Peh, I knew it would only last for one post.
And by the way, it was actually a compliment, not an insult. Learn to tell the difference.

I am well aware of the difference. In case you hadn't noticed.



I'm an arsehole.


But i defend my SMOD position. I feel I deserve it, and use it justly.

HAH! TAKE THAT VERIZON YOU GREEDY BASTARD! AHM BAK!
*ahem*

continuing with the actual topic,
Kastere reminded me.
Brainwashing. They do that to kids in NY through school. They're breeding workers. I'm glad I got out with my brain intact. But it makes pre-algebra awful difficult.
They teach them to be sheeple, with the belief that they have no controll. Again with the close mindedness. They all think it's alright that they get paid only enough to pay for the membership fee for 'canned food nation', and some of the good ones that managed to stay with thier minds give up hope that things will ever change.
So they make up a god or wish on stars or marvel in a floating pair of sneakers that are actually suspended on an electric line, and they think it's god because someone went to touch it and it 'struck them with lightning'. Baisically, drawing from josh's sig, there can't possibly be a god. And I guess it's good to be stupid, because if some humans were actually usuing all of thier brains, they wouldn't want to live anymore if they learned the truth and began to understand. Personally, I wish I was as far away from the human race as possible. they don't have to harm you or even be near you to kill you. Stop following others and make something of yourself, shisnos. Ah, remember the days when your leg got chewed off by a puma intead of a puma that didn't meet factory standards and held a flesh eating disease that a terrorist had put there as part of an elaborate scheme to take over the world? Those were the days...

I miss dying horribly too.

Good times.

*chkt* at anyrate, this thread was originally concieved to see how all the normal poster peeps reached their own viewzors.

I believe that has been reachified, so I guess it's done.

Actually, untill we can find a way to create life, we couldn't possibly not have a God, I can't beleave all of our complex systems etc. happened through something random, it's impossible for me to believe.
However, I respect your choices in religeon. ;)
I'm just trying to provide some arguments to deabte. ;)

1. I don't follow your logic. That's like saying, until we can find a way to bake the cake, there can't possibly not be cake. Kinda... no... aaaaah! *brains explodes*.

2. The theory a lot of religious people have about "OMG all our complex systems and the universe is so hard to understand it has to have a creator..." is something I do not understand. As quoted in my other post in the other topic, who says the universe is complex? Maybe to us, but that doesn't mean anything. We're just a dot in the universe, nothing here revolves around us. Not being able to understand something doesn't mean it automatically needs to have a creator. But if you go back far enough, I'm sure this is what religion is founded on. Man looked up in the sky, went "OMG we don't know whats beyond that blue thing" so they came up with something to satisfy their brain. Tada, religion.

It's the argument from personal incredulity.

Yay! That's the thinking! So, there's this possibility that things are more simple then we think it is? So maybe, there's a possibility that math doesn't have to be so complicated, and it's totally useless! Nice. But yeah. Religion is made up. Either because people are stupid, or too lazy to be smart.

Oh, math does have to be so complicated. It may be theoretical on paper, but it represents actual fundamental relationships characteristic of this particular universe. It is necessarily complex.

I believed in god and all that until I was about 7 and went "wait, why do I believe this again?" and realized it was only because some people need to believe theres something good at the end of life to give them the motivation to keep working/living, and I stopped believing.

Havoc, I meant life, not God, I have edited my quote. ;)
And Havoc, things are realy complicated.
The whole ecoysystems managed to be balanced untill we started to introduce speacies (Such as cane toads) but since then how come when a speacies migrates naturally, or moves due to changing climate or something, there isn't this unbalance?
Anyways, we still haven't found out how to rebalance alot of our disturbed ecosytems, becuase they are extremly complicated.
Then we have the disgn of each creature, the way the weather works and so, without human interferance, we wouldn't have a water problem or such, the natural greenhouse effect (the balance of trees and methane giving animals such as cows kind of lets us have the green house effect, which we need, but doesn't over balance it.
Then we have gravity and all of that, and then there's the human body, like some people can survive poles going through their heads, swimming in artic waters, being thousands of meters deep, being able to hold their breath for extremly long times, and being able to reach amazing altitudes without oxigen takes, we can adapt without gentic mutation, and there's probably a whole lot of other things we can do.
Havoc, if the universe itsn't that complicated, how the hell haven't scientists been able to figure out everything?
Oh, and then there's creating life, scientists still haven't worked out how to do that, they have managed to come up with life making materials, but they couldn't bind them.
Havoc, the universe is extremly confusing, I doupt anyone has said it becuase it's so obvious, but according to you, it is simple or isn't confusing, and so please explain everything including the meaning of life, oh, and I would like to know about wormwholes too, and parrallel universes. ;)
I mean, do you honeslty think there is some sort of simple answer that explains everything that you ever wanted to know, and the answer was under your nose the whole time? Sorry, but things aren't that simple.
Havoc, I think you are mistaken (again, I know), the basis of religeon is God, and us encountering him, sure the Genisis is more stories with facts that true events, but the New Testament is a new begenning, Jesus overturns most of the old beliefs (Like an eye for an eye). Ok, so we can accept some of Christianity isn't entirely ture, but the basis of it is, so the bases of religeon is technically true. ;)
I beleave in God and Jesus, even if you don't beleave in God, I strongly recomed you and everyone to follow the messages in the New Testament, such as forgive and love those who have wronged you, I know it sounds kind of corny, but can realy help you, and the mojority of our stories, beleafs, games, movies, etc. follow christianity, it's stories, and/ or it's meanings.
Anyway, there's a lot of thing science can't answer, think of it the other way, and if they can't answer it, you could turn the whole thing around and say, if we don't understand this, we may not even truely understand that, and anything can happen.

