Now that is something I would agree with you. Religion is often used as an excuse for conflict but the truth is it comes down to the desire for power, land, money and resources. A comedian once did a sketch where people believed strongly in their star signs to the extent that capricorns went to war with pisceans and leos fought with virgos. That's the human race. If it wasn't religion it would be something else getting the blame.
Haha, fair enough. But as I said before, I'm not trying to change any beliefs, but think about this. For pretty much the whole of human existence there has been religion, or belief in a deity of some sort. Id on't think it's a coincedence.
Sorry Jersey, but you can't have your cake and eat it. You've already said that you believe in evolution and, by extension, that the Bible can't be taken literally. You can't then turn round and use it as any sort of proof to support your argument.
It's not in our nature to readily accept opinions which contradict deeply held beliefs. I know it might sound as if I am jumping on a faddish bandwagon but if you haven't done so already you really need to read Dawkins' The God Delusion. As a Catholic growing up in Ireland, going to Christian Schools I spent my whole life being told all the reasons why there was a god, with absolutely no one making any sort of intelligent coherent argument on why there is almost certainly not. It's amazing that such a massive part of people's lives can escape any sort of logical investigation. Dawkins takes every single argument that has been thrown about the existence of god and devastates them all. Certainly he completely destroys the arguments in favour of organised religion if nothing else. Also another great read is Hitchens' God Is Not Great, he doesn't exactly use the scientific approach that Dawkins takes to disproving the existence of god but he is rather articulate in destroying any notion that Organised Religion benefits humanity in any way at all, citing the hundreds of examples of how religion does in fact cause much more strife than any perceived 'comfort' benefits.
No, I'm just not a fundamentalist. Most of the Old Testament is stories told to explain things, like Creation, but the New Testament is the real deal. Anybody with common sense can tell that the Earth wasn't created in seven days, the second paragraph of Genesis was written about 300 years after the first! For Christians such as myself (I'm Catholic to be precise) the New Testament and the Gospels are the real deal.
Yes, and slowly but surely as the human race has evolved the belief in such fantasies has been displaced by science.
But where would the basic moral rules that govern the society have come from without a belief in a deity? Without religion, I don't think that a society such as ours would exist today, but it's impossible to know. Religion is something hard-wired into humans, there's no denying that.
But science can co-exist with religion; I'm currently doing Philosophy and Physics A-Levels, and if anything, they back each other up.
You don't need to believe in a deity to know that stealing or raping or murder is wrong. Religious texts just wrote down that which humans had mostly evolved to know. It's human instinct. I would argue that if it wasn't for religion the human race would be far more advanced than we are now. Have you been watching Civilisation on channel 4? It's no coincidence that the Muslim world fell behind the west as they hung on to their out-dated religious beliefs while countries in the west became increasingly secular. Religion, like much else that was part of our psyche for so long, is slowly being eroded and as it is the more the human race advances.
Oh yeah, I would love to hear you back that up. You're starting to sound like one of those Creationist loonies.
OK, then. Gravity. The force that holds all things together. Without it, there would be no universe. This backs up the theory as God the sustainer. Big Bang and Evolution, I've already been through that.
Even if it were true that religion is the most efficient method of instilling morals into human beings it still offers no evidence that a deity actually exists. I'm bringing my children up atheist and I hope that I am certainly instilling decent human morals into them without bringing a god into the mix. I'm know I'm probably not going to change your mind about something you hold dear but I would urge you to read the Dawkins and Hitchens books. If you have strong faith then a book is unlikely to convert you, but as I said anything which we devote so much of our lives to certainly needs a bit of a counter argument.
Are you taking the piss mate? Where are you studying? The University of Alabama? You can't can't just say gravity: there, that's proof of God's existence and leave it at that. Science explains gravity, not some spiritual being. I'm beginning to wonder if you're at the wind up.
