I love you Morgan, i'm going to try to patch the hole, but forgive me for errors because I am high and tired. I'll quote your individual arguments. I should also prerequisite that I am a Christian, but I ascribed to Intelligent Design before I was so.


"Assuming you mean the Christian "God", as they have co-opted the term and capitalized it to make it their own and none others, your interpretation of his love leaves out one critical point.

God directly kills millions in the bible. This is not human free will in action. This is petty, vengeful, murder by a creature worshipped by the fearful.

Whatever the motivation, should a creature like that exist it does not deserve worship. It should be reviled, hunted, and killed as a threat."


To address the events you refer in the Bible, as a whole, I will use the Bible. I refer you to Romans Chapter 1.


18.For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19.because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
20.For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
21.For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

These people exercised their free will(s) by ignoring evidence that had been presented to them. Their society was full of super-natural events. The probality of them occuring randomly is infinitesimal. They had supernatural events and ignored it as proof of a God. Now we have science, and ignore it as proof of a God. I will elaborate in my next point, as it will tie into some of your comments.


"If you're referring to a non-theistic deity, there is no doctrine to base it on and people can just make it up as they go along. But then you may be worshiping the equivalent of a procedural algorithm that generates universes from pure math. That would actually be kind of cool, but an algorithm doesn't care if you love it or not, and we are just a tiny speck in a very large universe.


With no evidence to support them, man creates gods whose concerns are banal and reek of the taint of small minded, racist, and misogynistic desert tribes of millennia ago.

If Darwin wasn't enough to cast off the charade of literal biblical creationism, the discovery of bacteria and viruses should have laid waste to religion all over the world. Sickness and death are no longer the realm of demons and sin, but infection and amplification.

Strip away the taint of religions that deny scientific advancement, and you find that there really is no controversy over evolution, plate geology, or the laws of thermodynamics."


If there was a non-theistic diety or God, he, she, or it would be more probable than what you seem to be suggesting. You mentioned evolution, so I take it you believe in the Big Bang. You also mentioned thermodynamics. Can't the first law of the thermodynamics be stated as such "The increase in the internal energy of a system is equal to the amount of energy added by heating the system, minus the amount lost as a result of the work done by the system on its surroundings."?

Doesn't this simply mean that energy can be transformed from one form to another but never created or destroyed? Didn't Einstein conclude that energy is equivalent to mass times light squared? Doesn't this mean mass must be equal to energy divided by the speed of light squared? If so, then how could any of the mass have come into existence at the beginning of the big bang if there was no energy? It couldn't. That leaves us two choice. We must either lie to ourselves and say that the energy came from no where and break our own law, or more logically, we could say a deity input that energy into the system. That doesn't tell you where the deity came from, but a God creating energy is more logical than energy created by nothing. That just sounds silly.

Also consider the strong nuclear force since we're being scientific. You expect me to believe the protons and neutrons are held together perfectly because of chance? I don't that's a wise thing to believe in because the universe only had one chance at making it perfect in the beginning. If the strong nuclear force was only a few more micronewtons stronger, then neutrons and protons would collide making all other atoms besides hydrogen impossible to exist. Without carbon, you and I wouldn't be typing these arguments. If the strong nuclear force was a few micronewtons weaker, then atoms would fall apart and newtonian objects couldn't exist.

To speak of Darwin, out of the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of species we know of, we have never seen evolution in progress, ever. We see adaption everyday, bird beak lengths vary based on diets, horses get smaller or larger depending on how their bred. These are variations within DNA, but not actual mutations as macro evolution suggests to have happened. Why haven't we seen these mutations? We even tried to replicate them in fruit flies, their DNA did mutate, but not one single time was the mutations beneficial. That's not evolution, sounds more like a birth defect or cancer. If the discovery of bacterias and viruses were suppose to make the idea of God crumple, then why didn't it? Why is Evolution still taught as a theory and not as fact? I don't think it's religion denying scientific advancement, I think it's people misinterpreting and sometimes fabricating evidence (such as the most recent and perhaps the most infamous evolution frauds was committed in China and published in 1999 in the journal National Geographic 196:98-107, November 1999. Dinosaur bones were put together with the bones of a newer species of bird and they tried to pass it off as a very important new evolutionary intermediate.) to deny a deity so they don't have reprocussions for their actions.

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A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
-Albert Einstein

Could you use formatting please?

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Religion. Bravely turning its back on reality one universe at a time.

I agree with you up to saying religion isn't a poison or trying to say that just because religious organizations do some good that therefore relgion is a good thing. It isn't.

