[quote]DiogenestheCynic wrote:
But as long as Jesus (or whatever other religous beliefs out there) keep people from killing each other and overthrowing the rich, it all serves the grand purpose. [/quote]
I’m still not sure wheather you’re being really sarcastic, or really insightful.
Or both.
After so many attacks on Science (note: why are so many religious people afraid of reason and logic?), I though I’d post this:
Clarke’s First Law:
“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
Clarke’s Second Law:
“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
Clarke’s Third Law:
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Clarke, is Arthur C. Clarke, the writer. His third law has been quoted often, and is applicable to some of the posts on this thread. However, I think the second law is the most relevant here. It’s a grudge I have with religion: it’s always tried to hold back science.
[quote]madmax wrote:
I believe In GOD …oh yeah Albert Einstein believed too and we all know how dumb he was…
[/quote]
First, appeal to authority is not really a good reason for belief at all…
Second…
I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.
– Albert Einstein, following his wife’s advice in responding to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein of the International Synagogue in New York, who had sent Einstein a cablegram bluntly demanding “Do you believe in God?” Quoted from and citation notes derived from Victor J. Stenger, Has Science Found God? (draft: 2001), chapter 3.
I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own – a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.
– Albert Einstein, obituary in New York Times, 19 April 1955, quoted from James A. Haught, “Breaking the Last Taboo” (1996)
I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.
– Albert Einstein, 1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press
It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere… Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
– Albert Einstein, “Religion and Science,” New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
– Albert Einstein, 1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press
Just a little clarification as to the beliefs of Albert Einstein.
I believe. Hope faith and the blessing of being light hearted to all of you guys and galls who would debate your beliefs on the site. I save that for face to face.
DA
[quote]AMIRisSQUAT wrote:
Ya know what man. Its like no one here wants to tell you that youre a pompous, arrogant whiner that simply doesnt possess the level of knowledge required to debate this particular issue.
Give it up.
You’ve convinced no one and dont tell me youre not trying because the desperation is more than apparent its to the point of cruelty.
[/quote]
You just don’t get it - go you? I don’t think that verry many folks on your side do get it, either.
No one can prove their faith to you. They don’t have to justify it, nor do they automatically lose IQ points.
I don’t make fun of you, or call you stupid because you don’t share my faith, yet you are so insecure, that you have to ridicule and make fun of believers. Why? Does it make you feel smarter to try and show the ‘absurdity’ of my faith?
If this rudicule were based on skin color, or ethnicity, or gender, you would not be sporting it so proudly. But since it’s something you don’t believe in - I guess it’s okay to make fun of the ‘idiots’ that need to believe in ‘fairy tales’.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m not whining. Nor do I think X is either. We are just tired of kids that “have the answers” telling us that were are a few bricks shy of a load simply because we believe that God came down in human flesh, lived a sinless life as a human, died on the cross, and rose from the dead 3 days later.
I think ignorance should be defined not by what you believe, but how unwilling you are to allow others to believe differently.
Just the obvious parrallels: Christianity started in Rome [Roman catholic]Roman mythology borrowed from greek mythology, In mythology you have Kronos, in christianity God. In mythology you have zues, in Christianity jesus. In mythology you have all of the smaller dieties[sp?]that parrallel with the saints in catholicism.
Check your facts. This is coming from someone who spent his first 7yrs of “higher learning” in a lutheran school.
[quote]blackjack2 wrote:
I do believe in God and I think one good reason to believe is to cultivate thankfulness. No, you don’t have to believe in God to feel thankful but on some level it helps. Thankfulness is a very powerful thing and I’ve found that actively trying to cultivate a mindset of thankfulness makes life sweeter and helps take the edge off all the little problems. Be thankful to be alive.[/quote]
I am thankful for the life I’ve got. I simply don’t give thanks to a superior being. I’m thankful towards my parents for being good, caring parents; I’m thankful to my friends who help me in time of need and to my neighbors who lend a hand now and again. Or even to complete strangers who’ll offer to help me load some furniture in my car in a store’s parking lot.
To express my thankfulness, I try to help others when I see someone in need. I know that I’m living a priviledged life, mostly because I was lucky enough to be born here and not in Africa or the Middle East. So I try to give back so that others can enjoy some of the same good life I’m enjoying. It doesn’t take much to put a little happiness in someone’s day; sometime just holding a door and smiling will do it.
As for being thankful to be alive, I am. I’m also not expecting anything after I die, so I intend to live every moment of it to the fullest. I’m hoping for a long, healthy one, hopefully with my wife and family by my side for just as long.
