Creationism Vs Evolutionism: The Great Religious Debate

Echoes221 said:

Religion is rediculous set of pointless rules.
The worst one is:
\'no sex before marriage\'

How is \'no sex before marriage\' ridiculous, it might sound ridiculous to us now because society makes it \"coool\" to have sex at a young age, but it has been proven through many studies that a couple lasts longer if they abstain from sex until marriage.

EDIT: Sorry for the double post, i forgot i could edit.

( Edited 28.11.2008 17:08 by Demoni Rakkausenkeli )

Demoni Rakkausenkeli said:

Echoes221 said:

Religion is rediculous set of pointless rules.
The worst one is:
'no sex before marriage'

How is 'no sex before marriage' ridiculous, it might sound ridiculous to us now because society makes it "coool" to have sex at a young age, but it has been proven through many studies that a couple lasts longer if they abstain from sex until marriage.

EDIT: Sorry for the double post, i forgot i could edit.

Demoni Rakkausenkeli said:
it has been proven through many studies that a couple lasts longer if they abstain from sex until marriage.

I'm willing to believe you that there are in fact such studies, but it's not that simple. Couples who abstain until marriage are likely to be extremely straight-laced people, who view marriage as a completely unbreakable institution. Whereas more normal people who don't particularly abstain for any reason are more likely to say to their partner something like "Hey, we've been together 5 years, and we don't love each other anymore. Let's break up" wheras deeply religious folk would either try and resolve matters, or just completely ignore there is a problem.

So even if these figures are true, you have to factor in the kind of people we are talking about on both sides, and that although abstainers may on average have a higher change of "going the distance", this is not necessarily a positive thing for them as people.

Agreed. Sometimes divorce is a good thing, you know.

But still i think its ridiculous, people should be able to do whatever they want with their lives.
Religion goes against God.
God made us with freewill, but people follow 'his' rules. That completely contradicts the point of freewill.

The cheese. said:
Agreed. Sometimes divorce is a good thing, you know.

But still i think its ridiculous, people should be able to do whatever they want with their lives.
Religion goes against God.
God made us with freewill, but people follow \'his\' rules. That completely contradicts the point of freewill.
I think the point is that God doesn\'t force you to do anything, you can choose to do what he says or not. On the other hand if you truly believe the Bible then an eternity in Hell doesn\'t make it much of a choice, but if you believe the Bible you\'re going to do what God says anyway...right? (to an extent)

Even if you believe the Bible, its still another set of rules to an extent.
I mean, look at the 10 commandments. They are just everyday rules \'thou shalt not steal\' It was just societies way of dealing with people.

And anyway, I dont care if pepople are religous, if they are nice ect thats fine with me. Pepople are aloud to have their own views on the world, its a little something called \'freewill\' ( i know i just kinda contradicted myself)as long as they dont disrupt the world around them with their religion i.e cold calling. Im happy. Religion to me dosen\'t depict wether or not i like the person. I like them because of the qualities they have as a human being.

If your religion is praying to Cardiff evryday, thats fine, if your religion is football, thats fine by me. people have to express themselves, just dont do it in the way that blows up other people.

And anyway, the formation of the world has already been proved, its aliens in the middle! ;- (good old doctor who!)

( Edited 28.11.2008 18:29 by Echoes221 )

The cheese. said:
I think the point is that God doesn't force you to do anything, you can choose to do what he says or not. On the other hand if you truly believe the Bible then an eternity in Hell doesn't make it much of a choice, but if you believe the Bible you're going to do what God says anyway...right? (to an extent)

Christianity is basically Nazism. The bible is mainly about fearing God. In fact, Christians are even known to refer to themselves as "Good, God-fearing Christians". I'm sure you've all heard that phrase. God gives us all free will, but then truncates this free will by providing us with the most severe and all-encompassing punishment imaginable- Hell. Therefore, we have no free will. Forthermore, since God created all things, God also created all the horrible things. God also created all the temptations which we mustn't give in to. He basically fucks with us. God created evil.

It's these glaring contradictions and many more things that make me regard religious people as quite small, simple folk. You only need to spare a passing thought to the nature of the universe to realise that, indeed, all religion is false. It's quite funny how even deeply-religious people will renounce their own religion by acting in certain ways. Comedian Bill Hicks was once accosted by a bunch of Christians, who pushed him around and said "Hey, we're Christians, and we don't like what you say about Christianity". So Hicks said "Forgive me, then". Genius as that comment was, they proceeded to break his leg.

Or those Buddhist monks in Bodhgaya protesting that a visit from the President disrupted prayer. A founding tenet of Buddhism is something along the lines of "All things are as they should be". Well, if that's the case, then why protest and try to change things? Lawl. Religion is rather silly.

Basically what God does by giving us free-will is that, freedom. We can do bad things and in real life, we get punished for that and God is telling us we can do whatever we want, but if we do something wrong we deserved to be punished. God promised us Heaven, which no one knows what is heaven except that most of us believe heaven is life excluding bad things, and in exchange we promised to love him (this goes back to the old testament), if any of us breaks this promise, we will be punished for it and i doubt God has broken his promise.

