Darwin's "Origin of Species" with shit on top.

There is also far too much evidence for evolution - the problem is most people are misinformed and have an extraordinarily terrible understanding of it.

yes, i believe this to be true.

i also believe so many people, not much different than us today, in 1000 b.c. wanted to understand where they came from. the irony is - they probably wanted to know simply because of the EVOLUTION of their brain - the evolution of humanity as a whole. they got curious - just like we're curious even today - and why I, and millions of other people, am so curious if other life-forms exist on other planets.

i personally believe theories that hold water don't have to be shoved down people's throats (e.g. darwinism). the masses come around eventually, yet some like to hold onto mistruths or fabrications for personal reasons because they are comforting. change (or "the truth") is scary - and some us would rather not confront that.

i don't want to make this into a political conversation, but i believe the religious right is damn near everything wrong with America today. the same 'shove it down everyone else's throat' approach, like that of the vid, is the same tatics used by the GOP and radical splinter groups. this "how can there be anything else - or other possibilities??" approach is absurd.

why can't people just believe what they want to believe and everybody just leave everybody else the f*ck alone?? it amazes me how this is beyond so many people. what a better world this would be if this one thing was observed.
 
My common argument is that if we were created, God had to have been created. By their logic, we can't have been a product of nothing have thus, must have been created. Same rules apply to a creator in my book.

going off on what basically the Aztecs and Egyptians said, and what modern science has been pointing to when it comes to the classification of civilizations in the universe, its more logical to say that we were created by a more advanced civilization, one that was playing god and slicing DNA to make all living creatures at least on this planet. hell we humans have been experimenting around with DNA manipulation it isn't too far fetched to say that we could create whole species if we are around for another few thousand years. That's more believable, but who created that civilization that created us? maybe another more advanced civilization and on and on. If that is the answer, that still doesn't answer the question as to what created the creator and what created the universe

When Science made the theory that you cannot create something from nothing, they were contradicting their big bang theory. When that was questioned the redid their theory, that the big bang didn't react the raw gaseous materials that made our universe, but it was an implosion from a previous universe. We know that our universe is expanding and gets larger in mass as a result, and will eventually slow down and should com back the other way until it implodes on itself, when looking at further galaxies at the end of the universe, they noticed that they are moving slower or are seeming to slow down compared to the galaxies closer to the center, indicating that the universe will turn around and re implode on itself. When trying to solve an equation regarding super-massive black holes and their time warp all real numbers came to an incomplete solution that in this case an incomplete solution was mathematically impossible since that outcome meant that the universe basically doesn't exist, when the term infinity was plugged in, the answer came out. They went back an even found the answers to other unsolved equations which worked. That equation in the sense of time played out to be:

Time has been and always will be

and

The universe is infinite (a phrase that had been used but never been mathematically proven)

and that's the answer to the universe, infinity. The existence of the gaseous materials has always been here, one big bang after another. And that is why in my belief that religion exists, the people who can't come to cope with the fact that there doesn't have to be a creator, that the universe has always existed as a reasonable answer, create the story of the skygod and call that a more reasonable answer than infinity. Any 3 dimensional entity in this universe cannot grasp or comprehend the concept of infinity and ultimately the ones who say that because they cannot comprehend that answer they will not take it for the truth are religious. But the thing is just because you don't comprehend a topic doesn't mean that the facts of that topic are false, it just means your brain isn't advanced enough to get it, and really no person on this planet really understands it, we just accept it. The ones who refuse to accept it, well you already know, create "Sky Wizard"

I will end on this note. I remember when I was maybe around 8-10 I ran this theory through my head its a very simple thought:

If you get in a time machine and go all the way back to the big bang, and you keep going back in time, will you ever reach the beginning of time? And naturally I came to the answer of no, you will always be able to go back in time forever and never stop (infinity) because time is an illusion to a certain point in the 4th dimension. My reasoning is that if you reached the beginning of existence, what happened before that? and the answer is, more time you can never stop going into the past regardless of when the big bang happened, you can always continue to get further away from it in the 4th dimension (either by the past or future), just like you can move as far as you want in the 3rd dimension, what happens, are you going to move so far away from the galaxies that you are going to hit a wall or a force field and even if so what is beyond that wall or force field...more space, because you can move in any direction forever, the universe is infinite, it has always been and always will be, yeah I may have had too much time on my hands before I started puberty.

In the end it comes down to whether you would rather believe sky wizard or infinity.
 
My common argument is that if we were created, God had to have been created. By their logic, we can't have been a product of nothing have thus, must have been created. Same rules apply to a creator in my book.

Ouch, yea that's a tricky question to ponder. Totally mindfuck after a while :P I usually end up thinking about how/why/from what big bang was "created", but I usually don't get any wiser... so I have given up on all the existential thoughts.

that brings me to the thought that a theist if you confronted them that something had to have created the creator, they would retort back with something like, god has always been and always will be, twisting science to make their religion work, but here is what I noticed, lets compare the things that God and the universe (as an entity) have in common.

