Religious/Evolutionary Debate Thread

[Chrysaor]

I don't see how believing my soul doesn't exist is self-centered. I believe that everything exists as a singular infinite creation. There is no me or you, just all, working as one. That is as far from self centered as I think one can go.

I have always deemphasized the importance and validity of science in this thread, if anything. You're fighting people who started on the same side as you.

Your response is worded like you're sick of me personally. I am sure at some point in this thread you asked not to be judged as a person based on your posts. I would do the same, but you've already done so. That doesn't help. This is an argument, not an attack.

 

[QUALTHWAR]

You take too much of an adversarial aproach to really hope to be treated with universal respect around here, dude. we're not known for our manners, or political correctness.



Q - let me try see if i can't manage a more unbiased question;

Biblical scholars have finally agreed a date for "the rapture".
Tomorrow morning.
After years of carefully researching the bible, a large amount (though not all) have come to agree that early tomorrow morning, the world ends as christ returns, etc. You know the drill. They can offer you no proof, beyond the words of the bible and their own faith, but they assure you that they are 100% certain, and to repent now!.

Nasa, and various other science teams across the globe and across many disciplines respond with near-universal scepticism. No asteroids near earth, there is no unusual Siezemic (sp?) activity, no missing nuclear weapons and no sign of interplanetary bulldozers. Science being as it is, however, they can only say that it is highly improbably, possibly infinately so, that the world will end tomorrow morning.
But they cannot assure you that it definately won't. Some fringe scientists even lend support to the bible scholars, though there is some doubt as to their method, and they don't generally agree on how.

Who do you believe?

I gotta go with NASA on this one.

As far as my religious side of the equation in my question goes, I was thinking about it this way: people just don’t pop out of the womb and declare there is a god. They eventually hear about god from some source. In my case, I started learning about god in Sunday school. Someone who was older and wiser, someone who appeared to have authority and knew what they were talking about, explained god and the path to him.

But as I grew older, after I was a Christian, I’d sit and listen to these men who would preach the word of god. I listen to them tell stories and explain how all this stuff happened in the bible. I was following their line of reasoning and accepting I would have a path to god if I believed some of what they told me.

This is not unlike my religious leader in my experiment. He carefully explains things just like the preachers explained things to me when I was a Christian. What they said made sense and because they were an authoritative figure, I just accepted what they said.

But forget about all that for a minute: I took these religious people and the scientists out the question. I had an old man making the device, and neighborhood kids looking at it. Kids! A nerd who dropped the marble a bunch of times, and a neighborhood boy who seemed authoritative to other kids carefully explaining how things work.

At that point, there was just a bunch of little kids playing with a fascinating toy.

 

[Evil_Cope]

This thread seems to be decaying into thoughtless bickering.

I feel so at home right now.

Good old Nali City.

 

[QUALTHWAR]

I don't see how believing my soul doesn't exist is self-centered.

It’s not self-centered. See, if you’d change things around a bit, that self-centered idea would quickly change. Like this:

You don’t believe in Buddha, so you’re self-centered.
You don’t believe in Vishnu, so you’re self-centered.

Christians are one of the religious groups who believe in a soul in a specific way. If you don’t go along with their way of thinking about a soul, that makes you self-centered. However, you’re not self-centered if you think you’re not going to come back as another life form when you die. You know, when your soul doesn’t follow the pattern of their soul.

Go ahead as ask. Ask if you’re self-centered if you don’t believe you’ll come back as a snake or some other life form when you die.

 

[QUALTHWAR]

I feel so at home right now.

Good old Nali City.

Is that a bunny with a pope hat?

 

[Chrysaor]

I think it's a squirrel. Either way, I creamed my pants.

 

[Evil_Cope]

Carefull bub. Squirrelly wrath!


It's my thinking hat.

 

[QUALTHWAR]

Playing the role of Vison: No, it’s a bunny. The hell with tangible evidence. It’s a bunny.

Sorry, that one was all planned out.

Just joking around, vision.

 

[QUALTHWAR]

Carefull bub. Squirrelly wrath!


It's my thinking hat.

There’s the beast!
What, behind the rabbit?
It's not a rabbit, it's a squirrel.
What, behind the squirrel?

 

[Mister_Prophet]

Excuse me, why do you not ask a real question in which you are not going to whine about how it is answered?

Whining? Really? So you call me self-centered because I (not just me) am not grinning like an idiot at your meaningless retorts and nodding in agreement? Look , you need to relax and think about the stuff you are saying and the crap you are accusing us of. If this was one of those debates you see those preppy school kids participating in, your team would be telling you to sit this round out.

