7 days or 7 billion years?

Dinner

Jakkass wrote: »

If we took God out, the world would still be amazing yes, but it would make me wonder why the world is so amazing. This is why I could not be an atheist intellectually, I have too much curiosity.

I'm sorry, but what are you talking about?

Are you saying that atheists aren't curious. This being the same 'group' that seems to make up the majority of scientists, aren 't curious? These people haven't devoted their entire lives to trying to work out how did we all come about and how the world works?

To be perfectly frank, I would think that religious people have much less curiosity. If for no other reason than religious people think they already know the answer to "How did we get here?"

god wanted us to be here.

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your post, but it just seems like utter, utter bollox.

philologos

Just curious I stumbled across this a few weeks ago and I just wanted to see peoples thoughts on it:
http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/

ScumLord

Jakkass wrote: »

No it isn't? Worldwide Christianity and Islam are growing extremely rapidly. I think religion is here to stay and I have no doubt whatsoever that the statistics will reflect this in the next 50 years and beyond. Perhaps there will be a decline in Europe for the next few decades, but I have no reason to believe that this will be sustained.

But look at the countries that are very religious. The big Christian country is the US and that's in the decline and the Muslim country's are almost 3rd world. The EU is quickly becoming the world power.

Zombrex

Jakkass wrote: »

Just curious I stumbled across this a few weeks ago and I just wanted to see peoples thoughts on it:
http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/

It is a petition of the Intelligent Design movement to try and create the idea that there is a) wide spread doubting of Neo-Darwinian evolution as an explanation for the diversity of life on Earth (there isn't) and b) that this desent is being stifled by the rest of the scientific community (it isn't)

Seemingly less that 0.01% of biologists in America have signed the petition, but it is sort of a win win for the ID movement because when no one signs it they simply use this as evidence for the conspiracy to stifle scientific freedom.

philologos

ScumLord wrote: »

But look at the countries that are very religious. The big Christian country is the US and that's in the decline and the Muslim country's are almost 3rd world. The EU is quickly becoming the world power.

Look at the phenomenal increases in the parts of the world that weren't generally associated with religion though. The Far East in particular is seeing a huge growth of Christianity. Why is this though? South Korea sends the 2nd largest amount of missionaries in the world after the USA.

In general Christianity is on the increase, likewise with Islam, this is undisputable.

ScumLord

Jakkass wrote: »

Look at the phenomenal increases in the parts of the world that weren't generally associated with religion though. The Far East in particular is seeing a huge growth of Christianity. Why is this though? South Korea sends the 2nd largest amount of missionaries in the world after the USA.

In general Christianity is on the increase, likewise with Islam, this is undisputable.

I'm not disputing that I'm just saying those country suck.

philologos

ScumLord wrote: »

I'm not disputing that I'm just saying those country suck.

That's a terrible reason

Although it is interesting on two fronts why these countries could be perceived as bad.

South Korea a country which has become more developed in recent years accepted Christianity on quite a large scale why it was developing. As freedoms were encouraged there was also a spread of Christianity.

In other countries such as China where religion is quite heavily repressed people have decided it is worth following Christianity even when it is illegal to do so in certain denominations.

Both of those are quite encouraging notes for the evangelisation effort of Christianity worldwide.

jaffa20

Looks at thread title.

Awaits jakkass' contribution...

Edit...

Too late

Sorry Jakkass but you do come on to these types of discussions an awful lot, aswel as those concerning homosexuality etc

Zombrex

Jakkass wrote: »

I personally think that it is a depressing view if we are to focus on how "insignificant" we are. I personally would prefer it incredible that the universe is so vast yet that God manages to call us to a relationship with him despite being such a small part of the entire system if you will. I'm thankful for that, and I thank God every day for it. I don't think the world makes sense without God personally. If we took God out, the world would still be amazing yes, but it would make me wonder why the world is so amazing. This is why I could not be an atheist intellectually, I have too much curiosity.

What? There is no curisity in that position, it is a position devoid of curiosity because the unknown is troubling to you.

