I'm also a very tolerant person and in that way my only grudge against religions is their disrepects for other beliefs (that is also why I do not like some atheists that direspect religions). For me fighting the hatred both ways is what really matters not trying to prove something that cannot be proved.
Respect for other's beliefs thought, is just as important as respect for the facts and rational empirical discoveries of science. Fighting hatred of religions for one another is noble, but I think the primary concern is religious institutions fighting against scientific progress (showcased here by the creationism propaganda we've now seen in multipul posts) and the betterment of mankind.
By the way, I'm not making generalisation there, I know there are good people both sides that are tolerant. It's the others that worries me and have been a the bane of humanity.
It is pretty difficut for someone to be tolerant of a retrograde influence on society. I find your candor respectable, but if you don't see the danger in tolerating a creationist agenda you're too apathetic, in my opinion.
No, I must be more precise.
I believe in proofs and evidences, I'm a scientist myself after all (Master mathematics).
Evolutionism has evidence. It should be taught especially since you can make it your job later.
Creationism as precisely described in the Genesis shouldn't be taught as facts, it should also be taught (if it is) in a theology/history class along the way Muslims, Indians, Boudhists etc see the creation of the world (limit to major religion or it is one hell of a bloated course). That's how religion was taught to me, well I don't know much about hindouism but at least Islam and Christianity were treated on equal grounds.
When you say "It is pretty difficult for someone to be tolerant of a retrograde influence on society" I agree, especially because I agree on the "retrograde influence". For me religion is a matter of one's own spirit therefore it should have no impact on society and like I precised earlier Evidences are what should be considered facts. What I'm tolerant upon is the matter of the unknown, like the existence of god or something less general: I respect someone choice to pray at dawn.
BUT and this is important, my issue is when these are imposed, especially on children. I consider a child too young to make his own choice about the matters of spirit and is therefore not given a choice, that is not tolerance.
Also I'm not american, this creationism vs evolutionism is no debate where I come from so that is why i oversaw this issue in what I wrote. In the end this is also why I participate in this thread, it makes me think about my own position on the subject.
In short words I am of the belief than one should take evidence into accounts first and that it comes before the stories of men. But that it is his own choice to make a belief on the unknown, that every such belief is valid but is the matter of only one soul.
Now is it a very idealistic view ? Yes, and it is unachievable. But that is what I'd like.
Agreed, teaching them in the context of literature is good. They are obviously literary traditions and would be no less useful than teaching about shakespear in an English Lit class. My problem is, on the whole religion is and has been making a concerted effort in recent years to erode science at it's base and to bring those creation myths into science classrooms (under the guise of new titles like "Intelligent Design," which is creationism re-labeled).
I agree and I trust you know, as well as I do, that religions by-in-large do not give children the chance to make their own decisions and do not respect science or the worldviews of anyone outside their own denomination.
I guess you'll have to take my word for it (or look for the international news about it). It is a growing problem here and in the UK too, as I understand it.
Yes, my biggest issue is the hammering of a specific belief (among other from other religions) on children. Still like I said, what I describe is what I'd like (like a world without murder) and I agree it's utopic but that is how I place myself.
Actually, I rely on the bible for everything I do in my life. I'm not referring to old Jewish law that talks about how many times you have to wash if you are in somebodies house who soils themselves. I'm referring to the part of the bible that guides my beliefs and convictions.
What then allows you to decide which of these rules are applicable? Certainly not your logic because you've done away with that.
I choose to believe in the Bible because
1) It is what I was raised to do.
2) I have read the doctrinal texts of other religions and found that my morals don't agree with what they state.
3) I do not like thinking of myself as just an animal who happens to be slightly more complex than chimps (this is untrue, genetically. In fact, the pinnacle of genetic evolution is the white fern with, I believe, 126 chromosomes).
4) My life works toward an end goal. For somebody who simply chooses to believe in evolution, your only purpose in life is to have sex. If you have ever had sex and worn a condom, you have just completed your single purpose for living.
5) I have found too much evidence contradictory to a world 4.5 billion years old and a universe 20 billion years old.
1. Do you consider it admirable to do exactly as you were told as a child? That has no bearing on how true something is. It's a function of your birthplace and your parents opinions.
2. I invite you to quote me some inter-faith reading you've done. As someone who's read the Torah, New Testament, Qur'an, Rig Vedas, Upanishads, Annalects, and other religious scripts cover-to-cover, i'd be really interested to see why you feel your myth is a superior myth.
3. What you like doesn't change how things are. You're an animal, just like the rest of us.
4. You realize that you can have goals without a supernatural being commanding you to have them, yes?
5. You have read the ramblings of creationist ignorance and blinded yourself to empirical evidence. There is no evidence to suggest the world is 6000 years old other than a book of fiction.
----
So just to sum that up, you've given no reason at all to disregard science (which you're directly utilizing through the internet here) and even less reason to think the bible is a better source of knowledge.
I could probably come up with more if I took the time, but I've been looking for packet loss for 11 hours and I'm ready to go home. Working on Saturday sucks...