For the record...I don't think you have answered a single question I have asked. If You did I wouldn't be out to ask you to answer them. I have no malicious intent here. I don't get my jollies by pissing people off in internet forums.

I have not told anyone here o boo hoo you can not use that statement here because you can not prove it

At least not to the ones that can be proved

And yeah you have made as much of a boo hoo as anyone in here when it comes to theories without proof.

Get off your o so high horse.

Funny I was about to say the same thing to you.

And I didn't take anything you said out of context, I just responded.

You and the rest of your ilk here are not espousing anything new you are just as much religious zealots as any other group and much more hypercritical. Quit hiding behind the guise of science and stand up and be proud of the Atheist, Agnostics, or whatever form of spiritualism or materialism you subscribe to.

This just made me laugh. You call us hypocritical while being a hypocrit. I don't think anyone is incognito in here. It is pretty obvious who is an Atheist and who isn't.

And Chrysaor is right, this is very bickerish. I just assumed it would have happened 25 pages ago.

 

[Mister_Prophet]

Christians are one of the religious groups who believe in a soul in a specific way. If you don’t go along with their way of thinking about a soul, that makes you self-centered.

I know this was probably a joke, but that isn't what Christians think

 

[Mister_Prophet]

Biblical scholars have finally agreed a date for "the rapture".
Tomorrow morning.
After years of carefully researching the bible, a large amount (though not all) have come to agree that early tomorrow morning, the world ends as christ returns, etc. You know the drill. They can offer you no proof, beyond the words of the bible and their own faith, but they assure you that they are 100% certain, and to repent now!.

Nasa, and various other science teams across the globe and across many disciplines respond with near-universal scepticism. No asteroids near earth, there is no unusual Siezemic (sp?) activity, no missing nuclear weapons and no sign of interplanetary bulldozers. Science being as it is, however, they can only say that it is highly improbably, possibly infinately so, that the world will end tomorrow morning.
But they cannot assure you that it definately won't. Some fringe scientists even lend support to the bible scholars, though there is some doubt as to their method, and they don't generally agree on how.

Who do you believe?

This is an easy question to anyone backing science here. I would most definitly side with the NASA guys. But I don't think too many religious people would even bother answering this one.

For the Science side, it is simply a probability question. A mathematical equation with an estimated answer. If they are right, then it shows that they accurately called the estimate. If they are wrong then it shows that man is fallible, which isn't a breakthrough. They'd simply guess wrong. The Rapture occuring might seriously make them second guess their science, but not abandon it. Some science isn't proven, but the parts that are is fact enough not to be kicked to the curb whether or not god exists. It may need adjustment, but basic science studies are true even if there is a god.

But to a religious person answering this question, assuming that your question encompasses all the participants involved in that religion or at least the vast majority....they are gonna be pretty traumatized if the following morning the Rapture doesn't occur. Sure they may not abandon their faith, but I think the damage will be much more severe. This is assuming your question included every religious sect or group that followed the Bible and the people involved all generally believed this too.

So I don't think the question is really fair.

 

[QUALTHWAR]

I know this was probably a joke, but that isn't what Christians think

Let me better explain that: Christians think that if you believe this and that (at least in my case when I was taught that whoever believeith in him shall have everlasting life) you will go to heaven. They don’t think your whole body is getting up out of the grave and going there, so they believe in a soul. So it sounds like if we don’t believe in this soul as Christians do, according to vision, that makes you self-centered.

 

[Btljuice]

The only thing you were saying is reality is limited to self in which you are wrong. That maybe true of an individuals self centered viewpoint of reality but fails in addressing reality in Toto. As for your deep philosophical sense seeing that it is just like every other form of philosophy based on what another man considers their life’s point of view, opinion, or perspective your welcome to it.

If you had the ability to create yourself I would agree that your self centered philosophy has a genuine basis. By creating yourself I mean as a living organism not the manifestations of your mind, but as it stands you are a product of a mechanism in which you can not definitively point to the origin of your being.

You and the rest of your ilk here are not espousing anything new you are just as much religious zealots as any other group and much more hypercritical. Quit hiding behind the guise of science and stand up and be proud of the Atheist, Agnostics, or whatever form of spiritualism or materialism you subscribe to.

Since your religions do not have room for a GOD is it a miracle that you do not either? No, you are just by products of your faith as with most other religions you are just here to knock someone else’s faith. What a bunch of intellectual cowards.

You can also find someone who subscribes to your philosophical beliefs to bow down to you. I am sure you have plenty of candidates here that will volunteer to fulfill your need to be praised.

From you friendly neighborhood Noob!

