It also doesn’t give us any idea of what God is even if we accept it. If we even grant that the universe was created by a God what makes us think that he desires all the stuff laid out in the Bible? It’s just as likely that another religion is correct or he made the universe and then fucked off like a lot of deists believed.
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Fair enough in that creationism seems like speculation about what happened, but I am not holding it up as proof to what occurred before the big bang or creation or whatever we want to call it when the universe “started”, just what I believe to have occurred (and I accept the fact i very may well be wrong).
I was thinking more along mathematical terms. Something like the Law of Large numbers which states over a large number of random events (like flipping a coin) the outcome will default to the mean. In the case of the universe, the mean tends toward chaos.
Could humans/life as we know it on earth be an outlier in all of these random chances happening? Yeah, could be.
You tell me that you’re only giving me the “definition of survival of the fittest” when it’s clear that you’re expressing your opinions on what you THINK survival of the fittest means. Holy shit, survival isn’t a power struggle. Do you understand evolution? Natural selection? Sexual selection? Did you completely ignore my chad peacock analogy? You need to take a biology class.
There are 10,000 known ant species in the world. All the ants in the world equal the same biomass as all the humans in the world. Ants can carry shit 10-50 times their body weight. I don’t know what your definition of “fit species” is. But ants definitely fit that description. But they don’t have thumbs, so they can’t hold a Glock. So you may be right.
I can’t win, can I? First off, this is a debate, which I was coerced too. Second, you’re using google for your interpretation of survival of the fittest, when I’m using natural selection for my interpretation of survival of the fittest. But yeah. You too.
This is the basis of what faith I claim.
But I’m posting because this:
Made me think that I appreciate your posts on the matter, both in content and in tone. I thought I’d say so.
Actually, the tone in this thread has been surprisingly civil given the topic. Kudos to all involved.
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I gave you the definition in the dictionary.
A fit species is one that can exert control over its environment moreso than other species can exert control over it.
They also don’t have higher brain function that would allow them to take over the planet.
Coerced to? Reaching for the stars man. Also don’t flatter yourself that we’re debating. You can’t even bring up me giving you my opinion on something. All I did was ask you to clarify how you decided animals killing other animals isn’t evil and whether or not it’s because you can’t actually have perspective to that situation.
Even survival of the fittest I’m giving you THE DICTIONARY’S opinion.
I always understood (misunderstood?) agnosticism to be a non conclusion, and therefore quite logical
I thought you said there’s no such thing as evil?
I wonder why not? Seriously.
God gets what he deems to be important, by definition. I don’t consider people believing in Him to be all that important to Him. I don’t make assumptions about what’s important to him, or at least, I am momentarily recommending against it
Why not? We do it all the time, is it really so bad?
I was born Moslem American myself, grew up open minded, or so I claim. Read the Quran (in English) for the first time in early high school, picked up on some things to ponder, do, and work on.
One of the themes in the Quran is people just “following the religions of there fathers”. That described me well enough to bother me. I had to work on that. I did, but I’m probably not finished
I’m still Moslem, a (major) part of which includes bearing witness that Muhammad (saw) is a slave and messenger of God. Comparing that to “thou shalt not bear false witness” has at times caused physical responses such as hair standing up, elevated heart rate, extreme trembling, panic, terror. I was raised to ‘bear’ witness like it’s something to carry. I take that much more seriously than I used to now that that’s how I understand it
I think it’s fair enough to say I believe, it will inshaAllah take God’s help for that to continue. Doesn’t make me better than someone who doesn’t believe, but I do think that between two alternate versions of a person the believing version is better than the disbelieving version
I’ve just viewed it as who the fuck knows which is pretty much where I’m at. Even proof of the existence of a higher power (which we won’t be doing in this thread) hardly tells us anything specific. I guess if one was proven I’d have thousands of options to subscribe to for what to do about it.
Suicide bomb people who don’t think like me? Eat crackers and tell everyone it’s someone else’s body? Get my Yom Kippur on? Pray 5 times in a certain direction? The possibilities are endless.
Who believes in watching sports all day, eating peanut butter cup blizzards, and listening to punk rock? Damn if that’s what God wants I’ve got a head start on you fuckers.
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You seem to be putting the cart before the horse. The thread is about the existence or not of God.
You seem angry, which would contradict the idea of not caring. I consider religious topics to be worth seriously considering, with little to no sarcasm.
Your tone makes me doubt that you’ve comfortably concluded upon agnosticism. No disrespect intended
The Shaitan, obviously. Which reminds me…
And his eyes were glowing??? Wow. That’s weird.
