How many of you are atheists, agnostic, or religious?

[vrrotate]

So no one here shares my point of view so I figured I'd chime in to give another perspective.

I was raised in a Bible centered family and church. When I was 16 I accepted Jesus Christ as my Saviour so I'm what most people would consider a Born Again Christian.

I don't believe in religion. I don't practice religion. Simply because religion has been fabricated by man. In both the New International Version and the New King James Version of the Bible (which are the main two translations that I read), there are only five verses that contain the word religion. They are all in the New Testament and none of the verses were recorded as Jesus' or God's words. Out of the five my favourite is James 1 verse 27, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." This is what James says true religion is which God accepts.

True Christianity can only be centered around Christ and God (and the Holy Spirit to complete the trinity). All of the religious dogma, doctrine, rituals etc has been fabricated by man.

Also I firmly believe in the Bible as the true and inspired Word of God. I believe that everything in it actually happened. I do believe that there have been minor translation/copy errors over the years that have created errors and contradiction. After-all, for many many years the only way to reproduce the Bible was for people to hand write copies, of course errors would creep in. In many new translations these errors are fixed by referencing the many of the oldest manuscripts still in existence (i.e Dead Sea scrolls which were only more recently discovered). I do not think that it detracts at all from the authenticity of the Bible.

Also I completely believe in Creation as written in the first chapters of Genesis and I do not believe in Evolution. I say "believe in evolution" because you must have a great amount of faith to be an evolutionist. Until you can emphatically tell me where the matter came from to cause the Big Bang, evolution is only a belief.

I am not a fanatic. I do not preach to my friends all the time. I do not protest at abortion clinics or hold up signs at the gay pride parade that say "God hates fags". I believe that everyone has the free will to make their own choice. If someone is interested in what I believe I am happy to share with them. I also like to hear about what they believe.

I believe in the second coming of Christ. I believe that the world will end after this time.

I believe in Heaven and Hell and that the only way to Heaven is through trusting in Christ...

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Anyway, sorry it was a bit long but like I said no one has shared my viewpoint and I've read yours with interest so thought you might like mine.

Edit: Also I did not click on any of the poll responses. None seem to fit for me.

[niss]

I thought this pic makes an interesting point:

[trampbike]

Also I completely believe in Creation as written in the first chapters of Genesis and I do not believe in Evolution. I say "believe in evolution" because you must have a great amount of faith to be an evolutionist. Until you can emphatically tell me where the matter came from to cause the Big Bang, evolution is only a belief.

You were doing pretty well into explaining your beleifs, but that is just way out of line. Don't use the "what was there before the Big Bang" syllogism. If you do not understand science, if you are not interested in it, I'm fine with it. You saying that evolution is a matter of beleifs however, is just wrong. I'd be interested to discuss with you if you'd say that you did not beleive in natural selection as the only force driving evolution. This would have been a very interesting discussion. What you do instead is putting in the trash science with your faith and a syllogism. If science goes against your beleifs, then either question your beleifs, or do not get into an airplane ever again.

[vrrotate]

All right, sure I was trying to take a dig at the THEORY of evolution. But come on, every theory requires a certain amount of belief/faith.

[trampbike]

Evolution is not a theory. The theory is that of the natural selection. Evolution has been proven for a while. Even a bit before Darwin it was a well accepted fact among scientists.

Science requires no other faith than that of the scientific method. Once you accept the scientific method, you do not have to beleive in any of his result (of course, the method has to be respected, we all know science is a man activity, so it can be used wrongly), you now know.
Just like in maths, you have some axioms, and you build theorems based on these unprovable axioms (they can not be proven, it's part of their definition). If you do not "beleive" in a theorem, then prove it wrong. (btw, if you prove it wrong, then it was not a theorem, it was only a conjecture). If you can't do that, then accept it, or reject the whole axiomatuic system (hence why I said: you better not get into an airplane ever again).

[. ._]

I believe I need another beer!