I became atheist by reading my dad's science books when I was little. They taught Religeous Education at my primary school, but my parents didn't like that, so they moved me out. At the time I couldn't understand why, but now I'm glad they saved me from being brainwashed. ^^; I mean, no offence to those who love The Lord but I... just can't believe in it. Even if I wanted to, it just doesn't make sense.
However, if someone finds irrefutable proof that God/ something else does exist, I'll believe it.
Proof=Belief.

Unless we can create life we can't do without a god? Then consider yourself godless because we are creating way to much life down here. It's called.... DUM DUM DUM pregnancy! Yay!

You didn't get my post did you. I said: Just because we don't understand something doesn't mean it's complex. Just because a 2 year old doesn't understand 2 + 15 = 17 doesn't mean it's complicated. It's complicated to the 2 year old, yes. But not to us adults.

If you believe in god then we are supposed to be the biggest best and better then the rest species. So logically (somewhat) assuming if we don't understand something then no-one can. Well what if you are wrong and there are shitloads of other alien species out there who have the entire universe completely figured out? What if there are at least another hundred different intelligent species out there of which we are by far the dumbest?

Basically what I'm saying: Just because we can not understand something doesn't mean it's complex, it just means we're not smart enough to understand it.

Well you know Havoc, things truly are complex. But that does not mean that they cannot be created naturally through simple factors. Well, simple by comparison, even those are complex. Our explanations fit your statement much more than the things they explain.

Hmm, I'm not sure how well I expressed that.

1. Proof (by your meaning) emphatically does NOT equal belief.

2. No proof or evidence or anything else is irrefutable, in fact, irrefutability is a hallmark of being unscientific.

3. Proof. Is. Strictly. A. Mathematical. Concept.

There is imbalance. Extreme imbalance. Extinction event imbalance. Just look at what happened when North and South America became connected. Chaos! Equilibrium is achieved eventually, but there are many casualties along the way.

1. Personal incredulity is not really a tenable position to maintain.

2. Just because science does not know something now, it does not mean that it shall never be known. What do you think all those scientists are doing right now? Playing shuffle-board?

3. The goal of science in not to answer all questions, only those that pertain to measurable physical reality. The choice of question becomes very important.

4. I'm sure I've said this already, but ignorance is important. Holes in our knowledge and understanding are valuable because they drive us to fill those holes through research and study, they drive science on. To whitewash over your ignorance kills that process stone dead, and the scientific method is all that keeps us from a second dark age. There may be questions for which human beings are uncomfortable not knowing the answers to, but we do ourselves a disservice to make up or accept any that have not been rigorously tested.

No you can't. Ignorance of one matter does not mean we are ignorant in another. It is true that anything in science could be falsified in an instant with the right observation (after verification of course) but until such an event it is both premature and foolish to assume that it will.

The only explanation for the nature of the universe that takes all the evidence into account and reconciles it all with Christianity is the following:

Perhaps I wasn't clear, but what I meant by 'proof' is something that makes you go "Hey, that makes a lot of sense." Proof is the little bit of puzzle that fits in to complete the picture... or at least, make it more complete than it already is.

