excpet gold and a nine millimeter

Not to change the subject or anything, but if you read The Last Battle, the book in the chronicals of Narnia figurativley, it outlines my belief on how faith works.

Ive read it but I completely forgot what it meant...anyway I think the Big Bang thoeiry says that there can't be anything before the big bang because time started at the big bang or that the singularity (what exploded) was there for an infinite amount of time, which is what our little minds cant grasp

LOL GO BRITS!!!

Even though you invaded india

Followers of religion will often state that faith in said religion is important. Following a religion because it could prevent you from 'eternal torment' couldn't really be called 'faith', could it? Anyone who is too logical to simply accept that God exists with no proof would most likely become religious for solely that reason.
Which brings me to another point. If God was omniscient and omnipotent, he would surely know that it is impossible for all these logical people he creates to truly believe in him. So why bother making them? And why 'wait for everyone to come to Him', as all the preachers visiting my school have claimed, when he can surely see that as time goes on there are more and more skeptics? Unless, of course, he is confused by all times being one to him and so he intended to set judgement day to be a lot earlier, in which case he could hardly be called perfect.

Posted By: Militious

Just like how God is a "gap god" that fill in the gaps that science left behind.

Failure to grasp the fact that God has always existed is not a failure. This is different from the existence of a God. God is a extremly complicated devine being. It is hard to imagine such a thing had no beginning and always "has been". Religion teaches us that unquestioning faith is a virtue. It is NOT. The unquestioning faith in the fact that one's own religion is the true religion has sparked many wars.

*are you then suggesting that science is an alternate religion?
*Who says God is complicated. The idea of a God is far less complex than that of the Big Bang, which is why religion has been around far longer than the big bang theory.
*Also, it has only been in the past 8o years that scientists have finally conceded that the universe did "begin". so the idea that time always has been isn't new.
*Also, the Big Bang theory itself was first conceived of by Roman Catholic Priest Georges Lemaître. And the Islamic Empire was the was the most scientifically advanced civilization after Rome fell. So religion doesn't "stop" scientific progress. though I'll concede that they have been vocal against cloning and stem cell research.
*there are a lots of religions that teach humbleness, and actually encourage the questioning your faith. I will agree though, that blind faith in a religion is dangerous.

Posted By: Militious

To counter the existence of Satan, hell and evil: its just another one of those things to shift blame from people who cannot take responsibility of their own actions. A religious slip and fall lawsuit if you will. Evil does not exist. Just like cold and darkness doesn't exist. Coldness is an absence of thermal energy as opposed to a larger presence of "cold" energy just like darkness is an absence of light energy as opposed to a presence of "dark" energy. Evil exists in the absence of God. Satan is a "gap god" who fill in the gaps that goodness left behind. Just like how God is a "gap god" that fill in the gaps that science left behind.

Failure to grasp the fact that God has always existed is not a failure. It is in the nature of humans to be inquisitive and religion is only trying stem the advance of knowledge. It is easy for most scientists to grasp that a proton, electron or neutron has always existed because they are simple atomic particles. This is different from the existence of a God. God is a extremly complicated devine being. It is hard to imagine such a thing had no beginning and always "has been". Religion teaches us that unquestioning faith is a virtue. It is NOT. The unquestioning faith in the fact that one's own religion is the true religion has sparked many wars. I've heard of a very controversial picture published on the front cover of a British newspaper (after 9/11). The picture showed the Manhattan skyline. It beared the slogan:"imagine a world without religion". This picture, as it was intended to, conspicuously included the World Trade Centers.

I think it might serve well to write Eintein's name at the bottom of that, those are his ideas.

If God fills Science's gaps, then whatever is responsible for the beginning of Science must be the devine.

Human curiosity started the need to investigate science, it didn't start Science. If I drop a pencil, it falls because the laws of gravity dictate it must, we know this because we investigated those laws, not created them.

But it would still happen if humans didn't know why it happened, Humans didn't invent Science, they just gave it a name.

Yes, but those things would still happen if the name was Geography instead of Science, so the human race has not invented science, just explorered it. As Shakespeare said in Romeo and Juliet, What's in a name?

Jam means going out? Since when?

Nah I'm North West...

My dad speaks Cockney Slang! But we're getting off track here.

Posted By: D League

As a moral test.

Posted By: D League

Before you respond, lets take this the the official religious thread.

why would god test people by killing children before they are born?? by letting millions of people get killed through genocide?? through allowing such suffering in the world.. you can say it's testing people but when a child is born and dies before it is 3 years old then how can it be tested?? how can it even live enough of a life to be able to do good or evil??

