both.

Who created the single celled organisms? It really CAN be both.

If you knew about how micelles and bilipid layers form from the energetic confirmations of their component molecules then you would be aware of the lower energy confirmations enabled by the formation of cells. 
Its all explained in an intro bio course. 

Sorry, for gravedigging my post, I forgot I posted in this thread.

Dame theory. Your post is true. However, you're making it sound like we know this is what actually happened. This is a possible explanation. Given how much scientists can ACTUALLY confirm about the beginning of life to be true, a theory that aliens came and pooped in the water is an equally sound explanation.

When I see these threads, I can't tell if it's a debate on the legitimacy of religion or a debate in the existence of god. There is a difference in my opinion. The latter is probably more important to atheists and yet it seems that most atheists dwell on the former. To me, the latter is much more interesting.

Evolution is so well supported, I don't think anyone could really argue with it, but at it's basic level, it's an idea of life, something that already exists, changing over time. How does life come from nothing? The idea brought up above certainly is a reasonable explanation, but at its best, it's only speculation and there are a billion other explanations including creationism that are equally relevant considering the evidence we have. What I'm trying to say is... it's anybody's guess. How can atheists and bible-thumpers be so sure about what did/didn't really happen?

Somebody enlighten me. Maybe I'm in the wrong thread, but I'm looking for a scientific discussion of God, not how science and religion aren't compatible. Religious zealots tend to show me bible passages and atheists tend to post lots of seemingly scientific articles that are usually nothing more than thought experiments. The one I just read above by Jesse Bering hardly makes any convincing arguments of anything.

Panspermia is a very pretty viable theory. I'm not knocking that completely out. Asteroids with complex molecules and amino acids land on the planet all the time. 



To me both the legitimacy of religion and the existence of a God both carry little weight with me. Atheists tend to focus on either. It just depends on the argument. Agnostics deal with the existence of god more so. They're already done with the legitimacy of religion. I was an agnostic for a long time cause I didn't want to offend people saying what I was nor did I want to really say something like "i don't believe in god..." but I know that I really don't so it is what it is now. 

The notion of divine intervention violates every law, corollary, theory, and observation of physics that has existed SINCE that supposed moment. You'd think there was another time that we'd see a similar event in all this time. I'm not saying I know. No one really knows. But scientists are actually devoting their time to investigating theories that anyone can understand because they follow from reason instead of pushing religious agendas of absolutist answers. Thats not cool. I'm just saying that religion and a belief in god does not offer a rational and logical answer. Plus...I think its just as reasonable for life to have occurred up to this point is as just as probable that it didn't...it just has...and for that we should just be appreciative and live our lives to the fullest. 




 Scientific explanations for God dont really exist. I'd love to talk about that but its hard to do that with religious people that think their god is the right god. Its best carried out with real agnostics and atheists....those without agendas or beliefs to support or divine bias. The article was showing what lots of other research has shown. The notion of a god is often the result of environmental pressure to deal with the rigors of life and is often matched with neurological studies that compare and contrast the notion of cortical zones that light up when God is invoked. Its the brain working to justify itself. Its all psychological. 

 

[dame theory]

Originally Posted by megachamploo

Originally Posted by Dame Theory

Originally Posted by kix4kix

Originally Posted by whiterails

Originally Posted by megachamploo

Don't really have a stance in this discussion, but...

just wondering, do any of you guys actually read scientific publications? or does everything that shapes your perspectives come from something posted online that was digested by somebody else? This is just my own experience, but I have yet to meet a religious individual who would deny the merits of scientific theory. The majority of people in my eeb class are christian (ironic). People in these arguments tend to dwell on the idea that a person with a faith = denying all academia. As people of science, I think we all know that things aren't simply as black and white as these discussions seem to portray. A lot of you guys are more absolute in your opinions than that of the evidence that you bring forth. that isn't very scientific. I believe in evolution, it has a lot of evidence and support from different concentrations in biology. but I have never thought of evolution as a means of disproving creationism, that's a bit of a leap. I believe that it tips the scale in favor of one over the other, but in no way is anything certain. My evolution textbook does not say that birds evolved from reptiles. It can only say that there is much evidence that suggests that birds evolved from reptiles. I have never, while reading an evolution textbook or archived article, thought "oh, this disproves everything that has ever been said for religion, ever." I don't know anybody that's made a weak connection like that. That kind of logic has never been encouraged in any science class I've taken. that's foolish. To be able to equate the supporting evidence of evolution to the absolute disproving of anything else isn't really scientific at all.

