IainDaniel

I wouldn't say I am atheist. More like agnostic, I hold the idea that there might be a higher power, I am not closing that door.

However organized religion.... eek

Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

Michael Jordan

WillBrink

That is the conclusion most intelligent people will come to on the issue. Comes as no surprise such a mind as his would also, even though people have tried in the past to use selected quoted to make him appear a believer in an all knowing God via the Bible.

Will Brink @ WWW.BRINKZONE.COM

WillBrink

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.....

Will Brink @ WWW.BRINKZONE.COM

Witchblade

Most theists are indoctrinated early in their lives. That, fear of the unknown and social pressure are the only reasons people believe in God.

As for the notion that we can't prove God does not exist... that's foolish. You'll have to prove God does exist, then we can talk about falsification. I say we're all in the Matrix. Prove me wrong.

I like these statistics that suggest belief in God is in fact a psychological phenomenon:
- prayer does not work (scientifically tested).
- strength and frequency of belief in God are inversely correlated with IQ (statistically tested).
- there are hundreds of religions and they change over time.
- most theists are raised as such and their frequency and strength of belief in God are significantly higher (60% IIRC) than is the case with people from other households.
- strength and frequency of belief in God are positively correlated with poverty

I also like these quotes:

Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree. — unknown

"Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything -- anything -- be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in."
— Sam Harris, The End of Faith

"Religion is the process of unconscious wish fulfillment, where, for certain people, if the process did not take place it would put them in self-danger of coming to mental harm, being unable to cope with the idea of a godless, purposeless life."
— Sigmund Freud

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DOMS

That's the thing about "heroes" of the past. They're often looked up to, but never fully scrutinized.

Take Mahatma Gandhi for example. His famous response to "What do you think of Western civilization?", "I think it would be a good idea." This from a man whose society was killing newborn girls in droves because they wouldn't be able to as much work as the boys.

Not that people need to perfect to share ideas, but you have to consider the source. An immoral man saying that their is no god and a man whose people kill infants saying that someone else need to be civil.

Witchblade

Gandhi lived in a society he didn't agree with. It wasn't his idea to kill newborn girls (AFAIK). He was actually extremely anti-violence.

I get your point though. People often forget the terrorist-like past of Martin Luther King for example. However, this does not change the fact that he did a lot of very good things afterwards in his life. The point with Einstein is that he was extremely intelligent. How he treated women is in this case irrelevant. It would only be hypocrisy if one quoted Einstein to support feminism.

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DOMS

I have never heard word one from Gandhi saying anything negative about his own people. As for Einstein, his treatment of women calls into question the value of morals, which is often central to the belief in a "god."

Another good example of praising the wrong person is Nelson Mandela. He was a leader of an organization that routinely killed children. Yet he received praise from stupid people all over the world and a Nobel peace prize. What a fucking joke.

Fetusaurus Rex

Einstein?

Einstein was a brilliant man, but whether he believed in God or not has no effect on my beliefs, I wasn't even aware that he was supposed to have believed in God, so the fact that he didn't doesn't matter to me at all....I don't hold Einstein's beliefs (or lack their of) over my own beliefs...

If there are people out there who were like "Einstein believes in God L0Ls one up on you atheists." and now this letter comes out "Ohhh checkmate, Einstein didn't believe in God LOLS, therefore God is fake" is silly and shouldnt even start a debate, nor end one...

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squanto

"Gandhi criticized both the actions of the British Raj and the retaliatory violence of Indians. He authored the resolution offering condolences to British civilian victims and condemning the riots, which after initial opposition in the party, was accepted following Gandhi's emotional speech advocating his principle that all violence was evil and could not be justified."