Blah blah blah.
Have a cheesburger.
Amir
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Desperation? Kid, I haven’t argued my point any stronger than anyone else did theirs’. My point was simply that I believe and that if you don’t, so be it. However, don’t assume that non-belief makes you more intelligent than those who believe. THAT was my point. Had you not become such a “whiner” yourself you would have easily been able to see that. Like I said, I think it truly pisses some of you off any time you run across someone who can argue their point of view beyond being a blind follower of religion.
I am not a regular church goer even though my father was a preacher. It isn’t that I simply don’t want to go to church, but that I find little comfort in what I see in humans who believe they are more righteous than all others…then they go to the same clubs, have the same premarital sex, and commit the same activities that fly in the face of what they “preach”. I have faith in God, not man, and I think many lose sight of where their focus should be placed. It is very easy to turn on the tv and note which televangelist got caught with a naked stripper…or what Catholic priest fondled a little boy. Those are the faults of man and they are plenty. I acknowledge that, and try to keep my eye on what really matters. Why this bothers you, I don’t know. Perhaps you were expecting religious stupidity. I’m sorry that didn’t work out for you.[/quote]
I have posted something like that on another thread:
Let?s talk about Apoll, Freya, Mithras, Thor, Wotan, Bal, Zeus, Horus, Isis, Osiris, Tanit, Viracocha, Pachamama, Mamacocha, Mamaquilla, Aesma Daeva, Angra Mainyu, Gandarewa, Haurvatat, Nairyosangha, Sraosa, Vouruskasha, and so on. All of them gods. A lot of them have holy scriptures going for them. Some of them are older than the bible. Some are A LOT older.
Why is your holy book special?
That?s my whole problem with religion. There are hundreds of religions, thousands of gods, religious ideas from one religion are incorporated in the next religion, like the idea of the sacrificial lamb, a " sin-eater" that takes the sins of a community upon him and is then sacrificed, symbolic cannibalism in the catholic mass, etc.
In the end christianity is one of the latest fads as far as religions go, that?s it.
And don?t even start with “the bible was revealed by god”, “our god is somehow different and special”, “how dare you compare our ONE AND TRUE GOD to those pagan religions”, because that would be mindnumbingly boring .
Pookie,
I refuse to whorship the “Flying Spaghetti Monster”. A deity based on simple carbs is totally unacceptable.
That does not mean that I can PROVE that it does not exist.
[quote]AMIRisSQUAT wrote:
Blah blah blah.
Have a cheesburger.
Amir
[/quote]
Good comeback. See, 20 minutes typing with one finger can lead to something after all.
In 93’ or 94’ I was sitting in science class [6th grade at a lutheran school] when my teacher started talking about life and creation. I asked why the Bible never mentions dinosaurs, and my teacher turns and says “There were no room for dinosaurs on the [noah’s] arc.”
Think about that.
The Bible IS MEANT to be taken literally. Any priest or pastor or whoever who says otherwise is standing on shaky ground in regards to their beliefs because science keeps “winning” these debates.
Did you know that the catholic church had a thing called Limbo? It was suposed to be your first stop before purgatory, but in the late 50’s or early 60’s they got rid of it. Can you imagine that meeting? Who talked with “God” and figured out that there wasn’t? Were they losin believers because people were waiting impatiantly to bang on St.Peters gate? Christianity is a great way to make money and start wars, but it aint the best way for me to live my life.
[quote]Miserere wrote:
The World is going to shit. That’s not my opinion, it’s fact, just look around. Simply because I have a cozy home and a job doesn’t make the World right; it’s not. Most of the human population lives in extreme circumstances. And let’s not start talking about wars!
So many people have decided that a God that lets this happen is not worthy of being believed in. The Christian faith tries to counteract this (and use it to their advantage) by telling you the more miserable you are in life the worthier you’ll be of Heaven. Voluntary martyrs have taken this belief to the extreme.
[/quote]
You’ll actually find that the reason the world is “going to shit” is due to the actions of man.
When people moan “Why does God let wars happen, why doesn’t he do something”, to which the answer, “He did do something, he created you” springs to mind. People have the power to stop evil, it’s just that we don’t stop it.
This is the essence of Christianity, we have the choice to do the right or wrong thing, God doesn’t make anyone do anything, you choose to act sinfully or not.
You have a flood story in all the dispersed and varied people groups on the planet. At the time of the Tower of Babel and then later at the flood, you have a shared history of all races in one geographical location. From this beginning knowledge of the one true God you then have various spin-offs throughout the centuries.