-istp

[OhKiE DoHkIe]

Excellent thread if I do say so myself. AND...I have read every post word by word.

The fact that with a touchy subject like this, we can exchange ideas and keep our emotions in check and not get too charged about it.
Hopefully, this type of civility will bleed into the rest of the forums for proper discourse.

My take thus far on this thread:
The challenging thing (IMHO) I find is people cannot bare in their minds the thought of maybe everything they've known to be true....is actually ALL wrong.

It's a scary proposition to impose on one's psyche.

[canwhitewolf]

Define "god". When you can do that such that everyone agrees, I'll tell you if I believe or not.

**********************************************************************

presumptively i would say that maybe an acceptable defintion would be ...

that creative force in everything that is

[Mach1]

How many of you are atheists, agnostic, or religious?

- Ummm... all of us.

[. ._]

Define "god". When you can do that such that everyone agrees, I'll tell you if I believe or not.

**********************************************************************

presumptively i would say that maybe an acceptable defintion would be ...

that creative force in everything that is

I disagree.

God is Santa Claus. He knows everything you do and will reward you or punish you when the time comes.

Santa Claus.

[Invertago]

I'm still trying to find out where the big bang came from or what caused it?..."

Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas


http://beta.thehindu.com/sci-tech/article321718.ece
Step ahead in search for God particle

....It is the analysis of this data that could lead to the discovery of the Higgs boson, also called as the ‘God particle’, that is believed to have existed when the universe was born, said Prof Satyaki Bhattacharya of Delhi University who is involved in the LHC experiment.

Researchers will sift through the subatomic debris of proton collisions for signs of extra dimensions that will bolster belief in “supersymmetry”, a theory that doubles the number of particle species in the universe.....
...CERN Director General Rolf Heuer said scientists hope by the end of this year to make discoveries into the mysterious dark matter that they believe comprises a quarter of the whole universe. The better understood visible universe makes up only five per cent of the universe.

Dark matter has been theorised by scientists to account for missing mass and bent light in faraway galaxies. They believe it makes galaxies spin faster.

A separate entity called ‘dark energy’ makes up the remaining 70 per cent of the universe, and this is understood to be associated with the vacuum that is evenly distributed in space and time. It is believed to accelerate the expansion of the universe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgsless_model

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_1.1#Text


Just pick any one and run with it...

So, where did the God partical / Dark Matter / ___insert other concept____ come from?

[Jastapilot]

evolution is only a belief

please read, "The Greatest Show on Earth," by Richard Dawkins, and after reading it, look me in the eye and tell me that evolution is faith based.

[Driving Rain]

lets sing....

"Gimmie that Ol Time Religion"

[Invertago]

Evolution is not a theory. The theory is that of the natural selection. Evolution has been proven for a while. Even a bit before Darwin it was a well accepted fact among scientists.

Science requires no other faith than that of the scientific method. Once you accept the scientific method, you do not have to beleive in any of his result (of course, the method has to be respected, we all know science is a man activity, so it can be used wrongly), you now know.
Just like in maths, you have some axioms, and you build theorems based on these unprovable axioms (they can not be proven, it's part of their definition). If you do not "beleive" in a theorem, then prove it wrong. (btw, if you prove it wrong, then it was not a theorem, it was only a conjecture). If you can't do that, then accept it, or reject the whole axiomatuic system (hence why I said: you better not get into an airplane ever again).

Don't they even refer to it as "The theory of evolution" in the text books? Evolution is just another religion in that it requires faith. It only differs in that it doesn't ask/require its believers to do anything or follow some moral code. It is the belief that your origins come from a particle and an explosion. For something to be a scientific fact, it requires observation, and there are a serious lack of witnesses to the big bang / fish crawling out of water etc. On top of that for it to be proven it has to be repeatable, and so far we haven't seen that yet either. Evolution has just as much scientific backing as most religions out there. It is a very convenient thing to believe though as it is fairly politically correct, and easy to subscribe to since you don't have to do anything aka, moral code, traditions, ceremony's, suicide bombings bla bla bla. On the other hand, it does conclude that life is meaningless (you're just particle dust / former walking fish / ape etc, and there is no afterlife) so do what ever you want that makes you happy for the moment.

