The way you just phrased that is going to be make this thread burst into flames. Please remember:

Science ≠ != <> NOT EQUALS Atheism

[edit] to make my point stand out

No reason to believe? Since when did you need a particular reason to believe in a religious matter?

I can't understand why people would expect Creationists to prove their points in the first place. And likewise I don't understand why Creationists would be fooled by their "opponents" into trying to prove their belief.

I read a very interesting article about this stuff from a popular science magazine I'm subscribing to. According to studies average Americans know more about science than average Europeans. Yet why then are there masses of the so called "scientific creationists" in America yet they are totally missing in most of Europe? According to that article the reason is that Americans know religions poorly, worse than Europeans.

It's very interesting. Almost a paradox, but not quite after more careful thinking. It makes sense people who know less about religion advocate the strangest points of it more strongly.

There's no reason to believe in a life-consuming/controlling belief system?

Apart from it gives someone hope/a will to live when they believe theres a higher power, a place to go when you die and all that jazz?

Believing in a religion is fine, but in these bloody debates people end up ignoring regular people that have faith and go straight to claiming everyone is a damn zealot or extremist.

As for me, there's a lack of an option in the poll for I don't really know.

Well, I may have worded my answer poorly, but I mainly meant there doesn't need to be any concrete reason, like evidence, to believe in something religious. There only needs to exist a need or wish to believe. Reason as a word has such a broad meaning.

I don't know...
I mean I want to say yes but at the same time no.. not sure

Let's turn it into black and white so we can become the media's b*tch instead of coming up with sensible ideas.

You read the "No" option wrong.

I don't have a problem with creationists, I just think they're kooks and as long as they aren't working in fields of science then it's totally harmless. But if they're going to try and push creationism into school science lessons then of course someone has to ask "Where's the evidence?". And if they can't provide anything more than hand-waving, knackered old canards refuted 20 years ago and arguments from incredulity then I don't expect it to be covered in science lessons.
It is a popular talking point though and would probably be worth covering at some point in comparative religion classes, and while they're at it they can look at all the different creation stories from all the world religions and perhaps see that each one is about as legitimate as the other when taken literally.

I think its perfectly possible to believe in creation and evolution. I can understand why people think its nuts that there is one clear deity who has started the whole process off but both sides are looking at 'it' in completely different ways.

You have to understand that Christians are not looking from a scientific point of view. I can hear "Yes, of course you're not" about be typed as I write this

Let me explain, Christians believe in the Bible. Why, you might ask? Foolishly following an old book from thousands of years ago because your parents told you to? You could look at that and think that its blind belief - antiquated faith in an ancient book. The reason I believe in the Bible is that in the short time that I've been around on planet earth, applying the Bible to everyday situations and life actually works. My relationships are better for it, my personality is better for it, I'm more patient, forgiving, confident etc. Its like i'm gradually improving day by day. No one wants to get old in our society, I can't WAIT till i'm older because I'm going to be so much more controlled and filled with good qualities than right now. I realise you can only take my word for this so maybe you won't believe me but hey. The reason that Christians are so focused on the Bible is that we see the effects of it happening in our lives and peoples lives around us.

What is very interesting is to look at people who have been Christians for years. You can really see an amazing example of how God has transformed their lives, provided for them day by day. I've been brought up a Christian all my life, but i've not really been living as a Christian until maybe a few years ago. I joined a church back in January but even in such a short space of time the effects on my life have been very noticeable.

I get the impression that most of you see Christians as having been brought up as Christians all their lives. There are a lot of Christians I know here in the UK who have just recently become Christians. Why, because they're weak and needy? They need to fill that need with some illusion of a God who loves them and will feel better if they believe in some rubbish to make them believe in a better future? Seeing the change in some people's lives, confidence levels, security in themselves, self image, fighting addictions, rebuilding relationships; its pretty incredible. Thats not just the power of self talk and believing in 'something'. Its the power of Jesus Christ having an effect, healing and rebuilding people's lives.

I don't normally post in these sort of threads very much because they tend to degenerate rather rapidly into arguments, I just thought some of you maybe hadn't heard that before ^^

For most of you, everything has to be proven at least beyond reasonable doubt before you will believe in something. This is a logical approach and I agree, completely sensible. The difference with God is that you have to let go of that. When you do that, that is exactly the point when you WILL see the effect on your life and the lives around you which will then go on to act as proof for his existence.

Sats

Fantasy books allow us to see a world with an established set of rules that can show us more about ourselves and the condition of humanity. You need those characters to be real in order to get the same meaning out of the book? Metaphorical morality stories don't need to be true to be thoughtful, and it's confusing that you need that jump of faith to receive some kind of meaning out of the stories. If anyone who reads the bible takes absolutely everything in it as absolute truth, and doesn't see any metaphor, than they're obviously brain dead. But if you realize there's boxes full of metaphor in that book, as most modern and laid back Christians do, why would you see the most fantastic parts of the bible as absolutely true?

