Religion and Science, Creationism Vs Evolution Options

[alexocfp]

I think your the last sentence goes a long way in believing or not. If you are comfortable in the fact that when you die the lights go out and that's it, no afterlife no nothing then there really isn't anything to be gained by believing in a diety because the point of believing in one is largely based on a better afterlife.

[Manolara_AEKara]

You never know what's going to happen at that particular point in time, and I don't plan to find out for a loooong looooong while.

There are stories of Atheists/Agnostics sudden belief in God on their deathbeds as there are religious people losing faith.

It also depends on the way you exit. If it's instant, there is no problem. If it's slow and around the corner I'd like to think most people become afraid and grasp onto any belief to feel better.

Believing in an afterlife also works both ways. You can live your life as a preparation for the afterlife (ie denial of death) or you can live your life knowing there is an end and living your life with no limitations.

[Rtasos21]

I find atheists are very limited in their thinking. And the point was brought up earlier that it is cool to be Atheist, while Christians are constantly ridiculed because we are an easier target than the Muslims or Jews. Very true.

To me it all makes sense. We support a system that is truly Satanic. The Bible mentions how we sin everyday and understandably so. We pay taxes, we fill our gas tanks to prop up the richest people in the world who tip the balance of the economy and can get away scotfree, while we fight their wars, and we elect their puppets to power.

Sure science can explain a lot of our origins, but it can not explain our existence the way religion can. The Christian explanation is that God created the Universe, the Earth and all known to existence in 7 days, and on the 7th day he rested. We are also made in His image. Science will state that over the course of billions of years after our universe was created, our solar system was, our planet, the land masses emerging and then life evolving to where are today. Truly, you can divide these different stages the way the Bible does, and no one ever mentioned that 1 day according to God is 24 hours.

Lucifer wanted to overpower God, so God damned him and sent him down from the heavens. Satan therefore is the one who is manipulating us unknowingly to support his system and take us away from God. He is trying to make us in his image. Look at what society makes us idolize and discourage. God rested on this day and gave us free will remember. So what did He do?

He sent his son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to save us, so only those who follow him will be accepted to heaven. I don't think this is only limited to Christians because Muslims believe a lot of what Christ taught, they just refuse to believe that He is the son of God. The Muslims are the fastest growing religion and it's unfortunate that a few bad apples cause terror and wreck their image. Just like there are a few bad apples who are warmongering Christians (Rick Santorum).

Besides, what are the odds of our existence? Simply a miracle. Where did life come from? What actually gives life? Life can't come from non-living things, so how does evolution explain that?

[Aphrodite's ...]

I find atheists are very limited in their thinking.

That's about as stupid as a comment I've heard. Yeah, basing your world view on a variety of influences is 'limited' but basing your view on one sole book is 'open'?

Jesus Christ, give me a break.

This post has been edited by Aphrodite's Child: Apr 10 2012, 12:27 PM

[Manolara_AEKara]

Lucifer wanted to overpower God, so God damned him and sent him down from the heavens. Satan therefore is the one who is manipulating us unknowingly to support his system and take us away from God. He is trying to make us in his image. Look at what society makes us idolize and discourage. God rested on this day and gave us free will remember. So what did He do?

This is the part I don't understand. God sounds too human ie imperfect. If you think about it, there is no possible reason for Lucifer to exists since God created everything. But in the event He did create Lucifer, God is playing a 'sick game' with man.

Reminds me of the parable where God made a 'bet' with Lucifer about one of God's followers... why would God bother? Sounds like something a human would do.

You have free will, we all do. Even the kids in Africa. Want to become a monk? Become a monk. Want to become the president? Become the president. Want to play soccer? Play soccer. Don't like society? Change it. Want to escape your war torn country? There will be difficulties, but you can. Society doesn't make you do anything, it's choice that determines what a man can or can't do.

[londrezos]

RTasos21, your last sentence. "what are the odds of our existence? Simply a miracle" - this is so true and should never be overstated. The universe shows incredibly that it is perfectly fine tuned for life to take place. Here are some numbers just to give some perspective on how fine-tuned the universe is for existence of intelligent life. "Fine-tuned" DOES NOT MEAN "designed", but it gives a great argument to support that the range of life-permitting values of constants in our universe is so narrow:

There are several fundamental forces of nature necessary to sustain life.


The "weak force" within the nucleus of an atom is so finely tuned that an alteration of its value by one part out of 10^100 (1 followed by 100 zeros) would not permit life on earth.

The "cosmological constant" which drives the acceleration of the universe's expansion is finely tuned so that a change by one part in 10^120 would render the universe uninhabitable.

Roger Penrose of Oxford University calculated that the odds of the "low-entropy state" existing by chance alone is 10^1230. This is also needed to sustain life.

