You're not serious, are you?


Religion is a system of control. By calling me ignorant, you assume I don't know about christianity. Bitch, please. I did the sunday school thing, and at around 12 I realized that it was just a giant lie like Santa Claus was.

Look at the whole system and how it's setup. How it's been used over the last 2000 years. It's a giant system of control designed to keep you in line and obeying your masters. The amount of power sharing governments have had to do with the Church over the last 1000+ years should be a huge example as to how and why the Church operates. Nevermind the money involved as well...


The belief in god, sure, if someone wants to believe in a magical space daddy, that's fine. The evidence points towards an indifferent, uncaring god that has no hand in day to day affairs of mortal beings.


Following religion, however, is far more damaging as it encourages us to hide our own hatred and prejudice behind scripture, and gives us a vehicle to condemn others.


I hope, someday, that RTS can free his heart and mind.

Don't forget the corruption!

I wish more people would see that religion doesn't equal faith. I'm Christian, and I am in no way religious. I do, however, have a lot of faith in God, and I put my trust in Him.

Jesus doesn't like religion much, either. Instead of working for salvation, Jesus only wanted people to believe in Him, and they would receive salvation. He pissed off lots of religious folk, and they crucified Him.

well oops. your point still has no relevance. we could one day find out that we actually "share a common descendant ancestor" with an ape that lived under water named sam and it would still mean nothing to the argument.

yes. the more we realize we don't know the more we need science. you got that right. but that still has no relevance whatsoever to the existence of a god. science has yet to produce proof that there is no god and that's the bottom line. bottom freaking line.

it's like saying there is absolutely no way in hell that there is life on other planets simply because we haven't found proof yet. in the eyes of modern science, and for those of you who watch discovery channel regularly, it would be totally absurd to utterly dismiss the theory of life on other planets just because there is no hard evidence. so why are the smart-asses outright dismissing the idea of god's existence? because there are a bunch of tools in robes running around talking about flying elephants or snakes that talk. it's far easier to reject things that are supported by silly and outrageous stories. when a redneck claims to have witnessed a UFO we say he's crazy. but when we see intelligent scientists say that there is life on other worlds then we say he's probably right. it's the same damn shit.

and once again, just because religion tells you to worship sacred animals, virgin mothers or a being called jehovah and rejects scientific facts, this is no basis to say that there is no god. all religions may be false for all we know. so what? it still doesn't prove anything. open your mind and separate religion from god. i mean REALLY open your mind. you atheists think you're so open minded but your ideas are not much better than that of a tv evangelist. a bit better, but not much.

yeah, science is our best path to knowledge but by no means does science know all. stop giving it all this credit it doesn't deserve. stop saying science alone will save us. science is only as good as our own intelligence and the fact is that relative to the universe, we don't know very much at all.

at this point it's far more intelligent to say that we just don't know.

I find that a lot of ppl r stuck with the human interpretation of wut God is. Never take the Bible too literally, it's dangerous.

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Just food for thought.

If you were walking along a path, and you saw five pebbles lined up in a row, the first reaction is to think that someone aligned them. Moreso, the greater the number of pebbles.

Intelligent design. Look at our bodies and look at the world. There are a lot of "designs" that evolution doesn't account for. For every watch, there is a watchmaker.

Once again, food for thought.

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However,
when we decided to adapt our environment to ourselves instead of vice versa as it always had been,
we changed our natural evolution process.

Ignoring the "another interesting fact", I'd hardly think it's chance that the physics of space and time work the way they do. What it actually is, I have no clue though.

Lean towards chance? What are the chances that not only the angular size of the moon is the same size as the sun, but it is only the same size to those obvserving from Earth, where also the ONLY sentient beings are (currently discovered). I would hate to have to prove anything to you!

Touche, but that was only an example of how man created God in his own image, and not the other way around.

There's nothing difficult about believing that, primates or not, we evolved from SOMETHING. It's absurd (at least, in my opinion), to think that humans were created upon the will of some divine being after his own perfect image.
That would also mean that our brains were advanced enough to create rocket ships and go on REVScene a couple thousand years ago.
So, perhaps ants will evolve into a high-intelligence species, who knows?

My farts stinking as bad as they do is not by chance. The devil lurks inside my anus.

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[youtube]YjZ-lSn0A3M[/youtube]

After hearing about this space stuff, reminds me of the video I watched of
Louie Giglio talking about how big the stars are compared to us and earth (and how God is even bigger than the biggest known star) and Laminin, the protein described as a protein that holds the body together, is shaped like a cross in diagrams in bio textbooks. And how under a microscope, it has resemblances like a cross. Also a picture of the core of Whirlpool galaxy M51 is kind of interesting. Coincidence possibly.