So Havoc, you're saying a two year old would think you're tall, but you could be a mijget?
Well, that's because confusing, complicated, tall etc are all points of view.
So if the universe is complicated to us, it's complicated to us.
If the universe isn't complicated to some alien speacies then maybe they're looking at it the right way.
The universe wouldn't be complicated to God, becuase he created it, but it's still complicated for you, and therefore, according to you, it's still complicated.
Also, that's not what I meant, untilll we can find a way to create a non human life, from ground up, or even a way it would happen, we cannot say there is no God.
How was life created if we were supposed to be inside a tiny ball of mass, and by the way, who created that tiny ball of mass, and who made it explode all of the sudden if for enterity before that it hadn't, and how was life amougnst a bunch of rocks. And in conclusion, if we can't figure out how to create life from nothing, that means no cloning or anything from that such, I guess creating life from non living materials would be enough, we can't say there is a God, or something out there that created us all.
Anyway, God living forever untill creating the earth makes a whole much more sence that a ball sitting around in the middle of nothing, which technically may not even be space, and one day decidng to blow up masively, unless you believe in the big crunch theory, and it's a massive cycle, and then, why can't we find materials before the last big crunch, and what/ who created all of this, and started this cycle anyway?
Hmm, maybe we should stop asking these big questions and get on with our lives.
Or maybe I should stop answering them, or attempting anyway. ;)
And Bullet Magnet, if Jesus came knocking on your door would you beleave in him? (Probably not becuase there were a few skeptics at your time), but say, you were on one side of an ocean, and God came down and parted the oceans for you, technically there's no maths involved, so would you beleave in God?
Basically, proof comes in MANY forms, there's already proof of God, and currently to my knowlledge none against him, BUT because a mathimatical statement is blunt and obvious, and hard to get around, becuase of it's simplicity, then if you presented one proving or disproving God, there would be very little room for skeptics.
And there is proof, but people can still be skeptics of it.
But Mathitcal proof can be wrong, we can be mistaken, we can misunderstand maths (there could be a missing factor that we are forgetting) and therefore it is not completly solid proof, and there still is room for skepticism.
But give up, becuase a scientist is not going to waltz up your street with a mathimatical equasion proving God, becuase God isn't a mathimatical equasion, he isn't an amount, etc.
But there is kind of proof, alot of natural things follow the fibinachii system, a mathimatical patern, almost proof that there is a designer of our world becuase of it appearing in such a varity of things such as acorns, follows and honey combs.
But that leaves us asking why.
And some people asking why not.
and the world moves on.
Oh, one last thing, yes, that's exactly what they do, that and sit in dark rooms playing computer games all day (Well the scientists I know at least, with the exception of my stereotypical mad ex scientific proffessor type teach.

To throw off the current train of thought, which would require me to read the whole thread when it's about midnight (which, I regret to say, won't be happenin'), here's my view.

I'm agnostic because I've never really taken religion seriously. Part of me dosen't really care, but the other part of me says that something or someone must have made everything. The mind just refuses to think it's all been here before, and needs something to fill the gap. At least, that's what I think.

There was a kinda rude remark to this when I went on a trip for school that required 3 days at a hotel. It was a competition for the school newspaper, and my pals and I were a little more crazy than usual, so we ended up in a few girl's room from another school, trying to kill time and maybe make some sparks. We started off introducing each other, then started chatting, and eventually religion came up. Since I live in Idaho, they were all Mormon, so when I came up, and said Agnostic, they all kinda looked at me blankly, until a blond girl blurted out, "Isn't that just being an Aethiest without balls?"

Laughter all around. To keep the question from coming up, no, nothing farther than talking happened. It was just talk before the hotel security showed up and made us go back to our respective rooms because of curfew.

A non sequitur. We could not say that before nor after.

Supposed? Don't assume that every argument also claims there to be some sort of purpose.

Anthropomorphism. Again, the argument here is that nobody needs to be making this stuff happen. That does not mean that there is no cause, rather that there is no need for the cause to be intelligent.

The current theory is that the Big Bang is also when the dimension of time came into existence, so there was no eternity before. There was no before, in the traditional sense.

:fuzconf:

I assume that was a typo on your part, because suddenly you're supporting our argument. Via non sequiturs, I might add.

1. It's not exactly going to make much sense to anyone who has not even a basic understanding of astrophysics. But it is what the available evidence and subsequent calculations all point to. You don't have to accept evidence, of course, but then don't start claiming what makes sense and what does not. To me, the opposite of your statement is true.

2. Ball?

True. It is hypothesised that what would become space was contained within the singularity.

It didn't "decide" to do anything. Another anthropomorphism.

1. We wouldn't find anything from the last universe if the hypothesis is true because information cannot be preserved through the complete and pure entropy of the end of the universe.