A real life example of the “telephone game”. Start a story and then have a single person pass it on. After a while you gets all sorts of variations. The patriarchs in Genesis predate many of the known civilizations.
From day 1, literally, Adam and Eve passed on their first hand knowledge of the Creator. Not surprisingly, man in his sinful blind state, obscured and confused the issue. Christianity is simply the fulfillment of the Torah (used here in the sense of the entire Old Testament). Dont confuse this matter.
God began from a distance in the beginning of his redemption plan for mankind and then progressively made greater contact and revelation with man until we have Christ, “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Colossians 2:9. The Bible is a whole work that tells a consistent and single story over varied dispensations (acts/scenes/movements).
DH
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
Just the obvious parrallels: Christianity started in Rome [Roman catholic]Roman mythology borrowed from greek mythology, In mythology you have Kronos, in christianity God. In mythology you have zues, in Christianity jesus. In mythology you have all of the smaller dieties[sp?]that parrallel with the saints in catholicism.
Check your facts. This is coming from someone who spent his first 7yrs of “higher learning” in a lutheran school.[/quote]
You’re asking for much from the grace of God. Be it long or short, in the end it is the end…of the beginning.
DH
[quote]pookie wrote:
blackjack2 wrote:
I do believe in God and I think one good reason to believe is to cultivate thankfulness. No, you don’t have to believe in God to feel thankful but on some level it helps. Thankfulness is a very powerful thing and I’ve found that actively trying to cultivate a mindset of thankfulness makes life sweeter and helps take the edge off all the little problems. Be thankful to be alive.
I am thankful for the life I’ve got. I simply don’t give thanks to a superior being. I’m thankful towards my parents for being good, caring parents; I’m thankful to my friends who help me in time of need and to my neighbors who lend a hand now and again. Or even to complete strangers who’ll offer to help me load some furniture in my car in a store’s parking lot.
To express my thankfulness, I try to help others when I see someone in need. I know that I’m living a priviledged life, mostly because I was lucky enough to be born here and not in Africa or the Middle East. So I try to give back so that others can enjoy some of the same good life I’m enjoying. It doesn’t take much to put a little happiness in someone’s day; sometime just holding a door and smiling will do it.
As for being thankful to be alive, I am. I’m also not expecting anything after I die, so I intend to live every moment of it to the fullest. I’m hoping for a long, healthy one, hopefully with my wife and family by my side for just as long.
[/quote]
[quote]DiogenestheCynic wrote:
I don’t think most people are capable of accepting the truth. Religon is a great coping mechanism…[/quote]
Religion is the opium of the people…
Thousands of years ago god spoke. He supposedly did great and mighty exploits for men to see. Now he’s reduced himself to a distant relative that never returns your calls. Where is he today, like he was thousands of years ago? His silence is very loud.
Well I for one am relieved that your god has the answers. Especially your favorite number 2, which is self refuting on the basis of defintion and therefore illogical. Next god, please.
Science has never been held back by true Christianity. In fact it has been advanced by Christians more than any others. Your argument is with your preconceived biases, not terribly rational for a “science” advocate.
You see I love science. It has inherent limits, though. That is it’s nature. For example evolution is UNscientific by defintion. How ironic. It is not deomonstrable, testable, or repeatable. In fact, it’s advocate Darwin, wrote it off as incorrect. He, above all, understood that his lack of a myriad of intermediary forms was the death knell for his theory.
The very concept of science is proof of God’s existence and of your being created not evolved. You are born with an apriori assumption that the universe is orderly. From where? From the cradle to the grave you’ve got the fingerprints of God all over you in all your faculties, your world around you, and in those deep parts of your inward man that know in the most profound moments that you have a Creator.
A selection of scientits for your your parousal. Men of faith. I have more if you need.
Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543)
Copernicus was the Polish astronomer who put forward the first mathematically based system of planets going around the sun. He attended various European universities, and became a Canon in the Catholic church in 1497. His new system was actually first presented in the Vatican gardens in 1533 before Pope Clement VII who approved, and Copernicus was urged to publish around this time. Copernicus was never under any threat of religious persecution - and was urged to publish both by Catholic Bishop Guise, Cardinal Schonberg, and the Protestant Professor George Rheticus. Copernicus referred sometimes to God in his works, and did not see his system as in conflict with the Bible.
