+1 athiestsFollow

Hmmm, gonna have to check that book out. I loves me some esoteric discussions of topics I know nothing about.

Totem

I was being sarcastic there. And while many religious people may choose to insert God into the theory of evolution, and that's fine, there is nothing to suggest that God is the catalyst for it. So, as usual, we are left with no evidence of God.



Agreed. Like I said. Sarcasm.






While there may be proof of great floods in certain regions from time to time throughout history, there is no proof that there was ever a GLOBAL flood. And that claim, as a matter of fact, has been well-refuted.



As you know, you cannot prove a negative, and there's no need to do so. The fact that no definitive proof for any sort of religious nonsense has emerged in the last few centuries is a pretty good indicator that it's all nonsense.



Believing it don't make it so.

Edited, Dec 20th 2006 10:24am by bloodywilliam

Edited, Dec 20th 2006 10:27am by bloodywilliam

Uhm...that is the dumbest argument I have ever seen. Religion is born out of ignorance. People have the need to dump things they can't understand/control onto some almighty presence. The decline in religion in the past few centuries is due to an increase in general understanding/knowledge. It only makes sense that the last few centuries see fewer records supporting religion, things aren't chalked up to god anymore, they're actually investigated and the real answers found.

People use predictions and stuff from the bible and say it's true because of [insert rediculous prediction that came true here]. I could predict 15 things right now, and if someone kept this post for 2000 years, half of them will have come true by then. Any detail that doesn't quite fit will be revised in the "new testament" of my post. I will be worshipped by millions.

Religion has been declining for a long time, unfortunately I can't back up my statements as I don't have time to look up any of the studies I've read on the subject.

I agree though, just because it hasn't been proven, doesn't mean it can't.

What bugs me is people that explain things away as "God's will". huh?. The dumb kid stood in front of a freakin bus on the 401, had nothing to do with god. Or people that say god helps those who help themselves...uhm if I'm helping myself what the hell does god have to do with it? As far as I'm concerned it's all a load of crap to help stupid people feel better.

It's just funny to me, the dumbest people I know (and I know some DUMB people) are all religious people, the smartest people I know are all Athiest.

Can't we all just get along?


No? Ok then.

*starts passing out firearms*

your MOM is crazy talk...

Edit: hurray! i killed another conversation!

Edited, Dec 20th 2006 9:25pm by Obscur

Einstein didn't really believe in God.

It's an urban myth, like Flea's statues of military men killed in battle, or an intelligent post by gbaji.

Einstein said that he believed in a God that really takes no direct part in the relevant day to day happenings of human lives and that his works were no more "delving into the divine" as some like to describe such work than any other mechanical endevour.



lol trust me, I don't believe waht my parents believe.
My beliefs are:
Interpretation X Intelligence
+
Observation
which could also be broken down into a number of things.
I'm not saying this is how everyone comes up with waht they believe in. just me.

however you say:



OK, now PRETEND for a minute that you don't think that I'm trying to make you believe in a giant old man in the sky who is shaking his thunderbolt at you in judgement.
Pretend that I and saying something completely different.... Basically that everything is simply connected in some way.
NOW, you can CHOOSE to believe that or not.
Now being that you disagree with that causes me to ask why; since it is obviously something that you have never concidered, never thought of, nor ever seen any evidence of through observation.. never mind that you have never know waht it is that you are observing...

The point it.. My belief is not Irrational. Your disbelief is Irrational.
God, the Force, yeah yeah.. wahtever you call it. You do not even know waht it is describing. ALL YOu KNow is a preconceived set of notions that have been fed into your psyche all of your life. I say "God" you think one thing.. I say "force" you think something else, I say "magic" you think something else; all total prefabricated speculation.. You are attempting to answer a question that you have never heard.

So in essense, It is through Faith Alone that you believe (or disbelieve) the things that you do. You talk about following the beliefs of parents.. well DUH. How are we not. Waht else are we going to do, go be raised by wolves?