Who's to say it's even God controlling things such as disease and natural disatsers?

How do we know that God is a man... It may be possible that God is a woman. You must remember that it was only men at the council that Constantine held to make the Bible.

back then?? well would you say the church would accept god being a woman now??

I heard a story a while back about a man with a mentally handicapped child. The story is too long, so I will just give you the moral. Sometimes bad things can be used to draw out the good in others. The ability to choose our own path does not mean that God would have to endorse our actions. You tell a child not to touch the stove because its hot, but when he/she does, does that mean that you WANTED it to happen?

Also, since this seems to be mainly christian in nature, the Bible refers to God as male simply as a convention. He is considered a father. Mothers are comforting and protective. Fathers help when asked, or to protect their family. The God of the Bible is neither male nor female (a kind of androgenous mother/father who makes really cool stuff).

Posted By: KRistos

Posted By: Militious

Just like how God is a "gap god" that fill in the gaps that science left behind.

Failure to grasp the fact that God has always existed is not a failure. This is different from the existence of a God. God is a extremly complicated devine being. It is hard to imagine such a thing had no beginning and always "has been". Religion teaches us that unquestioning faith is a virtue. It is NOT. The unquestioning faith in the fact that one's own religion is the true religion has sparked many wars.

*are you then suggesting that science is an alternate religion?
*Who says God is complicated. The idea of a God is far less complex than that of the Big Bang, which is why religion has been around far longer than the big bang theory.
*Also, it has only been in the past 8o years that scientists have finally conceded that the universe did "begin". so the idea that time always has been isn't new.
*Also, the Big Bang theory itself was first conceived of by Roman Catholic Priest Georges Lemaître. And the Islamic Empire was the was the most scientifically advanced civilization after Rome fell. So religion doesn't "stop" scientific progress. though I'll concede that they have been vocal against cloning and stem cell research.
*there are a lots of religions that teach humbleness, and actually encourage the questioning your faith. I will agree though, that blind faith in a religion is dangerous.

(I hope my quote box thing actually works this time)
Science is not a religion. Science is based on facts deduced from observation and sometimes various possible theories. Religion on the other hand, is based on belief in what you can't prove. Religion and science can rarely agree because the fundamentals are in conflict.

God is complicated. Only complicated things can make less complicated things. (Spearmaker can make spears but not the other way around) God was used to resolve the complexity of the Universe existing by random chance. Universe is so complicated that we could not fathom how it began. If God created the universe then God is even more complicated.
NOTE: I never said the "idea" of God is complex. I stated that "God" is complex.

I never said time always has been. The only reference to "always has been" was that religion's way to counter God coming into existence by random chance was to propose that he has always existed. This is not a real answer at all.

Lemaitre first proposed the big bang thoery because fundamental Christian creationism was rejected by most scientists. Lemaitre changed God from a supernatural deity to a very large store of energy released in one point in space.

And I have been talking about monodeistic religions the entire time.

It's ironic that we're disussing this in a website with the word gullible in the name...

Yeah I didn't like the word ironic, but I couldn't think of anything else that would fit, apart from coincedental. Thanks

Religion is neither correct nor incorrect, it is a belief, there's nothing to disprove a miracle, yet there are written accounts of it.

Posted By: Militious

True, blind faith in science is not good but science does correct itself. Does religion?

Religion corrects itself by branching. If a minority is not happy with how things are going, they form their own sect or just deal with it. In the more extream cases, a new religion forms. Usualy it degrades into a cult.

Posted By: D League

Posted By: Militious

True, blind faith in science is not good but science does correct itself. Does religion?

Religion corrects itself by branching. If a minority is not happy with how things are going, they form their own sect or just deal with it. In the more extream cases, a new religion forms. Usualy it degrades into a cult.

Yeah, it's quite funny if you look at even some of the bigger religions and see how they started as a person or a group deciding they disliked the religion they were in so they changed it to their liking and created a new "improved" religion. Most don't last all that long, but some have grown to be our mainstay religions these days :0p.

i believe science as it actually has proof of a lot of things now, and belief is what it says it is.. something people have to believe in, and not all of science has been misproven facts, a lot of the things science has discovered are still believed today.. well most of them actually. also science helps people by finding cures for diseases etc. religion helps them, mostly to accept death and to think that when they die they go to happy places etc. i think or religion as more of a comfort to be honest lol