You use "God did it" to put answer to the questions because the questions being left there cause you to think the world doesn't make sense.

Also, who said the world/universe is supposed to make sense to humans?

STBR

KINGVictor wrote: »

Your post is self contradictory....in the world ...in the developed world????

In the US..far far far more developed than Ireland (probably far more than Europe as a whole),lots of professionals ie doctors,scientists,phd holders etc after all said and done still believe that Creationism makes more sense than evolution.

I really don't know how you came to the conclusion that there are more atheists than creationists....absolute fallacy.In your world ...maybe

It is not self-contradictory. Explain to me how you arrived at that conclusion.

And yes, lots of professionals believe in deities, and lots don't.

I came to the conclusion from doing research and studying the results of polls that were conducted.

Sure there are polls that say otherwise but that's just what happens.

Just did a Google search for another online poll, and found this.

This particular one doesn't show a great difference.

dvpower

Jakkass wrote: »

Just curious I stumbled across this a few weeks ago and I just wanted to see peoples thoughts on it:
http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/

An unsucessful attempt to push Intelligent Design.

Zombrex

Jakkass wrote: »

Look at the phenomenal increases in the parts of the world that weren't generally associated with religion though. The Far East in particular is seeing a huge growth of Christianity. Why is this though? South Korea sends the 2nd largest amount of missionaries in the world after the USA.

In general Christianity is on the increase, likewise with Islam, this is undisputable.

But that isn't what was stated, that being that religion is declining. Or to put it another way there are more atheists now than there ever has been.

Christianity is picking up converts from other religions.

philologos

Wicknight wrote: »

What? There is no curisity in that position, it is a position devoid of curiosity because the unknown is troubling to you.

You use "God did it" to put answer to the questions because the questions being left there cause you to think the world doesn't make sense.

Also, who said the world/universe is supposed to make sense to humans?

There is plenty of curiosity in my position. The atheist view that there is no reason so you shouldn't bother trying is just absolutely absurd to me. It requires that one throws ones inquisitive side in the bin and forget about it.

I'm willing to explore that God had a role in the creation, and I personally find it the most convincing. You and other atheists however say, there is no meaning, you shouldn't try find one, but you should make your own contrived one to make you feel good. I don't want to settle for contrived though, I want to find the truth, whatever that may be.

So yes that to me is a stumbling block as to why I could be an atheist.

toiletduck

Jakkass wrote: »

Science deals with the how, religion deals with the why.

Actually science deals with understanding and modelling, religion deals with understanding sciences discoveries enough to place their god(s) further away from the latters inquiries.

Gods on the mountains became gods in the sky became gods in space became gods outside the universe currently.

toiletduck

obl wrote: »

If you spend time developing Artificial Intelligence, you come to believe in an intelligent designer...

Developing genetic algorithms, you come to believe in evolution... Well not my ones. They do the cause no good :pac:

Zombrex

Jakkass wrote: »

There is plenty of curiosity in my position.

Where is the curiosity?

You have basically taken something we don't understand and instead of try to understand it you have simply said "God did it" because this is easier and makes more sense to you than complicated theories about curved time and collapsing strings in higher dimensions.

That is the antithesis of curiosity.

Jakkass wrote: »

The atheist view that there is no reason so you shouldn't bother trying is just absolutely absurd to me.

What?

The atheist position is we don't know what caused this, religion doesn't know what caused this, so lets go try and find out what actually happened and be prepared for the answer even if that answer is confusing or counter intuitive or unpleasant to the human ear.

Jakkass wrote: »

It requires that one throws ones inquisitive side in the bin and forget about it.

I've never met any atheist who isn't interested in the science behind the universe but I've met plenty of Christians who aren't, again because they say "sure we already know the important bit"

Jakkass wrote: »

I'm willing to explore that God had a role in the creation, and I personally find it the most convincing. You and other atheists however say, there is no meaning, you shouldn't try find one, but you should make your own contrived one to make you feel good.

What are you talking about?