After watching Rocky it made me want to do something with my life. When I saw Rocky II I learned that even when you're on top you still have to try and train hard and not become complacent and just expect to win. I applied this to university. I got great grades in year 1 but didn't let it go to my head and still really tried the next 2 years and came out with a first. [/semi-serious]

Doesn't mean there's any divine force involved. The bible is the same. I'm not saying it cant teach morals or virtues, but I see no reason to connect those with a divine entity and no reason for a book of fairy tales to be taken as anything but that, or to somehow prove Gods existence. God is as real as the mirror in snow white.

Why is this thread two pages?

Creation shmreation. The only good creation is a female creation. <3

[This post has absolutely no purpose other than to be a jerk.]

I think the terribly dense horrible people are the ones that think everyone should just be complacent. That I should always just accept everyone elses beliefs, no matter how dumb they sound.

Or that we should let people use unreality as a basis for national law. Religious moral policing on the grounds of sexuality, right to birth, and medical research seems pretty retarded when you consider the bible a bunch of fairy tales.

The denseness starts at insults, both of the people who believe it and the religion itself.

Which is what every single religious discussion on this forum turns in to. Which is why I'm wondering why it's not closed yet.

It's not closed yet because nobody has really broken any rules.

Your mini-modding aside, just because people are disagreeing with you doesn't mean a thread should be closed.

It was created with the sole reason to start an arguement because someone was "Bored."

That's trolling, iirc.

I'm with Roach on this one.



Because — unlike you — most of us need a reason to believe in God/Gods/god/gods, and proof is a pretty good reason.



The entire continent of Europe has been ravaged detrimentally by religion for millenna. It's no wonder they have a poor view of religion.

I belong to the church, but I'm a Christian in name only. And thus I belong to the church for cultural reasons, not religious. 80+% of the Finns belong to this church - so you might understand why it's somewhat natural to remain there for the rest of my days even without any religious interests. So, I wasn't talking about myself, if you happened to get that manner of an idea from my post. That means I'm actually with you here; I'd need a good reason.



Heh. Well, that might be true, and then we can assume that once America has been ravaged by the rising religious conflicts a couple of times (I guess it has already started), then your views might slowly change to the more relaxed ones prevalent here. It's a tough road.

I know, I said that.



Yes, many unalive things in the galaxy are incredible. But they all follow specific physical rules. Crystals don't need anything special to form, they just do. Mountains form as tectonic plates shift. They're massive and incredible events, but are perfectly within the realm physics as we know it.

But a living organism being created out of non-living matter? That just seems really far fetched to me.

I'm not denying that it may have happened. But it's pretty damn impossible to prove.

Huh? I've got news for you. In the typical human body:

oxygen 43 kg 37 L 33.5 cm
carbon 16 kg 7.08 L 19.2 cm
hydrogen 7 kg 98.6 L 46.2 cm
nitrogen 1.8 kg 2.05 L 12.7 cm
calcium 1.0 kg 645 mL 8.64 cm
phosphorus 780 g 429 mL 7.54 cm
potassium 140 g 162 mL 5.46 cm
sulfur 140 g 67.6 mL 4.07 cm
sodium 100 g 103 mL 4.69 cm
chlorine 95 g 63 mL 3.98 cm
magnesium 19 g 10.9 mL 2.22 cm
iron 4.2 g 0.53 mL 8.1 mm
fluorine 2.6 g 1.72 mL 1.20 cm
zinc 2.3 g 0.32 mL 6.9 mm
silicon 1.0 g 0.43 mL 7.5 mm
rubidium 0.68 g 0.44 mL 7.6 mm
strontium 0.32 g 0.13 mL 5.0 mm
bromine 0.26 g 64.2 µL 4.0 mm
lead 0.12 g 10.6 µL 2.2 mm
copper 72 mg 8.04 µL 2.0 mm
aluminum 60 mg 22 µL 2.8 mm
cadmium 50 mg 5.78 µL 1.8 mm
cerium 40 mg 4.85 µL 1.7 mm
barium 22 mg 6.12 µL 1.8 mm
iodine 20 mg 4.06 µL 1.6 mm
tin 20 mg 3.48 µL 1.5 mm
titanium 20 mg 4.41 µL 1.6 mm
boron 18 mg 7.69 µL 2.0 mm
nickel 15 mg 1.69 µL 1.2 mm
selenium 15 mg 3.13 µL 1.5 mm
chromium 14 mg 1.95 µL 1.3 mm
manganese 12 mg 1.61 µL 1.2 mm
arsenic 7 mg 1.21 µL 1.1 mm
lithium 7 mg 13.1 µL 2.4 mm
cesium 6 mg 3.2 µL 1.5 mm
mercury 6 mg 0.44 µL 0.8 mm
germanium 5 mg 0.94 µL 1.0 mm
molybdenum 5 mg 0.49 µL 0.8 mm
cobalt 3 mg 0.34 µL 0.7 mm
antimony 2 mg 0.30 µL 0.7 mm
silver 2 mg 0.19 µL 0.6 mm
niobium 1.5 mg 0.18 µL 0.6 mm
zirconium 1 mg 0.15 µL 0.54 mm
lanthanium 0.8 mg 0.13 µL 0.51 mm
gallium 0.7 mg 0.12 µL 0.49 mm
tellurium 0.7 mg 0.11 µL 0.48 mm
yttrium 0.6 mg 0.13 µL 0.51 mm
bismuth 0.5 mg 51 nL 0.37 mm
thallium 0.5 mg 42 nL 0.35 mm
indium 0.4 mg 55 nL 0.38 mm
gold 0.2 mg 10 nL 0.22 mm
scandium 0.2 mg 67 nL 0.41 mm
tantalum 0.2 mg 12 nL 0.23 mm
vanadium 0.11 mg 18 nL 0.26 mm
thorium 0.1 mg 8.5 nL 0.20 mm
uranium 0.1 mg 5.3 nL 0.17 mm
samarium 50 µg 6.7 nL 0.19 mm
beryllium 36 µg 20 nL 0.27 mm
tungsten 20 µg 1.0 nL 0.10 mm

