Religion judged me first.
But it doesn’t take much to be an expert in “creation”, to the degree any other human is an expert in creation, though, does it? “Things were created by some God or power”. There might be a few subtleties to one particular creation story or another, but a six year old can be an expert in creation -and often are indocrinated with that very purpose.
I, personally, am an expert in creation. It didn’t literally happen. Deal with it.
I am not personally an expert in evolution; it’s MUCH more complicated than creation. So, I listen to the experts. I do have some knowledge on the subjects, and none of it contradicts the experts, so I don’t argue much. It’s not like anything bad will happen if I’m wrong, anyway.
I suppose I could go out and learn more about evolution, but just like you, I’m far too lazy to lift one finger and educate myself further on the subject. On the other hand, I don’t go around making ill-formed arguments about it, either.
I am not an expert in “the spiritual world”. I am, however, fairly conversant in what defines a crappy argument style, and what defines a lousy, unconvincing source, and what defines an illogical, unsubstantiated argument. Based on those, I have determined that, while you might be an expert in “the spiritual world”, you are certainly so inexpert in presenting and supporting your position that you have entirely failed in making me believe that you’re a spiritual expert! It’s not that I know you’re wrong about this and that and the other thing, it’s that you have utterly failed in convincing me that there’s any reason whatsoever to believe you’re right about anything you say.
I have no reason to think you’re any more an expert in “the spiritual world” than I am. So I give your “expert declarations” the same credence I give any other completely unsupported and highly improbably opinion: none.
SAo is calling someone else a “joik” in this Forum.
[ /Moderating ]
And once again the baiter goes unpunished. Sorry to have bothered you.
I like it.
The Creationist will try to worm their way out of it, of course, but it’s a simple way to illustrate to any third parties listening just what “creation science” is all about – confirmation bias.
The point is that saying “We cannot disprove creation, at least not completely. With that in mind…Why can’t both creation AND evolution be true?”, as you did, is silly. We can’t disprove an infinite number of concepts. The burdon of proof must work the other way.
It’s possible of course.
The point is, reality isn’t just the median of two popular world views. Scientists, in critically testing their ideas, give us some reason to have confidence in their models. The creationist doesn’t test her ideas, and goes with her faith. She could be right, but given the track record of faith versus science, I know what I’d bet on.
And I always like to point this out: being an atheist doesn’t close the door on discussions of morality, of a purpose to life or existence itself, or pretty much any aspect of philosophy you care to name.
I think religion often sucks in otherwise intelligent and open-minded individuals when people assume that to be an atheist is to be a moral relativist, or a nihilist, for example. When really, there is no such coupling.
Yes, you are correct, but I doubt it will make a difference.
I don’t really oppose evolution, I am more of an intelligent design advocate. In that sense God created the world by the method of evolution. I do dislike the current debates against religion by skeptical scientists. It is not their field, they don’t have the answers. So we come back to where we started. I respect your honesty, thanks.
I wonder why you think I don’t have that right. As far as the rest of my post, I thought it very simple, but I will explain. It is clear to me that religion is the best and most efficient way to seperate a person from their faith in a creator, and a reasonable amount of their earthly posessions, all in the same building.
The bible, for instance, as you pointed out, was written by man, not god. Now the bible, in its many forms, is essentially the standard operating guidelines of the Christian religion, therefore, the Christian religion is a construct of mankind, exercised, it is clear, to control the behavior of the followers of that religion, and if they haul in a tidy profit, so much the better.
My question again, of what value is the bible if it is written by man? Is it not a more pure and honest experience to connect one’s self with what one would imagine “God” to be, without the intervention of other people, rules or dogma?
Can you simply believe in Jesus Christ and the things he stood for, and act as he did in your daily life and cast aside the big giant manual, or is the manual an essential part of your daily life because without it you would not know how to act?
