Do you believe?

[RookParliament]

So Seth? Where exactly do I claim that scientists have figured everything out? Just curious. Show me where I wrote that or apologize for putting words in my mouth. And where do I contradict myself? In all seriousness I sort of got carried away there with that last post with my vain attempt a elequence.
No one can ever conclusively disprove a God, but with our current knoweldge we can actually put forth ideas that show how our universe could exist without needing a divine origin. I don't believe in a gods because there just is no grand overriding reason to believe in them.

As futile as the debate is in the end it is a bit of fun, and could help sharpen an analytical mind.

 

[Shadows Skulk]

blah blah oh noes ghostz

why didn't your experience prompt you to start believing in invisible dolphins that shoot mandolins out their blowholes and speak in prerecorded tape loops of kids laughing

you could literally replace every instance of the word 'ghost' with what I just said and your argument would be exactly the same: ridiculous

 

[Botfly]

well, tornados last a few seconds, this planet has probably been around a few billion years, so there's been time for it to sort itself out. i guess if you look at it from the christian perspective that the planet is just a few thousand years old you can have a point

The chances of the spontaneous generation of protien is 1/10 to the 65th power. Equilvelant to finding the winning lotto ticket ever day for 1,000 years or snatching any particular atom out of the universe. But a "simple" amoeba contains 2,000 protiens for it to function, and for these protiens to assimilate randomly is a 1/10 to the 40,000 power According to Sir Fredrick Hoyle, british math matician, along with the help of grad students and a super computer. Think about that. That is absurd. It'd take more faith to believe this, that there is no creator, than have faith in a higher intelligence anyways (not saying you don't believe in a higher intelligence). Let's take a look. According to evolution, the Earth is around 4.6 billion years old, and the the first life forms appeared rougly around 2.5 to 3 billions years ago giving the Earth about 1 to 1.5 billion years to generate life. But if you happen to know, amino acids cannot form protiens with the presence of of oxygen, and much evidence supports the existance of an oxygen rich atmosphere, rather than a methane gas and ammonia based atmosphere, as neither methane or ammonia has ever shown up in large amounts in rock smaples. Ammonia can't be found in huge amounts anyways, as ultra violet radiation causes it to rapidly deteriorate. :Spin:

The bible is, as far as I know, is the only scientificly accurate holy book, and I've yet to see contradictions made in the "original writings" of the book (blah, but I can't read Greek, but many others can, lol).

Anyways, Ecclesiastes 1:6,7 provides a highly accurate description of the jet stream.

"The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north: it whirleth about continually; and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full: unto the place from whence to rivers come, thither they return again."

The bible I cited this verse from was published around the American Civil War in 1864. The discovery of the jet stream scientifically wasn't made until World War II, but the name of this phenomina was officially dubbed in 1939.

Another example is underwater mountains in Jonah 2:3,6

"For thous hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look againtoward thy holy temple. The waters encompassed me about even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were rapped about my head. I went to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever; yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God."

Underwater mountains were not discovered officially until 1943, with SONAR technology used by submarines.

Isaiah 40:22 talks about the Earth being round rather than flat, of course this discovery had already been made at this time, but none the less, other holy books are talking about the world being held up by a turtle or Atlas, while God says nothing holds it up.

What is the purpose of living without something to do after death? If there is nothing, what is the point of living? What accomplishments have you? To audaciously post your brilliant humor? To live pay check to pay check? Bone chicks? Why not try things you'll only have the pleasure of doing once in a lifetime. Get drunk, get high, kill people, beat children and just go all out before precious time runs out. What's keeping you? The Bible's morality is apparently non-applicable, so just fuck around. Seriously. Although, what does life matter anyways? As soon as you die, your existance shall for ever be forgotten and two shits won't be given about you adventually. What stops you from ceasing to exist? Same with any atheist/agnostics for that matter.


btw, I just became a year older 30 minutes ago.

 

[Botfly]

I wish I knew how to do that whole quote thing but anyway the argument from irreducible complexity is complete crap. Life is possible because one of the properties of carbon is it has four valence electrons. And if there wasn't enough carbon in the universe we wouldn't be here. And there would be no notion of God.

If through evolution we had never gained the ability to notice patterns, well humanity would probably not exist, but also there would be no notion of God. Where you see divine intention, I see the immense beauty of existing in a universe that is so statistically negligible that it barely bears thinking of. Here I am alive in a universe that doesn't give a shit. This unbelievable web of matter, life and death, competition and cooperation that is all around us is so magnificent it boggles the mind. Of course when you look out at it with just your common sense, divinity; the sublime, must have a hand. But when you study it through the skills of science a God just seems completely unneccesary to me. I mean it has been shown that the mitochondria in the cells of all animals are actually bacteria that in primordial times hitched a ride in our cells because the cell and the bacteria both had something to offer each other in terms of increasing the others survival. This one event ( or rather these mainly basically concurrent events) is a small step towards our modern day world. I feel priveleged to live and I need no God to explain it to me.