And Martin, dont compare Christianity to Nazism, you can compare bad christians but there are many good christians out there and the good christians are not nazis.
And how would sparing a passing thought to the nature of the universe make us realise we\'re wrong? When i think of all this that is around me, all the galaxies, planets, mountains, animals, people, bacteria, all that, the most reasonable explanation is God. How could all that have been created so perfectly by two protons(that somehow just were there) colliding at incredible speeds? Like a friend of mine once said, \"things can be created by themselves with nature acting upon them(rain and shit like that), but think of it this way, the universe is like a computer and a really smart being had to have created the computer, it couldnt just possibly come out of nowhere.\"

EDIT: And BTW, those Christians that broke his leg are hypocrites. We are surrounded by them, people believing in one thing but doing another. As a matter of fact my religion, Christianity, is probably the religion with the biggest number of hypocrites.

( Edited 28.11.2008 19:32 by Demoni Rakkausenkeli )

And Martin, dont compare Christianity to Nazism, you can compare bad christians but there are many good christians out there and the good christians are not nazis.
And how would sparing a passing thought to the nature of the universe make us realise we're wrong? When i think of all this that is around me, all the galaxies, planets, mountains, animals, people, bacteria, all that, the most reasonable explanation is God. How could all that have been created so perfectly by two protons(that somehow just were there) colliding at incredible speeds? Like a friend of mine once said, "things can be created by themselves with nature acting upon them(rain and shit like that), but think of it this way, the universe is like a computer and a really smart being had to have created the computer, it couldnt just possibly come out of nowhere."

As for God being the most reasonable explanation, I completely disagree. Accepting the existence of God seems to cause more problems then it solves, to be honest. And I'm not sure why two protons colliding is relevant to anything, but I'm guessing it's a reference to the LHC, rather then nuclear fusion? It sounds like you're suggesting that 2 protons colliding caused the big bang, which is of course completely absurd.

Demoni Rakkausenkeli said:
And how would sparing a passing thought to the nature of the universe make us realise we're wrong?

Because you would realise that the universe cannot be rationally understood, by it's very nature. Imagining a being called 'God' and imagining that this being has laid down ground rules as to how to live your life, and if you disobey them you suffer eternal punishment, etc.. is extremely primitive and small-minded. Christianity is Nazism because of how truncated and hypocritical it is. The planets and universe you say? Yes it is amazing. What's more amazing is that your religion did not allow for that until recently. Astrology was looked upon as evil, and dinosaur bones as wicked lies. The bible says the Earth is only 6,000 years old.

Etc, basically. It's unbelievably small-minded to be religious. All religions are false. If there is a God, then we must consider that we are an accident of God, or that God doesn't even like us. Assuming God loves us is unthinkable to me, given the world we live in, and God's immeasurably oppressive rules that are set in the bible. If there is a God, and God created all things- then God created evil. You must realise this? God is 'himself' evil by 'his' own standards, by the very things that 'he' has done. That 'he' be outside such judgement makes 'him' basically an evil dictator. Like Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, etc. We are 'his' unquestioning slaves, living by 'his' rules, for no particular reason other than the fear of 'his' wrath.

Merely thinking of the universe in such terms of "good" and "evil" is very small-minded, in my opinion. If there is a God, then that doesn't automatically make me assume that God has any 'love' for us. I have no love for the microbes that live on my excretions. It is small-minded to be religious. Christianity is one of the worst, in my opinion. The hypocrisy in that religion knows almost no bounds. If Jesus were resurrected, do you really think he'd want his disciples baring crosses- the image of his executions around their necks? As Hicks says, you wouldn't go up to Jackie Kennedy with a rifle round your neck and say to her "Just thinking of John and Robert!".

Well, to be fair Jesus' death is quite a significant event in Christian philosophy, the whole idea is that he gave his life for our sins etc, so having a symbol that refers to that isn't totally weird.

anti scouse christ, you're welcome to state your views on religion, but I think its probably a bit beyond the pale to start suggesting that you want to line up and executive every religious person. Hardly credits your argument that getting rid of religion would stop violence etc, does it? We have lots of religious members on the site, I'm sure they'd rather not have other members telling them that given the chance they'd execute them.

In my view, and I know not everyone agrees with this, God must be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. You can argue about the first two, but I don't see any evidence for an omnibenevolent being watching from the sky. It's cliche but I can't accept that famines and wars exist and so does God.

And how would sparing a passing thought to the nature of the universe make us realise we're wrong? When i think of all this that is around me, all the galaxies, planets, mountains, animals, people, bacteria, all that, the most reasonable explanation is God.

Okay, so if your most reasonable explanation for the universe is God, what is your most reasonable explanation for God? I mean you have this almighty God who is so beautifully crafted, but who created him? Another God? A God of the gods?

Before someone tries to imply that God was there at the beginning, and always has been there, I would ask them to think very seriously why they couldn't say the same for the universe.