Working on Saturday is a sin punishable by death according to the bible.
I'll respond to 2 and 5 because those are the simplest questions with the simplest answers and I'm tired of devoting time to this. I have not read as extensivly into other religions as you. The Qur'an says "Make war upon such of those to whom the Scriptures have been given as believe not in God." I realize that there is a lot of war in the bible, and I also realize that Muslims do not go around killing people willy-nilly as they see fit. I believe there are several instances where it states (sorry to sound so sterotypic) "death to all infidels." I have also read the book of Mormon and found it to be rather racist. Essentially, God lives on Kobol (planet) and all day long he has sex with his thousands of wives. These wives have little spirit babies and if they're good babies, they come to earth as white people. If they are bad spirit babies, they come to earth in darker shades.
-aside-
I'm sorry to sound rude about this, but I believe that is the gist I got out of it. I know mormons who are wonderful people, and I also feel that they do more than a couple of things better than the Christian church. This is just something I have a problem with.
As for the 5th point. I have given you one solid piece of empirical evidence in the case of polonium microspheres which is in disagreement with an evolutionary theory. I will give you one more piece of evidence for you to write off as "creationist propoganda" (now you can quote me for using that phrase.
The moon is slowly moving away from Earth. This has been observed. It moves just a couple of inches every year. The moon has gravity which controls the tides. I think we all know this. The problem is that if the moon is moving away, it must have been, in the past, closer. Now, the inverse square law states that if you half the distance of 2 bodies, the attrictive forces quadruple. This is a problem is the earth is millions of years old. Since the moon is closer, there is more gravitational pull from the moon and tides are suddenly deeper/shallower depending on what side of the earth you are on. If the moon is closer, this also means that it would have a smaller diameter orbit, meaning that it would take less time to circumnavigate the earth. All of these things are facts. Not propaganda.
The point: if the world were billions of years old, and life was many millions of years old, everything living creature would drown. Twice a day.
I'm done. Getting off. Respond how you will, I'm not reading this thread anymore.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“One thing a computer can do that most humans can't is be sealed up in a cardboard box and sit in a warehouse”
--Jack Handy
I'll respond to 2 and 5 because those are the simplest questions with the simplest answers and I'm tired of devoting time to this. I have not read as extensivly into other religions as you. The Qur'an says "Make war upon such of those to whom the Scriptures have been given as believe not in God." I realize that there is a lot of war in the bible, and I also realize that Muslims do not go around killing people willy-nilly as they see fit. I believe there are several instances where it states (sorry to sound so sterotypic) "death to all infidels." I have also read the book of Mormon and found it to be rather racist. Essentially, God lives on Kobol (planet) and all day long he has sex with his thousands of wives. These wives have little spirit babies and if they're good babies, they come to earth as white people. If they are bad spirit babies, they come to earth in darker shades.
-aside-
I'm sorry to sound rude about this, but I believe that is the gist I got out of it. I know mormons who are wonderful people, and I also feel that they do more than a couple of things better than the Christian church. This is just something I have a problem with.
Trust me, i'm not offended by the idea mormons believe in crazy things. I would agree they do. I also would like to insist that their crazy beliefs are no crazier than the contents of the bible, just newer.
As for the 5th point. I have given you one solid piece of empirical evidence in the case of polonium microspheres which is in disagreement with an evolutionary theory. I will give you one more piece of evidence for you to write off as "creationist propoganda" (now you can quote me for using that phrase.
I assume you can find the peer-reivewed scientific document that you're referring to then and not just the blog of some religious person? I mean, if it's evidence to refute a scientific theory, it will be published by scientists in the hopes of finding a more accurate theory. Of course, no such document exists, because if it did, the scientific community would be talking about it as much as they are now discussing nutrinos and their potential speed.
The moon is slowly moving away from Earth. This has been observed. It moves just a couple of inches every year. The moon has gravity which controls the tides. I think we all know this. The problem is that if the moon is moving away, it must have been, in the past, closer. Now, the inverse square law states that if you half the distance of 2 bodies, the attrictive forces quadruple. This is a problem is the earth is millions of years old. Since the moon is closer, there is more gravitational pull from the moon and tides are suddenly deeper/shallower depending on what side of the earth you are on. If the moon is closer, this also means that it would have a smaller diameter orbit, meaning that it would take less time to circumnavigate the earth. All of these things are facts. Not propaganda.
The point: if the world were billions of years old, and life was many millions of years old, everything living creature would drown. Twice a day.
There are four main theories about the creation of the moon, although only one is generally considered to give an accurate description of what actually occurred.
The first theory states that the moon was created the same way the planets were - through the coalescing of gas and dust during the solar system's formation. The second theory says that the moon is a captured asteroid. The third theory says that when the Earth was first formed it was spinning so rapidly that it split in two; this is often referred to the "fission" theory.