Sorry to derail the thread. I shit myself in shame

Skills of science, huh? The science which you practices is one built on contraditories thatched togeth with bullshit.

Evolution is completely unproven and its carbon dating ways is higly unstable and inaccurate. For one thing, according to the first law of bio-genesis, life can only come from other life. So how can life come to spontaneously exist? ^refer to my previous post.

Charles Darwin's theory solely based on finch's he observed that had slight differences, though NEVER has there been a documented transition of one species to another. In case you haven't noticed, there is a missing link between every species transition. All fossil's of new species have appeared abruptly in it's full form. Besides, if there was a genetic mutation, organisms seem to be unable to procreate. Or, if they were fertile, what good would a mutated body part be, who would they procreate with???

And incase you bring up this thing... I present my terrible MS Paint, Maddox rip-off image:

All things were re-classified as either ape or human. LUCY is a joke because of the fact that the guy who found it was stoned off his ass and named it LUCY because he was listening Beatles "Lucy in the sky with diamonds"! Strangely enough the models show LUCY looking human with erect posture, human like hands and and human like feet. Hmm... where did they get THAT data because when you examine the skeleton, its fingers are longer and are more curled than a chimpanzee and it's posture is definitly NOT erect. The skeleton was simply an extinct ape and nothing more. When analyzed, the transitional fossils of man are nothing but fraud, deception and speculation.

Nebraska man, the family and all was reconstructed from an extinct pigs tooth.

Piltdown man is now universally known to be a complete hoax, consisting of a human skull and ape jaw then doctored to appear old

Neanderthals were just plain people with Arthritus, syphilis, or rickets.

Ramapithecus, Gigantopithecus and Zinjanthropithecus were just plain apes

Cromagnon were just completely human.

Despite scientific claims, the missing link is still missing. Then the argument that human DNA and Chimpanzee DNA being 98.3 percent identicle, although is true, a watermelon, a cloud and a jellyfish have the same relation as well. Now how identicle are those things? It's obsolete genetic data. That 2 percent difference is a huge difference.


Ok... done for now.. anyways, pertaining to the topic, I'm sure there is some weird shit going on, but I just don't know what.

 

[Shadows Skulk]

hmm it seems I've read the same rehashed arguments approximately a million times, and they actually get less convincing every time (it started at 0% convincing, now it's down to -209388%)

first off, your first point about probability and whatnot really is nothing more than an appeal to incredulity and also fallacy of bifurcation. we don't know what happened? it's too complex? well then intelligent being is clearly the answer!

then comes the infamous list of descriptions of nature that somehow validate the bible. really, is the best you can do a regurgitation of internet chainletter-esque, simplistic, and mostly irrelevant one liners about biblical 'science' that are just as easily and more probably explained by common sense observations?

wow, the ocean floor isn't smooth, I'd never have imagined. thank goodness for that bible to tell me what's what!

and to top it off, we have a bumbling hyperbole that attempts to, I guess, shame people into religion. unlike you, I don't need the farce of heaven to enjoy my time on earth. life doesn't have to have an inherent meaning, nor does it have to continue in some form after death, in order to be enjoyed. I live because I want to strive for things that make me feel good. isn't that what everyone's after on a basic level? why isn't that good enough? so I live for love, and happiness, and family, and friendship, and success. are you going to tell me there's something wrong with that? and no it isn't pointless just because I'm going to die someday. I live and strive for these things because it makes life feel good. because the alternative is feeling like shit. because if I'm happy then maybe my kids can be happy, and maybe their kids too. because if I can make a difference in their lives, then they will live a happier life, and even though I won't exist anymore, they will.


you got older, but you didn't get any wiser

 

[Botfly]

I'm just quoting some examples, the list is a hell of alot longer.

I've merely pointed out mathmatically that it takes more faith to NOT believe than to believe.

What is so fallacious about my arguments?

 

[Seth'Peth]

So Seth? Where exactly do I claim that scientists have figured everything out? Just curious. Show me where I wrote that or apologize for putting words in my mouth. And where do I contradict myself? In all seriousness I sort of got carried away there with that last post with my vain attempt a elequence.
No one can ever conclusively disprove a God, but with our current knoweldge we can actually put forth ideas that show how our universe could exist without needing a divine origin. I don't believe in a gods because there just is no grand overriding reason to believe in them.

As futile as the debate is in the end it is a bit of fun, and could help sharpen an analytical mind.

This is of course the quote I was referring to...