---------------------------------------------------------

I know it sounds weak to throw a load of numbers at people and expect them to believe in some design, but this is the language scientists and atheist love to speak in. By comparison and just to give a little perspective to those numbers above and to see how improbable it is to believe in a "random life sustaining universe" look at these numbers:

10^17....The number of seconds in the entire history of the universe

10^80....The number of subatomic particles in the entire known universe

10^60....The odds of firing a bullet toward the other side of the observable universe 20 billion light years away and hitting a one-inch target.

[aek66]

the role of the church during greece's economic crisis, the pharmacist who committed suicide and orthodox brotherhood could all somehow overlap...if history repeats itself. not sure where to post this, as this post isn't a 'God exists vs. doesn't exist', post.

i think that red sheriff, iltibas and red devil brought up issues about the church should be examined, especially in a historical sense.

we look at our orthodox brothers in russia. how for centuries, the church was THE liason - and a successful one at that, for the czars and nobility - between millions of religious peasants/serfs and the power of the kremlin.

over the centuries, why did generations of hundreds of millions of peasants/serfs, accept their miserable existance? how did a tiny percentage of russia manipulate the majority into keeping their aristocratic status?

for centuries, the church preached "give to ceasar what is ceasar's" along with the "don't lament about what you lack in this life, worry about the next life".

in exchange for keeping the peasant/serf majority tamed, clergy where given all the food they could fit in their guts along with all the 14 year old virgin peasant girls they could deflower. when the revolution came centuries later, the church got hit and got hit very hard for centuries of being in cahoots with the nobility.

in modern greece's case, does the greek govt. give the church something other than food and virginal girls to keep the govt. off churchgoers' minds? is there a reason priests, bishops and archbishops wail about the evil imf or the evil nazis stealing gold but remain silent about corrupt politicians and cheating citizens?

am i holding the wrong end of the stick or is there even the most faintest of connections?

[Rtasos21]

I find atheists are very limited in their thinking.

That's about as stupid as a comment I've heard. Yeah, basing your world view on a variety of influences is 'limited' but basing your view on one sole book is 'open'?

Jesus Christ, give me a break.

Limited as in they only see the world as whats in front of them and not above and beyond the short lifespan we have here. Very nice of you to use the Lord's name in vain on Holy week.

[Rtasos21]

Londreze, I don't discedit science at all, in fact I have an appreciation for it. Although I don't understand much of it, I know there are scientists who dedicate their lives figuring this stuff out. My point is just that for all of it to exist can not just be completely random. Why me and you are alive is beyond a miracle given that our ancestors could have married someone else or died in a war or something. I just think we are all here for a reason beyond our own knowledge, but we all figure out our reason and passions and who we are eventually throughout life.

Manoli you have a good point, we do have free will, but realistically we also have limitations. Not anyone can become president because they want to. Remember we support a system everyday unknowingly and ignorantly that wages war and causes poverty and unanswered deaths due to diseases to exist. God might sound imperfect, but remember Lucifer is very very deceptive. We believe a lot of things in this life that are good, which actually are bad. You don't see it in front of you when you fill up your gas tank, but do you know how many people were killed so you can have your gas at such a low price?

[Aphrodite's ...]

Limited as in they only see the world as whats in front of them and not above and beyond the short lifespan we have here. Very nice of you to use the Lord's name in vain on Holy week.

What is more 'limited', sticking to what you can scientifically prove, or believing things that may or more likely may not be true, because they make you feel better?

[alexocfp]

I find atheists are very limited in their thinking.

That's about as stupid as a comment I've heard. Yeah, basing your world view on a variety of influences is 'limited' but basing your view on one sole book is 'open'?

Jesus Christ, give me a break.

no doubt there are things in the bible that read like science fiction.

When I started doubting was when I was in bible class in greek school and was told not to question its contents. It stuck with me as i got older. I also hated the fact that any unexplained questions were answered by saying that its was not meant to be taken literally in that case.

If adam and eve were the first 2 people on earth then we are descendants of incestuous relationships because in order to populate the earth, the kids had to have had sex which each other. There is no way around that fact.

If life expectancy was about 30 years back then, how can you keep a pair of every animal in an ark for a month and guarantee they will survive? The early explorers in boats died through diseases on boats and you are telling me all the animals would have lived with no medicine and in all that filth? In a flood that destroyed all of the earth this ark survived unscathed when magellan with more modern navigation devices lost 80% of his crew crossing the pacific 1500 years later?

Also how long would it take to clear a flood of that size? Where would noah find materials to build a house on top of a mountain. How would an ark stand upright on a mountain anyway?

I would love to see any huge 400 foot boat today survive that kind of flood. The titanic hit an iceberg and sank and a boat built in BC ages survived that extinction flood?

