Charles Darwin Film 'Too Controversial for Religious America'

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
181

[quote]Makavali wrote:
bpeloquin wrote:
If I go through life believing in God, die, and find out there is no God, I have lost nothing. But if I go through life not believing in God, die, and find out there is a God … I’ve lost everything.

Pretty bad reason to believe if you ask me.[/quote]

This is Pascal’s Wager. It’s been around for a while - since Pascal. Pascal passed it off as proof of God’s existence, but it clearly isn’t a proof; it’s just a reason to believe. And people whose belief is based on the wager don’t really have true faith. They’re just hedging their bets. It also assumes that God is this mean individual who will punish anyone who does not believe. Really? A being with all the power in the universe gets mad if a mere human doesn’t believe? That’s laughable.

I believe in sort of a reverse Pascal’s Wager. I reject all organized religions as corrupt and just try to live a good life. I don’t know if there is a god or not - I don’t reject the possibility that there may be a god, I just don’t know. The way I see, once I die, and there is a divine being out there, that being would be intelligent enough to realize that what counts most is that I lived a decent life and helped others, not whether or not I went to a special building for one hour every Sunday and holidays.

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[quote]CCJDilla wrote:
lokidj, I certainly hope your not in college, but, rather in highschool like me, it’s kind of sad how you refute all opinions simply because you believe that your own is correct.

The mindset you exemplified is ignorant, and, I’m sure many resent your close minded attitude.

You have limited your logic to what is only logical to your perspective. Logic and reasoning has an infinite amount of scopes, Science is only limited to the applicable knowledge it has for what is “logical” in it’s sense.

Hopefully, my brief explanation of UNDERSTANDING will aid you.

I cannot stress it enough, please be open minded and try to understand why others believe whatever they believe.
[/quote]

Im sry but i dont refute all opinions just because i think mine is correct. I refute religion in the form of Jesus, the bible stand that Evolution doesnt exist and god does because it says it in the bible. Its not a very convincing argument.

I have just spent the last year of my life in Thailand. There I learnt Muay thai and i also learnt a lot about their culture and their religion. They have a real religion. They accept everything as it comes and dont put people down because they may have other beliefs or sexual tendencies, etc etc. Anyone can become a monk, and as a monk they teach you meditation and teach you to look inward to find what the real truth is. They dont just have someone get up on a stand and have them tell you what is right and wrong and what you can or cant do. YOU, my friend have been very quick to judge me and hand the “closed minded” tag on me because of my strong opinions on religion. Doesnt he have just as strong of an opinion as me about, his religion being the truth and evolution being a pile of steamy dog crap!

People can believe whatever they want to believe, it doesnt affect me in any way. Im just saying that if i were to take my son for example and teach him certain things from a very early age, he would take it as truth, even if it werent, and this (in my opinion) is what happens with religion as we know it.

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[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
Makavali wrote:
bpeloquin wrote:
If I go through life believing in God, die, and find out there is no God, I have lost nothing. But if I go through life not believing in God, die, and find out there is a God … I’ve lost everything.

Pretty bad reason to believe if you ask me.

This is Pascal’s Wager. It’s been around for a while - since Pascal. Pascal passed it off as proof of God’s existence, but it clearly isn’t a proof; it’s just a reason to believe. And people whose belief is based on the wager don’t really have true faith. They’re just hedging their bets. It also assumes that God is this mean individual who will punish anyone who does not believe. Really? A being with all the power in the universe gets mad if a mere human doesn’t believe? That’s laughable.

I believe in sort of a reverse Pascal’s Wager. I reject all organized religions as corrupt and just try to live a good life. I don’t know if there is a god or not - I don’t reject the possibility that there may be a god, I just don’t know. The way I see, once I die, and there is a divine being out there, that being would be intelligent enough to realize that what counts most is that I lived a decent life and helped others, not whether or not I went to a special building for one hour every Sunday and holidays.[/quote]

As I said earlier, my beliefs are not solely based on a wager. That would be ridiculous. I have always liked Pascal’s wager, but it has almost nothing to do with why I believe what I do. PM me if you wanna talk about this.

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[quote]bpeloquin wrote:

The way I see it …

If I go through life believing in God, die, and find out there is no God, I have lost nothing. But if I go through life not believing in God, die, and find out there is a God … I’ve lost everything.

You’re entitled to your opinion bro, I’m not trying to force my views on anyone. I’m completely content with what I believe.[/quote]

What if you believe in the wrong god? The odds of you picking the right one, out of the thousands of options are staggeringly low.

