Dream Weaver

****, I've always been convinced you were a Southerner?

serega

Its hard not to sound cliche when you are talking about religion - but if your existance is not miracle enough for you, then its hard to say what will be.

Its not about your car its not about your well-being, its not even about e=mc2. It is, if you think about the possibility of all the possibilities in the galaxy - its you, who is sitting here and reading and typing stuff on your keyboard and has enough intelligence to make points about the negligent possibility of God's existance and still fails to understand what a miracle he and everything around him really is.

You can hate your job, you can hate your wife and kids or even your life but it doesnt mean that there is no God it just means that you are not happy at where you are, but isnt it a miracle that you can experience all those things ?

We take existance for granted and herein lies the biggest problem - we fail to realize the main thing that we have is just amazing and only the greatest thing in the universe or the universe itself could make it happen and that is God, its not a white bearded bloke, its not a machine, it can be anything or nothing, but everything that it is, is beyond our logic or comprehension - understanding God would be like an ant trying to comprehend what the space s like, it is impossible for it do, but nevertheless it is there. There are different planes/levels of existance and the limit of understanding is set for each one. It is how a person on lsd can see and feel things that he could never be able to explain - and think about it, it is just a tiny ammount of foreign substance that can do that to your understanding of reality.

We are able to understand certain things, but those things are negligable. We are made to believe that we are special, because it is enforced in our society - we are the masters of the universe, we are the smartest things on the planet, we can analyze billions of terabytes of data and yet we can barely make predictions of what the weather will be like tommorow. We cannot predict a basic thing, and yet they try to predict how the world started, you gotta be kidding me.

We can believe in different things, we can theorize and experient all we like. But just because something doesnt fall in the categories of our thinking, denying in is the least intelligent thing you can ever do.

The biggest discoveries were based on belief first, theory later - think flying.

Holy Ghost

sorry. is it the best you can say that nuclear engineering is arcane or unproven? tell that to the populations of hiroshima and nagasaki. tell that to robert oppenheimer or enrico fermi or edward teller. huh? split the atom=massive energy release. i'd say it's pretty f***ing precise and proven to a toasted degree of carbon. i think they could tell you that splitting the atom was proven to the nth, blistering and murderous degree where people were immolated to the point where only their shadows remained. and then tell that to the national grid of france that is atom-splittingly reliant for the majority of its power. oh the unproven scientific source of nuclear electricity!

so. what are the "great" universal scientific truths that remain "unproven"? to be honest, i'm thinking that you don't like your lazy scientific generalisations that pose as sense being pricked for the lazy unscientific generalisations they are ...

markGT

I'm sorry Ns04 I didn’t know having a difference of opinion with somebody was prejudice! Racists are prejudice as they don't like people with different skin and wont let them sit next to them on a bus, be in the same building, share the same restaurant etc. That is prejudice, having a difference of opinion is not! So it is your argument that is flawed!

Most of my wife family are so holy you wouldn’t believe, however I love them, I just share a difference of opinion with them. I treat them exactly the same as I would an atheist, agnostic or devil worshiper, as long as you are a good person I have no beef.

My statement about good people doing bad things in the name of religion isn’t flawed and there is plenty of evidence in the public domain to back it up. Most of the terrorist atrocities committed over the last decade have been done by good people. They did it because their good book told them to do it. They believe the book is the word of God 100% so see no wrong in killing other people; in their twisted logic they are doing Gods work.

Look at Sarah Palin in the Video link. She is a religious nutter, period!! If she was of darker skin and was wearing a Burka she would be branded a Muslim fundamentalist by the worldwide press and condemned throughout the world. However because she is white middle class American its ok!

As for your comment about bad atheists, who do you mean? If you are referring to the same old theist chestnut argument of Hitler and Stalin I suggest you read your history. Hitler killed people because he was mad and wanted world domination. He was in fact a devote Catholic, used God and Jesus Christ in numerous Nuremburg rally speeches!! His SS soldiers had engraved in to their belts IN GOD WE TRUST. The men that shoved the Jews in to the Gas chambers were good Catholics, do your research mate! As for Stalin he was raised to be a Russian orthodox monk again he was also mad.

No wars have ever been raised in the name of atheism.

As a psychologist shouldn't you be concerned as to why people need a non existent being as a life long crutch!! Maybe its dogs you psychoanalyse and not people.

TelBoy

Nonsense. That is just how YOU have tried to rationalise it.

What YOU can't comprehend, is how so utterly, totally, completely insignificant the little planet "Earth" is on a cosmological level. So your "God" just happened to visit this little corner of the cosmos and make us these truly "amazing" beings, capable of all this insight and miracle-wondering? Stop it. Lucky we might be that the planet allows life, but a miracle? Nah, doesn't even register.

serega

I dont rationalise it that way at all. God doesnt have to visit any corner, God is everywhere, there can be a million other humanoid creatures throughout the multiverse in different dimentions, or in different edges of the universe (if there are such things as edges in the universe). There is no preference to any self-conscious existance, but that existance is solely possible because of God.

