Many of the early scientists were Christians, some still are.

For a 'rational' society we seem pretty farked up.

 

lol please provide your facts , in hard evidence.

the truth is, you cant, you beleive its extremely unlikley, but it at present it cannot be declared as fact.

although im very much a rubbisher of religion, tbh when applying it to me own ilife. i can fully understand the role it may play in others lives.

the bible and all its stories to me are nonsensical exaggerations. chinese whispers if you will. and in days of old caused great horrors and pain to many. but so did non religous lifestyles back then and through the centuries.

todays version is much less harmful imo, and can guide and help those than find solice in it, and it encourages some of the best traites in human nature imo - whats the big harm in that??

i dont feel i need moral guidence from a "creatoer" to do right, but others may well do - so what?

 

The religious need has been diverted. There are other things to worship.

The new things are equally pathetic, if not more so. Just look at the 'celeb' culture.

 

This is a non argument, many of the early scientists were not Christians, most now, are not.

Another ridiculous argument. You cannot prove the tooth fairy does not exist, therefore it could potentially exist? No, the tooth fairy's non existence does not make it unprovable.

There is no difference between the tooth fairy and any god, there is no evidence that either of them exist, but there is a massive amount of evidence that neither of them exist, which is verifiable by observation and experience.

 

 

how do you wok that out?

the tooth fairly is a recently born practice used to convince children below the age of understanding??

beleif in a god of any kind has been from quite early in human history, in one shape or another.

even if you camt understand or see evidence for anything in no way means its not there. what about the endless theories on alternative dimensions, dark matter, string theory, we still dont even have a grand universal law governing the behaviour of the universe.
quantam mechanics and gravity do not marry up.

let alone have an answer for where the very first spark of life came from.

i dont in anyway beleive in any kind of religous god FWIW, but that doesnt mean it isnt there. i have my own theories which id deem more likely, but i cannot profess to be correct.

being an atheist doesnt give anyone the right to rubbish/belittle other peoples beleifs imo.
be an atheist if its what you want or beleive in whatever you want. no harm in either, but stating either as actual fact, is not actual fact.

 

It is easy for anyone who takes a minute to think about it, there is no empirical evidence for God's existence, therefore he is fictional.
As John has already pointed out, Christianity and Islam are mutually exclusive, they cannot both be right and exist at the same time and anyway, these two are relatively new in human’s lifespan and these religions, along with the thousand others across the globe, will die out and hopefully not be replaced by other fictional characters. All of the rituals in Christianity are manmade anyway and all come from the make believe pagen gods.

There are thousands of gods nobody worships anymore because as science progressed and objects in the sky were found out not to be gods but planets and stars, something science could explain easily, then you would look and feel a right plonker worshipping them.
Yes scientific theories, well substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. There are required in science to further understand whatever it is they are researching, they didn’t put men on the moon by guessing the calculations and they certainly didn’t ask for gods help. It only took 60 odd years for the first manned aircraft and landing on the moon, the difference in technological advancement between the moon landings and now is astronomical. Religion hinders scientific progress and society in general, in other words it does no good for mankind, and it never has.

No you are completely wrong, it is actual fact, if it is not, then why not, what evidence do you hold that says any different? Just because a lot of people believe in a similar thing and in the case of the bible, picking and choosing what they want to believe, the good bits they like and dismissing the rest, does not make an imaginary person real, refer yourself to the tooth fairy example.

Religion has no place in a modern society, we don't need the dogma and irrationality of it, it should be put to scrutiny abd called out on it's bull s**t wherever possible

 

You just restricted science (rightly) to making and testing theories about the natural world, quite how that necessarily translates to science having a say in religion is unclear. God transcends the natural world. God cannot be tested by empirical methods. God is not a theory.

Anyway why should empiricism be the sole measure of truth? Do you realise there is no such thing as a value free observation? Every observation is a point of view and is theory laden.

 

There is just no reason to believe in god if you're a rational person. There is no proof that there isn't a god, just like I have no proof that one of my friends isn't a killer. To me it's the same principle. Why anyone would actually believe in god in this day and age, rather than just accepting it as a possibility (just like there is a possibility of my friend being a killer) is beyond me.

Religious belief is not a virtue in my worldview; it's a sign of idiocy and weakness. But as noted, there is no value in any particular worldview, so let's all agree everything is meaningless and close the thread.

