Scientist have yet to discover one thing on earth before humans came.

They can figure out about a round world, and Gravity, because both things are still around to look at now. BUt how can they discover who created earth?

There may be clues, but it's impossible to make a fact out of these clues unless you go back in time and whitness it for yourself.

I don't that a Scientist is crazy enough to create a time machine either.

.... hmm? :confused:

"But how can they discover who created earth"

Or what... :D

Sorry, I just woke up not too long ago... I'll... say more later.... :sneaky:

Am I reading you right? Because I'm wondering what you think dinosaurs are.

"What?

Offensive???"

Yes, offensive. You constantly assume that you cannot possibly be wrong and that everyone who doesn't think the same as you is going to hell.

OK, have it your way. You, in believing in god, are going to waste your life worshipping an idol who does not exist. You will die expecting eternal happiness which will never come. Your last thoughts will be hoping for something better, and they will never be granted.

Now, that's me stating my beliefs as fact. Are you not offended? Can you not see how imposing your beliefs in others as the only possible truth is a gross insult to every humans right to believe what they want to believe?

"If someone asks me a question about God, I'm going to answer it as if it were fact... and there is nothing you can do about it."

Then you are wrong. It is an opinion, and there is nothing YOU can do to change that fact. It will become fact when someone comes up with irrefutable proof that god exists. Until then, it is just an opinion and you are wrong to assume otherwise.

"And what's with your long ass posts, 99% of the stuff you replied to wasn't even aimed at you."

The "lond assedness" of it is due to some peoples inability to understand someones viewpoint. Am I not allowed to reply to stuff that was not specifically directed at me? Am I not allowed to express my own opinion on the matter?

"Is anybody going to argue my point?"

The one about easter Island and stuff? I did in my "long assed" posts which it seems no-one can be bothered to read.

"I don't have to prove something wrong to know it's not real"

Good point; BigJ - you can't prove that invisible pink unicorns don't exist... do you believe in them? From what I know and believe, there is as much basis for these exisiting as there is a god.

"it's probably impossible to try EVERY religion"

Not ony impossible, but blasphemous in the eyes of most, and you'll go to hell for sure.

" I mean, seriously, just look at it this way, you're just one of the millions who has an opinion which is different that millions of others, and you think you're right?"

By far the greatest problem I have with most organised religion, and certain people who shall remain nameless who adhere to this. And then the whole "they don't believe what I know to be true, therefore I am superior and they are going to burn in hell" attitude.

"I just want to say that I've looked at many other religions and found flaws"

Me too, but christianity had the first ones I saw.

"I know that the Bible has never been wrong."

You may "know" this, but that doesn't make it fact.

"If you compare the origional biblical transcripts with other accepted historical documents, you will find no extraordinary contradictions."

I beg to differ. true, much of the stuff was based on truth as far as I believe, but where are other historical mentions of all those miracles jesus supposedly performed? Just in the bible and it's spinoffs.
And as far as the old testament goes... so you really think the earth is just over 6000 years old? This doesn't fly in the face of historical documents, it flies in the face of science. We can see that the erath is much MUCH older. And I'd say the genesis bit is a prettty important part of most (christian) god based religions, no?

"I know that the Bible has no in context contradictions in it's origional manuscripts."

What do you classify as "original manuscripts"? Linguistic studies suggest that the old testament not only underwent heavy editorial work after the time of jesus, but probably authorial work as well.

As far as contradiction goes... here's a start.

http://members.aol.com/ckbloomfld/index.html

"I know that the Bible's teachings are invaluable."

I think you'll find most people don't argue with this, but you'll know that most atheists and egg nog sticks will see it differently. Persoanlly I see religion and the bible as a great way of creating a stable society amongst humans; it advocates being nice to people, keeping clean, not shagging your sister, that sort of thing, and the it uses fear of an all powerful being to scare people into doing it. THAT is the problem I have with organised religion. I have no bones against the practices of the individual.

Just because religion PROPAGATES humanitarian principles (for the most part -we'll ignore religious wars for now) doesn't mean it INVENTED them.

"I haven't tried every religion, but I've studied the bible, Read up on it's backround, compared it with other books, and found it to be the most logical one out there."

Well Buddhism makes alot more sense to me than christainity ever will, mainly because it's the only one I've come across that does not require a beliefe in an existential eity ofone form or another.
But as far as logic goes, science for me beats every religion hands down.

"A place that we don't know of? Odd. If you didn't know if it, then how can you speak of it?"

What is this supposed to prove? On the surface it seems like the stupid old argument "don't you have to know god exists before you can stop believing in him?" He speaks of it because religious people speak of it.

"would they really have let him kill 500,000 jews"

6 million actually. Ooh hold on, I've got a good quote for this...

"... I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work." - Hitler

"Who made the universe? Then why should we believe it's real?"

We believe the universe is real because we can see it with our own eyes. But isn't it enough to say a garden is pretty without saying there are fairies at the bottom too?

"As far as you know, we all go to Heaven after we die and that's it"

And as far as you know, we all just rot after we die. This is a theological question, and not I believe the topic of this thread.

