CrashMan said: Nothing is beyond reason and logic

 That's why Reason and Logic have to be used to disprove anything as well as prove anything.

 Look at Einstein.  Lots of his theories are -still- theories.  Even relativity, which is commonly accepted as having a lot of truth to it, is still shunned by plenty of people and called merely a 'theory'.

 I was watching a show on Discovery Channel about celestial bodies, black holes, theoretical white holes, big bangs, quasars, etc.  The striking moment to me is when all of the scientists interviewed started saying things to wrap up, like, "There is so much science can't explain in the universe, so much science can't explain even on Earth, and so much more out there we have to observe and wait for revelations to occur for an explanation, because we do not know everything."

senseinobaka said: Acturally all of these arevery good scriptures and are used by many to support the hell fire doctrince. If you look at each one it's clearer that it is an incorrect understanding. First is Matthew 13.  Second is Matthew 9: 47-49. Third is Matthew 25:46.

 Seems like you're familiar with the gospels. Have you read the book of revelation? 

facher83 said: CrashMan said: Nothing is beyond reason and logic  That's why Reason and Logic have to be used to disprove anything as well as prove anything.  Look at Einstein.  Lots of his theories are -still- theories.  Even relativity, which is commonly accepted as having a lot of truth to it, is still shunned by plenty of people and called merely a 'theory'.  I was watching a show on Discovery Channel about celestial bodies, black holes, theoretical white holes, big bangs, quasars, etc.  The striking moment to me is when all of the scientists interviewed started saying things to wrap up, like, "There is so much science can't explain in the universe, so much science can't explain even on Earth, and so much more out there we have to observe and wait for revelations to occur for an explanation, because we do not know everything."

OMFG will creationists stop using that F**king word against science. What most people don't understand is that a rule of science is that it doesn't want to say anything is set in stone,as it always questions itself. Hence why they use the term "theory", a theory is one of the highest accolades a scientific thought can reach. It is basically just another word for proof. If it was an unproven idea it would not be called a theory because it would have no evidence.

And last but not least, theory is more convincing than ideas in a bunch of old books that contradict each other.

The book of genesis states that god put us here, so that must be true. well I read war of the worlds by H G Wells the other week, all I can say is it is lucky that Victorian England was lucky to able to pass that true story on.

P.S. that was not aimed at you fascher83, it was a general rant

 

Actually, one can firmly believe in supernatural things without believeing in God, I know I do. If all things supernatural were natural before God, they'd not even be categorized as supernatural. All in all, Christian belief does not encompass old folklore and superstition, it rather works actively against it, maintaining that no thing is before God without those of the faith knowing.
Ghosts, UFO's, Bigfoot and such is not the stuff of any faith (save for Indian or Sami tradition in some cases).
Why would there even be a restless soul before God? Would not all souls be judged one way or the other?
No, ghosts and goblins have no place in a mythology involving God, that much is clear. Unicorns were abundant in ancient Canaan, though...

also I would believe creationism if I saw it in action, which I haven't.

What I have seen though is evolution. If you look at a thumb on a human only 20,000 years ago it is nothing like ours, but as we have grown more dependant on tools and pressing buttons on YOUR VIDEO GAMES we have developed a more appausable, stronger longer thumb, in just just a blink of an eye as far evolution terms are concerned.

Also if you are a creationist, can you explain what has happened in this image?

veiam said: Kasz216 said: veiam said: I don't know why I have to prove to you the non-existence of god. Every time a person comes up with a new idea he changes the status quo. He then has to prove his idea to everyone so that his idea becomes part of the status quo. Everyone else doesn't have to prove him wrong, he has to prove himself right. Same thing with religion. God and religion, even though they have been around a lot, are NOT the status quo. Each god and religion has been introduced by different people (Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha, w/e) but they, or their followers, have yet to prove that god DOES exist. Atheists/Agnostics/etc. don't have to prove shit. The burden is on the religious people to prove the existence of a god. So far the evidence provided is weak and full of holes. Therefore, I am nowhere near being convinced god exists, nor should any person with enough intellectual capacity (there are smart people who believe in God, but I blame their parents not them). Another thing that annoys me about religion and god is the way it spreads. I can go ahead and tell you about my friend Joe. He's a great guy, amazing personality, always nice, etc. I can also get 100 more people to tell you the same thing. I'm sure you'd believe this Joe person exists and is a great guy and really nice and all that. But just because i told you so doesn't make him any more real, the fact is Joe does not exist, even if I had 1 billion people tell you he was real. Religion works the same way, based on trust. Children get their minds corrupted by the people they trust the most, their parents, and are shown to their church leaders and get their mind corrupted even more. I find this the lowliest possible way of spreading any idea and/or opinion, targetting the children who will believe anything a person tells them. Because of this I view religion as a cancer on our world, only causing great division and wars (crusades, 30 years war, jihads, etc.) and also hindering VERY beneficial technologies( Stem Cells, Cloning to some extend too). I bet you that if from this point on no one ever told anything about a god to their children and let's say this lasts 150 years. Then I bet that religion and god will be non-existent and the human race will STILL progress forward. Meanwhile if you do the same thing with science, I foresee billions of people will dying. But it would be fine because we would still have God, right? Isn't the status quo set by what most people believe? Most people believe there is some sort of god, though disagree which one is the case. Therefore you in fact would have to prove it as such. There is also no proof that the existance of belief in a god didn't originate itself with consious thought. Status Quo - the existing state of affairs; specifically : the last actual and uncontested state of affairs that preceded a controversy and that is to be preserved by preliminary injunction In other words, the status quo was the time before religion was introduced. Number of believers doesn't mean anything. If I get everyone in the world to state that fire doesn't burn, would that make it the status quo and therefore true? Also, I was raised without the mention of anything relating to a god or religion (meaning there wa neither "god is great" nor "there is no god" in my house at all) until I was 8-ish. And then I remember my grandmother teaching me how to pray and my mom being pissy about it. I couldn't understand why my mother was so angry about it back then, but right now it makes perfect sense. In an environment where the person is not introduced to god he will simply not believe just because he has never been brainwashed into believing in something purely based on faith.

