You're right, our planet was created from debris emitted from the sun when it ignited. We know this from observations made in other galaxies and physics models.

Not sure what you mean by "nothing goes on forever" I'm not aware of any thory that states that time is finite.

 

Einstein did not believe in God! This myth is peddled out again and again, but it simply isn't true. He wrote many letters (and indeed received some particularly nasty ones from religious leaders in America) about his atheism.

Also, contrary to popular belief, he did not convert on his deathbed. His last words are unkown as the nurse in attendance did not speak German, and that is what he spoke them in.

Please do not use arguments of proving anything to defend your view. You cannot prove a negative. As the claimant of God, the burden of proof lies with you, not the other way round. You claim it, you prove it.

They are plenty of intelligent people who have been brainwashed, though I agree moron was perhaps a bit harsh.

There's two problems with your approach here. Firstly, science does not claim that the Universe was created out of nothing, it was created from a singularity, it was a state change. Secondly, you fail to apply the same logic to your God. I hope the irony is not lost on you.

I am not aware of anyone saying that nothing goes on forever, please state your source

Architecture, yes, morality? Certainly not! Try reading the bible and then tell me what sort of morality is suppression of women, psychological abuse of children, rape, murder, slavery etc . is. OK, there is a little bit of love in the new testament, but even in there you can find some pretty nasty stuff.

Now most Christians I know don't live by that moral code, so they certainly aren't getting their morals from the Bible, and neither am I, what moral backbone has religion given us?

Geezer

 

Pub`s opening soon,,,,,, thank the lord!

 

There is no source, just as there is no real source to prove that the universe is finite. All we have is cosmologists and physicists making educated guesses and theories arguing over whether the universe is finite or infinite.

 

I don't really see your point. Just because something is as yet unknown doesn't mean that God is the answer. "Educated guesses" somewhat undervalues the process that these people undergo to try and find out the answers. Considerably more effort than "I don't know how this happened, let's credit an invisible man in the sky with it and not concern ourselves with the origins of anything".

So really, what you are saying is that some people say that things can go on forever, and some cannot, but you chose to just highlight one of those arguments to support a view which you failed to articulate and doesn't really form any valid contradiction, except that the jury is still out?

Geezer

 

Always makes me wonder why those who say they don't believe in God are so manic about it and make such unpleasant accusations at those who say they do.

Is it because they are not quite certain themselves and are trying to justify themselves all the time.

Why not just respect others for their personal beliefs even if they are different? Saves so much nastiness which proves nothing anyway.

Les

 

i don't think you'll ever be able to prove god doesn't exist. and whilst we remain in that state people will have faith in their god of choice.

I voted no in the poll. I don't believe in any single supreme being who didn't evolve like we have done.

For all the kookiness of scientology/tom cruise, it still makes more sense to me that life was given a nudge on this planet by aliens.

 

Because you're deluded. If you insisted to me that a mythical being guided everybody and everything on the planet and created it all I'd say you we're in need of mental care. The fact you call that religion means I have to think differently? Get real.

I do also find it amusing that there are all these different religions but they cant all be right so how do you decide which one is your religion? that's right.... generally it's the one you were told to believe as you grew up. also known as conditioning or brainwashing.

 

There are of course people who don't follow religion, but think there is some 'higher power'. Not sure who or what has brainwashed them.

I'm not a religious person, but I respect the right for people to follow what they feel is right for them, so long as they do no harm in the process. Whether you or anyone else feels the need to go name calling because you don't understand how they feel, well that itself is just rude. There is no need to be unpleasant towards others just because you disagree (the thing the op didn't want to happen).

As of now, we simply don't know how it all began, we don't know if there is a higher power. Some people seek answers through science, that's fine, some find enough through their faith. Maybe one day there will be a definite answer, until then, I guess people will just follow what suits them best.

 

You are making a whole bunch of assumptions purely in an effort to support your own statements.

In the first place you don't know how I think personally and what I believe either. You have no idea of my own train of thought on these matters and don't bother to ask because I will not enter a discussion with no chance of a conclusion one way or another. I do not feel the need to justify myself nor do I have any interest whatsoever in trying to influence your own mind.

You once again rudely call me delusional. Even though you don't know how I think, that is a seriously bad accusation in my book.

How do you imagine I was able to cope with a complicated and very demanding job for so many years if I was mentally disturbed? You should be very much more careful what you say about people, especially those you have never even met!

If you ever think about it in an honest fashion, you might be able to work out that all those religions started all over the world amongst widely differing peoples and they put thier own credence on how they run their own style of worship, and why not?

Finally, just show me where I have attempted to tell you how you personally should think with respect to the subject in question. You are just trotting out all the stale old arguments without even considering how to apply them!