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
Kepler was a brilliant mathematician and astronomer. He did early work on light, and established the laws of planetary motion about the sun. He also came close to reaching the Newtonian concept of universal gravity - well before Newton was born! His introduction of the idea of force in astronomy changed it radically in a modern direction. Kepler was an extremely sincere and pious Lutheran, whose works on astronomy contain writings about how space and the heavenly bodies represent the Trinity. Kepler suffered no persecution for his open avowal of the sun-centered system, and, indeed, was allowed as a Protestant to stay in Catholic Graz as a Professor (1595-1600) when other Protestants had been expelled!
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
Galileo is often remembered for his conflict with the Roman Catholic Church. His controversial work on the solar system was published in 1633. It had no proofs of a sun-centered system (Galileo’s telescope discoveries did not indicate a moving earth) and his one “proof” based upon the tides was invalid. It ignored the correct elliptical orbits of planets published twenty five years earlier by Kepler. Since his work finished by putting the Pope’s favorite argument in the mouth of the simpleton in the dialogue, the Pope (an old friend of Galileo’s) was very offended. After the “trial” and being forbidden to teach the sun-centered system, Galileo did his most useful theoretical work, which was on dynamics. Galileo expressly said that the Bible cannot err, he saw his system as concerning the issue of how the Bible should be interpreted.
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
Descartes was a French mathematician, scientist and philosopher who has been called the father of modern philosophy. His school studies made him dissatisfied with previous philosophy: He had a deep religious faith as a Catholic, which he retained to his dying day, along with a resolute, passionate desire to discover the truth. At the age of 24 he had a dream, and felt the vocational call to seek to bring knowledge together in one system of thought. His system began by asking what could be known if all else were doubted - suggesting the famous “I think therefore I am”. Actually, it is often forgotten that the next step for Descartes was to establish the near certainty of the existence of God - for only if God both exists and would not want us to be deceived by our experiences can we trust our senses and logical thought processes. God is, therefore, central to his whole philosophy. What he really wanted was to see his philosophy adopted as standard Catholic teaching. Rene Descartes and Francis Bacon (1561-1626) are generally regarded as the key figures in the development of scientific methodology. Both had systems in which God was important, and both seem more devout than the average for their era.
Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
In optics, mechanics, and mathematics, Newton was a figure of undisputed genius and innovation. In all his science (including chemistry) he saw mathematics and numbers as central. What is less well known is that he was devoutly religious and saw numbers as involved in understanding from the Bible God’s plan for history. He did a lot of work on biblical numerology, and, though aspects of his beliefs were not orthodox, he thought theology very important. In his system of physics, God is essential to the nature and absoluteness of space. In Principia he stated, “The most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion on an intelligent and powerful Being.”
Robert Boyle (1791-1867)
One of the founders and key early members of the Royal Society, Boyle gave his name to “Boyle’s Law” for gasses, and also wrote an important work on chemistry. The Encyclopedia Britannica says of him: “By his will he endowed a series of Boyle lectures, or sermons, which still continue, “for proving the Christian religion against notorious infidels.”… As a devout Protestant, Boyle took a special interest in promoting the Christian religion abroad, giving money to translate and publish the New Testament into Irish and Turkish. In 1690 he developed his theological views in The Christian Virtuoso, which he wrote to show that the study of nature was a central religious duty.” Boyle wrote against atheists in his day (the notion that atheism is a modern invention is a myth), and was clearly much more devoutly Christian than the average in his era.
Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
The son of a blacksmith who became one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century. His work on electricity and magnetism not only revolutionized physics, but has led to so much in our lifestyles today which depend on them (including computers and telephone lines and so Web sites). Faraday was a devoutly Christian member of the Sandemanians, which significantly influenced upon him and strongly affected the way in which he approached and interpreted nature. The Sandemanians originated from Presbyterians who had rejected the idea of state churches, and tried to go back to a New Testament type of Christianity.
Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)
Mendel was the first to lay the mathematical foundations of genetics, in what came to be called “Mendelianism”. He began his research in 1856 (three years before Darwin published his Origin of Species) in the garden of the Monastery in which he was a monk. Mendel was elected Abbot of his Monastery in 1868. His work remained comparatively unknown until the turn of the century, when a new generation of botanists began finding similar results and “rediscovered” him (though their ideas were not identical to his). An interesting point is that the 1860’s was the formation of the X-Club, dedicated to lessening religious influences and propagating an image of “conflict” between science and religion. One sympathizer was Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton, whose scientific interest was in genetics (a proponent of eugenics - selective breeding among humans to “improve” the stock). He was writing how the “priestly mind” was not conducive to science whilst, at around the same time, an Austrian monk was making the breakthrough in genetics. The rediscovery of the work of Mendel came too late to affect Galton’s contribution.