This is more of an atheist debate than a science debate and it's hardly objective.

A lot of you guys seriously think you're scientists and and super logical and stuff. stop it.

....
It clearly does, if my understanding of the creation story is accurate.

One states that humans, in their current form, were put on earth by God.

The other states that humans are the result of billions of years of natural selection, starting as relatively simple, single-celled organisms.

Can't be both.

Who created the single celled organisms? It really CAN be both.

If you knew about how micelles and bilipid layers form from the energetic confirmations of their component molecules then you would be aware of the lower energy confirmations enabled by the formation of cells. 
Its all explained in an intro bio course. 

Sorry, for gravedigging my post, I forgot I posted in this thread.

Dame theory. Your post is true. However, you're making it sound like we know this is what actually happened. This is a possible explanation. Given how much scientists can ACTUALLY confirm about the beginning of life to be true, a theory that aliens came and pooped in the water is an equally sound explanation.

When I see these threads, I can't tell if it's a debate on the legitimacy of religion or a debate in the existence of god. There is a difference in my opinion. The latter is probably more important to atheists and yet it seems that most atheists dwell on the former. To me, the latter is much more interesting.

Evolution is so well supported, I don't think anyone could really argue with it, but at it's basic level, it's an idea of life, something that already exists, changing over time. How does life come from nothing? The idea brought up above certainly is a reasonable explanation, but at its best, it's only speculation and there are a billion other explanations including creationism that are equally relevant considering the evidence we have. What I'm trying to say is... it's anybody's guess. How can atheists and bible-thumpers be so sure about what did/didn't really happen?

Somebody enlighten me. Maybe I'm in the wrong thread, but I'm looking for a scientific discussion of God, not how science and religion aren't compatible. Religious zealots tend to show me bible passages and atheists tend to post lots of seemingly scientific articles that are usually nothing more than thought experiments. The one I just read above by Jesse Bering hardly makes any convincing arguments of anything.

Panspermia is a very pretty viable theory. I'm not knocking that completely out. Asteroids with complex molecules and amino acids land on the planet all the time. 



To me both the legitimacy of religion and the existence of a God both carry little weight with me. Atheists tend to focus on either. It just depends on the argument. Agnostics deal with the existence of god more so. They're already done with the legitimacy of religion. I was an agnostic for a long time cause I didn't want to offend people saying what I was nor did I want to really say something like "i don't believe in god..." but I know that I really don't so it is what it is now. 

The notion of divine intervention violates every law, corollary, theory, and observation of physics that has existed SINCE that supposed moment. You'd think there was another time that we'd see a similar event in all this time. I'm not saying I know. No one really knows. But scientists are actually devoting their time to investigating theories that anyone can understand because they follow from reason instead of pushing religious agendas of absolutist answers. Thats not cool. I'm just saying that religion and a belief in god does not offer a rational and logical answer. Plus...I think its just as reasonable for life to have occurred up to this point is as just as probable that it didn't...it just has...and for that we should just be appreciative and live our lives to the fullest. 




 Scientific explanations for God dont really exist. I'd love to talk about that but its hard to do that with religious people that think their god is the right god. Its best carried out with real agnostics and atheists....those without agendas or beliefs to support or divine bias. The article was showing what lots of other research has shown. The notion of a god is often the result of environmental pressure to deal with the rigors of life and is often matched with neurological studies that compare and contrast the notion of cortical zones that light up when God is invoked. Its the brain working to justify itself. Its all psychological. 

 

[megachamploo]

I see,

so... science right now says that God shouldn't exist, but science also once proposed that the world was flat. I know that you know that there's always a possibility that science is completely wrong and we could find that out later. What is atheism then, but a faith that God doesn't exist?

 

[megachamploo]

I see,

so... science right now says that God shouldn't exist, but science also once proposed that the world was flat. I know that you know that there's always a possibility that science is completely wrong and we could find that out later. What is atheism then, but a faith that God doesn't exist?

 

[highman]

He makes valid points here , imo bill has said some dumb things… this isnt an example of that….

 

[highman]

He makes valid points here , imo bill has said some dumb things… this isnt an example of that….