The meaning people give to their own existence has nothing to do with the creation of the universe. Such a view is incredibly egotistical, the idea that the universe should exist for us, or the reason the universe exists should be pleasing to us, and if it is not then it is probably wrong and should be disregarded. We should only consider what makes sense to us and what appeals to us, ideas such as God made the universe for us.

Jakkass wrote: »

I don't want to settle for contrived though, I want to find the truth, whatever that may be.

No you don't because as you have already said a universe without a god doesn't make sense to you, and expanded upon in this post a universe without a god given purpose for existence is unappealing

Again this is not searching for the truth this is searching for an answer that is pleasing and satisfactory to you.

KINGVictor

ScumLord wrote: »

But look at the countries that are very religious. The big Christian country is the US and that's in the decline and the Muslim country's are almost 3rd world. The EU is quickly becoming the world power.

If only wishes could become reality...are you living on planet earth????...the US are still the undisputable world power..no chance in this generation or another 3 more for that to change!!!. that is if it ever changes....

It is a fact that the rest of the world has to wait.."patiently" until the US gets over the recession before we have any chance of recovery ...and realistically India or China have a better prospect of being a world power before the EU have a look in.

Do you honestly think France ,Germany or Britain ( the REAL EU) would ever agree on anything ...where do you put Russia? ...this is off topic but the OP's post was very nonsensical.

Zombrex

toiletduck wrote: »

Actually science deals with understanding and modelling, religion deals with understanding sciences discoveries enough to place their god(s) further away from the latters inquiries.

Gods on the mountains became gods in the sky became gods in space became gods outside the universe currently.

QTF

I hate this "Science deals with the how religion the why" nonsense

Science deals with modelling the universe for the purposes of understanding the phenomena that we observe.

Religion deals the with the desires and superstitions of humans and how we wish the world around us was, independently and totally without regard for how the universe actually is.

c0rk3r

We'll never know. Let the academics worry about it. They'll argue about anything to 1up each other.

The scientific theories we have now will be redundant in 100 years. I just hope the birth of AI in 2020 doesnt unleash global war distroying us all.

The same posters here follow each other all over boards to argue the same issues. Even when it popped up in the MMA section...

ScumLord

KINGVictor wrote: »

If only wishes could become reality...are you living on planet earth????...the US are still the undisputable world power..no chance in this generation or another 3 more for that to change!!!. that is if it ever changes....

I said they're on the decline, they're not as powerful as they used to be. Maybe I'm wrong but that's the great thing about religious discussions I can just make stuff up. :pac:

Havermeyer

bluto63 wrote: »

While I believe in Evolution, it doesn't fully explain what we're doing here. The HLR might help explain things, but I would think we're never going to know

I don't believe we necessaarily need an explaination for being here.

We are here because conditons in the past favoured our species; we survived and others didn't. It could have just as easily gone a different route and we'd all be still living in trees.

We don't have to be here for a reason. I'd rather we sought the answers for how we got here and where we came from.

Not all questions should begin with a why.

Twin-go

Jakkass wrote: »

Are there? I'm interested to see what your indications are. I have a brief list of indications in my signature. I want you genuinely to provide a list for the indications for why God does not exist though as it is very rare that an atheist in these parts actually lists them without trying to push questions on the Christian. I will read and give a response.

Indications?
Natural Disasters, holocaust, famine, war, unanswered prayers. These would not happen if God existed

Jakkass wrote: »

Interesting. Is atheism blind for the same reason? I disagree that blind faith depends on proof or not. If people manage to argue with reason for why God exists with reference to sources outside of the Bible I think one cannot but applaud someone for doing this.

I personally find agnostics more rational than atheists.

Where are the arguments outside of the bible for Gods existance? It has not been done.

As Sam Harris says "Atheism is not an philosophy, it is not even a view of the world, it's a refusal to deny the obvious"

Jakkass wrote: »

We have no reason to exclude the possibility. As far as I'm concerned we could just as likely have existed prior to our birth as much as we couldn't have. It's up to people to make their case from this point.

