quote:

ORIGINAL: UllrsIshtar

quote:

ORIGINAL: DaddySatyr

Of course religious belief is a "leap of faith",

So is atheism.

There isn't enough evidence to make a scientific conclusion either way.
Both religion and atheism are unproven hypothesis.

Anybody who does anything beyond being agnostic is taking "a leap of faith".

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

quote:

ORIGINAL: MrRodgers

What 'spiritual background and guidance' was given to man for the approx. 198,000 of those years before god (Abraham or Gabriel) stepped in and basically said, 'enough of this shit'...here's the gospel and to poor, desert dwelling illiterates no less.

Right, because everybody knows that religion didn't exist before then.



K.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tamaka

quote:

ORIGINAL: SternlyDunn

There are a great many theologians with considerable education in the sciences, just as there are actual scientists who are devoutly religious and in some cases members of the clergy.

Science and religion coexist all over the place.

Science is knowledge-based system only concerned with understanding the universe and reality as it really is, based on verifiable fact.

Religion is a faith-based system, focused entirely on human beings who inhabit the world.

Part of the problem is, people confuse faith with belief.

The United States is one of the few places in the industrialized world where the leaders of the main Christian denominations choose to disbelieve the irrefutable, proven fact that the earth is billions of years old, and that all species evolved over millions of years through the processes first explained logically in Darwin's theory of Natural Selection, and later corrected and expanded by many other scientists in many fields.

They are not changing those facts, just improving our knowledge and understanding of them.

And while some people may not spend a lot of time dwelling on it, most practicing Christians, Jews, and Muslims in other parts of the world have no issue accepting the fact that the story of Adam and Eve is a creation myth, which, along with much of the Old Testament demonstrates the ethics and cultural identity at the heart of the Judaic-Christian-Islamic religion.

While parts of such myths and hero stories may have threads of real historical events sewn into them, they are no more valid as actual history than the creation myths and hero stories of Polynesian culture, Native Americans, and so forth. But they teach us much about tradition and cultural values.

All of that having been rooted in a prehistorical era when human society was evolving from a clan-based hunter-gatherer existence to an agricultural existence of permanent settlements, populated by many clans of diverse origins, who had to coexist without robbing, killing, pillaging and raping each other. In other words, we needed codes of conduct both legal and moral if we were to learn how to be civil, so we could become a civilization.

In no way does any of that have any bearing on there being a higher power, with or without direct connection to or plan for human kind and the world we live in, or not.

But it does bring into question any belief that any one religion is infallible and somehow truer than other religions, or that its holy texts are likewise valid as genuine history.

While Science may never shake our faith, the greater knowledge of the world and universe Science provides can challenge our beliefs.

Belief is the opposite of knowledge. What we cannot know with certainly, we must choose to believe, or not.

The nice thing about belief is that we can believe whatever we wish, because it has nothing to do with reality whatsoever.

The bad thing about belief is that we can believe whatever we wish, because it has nothing to with reality whatsoever.

If someone proves we are believing in a falsehood, we can simply choose to disbelieve their proof.

It will not change the fact we believe a falsehood any more than believing there is no God makes it so.

If there is a God, he/she/it exists whether we believe it or not.

But there being a God in no way validates any man-made religion over another, or in any way means the events depicted in ancient holy texts happened as written down, back before we knew that diseases of mind and body weren't caused by evil spirits, or that the world was full of people for a million years before modern humans wrote such texts, or that hot sulfur springs didn't come from Hell - a place, by the way, that wasn't even invented until the Middle Ages

Faith and belief are not the same thing. Actual Religion is faith-based interpretation of the metaphysical world, not belief-based, and should remain safe and sound as Science continues to improve our understanding of the physical world

You have to have some faith in science too or no one would ever test a hypothesis.

quote:

ORIGINAL: UllrsIshtar

quote:

ORIGINAL: DaddySatyr


Of course religious belief is a "leap of faith",

So is atheism.

There isn't enough evidence to make a scientific conclusion either way.
Both religion and atheism are unproven hypothesis.

Anybody who does anything beyond being agnostic is taking "a leap of faith".

quote:

ORIGINAL: MrRodgers

quote:

ORIGINAL: tamaka

quote:

ORIGINAL: SternlyDunn

There are a great many theologians with considerable education in the sciences, just as there are actual scientists who are devoutly religious and in some cases members of the clergy.

Science and religion coexist all over the place.

Science is knowledge-based system only concerned with understanding the universe and reality as it really is, based on verifiable fact.

Religion is a faith-based system, focused entirely on human beings who inhabit the world.

Part of the problem is, people confuse faith with belief.

The United States is one of the few places in the industrialized world where the leaders of the main Christian denominations choose to disbelieve the irrefutable, proven fact that the earth is billions of years old, and that all species evolved over millions of years through the processes first explained logically in Darwin's theory of Natural Selection, and later corrected and expanded by many other scientists in many fields.