The fourth theory is the one that most scientists currently believe is correct. It states that when the Earth was quite young, a Mars -sized planet crashed into it. The planet crashed with such speed that it was completely destroyed, and almost destroyed the Earth. The planet was coming in with such force that when it was destroyed, the molten iron in its core continued to travel through Earth, to eventually be included it its core. This explains why the Moon has very little iron. The crash, comically dubbed the "Big Splash," sent tons of rock and debris into orbit. These fragments eventually coalesced to form the Moon. The tidal and rotational forces in play also account for why the moon's day is exactly the same as it's "year."
None of the accepted theories about the moon include "was created 6000 years ago along with the earth by god," because that's nonsense and there is no evidnece for it. You're assuming, from square one, the bible is documenting facts. You're refusing to accept evidence because it conflicts with your myth book stories.
its all about revolution, why else would it feel so got damn good to have sex?
we are made to eat food and make babys, i just think some people are so afraid of death that they make anything up just to make them self feel better, we are not meant to do anything, its not a big seacret plot, you will die and be worm food like the other shit that goes in to the ground.
I think that's being too generous. People don't get a choice to make things like that up anymore. Like we're seeing above, these people are indoctorinated from an early age and force-fed bullshit until they simply cannot accept the facts in front of their faces. It's a seriously criminal operation they have going.
In deference to our gracious moderation team I will also request that ad hominem and useless trolling be kept at a cordial level. I'm well aware that most of these discussions don't "convert," or "englighten," anyone and that the prospect of this thread charging into the flaming abyss of crap are high: therefor, let us do our best to maintain a civil discourse.
Quoting proletaria's first post as it is extremely ironic. He is the only one in this thread that isn't living up to his original request.
This is something you'll see in debates now and again. It's a well-known occurrence and happens when those who can no longer defend their position start attacking the opposition's individuals as opposed to debating the opposition's viewpoint. It's what we call an ad hominem, something proletaria clearly asked people not to do.
Here's to hoping the mods do something to put an end to it.
Having all of science referred to as unable to prove anything and quoting scripture as though it were the basis for all reality is a trying experience. It's one thing to assert something without evidence. It's quite another to spout off that one does not accept empirical evidence because of one's baseless assumptions. I trust you will bring up any points you feel I missed.
Sufficed to say, I think i've kept the tone civil considering the content and character of the recent creationism posts were entirely fallacious and vindictive of empirical evidence itself (which, if you haven't guessed is the only basis for our conversation here).
now somewhere along the line, i did see something written about, "if God exists, why does evil..." or something like that. a point believers like to make is that without evil, there is no good. it makes sense to me in a comforting way. without bad things, would we strive for good? biologically there are obvious explanations, but how we evolved this way still amazes me sometimes. but thats the whole nature vs. nurture debate which, bee tee dubs, is way more interesting
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Remember the String of Ears
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
a point believers like to make is that without evil, there is no good. it makes sense to me in a comforting way. without bad things, would we strive for good? biologically there are obvious explanations, but how we evolved this way still amazes me sometimes. but thats the whole nature vs. nurture debate which, bee tee dubs, is way more interesting
1. The proclamation that good does not exist in the absence of evil is a statement of relativism. It presumes that a good thing is not inherently good in any way unless there is a bad option and I think that's fairly easy to refute. Consider you were stranded on an island with nothing to eat but coconuts (edible - good) or sand and tree leaves (non-edible - bad). Would the coconuts ONLY be good because you had the other options? Not at all. The fact they are edible is undeniable and even if you somehow only had coconuts to choose from, they would still be good as they are edible.
Take that one step further and look at something more abstract such as taking care of a child. Even if a person were FORCED, upon pain of death, to only treat their child with care it would be no less a good thing. Having the option to neglect or abuse the child doesn't make the act of caring for it good, it simple allows the other option. You might assert that humans can only recognize good when they are faced with other options, but I do not buy that considering our brains are hard-wired with evolutionary traits encouraging socially beneficial behaviors. Even a chimpanzee has the propensity for such behaviors and we have evolved social skills far beyond those ancestors.
2. I think it's clear that since we evolved with the incination towards socially beneficial behavior and that our brains register mental and physical pain in a measurable way, we'll one day be able to say without much doubt which actions and cultural inputs are inherently good and which are not as good or down-right bad. I'm hesitant to even use the word "evil," as it implies a serious degree of 'bad,' and that's something i'd rather reserve for mentally deficient human behaviors such as psycopathy. If I am correct about this, we should be able to combine our genetic knowledge with such neurological discoveries to find the root genetic causes of negative behavior and isolate the root social causes of them aswell.
Being able to assert that something is a definitively positive or negative impact on the brain should go a long way towards helping humans as a species and global society move forward and establish global norms for human rights. Having a baseline for human rights is the first step towards mutual cooperation and in-time the only chance humanity has for surviving our chaotic universe is to work together.