185

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
Makavali wrote:
bpeloquin wrote:
If I go through life believing in God, die, and find out there is no God, I have lost nothing. But if I go through life not believing in God, die, and find out there is a God … I’ve lost everything.

Pretty bad reason to believe if you ask me.

This is Pascal’s Wager. It’s been around for a while - since Pascal. Pascal passed it off as proof of God’s existence, but it clearly isn’t a proof; it’s just a reason to believe. And people whose belief is based on the wager don’t really have true faith. They’re just hedging their bets. It also assumes that God is this mean individual who will punish anyone who does not believe. Really? A being with all the power in the universe gets mad if a mere human doesn’t believe? That’s laughable.

I believe in sort of a reverse Pascal’s Wager. I reject all organized religions as corrupt and just try to live a good life. I don’t know if there is a god or not - I don’t reject the possibility that there may be a god, I just don’t know. The way I see, once I die, and there is a divine being out there, that being would be intelligent enough to realize that what counts most is that I lived a decent life and helped others, not whether or not I went to a special building for one hour every Sunday and holidays.[/quote]

Amen!!! as do i!

186

[quote]mbm693 wrote:
bpeloquin wrote:

The way I see it …

If I go through life believing in God, die, and find out there is no God, I have lost nothing. But if I go through life not believing in God, die, and find out there is a God … I’ve lost everything.

You’re entitled to your opinion bro, I’m not trying to force my views on anyone. I’m completely content with what I believe.

What if you believe in the wrong god? The odds of you picking the right one, out of the thousands of options are staggeringly low. [/quote]

Also how do you explain all of the past religions of the Mediterranean area that are basically identical to the modern ones, with sons born of virgin mothers, passing away and then being resurrected. So many religions and all so similar.

Anyway, im going to bed! tis late here 6:45am.

Goodnight and God save America, I’d like to thank the lord Jesus christ and god bless you all!

187

I love how everyone who doesn’t accept evolution is automatically deemed “ignorant,” and the only possible explanation for their denial must be a lack of logic/intelligence. The concept of a creator in some form or another was near universally accepted for thousands of years. As human beings we lack true creativity. Even our most brilliant artists can only manipulate the things that they have experienced with their own senses. If no deity existed man would be able to conceive one no better than a color that is not in the visible light spectra. The concept alone is too far removed from human experience. Science is the practice of understanding our physical world through observation and experiment.

Since its rather difficult to reproduce evolution experimentally, researchers must rely on observation alone in this particular category of science. Now here is where people will either think a little or get extremely defensive. In all branches of science, since observations are typically difficult to interpret, scientists use their IMAGINATIONS to develop their hypothesis. They then use experiment to test these hypothesis. It is unfortunate for evolutionists that this experimentation isn’t possible. Observation is all there is to go off of. The rest is imagined. Science is continually proving itself wrong THROUGH EXPERIMENT. Isaac Newton was considered a madman by his contemporary’s who believed physical knowledge had reached it’s limit.

Later Newtons laws were generally excepted as absolute truth and were proven experimentally time and time again. We were later shown by Einstein that Newtonian mechanics, as well as Galilean relativity, are not universal truths and have very narrow ranges. For many years aether was believed to be the medium for light propagation in the universe. This was found to be incorrect after experimentation was unable to detect any properties of aether and ultimately Einstein made a better case for the properties of light.

My main point is that evolution is not a proven phenomena. When you say “except evolution, its scientifically proven,” you should probably be saying “accept evolution, its philosophically appealing.” People who choose to hold a creationist view have a faith in some greater power, and the intuition of all mankind throughout history. People who believe evolutionism are putting their faith in the flawed imaginations of scientists and philosophers who are unable to support their inclinations with experimentation. I have nothing against you if this is what you choose to have faith in, but don’t kid yourself in thinking that science blatantly supports your belief.

188

evol is a joke…so your telling me we evolved from monkeys…ok then why dont we find old monkey/human people bones…because evolution did not happen…they have only found like one monkey/human(missing link) bones…they need to find like 1000000 more before I change my believe…

189

[quote]RoboRobi wrote:
evol is a joke…so your telling me we evolved from monkeys…ok then why dont we find old monkey/human people bones…because evolution did not happen…they have only found like one monkey/human(missing link) bones…they need to find like 1000000 more before I change my believe…[/quote]

You have missed the point.

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I actually prefer Mrs. Garrison’s explanation of evolution

191

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
Makavali wrote:
bpeloquin wrote:
If I go through life believing in God, die, and find out there is no God, I have lost nothing. But if I go through life not believing in God, die, and find out there is a God … I’ve lost everything.

Pretty bad reason to believe if you ask me.