 

[dame theory]

megachamploo wrote:

---

I see,

so... science right now says that God shouldn't exist, but science also once proposed that the world was flat. I know that you know that there's always a possibility that science is completely wrong and we could find that out later. What is atheism then, but a faith that God doesn't exist?

The great thing about science? New information changes old thoughts. Its just empirical knowledge. New things come along and debunk yesterdays mysteries. BTW, science once didn't know how to start a fire either. Or to make bronze tools...or alloy metals. But we do now. So whats your point?
Atheism is not a faith. I don't think there is a god. Not stamp collecting is not a hobby nor is not-skiing a sport. 
Thats it. 

HighMan wrote:

---

He makes valid points here , imo bill has said some dumb things… this isnt an example of that….

You again... 
...
I'm convinced you're a troll as per the last thread you made as a christian trying to answer a series of questions.

You really don't care to know how our moon and every other planetary moon was created do you? I guess the *+@! we're witnessing in other galaxies means nothing to you. God doing it is enough for you isn't it? 

Bill said he doesn't know how the tides work and we can't explain it... and he always said stephen hawking couldn't explain some of his basic questions that most of the modern world has answers to.

And you think these are LEGIT answers? Dude you're slipping. You're really slipping. 

 

[dame theory]

megachamploo wrote:

---

I see,

so... science right now says that God shouldn't exist, but science also once proposed that the world was flat. I know that you know that there's always a possibility that science is completely wrong and we could find that out later. What is atheism then, but a faith that God doesn't exist?

The great thing about science? New information changes old thoughts. Its just empirical knowledge. New things come along and debunk yesterdays mysteries. BTW, science once didn't know how to start a fire either. Or to make bronze tools...or alloy metals. But we do now. So whats your point?
Atheism is not a faith. I don't think there is a god. Not stamp collecting is not a hobby nor is not-skiing a sport. 
Thats it. 

HighMan wrote:

---

He makes valid points here , imo bill has said some dumb things… this isnt an example of that….

You again... 
...
I'm convinced you're a troll as per the last thread you made as a christian trying to answer a series of questions.

You really don't care to know how our moon and every other planetary moon was created do you? I guess the *+@! we're witnessing in other galaxies means nothing to you. God doing it is enough for you isn't it? 

Bill said he doesn't know how the tides work and we can't explain it... and he always said stephen hawking couldn't explain some of his basic questions that most of the modern world has answers to.

And you think these are LEGIT answers? Dude you're slipping. You're really slipping. 

 

[ryda421]

Originally Posted by Dame Theory

Originally Posted by Ryda421

Originally Posted by Dame Theory

Originally Posted by Ryda421

i read the whole thread. what i find interesting, is that the bible (christian) speaks of 'the mark of the beast.' and now government is pushing people to get chipped aka mark of the beast.

i understand that may not make sense but it is quite interesting, perhaps it's the same powers. attempting to control you.

 to fully dedicate yourself to a cause/have your mind made up aka religion aka science before hearing an arguing. is some what dumb. it's like politicians or voters saying I"M A REPUBLICAN and i ONLY think REPUBLICAN. how can you have your mind made up if you have not even heard the issue at hand.

it just baffles me that us humans put so much effort into saying I:M RIGHT and YOURE WRONG. why can't we just come to common grounds and move forwards. you think animals waste time like this ?! NO. they just live. it seems like every single human is living a lie, and the ones who are not are
animals.

before watching zeitgeist, i would study other religions, and i found it funny how most were the same. all copy cats of Egyptian mythology. if i were to choose a religion, it would be Buddhism because it teaches peace and understanding. not arguing  who is right or wrong but putting that information together and finding a middle path. NOT TOO HIGH, NOT TO LOW.

I'm not trying to say I'm right or wrong. I'm saying that the beliefs that many subscribe to are INCONSISTENT and OUTDATED. They are on faulty grounds and the support for them when investigated fails to exists.
I've shown myself to be as open-minded as anyone on this board time and time again. I listen and address every argument I can. However when it contradicts itself and that issue can't be resolved, that idea is therefore impossible. Its null and voided. Why waste your time with something that doesn't make sense and never will. Thats what I'm addressing here. Reason and objectivity. Religion doesn't provide that. 