 

mate you clearly have had no experence where a dying loved one seeks solice in dying hours from a "make belvie" or not god.
whether you agree or not it has a role in todays society.

why anyone would feel so strongly against it is beyond me.

people can beleive what they wish, in personal thoughts.

without people like you barking out there thoughts against them. rubbishing there thoughts or beleifs.

in this country especially religion brings a lot of good. people may stand by there gods side, or do good in his/her name - whats the outcome - they do do some good


and yes many do good without religion, who cares.

and ofcourse i dont have eveidence, seen as ve clearly stated several times i beleive not in any god, from any religion.

and again you have zero proof its not actual fact mate,, for starters you base your thoughts on a absolutley miniscule amount of time of human existstance. do ou have some sort of insight into the past?
mass education and developmet came after written text started to become the norm
what about the hundreds of thousands of years precedeing this? with all human beings ancestors?

my general point is, no-one actually knows for a fact, in todays society people should be left to belive as they wish, people constantly banging on trying to belittle or rubbish others thoughts or feelings is not an admirable trait, from either religous or non religious agressive promotion.

 

You said that religion hindered science but evidently Christianity or at least after the reformation, Christianity seems to go together with science fairly well.

 

It should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it for more than a minute that just because science happened to flourish in societies where Christianity had been the established default world-view for centuries doesn't necessarily say an awful lot about Christianity's role in that flourishing. In actual fact the opposite is far more logical - the longer a world-view remains established as the cultural or religious default in a society, the more it becomes just like the wallpaper in a room - visible to all but in practice tuned-out by the viewer, and dismissed as belonging to the things that are present in that room.

 

Christianity unlocked the free individual realised by the reformation, without that you wouldn't have science as we know it.

 

Because one bunch of Christians decided that another bunch of Christians had been 'doing it wrong' for the last N centuries suddenly makes that first bunch of Christians responsible for all good that happened in society from that point on? Give me a break

 

I was talking about the revelations not the Church.

 

Define God, Alan.

 

I wonder what the religious amongst us think when they behold the wonders of the universe

The Carina Nebula, 50 million light years across, and birth place of the stars



so vast it defies imagination

or our galaxy, the milky way and its eventual collision with the Andromeda galaxy, 4 billion years from now



just seems an awful long way from a shed in Bethlehem

 

Pretty sure I've got a suitcase made by Revelation in the loft somewhere, does that count?

I wouldn't ask, but since you went out of your way to avoid telling us exactly which revelations you really meant ...

 

You could always ask Dr. Francis Collins; I doubt he'd be able to compete with your staggering intellect, but I'm sure he'd have a bloody good go.

 

Christ says every individual is free under God regardless of sex, race, caste. It's a break from everything in the past. Even in the world of antiquity they never got that. They had slaves in Athens despite trying to make men free to achieve excellence.

 

All faiths stink of deception and lies.....

If anyone can prove other in a simple couple of sentences, please enlighten me

 

God and religion in the sense that most religious people consider them.

 

Ok, define that God.

 

5 pages of great debate....

I was waiting for SRSport to finally reveal how god was revealed to him in such a way it changed his life...

Personally i have no belief whatsover in any god....But i have a brother who is a bishop...lol...

 

A paternal figure, obviously with a humanlike appearance.

 

Beard?

 

Sorry, I stopped when we began to go round in circles and we still had posts in one way or another saying the same thing such as this:

It gets to the point where the more I continue the harder hearts are hardened and it becomes more about them vs me, which is defeating the object and when I need to just leave it.

Im not sure why or what more you were waiting for me to say. I have shared specific personal experiences on here before only to have them insulted and degraded, for example, my sister in law who was hours from death miraculously saved must have been on drugs - of course how silly of me.

 

@ JT Lol. I know what you're getting at.

I see that as more of an intellectual narrative rather than representing the actual feelings of the majority of religious people. It's used to attempt to understand from the intellectual's point of view. But is the whole thing so symbolic to those who actually believe (as one poster in this thread does) that jesus came down to earth as the son/living embodiment of god?

 

The founders of monotheism described God as ineffable. Clever people often look the wrong way when claiming that God does not exist and waste their time refuting notions of God that belong to Sunday school and the herd. Try refuting Hegel's God.

 

What's so special about Hegel's God?