And this, dear friends, is how and why such things as the Inquisition, the Crusades et al got started. Intolerence of your fellow man....

 

[Stilgar]

He is speaking of intolerance, not being intolerant. Besides, you're being overly simple when you say "this is how blah blah got started" Intolerance is a human trait, not a religous one. We can make the same vieled comment about any and every major conflict in our history and pretend it means something.

See! This is how World War Two started!

Intolerance of your fellow man!

*rolls eyes at intolerant person*

He's making a good point in this post. There are plenty of intolerant atheists or whoever who seem incensed at the thought of someone worshipping a god, in an age where the possibility of such things remains beyond the understanding and obsevational powers of science. The length of this thread is probably a testament to that.

I was like this when I was younger, but now it seems pointless to argue (or just sit back and act smug while poking holes in thier logic) constantly in the hopes that you'll get someone to deny thier faith. It appears to cause more rifts than anything else (same goes for intolerant religous types) If we (people) have broached extroardinary new ground since the age of reason began, ground that renders the science/logic vs religion argument irrelevant, I'm all ears. Somehow I doubt I'll get answer to that. More than likely this thread will keep going in circles until people get bored of it all (or someone asks some interesting open ended questions)

 

[Stilgar]

Anyway, since when did disagreeing with someone become intolerance...

 

[Evil_Cope]

Since your religions do not have room for a GOD is it a miracle that you do not either? No, you are just by products of your faith as with most other religions you are just here to knock someone else’s faith. What a bunch of intellectual cowards.

I regret to admit that several of the other members of this thread have been at times rather impolite, but frankly, you of all people have no right to claim we are here only to bash people of other demoninations, as you have failed so far to give a single straight answer to any question at all, as far as i can tell.

I enjoy debating, i enjoy talking about religion, and the ins and outs of faith. There are a whole list of theoretical questions i'd love to ask an equally urbane religious person, purely for my own amusement.

If you are here to legitimately discuss the matters of this thread, why have you proved, time and again, to prefer generalised personal attacks and evasive answers?
Why did you join the debate? You are not a regular on these forums, and post in none of the other threads. you seem infact to have a near pathalogical hatred and distrust of the majority of these forums.

Why are you here, if not to "Defend your faith" and infact, return attack?

There are very few people left in this thread, after all, who you haven't already flamed.

 

[Evil_Cope]

This is an easy question to anyone backing science here. I would most definitly side with the NASA guys. But I don't think too many religious people would even bother answering this one.

For the Science side, it is simply a probability question. A mathematical equation with an estimated answer. If they are right, then it shows that they accurately called the estimate. If they are wrong then it shows that man is fallible, which isn't a breakthrough. They'd simply guess wrong. The Rapture occuring might seriously make them second guess their science, but not abandon it. Some science isn't proven, but the parts that are is fact enough not to be kicked to the curb whether or not god exists. It may need adjustment, but basic science studies are true even if there is a god.

But to a religious person answering this question, assuming that your question encompasses all the participants involved in that religion or at least the vast majority....they are gonna be pretty traumatized if the following morning the Rapture doesn't occur. Sure they may not abandon their faith, but I think the damage will be much more severe. This is assuming your question included every religious sect or group that followed the Bible and the people involved all generally believed this too.

So I don't think the question is really fair.

You are probably right. However, Given the fractured nature of the christian religion, probably less traumatised than you think. One of the most interesting, and at times amusing, qualities of christianity is the fact that it seems not to be one thing at all. If the biblical scholars were of the catholic church, the protestants would be no more likely to panic than your average atheist, and so on.

I understand something not far removed happened in the middle ages, (i forget the year, it hardly matters though). People were convinced that the end of times was just around the corner. I seem to recall there was quite an uncertainty when the time arrived and passed that they were expecting. Still, what with plagues, and fires and so on, it's not so suprising they expected to see Satan at any moment...

 

[ReD_Fist]

Lets take it the other way then.

Prove to me there aint evil.

 

[Nachimir]

Prove to me there aint evil.

There is evil. Noone has objectively defined it yet though. Also, "evil" can only exist relative to living things. It's evil to stab a person, but not a pile of dirt.

Here's my go at it: "Evil" is anything that contradicts or thwarts a basic need of self or others.

By that definition, the Bible based morality I was raised with was evil because of the constraints placed on natural human capacities and urges, and I'm not just talking about sex, I'm talking about development. By the same definition, spreading STDs is evil too.

Abe Maslow has the best theory on basic needs, but it's incomplete and beset by problems. Coillectively, we aren't yet self aware enough to fix ourselves.

Whether or not evil is in behaviour or the convictions that motivate it is a philosophical hair I do not care to split.