"But when you study it through the skills of science a God just seems completely unneccesary to me."

And of course I did build on that statement a bit, so I will apologize. It could be taken a different way I suppose, but when someone says "the skills of science"...I have to wonder what makes anyone feel that our science is so advanced and brilliant that we can actually make these kinds of judgements based on it? I see what your point is though that we cannot prove God, of course faith has to come into play to a large degree. But I certainly would never let science dictate to me that there is no higher power either.

Shadow's Skulk, personally, I don't think people should have religion shoved down their throats either. That's not been my attempt, but I do like to debate the whole evolution theory. But only as far as to say that our most brilliant minds with their theories know maybe a fraction of a percent of what's really going on around us...so thank you, but I will put no faith in them. My religious beliefs will of course remain off this board as I think everyone's should, better to not make it a debate over religion...but creationism vs. evolution only.

Botfly, good posts...tough crowd though as they always are in these discussions. It's still fun though... :Spin:

Seth

 

[Arnold Layne]

favorite christian sayings:

"this CAN'T be all there is!"

"if there's no god, then how did we all get here??"

"the bible has proven science wrong time and time again"

Although I belive in god, I have to say anyone who belives those last two points is a dumb ass.

 

[NeverIsForever]

why didn't your experience prompt you to start believing in invisible dolphins that shoot mandolins out their blowholes and speak in prerecorded tape loops of kids laughing

you could literally replace every instance of the word 'ghost' with what I just said and your argument would be exactly the same: ridiculous

It's not an argument, and it didn't "prompt" me to start believing in anything. It's simply an experience that I could not explain with science and logic at the time or since. Did I ever say, "I heard voices, therefore ghosts are real?" No. Repeat, I am not trying to argue anything. I DO NOT CARE if anyone agrees with me. Stop acting like I'm attempting to tell you ghosts are real, period. I'm saying as far as I'm concerned there is a possibility of their existence. Can anyone be certain God is real? No, but millions of people believe in God anyway.

Also the dolphin theory fails, because I live nowhere near the beach :Spin:

 

[NeverIsForever]

yeah dolphins being outside of the water is impossible. but people's souls lingering adn walking the planet IS

maybe, if you had said "isn't"

 

[RookParliament]

First off evolution is a fact. It is the basis off all modern biology.

Lets start out with some basic info-
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html

Bio-genesis-
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB000.html

Transition of one species to another-
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section5.html

Cut your teeth on these Botfly for starters then we can talk.

 

[Justin S.]

Arguing with "educated" cultists has got to rank highly as one of the more ridiculous pursuits, but look, I just cant stop myself!

Everything that Botfly has stated regarding science and mathematics is blantantly false, the twisting of gross simplifications used to justify presupposed ideas. Interestingly, he utilizes these tools, which he later claims are "built on contraditories thatched togeth with bullshit".

One could go piece by piece picking apart the misonformation, but that would basically take years, as it would require the re-evaluation of thousands of assumptions and even the thought process itself. This is why debating in general, and especially so on the internet, is a waste of time. I post here hoping that no one will give any merit to these types of arguments. Never believe the ploy at "reason" from people so heavliy invested in its demise.

Many of the questions popping up on this thread are addressed by the following (bolds by me):

"[Religion], the system of doctrines and promises which on the one hand explains to him the riddles of this world with enviable completeness, and, on the other, assures him that a careful Providence will watch over his life and will compensate him in future existence for any frustrations he receives here. The common man cannot imagine this Providence otherwise than in the figure of an enormously exalted father. Only such a being can understand the needs of the children of men and be softened by their prayers and placated by the signs of their remorse.
The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly view to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life. It is still more humiliating to discover how large a number of people living today, who cannot see that this religion is not tenable, nevertheless try to defend it piece by piece in a series of pitiful rearguard actions."

Same author:

"The question of the purpose of human life has been raised countless times; it has never received a satisfactory answer and perhaps does not admit of one. Some of those who have asked it have added that if it should turn out that life has no purpose, it would lose all value for them. But this threat alters nothing. It looks, on the contrary, as though one had a right to dismiss the question, for it seems to derive from the human presumptuousness..."

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-Freud

 

[Seth'Peth]

Let us not also forget that if creationism theories can be picked apart, so can evolution theories just as easy. This is absolutely a no win debate, yet it's not crazy to debate it. What else ya gonna do while waiting for the new album?

Historians, geologists, and scientists of all forms(not necessarily theological) have found much of biblical history to be correct, in basic time frames and events. There's much reason however to disbelieve the Bible since it's been watered down over the years, but not a reason to disbelieve it's original authenticity or to dismiss a higher power responsible for our creation. Again, it's very narrow minded to think we know everything and that our science is perfected enough to say we know there is no God and that evolution is a fact. Sorry, but that's absurd.

