Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
I actually agree with one thing in this statement. That religion is used for control. I do believe that people use it for that...in fact religion is a word created by man during the crusades. However, faith and believing in God is different than religion. I don't assume I have all the answers...in fact I know that I don't. I am simply frustrated that evolutionist and atheist believe they have truth for a fact. Again on earth we need brains, if there is is an afterlife we wouldn't be able to know if the same is true.
Again there is a reason why scientists label this section of textbooks as "The theory of evolution." It's because they can't truly show that it is a fact. Do I believe in adaptation? Absolutely, hell, when I'm cold I put a coat on to stay warm and adapt to my surroundings. Of course animals adapt to where they live that doesn't mean evolution is true. I also ask who was there millions of years ago to write down that indeed those fossils were millions of years old. I mean at least there is historical documentation of people like Jesus and Buddha being a real person. God never said to ignore science, in fact in my opinion he gave us science so we can understand how our environment adapts and works.
So wait because you see a fossil and someone writes this is millions of years old...you believe it just because?
Okay so because a religious person came up with a hypothesis(theory) I'm suppose to be more willing to believe it. Again come on lets use logic...it was a hypothesis for a reason...cause it can't be proved.
First, I'll give you just one of the many glaring evidences of the fact that evolution is quite frankly absurd to think.
So you are 100% sure that every God is a false God, and that there is no way religion or faith is possibly true. I guess if you are willing to go in on that that is your choice. My point was simply that really no one knows which Gods or God is false. You can only theorize on that.
Okay so let me get this straight, you are going to use stuff from biblical or other texts that you don't believe in to argue your point? I mean I guess you could bring it up, but even then the fact that false Gods have been worshiped before doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. So it really isn't a valid argument.
The idea of prayer isn't there to make life easier. Most religions like I said have Gods who don't promise a better life...but a better afterlife. I'll use Christianity as an example. I believe in a personal relationship with God. Prayer is my way of communicating to God and allowing my relationship with him to become closer. I could give you verses to show you that prayer isn't meant for perfecting your life, but rather to build further recognition of God. However, you don't believe in the Bible so showing you those verses means nothing to you. The fact is that no religion claims that prayer makes ones life better. If there is one that does, then the definition of better most likely is referring to your spiritual self.
Yes, the wife. I mean I'm sure that she wants to lie...either way doctors have also witnessed people raising from the dead...so tell me is the whole hospital lying in that situation.
.
Again what evidence do you have that a God doesn't exist and evolution is completely true...you don't have any.
I have clearly stated several times that I am not stupid enough to think I have all the answers; I'm just bothered by people who believe that they do. Don't worry I'm not offended I expected illogical rebuttals...no offenseit certainly seems like you are... not to offend you
What point do you wish to make about them? If you want to argue that you are in no position to know anything at all, then I'm not going to try to contradict you.
Your argument appears to cut both ways. If you claim that the existence of God is not subject to reason, then one cannot reason in favor of his existence either. Yet here you are in a defense of the idea that at least one god exists. On the other hand, if you claim that you are in a position to reason about the existence of gods, then I am equally in a position to argue against it.
That's the spirit! You want me to use my powers of reason about what you think you also know something about. I didn't think that you were committed to that "Egocentric Predicament" nonsense either.
The authors, compilers, and editors of the Job story also felt that they knew stuff about God and could reason about the assumptions he and others had about God. While I don't think they had any good basis for their claims, I'm happy to see that you think the subject is open for discussion.
Perhaps you could explain the reasoning that led you to these conclusions. I have no clue yet as to what it is yet, but I do see what your conclusions are.
There is a popular belief in some communities that there is not a shred of evidence of evolution, but I have seen plenty of evidence of it. Richard Dawkins wrote a very good book that covered a massive amount of it in great detail: The Greatest Show on Earth. Hence, I reject your unsupported claim that there is no such evidence.
Abiogenesis is a well-established scientific theory, so your weird unsupported claim is just false. Scientists cannot simultaneously consider it a viable theory and reject it as impossible.
I share your skepticism that either would happen overnight. After all, it took an immense amount of time for the universe to cool down enough to form the heavy elements that led to the emergence of life. I'm not looking for overnight miracles to explain how life came to be. It appears that you are. And, while it is true that nobody expects a single sell to develop into a man overnight, we can prove that just such a thing happens in the womb of a woman in just nine months. Manhood takes a little longer to achieve. And we understand enough about that process to know that it is not anything like a miracle, notwithstanding the fact that people love to call it that.