There would still be good people doing the same good things without religion, it's in their nature to do those things they are just those type of people.

Strip religion away and we wouldn't loose anything good. You as an athiest know it doesn't take some phony book to tell you how to be a decent person, a religion wouldn't make you any better of a person if you adopted it.

btw I'm not just an athiest I'm a bisexual male so religion never would have fit me well. So I'm angry and I'm coming to corrupt all religious peoples children and turn them gay.

Not really, I'll just try to convince them not to hate and to question the bible... Same thing I guess.

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When you'll suck on just about anything~think Bukkake.

You completely dodged the point that God murdering all those people was not an act of human free will.

Of course no one really died, but if the bible wasn't a work of fiction then they must be mass murders by a loving god, however you choose to define love.

You are also treating the bible as a historical document. It is not. It is a religious text.


You're operating under the assumption that this universe came from nothing. The big bang is merely an explanation for how this universe formed, but it does not limit that which can occur outside the system. To assume "God" simply because you don't have the answers is to embrace ignorance.

People used to belief that dirty clothing or piles of moldy grain spontaneously generated mice.
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/Bio114/spontgen.htm


1. You assume a closed system.
2. "God Did It!" is not an acceptable answer without proof. Admitting one does not yet have the answer to a problem and working toward it is the proper methodology. Claiming a deity performed an act without substantiating proof is fraud. *The bible is not proof.


Yes it sounds terribly silly that you would consider God logical.
What you might consider "nothing" can be the equilibrium of two states of charge, positive and negative arriving at a zero sum.
And once again you make assumptions about the origin of the universe. Where do you get your information? The people with the best tools to see back into the depths of time still don't have access to that information yet.
And you can just pull it out of your head like that?

No I don't. Because they are not.

What is your definition of perfect, and what qualfications do you have to define a perfect universe?

When speaking of probabilities of something that already exists, the probability of such a thing occurring is 1.


Would you care to retract that statement?

The 20 year E. coli experiment by Richard Lenski observed over 20,000 generations of E. coli, archived at 75 generation steps, and shows demonstrable evolution.

https://myxo.css.msu.edu/ecoli/

Bacteria evolved to eat Nylon, which did not exist until the last century:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria

There has been observed speciation in many types of plants, and short-lifespan creatures such as Rhagoletis pomonella.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_maggot

Additionally look into Ring Species to see how genetic distribution over long distances results in short range interbreeding ability, but long range inability as genetic drift occurs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species

I have 2 animals with specific genetic mutations in a cage 3 feet from me.
Male humans average around 150 mutations per generation. Apply that to hundreds of thousands of generations and you will find a significantly different organism.
Take a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica's and change 150 letters each second for the next 100,000 seconds. Then read one of the articles. That is evolution in action.

Patently false. See above.
Additionally, the random nature of mutations will result in negative, neutral, and positive outcomes.
A mutation which kills off the individual on their 50th birthday will persist in offspring until eliminated by sexual selection of genes or point mutation. Since the individual is beyond reproductive age this lethal gene does not interfere with reproductive fitness, the "fittest" of Darwin's mechanism.


Another example of a creationist trying to discount something because their definition of the word is "guess" while science has a very different interpretation.

A scientific theory is arrived at through several stages. An observation is made, and a hypothesis is formed. From the hypothesis experiments are designed. The experiments are performed and the evidence is collected. If any part of the experimentation process is found to be falsifiable, eg. removing an element of the experiment does not change the outcome, then the experiment is revisited until it is no longer falsifiable. With sufficient evidence you may then present this information as a theory.

If you don't have much regard for theories you can just float off into space now, as we only have a theory of gravity as well.

We have the fact of gravity.
We have the fact of evolution.

edit: Just in case you try to use the "Law of Gravity" here, a law refers to a consistency of predicted state but does not entail an explanation. You can know that what goes up must come down, but not know why. This falls under the purview of laws.

Quote:

Dinosaur bones were put together with the bones of a newer species of bird and they tried to pass it off as a very important new evolutionary intermediate.) to deny a deity so they don't have reprocussions for their actions.

Scientific frauds don't last long, because there is continued inquiry.
If religion tolerated inquiry there would be no religion, hence the whole Adam and Eve fable intimating that seeking knowledge is wrong.

Mitochondrial DNA and the study of Endogenous Retroviruses confirm the main talking points of natural selection. Darwin was not aware of genetics, nor the specificity of how the traits were passed on, but his theory of natural selection has borne out under close scrutiny by whole fields that couldn't exist if he was wrong.