Buddhism is actually pretty awesome in my eyes since it allows people to kinda slide past each other with as little friction as possible...except the God part. I'm just not going to ever going to be given enough proof of that. 

ok. thanks for clearing that up. i was getting the 'im right and youre right wrong' vibe. the same vibe that religion gives off.

i do not doubt that is inconsistent and outdated. but science has some flaws as well. I say that because it seems like at times science is manipulated at times. the thing i like is that science corrects itself constantly. the only difference is that science is not egotistic and actually corrects itself which is something i credit.

i see what you are saying. but IMO there has be a creator or more. this whole cycle is too much for it to just be spontaneous. there has to be reason behind all this. but if there is no reason, then i will be content with that. but until i discover it i will believe that there is some kind of creator. and another reason why i believe in a 'creator' is because of ALIENS/UFOS. there are amazonian tribes which describe UFO/ALIENS landing on earth and leaving creatures. i do not know about you but i would rather believe in amazonian tribes rather than European cultures who have used religion to manipulate civilizations.

Thanks for acknowledging that science DOES correct itself. It isnt an egotistic field. Scientists CAN have egos to want to be right but the pressure of criticism and replicable results will always win out. Integrity of knowledge always wins. Plus, give me an example where science has flaws? Science isn't manipulated. Understandings of our surroundings can be manipulated. The underlying science will always be evident. 
Sorry but how can you think there is automatically a creator? Like where does that just come from? You need a reason to believe it. You want there to be a purpose...the purpose is no more different than that of bacteria. You are an oversized piece of bacteria. You eat. You respirate. You reproduce. What you do in-between that time is up to you. Thats it. To just continue executing a complex set of biological interactions. Its tough for your to come to grips with because you want to feel special. Everything else you do has purpose so you want there to be some divine understanding. There isn't. There just is not. Once you come to terms with this the sooner you'll be able to live this life to the fullest and not submit to what someone else says as the "divine plan" and instead cherish this day even more knowing that it will never return. Each breath is your last. 
Uh...these uncontacted amazonian tribes see us and think its 1492 again. These people have been COMPLETELY isolated. We need better explanations for what they describe as UFOs. Plus, why do UFOs only contact the most remote and isolated populations in the world? Like always happens. Never more than a few people can bear claim to their existence. Details are always super vague. If you had seen these, why are there more accounts? Why not more detail if its such a traumatic event? Most people that experience trauma can recall each and every detail of that event with severe accuracy.  I'm not so sure you're on the right track here. It could very well be a misunderstanding. 

However...I think there are aliens, because life spontaneously has been shown to occur and in different formats i.e. creatures found in arsenic environments with phosphorous-Ar replacements in their DNA. Crazy #%%$ starts happening with life forms ya'll... Its not as cut and dry as we think. Its silly to think that in the vast expanse of the world that we are the only forms of life. Even microbial. 

We need PROOF.

some science is manipulated/misleading @ times. read this link.
http://webcache.googleuse...mp;source=www.google.com

also, i remember when so called atlantis was found in the carribean, chile and some part in japan. NATGEO bought all the rights and only showed a little of the truth. which is was sad. also, NASA (scientists) is/are becoming a misleading tail of science. but one thing i do enjoy is that truth always comes out and that i can agree with you.

i believe there is a creator because the randomness of being here and how 'weird/coincidental' things just happen. it kind of leads me to a past life theory but it has not been proven.

i don't want to feel special, i know i'm not special. therefore i do not believe in being special. i live for the moment and i believe that tomorrow is a whole new world so you are mistaken on that part.

i'm not just speaking of amazonian tribes. some south american countries (chile,peru,columbia) original 'religion/faith' before 1492 tell stores of their origins and they speak of UFO's coming from the sky and drop creatures off. i wish i could find the video but it was on a public channel i believe the show was called globe trekker. i will look for it.

exactly, that is my point. there has to be life someone where else. life is not only carbon/oxygen based. there is so much we do not know. i just hope that i'm alive when that discovery is made. CHEERS !