Louie Giglio stuff is on YouTube. Very easy to find if anyone cares.

which again, is only speculation..

What happens down the line when science uncovers things that forever would be considered a mystery?

what happens when science discovers what existed BEFORE the big bang?

in 500 years u guys dont think that science will have evolved to a point where the most obscure questions of the universe will be answered easilly?

in 500 years religions as you know them now will not even exist.

After following 3 pages, and having observed this previous discussion in other threads in the past, what I find interesting is:

That the topic of religion is more sensitive to non-believers in comparison to the believers.

Another thing that I gather is that majority of non-believers, and even the strongest advocate of non-believers, do not come from strong atheist backgrounds, but ironically most of them come from religious backgrounds.

Seems to me that in modern cultures, religion hurts more than it helps.

Thing is, there's really no place for religion in modern culture. If you look at it objectively (and realistically), religion has never benefited humans. Science is the only thing that has truly provided REAL benefits for humans. Which is why living life by science and reason rather than blind faith really makes the most sense.

moon's moving away slowly and it was closer before..

Cause and effect is something we like to believe in, I completely agree with you. Yet when we discuss a concept such as a creator, we stop reasoning and accept that something (the creator itself) can be self-caused or can exist without a cause.

This to me is something I find hard to accept.

Most people would agree something such as freedom is relative. On the other hand, God is an absolute concept which makes it very hard to use reasoning to accept.

The question we have here, is what exactly defines supernatural? I agree that that there are many things which science cannot explain, but is it responsible to conclude things which we cannot explain as miracles?

For the same token, I find it difficult to link things we cannot explain to a creator or God.

Having a open mind is great. The part about the creator that seems odd to me, as pointed out above, is that the creator itself not having a creator.

When asked about the beginning of the world, I see the following:

Christians: God.
Buddhists: It always existed.
Scientists: I am not sure, but let's try to find out.

I'm not even sure if I subscribe to the random chance theory. To me, things are all governed by cause and effect, which in theory, means everything is pre-determined. Things seem random to us only because we have limited knowledge.

I think science is having an impact on religion redefining what God is. I don't know, I am not a scientist myself but to me, us evolving from apes or even bacteria sounds more plausible than a talking snake, no?

Based on how God has been presented in the history of mankind, I find the teaching inconsistent and unfair. On the other hand, if God is supposedly a mean and nasty creator, who has since died, I may have a different opinion.

Secondly, the concept of a creator without a creator doesn't seem very logical. Of course, I could be wrong but what I can go by, besides my rational mind.

I believe in Science, and Science doesn't support any fucking evidence of their being a God, and also in relation to Christianity, why the fuck do you have to donate 10% of your earnings to be a part of a Church? FUCKING SCAM AND BULLSHIT IMO, just like ULIC said, "God's never helped me one day in my life", i had my Mother Violently removed entirely from my life when i was 15 yrs old, their is no God, if their was IMO things would be different.

You don't NEED to give 10%. God doesn't want people to give grudgingly. So if you can't give that 10% with a smile, then don't give it. There's a legitimate, biblical reason to tithe, but I'm afraid explaining it would fall on deaf ears.

Just because science doesn't support any evidence of a being called God, it doesn't mean God doesn't exist.
Scientists collect data in the form of observations. What they can't observe, they can't conclude. And just because we can't see any lifeforms in the universe using our current technology, we can't conclude that they do or do not exist.
At this stage, a mere hypothesis that there is a high chance of there being other organisms would suffice; because it is the only thing we can conclude using observations that we currently have.

The same goes to religious deities; just because we can't see them using our scopes, we can't say the beings themselves do not exist; regardless of the validity of their words (religious texts).
I will stop to say though, that a God (in our image), is an all-knowing, all-wise, and all-powerful being--I don't think anybody can refute that. But when science weighs in to the equation, evidence weighs more than words alone. So science is often on the heavier end of the scale.

I know I sound like a hypocrite by taking the middleroad all of a sudden, but after doing some thinking, I think it would be unfair for me (or anybody) to judge when I am on one absolute end of the spectrum.
Having said that, my personal opinion is still that God was created in man's image, and not the other way around.

Well said. I believe its because those with religious backgrounds begin to think CRITICALLY about their religion. Some begin to consider the fact that their religion shares no realistic facts, but are stories made up over time.