We have no reason to exclude the possibility of Fairies and Goblins either but how many people believe in them?

Again the is no evidence of the after-life, if there was I would accept it.

Jakkass wrote: »

If it was merely as much as Jesus claiming to be the Son of God I wouldn't believe. I found that Jesus has substantiated the Jewish scriptures and had fulfilled who the prophets had prophesied him to be on over 300 cases. So, yes, I would trust someone who passed such a robust test of who He claimed to be over the will of corrupt men.

These are just some of them.

Right, the bible is a work of fiction for the most part. The Gospels were written many years after Jesus had died. Is it not possible that the stories of his life were made to match the scriptures of the Old Testiment? Also why is there still a Jewish religion if he was truely the Son of God?

Many people can make vague prophesies and then in the future people match events to them - Nostrodamus is a popular example.

Jakkass wrote: »

Written by Moses, revealed by God. As for restricting their free will to worship. I think if I believed that Christianity or in Moses' case Judaism was the truth I would want as many people as possible to believe in the truth rather than mere fable.

Whos truth? Where is the evidence. Ten Commandments were used to scare people into worshiping the God of Judaism. Don't do these or else eternal damdnation....


I would prefer a clear point of reference.

Jakkass wrote: »

Every man has sinned. Therefore every man is considered to have done evil before God. Ever wonder why the expression "born again" is used in Christianity? Well, it means that through baptism we accept Jesus' punishment as the punishment of our sins, and that we are raised to new life in Christ, leaving what sinful ways we have carried out in the present behind.

I disagree with this hypothesis. I don't agree with your definition of good. Everybody has sinned, therefore nobody is good on their own accord.[/quote]

How has everybody sinned? They have sinned based on the rules set out by religion it's not the yard stick I want to be mesured by. How has a new born Baby maybe ten minutes old sinned?

So we are all evil sinners until Jesus died for us on a cross and until we are baptised we are sinners.

So nobody is capable of a good deed unless they are religious?

Jakkass wrote: »

I agree with you on the crimes which have taken place in the name of religion. These are however a vast minority. I also could cite crimes which have taken place in the name of atheism throughout the world from the Enlightenment onwards.

I'm not going to play Top Trumps with you on which has caused more crimes Religion or Atheism.

I have yet to hear of crime and war undertaken in the name of Atheism. By Atheists yes, in the name of Atheism no.

Jakkass wrote: »

Christianity overwhelmingly has a positive face on the world, and has overwhelmingly distanced itself from atrocities. That's what I am pleased at. In the modern world Christianity in general has been bearing fruit in the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth. Unfortunately good deeds aren't as documented as well as the bad ones, and unfortunately some people regard corruption by man as being the same thing as God directly causing atrocities.

Yes religious people have done good in the world. And it may be all that some people find strenght from but again it does not prove God exists and could be considered a placebo effect.

Jakkass wrote: »

Sorry this is just wrong. In the 20th century a vast majority of communist nations enforced State Atheism on their populaces. Communism and atheism have been twined together since the time of Karl Marx. They are not mutually exclusive. It's very possible to be both an atheist and a communist. That's as intellectually honest as you will get.

Many atheists are not communists, but many are also.

You just contradicted yourself.

I think on paper Communism had its merits but in reality it was domed to failure. It simply does not work because people crave power or wealth or both.

It could be argued that Christianity has more in common with Communism than Atheism.

In the eyes of God all Man are equal regardless of sex, race or economic backround.

Egalitarianism is central to both Communism and Christianity.

Jakkass wrote: »

I disagree with the ethics of homosexuality, yet I still respect people I know who are gay and I still engage in a positive relationship with them by all means possible. Just because someone has a disagreement doesn't mean that one has to descend into hatred. I don't know how I could be considered to be "oppressing" anyone either as an individual believer..

Egalitarianism is core to Christian believes yet there are exceptions.

How can you respect somebody that goes against you ethical believes?