Of course, to do so we'll first have to accept that everything written in ancient moral codes is not "good," by nature and that may take more work than the science itself.
intrinsic good and bad exists in every context, but the knowledge of good and bad could be in question. if we were all colour blind, then who would stand up and say, "i believe there is colour?" it takes a truly radical thinker to say a thing, and only then to get denied because the norm is to say otherwise. its a strange thing, and its hard to imagine since we dont live in such a world without good vs bad.
wow! thats a hard thing to do, asserting good vs bad definitively since the world has so much grey area and how every brain is wired differently. what might give me pleasure might give you pain (stop thinking about it). anytime culture fits into anything scientific, i kinda look at it as the same as religion - which one is correct, and why is this one better than that one? maybe im thinking of something else other than culture...
and if we could all rely on science as a moral compass (remember, utopian), well, i think that to a point we wouldnt be human any more. a deranged fact is, we can find happiness in each others flaws. thats somehow strangely part of our evolution. and to say that we need to further evolve into some sort of zen-state machine that only lives to spit out logic and fact sounds awfully depressing (slightly dystopian, i know i know, hollywood...). sure, peace and progress to whatever chrome plated future depends on our ability to think before shooting, but the alternative doesnt have to be a wasteland; im positive theres a middle ground in there.
sometimes i take comfort in the fact that we are illogical, and that we do sometimes act like irrational, emotional things. it makes our world just slightly more fun
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Remember the String of Ears
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
intrinsic good and bad exists in every context, but the knowledge of good and bad could be in question. if we were all colour blind, then who would stand up and say, "i believe there is colour?" it takes a truly radical thinker to say a thing, and only then to get denied because the norm is to say otherwise. its a strange thing, and its hard to imagine since we dont live in such a world without good vs bad.
Color isn't that great of an analogy since it doesn't cause us to be any better or worse off. It's simple a wavelength or a way our brains interpret the matter around us. Something could easily be a nice color and deadly or a really nasty color and beneficial (or vice versa). There's nothing really substiative about it.
wow! thats a hard thing to do, asserting good vs bad definitively since the world has so much grey area and how every brain is wired differently. what might give me pleasure might give you pain (stop thinking about it). anytime culture fits into anything scientific, i kinda look at it as the same as religion - which one is correct, and why is this one better than that one? maybe im thinking of something else other than culture...
Good point. I think there would still be grey-areas, as you said, but I think you're reading too much into this if you believe i'm suggesting thought-crimes. The brain would be our gateway into finding out what kind of laws or cultural practices were more or less good for us. I don't think we'll ever want or even desire to change the ability to think free of limitation, even if it is retrograde. As far as what kind of culture would be subject to scrutiny, there are plenty of non-religious cultural conventions to work with before we pick on the big people in the sky.
and if we could all rely on science as a moral compass (remember, utopian), well, i think that to a point we wouldnt be human any more. a deranged fact is, we can find happiness in each others flaws. thats somehow strangely part of our evolution. and to say that we need to further evolve into some sort of zen-state machine that only lives to spit out logic and fact sounds awfully depressing (slightly dystopian, i know i know, hollywood...). sure, peace and progress to whatever chrome plated future depends on our ability to think before shooting, but the alternative doesnt have to be a wasteland; im positive theres a middle ground in there.
Meh, I don't pretend to consider this anything but utopian at this point, but the idea we'd cease to be human is rubbish. Some people find great joy in other people's flaws (personally, I think we can do better than that), but you certainly don't need bhuddist discipline to recognize the virtue of establishing an evidential basis for humane treatment of people in general. We're talking about a way for nations to cooperate by having a relatively universal rule of good law. That might sound scary if your first thought is something out of Big Brother, but that's not the premise. More like the UN (I fully realize this is a dreadful example, but there's nothing else to draw on at the moment), except member states are all cooperating because they have a common scientific moral compass.
sometimes i take comfort in the fact that we are illogical, and that we do sometimes act like irrational, emotional things. it makes our world just slightly more fun
I don't see any reason why you would be restricted from acting irrationally or emotionally. You just wouldn't have a culture or law that promoted verifiably negative behavior. Honestly, I don't think it would be far from the developed world today except the laws would all make sense and have peer-reviewed data.
Back from another hiatus from DFans and I see a religion thread that Link didn't make? Blasphemy.
So skipping over the other posts, I'll just reply to the OP (if that's okay, too late I'm gonna do it anyway).
-------------
I was baptized, raised, and confirmed Catholic, however I'm a Deist (I still haven't come out to my parents/family members on my true ideology (so yeah I still attend Catholic church)).
Why did I become a Deist?
Well going through the middle of the Catholic confirmation process I've first became an Atheist due to the gay rights movement and Prop 8 (damnit California). During said issue of Prop 8 I finally decided to read the Bible front and back, Old and New Testaments, and found specific passages I didn't agree with or just plain disliked.
Towards the end of high school I matured (in my humble opinion). In my personal group of friends most were Atheist and the others religious. The ones who were Atheist I realized what I name the "ignorant Atheists" as in they just kind of went along with it. I was fine with it at first but as I began to expand my knowledge about the controversial issue of religion I realized that I wasn't going to have any meaningful conversation with my current friends, so after high school we drifted apart (I'm in contact with like.... two I think?).