I think faith is something that can exist without religion, I think religion is an obstacle to pure faith in whoever you imagine “God” to be, and I think that though many people are comforted by the ritual and routine, that what we ultimately end up fighting over is not the belief and/or faith in a “God” but whose rules are the best to live with and by.
I think you are poorer in spirit for not believing something greater than you exists in the universe. You can call it God, Bhudda, Chtulu, whatever, but I think that generally speaking we are wired to be connected to the thing/person/event that intervened/happened to set us all on the course to where we are today. If you look at the intricate nature of our own circulatory system and see only a product of evolution and fail to see evidence of divinity, I feel sad for you, likewise, if you look at that same system and see ONLY divinity, that too is pitiable in my opinion.
Yes, that is true, even though Jesus asked them not to judge others. But don’t become like them, take the higher ground and forgive them, you will feel much better for it.
I understand the point. Still, what we are trying to prove or disprove is the nature of absoutely everything. I think the scope of proof would need to be so wide, so far reaching that we are not yet capable of understanding all that we need to understand, and that evolution will eventually allow us to wrap our currently tiny minds around facts we don’t yet have the ability to imagine. Of course, we need to base scientific things on scientific fact, but even the most ardent believer in the scientific process must admit at some point that there are things we a) don’t know, and b) don’t know we don’t know. ( we used to believe the world was flat, for instance) Those things can be attributed, without the evidence to deny them, to a divine source, until scientists can find the answers. I do hope I am long dead when they do. I enjoy a little mystery in my life.
I suppose that depends what you’re wagering.
I guess you don’t know me. I do believe in God, and most everything you said in your post. I do see God in everything, and feel His presense always. I don’t use faith, I know, through having a near death experience. But having said all this you and I, still don’t have the right to judge others. By judge I mean condemn, not make choices. The Bible refers to condemnation as judgement.
We must make choices as to what we believe or not. Judgement is calling others right or wrong in their beliefs. We are talking here about beliefs. As long as those beliefs do not physically harm others they have the right to hold them. There is only a thin line of opinion as to how harmful beliefs and thoughts can be. So we must use the greatest caution in our choices. Debate is good, more should be done. Condemnation is not good.
I use Bible quotes as everyone else does, when they help my cause.
Gosh that was easy.
Typical con indeed.
That was beautiful.
I think people refuting YEC might get further with a lot of people if they didn’t bring atheism into the discussion. You don’t have to be an atheist to think the universe is more than a few thousand years old. Unfortunately, a lot of people have a negative opinion (unjustified, IMO) of atheists, and bringing up atheism is bringing an extraneous, emotionally-loaded issue into the discussion. It’s an issue that allows the creationists to score some debate points that they don’t deserve. Emotion is not your friend when debating creationists- once it gets into the debate, they have shown over and over that they can use it more effectively than the side in favor of the theory of evolution can.
I don’t despise your position, so you are imagining things (maybe you have a persecution complex?). I’m not sure it requires any ‘exertion’ to respect someone else’s position, and invoking the notion of ‘exertion’ seems rather a lame excuse for not doing so. It is your choice and your responsibility, of course, whether you want to respect anyone else’s point of view, or can be bothered to do so, but either way don’t attribute your decision to something you erroneously imagine I feel or imagine I have said/written. As for whether there is a reason to respect someone’s opinion, well, I guess that’s something of a judgment call, but it seems to me that if the person’s opinion is reasonable, it’s worth respecting. I think poetical references to my soul and Satan (another entirely imaginary being), traces of a persectuion complex and this strange invocation of ‘exertion’ are all red herrings. Maybe you’re uncomfortably aware that you don’t have any sound way to rebut the point I was making.
Here, you slip from being quite confident about something to ‘knowing’ it, apparently unaware that you have no way of getting from one to the other. You can be ‘quite confident’ of anything you like, including the merits of whatever music you like, a direct personal relationship with a blue unicorn and my utter lack of veracity. But you don’t know anything at all about whether I really am lying, particularly when I’m telling you about things God has told me. Any and all statements of the structure ‘God told me that…’ have an absolutely equal truth value, in any semantic or logical system you care to name or invoke. My assertion concerning what God told me about Malacandra are just as valid as any assertion you want to make about your direct relationshiop with God, and I openly defy you to offer one shred of decent reasoning why this is not the case.
