When did you stop believing in god?

[Mashreef]

Are you fucking stupid?

I guess he is haha

 

[Sludgekicker]

I think you cannot treat science and religion the same way. Since science is the creation of the modern man and religion is not. Its the same thing that you would not understand a dude like from 200 B.C. because they were using simply different language than us. And science uses different language than religion.

The bible is an interesting thing i think it wanted to be a moral guide which principles are very old but its like (and it want to impress) imprinted into bricks. Or maybe a different civilisation visited us and we were so naive we thought they were god(s).

I think now that we are living in 2013 its not a big deal to live a life being open minded to religions and science at the same time.(look at the quantum world where matters are growing consciousness, or the the ancient people who knew about electro-magnetism).

After all I shouldve said believing instead of religions because you dont need a religion to believe, and i rather consider religions as historical records, mythologies, still i believe a lot of things but hey if i were god and you were an asshole no matter how much i love you, you are going to hell!

 

[kass]

so much for the scientific ass crap...
tell me one thing
how is it possible to write a book where it is described everything about the new modern age of plane,ships,cars or watever thousands of year's ago...??? i just cant predict things that will happen thousands year later.. and its also written when there will be no believer left than the world will come at end..
if you read the book than you will understand a lot of things...now i see that era is moving fast..
religion keeps a human balanced in everything...

What.

 

[xFkx]

so much for the scientific ass crap...
tell me one thing
how is it possible to write a book where it is described everything about the new modern age of plane,ships,cars or watever thousands of year's ago...??? i just cant predict things that will happen thousands year later.. and its also written when there will be no believer left than the world will come at end..
if you read the book than you will understand a lot of things...now i see that era is moving fast..
religion keeps a human balanced in everything...

why are religious people so obsessed about the end of times ? I have a religious friend and he mentions topics like this from time to time, as if he is waiting for the end of humanity to happen, and he gets the privilege to see it all happen. I guess you can get a kick out of it, but maybe watching a zombie flick is enough. Isn't it more fruitful to think that humanity will live long and prosper, or even if we blow ourselves up a new race of mutant super-monkeys will continue to flourish about on our beloved planet...

oh noes, they will not, the whole universe was obviously created for the purpose of our existence and moral dillemas, so if we cease the exist, god will just wrap the whole universe up, all of the billions of galaxies, and call it a day.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

The whole "prove to me there was a big bang, otherwise God exists" or "if you can't explain gravity it proves God exists" is just an argument from ignorance.

^I agree with this, I did not mean to say "science doesn't work, therefore God exists". And I totally agree with this:

In practice, many people become emotionally attached to science as a surrogate for their negative feelings about religion, leading to symptoms almost indistinguishable from belief.

I just want to caution against saying "I believe in science." By definition, you shouldn't have to believe in science. Yet science still requires a bit of a leap of faith when it comes to certain things like gravity (in my opinion). That is why I am skeptical of it being the be all end all. At least in it's current state.

And here's another interesting thought -- some religions say that God created us in God's own image. Since humans are basically a virus, does that mean God is a virus?

 

[John_C]

Not sure I really agree with this. They might get emotionally attached to the results of scientific thinking - ie, evolution in favour of creationism, physics in favour of metaphysics, and real testable medicines over homeopathy. but I don't think it is really possible to get emotionally attached to the scientific method.

I also don't think "emotionally attached" is right either. Just because people are emotionally charged when espousing scientific discoveries or understandings, does not mean they are emotionally attached. To some people, the fact that homeopathy is bunkum is so obviously true and indisputable, that they are incredulous that anyone could think otherwise. This isn't so much emotional attachment as it is sophistry - which I think is a real danger with rationalism, because not everyone *is* or *can be* rational.

And rationality isn't an all the time 100% state of mind. Rational people are rational about some things, but completely irrational about others. I hate spiders and snakes for instance, no matter how irrational it is. Feminists are some of the most irrational people ever, whereby in all other respects outside of gender, they can be really nice and really logical people. Humans are not fixed creatures with fixed mindsets; which is why discussion is workable in the first place. We have blind spots, and to me, a lot of anti-science is based on people's blind spots. I see this in Genius Gone Insane all the time when he posts.