This is Pascal’s Wager. It’s been around for a while - since Pascal. Pascal passed it off as proof of God’s existence, but it clearly isn’t a proof; it’s just a reason to believe. And people whose belief is based on the wager don’t really have true faith. They’re just hedging their bets. It also assumes that God is this mean individual who will punish anyone who does not believe. Really? A being with all the power in the universe gets mad if a mere human doesn’t believe? That’s laughable.

I believe in sort of a reverse Pascal’s Wager. I reject all organized religions as corrupt and just try to live a good life. I don’t know if there is a god or not - I don’t reject the possibility that there may be a god, I just don’t know. The way I see, once I die, and there is a divine being out there, that being would be intelligent enough to realize that what counts most is that I lived a decent life and helped others, not whether or not I went to a special building for one hour every Sunday and holidays.[/quote]

Also dismisses the notion of other religions, as according to the Bible, my Hindu family is going to hell for not believing in the Christian God.

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[quote]RoboRobi wrote:
evol is a joke…so your telling me we evolved from monkeys…ok then why dont we find old monkey/human people bones…because evolution did not happen…they have only found like one monkey/human(missing link) bones…they need to find like 1000000 more before I change my believe…[/quote]

193

[quote]Makavali wrote:
alexisonfireuk wrote:
i admit the bible was used as a means of controling the population, but it still has fundimental messages about repect and goodwill.

And stoning adulterers to death.[/quote]

don’t be so obtuse, if the book was written thousands of years ago of course some of it is going to be primitive, that’s what i said before. people who take the book literally without taking into account technological and social advances of the last 2000 years are the reason for this whole debate in the first place.
however we can still take the message of peace and respect from it.

194

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
Chuck24 wrote:
MikeTheBear wrote:
Chuck24 wrote:

I’ll explain this again. Evolution just explains how the different species came about and does not try to explain how life started. That is a separate branch of science. Early organisms were likely single-celled organisms like bacteria. They reproduced by splitting off an exact copy of themselves.

BTW - Just because science can’t explain something doesn’t prove that a supreme being exists. It just means that science hasn’t found an explanation, no more, no less. Is it a reason to have faith in a divine being? Sure. The fact that science can’t explain everything leads me to think that there is some all-powerful force in the universe. But, unlike most religions, I don’t believe that this force intervenes in our lives or had a son who died on a cross. And I also recognize that this is a belief - it can’t be proven and it’s not a scientific explanation for what goes on in the universe.[/quote]

Science can explain how early lifeforms came about and can recreate the conditions and form the same early lifeforms. Earliest life was just chains of molecules, a chain that could replicate itself from the other molecules around them. It all came about through randomness.

The post you replied to said something like “you think evolution is clever enough to design life” - well it isn’t clever at all it is based on randomness, replication and trial and error. This simple method can create the illusion of design.

195

[quote]RoboRobi wrote:
evol is a joke…so your telling me we evolved from monkeys…ok then why dont we find old monkey/human people bones…because evolution did not happen…they have only found like one monkey/human(missing link) bones…they need to find like 1000000 more before I change my believe…[/quote]

Sarcasm? Because that was unimaginably dumb. In case you’re serious we share a common ancestor, we did not “evolve from monkeys”. Re-reading your post I’m guessing sarcasm.

And to the guy wondering how did nothing know how to make penises, just WOW. Evolution doesn’t know anything. Does a cell have a penis? Does a cell need a penis? I’m sure if you were willing to study something rather than mock it you could look up the origin of the penis and learn for yourself the origin of the first proto-penis. But then you’d have to open your mind just a little and actually sit down and learn something, it’s much easier just to make baseless arguments on an internet forum and pretend like thay make even one iota of sense.

196

The problem we are having in this thread is that god cannot be proven, or disproved.
So the creationists (not matter how much evidence we give them saying the world was not made in 7 days), will always come back to the fact god cannot be disproved.

However their logic is wrong as creationism has been disproved by pretty much everything to do with science (even if god hasn’t), but they will still hold onto the notion that as there is a god that you cannot disprove there must be creationism, even though that is not the argument at hand.

We know from science that the world was created billions of years ago, that the universe is expanding ECT. Science is not a religion, and is not based on faith, but rather the quest for truth and knowledge.
I think any creationist who hasn’t got their head shoved up their *ss can see that, and hopefully accept that the world was not created in an arbitrary fashion in seven days.

However this does not disprove god, it only disproves creationism.
just because we have proof that the world was made billions of years ago, does not disprove god, as for all we know, “god” may have started the big bang, or in some form created the conditions for it to happen.
From my point of view if there was a god, then given that has allows everything to have free will, natural selection and evolution seem obvious in the face of free will. If god intervened continually then free will would disappear.