 

[ryda421]

Originally Posted by Dame Theory

Originally Posted by Ryda421

Originally Posted by Dame Theory

Originally Posted by Ryda421

i read the whole thread. what i find interesting, is that the bible (christian) speaks of 'the mark of the beast.' and now government is pushing people to get chipped aka mark of the beast.

i understand that may not make sense but it is quite interesting, perhaps it's the same powers. attempting to control you.

 to fully dedicate yourself to a cause/have your mind made up aka religion aka science before hearing an arguing. is some what dumb. it's like politicians or voters saying I"M A REPUBLICAN and i ONLY think REPUBLICAN. how can you have your mind made up if you have not even heard the issue at hand.

it just baffles me that us humans put so much effort into saying I:M RIGHT and YOURE WRONG. why can't we just come to common grounds and move forwards. you think animals waste time like this ?! NO. they just live. it seems like every single human is living a lie, and the ones who are not are
animals.

before watching zeitgeist, i would study other religions, and i found it funny how most were the same. all copy cats of Egyptian mythology. if i were to choose a religion, it would be Buddhism because it teaches peace and understanding. not arguing  who is right or wrong but putting that information together and finding a middle path. NOT TOO HIGH, NOT TO LOW.

I'm not trying to say I'm right or wrong. I'm saying that the beliefs that many subscribe to are INCONSISTENT and OUTDATED. They are on faulty grounds and the support for them when investigated fails to exists.
I've shown myself to be as open-minded as anyone on this board time and time again. I listen and address every argument I can. However when it contradicts itself and that issue can't be resolved, that idea is therefore impossible. Its null and voided. Why waste your time with something that doesn't make sense and never will. Thats what I'm addressing here. Reason and objectivity. Religion doesn't provide that. 

Buddhism is actually pretty awesome in my eyes since it allows people to kinda slide past each other with as little friction as possible...except the God part. I'm just not going to ever going to be given enough proof of that. 

ok. thanks for clearing that up. i was getting the 'im right and youre right wrong' vibe. the same vibe that religion gives off.

i do not doubt that is inconsistent and outdated. but science has some flaws as well. I say that because it seems like at times science is manipulated at times. the thing i like is that science corrects itself constantly. the only difference is that science is not egotistic and actually corrects itself which is something i credit.

i see what you are saying. but IMO there has be a creator or more. this whole cycle is too much for it to just be spontaneous. there has to be reason behind all this. but if there is no reason, then i will be content with that. but until i discover it i will believe that there is some kind of creator. and another reason why i believe in a 'creator' is because of ALIENS/UFOS. there are amazonian tribes which describe UFO/ALIENS landing on earth and leaving creatures. i do not know about you but i would rather believe in amazonian tribes rather than European cultures who have used religion to manipulate civilizations.

Thanks for acknowledging that science DOES correct itself. It isnt an egotistic field. Scientists CAN have egos to want to be right but the pressure of criticism and replicable results will always win out. Integrity of knowledge always wins. Plus, give me an example where science has flaws? Science isn't manipulated. Understandings of our surroundings can be manipulated. The underlying science will always be evident. 
Sorry but how can you think there is automatically a creator? Like where does that just come from? You need a reason to believe it. You want there to be a purpose...the purpose is no more different than that of bacteria. You are an oversized piece of bacteria. You eat. You respirate. You reproduce. What you do in-between that time is up to you. Thats it. To just continue executing a complex set of biological interactions. Its tough for your to come to grips with because you want to feel special. Everything else you do has purpose so you want there to be some divine understanding. There isn't. There just is not. Once you come to terms with this the sooner you'll be able to live this life to the fullest and not submit to what someone else says as the "divine plan" and instead cherish this day even more knowing that it will never return. Each breath is your last. 
Uh...these uncontacted amazonian tribes see us and think its 1492 again. These people have been COMPLETELY isolated. We need better explanations for what they describe as UFOs. Plus, why do UFOs only contact the most remote and isolated populations in the world? Like always happens. Never more than a few people can bear claim to their existence. Details are always super vague. If you had seen these, why are there more accounts? Why not more detail if its such a traumatic event? Most people that experience trauma can recall each and every detail of that event with severe accuracy.  I'm not so sure you're on the right track here. It could very well be a misunderstanding. 

However...I think there are aliens, because life spontaneously has been shown to occur and in different formats i.e. creatures found in arsenic environments with phosphorous-Ar replacements in their DNA. Crazy #%%$ starts happening with life forms ya'll... Its not as cut and dry as we think. Its silly to think that in the vast expanse of the world that we are the only forms of life. Even microbial. 