You will of course say that it is bollox and that it was a factor of little things, like the right set of chemicals being there at the right time, which allowed for bacteria to thrive in a PH neutral environment which was water and then the processes of evolution took place and here we are.
BUT as i said before, out of the numeriad of possiblities in the universes and galaxies it is you personally that posses that self conscious to sit here and judge things from his point of view - just a set of evolved chemicals.

If you cant feel the signifance of that, it is hard to explain. Noone can make you believe things if you have no desire to do so, not even the Jesus or Buddha or Muhammed himself. If you feel comfortable living in the material world, it is your choice and that is why religion is a set of Beliefs.
Just dont be so quick to discard anything just because it doesnt fit your lifestyle/view.

Bubba po

It's all very well that you possess that feeling of the numinous, but I can rationalise the existence of everything you've mentioned without resorting to God as an explanation, ta very much. Incidentally, I find it laughable that most religions look down on other religious beliefs and rightly dismiss them as fairy stories whilst happily believing a similarly preposterous set of beliefs themselves!

Barking.

lozgti

Serega......I totally agree.

The problem with this planet and us humans is that we think we are so darn clever.Well,ever since the Spectrum ZX we have thought we are clever.

Tarquin Po

Woohoo! A powerful woman with nice hair! I'd do her

Everyone has a core set of beliefs which they live their lives by. Whether these core beliefs are built around a sentient all knowing being is up to the individual. Me, I don't thing there is a supreme being.

PeteBrant

I went into some detail after the point at which you decided to cut off my quote, so go back, read that, and then come back and talk to me.

And if you try being a little less aggressive in your tone, I might just entertain a discussion with you.

Bubba po

Eh up, our Tarq! Long time no see.

Tarquin Po

Eyoop our kid

Chateau de Chassilier? I remember when we'd a' been glad of a cup o' cold tea, with out mi;lk, sugar or tea in a filthy cracked cup

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

You Sir, are frankly trolling! Your points re so weak as to defy belief! In fact, your posting style is rather reminiscent of a certain NARCO.

Let me just take the war angle as an example to illustrate just how misguided your thinking is: Wars have indeed been fought over religion, but IRRC the two world wars had nothing to do with religion! They were essentially about territory and politics. So, if we are to condemn religion on the basis that it starts wars, should we be also condemning politics? As I said before, religion and science can be used for great good or great evil.

Answer me this: what about the kids who are killing each other on our streets every day - do you think they are doing that in the name of god, or is greed, status, and belonging to a certain group more implicated. Maybe we should ban the acquisition of money, the accumulation of status within a community.....or just kids, as a precaution.

You see, you seem to be one of these individuals who has read Prof Dawkins book (or, more likely, extracts from it) and has jumped on the "lets bash religion bandwagon" without the intellectual sophistication to properly justify your views in a rational manner that doesn't resort to sweeping generalisations or present huge holes in logic, hence my term of prejudice, which, incidentally, a commonly accepted definition of in Psychology is:

"any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence"

I'm interested in the role of religion. I'm also interested in the role of Atheism. A equally valid question as a retort to the one you posited might be: "why do some people seem to be so unreasonably determined to undermine something, just because they don't derive any value from it personally."

As for your little insulting little remark about whom I see as a Psychologist, actually I work with brain injured individuals mostly - examining ways science can improve their rehabilitation. This is what I'll be off to do now, as opposed to making inflamatory remarks on the net all day.

Feel free to have a pop at that, whilst I spend the day with fellow PhDs trying to improve things for people less fortunate than yourself!

Ns04

TelBoy

I thought you were an acid, Ns04, not a doctor

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

Acid??? Haven't had my morning cup of coffee yet Tel, you're gonna have to expand on that one!

TelBoy

The thing with religion though, and why i am (self-confessed) so disparaging, is that everybody who "is " religious has by and large latched on to the same little story, this omnipotent being that must have created everything. To me that's just ultimate proof of mankind's need for An Answer. Is that the best we can do, just because we had the ability to wonder how it all came to be before we had the science to actually prove it? Maybe this God just got the timing wrong there?

TelBoy

I thought you were a product of an ammonia/sulphuric acid collision!!



Ignore me, it's the best way.

Bubba po

With respect, NS04, I think you're misrepresenting MarkGT's point there a little, though I'm not defending him because his insult at the end of his post was unworthy and certainly not called for. I think that you have confused "wars initiated for non-theistic reasons" (eg territory and politics) with "wars initiated for atheistic reasons" (eg, a group or country making war on another in order to make them completely give up any religious beliefs they might hold).

In that sense, MarkGT's right.

PeteBrant

Absolutely. I find it laughable that people who moan about religious dogma, then do on to ridicule and undermine religion at every opportunity.