If you look back and read what I have said, I deliberately said that I had no wish to convert anyone at all, but what I did request was that we should all be respected for our own beliefs about religion and that neither one side or the other should be on the attack over such a contentious subject. No good will ever come out of that.

If that is too complicated for you, let me say that you just go ahead and believe what you want, but wind your neck in and leave other people alone instead of trying to change their way of thinking to that of yours by unpleasant ridicule.

Les

 

Watching the news yesterday and they were interviewing an American who survived the tornado, he said something along the lines of "thank god for saving us".Now if he believes in god surely he should be saying "oi god what the **** you playing at cvnt "

 

Serious question.

Can I ask the people who have voted in the affirmative (I haven't voted) whether they also believe in the age old enemy of God? i.e 'The devil'? I think it's a much more pertinent and difficult question for religious people to answer. For example, people who appear to be completely rationale and intelligent on the whole can proudly state that they have faith and believe in ther God, yet surely that same faith has to be the reason that they believe in the ultimate super-baddy!

I could ask the old question as to why people believe that their god allows all of the evils in this world such as rape, torture, genocide etc. "God works in mysterious ways" doesn't cut it. The influence of the devil can't quite explain it either as 'God', whichever one, is supposedly all powerful so why not put a stop to it?

The argument that this life is just a dress-rehearsal doesn't wash either, what about the people who've already been raped, tortured etc? Were they just 'props' in this drama?

I'm genuinely interested in whether any of the resident believers would like to put forward a rationale as to how their faith in the existence of 'The Devil' and his works can be explained. Is it just an acknowledgement that some people are simply evil and their God can't do anything about it or chooses not to?

 

This is one of the great problems for Christianity (and most religions TBH) - the problem of evil.

Ask the question and you never really get a decent answer, probably because (even subconsciously) they know it seriously undermines their belief and so try to avoid it.

If the Devil is not responsible for evil, then who is? As God created everyone and everything, it is surely him. That's not too good really is it? Even when they answer that man was given free will, and he is evil, then God created man, so he created him with a flaw that would allow evil, so still, he creates evil.

Even if we allow the luxury that man really did 'invent' evil, then why did God stand by and allow it to flourish? That in itself, is an evil thing to do. If you saw someone raping a child and could stop it, that is a very bad thing to do indeed!

If you believe in God, then you must believe that God is the root of all evil, and He is not worthy of your worship.

On a final note, if you absolve God of all blame because man has created his own problems and has been left to his own devices, why pray?

Geezer

 

you guys haven't read your bibles have you? The devil was originally an angel.

i think that all the crap we perpetrate on each other is the product of man - God isn't responsible for that... you're all thinking too small scale.

 

Oh yes, 80% of the 'deluded' world believes in God so you have to sho' som' respec' ... when you question their faith

 

You're born, you live, you die. Simples.

TX.

 

Good question. I will also be interested to see answers that come from this.

 

Not impossible, we're just too feable minded to understand it in 2010

TX.

 

The answer is still.... No. HTH!

 

I had an interesting discussion many moons ago with a complete stranger at some party somewhere. He honestly believed that in the future mankind will stop fighting with each other and will co-exsist in a global utopia. I argued that religion will always get in the way. He said that this is now, 2000 years after the bible etc, imagine another 5000 years of development of the human race, advances in science and understanding, there will be no more racism because we will be so interbred everyone will be the same. Religion would have died out, stories of the bible or Koran told in schools just like we now teach stories of the Greek gods living in the clouds and throwing lightning bolts. Once the human race has evolved that far, just perhaps there will be no more war as we become more and more civilised / advanced.

Lets hope , eh?

 

Apart from mine, don't expect any answers about this from believers

Geezer

 

I would be happy to accept peoples religious beliefs if they weren't having such a massive negative impact on this world. I agree that some good can come from religion but at this point in time, it is far out weighed by the bad.

I believe I have looked at both sides of the argument with an open mind and have concluded that the chances of the exists of a god as depicted by religion is so slim, it is not even worth consideration. Seeing, for example, how badly held back some countries in the far east are due to religion is therefore incredibly frustrating and why I personally feel the need to speak out against it.

 

TBH, I can't think of a single good thing to have come out of religion. It's about control, suppression of free thought, bigotry, racism and general intolerance of all kinds.

It promotes exclusion of family and friends in favour of it, slavish devotion to it and fosters extremism even in it's moderation. Faith, after all, requires absolute belief with no need for explanation. It's a small leap of 'faith' from that to blowing yourself up.

Geezer

 

What an interesting topic this will always be.

If I was a betting man I would bet that there is a God.

Should I die and there isn't a God I have lost nothing more than trying to living a better life, but however if there is a God that would make me the winner big time.

I am a Christian and therefore know that God exists but I could never prove it to you and only you can ask God to reveal himself to you by asking him into to your life.