And without going into any specific religious beliefs(as I said we all should avoid), many current world events do coincide with prophecies in the Bible. Those who've never read it can't say that isn't true. And for the record, I'm one of the biggest haters of organized religion around. In it's entirety, it's the biggest scam/farce/con going and has caused the most hatred, war, and bloodshed of any other single factor on earth...all IMO of course.

Seth

 

[Seth'Peth]

Many evolutionists I've debated with are quite certain that our science tells us that there is no God and that evolution is really not just a theory, but fact. Not saying anyone here really feels that way, I've yet to read RockParliaments articles...I'm sure I've read similar ones since I've been this route with several before.

I'm very acceptable of everyone's beliefs and opinions, so definitely not looking for a fight since that's senseless on a message board. Still like to debate it, but my PC time for today is running out.

Seth

 

[Jon Snow]

Let us not also forget that if creationism theories can be picked apart, so can evolution theories just as easy. This is absolutely a no win debate, yet it's not crazy to debate it.

It is very crazy to debate it. Creationism is a political/religious agenda that has no scientific legitimacy. Evolution is a fact based on countless amounts of evidence and the Theory of Evolution is the theory that attempts to explain how it occurred just as the Theory of Gravity is the theory that attempts to explain why the apple hit Newton on the head (probably never happened, but it gets the idea across). Scientific theories are supported by vast amounts of research and evidence and are not to be taken lightly just because they are "theories". Gravity, after all, is only a theory too.

Again, it's very narrow minded to think we know everything and that our science is perfected enough to say we know there is no God and that evolution is a fact. Sorry, but that's absurd.

The Roman Catholic church supports the ideas of God and evolution and don't think they are contradictory. Many other liberal Christian groups do as well. It's not necessarliy and either/or situation.

And without going into any specific religious beliefs(as I said we all should avoid), many current world events do coincide with prophecies in the Bible.

Oh yeah, like what? Give me one specific example. People have been proclaiming the end of the world for millenia and Christians since their religion was born almost 2000 yrs ago.

Those who've never read it can't say that isn't true.

I have read the Bible many, many times. Have you?

And for the record, I'm one of the biggest haters of organized religion around. In it's entirety, it's the biggest scam/farce/con going and has caused the most hatred, war, and bloodshed of any other single factor on earth...all IMO of course.
Seth

I don't mind some organized religions. It's the fundamentalists of any religion who are the problem.

 

[Justin S.]

...all IMO of course.

I see this little mechanism all over the place and it drives me insane. In your opinion? Oh really? Whose else would it be?

Obviously this is not a problem of redundancy. It serves as a disclaimer, a cop-out to critics. Its away of deflecting reason by "just" stating my "opinion".

The truth is that what you believe is important, dictates the way you act and the outcome of those actions, and therefor is the power that shapes human history. Your "opinions" become reality; the modern phrasing is simply a semantical tactic to avoid words that actually force the speaker to have a solid ideological base.

A tangent I know, but whatever.

 

[Metalloid]

I see this little mechanism all over the place and it drives me insane. In your opinion? Oh really? Whose else would it be?

haha it drives me nuts too.

to everyone and anyone who reads anything I type on here: assume that I am speaking (typing) for myself and not the blind/deaf/mute guy with stubs-instead-of-fingers behind me.

 

[Seth'Peth]

You guys gotta get off the PC once in a while, you take everything far to serious.

Could care less anymore about anyone's 'opinion' about how we got here, as if any of us know what we're talking about. I'll stick to the music discussion.

Not a cop-out, just don't usually even spend this much time posting.

Seth

 

[Justin S.]

Look at my post count... I post about as often as you.

Also, its couldn't care less. That shit pisses me off too.

 

[RookParliament]

The only reason I keep throwing myself into this debate is I am so tired of Creationists in the US forcing their views onto others especially in the school system where they keep trying to force the completely unscientific Intelligent Design Theory into our schools. Basically forcing religious propaganda on the public schools, which is something I take very seriously. I have no problem with religion in schools, eg. individual prayer in school, or even a required Comparative Religion course. I just simply have my mental "radar" tuned to it. I don't claim to know everything nor does any reputable scientist. But evolution is a proven fact. No debate, not my opinion. Thousands of documented instances of macro and microevolution, the sequential transitional fossils, genetic sequences, compararitive anatomy, etc... all point to the fact of evolution. It just bugs me when people who haven't even looked at all the evidence for evolution pretend they can argue against it.

But anyway I was thinking about Opeth and Ghostbusters 2 and suddenly it all clicked. Ghost Reveries is going to be a concept album about Count Vigo. Nothing could be more black metal then that. Maybe they'll do a cover of the Ghostbuster's theme .