The don't just choose not to beleive (the same choice as I have made , personally), they actively seek out excuses to argue against it. At which point I become confused about just how that makes them any better the religious zealots.

Tarquin Po

The 2 world wars may not have been based on religion, but that is 2 out of how many? As for condeming politics, that is like religion but without the ethereal being at the top. It is once again one person's beliefs against anothers.

Basically humankind are like any other animal, it travels in packs and fights for supremacy. We just happen to be "advanced" enough to use weapons and that is all which differentiates us from animals.

PeteBrant

And you include the likes of Einstein, Kelvin, Planck & Newton in that group, do you?

Geezer

Oh I nearly fell off my chair laughing when I read that! Coming from someone who obviously has faith, that is so far above irony I can't even begin to describe it!

Science discards religion because it doesn't fit what is observable, not because it doesn't fit peoples lifestyles or point of view! Everything claimed by religion is explanable, and to a degree proven, by other, observable processes.

When I look at the world around me, I don't think "wow, it's miracle, it must have been created by some higher being", I think "wow, this is amazing, I wonder how this has happened, let's find out". Now if all the evidence pointed to a god having done, I would accept it, but it doesn't, and demonstrably so, so who exactly is discarding stuff that doesn't fit their point of view here?

Geezer

Bubba po

Pete, I just don't think that's true. There is a massive asymmetry in the numbers of atheists trying to undermine religion compared to the numbers of religious fundamentalists trying to undermine science. In the US the fundamentalist lobby is highly motivated, extremely powerful and dedicated to forcing religion disguised as "intelligent design theory" into science classrooms. We're fortunate to live in a fairly lukewarm, liberal and secular society where we don't see this war that is going on. The whole situation terrifies me.

Bubba po

You forgot Darwin and Wallace, with the most important idea of the lot.

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

I think you have just hit the nub of why science and religion exist Tel.

Humans want answers! The key difference is. Science provides answers, as a scientist, I'd argue that religion is much less convincing in this respect. What science rarely provides though, is comfort and I think that's where religion scores. Sometimes people don't want the facts, they just want re-assurance.

Most religious people I know, have NO problem accepting the word of Scientists on how the world works; they view their religion as moral guidance and comfort in times of need. It enhances their lives and compels them to good, so I have no problem with it. Of course, you don't NEED religion to do that, but it's one way of getting there! If, on the other hand, people start abusing religion to justify wrongdoing, I do havee a problem with that! More often though, I find that the problem is not with the scripture, as much as the person reading it! If there is one thing humans need almost as much as facts, it's excuses!

You know what they both have in common though: Careful what questions you ask of faith and science, you might not like the answers!

Ns04

PeteBrant

Vietnam, Korea, Suez, Crimean, Iran-Iraq, Afgahanistan (russian invasion), plus the two world wars, probably amount to a bigger death toll than all other wars in history combined. And none of them were based on religion

I mean going back to various other famous wars (the hundred years war, the English Civil war) and so on, and you will find that few have religious basis.

PeteBrant

I think that depends on where you are. I take your point, certainly in the US there is a vocal opposition in places - But, by and large, in western society, they do not get thier own way, mainly because democracy says the majority do not want to live under religious rule.

If certain areas in the US decide they want a religious society, it is usually because the majority decide thats what they want, and I am not sure who we are to say "you can't have it".

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

In reading these arguments, I'm reminded of the story of a woman who believed that electromagnetic interference from something (I forget what - mobile phones, power lines or wi-fi) was causing her to get headaches and were doing her some long-term damage.

Fair enough, you may think. But she then went on to say that there was absolutely nothing which would convince her otherwise. This leads to one of only two conclusions; either:

a) She is in posession of some solid, incontrovertible proof that e-m radiation is harmful - something which I'm sure the rest of the world would love to know about, or

b) She has formed an opinion based on fear, suspicion and very limited evidence, and has decided that no matter what the flaws might be in her argument, or whatever observations or studies might later on come to light that disprove her theory, she will steadfastly refuse to believe them. In other words, she's an idiot.

This aspect of the human psyche frightens me - not least because the prople involved rarely, if ever, seem to recognise this flaw in themselves. (If I appear to anyone to be suffering from it myself, do please point it out !)

TelBoy

I don't know their specific views so i couldn't comment. But back at you, do you think with the most recent advances in our understanding about matter, those four would have held such religious views today? Personally, i doubt it. In my opinion, religion will be left for those without the ability to comprehend/accept that everything could have been created within the laws of physics, or for those who need a romantic story to follow just in case it scuppers any chance of a nice afterlife.

Bubba po

But what about the children brought up in that society? Where are their rights? Those societies deny the truth of what science has discovered with respect to our origins and wish to indoctrinate all new human beings with more of the same. It's actually in the American constitution that the country is founded upon secularity.