I specifically chose Deism because of my English class in Junior year because we were taught a bit about Deism during the middle of the first semester. I was interested and onto further research into it, it seemed like a viable and perfect ideology for me.
As for the Bible, it's a good book. There's a bunch of lessons you can learn from it, however one must read it with an open mind. If you read critically and/or literally into it then you're depriving yourself of its true message. In short, the Bible is a moral book written in an early time period and meant for that time period. This means that there is going to be some writings that don't apply to today's society, but at the same time there are some writings (in fact many) that can apply to today's society and chances are will make you into a better person.
Well going through the middle of the Catholic confirmation process I've first became an Atheist due to the gay rights movement and Prop 8 (damnit California). During said issue of Prop 8 I finally decided to read the Bible front and back, Old and New Testaments, and found specific passages I didn't agree with or just plain disliked.
Towards the end of high school I matured (in my humble opinion). In my personal group of friends most were Atheist and the others religious. The ones who were Atheist I realized what I name the "ignorant Atheists" as in they just kind of went along with it. I was fine with it at first but as I began to expand my knowledge about the controversial issue of religion I realized that I wasn't going to have any meaningful conversation with my current friends, so after high school we drifted apart (I'm in contact with like.... two I think?).
I'm a little confused. Your ignorant friends, who happened to be atheist, made you re-consider atheism? Can you walk me through that in a bit more detail?
I specifically chose Deism because of my English class in Junior year because we were taught a bit about Deism during the middle of the first semester. I was interested and onto further research into it, it seemed like a viable and perfect ideology for me.
Interesting. What about deism appealed to you more than atheism? (Note: I don't see any harm in being a deist, it's totally benign by comparison to any theistic movement.) I'm just curious.
As for the Bible, it's a good book. There's a bunch of lessons you can learn from it, however one must read it with an open mind. If you read critically and/or literally into it then you're depriving yourself of its true message. In short, the Bible is a moral book written in an early time period and meant for that time period. This means that there is going to be some writings that don't apply to today's society, but at the same time there are some writings (in fact many) that can apply to today's society and chances are will make you into a better person.
I'd argue more of it doesn't apply today, but I have a similar take on the Bible. It, like any other man-made morality-driven text does contain food for philosophical thought. Given it is also a common literary experience for a great many people in the western world, it also provides ample opportunity for allusion. I'm not sure it would make everyone who read it a better person, but it couldn't hurt anyone who was already a rational person.
Anyhow, I commend you on a good post. Thanks for sharing.
I'm a little confused. Your ignorant friends, who happened to be atheist, made you re-consider atheism? Can you walk me through that in a bit more detail?
Interesting. What about deism appealed to you more than atheism? (Note: I don't see any harm in being a deist, it's totally benign by comparison to any theistic movement.) I'm just curious.
That was the first blow yes. It made me consider atheism as most atheists are just like them, ignorant and well apathetic to learn more information about the controversial issue. I didn't like being associated with the crowd. Though the reasoning is immature it later blossomed into more well-thought out reasoning and some philosophy on my part. What personally made me a Deist was that Thomas Jefferson was a Deist (as were most of the founding fathers of America, not all) and his Declaration of Independence revealed to me that religion and science/strive for knowledge can coexist without the strife we have today.
I'd argue more of it doesn't apply today, but I have a similar take on the Bible. It, like any other man-made morality-driven text does contain food for philosophical thought. Given it is also a common literary experience for a great many people in the western world, it also provides ample opportunity for allusion. I'm not sure it would make everyone who read it a better person, but it couldn't hurt anyone who was already a rational person.
Anyhow, I commend you on a good post. Thanks for sharing.
Well it won't automatically make one a better person, the first part is reading the second part is actually the initiative to use what you read into effect.
I think I consider myself a deist as well...All though..It's a bit irrelevant at the moment since most of my time seems to be spent pondering solipsism and skepticism in all of they're beauty that reveals to me that none of us actually knows jack shit about anything and if you think you do then you're a person of faith just like anyone else.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
That was the first blow yes. It made me consider atheism as most atheists are just like them, ignorant and well apathetic to learn more information about the controversial issue. I didn't like being associated with the crowd. Though the reasoning is immature it later blossomed into more well-thought out reasoning and some philosophy on my part. What personally made me a Deist was that Thomas Jefferson was a Deist (as were most of the founding fathers of America, not all) and his Declaration of Independence revealed to me that religion and science/strive for knowledge can coexist without the strife we have today.
Well that clears up the first question, but I still don't make the "immature," connection to atheism. Everything else I more or less agree with. Lots of enlightenment thinkers were deist (admittedly, it was hard to be more skepitcal than that without modern science) and I do think the founders were keen to try and keep intellectualism compatable with religion.
Well it won't automatically make one a better person, the first part is reading the second part is actually the initiative to use what you read into effect.
The tricky part is figuring out which bits to use.