Genetics is not a field where the bible can provide any insight.

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Religion. Bravely turning its back on reality one universe at a time.

I don't think you have to. Have you looked at the Republicans lately?

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Religion. Bravely turning its back on reality one universe at a time.

Why is it that the ones arguing for God never know how to use the editor?
Do we need to add an appendix to the bible on internet technology?

Might as well get these in before the "no transitional fossils" bit gets thrown out.
It gets really annoying when creationist views of biology also appear to have stopped reading any discoveries published after 1850.

One of the coolest ones recently.
Darwinopterus modularis
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2...saic_modul.php

Science also makes changes to the records of how some species have evolved as better methods than pure phenotypic appraisal become available.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture07776.html
What may have seemed obvious from mere visual appraisals changes with additional genetic materials and fossils and science updates accordingly.

You may notice that the bible still indicatees that sickness is caused by demons and sin.
I prefer to get my education from science and not from fairy tales.

Oh, and don't waste your time quoting Behe and the flagella as an example of irreducible complexity. He was quite embarrassed when it was shown that you could remove 80 percent of the components of the flagella and it still had functionality for another purpose, an effective pump.

Intelligent Design is not Science.

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Religion. Bravely turning its back on reality one universe at a time.

I too have loved ones who are very christian. The entire side of my fathers consist of a great great, great, and grandfather who were all preists, my uncle and my father who does spirtitual therapy,(going into past lives with others and using crystals and cards)and the rest just go to church every sunday and are devote christians. so i know all about faith from those people influencing me since i was born. It worked for awhile, and i believed in something more than just nothing. Long story short i even asked my father where was god? when we were in an airplane in the clouds. I think his response was he was in your heart? something along that line. But when i became older church was nothing but a bore that i didnt pay attention to, so i questioned my faith and desided not to care about religion, and see if my life became worse or better. Nothing changed, i was the same. So that answered many questions! My family says they pray for me every day aswell, which ofcourse cant be bad, but i know isnt going to save me or answer any problems i have unfortunatly. I really wished it worked like that.
Everyone knows i despise organized religion and Jesus Junkies, but in the end... i really dont think im wrong, so ill gve them 20 years to figure out Jesus isnt coming to save them!



I see where your coming from, and i understand people have free will, but then why do people still pray if its obvious god just dosnt have power when it comes to a persons choice or action on the earth. If someone had a gun, and he wanted to shoot your best friend in the head, and your at home praying for their well being, what can god do? It seems like your saying he cant do anything. Which is true... so whats the point of prayer?

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I cannot understand how the religion of atheism cannot exist.

Religion= my system of thought and practices that gives meaning to my experiences through reference to my understanding of ultimate truth.

Thoughts become things.

edit:

Little things become big things.

Some things include other things, and everything quickly becomes entangled.

Hippie hint: entangled is a physics term.

Watch the parallel universes episode of The Universe for a visualization.

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not all religious people who do good works would be so inclined without the impetus of their faith. the will to do good may exist within us all, but sometimes it takes an outside force to bring it to the fore. for many people, religion is that lightning rod.

it's easy to look around yourself and, seeing the evil that men do, get caught up in that malevolence. the herd instinct is strong in many people and they become followers far too easily. for some, the messages within religious dogma speak to and bring out their more positive aspects. in a world where corruption is seen as almost the norm and we have the worst of humanity splashed across ever headline, some need that extra push to see what good we are capable of and follow a better path.

of course that lightning rod can attract the bad as well as the good. the concept of being among the chosen can feed the ego and create a false sense of superiority, but you have to ask whether these people would be any different without the backing of their faith. those who can pervert the positive messages within the philosophies of most religions are capable of using almost anything to justify their agendas.

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When her work is done, she forgets it. That is why it lasts forever.
If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

''The school, Victory Christian Academy, was an all-female fundamentalist boot camp surrounded by a ten-foot high barbed wire fence. The girls? – Everyone from atheists, to drug addicts, to lesbians in trouble with the Lord. When the girls arrived, many kicking and screaming, they were taken to the “Get Right Room”, a pitch-black room half the size of a walk-in closet, where Jerry Falwell sermons were blasted over the stereo. Mike Palmer, the school’s Dean, locked people in the G.R. Room for as short as hours to as long as seven days. The rules at Victory? No pants, no phone calls to parents for three months, and no outside visitors. In short, the girls at Victory were caged like animals.''

Going to Victory Christian Academy, or any christian boot camp would be my personal hell

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