We need PROOF.

some science is manipulated/misleading @ times. read this link.
http://webcache.googleuse...mp;source=www.google.com

also, i remember when so called atlantis was found in the carribean, chile and some part in japan. NATGEO bought all the rights and only showed a little of the truth. which is was sad. also, NASA (scientists) is/are becoming a misleading tail of science. but one thing i do enjoy is that truth always comes out and that i can agree with you.

i believe there is a creator because the randomness of being here and how 'weird/coincidental' things just happen. it kind of leads me to a past life theory but it has not been proven.

i don't want to feel special, i know i'm not special. therefore i do not believe in being special. i live for the moment and i believe that tomorrow is a whole new world so you are mistaken on that part.

i'm not just speaking of amazonian tribes. some south american countries (chile,peru,columbia) original 'religion/faith' before 1492 tell stores of their origins and they speak of UFO's coming from the sky and drop creatures off. i wish i could find the video but it was on a public channel i believe the show was called globe trekker. i will look for it.

exactly, that is my point. there has to be life someone where else. life is not only carbon/oxygen based. there is so much we do not know. i just hope that i'm alive when that discovery is made. CHEERS !

 

[megachamploo]

Originally Posted by Dame Theory

Originally Posted by megachamploo

I see,

so... science right now says that God shouldn't exist, but science also once proposed that the world was flat. I know that you know that there's always a possibility that science is completely wrong and we could find that out later. What is atheism then, but a faith that God doesn't exist?

The great thing about science? New information changes old thoughts. Its just empirical knowledge. New things come along and debunk yesterdays mysteries. BTW, science once didn't know how to start a fire either. Or to make bronze tools...or alloy metals. But we do now. So whats your point?
Atheism is not a faith. I don't think there is a god. Not stamp collecting is not a hobby nor is not-skiing a sport. 
Thats it. 

I think you misunderstood what I meant by faith.

sorry my point is that suppose science one day could prove that there is a God and that science was previously wrong. I don't think it's impossible.
I'm saying like... in all of what we know with science, it's possible that it has mislead us. It's happened before. With that said, some portion of your atheism should be based on belief right? You mentioned before that no one really knows, doesn't that mean that what we strongly hold on to is partly faith? 

 

[megachamploo]

Originally Posted by Dame Theory

Originally Posted by megachamploo

I see,

so... science right now says that God shouldn't exist, but science also once proposed that the world was flat. I know that you know that there's always a possibility that science is completely wrong and we could find that out later. What is atheism then, but a faith that God doesn't exist?

The great thing about science? New information changes old thoughts. Its just empirical knowledge. New things come along and debunk yesterdays mysteries. BTW, science once didn't know how to start a fire either. Or to make bronze tools...or alloy metals. But we do now. So whats your point?
Atheism is not a faith. I don't think there is a god. Not stamp collecting is not a hobby nor is not-skiing a sport. 
Thats it. 

I think you misunderstood what I meant by faith.

sorry my point is that suppose science one day could prove that there is a God and that science was previously wrong. I don't think it's impossible.
I'm saying like... in all of what we know with science, it's possible that it has mislead us. It's happened before. With that said, some portion of your atheism should be based on belief right? You mentioned before that no one really knows, doesn't that mean that what we strongly hold on to is partly faith? 

 

[megachamploo]

Originally Posted by HighMan

He makes valid points here , imo bill has said some dumb things… this isnt an example of that….

no what he said was really dumb. Anybody who has gone to school can answer every question that he brought up.

 

[highman]

HighMan wrote:

---

He makes valid points here , imo bill has said some dumb things… this isnt an example of that….

You again... 
...
I'm convinced you're a troll as per the last thread you made as a christian trying to answer a series of questions.

You really don't care to know how our moon and every other planetary moon was created do you? I guess the *+@! we're witnessing in other galaxies means nothing to you. God doing it is enough for you isn't it? 

Bill said he doesn't know how the tides work and we can't explain it... and he always said stephen hawking couldn't explain some of his basic questions that most of the modern world has answers to.

And you think these are LEGIT answers? Dude you're slipping. You're really slipping. 

Im no troll i answered as many questions as I could  , Im a human being… for the record out of all the crazy stuff bill has said this is just isn’t even the tip of the iceberg

so he said athiesm require as much faith as believing in god that is his opinion…

don’t try to belittle everyone that see’s things different… after all you may come to find out one day that god is real…

upon reading your posts it is clear that you must have some sort of very sad life… it seems you get joys and giggles at the possibility of proving someone wrong...