I think I consider myself a deist as well...All though..It's a bit irrelevant at the moment since most of my time seems to be spent pondering solipsism and skepticism in all of they're beauty that reveals to me that none of us actually knows jack shit about anything and if you think you do then you're a person of faith just like anyone else.
I'm not sure i'd call a deist a person of faith. All they are assuming is that something god-like does exist. They don't think it interacts with anything or anyone. They don't believe in miracles. It's entirely causal and in their viewpoints, rational.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
No, I must be more precise.
I believe in proofs and evidences, I'm a scientist myself after all (Master mathematics).
Evolutionism has evidence. It should be taught especially since you can make it your job later.
Creationism as precisely described in the Genesis shouldn't be taught as facts, it should also be taught (if it is) in a theology/history class along the way Muslims, Indians, Boudhists etc see the creation of the world (limit to major religion or it is one hell of a bloated course). That's how religion was taught to me, well I don't know much about hindouism but at least Islam and Christianity were treated on equal grounds.
When you say "It is pretty difficult for someone to be tolerant of a retrograde influence on society" I agree, especially because I agree on the "retrograde influence". For me religion is a matter of one's own spirit therefore it should have no impact on society and like I precised earlier Evidences are what should be considered facts. What I'm tolerant upon is the matter of the unknown, like the existence of god or something less general: I respect someone choice to pray at dawn.
BUT and this is important, my issue is when these are imposed, especially on children. I consider a child too young to make his own choice about the matters of spirit and is therefore not given a choice, that is not tolerance.
Also I'm not american, this creationism vs evolutionism is no debate where I come from so that is why i oversaw this issue in what I wrote. In the end this is also why I participate in this thread, it makes me think about my own position on the subject.
In short words I am of the belief than one should take evidence into accounts first and that it comes before the stories of men. But that it is his own choice to make a belief on the unknown, that every such belief is valid but is the matter of only one soul.
Now is it a very idealistic view ? Yes, and it is unachievable. But that is what I'd like.
Yes, my biggest issue is the hammering of a specific belief (among other from other religions) on children. Still like I said, what I describe is what I'd like (like a world without murder) and I agree it's utopic but that is how I place myself.
What then allows you to decide which of these rules are applicable? Certainly not your logic because you've done away with that.
1. Do you consider it admirable to do exactly as you were told as a child? That has no bearing on how true something is. It's a function of your birthplace and your parents opinions.
2. I invite you to quote me some inter-faith reading you've done. As someone who's read the Torah, New Testament, Qur'an, Rig Vedas, Upanishads, Annalects, and other religious scripts cover-to-cover, i'd be really interested to see why you feel your myth is a superior myth.
3. What you like doesn't change how things are. You're an animal, just like the rest of us.
4. You realize that you can have goals without a supernatural being commanding you to have them, yes?
5. You have read the ramblings of creationist ignorance and blinded yourself to empirical evidence. There is no evidence to suggest the world is 6000 years old other than a book of fiction.
----
So just to sum that up, you've given no reason at all to disregard science (which you're directly utilizing through the internet here) and even less reason to think the bible is a better source of knowledge.
Working on Saturday is a sin punishable by death according to the bible.
-aside-
I'm sorry to sound rude about this, but I believe that is the gist I got out of it. I know mormons who are wonderful people, and I also feel that they do more than a couple of things better than the Christian church. This is just something I have a problem with.
As for the 5th point. I have given you one solid piece of empirical evidence in the case of polonium microspheres which is in disagreement with an evolutionary theory. I will give you one more piece of evidence for you to write off as "creationist propoganda" (now you can quote me for using that phrase.
The moon is slowly moving away from Earth. This has been observed. It moves just a couple of inches every year. The moon has gravity which controls the tides. I think we all know this. The problem is that if the moon is moving away, it must have been, in the past, closer. Now, the inverse square law states that if you half the distance of 2 bodies, the attrictive forces quadruple. This is a problem is the earth is millions of years old. Since the moon is closer, there is more gravitational pull from the moon and tides are suddenly deeper/shallower depending on what side of the earth you are on. If the moon is closer, this also means that it would have a smaller diameter orbit, meaning that it would take less time to circumnavigate the earth. All of these things are facts. Not propaganda.
The point: if the world were billions of years old, and life was many millions of years old, everything living creature would drown. Twice a day.
I'm done. Getting off. Respond how you will, I'm not reading this thread anymore.
--Jack Handy
Trust me, i'm not offended by the idea mormons believe in crazy things. I would agree they do. I also would like to insist that their crazy beliefs are no crazier than the contents of the bible, just newer.
I assume you can find the peer-reivewed scientific document that you're referring to then and not just the blog of some religious person? I mean, if it's evidence to refute a scientific theory, it will be published by scientists in the hopes of finding a more accurate theory. Of course, no such document exists, because if it did, the scientific community would be talking about it as much as they are now discussing nutrinos and their potential speed.
There are four main theories about the creation of the moon, although only one is generally considered to give an accurate description of what actually occurred.