Now it might not be true (no disrespect intended), but that doesn’t match up well with mentally ill to me
I’m fully aware.
lol then you’re doing a poor job of reading me. Nothing in my posts suggest anger in this thread you’re completely misreading them if that’s your conclusion.
As for the sarcasm I couldn’t disagree more. We’re on an Internet forum discussing something we can’t possibly prove or all agree upon. It’s really not that serious. No one dies of cancer if we don’t agree. I also reject the notion that you can’t seriously discuss something without having any fun.
Again you are completely misreading me. If I’m sure of anything it’s that we don’t know.
I have no need or desire to conclude.
Your usage of terms “nothing”, “suggest”, and “completely” are off
Not what I said or meant
Go ahead and enjoy man, peace
That’s ok. Just letting you know that I’m not sure how you feel like my post has been angry. I can assure you it hasn’t. Not to say I haven’t been in heated religious discussions even on here before. But this isn’t one of them.
Maybe we are both not understanding each other then.
It’s just my natural response to your natural response to my natural response to the thread as a whole, it’s cool, no worries
This is also the position of most atheists. I’ve only heard a handful claim no God exists, most have the position that it is a possibility, but why believe something with no proof.
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So would you say you are a covenantist? Meaning the believe that God has several convenants with people at different periods of time?
Two words: Occam’s Razor.
A paragraph: Religion has been used for millennia as a social construct. Where human intervention fails, “divine” intervention usually succeeds. World leaders have recognized this throughout the ages, and have used it to their respective advantages accordingly. Trump also does this, routinely. It’s how he secures his voter base. Nothing has changed, just like my atheistic mindset. Religion locks you into a box that, more often than not, hates who you are (any fellow homosexuals/biseuxals here know exactly what I’m talking about), devalues your self-esteem to the point of needing a “savior”, and does exactly what it says it is going to do - it changes you into somebody who is acceptable to them.
PS: If only Mary just admitted that she fucking cheated…but Joseph didn’t give a flying fuck, because they got to have sex before they were married as a trade-off. It worked out well for those two, I guess, but now we have millions of indoctrinated humans who:
1.) live in fear
2.) live hating others who don’t share their viewpoint / those who are different than them in any sort of way
3.) consistently neglect their ability to think for themselves.
Case in point: My mother. She just about disowned me after she found out I was bisexual, so she can go fuck herself. With an extra-prickly cactus. The woman walks around scared shitless of black people, because she’s a fucking racist too. She and my father routinely refer to themselves as the metaphorical “house nigger.” They are also both, in their own words, “devout Christians.” That should tell you everything you need to know about both of them, and it also explains why I refuse to spend time in the house.
All you Christians have fun with that one. 
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Pretty much things are far to orderly and make too much sense for me to doubt an intelligent creator of sorts
I don’t agree with the idea that atheists are the same as (insert religion here) but that they are just atheistic of one more God. I could be praying alongside someone with very different ideas of who/what God is, and we would still be praying to the same being.
I could be talking in a three way conversation with someone I don’t know well, but you do know well. You’d possibly understand the conversation better, communicate with him/her more efficiently, but we would still be talking with the same person
I view calling upon or to a monotheistic God similarly, regardless of differences. Including methods, even if some methods might be better than others
That and the idea that he runs counter to so many supposed Christian ideals. They are following someone who is a serial cheater, pays off porn stars, speaks horribly of numerous fellow humans, etc. And yet he does extremely well with the religious right. He even beat out numerous candidates who were far more socially conservative than him. His support amongst them blows my mind.
However we do have people on here like Sloth (very social conservative) who refuse to support him because of how he behaves and has so since the beginning. I’ve just never understood why he’s such an exception. It seems like a massive contradiction to claimed beliefs of how Christians should behave.
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Sorry to hear this man. Those type of people are the absolute worst. What’s crazy is they will throw relationships away with people because of things like this. Their religion is causing them to hate other humans. Nutty.
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Hmm, good question. To be honest I haven’t really thought about it.
In the sense that God’s promise To Israel was fulfilled in Christ’s death (even though they rejected him) it makes sense that a covenant would be created. This new covenant encompasses the gentiles which the old did not.
I don’t know if I would consider myself covenantist but it does seem that the promise to people changes at least once in the Bible. Mainly that the Old covenant was just for God’s chosen people of Israel, but when they rejected his Son, the new promise was opened to all.
The above leaves some holes in the overall theology but like I said it is the first time I have thought about that and it is a very interesting question.
This is something I have never understood either. Christians behind Trump makes no sense. He espouses the exact opposite of Christian values shows no respect to anyone but himself.