People have free will. Homosexuality is not not unethical. In the eye of the God you beleive in we are all equal are we not? Both in the eye of the Church we are not.

Jakkass wrote: »

Many ideologies in history have given rise to oppression in the past. These ideologies when abused can cause hatred, and corruption. Atheism is included, Christianity is included, Islam is included, racism is included, as well as numerous other ideologies.

The point is that Jesus Christ never encouraged this, so it's pretty ridiculous to blame atrocities such as these on Christianity when they are clearly not a part of Christian belief in general.

I am not blaming Christianity for the atrocities. But the Christian God who is supposidly omniscient and omnipotent did not do anything to stop them happening, Why?

Jakkass wrote: »

This is merely a belief of yours. I respect your right to hold it but I cannot help but be convinced otherwise.

You have every right to beleive whatever you wish. This does not mean it right or true.
I am open to be proven wrong. As yet there is no compelling evidence of Gods existance that is not based on a book of fiction written 2000 years ago. No burning bushes, No booming voices from the sky.

Maybe God does exist and she is a women. We've pissed her off and now she is not talking to us:D.

Sam Vimes

uprising wrote: »

Yes in the labs of porton down, and why are the worlds best microbiologists all dying http://mikephilbin.blogspot.com/2009/04/swine-flu-pandemic-microbiologist.html

http://valis.gnn.tv/B16098

and the virus mutates because of the over use of antibiotics, unfinished courses of antibiotics leave superbugs behind.

I haven't read the whole thread since this response so it's probably already been taken care of. Where do you think the superbugs come from exactly? That's right, they evolved.

That's how evolution works. Mutations in dna occur and if those mutations are beneficial, eg it gives them an immuntity to an anti biotic, all its mates get killed off, leaving it to multiply alone, replacing the older non immune population. The existence of super bugs proves evolution

Sam Vimes

uprising wrote: »

What has been proven that over use of antibiotics has strenghtened viruses, has affected and altered our inbuilt immune system

Indeed (except that anti biotics strengthen bacteria and have no effect on viruses). And that process is called evolution mate. Look, there is enough documentary evidence and proof backing up evolution to blanket Europe in paper, such as the fact that bacteria have evolved to be immune to drugs that could previously kill them, and you're just dismissing it because it doesn't fit with what a 2000 year old book says while clearly showing that you have no understanding of what it actually is. I suggest you actually read up on it and at least find out what it is before continuing to tell us it doesn't exist

Zillah

I am so, so glad that I only discovered this thread now.

Genghiz Cohen

Zillah wrote: »

I am so, so glad that I only discovered this thread now.

Down boy...

Smart Bug

uprising wrote: »

So why do doctors give antibiotics for the flu virus, it does nothing but strenghten it

No no no no no.

Are you really not getting these posts/trolling/slightly dim?

Antibiotics have no effect on viruses (as stated in your link also). Doctors do not prescribe antibiotics for viruses, bedrest & fluids is the course of treatment if one is laready infected.

Viruses show clear evidence of evolution through genetic mutation and transformation into different strains through genetic re-combination. Clear. Un-ambiguous. Evidence. Evolution exists. That is a fact. This is only one example, the only one stated clearly in this debate, which is why I believe you're trying so stubbornly to refute it.

Zillah

One thing you always hear is that evolution has not been observed. Yes, it has.

tl;dr for that article: A biologist put E.Coli bacteria in a vat 20 years ago and has been watching them closely and they have over that time developed new traits. The most interesting of which is the ability to metabolise Citrate. One of the defining characteristics of E.Coli is that it cannot metabolise Citrate. It's essentially a new species. Take that Creationism.

philologos

The swine flu virus is an example of evolution at work as well apparently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8pSPfZFysg

I found this video pretty interesting although it doesn't deal with evolution directly it does refer to it.

Twin-go

Jakkass wrote: »

The swine flu virus is an example of evolution at work as well apparently:



I found this video pretty interesting although it doesn't deal with evolution directly it does refer to it.

and God Created Swine flu because....?