This post has been edited by alexocfp: Apr 10 2012, 01:44 PM

[Manolara_AEKara]

The oil extracted from the ground, the plastics in the manufacture of the keyboard I am typing on, the monitor I am seeing on, the slave labour of my ipad and ipod, the executives Lamborghini they paid off, the prostitues they cheated on their wives with, the drugs they bought with that money, the gun the dealer bought with that money, the gun that killed a kid etc etc.
The blood spilled by millions of people to keep us free from tyranny. The lives sacrificed physically, mentally and spiritually for everything around us to exist. I see it all.

Without pain and sacrifice we would have nothing. Without garbagemen we would have too much garbage. With no leadership we would be lost. The system you hate IS you. Barack Obama, Michael Jordan, Warren Buffet, George Soros, Mike Tyson, Ghandi, Martin Luther King are not aliens, they are people like you and me made up from the same material and probably even came from worse circumstances to be where they are. They didn't have to do anything at all, but they chose to do what they did.

Factor in all the probability that you and I exist, which should lead to around a googolplex, and compare it to the time we waste watching Kim Kardashian have a wardrobe malfunction. Now that is puzzling and disturbing.

[londrezos]

What is more 'limited', sticking to what you can scientifically prove, or believing things that may or more likely may not be true, because they make you feel better?

Please explain the bolded part, why you feel the Bible is "more likely not to be true". Since you feel so strongly that your are correct, I would expect you to have a strong defense of this statement. So go for it.

[PPFRESH]

Religion has been a big mind fuck for me. I am a believer that Christ died for our sins, but, I struggle with my faith from time-to-time. I meet most priests' words with some derision, however. I do not believe most of them...I have a Bishop that I dine with from time-to-time. I trust him because he is so normal as a person: he studied film before he was tonsured and has some real cool elements to him. He travels far and wide to soup kitchens to feed the poor...

Generally, we discuss the world and how Christians are being persecuted for their beliefs. There has to be some reason for this persecution, right?

The Old Testament is quite boring reading and I never for once believed in it.

The New Testament is full of splendid information about a wonderful human who lived a pious life and was rewarded for it.

I am not the most attentive Churchgoer, but I am attentive to the Way.

I once put blinders on myself and believed in more scientific ventures, but fell back to God.

I have always been sensitive to my religion and those that poked fun at it as it seemed logical to me that one who would make fun of religion in such a way may have an axe to grind. Those that make fun of tele evangelists and southern baptists seem to continue their war against Orthodox christians.

I often wonder why Orthodox Christians come under such scrutiny from other religions or sects of Christianity. Do those fighting Greek monks in Jerusalem know something that their contemporaries, coptic or otherwise do not? Why do pious men like to fight. I would like to hear from one of them some of the mysteries of our Church.

I had a client who would talk religion with me, he a Lutheran. He was too religions. He would not bend his opinion and took the bible literally. I had mad respect for him, but I thought he was mad. He did not believe in banks and abhorred the government, so he lived in poverty. He died a few months ago, so maybe the Lord is watching over him. I can only hope so.

This post has been edited by PPFRESH: Apr 10 2012, 02:48 PM

[biganj]

thats why its called, faith

[Guest_porman_*]

Faith is one thing. Blind faith is another.

Please explain the bolded part, why you feel the Bible is "more likely not to be true". Since you feel so strongly that your are correct, I would expect you to have a strong defense of this statement. So go for it.

Wait, let me get this straight. You ask him to prove that something that isn't there, doesn't exist as opposed to the opposite?
In that case, you can't prove that a pink elephant orbits around the sun?

This post has been edited by porman: Apr 10 2012, 05:11 PM

[RED SHERIFF]

Limited as in they only see the world as whats in front of them and not above and beyond the short lifespan we have here. Very nice of you to use the Lord's name in vain on Holy week.

sounds like the guys who knock on our doors in black suits.......carrying books in their hands..

and yes...how did Noah find a kangaroo? Did he come all the way to Australia or did he send an SOS for a couple to hop to Armenia/Turkey/Middle East

[Aphrodite's ...]

Please explain the bolded part, why you feel the Bible is "more likely not to be true". Since you feel so strongly that your are correct, I would expect you to have a strong defense of this statement. So go for it.

Porman pretty much answered it.

I cannot 100% disprove the Bible's supernatural claims, however, you cannot disprove there is a giant teapot circling the Sun. This is why what you have is called 'faith' because it takes a 'leap of faith'. You're 100% entitled to your faith, and nobody here is going to stop you, providing you don't try and blur the lines between 'religion' and 'science'.

This post has been edited by Aphrodite's Child: Apr 10 2012, 05:31 PM

[Rtasos21]

What is more 'limited', sticking to what you can scientifically prove, or believing things that may or more likely may not be true, because they make you feel better?

I believe science can answer a lot, but not everything.

[Aphrodite's ...]

In my opinion, science can answer everything, Humans with their current resources cannot.