The first theory states that the moon was created the same way the planets were - through the coalescing of gas and dust during the solar system's formation. The second theory says that the moon is a captured asteroid. The third theory says that when the Earth was first formed it was spinning so rapidly that it split in two; this is often referred to the "fission" theory.
The fourth theory is the one that most scientists currently believe is correct. It states that when the Earth was quite young, a Mars -sized planet crashed into it. The planet crashed with such speed that it was completely destroyed, and almost destroyed the Earth. The planet was coming in with such force that when it was destroyed, the molten iron in its core continued to travel through Earth, to eventually be included it its core. This explains why the Moon has very little iron. The crash, comically dubbed the "Big Splash," sent tons of rock and debris into orbit. These fragments eventually coalesced to form the Moon. The tidal and rotational forces in play also account for why the moon's day is exactly the same as it's "year."
None of the accepted theories about the moon include "was created 6000 years ago along with the earth by god," because that's nonsense and there is no evidnece for it. You're assuming, from square one, the bible is documenting facts. You're refusing to accept evidence because it conflicts with your myth book stories.
I hope that means somewhere in your brain you're beginning to realize just how lamentably silly your position really is.
I think that's being too generous. People don't get a choice to make things like that up anymore. Like we're seeing above, these people are indoctorinated from an early age and force-fed bullshit until they simply cannot accept the facts in front of their faces. It's a seriously criminal operation they have going.
Quoting proletaria's first post as it is extremely ironic. He is the only one in this thread that isn't living up to his original request.
This is something you'll see in debates now and again. It's a well-known occurrence and happens when those who can no longer defend their position start attacking the opposition's individuals as opposed to debating the opposition's viewpoint. It's what we call an ad hominem, something proletaria clearly asked people not to do.
Here's to hoping the mods do something to put an end to it.
Sufficed to say, I think i've kept the tone civil considering the content and character of the recent creationism posts were entirely fallacious and vindictive of empirical evidence itself (which, if you haven't guessed is the only basis for our conversation here).
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
1. The proclamation that good does not exist in the absence of evil is a statement of relativism. It presumes that a good thing is not inherently good in any way unless there is a bad option and I think that's fairly easy to refute. Consider you were stranded on an island with nothing to eat but coconuts (edible - good) or sand and tree leaves (non-edible - bad). Would the coconuts ONLY be good because you had the other options? Not at all. The fact they are edible is undeniable and even if you somehow only had coconuts to choose from, they would still be good as they are edible.
Take that one step further and look at something more abstract such as taking care of a child. Even if a person were FORCED, upon pain of death, to only treat their child with care it would be no less a good thing. Having the option to neglect or abuse the child doesn't make the act of caring for it good, it simple allows the other option. You might assert that humans can only recognize good when they are faced with other options, but I do not buy that considering our brains are hard-wired with evolutionary traits encouraging socially beneficial behaviors. Even a chimpanzee has the propensity for such behaviors and we have evolved social skills far beyond those ancestors.
2. I think it's clear that since we evolved with the incination towards socially beneficial behavior and that our brains register mental and physical pain in a measurable way, we'll one day be able to say without much doubt which actions and cultural inputs are inherently good and which are not as good or down-right bad. I'm hesitant to even use the word "evil," as it implies a serious degree of 'bad,' and that's something i'd rather reserve for mentally deficient human behaviors such as psycopathy. If I am correct about this, we should be able to combine our genetic knowledge with such neurological discoveries to find the root genetic causes of negative behavior and isolate the root social causes of them aswell.
Being able to assert that something is a definitively positive or negative impact on the brain should go a long way towards helping humans as a species and global society move forward and establish global norms for human rights. Having a baseline for human rights is the first step towards mutual cooperation and in-time the only chance humanity has for surviving our chaotic universe is to work together.
Of course, to do so we'll first have to accept that everything written in ancient moral codes is not "good," by nature and that may take more work than the science itself.
/utopianstuff
wow! thats a hard thing to do, asserting good vs bad definitively since the world has so much grey area and how every brain is wired differently. what might give me pleasure might give you pain (stop thinking about it). anytime culture fits into anything scientific, i kinda look at it as the same as religion - which one is correct, and why is this one better than that one? maybe im thinking of something else other than culture...
and if we could all rely on science as a moral compass (remember, utopian), well, i think that to a point we wouldnt be human any more. a deranged fact is, we can find happiness in each others flaws. thats somehow strangely part of our evolution. and to say that we need to further evolve into some sort of zen-state machine that only lives to spit out logic and fact sounds awfully depressing (slightly dystopian, i know i know, hollywood...). sure, peace and progress to whatever chrome plated future depends on our ability to think before shooting, but the alternative doesnt have to be a wasteland; im positive theres a middle ground in there.
sometimes i take comfort in the fact that we are illogical, and that we do sometimes act like irrational, emotional things. it makes our world just slightly more fun
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
and nice post, im sure theres flaws in it, but happy-me is a text-vomit-me
"to the worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."
