Hmmm....no I won't say it. In fact like I've already said religion has a purpose in giving comfort/ hope etc even if imo it's false. People are just becoming more enlightened, that's all. Islam is a younger religion than Christianity and is currently going through its own 'difficult' period like Christianity did a few hundred years ago. PGF - I got that feeling about your background. As for offering nothing in return I've already said that Atheism offers plenty, starting with peace. No more wars in the name of religion, no more murderous purges, no more child abuse by priests, no more genital mutilation of little girls, no more women and homosexuals being stoned to death, no more people flying planes into buildings or setting off suicide vests because they believe they're gonna get shagged by 72 virgins (in fact it's a basket of fruit containing wild cherries if you look at the original scriptures - it was mistranslated). Have faith in what man can accomplish. Man's fantastic achievements have been scientific, not spiritual. Have faith in what we can do to help one another without looking to the skies for help that will never come. And have faith that you need to be alive to achieve things, not wait to die to find paradise. It's right here. That's a pretty good thought for the day.
Having been useless at science in school, and never been drawn towards it since, perhaps explains why I do not feel drawn towards atheism. Atheists, like scientists tend to look at things clinically and objectively - that is not me! You can argue the point of "is there a god?" until the cows come home - no one will ever agree and I feel there is no right or wrong. I have come to the conclusion that if people believe there is a god, then god exists.The fact that people existed thousands of years ago and felt the need/presence of a superior force suggest that within mankind (although not all of it!) there is a need for a "god" of some sort to exist to satisfy mans spiritual needs. The same principles apply to an afterlife. I can't say that I give that much thought - but if people believe it, it is up to them. I am certainly not waiting to go there Overall, I think the key word in todays society is tolerance. We are as diverse a population as can be (and that's just on not606!) and the greater understanding and tolerance of other peoples views that are in the open, the better. I felt that the thread was becoming anti-religion which I feel is as intolerant as anti any thing else.
Ah that's more like it. I'm not convinced by the fact that if people believe in something then it exists. Sorry. I'm sure many children believe there's fairies at the bottom of the garden but that doesn't make them real. But I'm all for tolerance, however that doesn't mean I have to agree with any religion - and it doesn't mean I have to be afraid to criticise religion either. I accept some people have a need for a god and I don't have a problem with that. It's what I've been saying all along.
Not much on conspiracy theories really but I admit I didn't see the documentary. I do think Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy though.
KJ I'm not excusing religion - I'm saying that it's a very convenient peg to hang your hat on - if it's not there then they find something else. the word that describes all of the others in the definition of ethnicity is DIFFERENCES - that's always going to be my point any of the DIFFERENCES will do. Now why can't you just allow me to believe that? Why do you have to prove me wrong - oh I forgot - it's an atheist thing
It's an interesting theory but again a completely illogical one. Spock wouldn't be happy! There are many similar views in Christianity where they say humans are so complex that we must have been made by God. Huh? That's like saying the universe is so big it must have been made by a unicorn. You can't just make up a scenario because you don't know why it actually exists. There's no link whatsoever and in fact the complexity shows more that the theory of evolution is correct than anything else. Also regarding the Big Bang I find that another silly fantasy. Nobody knows, and it's probable no one will ever know for sure what happened before the big bang. There are some decent theories based on physics but again people make up these really weird stories with no background information or evidence and some people gobble them up (not necessarily religious people).
Lumberjack: You believe what you want to - I'm really not trying to 'prove you wrong' by simply saying I believe you're wrong. others might think I'm wrong and that's fine. But you've got your view in reverse imo. The differences are caused by religion. People don't 'look for something' so that they have a difference with another group. They either have differences or they don't. In many ways it makes the world more interesting because we'd all be the same otherwise. The problem with the difference in religion is that it breeds violence. To then blame the 'difference' itself but ignore the cause of that difference seems a little bizarre. On intelligent design - it's an argument that's trotted out by the creationists time after time and was something put out by a right wing Christian conservative think tank in the U.S years ago. It goes like this. Biology (for instance the human eye) is far too complex for it to have come about through millennia of evolution and therefore it shows evidence of a creator. They fail to explain how god himself came about - who made his eyes, for example. Such questions require very complex answers. My view is that the evidence for evolution is so great it trumps everything else and if you apply the principle of Occam's Razor (i.e where you have competing ideas the one with the least assumptions is the one to be favoured) it's game set and match. Likewise, on the origins of the universe, the same principle applies. The idea that a creator of some kind made EVERYTHING is incredibly complex, particularly when you bear in mind that most religions set us humans up as unique and rather special. Set that against a backdrop of there being billions of stars in the universe and billions of planets in the 'Goldilocks' zone of those stars (just like Earth) we really aren't special at all, and it's only human arrogance that says we are. Scientists are now moving away from the term 'big bang' and refer to a 'rapid expansion' that began the universe. It's continuing to expand and the theory is that it may one day reverse and go back to nothing. Laurence Krauss's 'Something From Nothing' theory is very interesting and goes some way to explaining how the universe began. Yes it's a theory, but there is some sound science behind it and is expounded by one of the greatest minds of our time. The nature of faith means it's unlikely anyone will ever prove that a god exists but I'm convinced that if science continues to advance at its current rate it will one day prove that he doesn't.