They are not changing those facts, just improving our knowledge and understanding of them.

And while some people may not spend a lot of time dwelling on it, most practicing Christians, Jews, and Muslims in other parts of the world have no issue accepting the fact that the story of Adam and Eve is a creation myth, which, along with much of the Old Testament demonstrates the ethics and cultural identity at the heart of the Judaic-Christian-Islamic religion.

While parts of such myths and hero stories may have threads of real historical events sewn into them, they are no more valid as actual history than the creation myths and hero stories of Polynesian culture, Native Americans, and so forth. But they teach us much about tradition and cultural values.

All of that having been rooted in a prehistorical era when human society was evolving from a clan-based hunter-gatherer existence to an agricultural existence of permanent settlements, populated by many clans of diverse origins, who had to coexist without robbing, killing, pillaging and raping each other. In other words, we needed codes of conduct both legal and moral if we were to learn how to be civil, so we could become a civilization.

In no way does any of that have any bearing on there being a higher power, with or without direct connection to or plan for human kind and the world we live in, or not.

But it does bring into question any belief that any one religion is infallible and somehow truer than other religions, or that its holy texts are likewise valid as genuine history.

While Science may never shake our faith, the greater knowledge of the world and universe Science provides can challenge our beliefs.

Belief is the opposite of knowledge. What we cannot know with certainly, we must choose to believe, or not.

The nice thing about belief is that we can believe whatever we wish, because it has nothing to do with reality whatsoever.

The bad thing about belief is that we can believe whatever we wish, because it has nothing to with reality whatsoever.

If someone proves we are believing in a falsehood, we can simply choose to disbelieve their proof.

It will not change the fact we believe a falsehood any more than believing there is no God makes it so.

If there is a God, he/she/it exists whether we believe it or not.

But there being a God in no way validates any man-made religion over another, or in any way means the events depicted in ancient holy texts happened as written down, back before we knew that diseases of mind and body weren't caused by evil spirits, or that the world was full of people for a million years before modern humans wrote such texts, or that hot sulfur springs didn't come from Hell - a place, by the way, that wasn't even invented until the Middle Ages

Faith and belief are not the same thing. Actual Religion is faith-based interpretation of the metaphysical world, not belief-based, and should remain safe and sound as Science continues to improve our understanding of the physical world

You have to have some faith in science too or no one would ever test a hypothesis.

Scientists have faith in their tests.

quote:

ORIGINAL: UllrsIshtar
So is atheism.

There isn't enough evidence to make a scientific conclusion either way.
Both religion and atheism are unproven hypothesis.

Anybody who does anything beyond being agnostic is taking "a leap of faith".

quote:

ORIGINAL: tamaka
Let's start with global warming... hmmmm

quote:

ORIGINAL: heavyblinker

quote:

ORIGINAL: tamaka
Let's start with global warming... hmmmm

A watched planet never warms?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

quote:

ORIGINAL: heavyblinker

There's a reason that all Christian 'science' depends so heavily on attempting to undermine solid theories like evolution and the Big Bang/Big Bounce...

The idea of an expanding universe originated with a fucking priest, and even the Vatican has no problem with evolution. Yes there are religious quacks, but there are non-religious quacks too, and you sound a lot like one of them.

K.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

quote:

ORIGINAL: heavyblinker
There's a reason that all Christian 'science' depends so heavily on attempting to undermine solid theories like evolution and the Big Bang/Big Bounce...

The idea of an expanding universe originated with a fucking priest, and even the Vatican has no problem with evolution. Yes there are religious quacks, but there are non-religious quacks too, and you sound a lot like one of them.
K.

quote:

ORIGINAL: DaddySatyr
To make a long story short, as soon as the conversation got around to me, saying: "Well, of course God caused evolution. Who else could?", Father told me to go back to class.

So, this bullshit that Christians don't accept the findings of science is ridiculous, but what can one expect when so much rhetoric that comes from the left is beyond ridiculous?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

quote:

ORIGINAL: heavyblinker

There's a reason that all Christian 'science' depends so heavily on attempting to undermine solid theories like evolution and the Big Bang/Big Bounce...

The idea of an expanding universe originated with a fucking priest, and even the Vatican has no problem with evolution. Yes there are religious quacks, but there are non-religious quacks too, and you sound a lot like one of them.

K.

quote:

great---please start a thread on evolution that provides ALL the incontrovertible evidence of one species transitioning to another species. how many different species are there? evidence must be in abundance for each transition right?

and also while youre at it; just where are all those transitional creatures today?

as a sub component to this, im curious as to how mutations (presumably your argument for transitions), which are overwhelmingly harmful in the natural world, somehow in the case of evolution confer an advantage to the species such that, for instance, when this particular specimen mated with another specimen, that genetic mutation was inherited in the offspring, and then what---after millions of years an eye appears?

quote:

So, this bullshit that Christians don't accept the findings of science is ridiculous, but what can one expect when so much rhetoric that comes from the left is beyond ridiculous?