Kelvin (William Thomson) (1824-1907)
Kelvin was foremost among the small group of British scientists who helped to lay the foundations of modern physics. His work covered may areas of physics, and he was said to have more letters after his name than anyone else in the Commonwealth, since he received numerous honorary degrees from European Universities who recognized the value of his work. He was a very committed Christian, certainly more religious than the average for his era. Interestingly, his fellow physicists George Gabriel Stokes (1819-1903) and James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) were also men of deep Christian commitment, in an era when many were nominal, apathetic, or anti-Christian. The Encyclopedia Britannica says “Maxwell is regarded by most modern physicists as the scientist of the 19th century who had the greatest influence on 20th century physics; he is ranked with Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein for the fundamental nature of his contributions.” Lord Kelvin was an Old Earth creationist, who estimated the Earth’s age to be somewhere between 20 million and 100 million years, with an upper limit at 500 million years based on cooling rates (a low estimate due to his lack of knowledge about radiogenic heating).
Max Planck (1858-1947)
Planck made many contributions to physics, but is best known for quantum theory, which has revolutionized our understanding of the atomic and sub-atomic worlds. In his 1937 lecture “Religion and Naturwissenschaft,” Planck expressed the view that God is everywhere present, and held that “the holiness of the unintelligible Godhead is conveyed by the holiness of symbols.” Atheists, he thought, attach too much importance to what are merely symbols. Planck was a churchwarden from 1920 until his death, and believed in an almighty, all-knowing, beneficent God (though not necessarily a personal one). Both science and religion wage a “tireless battle against skepticism and dogmatism, against unbelief and superstition” with the goal “toward God!”
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Einstein is probably the best known and most highly revered scientist of the twentieth century, and is associated with major revolutions in our thinking about time, gravity, and the conversion of matter to energy (E=mc2). Although never coming to belief in a personal God, he recognized the impossibility of a non-created universe. The Encyclopedia Britannica says of him: "Firmly denying atheism, Einstein expressed a belief in “Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists.” This actually motivated his interest in science, as he once remarked to a young physicist: “I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.” Einstein’s famous epithet on the “uncertainty principle” was “God does not play dice” - and to him this was a real statement about a God in whom he believed. A famous saying of his was “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”
And of course your fellow countryman, Anthony Flew, who after his study of the human genome come to the conclusion of irreducible complexity. He now believes in creation/Intelligent Design. I just hope he returns to his father’s roots (Methodist pastor) before his death.
Best,
DH
[quote]Miserere wrote:
After so many attacks on Science (note: why are so many religious people afraid of reason and logic?), I though I’d post this:
Clarke’s First Law:
“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
Clarke’s Second Law:
“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
Clarke’s Third Law:
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Clarke, is Arthur C. Clarke, the writer. His third law has been quoted often, and is applicable to some of the posts on this thread. However, I think the second law is the most relevant here. It’s a grudge I have with religion: it’s always tried to hold back science.[/quote]
[quote]Buttered_Corn wrote:
Thousands of years ago god spoke. He supposedly did great and mighty exploits for men to see. Now he’s reduced himself to a distant relative that never returns your calls. Where is he today, like he was thousands of years ago? His silence is very loud.
[/quote]
I don’t think He is silent - I think we became “too smart” to listen.
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
In 93’ or 94’ I was sitting in science class [6th grade at a lutheran school] when my teacher started talking about life and creation. I asked why the Bible never mentions dinosaurs, and my teacher turns and says “There were no room for dinosaurs on the [noah’s] arc.”
Think about that.[/quote]
Apparently your “teacher” never read the book of Job.
[quote]pookie wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
I believe in a ?rubber-band? theory. It is constantly is expanding and contracting–as in harmonic motion (though deriving a ?wave equation? to explain it is beyond my intention).
The “oscillatory model” was discounted in the 1960s, as entropy would build up from oscillation to oscillation and cause an eventual heat death of the universe.
It’s been proposed anew in String Theory (the cyclic model in Brane theory) but it’s missing a lot of the mathematics to make it work, even as a theory.
[/quote]
The mathematics of string theory must allow for ocillatory motion inorder for quantum mechanics to hold in unified fields. The hope is that string theory will lead to this mathematical fit.
Unfortunately the mathematics to do this is limited to about five people–and they all have different models.