So then anyone believe in parallel universes and worm holes? Also did Aliens help the Egyptians build the pyramids?
I remember having a conversation with a Mormon who I used to work with and I suggested that religion provides a convenient answer to the questions that science can't yet answer and that when science eventually provides the answers - there will be no god. Her reply was "no - there will be only one god"
Mormons. Sorry, but here I make the exception at not laughing at anyone's religion. How anyone can take them seriously....their religion was founded by a guy called Joseph Smith, a convicted fraudster, in the 19th Century. He said he's found some inscribed plates in the earth which he 'translated' into the Book of Mormon. He then re-buried them so nobody saw them. One of its claims is that the Garden of Eden is in fact in Missouri. If you thought the Scientologists were bonkers.....OK I laugh a them too. Worm holes - there is some evidence they exist and parallel universes is an interesting theory for sure. Also there's one that says each universe is just one 'bubble' and that there are billions of them. Very big questions that will take a long time to answer - if at all.
I'm plucking this from the back of my mind so it could be a little wrong but physicists believe that there are only 7 (?) parameters which affect the development of our universe - the speed of light is one and the value of gravity another, can't remember the others. They have calculated that if any of these were different by even a tiny amount then our universe would be completely different e.g. lifeless, expanding too fast, imploding back in on itself etc. This gives certain factions the 'evidence' that our universe is unique and 'designed' so that life may exist within it. The counter-argument suggests that there could an infinite number of universes (the multiverse) and we just happen to be in the one that has the right parameters for life to develop. It is therefore probable that in an infinite number of universes that ours would exist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe. Edit: ok, maybe 6 parameters and the speed of light isn't one of them!!
Mind boggling stuff for sure, AD. But even if there is only one universe the chances that we are unique and 'special' are infinitely small. I read somewhere that the earth's place within the known universe when you look at the numbers of planets out there can be compared to it being one grain of sand compared to all the grains of sand in the world. That's pretty insignificant. It's statistically much more likely that there is other life on other planets than not, even though we may never encounter them due to the vast distances involved. If contact ever happens I can only assume that the various religious cults that exist will change their position yet again to accommodate the fact.
Roswell? I've got an open mind on UFOs but I read a book once on the Science of Star Trek by Lawrence Krauss and whereas he came to the conclusion that warp drive is definitely a scientific possibility it would still make the huge distances across space almost impossible to traverse - in other words, even at Warp 10 (that's 10 times the speed of light) it would take many many years to get anywhere that's actually inhabitable. Then again, that theory is applying today's knowledge of science. Who knows what's around the corner?
I agree - there must surely be life on other planets within our own universe, but as you say the distances involved to meet your nearest 'neighbours' are so vast that making contact would require a major major breakthrough in space travel not just poddling about in conventional rockets. The future of mankind will depend on escape from our own planet before it becomes extinct. If we don't finish the job off ourselves then the sun will do it anyway by burning up all its fuel, expanding to a red giant and frying us alive. Then there's all the other doomsday scenarios such as asteroids hitting us, mega-tsunamis, super-volcanoes erupting and blotting the sun out etc etc. It's a bit of a paradox that the things which may have helped promote life on Earth (right distance from the sun, right type and size of star, existance of a stable moon of the right size (tides and rotation) and plate tectonics (the planet is 'alive' geologically) could be things that help finish us off. We need to be able to get away from our little rock and the sooner the better.
Actually the finely tuned universe speaks to darwinism of a multi-verse configuration and not to creationism. That is, we happen to be sitting in a stable universe because we can observe it and because it is one, of possibly many, that have evolved to have those set of constants that produce relative stability. It is the survival of the fittest principal on a cosmological scale and we are in one of the fitter universes. The one anomaly being Cardiff ... but that's a small wrinkle in an otherwise perfect theory