Point is - if something better than the scientific method were invented, people would gradually switch over. There is no emotional enamour imho.

You make a fair argument. I didn't mean to make a sweeping statement about all those who defend science and reason, I merely wanted to point out that, as with every cause, there are some people who take it beyond the point of reason and become emotionally attached. Go take a look on www.reddit.com/r/atheism and you'll see what I mean. Although I agree with much of what is posted there, the driver is more often trauma (restrictive religious parents etc.) than reason.

P.S. I would openly describe myself as a feminist. Bite me.

 

[kass]

What leap of faith do you take with gravity????

Humans are not basically a virus. Humans are a "virus" as much as fire is "alive."

 

[John_C]

What leap of faith do you take with gravity????

please no, not here. We have a containment zone for this http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...rticles-carbon-dating-may-completely-off.html

 

[JamieK]

You don't "believe" in science.

 

[JamieK]

so much for the scientific ass crap...
tell me one thing
how is it possible to write a book where it is described everything about the new modern age of plane,ships,cars or watever thousands of year's ago...??? i just cant predict things that will happen thousands year later.. and its also written when there will be no believer left than the world will come at end..
if you read the book than you will understand a lot of things...now i see that era is moving fast..
religion keeps a human balanced in everything...

So you believe something is true just because it's written down in a book?
That's what we call BLIND FAITH.

 

[John_C]

how is it possible to write a book where it is described everything about the new modern age of plane,ships,cars or watever thousands of year's ago...???

It's not possible, you'd need a time machine. It's never been done.

Edit: Science is what let us create the planes, ships and cars. Believing in religion is one thing, not believing in the effectiveness of science either means you don't know what science is, or you're completely crazy.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

please no, not here. We have a containment zone for this http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...rticles-carbon-dating-may-completely-off.html

Thanks

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

What leap of faith do you take with gravity????

Humans are not basically a virus. Humans are a "virus" as much as fire is "alive."

I think you could make an argument that what humans are doing to the earth is similar to what viruses do to the human body. That's my opinion and I should not have posted it here. Let's not derail this thread. It is a good one.

 

[indecizo]

Science is more a method than a belief, scientists acknowledge they don't know how gravity works but every day they are working on discovering how it does, they don't just sit back and say well its there but we don't know how......so I guess God must have made it so, and they certainly don't make up explanations for maybe how it could work and then end up believing those bizarre explanations at the cost of eventually finding out exactly how gravity does works......and we/they will.

We already understand a LOT about nature, we don't know it all yet but we know a shit load more than what we did even just a 100 years ago, in a hundred years time we'll know even MORE and so on and so on.

argumentum ad ignorantiam

You can't just come from a point of view that YOU think nature is un-understandable THEREFORE god must exist.

It's like me saying I don't understand exactly how my TV works...therefore god must exist, he must have created my xbox because I just can't comprehend it's deepest inner workings.

A lot of scientists are working hard to actually give us explanations of how all this stuff in the universe DOES work, religion does the opposite, there are a lot of theories of how it works, of how it might work, when it started etc and that's at least something.

The whole "prove to me there was a big bang, otherwise God exists" or "if you can't explain gravity it proves God exists" is just an argument from ignorance.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA you talking about ignorance

You clearly didn't understand what he said, while I don't agree 100% what GGI says, "What irks me is that people today somehow think science is this ultimate, flawless, truth." <- I can agree with this, there's many people bashing god or christianity (or whatever religion) because there's no logic in there and then they go "blah blah god is a joke lol he have science to back it up noobs" almost like science is a fucking religion when they don't understand freaking thing about it.

And no, we don't understand a lot about nature, we think we understand some things. What we think we understand is about a 5% of it or less.

About evidence let's say about the big bang...there's evidence to back it up. But there's no proof and there will never be.