Do you really think it's a coincidence that Oxygen is the most prevalent element in the Earth's crust as well as our bodies?

I don't see why that's news.

In fact I just read on wiki that oxygen would impair the creation of organic molecules.

Well obviously most of the oxygen is in the form of water...

I'm wondering what "living matter" is. Please explain.

Echomans laughing his *** off right now. So am i.

Free I don't really know. I haven't studied any of this. I'm saying it's hard for me to believe.

imsoshort gives coal to the fire of darwinism.

So do you.

I started it with the intent that it would turn into a debate. Thousands of threads on all sorts of forums started that way.

Trolling is posting with the purpose of provoking and angry response. I have done no such thing.

Take a quick look at every single religious thread on this forum. Every one turns into a ****-throwing contest. How can you create a religious discussion because you're "bored" without knowing what it'll evidently turn into?

Insulting religion is just fine, though i'd prefer if it were justified with an argument. Insulting people isn't fine. However here are a list of adjectives that aren't insults:

- Uneducated
- Deluded
- Naive
- Ignorant
- Foolish

If you call me any of those things and justify it, not only will I seriously consider your words but I may even agree with you and do something about it.

I am genuinely concerned about the effect religion has on politics and moral beliefs, as such I will argue against religion whenever I so feel inclined.

omgz leik so duz ur mom,k?

You're just proving my point.

What he's trying to say is that there's no difference between living matter and nonliving matter. They're all systems of the same molecules.

Someone had to get the ball rolling. I honestly believe that I made a good attempt at being unbiased.


I disagree. I believe that at this point in time, the supernatural has no place in science. Unfortunately, many scientists are proving to be as easily misguided as the average Joe. Luckily, most of these scientists don't reside in fields where it actually matters.


"Reason" and "Religion" shouldn't be used in the same sentence. Your statement sums it up quite well. You don't need reason to believe in a religious matter, because believing in a religious matter is unreasonable.


I don't expect Creationists to prove anything and they're doing a very good job at that. It's just frustrating for those of us that do try to use reason and logic to have to sit back and watch an entire country (USA) full of unreasonable people attempting to pass Creationism as science. I won't even go in to how the Evangelical movement in politics (another arena that should have absolutely nothing to do with religion).


The problem with your point of view is that people in all walks of life have had and continue to have similar results (including Atheists). I don't believe that "Jesus Christ" is the son of a God, but my life is pretty damn sweet if I may say so myself. The point is that Christians often pretend as if people of other religions or even non-believers are having horrible, misguided lives, when many of us are doing quite well, thank you very much. I'm also irritated when many Christians pretend that when an Atheist gets in to a car crash and dies that it was Gods way of using them as an example or teaching them a lesson and then a Christian gets in to a car crash and dies it was just their time to go to heaven. This irritation also applies to the exact opposite...when Christians survive a horrible car crash, it must have something to do with God...not the rescuers or doctors involved. I guess if an Atheist survives a bad car crash it's just luck? Bah...this is just an example...

Oh, and this is coming from someone who was raised as a Christian for 16 years.


More far-fetched that an always-existing deity with magic powers that are able to transcend the laws of physics?



...and that's bad, how?

That also bothers me. "Something can't come from nothing, DUR. It came from this guy in this book."

The one that bothers me most is this one:

Atheist: "How do you know that god exists?"
Theist: "It says so in the bible"
Atheist: "Why do you believe the bible?"
Theist: "It's the word of God"

so god exists because god exists

.