Glad I'm using one of my last few posts til' my millenium on something important in my mind :).
Hmm… No way. The bible is still valid in SOME points. At least the original scripts and even a fraction of the translated and edited material have philosophical and historical significance. Philosophical, because one can see how people had the same questions about life, the universe, and everything 10000 years ago, and how we still keep on asking the same questions. Historically, because it shows how early humans developed. Just as an example, the number pie (3.14… ) is mentioned in the bible, when humans didn't even have the knowledge/intelligence to calculate the number by themselves. And I trust radiocarbon dating to be very very accurate…
Spiritually, the bible is still the number one book sold. But then again, you have to admit - no other book has caused so much controversy. No other book has caused wars, paradigm shifts and other significant events. At least no book on science I know of…
The bible is still valid in SOME points. At least the original scripts and even a fraction of the translated and edited material have philosophical and historical significance.
True, it could be valid in some points, but the problem is, is seperating the valid points from the unvalid points, and in a book of, say 600 pages (Guess…) with every page surrounded by claims of sightings/happenings that came to us all from one single book, there have been no memories passed on through the centuries, there has been nothing except for 600 pages and a lot of ink. Seperating the valid from invalid would prove very very difficult. Also having that as a basis of religions spread worldwide, seems to me like a water-tower held up by one stand, it's bound to fall over.
And I trust radiocarbon dating to be very very accurate…
What is radiocarbon dating…? :). I'm guessing that is has something to do with the Earth, and what does that have to do with Pi? :).
Spiritually, the bible is still the number one book sold. But then again, you have to admit - no other book has caused so much controversy. No other book has caused wars, paradigm shifts and other significant events. At least no book on science I know of..
As you say later on, people surround themselves with religion, and the, "If you're not with us, you're against us" starts. All these wars happen because of religious fanatics that don't accept anyone that isn't following their religion. And as far as I know, no wars have been started because of atheists :).
Well, for one thing, it's just a theory and hasn't been proven yet. And plus, it's based on subjective facts. If you like it or not, science isn't objective. It's subjective, because HUMANS interpret the data. HUMANS develop theories. Objective computers are still too dumb to do it. And plus, if science can't tell what happened before the big bang, the entire theory ammounts to nothing because it doesn't really help in figuring out the ultimate origin of people. All it basically tells me is that the universe is constantly expanding. Maybe it isn't expanding, but matter is shrinking? It all depends on perspective. Maybe our world is entirely subjective and all that really counts are your beliefs. I've got the impression that it is.
Some people could call religion a theory as well, it also has not been proved, and I repeat, it's all based on a single book, while science on the other hand uses facts, and attempts to really discover the truth. So in my mind, science is trying to work toward discovering the real truth, while religion, they're afraid of the possibility of not having a God, they don't want to know the truth. And if science does stumble upon that truth, their religion/most religions will crumble, which I believe is the reason that religious people try to, "diss" science, they try to discontinue science. (I'm not trying to stereotype if anyone feels offended…)
And plus, if science can't tell what happened before the big bang, the entire theory ammounts to nothing because it doesn't really help in figuring out the ultimate origin of people. All it basically tells me is that the universe is constantly expanding. Maybe it isn't expanding, but matter is shrinking? It all depends on perspective. Maybe our world is entirely subjective and all that really counts are your beliefs. I've got the impression that it is.
Science may not be able to tell us exactly what happened, but neither can religion. Religion is, "helping" us to find out the ultimate origin of people, it's merely giving us something to try and make us believe what happened, whether it be true or not. At least science is attempting to get the facts, and not put on a face. :).
Well, if this world were perfect, if you just had to ask and everything would happen, it would be just like heaven… If you read a bit of scripture and did your homework, you'd know that religion doesn't work that way. After all, without challenge, we'd be godlike, as HERE said. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And for the greediness and selfishness of human nature, this applies 100%. Look at politics, and see why shit happens daily. So basically, its an internal struggle to "shut out" your instincts, and become rational.
Yes, but by saving a childs life, the child's life is still not perfect, it's merely better then it was before, so God could save the childs life, without the child thinking he/she was in heaven. The child still has challenges, the child is nothing near Godlike, so I repeat:
"If he's so powerful then why doesn't he help the 40 children that die daily due to no clean water, why does he not help the people in poverty, why does he not stop Global Warming? Let me guess, let us solve our own problems? Let everyone who supports him die? I'm not sure that's a good approach."
Some may argue, humans are animals, and many times, if there is not enough food for the whole pack, the pack will start killing it's own in order for the pack to survive. They sacrifice others for the sake of everyone else. This might be Gods way of keeping the rest of us alive, how cruel it may be, I honestly don't know. For all I know, once other planets become habitable God might stop letting people die, because now there's more food for all the animals.
Also, I was just thinking, "Where did God get created, where did he come from?" Matter cannot be either created nor destroyed. So, how was God created? Is God a physical being? Or is he the diamond glint on snow? The light Autumn rain? The wind over the valleys of hay? Also, where did he get the matter to create Adam and Eve? Their garden? Science has proved that matter cannot be neither created nor destroyed, or can God alter the very basic laws of physics?