[Hedley]

Not sure anybody is going to understand this, but ...

Don't get religious about your science. This happens all the time. Someone develops a theory - say Newtonian laws of mechanics - and gosh, it looks pretty good. A lot better than the nonsense that preceded it. So, everyone gets the ol' Newtonian mechanics religion.

Then some bright boy comes along and upsets the applecart with this nonsense about relativity, which is rejected at first, then gradually accepted. Then some more bright boys come along with quantum mechanics, which is now rejected by the now-old-school relativity boys. Then the string boys came along ...

Don't get religious about your science. Science is. Religion is nonsense created by man to make him feel better. Don't confuse the two. New bumper sticker:

Don't get religious about your science

Not sure anyone will understand it - I didn't use one formula or even the word "orthogonal" once - but what the heck, I tried.

[Just another canuck]

And you have proof this is fictitious how? First off English was not a language back then, so the snake could not of been speaking that. How do you know Johna did not live in the fish? Never gone fishing by yourself and caught that monster of a fish that got away. ("Really dude, it was this big") You are Canadian are you not, as most of us here on this forum are? We walk on water every winter, it is just a little stiffer then normal. And Eve coming from Adam's rib. They were the first two people on the earth. HELLO There were only two of them. If you need more clarification may I suggest the most popular best selling book on the market. You will find it in the Religion and Spirituality section of Chapters. It is called the “Holy Bible”

Oh yah and from your other post, Just Another Canuck, I know you are not trying to bash me and I do not take it personally just as I hope you do not take this personally, the earth is not 5000 yrs old. It is 6000, give or take a couple decades. I will pray for you JAC

First, thanks for the prayers... if you are indeed being sincere in your response, I do appreciate it. You believe what you want to believe and I hope it all works out for you in the long run. I won't bother to try and explain why people can't live inside fish for three days because that will be disputing your God and your beliefs and you won't listen anyway. I don't believe in magic... you want to call them miracles, fine, but I don't believe in those either. There is always a logical explanation for everything that happens. I think people nowadays are setting the bar a little too low for the term "miracle"... the miracles they describe can usually be explained through science in a matter of minutes. The "believer" will say the cancer patient survived because of a miracle... I call it a good oncologist with the proper means of radiation and chemotherapy treatment.

BTW, I've read large sections of the Bible over the years... I have not read it all, but I plan to. That goes for some of the other Holy Books out there. But the books that give me clarification and do a good job at explaining the unexplainable are books like the "The God Delusion", "The Selfish Gene" or my most recent favourite of Dawkins, "The Greatest Show on Earth"... jastapilot already mentioned that one.

Don't they even refer to it as "The theory of evolution" in the text books? Evolution is just another religion in that it requires faith.

And Invertago, I suggest you pick up Dawkins latest book as well because it explains well in the first part of the book why it is no longer a just a theory. And if you google "theories", you'll find a lot of them that are no longer theories, but are simply labeled that way. The "theory of evolution" is the truth... it is an accepted among the greatest of minds across are planet as the truth. The problem is science is new and scripture is old... people have a hard time letting go of the past.

[Just another canuck]

From Bill Maher's "Religulous":


"Lighthouses are more useful than churches" Benjamin Franklin

"This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in
it" John Adams

"Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man" Thomas
Jefferson

[Hedley]

Not sure it matters, but I learned more from AC43.13-1B than I ever did from the bible:

[Invertago]

Don't they even refer to it as "The theory of evolution" in the text books? Evolution is just another religion in that it requires faith.

