The great and all powerful religion thread!

[skeptik]

I know at least a few dozen people who believe the story of Noah, so no duh.

 

[Mort Divine]

I'm pretty hypocritical, what with my whole "blah blah god is not rational or logical" deal and then going and believing in ghosts and shit.

Oh well.

 

[Hatebreeder]

Venom - Heavens On Fire

One of my all-time favorite Venom songs.

By the way, what's wrong with believing in the divine providence of nature itself? It is my belief that our concepts of God were derived from what the early people witnessed in nature (similar to the way mythologies defined everyday occurences by "divine" means). For me, God is more of an embodiment of nature's consistency and unperverted beauty rather than some old guy sitting on a throne in some poor man's paradise. Sounds rather stifling, doesn't it?

 

[skeptik]

Because that gives it a connotation of sentient awareness, and that's not the case.

 

[cookiecutter]

Perfect response

 

[Hatebreeder]

I just don't want to resign myself to pure atheism.

 

[cookiecutter]

Why not?

 

[skeptik]

It's called agnosticism. There are a lot here.

 

[Hatebreeder]

It's called agnosticism. There are a lot here.

I believe that's basically where I stand. It might be mostly due to me discovering a lot of different perspectives at my formative age, but such a view has made the most sense to me thus far.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I don't think there can be such a thing as "pure atheism" anyway. I'd consider myself practically atheist since God basically is just a fairy tale which, like any other, has a negligible likelihood of being true. But I'm still philosophically agnostic since an explanation for the origin of the universe is essentially unknowable.

 

[Hatebreeder]

But I'm still philosophically agnostic since an explanation for the origin of the universe is essentially unknowable.

DING.

You hit the nail on the head.

 

[skeptik]

Then again, whether or not the sun will rise tomorrow is essentially unknowable as well.

 

[Never78]

I don't think I posted in here yet. Anyhow, I am not religious; I am more what you call an elitist pain in the ass. Totally philosophical and not very tolerant about the idea of "following".

 

[~Derek~]

People actually believe that stuff!

Are you asking why people still believe in the great Flood and that every single thing in the Bible is true?

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Then again, whether or not the sun will rise tomorrow is essentially unknowable as well.

Well, all 'knowledge' we gain through observation is essentially unknowable. But before we simply pull down our pants and take a shit on 'philosophical uncertainty', let's recall that we can predict many observable events through scientific laws and theories. There's no way in hell that we're going to predict the genesis of a universe any time soon, if ever. So I'd say that uncertainty about the origin of the universe is a good deal more meaningful than uncertainty about the sun rising tomorrow.

 

[skeptik]

We already have predicted the genesis of the universe. Do we know whether or not we're right? Of course not? Does it seem like it probably is right based on what we know at this current juncture? Yes.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

What? We haven't predicted shit. Find me a scientist who can synthesize matter out of nothing, then I'll believe you.

 

[skeptik]

Since when has prediction required demonstration?

There are several predictions, hypotheses, theories, whatever you want to call them, about the origins of the universe.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

What I was getting at was that it, since it makes no sense for something to come from nothing, there is no logical way to articulate a theory explaining how matter was/is/can be created.

Of course, we can go off of the law of conservation of matter, and assume that the universe's matter has always existed, but that's basically just turning a blind eye to matter's existence. If every other phenomenon we've observed has a cause, why wouldn't matter have a cause?

 

[Hatebreeder]

I have a strong feeling that the true answer to everything will turn out to be drastically different than anything our minds have ever formulated.