A bit of no pain no gain.

 

Edited for accuracy

Geezer

 

sh*t subject, done to death on every forum.

never be an agreemant.

for what ist worh, im atheiest - hate religion and everything it stands for - just cannot comprehend the cruelty, child rape, murder and abuse its caused - in the name of a sky fairy.

however what interests me is where scinece breaks down, laws of physics cannot explain event horizons never mind singularities. we still cant find a unified theory, to govern behaviour of large and small - so to me a "creator" as such isnt any further from a possibilty, when you try explore, before the bigbang, beginning of time ect.

 

Now, dont call me crazy, but that's the most sensible answer to me (Flamesuit on!)

I dont believe their is an all-powerful being watching over us, or who created us. I don't believe the Earth was created in seven days, or anything like that. I dont believe in Heaven and Hell, or being punished for your sins when you die. I have never been to Church apart from Weddings, Funerals etc, my family are not religous in any sense.

But, when you consider, somehow, millions of years ago, us humans just popped up, completely different to anything previously around, or around since, it does beg the question, how did we come to be?

Darwin says Theory of Evolution from Apes. So, if we have slowly got better through survival of the fittest, and we were evolving constantly into the modern human you see today, where is the missing link?

How come we have found thousands of fossils of every single stage in our supposed "Evolution" but we havent ever found a fossil proving that we did infact make that jump. So it really is a theory, there is no proof this happened, nothing to make it fact, no hard, cold evidence, just the almost brainwashed scientific society saying no, this is how we must have come to be, and their refusal to even consider alternative theories is almost comical.

There is an ancient tribe in Africa, who still speak Sumerian (fisrt known language?) and they say that we were created by aliens. They say they know what star they came from, have ancient rock carving/drawings of what look amazingly like "Spaceships". Africa is known as the "Cradle of Civilisation" but why? Have they found this missing link there? No. So how can they say this? That all odern humans originated from Africa?

And going further down this line of thought.....

If however, many thousands of years ago, when we were just apes, aliens did land and create modern humans, interacted with us etc, how would they interpret them? As gods? So who's to say the Aliens were just thought of as Gods, and this is where religion has come from?

Years of diluting the story, different countries/faiths/ethnic influences would produce many, many different idea's of who or what God is and how we came to be. Not only that but its completely open, as others have suggested, to be used as a tool. Live your life by these rules, or you will spend eternity in hell. It can/has been used to go to war, infact, its just so open to abuse its incredible, Jihad etc, You could go on and on.

Isnt that the exact thing we see in modern society? Muslims, Christians etc etc?

Whilst I am completely athiest, It does intrigue me massively how we came to be, and the huge, mind boggling differences in intelligence etc to every other living thing before or since we have been here, makes it even more intriuging. I dont have the answers, I dont "believe" we got here by alien intervention, it just seems to make more sense than the official evolution line.

*Tin Foil Hat off* lol!

 

care to expand on that?

 

I mostly agree although I believe it can help people better deal with death promote generosity towards those in need but at the end of the day, it's still mass delusion and, no matter how good the morals are, it still going to create separation. I strongly believe it's all got to go before we have a chance of making this planet peaceful.

 

My problem with Religion (of any ilk) is that it denies my basic tenet of Libertarianism. I firmly hold to the principal of individual freedom with absolute responsibility.

You are free to act as you choose, as long as that act does not negatively impact upon others. If it does, you accept the responsibility of that act.

Religion takes away my freedom to act as I see fit. It introduces artbitrary controls upon my life based upon a subjective belief in what a mythical being sees as correct.

It also takes away the respsonsibility of the actions I take based upon its controls.

Libetarianism relies upon a strong moral compass, and careful education. Without these you end up with a society pretty much like ours. To have the ability to make the correct choice you must be educated in what the consequences are. That education must be (as much as is possible) without bias, and again Religion lets us down. The whole concept is based upon a simple (read uneducated) mans World View.

For the record: I am not Religious (you may have got that hint already ) but I am spiritual. I don't believe in a Divine Entity, the concept is alien to my mindset and in my opinion: simply a product of Humanities oft ill-placed attempt to see patterns in chaos. I do believe in freedom of thought and how it affects everything around us (hence spiritual, but a secular spirituality).

I am firmly sceptical of any argument put to me - I require evidence, or collaborating arguments to be persuaded. Believers in God provide neither, they cannot ever do so, as it always relies upon 'faith' or the aforementioned patterns in chaos.

I don't need to ask anyone into my life, I don't need Religion or the existance of a 'higher being' to direct my moral compass. I need education and scepticism and respect for others to help me live a good life.

It seems to me, that some people simply need a crutch in their lives to justify what they do. Rather than take responsibility themselves.