I don't think there is a god like the christians say, that judges wheter you go to heaven or not, but I like to call the univers God, and I always thank "it" for letting me be alive. We are in it, we are in something. I don't see why believing in god (whatever you think it means) is stupid, but saying that we understand enough to say god doesn't exist is being as closed minded as a biggoted christian (or other religious cult)

 

[LeSedna]

Mashreef please quote a part of the book where it is predicted what we are doing today in terms of planes, ships, cars.

I can also predict "one day we will teleport/communicate by telepathy/live on another solar system", it's not difficult and is likely to happen and be discussed if there are still people in X thousands year to discuss it.

 

[John_C]

About evidence let's say about the big bang...there's evidence to back it up. But there's no proof and there will never be.

1. If you require proof to adopt something as a working hypothesis, you're gonna have a bad (existential) time.

2. If someone found a really solid bit of evidence for the existence of the supernatural (God, sentient Gaia, ghosts, whatever...), you and others would dismiss it as "There's some evidence, but there's no proof so I really don't know"?

I don't think so.

edit: a few corrections and clarifications.

 

[kass]

I think you could make an argument that what humans are doing to the earth is similar to what viruses do to the human body. That's my opinion and I should not have posted it here. Let's not derail this thread. It is a good one.

That is a metaphore.

Luckily, the definition of a virus is not a figure of speech.



It's like the argument for God. DNA is like a computer program. Since computer programs have a programer, DNA must have a programmer. The programmer is God.

That is something you don't do with metaphores and similes.

You don't use that one too do you?

 

[kass]

please no, not here. We have a containment zone for this http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...rticles-carbon-dating-may-completely-off.html

Oh fuck...


Pretty much the type of guy I was talking about in my earlier post...


Thinks cosmologists are too stupid to consider modified gravity, non GR gravity, etc.
They do. All the time. They don't hold up as well as the current model.

 

[indecizo]

1. If you require proof to adopt something as a working hypothesis, you're gonna have a bad (existential) time.

2. If someone found a really solid bit of evidence for the existence of the supernatural (God, sentient Gaia, ghosts, whatever...), you and others would dismiss it as "There's some evidence, but there's no proof so I really don't know"?

I don't think so.

edit: a few corrections and clarifications.

So if anyone fabricates evidence to make me look like I killed somebody and I go to jail for that does that mean I am a murderer?

I don't think so.

 

[Jind]

^I agree with this, I did not mean to say "science doesn't work, therefore God exists". And I totally agree with this:



I just want to caution against saying "I believe in science." By definition, you shouldn't have to believe in science. Yet science still requires a bit of a leap of faith when it comes to certain things like gravity (in my opinion). That is why I am skeptical of it being the be all end all. At least in it's current state.

And here's another interesting thought -- some religions say that God created us in God's own image. Since humans are basically a virus, does that mean God is a virus?

In reference to the quote bolded above - I heartily disagree. Science does not require a leap of faith, it is simply requires that you understand that it is possible that future knowledge will alter current knowledge (really a concept at the heart of experimentation - if we knew it all right now, why bother) - in other words science simply represents things as currently understood - it's adaptive to new input. Comparing religion to science is apples and oranges - one adapts and changes as more knowledge is discovered, the other is basically set in stone. Want to guess which is which? One requires the ability to reproduce results, the other is based upon assumption that those that wrote the doctrine through selective parsing were right in their choices and not possibly wrong.

I respect your skepticism, it's those very abilities that drive science - unfortunately skepticism does nothing to advance religion as the expectation is that doctrine will remain despite healthy skepticism - you are simply expected to accept. Whether you do or not is really a matter of free will, but new knowledge will not alter the base message.

Skepticism drives science - it also tends to break apart most religious beliefs as faith really is based in belief, not doubt.

Feel free to believe, but you really sound more doubtful than anything - I'd be interested to know what exactly you feel certain about, if anything? If nothing then I'm not exactly where you stand. I know that I'm a firm believer in free will - we all make choices and in these decisions we accept full responsibility of the repercussions. This simple fact drives most of my thinking. I know certain people think they lack choice, that they are forced in the directions they take. Call it fate if you want, I just don't buy it - unless we are talking about self fulfilling prophecy which really just means you created the situation you envisioned - a.k.a. the results of free will wheterh good or bad.