And Invertago, I suggest you pick up Dawkins latest book as well because it explains well in the first part of the book why it is no longer a just a theory. And if you google "theories", you'll find a lot of them that are no longer theories, but are simply labeled that way. The "theory of evolution" is the truth... it is an accepted among the greatest of minds across are planet as the truth. The problem is science is new and scripture is old... people have a hard time letting go of the past. [/quote]


OMG... I mean OMP (Oh My Particle) there's a new book! Every couple years someone writes a new book claiming to prove Evolution / The Bible / Big Foot / Koran / Aliens etc. Every idea has a few books behind it. Want to prove a theory, observe it happening, or reproduce the results of it, till then it is a theory. Prove evolution... sure, I want to see something evolve, I want to see something made from nothing... can't do that yet... theory. Want to prove the bible... don't think you can do that either. Both require faith. I don't really care how many books are written on each, and I'm not really prepared to read them all (its a time issue I hope you can understand, avcanada is bad enough when I should be studying my atpls) When someone turns a particle into a universe I'll convert to the Gospel of Darwin (I'll even accept a scaled down universe). They do have that doomsday particle accelerator going these days so keep your fingers crossed. As for big foot, I don't believe the foot prints, I want to see Big Foot in a cage (King Kong style) before I buy into that one. I've got nothing against believing in evolution, but don't tell me its a fact until you can prove it scientifically, not just make a nice argument. People can make a nice argument for most anything, there are a lot of people here still waiting for the up coming pilot shortage. There are some good arguments for it, I'll believe it when I see pilot recruitment agents knocking on the door of my local flight school. It is all a belief till proven beyond a doubt.


I gotta learn to stay away from the misc forum, real time killer! Nice to see everyone getting along here so far though lol.

[trampbike]

Evolution is not a theory. The theory is that of the natural selection. Evolution has been proven for a while. Even a bit before Darwin it was a well accepted fact among scientists.

Science requires no other faith than that of the scientific method. Once you accept the scientific method, you do not have to beleive in any of his result (of course, the method has to be respected, we all know science is a man activity, so it can be used wrongly), you now know.
Just like in maths, you have some axioms, and you build theorems based on these unprovable axioms (they can not be proven, it's part of their definition). If you do not "beleive" in a theorem, then prove it wrong. (btw, if you prove it wrong, then it was not a theorem, it was only a conjecture). If you can't do that, then accept it, or reject the whole axiomatuic system (hence why I said: you better not get into an airplane ever again).

Don't they even refer to it as "The theory of evolution" in the text books? Evolution is just another religion in that it requires faith. It only differs in that it doesn't ask/require its believers to do anything or follow some moral code. It is the belief that your origins come from a particle and an explosion. For something to be a scientific fact, it requires observation, and there are a serious lack of witnesses to the big bang / fish crawling out of water etc. On top of that for it to be proven it has to be repeatable, and so far we haven't seen that yet either. Evolution has just as much scientific backing as most religions out there. It is a very convenient thing to believe though as it is fairly politically correct, and easy to subscribe to since you don't have to do anything aka, moral code, traditions, ceremony's, suicide bombings bla bla bla. On the other hand, it does conclude that life is meaningless (you're just particle dust / former walking fish / ape etc, and there is no afterlife) so do what ever you want that makes you happy for the moment.

Most of the thing in our universe are observable, but not with the naked eyes. If your naked eyes are your only tool to evaluate the validity of theories, then please never get into science, and stop trying to argue just like what you say makes sense and has weight.

[Slats]

From Bill Maher's "Religulous":

I'm not religious but Bill Maher is nothing more than a smug prick. He is every bit as bad as the people he judges, mocks and refers to condescendingly in the trash that he puts out. In fact he might be even worse because he's probably a bigger hypocrite and he's not nearly as funny as he thinks he is. He falls right in line with the groups that loudly try to push their beliefs on others. They should all just shut up and keep their beliefs to themselves unless asked to share, Bill Maher included.