Sure. The story of Genesis, for one.
You are apparently ignorant of what the "Big Bang theory" is. Fred Hoyle coined the term as a mocking expression to describe what scientists viewed as rapid inflationary expansion, not an explosion. In your ignorance, you are taking Hoyle's tongue-in-cheek descriptive label too literally. The evidence for inflation is fairly substantial, so calling it silly is itself silly.
Of course not. My arguments are about what it is reasonable to conclude, given what we think we know today. I thought I had made that clear.
If you really did not believe religion were subject to scientific investigation, you would not spend so much time trying to deny scientific claims that you thought contradicted religious claims. Claiming that science is EXTRASCIENTIFIC while simultaneously claiming that prophesies have been born out by evidence of their truthfulness is a real contradiction. But your post has been full of contradictions of that sort, so I doubt that you will agree with me. As for biblical prophecies, you typically did not bother to offer any evidence in support of your claim, so I see no reason to credit it.
I posted the OP to invite rebuttals, so I can hardly take it as an offensive act when you oblige my obvious invitation.
My belief that there is no afterlife is a conclusion, not an assumption. I gave reasons to back up that conclusion. Your best prospect to attack my conclusion is to go after the premises that I gave for it. You have not done so here. Many, if not most, religions are quite overt in their claims that human souls can exist independently of the bodies that host them during life. Gods are more often than not depicted as spiritual beings.
Blatant appeal to authority. The mere existence of texts that make claims is not evidence that the claims are true.
Actually, I've read quite a few books on evolution that do just that. Dawkin's recent book The Greatest Show on Earth stands out as a direct attempt to do just that, and I highly recommend it to you. However, you have a point that Dawkins has not personally showed me any experiments or proved that he had done any. It was just a book, and I found its logic sound and convincing. I suppose that that is no worse than believing in miracles that I have never witnessed. Would you not agree?
You think that global warming is a myth? Well, given your inability to credit the evidence for evolution, I suppose that this should not come as a shock to anyone. :/
Do you really believe that the so-called Big Bang happened only millions of years ago? Do you understand the difference between millions and billions? You have assumed that I have not done research on the debate between evolutionists and their critics, but we have actual evidence here that you do not do your homework. There is plenty of evidence that anti-evolutionists have failed miserably to make their case in the courts, which have actually examined the issue from a legal perspective, at least. But you characteristically fail to offer any support for your sweeping generalizations.
People are entitled to their own opinions, not their own facts. I have not claimed to know the "full truth". I gave reasons in support of my claim of failed revelation, and you ignored the reasons I gave. So your rebuttal here does not affect my conclusion.
Free will is about choosing what to do, not choosing what to believe. Anyone can make absurd and false claims, but that does not mean that they have a right to expect others to accept or tolerate their claims. But you have seriously missed my point. I don't believe in those false texts any more than you do. I use their obvious contradictions and incompatibilities to be evidence of a pattern of false revelation. Humans are prone to belief in false gods. Therefore, any particular god that a human asserts to exist is statistically liable to be a false god.
I have studied religious belief far longer and far more intensely than you have, you young whippersnapper!
Despite the claim that worshipers typically refuse to acknowledge that they pray for special favors, it doesn't take much effort to see that prayers are about praying for something. They are not just "feel good" messages targeted at a deity. Moreoever, why would one even want to get closer to a God? Why not move further away? There has to be some reason why you do things you do, and, much as we all hate to admit it, self-interest plays a big role in our behavior.Do you believe everything you hear? Oh, wait. You don't. You believe don't believe biologists who tell you about evolution, physicists who tell you about the so-called "Big Bang", or climatologists who tell you about global warming. But you believe what Oprah tells you. Gotcha.