You have NOT answered Kasz216's objection that religion dates back at least as far as civilization itself. Although no one religion has been supreme throughout the world, religions in general have had a firm grip on humans that has only loosened in recent times. The status quo is in favor of religions. Saying "oh yeah, well what about a million years ago" is disingenuous at best.

You assume that the status quo is "no god" when for thousands of years -- and indeed as far back as we are capable of finding evidence -- the vast majority of humans have believed otherwise. Why is that?

"Number of believers doesn't mean anything. If I get everyone in the world to state that fire doesn't burn, would that make it the status quo and therefore true?"  Sigh.  If you're talking about the existence of something that we can do nothing to prove or disprove, and you don't want us to talk about people's opinions on it, then what's left to discuss?  

Grey Acumen said: veiam said: Status Quo - the existing state of affairs; specifically : the last actual and uncontested state of affairs that preceded a controversy and that is to be preserved by preliminary injunction In other words, the status quo was the time before religion was introduced. Number of believers doesn't mean anything. If I get everyone in the world to state that fire doesn't burn, would that make it the status quo and therefore true? Also, I was raised without the mention of anything relating to a god or religion (meaning there wa neither "god is great" nor "there is no god" in my house at all) until I was 8-ish. And then I remember my grandmother teaching me how to pray and my mom being pissy about it. I couldn't understand why my mother was so angry about it back then, but right now it makes perfect sense. In an environment where the person is not introduced to god he will simply not believe just because he has never been brainwashed into believing in something purely based on faith. Actually, this is a self contradicting statement, as it implies that the only way you can conceive of god is if someone else gives you teh idea, so.... where did the idea come from originally? If the idea can only come from another person, then it must have been able to be conceived of without having been given teh idea by someone else, which makes there very same statement you made false, and if it didn't originally start out being conceived by a human, then it must have been taught by "something else" initially. Which lends credibility to the idea that there is some higher power that guides humanity.

Religion came about from ignorance, as a way to explain phenomena that people couldn't explain back in the day. In fact religion itself evolved over time. It just started with people talking about spirits of fire, water, lightning, etc. to try to explain natural phenomena. In the next step of the evolution of religion people started giving names, forms, ideas, and personalities to the spirits to try to explain even weirder phenomena, thus creating the first gods. The final step of evolution was when some one decided that having a god for every little thing was just stupid and that explaining everything in terms of the gods' personalities was not exactly feasible so all the gods were combined into a single being. Religion is founded upon the miracles and miracles in turn are based on human ignorance. What would easily be defined as a miracle 2000 years ago is just an everyday thing (electricity, lightning, fire, incurable diseases healing). In today's time there are other things we can't explain, so we call those miracles. The thing is that in a day to day basis, there are nowhere nearly as many unknown and unexplainable things happening to a human as there were back in the day. Therefore my statement that if everyone stopped teaching their children about any god and any religion right this moment, religion will easily be eradicated. If you study a little psychology you learn that the brain tries to find a cause and effect for everything that happens around us, that's how the learning process works. So religion is just another way to explain something to our brain that we have not yet discovered how to explain in a physical sense yet.

facher83 said: I feel like half of the people posting on this topic don't really know a dime from a penny about what they are talking about, and the other half actually do. How does the phrase go? Something like, "In order to truly know something you have to truly experience it?" Otherwise, we have a lot of people here claiming to be a wise man, where actual wise men do not know everything like these silly finger pointings.

Then wouldn't the opinion of the wise man be that he could not ever know the true nature of the universe? A wise man knows he knows nothing, as the saying goes. That's why atheists who "know" there isn't a God and religious people who "know" there is a God are both wrong in the sense that neither of them "know" anything. I'd be more willing to bet that one's right over the other, but there's really no way to be absolutely sure.

And sorry for the mix-up, appolose.

Phendrana said: I think the problem is you can always rationalize for why something COULD exist if you really wanted to. So instead of looking at things and thinking "hey, this doesn't make sense and here's why" many religious people will try to find the most reasonable explanation that justifies their beliefs. It turns it into "hey, this doesn't make sense, but here's why it could." For example, I can say there's a monkey in my closet, I just can't find him because he's really good at hiding, can camouflage himself, and can even blink out of existence if he wanted to. If I don't acknowledge there's no way the monkey COULDN'T exist (he must be there!), then there has to be SOME explanation as to why I can't ever find him. And to make things worse, when a reasonable explanation can't be found, they just say "God is beyond logic and reason" which is totally impossible to argue against.

Well the problem is there is no proof against god. As Stephen Hawking has said. All Science proves is that if god does exist he is rational, and doesn't do things randomly.

In other words he doesn't go, poof there's a camel, poof there's a duck, bang, now there is a shorter duck!

Basically if the world has a programmer, he's working off procedural software, not just randomly clip arting stuff in here and there.

Any scientist who actually tells you that their is proof that their is no god isn't a very good scientist and probably needs to go back to college for a refresher in lab courses.