Infinite
The Creator
All knowing
Omnipotent
Forgiving
"God-Fearing"

I truly believe that God is the personified symbol of the universe. The Universe itself is god. It would also explain the symbolism for pentagrams and inverted pentagrams being the focus of energy to their the Microcosm (us the humans and mother earth) and the Macrocosm (god or the heavens) and would be the reason for the spiritual religions (laveyan) satanism or other religions that are trying to achieve god-head through their spiritual connection of the universe, it literally explains the term of "finding god"
 
If one cannot accept that speciation occurs and that complex lifeforms could have arisen from humble beginnings, he is an ignorant fool. And that's being nice.

People like Ray Comfort stalled out intellectually at about 8 years old. Not only are their "logical" arguments shockingly immature, their disingenuousness, obscurantism and utter reliance on calculated half-truths to communicate anything reflect nothing more than a red-handed kid trying to convince you that he didn't actually have his hand in the cookie jar.

All I can do to keep from getting angry is have a laugh at these fools.
 
going off on what basically the Aztecs and Egyptians said, and what modern science has been pointing to when it comes to the classification of civilizations in the universe, its more logical to say that we were created by a more advanced civilization, one that was playing god and slicing DNA to make all living creatures at least on this planet. hell we humans have been experimenting around with DNA manipulation it isn't too far fetched to say that we could create whole species if we are around for another few thousand years. That's more believable, but who created that civilization that created us? maybe another more advanced civilization and on and on. If that is the answer, that still doesn't answer the question as to what created the creator and what created the universe

When Science made the theory that you cannot create something from nothing, they were contradicting their big bang theory. When that was questioned the redid their theory, that the big bang didn't react the raw gaseous materials that made our universe, but it was an implosion from a previous universe. We know that our universe is expanding and gets larger in mass as a result, and will eventually slow down and should com back the other way until it implodes on itself, when looking at further galaxies at the end of the universe, they noticed that they are moving slower or are seeming to slow down compared to the galaxies closer to the center, indicating that the universe will turn around and re implode on itself. When trying to solve an equation regarding super-massive black holes and their time warp all real numbers came to an incomplete solution that in this case an incomplete solution was mathematically impossible since that outcome meant that the universe basically doesn't exist, when the term infinity was plugged in, the answer came out. They went back an even found the answers to other unsolved equations which worked. That equation in the sense of time played out to be:

Time has been and always will be

and

The universe is infinite (a phrase that had been used but never been mathematically proven)

and that's the answer to the universe, infinity. The existence of the gaseous materials has always been here, one big bang after another. And that is why in my belief that religion exists, the people who can't come to cope with the fact that there doesn't have to be a creator, that the universe has always existed as a reasonable answer, create the story of the skygod and call that a more reasonable answer than infinity. Any 3 dimensional entity in this universe cannot grasp or comprehend the concept of infinity and ultimately the ones who say that because they cannot comprehend that answer they will not take it for the truth are religious. But the thing is just because you don't comprehend a topic doesn't mean that the facts of that topic are false, it just means your brain isn't advanced enough to get it, and really no person on this planet really understands it, we just accept it. The ones who refuse to accept it, well you already know, create "Sky Wizard"

I will end on this note. I remember when I was maybe around 8-10 I ran this theory through my head its a very simple thought:

If you get in a time machine and go all the way back to the big bang, and you keep going back in time, will you ever reach the beginning of time? And naturally I came to the answer of no, you will always be able to go back in time forever and never stop (infinity) because time is an illusion to a certain point in the 4th dimension. My reasoning is that if you reached the beginning of existence, what happened before that? and the answer is, more time you can never stop going into the past regardless of when the big bang happened, you can always continue to get further away from it in the 4th dimension (either by the past or future), just like you can move as far as you want in the 3rd dimension, what happens, are you going to move so far away from the galaxies that you are going to hit a wall or a force field and even if so what is beyond that wall or force field...more space, because you can move in any direction forever, the universe is infinite, it has always been and always will be, yeah I may have had too much time on my hands before I started puberty.

In the end it comes down to whether you would rather believe sky wizard or infinity.

Your very last sentence is a logical fallacy -- namely the fallacy of false alternatives. The "you're either with us or against us" argument holds no water and disregards people in the middle. So no, it does NOT come down to whether you believe in creationism or infinity. You can believe in both or believe in neither. And in fact, Georg Cantor said God was the "absolute infinite"...that's an example of somebody who believed in both.

To the layman, some of the more exotic, speculative theories of cosmology require just as big of leap of faith as Christianity does. Think about it: they are telling us that all matter was compressed to a single particle that's smaller than an atom. And you expect somebody with just a high-school education to understand how and why that supposedly happened? You expect them to take your word for it?

Have YOU PERSONALLY ever seen the logic that leads up to the big bang? Have you ever crunched the numbers? Subjected yourself to years of schooling just to understand ONE theory? Probably not. I've been in school studying math and science for 2 and a half years and I am NOWHERE near the level that it takes to understand the nuts and bolts of cosmology.