I don’t think so. In my opinion, this is a pointless analogy that doesn’t illuminate or illustrate anything.
Your interpretation is a matter for you, of course, but there seems to be another trace of a persecution complex. If someone says something that is silly or unreasonable, and you point this out, this does not constitute ‘bashing’ in any meaningful sense. I do not ‘bash’ christians or anyone else. Sometimes, people say things and I point out that what they are saying doesn’t make sense. To deliberately mis-characterise this as ‘bashing’ demonstrates a remarkable talent for missing the point and ducking the argument at one and the same time.
I know that catholics don’t claim anything about ‘bloody raw flesh’, and I never said they do. What catholics do assert is that the wafer and wine turn into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. Not a symbol, not a representation, but the actual body and blood (albeit under the guise of bread and wine). This is what I alluded to in my previous post. Any workable definition of ‘delusion’ would comfortably accommodate this absurd belief. Also, I am entititled to say that God has made a direct personal revelation to me that the catholics are wrong about this, and that the wafer and wine don’t change at all. There isn’t a catholic alive who can come up with a single good reason why my revelation from God is any less valid than what they claim to be their revelation from God.
How do you know it’s for ‘no reasons at all’ ? God might have a wonderful reason, but just one you are unable to appreciate or accept. He might be very concerned that I don’t listen to Dopers who label themselves Malacandra.
How do you know? I’m pretty sure everyone has the opportunity to persecute chosen targets all the time, in everyday life.
I wasn’t claiming any such thing. It’s religious people who do this.
I agree with you. Religious people often claim that other people are deluded (for failing to believe in the same imaginary beings that they believe in) and I would prefer it if irrational religious cults had no power at all.
I think the problem is that sometimes atheists can be just as annoying and self-righteous as the real zealots, Christian or otherwise.
Happily, there’s none of that around here.
I don’t know you, you’re right, but then I was not judging you for what you believe, rather, I gave my opinion of religion, not a living thing but a construct, an entity, a what as opposed to a who. What the bible refers to is not my concern, it is a handy book of fables, tales and parables, little more, in my opinon, and from what you’ve said, in yours too.
You can believe that if you pray to the magic carousel hippo that it will one day rain toast and jellybeans, I could care less, it’s your right to hold that belief, just as it is my right to speak my peace about it. The fact is the belief (or lack of belief) in the Christian God has killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people since it arrived on the planet. Religion has done as much harm as good IMO, if there was faith alone, with no books, no songs, no commandments, I suspect we could take the good parts of it, and leave the bad ones.
I don’t quote the bible at all, because as you said, it’s written by men, not god.
If 90% of the population believes in something downright stupid and absurd with no proof at all that it’s true, that’s the sort of thing that riles the remaining 10%.
If I loudly proclaimed the existence of zombies, sought converts to my beliefs, struggled to get zombies taught about in schools, had a zombie search at the start of each school day, got a pass on taxes, and tried to foist an utterly inane behavioral code on *everyone *because it might attract zombies. You’d be perfectly in your rights to loudly proclaim that there was indeed a maggoty pile of shit where my brain should be.
Is there some other group that does that sort of stuff? :dubious:
That is your opinion, there is no evidence that 90% of the people are wrong. Comparing Zombies to belief in God is illogical. But I think you know that. Sometimes 10%ers says people used to believe the world was flat, not true, there were societies that knew the world was round. There are no societies that don’t believe in some kind of supreme being or beings. We now have proof the world is round, no proof at all that God is non-existent. The constant labeling of people who believe in God as dumb or worse doesn’t phase them at all, just loses you credibility.