[TG]

I remember reading this here in Avcanada:

In the dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in a pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind old men as guides. -Heinrich Heine

vrrotate, your guide dog is waiting for you. It will show you the path of evolution

[DeltaHotel]

It is inconceivable to me that this day and age; ''most'' people are still beleivers in a higher power. I think this is a social disgrace!

It is unacceptable to me that our leaders (politicians) are still often guided by beleifs in the supernatural. (US especially)
Only RELIGION can give us all the answers and provide NO evidence for them.

The enlighten minds in our society know better and will accept that there are things that science cannot explain ....yet.

Religion is a result of children indoctrination ... really fascinating how 99% of children have the same religion of their parents.

The Theory of Evolution by Natural selection is a theory that simplifies itself with every step back in time while the GOD theory is a theory that gets more more complex ( i.e God must be an infinitely complex being, therefore the being that created God would have to be even more complex than that ... and on and on )

IT IS TIME FOR ATHEIST TO SPEAK UP and ''get out of the closet''

I highly recommend 2 books:
-The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins
-Letter to a Christian Nation, by Sam Harris


fly safe

[BibleMonkey]

I'm still trying to find out where the big bang came from or what caused it?..."

Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas


http://beta.thehindu.com/sci-tech/article321718.ece
Step ahead in search for God particle

....It is the analysis of this data that could lead to the discovery of the Higgs boson, also called as the ‘God particle’, that is believed to have existed when the universe was born, said Prof Satyaki Bhattacharya of Delhi University who is involved in the LHC experiment.

Researchers will sift through the subatomic debris of proton collisions for signs of extra dimensions that will bolster belief in “supersymmetry”, a theory that doubles the number of particle species in the universe.....
...CERN Director General Rolf Heuer said scientists hope by the end of this year to make discoveries into the mysterious dark matter that they believe comprises a quarter of the whole universe. The better understood visible universe makes up only five per cent of the universe.

Dark matter has been theorised by scientists to account for missing mass and bent light in faraway galaxies. They believe it makes galaxies spin faster.

A separate entity called ‘dark energy’ makes up the remaining 70 per cent of the universe, and this is understood to be associated with the vacuum that is evenly distributed in space and time. It is believed to accelerate the expansion of the universe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgsless_model

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_1.1#Text


Just pick any one and run with it...

So, where did the God partical / Dark Matter / ___insert other concept____ come from?

No idea. A good argument can be made that it's unimportant though.

A "beginning" is just an artificial construct that your ( our ) cerebral cortex makes.

Like a defective lens trying to see across a distance-we're questioning the defects that arise in the instrument.

" Since there exists in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no longer any sections which represent "now" objectively, the concepts of happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet complicated. It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of a three dimensional existence".......

..."...for us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one."~Albert Einstein

" So, where did the God partical / Dark Matter / ___insert other concept____ come from?"

It always was there. There was no beginning. ( Or now. Or end ). Those are just smudges on the instrument we use to view reality.

*takes deep toke on wildwood weed. It grows wild onna farm. eh.

[iflyforpie]

Religion is a result of children indoctrination ... really fascinating how 99% of children have the same religion of their parents.

Source? I find most children of hard-core religious people wind up rebelling. It is also interesting to note that outspoken atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair, has a son who is a Baptist preacher.

The challenging thing (IMHO) I find is people cannot bare in their minds the thought of maybe everything they've known to be true....is actually ALL wrong.

This is the crux of this entire debate. Each side is so convinced they are right that the thought that they might be wrong doesn't even occur to most. (except you agnostics ).

Take what you have written down (or read, which supports your views) and insert the view you oppose. You might be startled at what you read... I have read The Greatest Show on Earth and while it had quite a few interesting points; I found it to be as dogmatic and the tone as biased as many religious writings...

The trouble with any belief system is there are always large holes. Reconciling a 6000 year old Earth with the fossil evidence we've uncovered so far seems to me to be no more challenging than trying to merge Quantum Physics with General Relativity.