Eh, you have faith that you aren't going to die in you car everyday; otherwise you wouldn't get into it.
I could easily call anyone who hasn't observed the clockwork like presision of supposed coincidence of everyday life and realized the glory and spendour of the universe a moran, but I don't. Ther are plenty of things that I don't understand for my own reasons... either that I am not adept to learn them.. or it it just not my concern...... but I do not condem people for believing that they are just biological drones.
It has nothing to do with fear of death, or lust for afterlife virgins. The "faith" that I have is not a choice any more than the faith that YOU have is a choice.

I don't.



You're saying it. But you have no proof of it, other than anectdotal.



Exactly. In other words, I can choose to believe it if I want to. I don't want to believe it. I don't NEED to believe it. And, if it was fact, I wouldn't have to believe it. Facts are facts whether you believe in them or not.



Never thought of it? Never thought of what? That there might be some grand unifying force in the universe that connects all things and all people?

Um... yes. I have thought of it. And just about the whole human race down through history has thought of it. These are the thoughts that usually lead to questions like, "So what IS this force?" And then the force is anthropomorphized. And the next thing you know it's got a name. And maybe the name is SO sacred it dare not be uttered. So that force becomes GOD.

No matter how much you want to avoid putting a fine point on it, believing that we're all connected through some sort of cosmic energy is nothing new, not unique, and is still a simple matter of faith, as there has never been any scientific or statistical evidence to support that this is true.



Yes it is.



No it's not. Disbelief is never irrational in the face of no evidence.



I know that the belief in anything invisible that exerts some sort of force on the universe is unproved. Therefore, if you believe it, it's faith. And if it's faith, it's (again) simply a matter of believing what you want to believe.

There's a lamp on my desk. I can see the lamp. I can touch the lamp. If I turn the lamp on, it makes light.

Now, let's say I walk into your office. You say, "You like my lamp?"

I look, but there's no lamp there.

"I don't see a lamp."

"It's there. But you have to believe in it."

"Ah," I say. "Then there's no lamp."

"You don't believe in my lamp?"

"If there's a lamp, turn it on. Let's see it make light."

"It makes light inside of me."

"Ah. Well. Then. Lunch?"



I don't need faith to not believe in your lamp.



And yet, earlier, you said you most certainly did NOT believe everything your parents believed.



I know that statistically, the odds of me dying in a car wreck are far lower than the odds that I will get in my car, it will start, and I will drive all the way to work without incident. That's not faith. That's reasonable observation.



You could easily call those people morons, but any statistician or physicist would tell you that you're wrong to do so, and they would have plenty of evidence to back it up. You would have "faith."



Faith by definition is a choice. By evolution, you are hardwired to anthorpormophize. The cave dweller who heard a tree rustle outside and imagined it was an enemy ready to attack was far more likely to survive than the cave dweller who did not have this capacity.

My dog sees a piece of blue paper flying through the air on the wind and growls at it.

Your mind has evolved to make connections, to attempt to bring order to chaos.

But we have developed science to ask the questions: "Are these things that we imagine, this 'order' that we wish to see--is it really there?"

And in all this time, the answer has been "not proved."

Edited, Dec 21st 2006 11:54am by bloodywilliam

Put me in a sentence with Gbaji again and I'll cut you, Frenchie.

It's kinda like meeting smart people who are conservatives. They really make you rethink the construct of our universe.


Gbajji





Awesome book. In 9th grade, our "Accelerated" Geometry class was forced to read this. None of them understood a thing from the book, and they didn't get anything out of it. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it made me hate all those self-glorified nerds in my class who couldn't get past the 5th chapter. Rant over.

Maybe there is a myriad of universes, all randomly arrayed with stuff. Some universes (maybe most) are "unpatterned" stuff, "raw nothingness" as you put it. And maybe there are just a few universes (or maybe just one) where the stuff is randomly thrown together in such a way that it allows life. And not just life but sentient life, such as ourselves, and since we came out of this particlar "random pattern" of stuff, we're naturally going to perceive it as being patterened, when in reality it's just one of an infinite number of ways a universe can exist.

Either way, we don't need a God. So yeah, +1 atheists.

No, If it were raw nothingness as I put it, it would NOT be any universes.. It would be NOTHINGNESs.