O Creationism = disproved
O Evolution = a major scientific theory with alot of scientific credit
O God = down to the individuals spiritual beliefs and a completely different philosophical discussion altogether.

Anything said contrary to the last three bullet points, either people donâ??t have the intellect to accept this as fact, or they are so ignorant they canâ??t be reasoned with and should just be left alone to do curls in a the squat rack until the executioner comes knocking.

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[quote]alexisonfireuk wrote:
don’t be so obtuse, if the book was written thousands of years ago of course some of it is going to be primitive, that’s what i said before. people who take the book literally without taking into account technological and social advances of the last 2000 years are the reason for this whole debate in the first place.
however we can still take the message of peace and respect from it.[/quote]

And stoning adulterers. Look, if we can agree it’s made up we can agree the desire and ideals of being altruistic and “good” come from another source than a magic space genie.

198

God will punish eternally anyone who doesnt believe Christ his son died on the cross and he who doesnt repent of sins and turn their back on them. Its a realtionship with Christ. Not a sitting in church on Sundays. Church dont get you to heaven. A relationship does. God actually HAS given you a choice on where your eternal destiny will be. Hes a HOLY God who wont tolerate sin. Before Christ died you didnt have a choice. Christ didnt just die and thats was it. When on the cross Jesus took Gods angry viscious wrath in just 3 hours which would have been eternal hell for 1 beleiver. But took eternal Hell for everyone who would believe in 3 hours and then died when God was finished with him. Only an eternal being was capable of this. Im trying to explain this to you and not so much trying to preach to you. So its more constructive discussion. I hope you take it that way.

When we compare ourselves to mans standard we look pretty clean, but when we compare ourselves to the pure snow-white righteousness of Gods standard-His Law, we can see ourselves in truth, that we are unclean in His sight. That Law is the holy standard by which humanity will be judged on Judgment Day. If God is good, He should punish murderers. liars, thieves, etc., and Hell will be their dreadful fate. So again going to church DOES NOT save a person from HELL. I hope you at least read this and maybe took it seriously. Some WILL NOT. Thats their choice. Its not a ME against THEM because i beleive. Its an i made up my mind, they made up theirs. Ya know its funny how people who dont and wont at least give the bible a chance are so offended by its content. Anyway, i hope this is just discussion and not gonna head towards ridicule and name calling. Im guessing it will.

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Don’t you guys hate how a good Christian baiting thread can’t stay on topic?

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[quote]Chuck24 wrote:
colton wrote:
Chuck24 wrote:
If you take into account male and female reproductive organs you can expand your thinking on evolution vs. creationism.
If evolution is the evolving of an orgap to a better organism as additions such as ears,eyes,fingernails,reproductive organs, etc. would develop basically into what we are today.

All this basically formed over time basically from nothing. Ok…If we evolved and got different features over long periods of time how did evolution know what ingrediants it would take for humans to reproduce?

Your not talking about 1 miracle now as in the evolving of 1 human but your talking now about an evolving 2nd type of human as in the female. Are you saying something intelligent that created itself knew how to do this and figured out male and female reproductive parts before everything became extinct?

Your not just talking about humans but the whole animal kingdom have VERY similar looking reproductive parts. Evolution seems to have figured all this out and said to itself “ok we got reproductive figured out now lets make this happen with all similar looking parts for the whole animal kingdom”.

Evolution could have done reproduction many ways but it happens almost all the same in every animal. Thats a very smart evolution. It figured out males and females and what it took to reproduce. Thats just the start of everything complicated thats left to discuss. I dont buy evolution whatsoever as everything its about agreed with itself and evolved all animals with the same looking and the same acting reproductive parts.

I believe we were created by an eternal creator who resides outside of time who got it right the first time. I dont believe Life came from no life, Intelligence came from non-intelligence, cause came from no cause and meaning came from no meaning.

so basically you dont believe in evolution because i have a penis??? wtf seriosuly worst argument ever, not to mention the fact that there are a variety of ways reproduction occurs if we take into acount organisms other than humans.

Are you serious? Because you have a penis? I didnt say that. I also understand there are a variety of ways of reproduction but in order to reproduce something needs to figure out what both mates need for reproduction to happen.

Do you think “nothing” is that smart to figure that out? So the first organism comes from nothing, it needs to reproduce to keep its kind in existance. Do you think it knows that and thinks "i better get moving on creating my kind? HAHA.

Is it really that smart to produce another organism and make it a female counterpart? Its a miracle its even alive because before it WAS nothing and non-existant. [/quote]

argument not gettin any better bud, next time maybe