There you go, one example. All you had to do was open his wikipedia page.... (and that's cited from R. Gandhi, Patel: A Life)

Gandhi's Principles of Satyagraha

1. Love your enemy
2. Always be truthful
3. Never use violence
4. Try to win your enemy over to your side
5. Don't be angry; suffer the anger of your opponent
6. Wean your opponents from error with patience and sympathy
7. Establish the truth, not by infliction of suffering on your opponent, but by your own suffering.
8. It appears to work slowly. In reality, there is no force in the world that is so direct or so swift in working.

If you're going to go so far as to call Gandhi a hypocrite, at least make a little effort to figure out who the man was... so in essence I agree with you, just a terrible example.

maniclion

I'd rather go by the quotes of a man who was in touch with the Universe and how it worked than a collection of fables written by men who were in touch with their fears and guilt......

Tier

Religion is idiotic, and the reason I am just name calling is because I have learned from experience that people who believe in religion are incapable of perceiving the logical invalidity of their belief.

It just simple does not make sense, it's not a matter of opinion because if I told you I was in possession of a king tomato that is master of the universe that you can't see you would call me a loon. The only reason somebody would simultaneously accept and reject two parallel statements involving two identical but seperate dietys is simple, brainwashing. If the word "God" did it, it's ok, if the word "King Tomato" did it, it's not, everything else is identical.

DaMayor

So there may be hope for you after all.....praise the Lord....Or, Good luck widdat, Lord.

I go to church regularly. Don't always want to, but I go. For the record, while technically Southern Baptist, I am NOT a Bible thumper. In short, here are my views:

1.) I've said this before...Religion was created by man for man...plain and simple. What started out as an innocent attempt to define or individualize our belief systems has now turned into a thousand variations of self gratification in the name of [insert {lord's} name here].
2.)The Bible is one of the greatest works in all of literature. It is a guide, a template, a set of rules written in simple terms for the people of the era each book was written in. I do not believe that each word should be interpreted literally.....some folks do.
3.) Its okay to reference other religious works and writings. In fact, in my uneducated and humble opinion, there is a relationship between all religious text that, when integrated, produce answers and insight that we might otherwise never find.
4.)Nibiru will be swinging through in 2012 causing mayhem and destruction anyway....so who really cares how religious you are?

I think that there is only one thing that could possibly be said about religion, and God with any certainty. While we think ourselves to be intelligent beings with all of the answers.....we don't know JACK.

NeilPearson

Only the smart ones

NeilPearson

Science and religion fight because religion claims things happened in a certain way with no proof and through science we know for a fact that those events simply could not have happened.

Science relies on evidence. Religion relies on faith. When the evidence contradicts the faith, conflict arises.

DaMayor

thump thump thump

danny81

do u believe in god? i go to church to repent

fufu

I don't really see your point, it seems like you are argueing in your own head rather than the opinions being stated in this thead.

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Your diet will set you free.

DaMayor

It will only be a matter of time before we find that religion and science have much more in common than ever thought possible. I also think that our human arrogance will take quite a beating when we figure out that we might be the smallest menu item on the food chain.

DaMayor

Nah, I just play guitar.

Of course I do, dip wad.

However, this doesn't mean I don't question things on a regular basis.

fufu

Even with my opinions I've stated in this thread, those stats definitely can't be used to an end to this arguement. You can't scientifically prove prayer does not work.

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NeilPearson

Why would you think we would find out we are the smallest menu item on the food chain. We know for a fact we are not. I don't see people being eaten by cows and chickens.

You may want science and religion to have something in common because that would help validate religion but it simply isn't happening... you can wish and pray for it as much as you want but your faith isn't going to change the fact that science does not agree with religion.

DaMayor

The food chain I was referring to was one a little bigger than the third rock we live on, Dude.

I'm not concerned with religion and science becoming buddies...ain't gonna happen if human beings have anything to do with it. In fact, my comment was directed torwards both ideologies.....we don't know everything, we don't have the answers...yet. And it is my belief that one day we will all be caught with our ideological pants down, simply because we, as humans, think we are the only intelligent beings in the entirety of space and time.

Pretty cocky we are.