2. Why would it even need to be started anyway?

3. Who? Another anthropomorphism. I know it is difficult for one who has followed the religious route to break free of that concept when your own faith anthropomorphises every cause, but do try, especially when considering scientific explanations.

Some people's lives are about asking these questions.

Of course not. With the evidence presented before my eyes, there would be no need for faith at all. But that does rather defeat the purpose of having faith in God, so would be something of an own goal on God's part.

Although whether or not this was truly God or some other powerful entity frequently mistaken for Him would be a relevant question.

There can be no evidence for the non-existence of God, because the very concept is non-falsifiable. I have explained that already, haven't I? That makes it all non-testable, which means no evidence can be used to support the concept either.

Again, proof exists only in mathematics, and refers to other mathematical concepts. This means that it is a logical argument, not an empirical one (in which real-world evidence is involved). By this I do mean mathematical logic, logical reduction and so-forth, so it will not help you in terms of religious discussion.

May I also say that a sceptic is not someone who simply does not believe in anything, rather someone who requires adequate, empirical evidence for a statement.

I hope you're not applying the God-of-the-Gaps argument to mathematics now, are you? It's a moot point anyway.

Exactly. These are more reasons why the concept of God is far from science and rational discussion. I hope I wasn't giving you the impression that I was sitting at home, eagerly awaiting the day that the mathematical God has been invoked to solve Schanuel's conjecture.

No, that simply demonstrates what mathematicians has told us all along: that math is not abstract, but has actual and essential relevance to the physical universe.

*giggles*

You have a way with women, Mitsur.

Yes, well, it's just something in my genes, I suppose.

Ok, firstly, I didn't make a typo, I just didn't present my point properly, I mean the opposite, but I can't seem to find it to edit it.
Ok, I think my last argument would have to be if maths is incorperated into everything, that means that everything has a design, maths being hte backbone and coding of it, and therefore, there would have to be a designer.
Quite frankly I'm extremly confused and feel like I'm in a university debate, I mean, I'm 15 years old, I don't do studies of religeon and that isn't realy an excuse I'm just saying give me, actually give the beleavers in God a break if some of my statements don't seem concrete, maybe I haven't presented them correctly.
But thanks for this argument, too bad I dropped religeon, probably would do alot better now.

Well, you are debating with a university student. Look, you're a smart kid but you have not formed coherent arguments for your points. But it is essential as a believer that you do so and to have your thoughts in order. You also need to understand fully the science of the competing ideas or else we'll go around in circles again. 90% of such debates I have are the same, and they're with much older opponents.

I reached mine by constant pensiveness, questioning my beliefs and disecting them to some degree, but more importantly using logic and reasoning. Reason why I didn't bring up my actual beliefs is because they are precisely that, my own. I really think religion and spirituality should be exclusive to the individual. Otherwise, organized religions become extremely zealous and polarized and seemingly cultesque. Not to mention the conflicts that arise from differences in opinion and others not being able to coexist and respect one another. Furthermore, the lasting implications when matters of state become clogged with religious zealots trying to influence policy-politics of a government.

Ugh, how did I reach my religious views...

I honestly don't know how I did, a lot of the teachings just seem to make sense for me. It made me feel safe, knowing there is a god (Christian btw, a mix of baptist and catholic. Cause I was taught I could do that :P) watching me all the time, in a way protecting me seems believable to me. I dunno why, it just does.

I feel like every good/bad thing that has happened to me is for my better being, so I could have a better future. I believe God does this in ways that are comfortable to just downright confusing (Family member dying, serious injury, etc.). Still I find myself following the basic Christian religion. Even though everyone else in my family is atheist.

Some of you might call me "Brainwashed" but I view myself as a person who found a faith he is comfortable with sticking and believing in. It also helps me do good things in life, hell if I wasn't christian, I'd be much more of a bastard (If I am one at all >_>).

Hm... well... to be frank on how I reached my views... I am actually still finding out what I believe. But be assured, everything I believe in is my own, and like what Al said two posts before mine, someone's beliefs are/should be completely one's own.

Granted I have firm beliefs in the things I do believe in as of now, but... the human mind is a tricky thing. It is only done working something out when it can no longer do so.

But yeah.... that's how I am coming to my beliefs. Slowly, and through my experiences, ideals, and personal outlook on the things around me, and their part in, perhaps, a greater scheme.

Well I'm a catholic and was born and raised that way. Yay me, my second school was a Christian one.

I am still figuring out on what to believe. I was raised a christian, but i'm at that point of my life in which i'm starting to question my beliefs.