But, apparently if Stephen Hawking says it's true, then it must be true...even if you can't verify his logic personally.

I am not saying abandon your faith in science...just be a skeptic. We can easily rail on Christians for being blind idiots, but I warn you: it's very possible to turn into a dogmatist of science.
 
Proof of infinity...
1/3=0.3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333~
It NEVER stops... :D

:kickass::notworthy:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

awesome dude!

@stingy

If you look at my following post, I did place together as to how exactly god can relate to science, since its been debatable as to what god is exactly, when it comes down to the majority of religions from the sweep of humanity, that if the universe IS God, than the existence of believing in both is fairly logical. And in that case I can gladly say that I believe in a god, or the entity of it because a rational explanation gives proof (or somewhat) of god's existence.

The complicated thing is that in that scenario god is a 4 dimensional entity, once problem is that the multiverse is larger than that, 13 dimensions to be exact, now we start theorizing of what the fuck the multiverse is. Anyone know string theory? hahaha
 
I am not saying abandon your faith in science...just be a skeptic. We can easily rail on Christians for being blind idiots, but I warn you: it's very possible to turn into a dogmatist of science.

The difference being, science can be updated by supporting evidence, and therefore science itself evolves. Religion relies on unchanging dogma.
 
The difference being, science can be updated by supporting evidence, and therefore science itself evolves. Religion relies on unchanging dogma.

Indeed, a good point. However, my main point being that we should always look at everything with a healthy dose of skepticism...that includes science.

Our world is emotion, feeling, qualitative...ultimately illogical. Our world is FAR from the idealized clockwork universe that Newton, Kepler, etc. dreamed about. In the end, while science is a crown jewel of humanity's knowledge and progress, science STILL struggles to explain some of the most fundamental aspects of our lives.

Go ask a physicist what time is. Ask them what empty space is. Go ask a mathematician what a chaotic system is. You'll see what I mean.

So, in my mind, worshiping science as the be-all and end-all (or, the ultimate answer to any question posed) is just as foolish as the Christians worshiping some God.
 
Stringy... it's hard to be more skeptical of science than science is. The point is that every question you have has either been answered or will be answered as soon as some grad student figures out he can get a paper out of it, and I fail to see what chaotic systems have to do with skepticism about science.

For the proof that the expansion never stops, all you need is an argument from relative primality (a finite number of 3s would lead to a decimal expansion that could be multiplied by a large power of 10 to get an integer, which is clearly nonsense)... but that doesn't prove 'infinity', as the idea's very definition is as consistent as an idea can be and that's sufficient. Will people ever stop jerking off to infinity?

Jeff
 
The difference being, science can be updated by supporting evidence, and therefore science itself evolves. Religion relies on unchanging dogma.

... while religion can be updated by creepy men in caves who eat mushrooms and then write a new book. The Bible -> The Quran :D

Isn't that good enough for ya Glenn? Don't you want to believe the words of some random dude who is dicking around in a cave? Haha...
 
Stringy... it's hard to be more skeptical of science than science is. The point is that every question you have has either been answered or will be answered as soon as some grad student figures out he can get a paper out of it, and I fail to see what chaotic systems have to do with skepticism about science.

For the proof that the expansion never stops, all you need is an argument from relative primality (a finite number of 3s would lead to a decimal expansion that could be multiplied by a large power of 10 to get an integer, which is clearly nonsense)... but that doesn't prove 'infinity', as the idea's very definition is as consistent as an idea can be and that's sufficient. Will people ever stop jerking off to infinity?

Jeff

I was waiting for you to pop up in this thread. :)

I agree, people IN science are not my issue. Everybody who's learned the scientific method knows that if you fuck up and your theory sucks...then change it or move on. Skepticism is hammered into anybody who's formally trained.

My issue is the layman who uses grand cosmological arguments to explain the origin of the universe when he/she has clearly accepted the truth of that argument completely on token of faith.

But you truly believe that all the questions that I have posed are already answered and are just awaiting publishing? Did I understand you correctly?

0.333333... is defined as an infinite sum. The sum converges to 1/3. So really, the only place infinity comes into play is the limit...and the limit works because the reals keep getting smaller and smaller. No big deal, I was just teasing him.
 
I have. As well as a wealth of more modern books on the subject. I used to be a doubter, many years ago, when I had a very limited understanding of the theory. I was criminally misinformed to be honest.
That's why I feel quite strongly now about the importance of education in this area. I hate the fact that you can't talk to most people about it, especially religious people who are aligned against it, because they don't have even the most basic undestanding of any of it.
 
You think that most atheists don't understand evolution?

That may be true, but I doubt it's a because of a stubborn reluctance to accept evidence which contradicts their worldview.
 
How many of you have actually READ The Origin of Species?

I haven't, but I have watched the Dawkins documentaries, "The Genius of Charles Darwin" which laid it out pretty simply. Check it out. Pretty awesome stuff.

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