The basic mistake that everyone makes, Stu, is that very thing- trying to impart their own notions of reason and meaning unto the universe. These are merely human notions. They do not exist outside of our own feeble minds. There does not have to be a "reason" for life or the universe. As such, there does not have to be a creator, or point of creation. Time itself is merely a human concept. Time does not, in reality, exist. My view is simply to allow for, and to accept the possibility of there either being a creator, or there being no creator and no particular reason, meaning, or purpose for any of this.

If there is a creator, I do not assume (as religious people do) that this creator loves us, or even cares for us particularly. 'love' is, again, merely a human concept. Not to mention that one could hardly call this world into which we are thrust a "loving" decision by this 'higher power'. All religions are quite obviously false. If there is a creator, then the creator has not spoken to us and told us how to live our lives, and may not have any particular interest in how we go about things.

We cannot see beyond the veil of mortality. We cannot know what, if anything, lies beyond death. The thought that there would be simply goes back to mankind's most primitive days when he was afraid of death, and created religion and God to provide make-shift explanations for things he could not comprehend.

We can know only one thing- All religions are false.

By the way, the big bang theory doesn\'t state the universe was created by 2 colliding photons, you\'re confusing it with CERN which is using photons colliding to recreate the conditions after the big bang. Noone really knows what the big bang was, but one possible theory is that the universe as it is is just a quantum flux and the universe has in fact existed in some form forever.

And yes, time is a totally human concept. As far as the universe is concerned, \"time\" is just a facet of space, but we never know because we live our lives at a ridiculously slow speed.

( Edited 29.11.2008 03:21 by knighty )

Well, Christians believe that God is outside time so he wasn\'t created, we however are inside time and everything inside time has a beginning and an end. Whenever science discovers a way to somehow stop time and travel time and get out of time and that sorta stuff, we will all know the truth. I\'m not afraid of the truth. I seek the truth and for me, like ive said hundreds of times, God is the closest thing to the truth.

EDIT: And not only God but Catholicism in general. cause there are hundreds of religions that believe in the same God: The God of Abraham and Moses.

( Edited 29.11.2008 05:20 by Demoni Rakkausenkeli )

Well that's very small of you, in my opinion. You cannot believe that God is outside time, and then believe that we are inside it. There is either time, or no time. Also, where do you get the "God loves us" from?

Demoni Rakkausenkeli said:
Well, Christians believe that God is outside time so he wasn't created, we however are inside time and everything inside time has a beginning and an end. Whenever science discovers a way to somehow stop time and travel time and get out of time and that sorta stuff, we will all know the truth. I'm not afraid of the truth. I seek the truth and for me, like ive said hundreds of times, God is the closest thing to the truth.

EDIT: And not only God but Catholicism in general. cause there are hundreds of religions that believe in the same God: The God of Abraham and Moses.

Again, you are working on the assumption that time is an entity that must have been created and must have a beginning and an end. Says who? Sure the moment at the big bang was where space-time formed but who's to say it will ever end. And why does being "outside time" exempt you from being created, if clearly you think things must have creators?

You say that you seek the truth and that God is the closest truth to you. Well then I'm afraid that, in my opinion, your logic and reasoning must be very poor to simply opt for the "No we haven't seen him, or heard him, or smelt him, or touched him, BUT he is there because it says so in a little book written thousands of years ago by people who knew no better" argument.

What does being 'outside time' even mean?

Then using that 'outside time' logic, couldn't you just say that the initiators of the big bang (the super atom or whatever it was) was outside time too? I don't understand how so many Christians ask atheists "so what created the big bang" yet do not ask "what created god?"

Whenever science discovers a way to somehow stop time and travel time and get out of time and that sorta stuff, we will all know the truth.

I somehow don't think that will be enough, people would have a tendency of denying things that are right in front of them. I mean people still don't believe that evolution takes place when it can be observed everywhere.

Wut?

Martin_ said:
Wut?

curoi said:
In my view, and I know not everyone agrees with this, God must be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. You can argue about the first two, but I don't see any evidence for an omnibenevolent being watching from the sky. It's cliche but I can't accept that famines and wars exist and so does God.

Thats something I personally dont get, how "God" is all the thing's. This may be a very oversimplified argument but look at it this way:

The bible says that God is omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent correct? Take this scenario, if you will, into consideration. A helpless old woman is walking down the street and some thug mug's her, beats her up and get's away scot free, one of three things must be true.

1) God knows something is happening, care's enough to want to stop it but doesn't have the power to do so - not all powerful
2) God knows something is happening, can do something about it if he wanted to but in the end just doesn't really care because that old lady just happened to dodge some council tax for food money that week - not all loving and all forgiving.
3) God cares about all the bad things going on in the world and if he knew about them could stop them but doesn't know about them so he cant do anything to stop them - not all powerful.

Granted, like I said, its an over simplification but it's still the truth. When it come's down to it it's a human beings personality, instinct and our own drives and emotion's that cause us to do good thing's in this world, not some pre-ordained set of rule's laid down however many thousands of year's ago by people that were looking for meaning in their existence and thus created "God" to give it to them.