Okay, some religions are just a face. People created religions to surpress their fear of the unknown. Fear promotes irrationality. Definetly true. But - not ALL religions try to do that. You actually have to look at religions to sort out the bullshit from the stuff that is actually true. Religions has been corrupted as to keep a bunch of people with similar spiritual belief together. Reason being, so that in difficult times (i.e. war, famine, etc.) they wouldn't kill each other. Most religions did this by manipulating people with their worst fear (i.e. fear of the unknown). This banding together also resulted in the effect of the "if you're not with us, you're against us" mentality. Fanaticism is the worst thing that can happen to religion, but it's inevitable, with this 13th century attitude. Today, this is a problem, because the world is international. In a way, atheism is a new international religion with this attitude against nonatheists (i.e. trying to disprove their religion). But it's a religion which uses science as "The face" to shut out fears.
But if you look at the big picture, this entire system is just a wrapper. Inside the shell is always the same: A spiritual component that is ALWAYS the same, no matter at which religion you look. The only thing that's different is the wrapper and the way this wrapper is connected to the spiritual component.
The thing is, religious people or scientific people don't look at this spiritual component. It's sorta like believing in/criticising the color of a car instead of looking under the hood and seeing whats inside. Most cars have the same basic components (i.e. motor, carburator, coolant, etc.). It's the same with religions. Maybe the company name or method of presentation differ. But they're still the same basic object.
Okay, some religions are just a face.
By saying, "Some" you're basically throwing away other religions that you do not believe in?
People created religions to surpress their fear of the unknown.
Yet here you seem to contradict your previous statement and say that all religions are a face? If something is created just to stop others from seeing what's really inside, that could be called a face :).
You actually have to look at religions to sort out the bullshit from the stuff that is actually true. Religions has been corrupted as to keep a bunch of people with similar spiritual belief together.
I'm not too familair with the actual difference, but I belive that Sunnis and Shiites (Spell?) in fact believe in exactly the same thing except for one small difference. The names of Mohammad's family. (Correct me if wrong). That religion was created to keep the whole religion together, yet the fanatics who watch the details very closely started to argue, and wallah, they split up. A religion created to keep people together, eventually led to splitting up mostly because of people who believed in that religion with their whole heart.
Fanaticism is the worst thing that can happen to religion, but it's inevitable.
Totally agree with that :).
In a way, atheism is a new international religion with this attitude against nonatheists (i.e. trying to disprove their religion). But it's a religion which uses science as "The face" to shut out fears.
Faces are things that want to stop people from seeing what's really going on. While, science I repeat for the n-th time, is actually trying to discover if there is a God or not, and it's showing people along the way. That is not a face :). As for atheism, I'm not trying to offend anybody, and please do not take notice of what I say if it does in fact offend you, but I consider people that believe in some crazy religions, "silly". I'm not trying to convert people, I'm not a missionary, I'm just pointing out some things. Sometimes I wonder if God really does exist, many times I hold arguments like this in my head, they go on forever and ever. And many times I resort to just asking God, if he really does exist then make a red car come down the street next, or make me get an email from a long-lost friend next-week. Sometimes the results are coincidence, sometimes nothing comes, and sometimes things do happen. I'm torn between atheism and religion, I'm just trying to point out the flaws in both of them.
The thing is, religious people or scientific people don't look at this spiritual component. It's sorta like believing in/criticising the color of a car instead of looking under the hood and seeing whats inside. Most cars have the same basic components (i.e. motor, carburator, coolant, etc.). It's the same with religions. Maybe the company name or method of presentation differ. But they're still the same basic object.
Yet some religions have a V8 engine, instead of a V6. The V8 is a higher quality, and it's more powerful.
Science isn't BS. No one is trying to say "these theories are bullshit, I WANNA KNOW TEH TRUTH". It's just that the "wrapper" of religions has to say that they know better, so people band together. It's not their fault nor the fault of the scientists, it's the fault of a poorly designed system based on the lack of knowledge before the dawn of scientific advancement in the 17th century.
For now i will only say that science creates problems when they try to answer all the questions to the world. And when they do, they get themselves into a situation where they have to create a BS theory in order to not admit that they are wrong and that there is the possibility of a creator. I will base everything i post on later on this thread from the book, "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist," as it totally owns science and their BS theories and in return provides evidence in support of a creator.
Esteban is being hostile toward science, and calling their theories BS. The scientists that developed those theories must be BS too, and since scientists like Science, that means that science is BS, in Estebans point of view.He's also calling scientists, "wrong" when he does not have a better idea of what happened. "I will base everything i post on later on this thread from the book, "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist," as it totally owns science and their BS theories and in return provides evidence in support of a creator" Again, calling science BS, and saying his religion is superior, and others are inferior.
This is what I'm talking about, some serious believers just close down their minds to other possibilties because they're afraid that they might be wrong. I know I might be wrong, if someone gives me some cold hard facts about why Religion is superior, I might believe them, my mind is open to new possibilities. :).
Once again, I'm glad I'm using my last few posts on something that's important to me.
-Dunceiam