You know, I'm not trying to offend you here. I'm just responding to your attempted rebuttal of my OP. I sincerely thank you for your comments, but it is patently absurd to claim you were not trying to get me to believe anything. Of course you were. That's the nature of polemical discussions. And you really are the one claiming to have the truth to life--your religious belief. I'm not faulting you for making that claim, only for using bad arguments to support it. People who believe that we on our tiny dust mote of planet in this vast universe are special creations of an omniscient, omnipotent being are not ones to criticize others for pretensions of being high and mighty.
how so?
tumbleweed said it best...
is zeus a real god, isis, thor what about mithra, horus or athena?
it depends on how much one values objective truth...
the odds that god or gods are man made...are extremely high
exactly, to prove it wrong...
i claim that the end of the world will happen TODAY...
do you think the entire scientific community has a conspiracy against god?
you are introducing the idea of intent...
like i said there is plenty of evidence that supports evolution...just go to any natural history museum
I have clearly stated several times that I am not stupid enough to think I have all the answers; I'm just bothered by people who believe that they do. Don't worry I'm not offended I expected illogical rebuttals...no offense
Minds depend on physical brains. Religions depend on belief in souls--essentially minds that can exist independently of bodies. But experience tells us that minds depend on brain activity to function properly.Record of failed explanations. Religions have a historical record of making failed explanations of observed natural phenomena. The most powerful argument for gods--the argument from design--has been overturned by the discovery of evolution by natural selection. This pattern of failure has resulted in a pattern of "God of the Gaps" explanations. That is, natural explanations always trump supernatural ones.Record of failed revelation. Humans have a record of worshiping false gods. If gods communicated through revelation, we would not expect to see such variety of religious belief in the world. Moreover, we would expect to find the same religious beliefs arising spontaneously in different locations, since the same set of gods (or "God") would presumably contact different people in different locations.
Record of failed prayers. No religious group seems to be luckier or healthier than any other. If prayer worked, we would expect to see some people of faith leading more fortunate lives than the rest of us.Record of failed corroboration of miracles. Religions depend on stories of miracles--events that contravene natural laws--to support religious belief, yet miracles are notoriously resistant to corroboration and verification.Record of failed corroboration of miracles. Religions depend on stories of miracles--events that contravene natural laws--to support religious belief, yet miracles are notoriously resistant to corroboration and verification.There are huge differences between robots or machines and the brains that we find in humans and other animals. Brains are far more complex, for one thing, and they did not come about by a process of deliberate design. What we do know is that emotions, moods, and thoughts correlate with specific brain activity in specific locations of a brain. On that basis alone, it is reasonable to conclude that our feelings and perceptions depend on a working brain for their existence. I know that this is a very hard concept to accept and perhaps unpleasant for you to contemplate, but the evidence is there and it is overwhelming. To see it, you just need to open your eyes and look at it.
Tarek, you are seriously misinformed about this. There is no scientific debate at all, and scientists simply do not believe that the theory of evolution will be overturned. The matter was debated in the past, but it has been settled for a long time. The science of biology rests on the foundation of evolution. You can find this out for yourself without my having to tell you, so I suspect that it doesn't much matter what I say. The unsettled debate is not scientific, but political and religious. If you want to debate the matter, there is an entire forum on RF devoted to just that debate.
If more of our ancestors and contemporaries believed that, then the world would be a far more peaceful place. Unfortunately, they do not, and it is not. My point, however, was broader than just the fact that people who largely agree on religious fundamentals still end up in bitter disputes over how to define a god. It was that human beings historically have proposed the existence of, and worshiped, many thousands of gods. At this point in time, it is fair to say that human beings now reject the existence of almost all of the historical gods. Given such religious diversity, one can only conclude that, whether or not gods exist, humans make exceedingly poor god detectors. If someone proposes the existence of a god to you, that god is statistically unlikely to exist--and that goes for the one you currently believe in, too.
I suspect that you are speaking of fairy tales that you accept as historical fact without any real evidence to back up your acceptance.
This is how you rationalize the failure of belief in gods. You try to make up excuses for why we cannot find reasonable evidence for their existence. You do not bother to wonder why your god--in your case, an omniscient being--would need to put any human being through an "examination" or what the purpose of that "examination" could be for God, given his infinite power to fix any problem. Nonexistent beings do not answer prayers or prove things to anyone, but those who pray to and seek out gods usually find exactly what they are wishing for.
I am afraid that you and I have a very different idea of what a "scientific miracle" is. That expression is really an oxymoron. Science is all about things not being the result of miracles. As for "historical miracles", we probably also have very different standards on what we find credible as true historical events. Every religion has its miracles, but, like gods, those miracles lose all credibility once they are examined for corroborating evidence.