Color isn't that great of an analogy since it doesn't cause us to be any better or worse off. It's simple a wavelength or a way our brains interpret the matter around us. Something could easily be a nice color and deadly or a really nasty color and beneficial (or vice versa). There's nothing really substiative about it.
Good point. I think there would still be grey-areas, as you said, but I think you're reading too much into this if you believe i'm suggesting thought-crimes. The brain would be our gateway into finding out what kind of laws or cultural practices were more or less good for us. I don't think we'll ever want or even desire to change the ability to think free of limitation, even if it is retrograde. As far as what kind of culture would be subject to scrutiny, there are plenty of non-religious cultural conventions to work with before we pick on the big people in the sky.
Meh, I don't pretend to consider this anything but utopian at this point, but the idea we'd cease to be human is rubbish. Some people find great joy in other people's flaws (personally, I think we can do better than that), but you certainly don't need bhuddist discipline to recognize the virtue of establishing an evidential basis for humane treatment of people in general. We're talking about a way for nations to cooperate by having a relatively universal rule of good law. That might sound scary if your first thought is something out of Big Brother, but that's not the premise. More like the UN (I fully realize this is a dreadful example, but there's nothing else to draw on at the moment), except member states are all cooperating because they have a common scientific moral compass.
I don't see any reason why you would be restricted from acting irrationally or emotionally. You just wouldn't have a culture or law that promoted verifiably negative behavior. Honestly, I don't think it would be far from the developed world today except the laws would all make sense and have peer-reviewed data.
I thought I smelled D'pac Chopra. =(
So skipping over the other posts, I'll just reply to the OP (if that's okay, too late I'm gonna do it anyway).
-------------
I was baptized, raised, and confirmed Catholic, however I'm a Deist (I still haven't come out to my parents/family members on my true ideology (so yeah I still attend Catholic church)).
Why did I become a Deist?
Well going through the middle of the Catholic confirmation process I've first became an Atheist due to the gay rights movement and Prop 8 (damnit California). During said issue of Prop 8 I finally decided to read the Bible front and back, Old and New Testaments, and found specific passages I didn't agree with or just plain disliked.
Towards the end of high school I matured (in my humble opinion). In my personal group of friends most were Atheist and the others religious. The ones who were Atheist I realized what I name the "ignorant Atheists" as in they just kind of went along with it. I was fine with it at first but as I began to expand my knowledge about the controversial issue of religion I realized that I wasn't going to have any meaningful conversation with my current friends, so after high school we drifted apart (I'm in contact with like.... two I think?).
I specifically chose Deism because of my English class in Junior year because we were taught a bit about Deism during the middle of the first semester. I was interested and onto further research into it, it seemed like a viable and perfect ideology for me.
As for the Bible, it's a good book. There's a bunch of lessons you can learn from it, however one must read it with an open mind. If you read critically and/or literally into it then you're depriving yourself of its true message. In short, the Bible is a moral book written in an early time period and meant for that time period. This means that there is going to be some writings that don't apply to today's society, but at the same time there are some writings (in fact many) that can apply to today's society and chances are will make you into a better person.
You are scoring points with me here.
I'm a little confused. Your ignorant friends, who happened to be atheist, made you re-consider atheism? Can you walk me through that in a bit more detail?
Interesting. What about deism appealed to you more than atheism? (Note: I don't see any harm in being a deist, it's totally benign by comparison to any theistic movement.) I'm just curious.
I'd argue more of it doesn't apply today, but I have a similar take on the Bible. It, like any other man-made morality-driven text does contain food for philosophical thought. Given it is also a common literary experience for a great many people in the western world, it also provides ample opportunity for allusion. I'm not sure it would make everyone who read it a better person, but it couldn't hurt anyone who was already a rational person.
Anyhow, I commend you on a good post. Thanks for sharing.
If that doesn't justify the existence of God, then YOU SIR are just ignorant.
That was the first blow yes. It made me consider atheism as most atheists are just like them, ignorant and well apathetic to learn more information about the controversial issue. I didn't like being associated with the crowd. Though the reasoning is immature it later blossomed into more well-thought out reasoning and some philosophy on my part. What personally made me a Deist was that Thomas Jefferson was a Deist (as were most of the founding fathers of America, not all) and his Declaration of Independence revealed to me that religion and science/strive for knowledge can coexist without the strife we have today.
Well it won't automatically make one a better person, the first part is reading the second part is actually the initiative to use what you read into effect.
Anyways, happy to share
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Well that clears up the first question, but I still don't make the "immature," connection to atheism. Everything else I more or less agree with. Lots of enlightenment thinkers were deist (admittedly, it was hard to be more skepitcal than that without modern science) and I do think the founders were keen to try and keep intellectualism compatable with religion.
The tricky part is figuring out which bits to use.
I'm not sure i'd call a deist a person of faith. All they are assuming is that something god-like does exist. They don't think it interacts with anything or anyone. They don't believe in miracles. It's entirely causal and in their viewpoints, rational.