"And why would he do that? If he WAS real, then what would give you the right to tell him what to do, and what makes you think that you have half a clue of what he would do? Just another thought."

Which leads me to the following conclusion: if god exists but does not show us any provable signs that he does, he has planted the seeds of doubt in our minds. Hence some people do not believe in him. And yet despite this, apparently god still thinks you should believe in him without (to me) any beleivable evidence of him actually exisiting, and if you don't you're going to fry in hell forever. This means that you god has the sort of mentality of the people who go around leaving hats on the street with bricks under them, wating for people to stub their toe. Not the kind of god I would be happy worshipping.

"This is known as Pascal's wager."

Ah, Pascals wager again. Try looking at some of the online forums where Pascals wager has been done to death. Then come back and explain your logic.

"Although there are many religions to follow, wouldn't you think it's best to at least choose one?"

Why? I am quite happy in having no religion. I fact, I am much happier knowing that no-one is in control of me but myself.

"You don't lose anything by taking it"

I do. Assuming your standpoint of the christian god, I lose my right to say that when I see something I do not understand I wish to find out what it is, how it works. I lose my right to accept humans on their character alone, and have to judge them on their beliefs. I lose the right to decide how to live my life. I place total control of myself in the hands of an organisation controlled by humans, supposedly acting in gods name.

I lose my right to think what I want to think. This is what I belieev makes me a free human, and you are going to have to kill me before I give this up.

" Like how the world would turn out in the future, and apparently it was really accurate."

So many religions rely on prophecy... but can I ask, what has given more definite and accurate prophecies than science?

Besides, depending on how you look at them, the prophecies can explain a multitude of separate and entirely different circumstances. Take a look at my thoughts on horoscopes.

"My point is that if science can't prove how these things got here, then who's to say God doesn't exist?"

Science can show how men put them there, and has done. So why assume that some ultra-powerful deity did it? It's like me saying "wow, I can see how someone could have made that computer program, but there's no way I could do it, so it must be the work of a god". It is an invalid argument form a scientific standpoint.

"Read sdtpikachu's replies... "

Nah, my posts are too "long assed" to be worth considering apparently. Obviously someone who tries to put their POV across in as detailed a manner as possible obviously isn't worth paying attention to.

"But it's simple enough to argue that everything around here is the effect of God's workmanship."

Yes, it's so much easier just to lie back and not think about it at all. I don't want to THINK I know what happened, I want to KNOW what happened. The only way I can find out is by going out with an open mind and looking at all the available evidence. And to me, the scientific evidence makes a whole lot more sense than the religious stuff.

[next post...]

"I can see that this conversation will go in somewhat the way of the last one."

Yep... sadly enough. Most people can't have an oen discussion on these views without taking it too personally.
Of course it's not made any easier by remarks I find insulting which are responded with "How is it insulting?" instead of "I'm sorry, I just find it difficult to see things from your perspective"

"Scientist have yet to discover one thing on earth before humans came."

?!?!?!?!?
Have you even HEARD of geology? Palaeobiology?
We have discovered literally thousands of species which do not and never did co-exist with humans.

"BUt how can they discover who created earth?"

Maybe you should say "what" created the earth. You have no evidence it was god, I have no evidence it wasn't sneezed out of the mouth of a creature called the great green arkleseizure. Which one of us is right? It's opinion versus opinion. Where the difference comes in however is that science gathers more and more information daily, which lead to new avenues of thought, new hypotheses, new theories. Religion does not do this.

What happens if conclusive scientific proof that the universe WAS sneezed out of the mouth of a creature called the great green arkleseizure was found out tomorrow? Would you accept it?

"There may be clues, but it's impossible to make a fact out of these clues unless you go back in time and whitness it for yourself."

You misunderstand the nature of science. We look at things as they are today, and we formulate laws... such as "if you drop an apple, it falls". Now it seems likely to me that this has been the case throughout time itself. In fact, we can even see gravity forming star systems at this very second. No, we can't see exactly what happened a billion years ago. That is why we gather evidence, formuate hypotheses and eventually theories. We see what we can see from what remains of the time... we think "how can this have happened?" and we create a hypothesis based on this. We then test this by looking at other examples of things that happened at the same time and/or at a different place, and see if that fits our current hypothesis. If not, we wonder why this is. If we can think of an alternative hypothesis that fits the evidence better, that will become our new hypothesis, until we have gathered more evidence which does not fit our current hypothesis. Thus we continually remodify our thoughts on the matter to fit in with observation.

See "scientific method"

"I don't that a Scientist is crazy enough to create a time machine either."

So you say because we can't create a time machine, we can't say that this fossil is 120 million years old? Explain your logic please.

Am I the only Christian here that does not offend people?

No... you constantly assume that I assume that everybody who isn't thinking the same as me will go to hell.

I don't know what they are going to do with thier lives, and it's not me who makes that judgement call. Because you think one way now, it doesn't mean you will always think that way.

In gekko's case... I said IF (keyword: IF) you go to hell, you know who to blame.

How is this offencive?

The fact is, a scientist 120million years ago would have to be studying it the WHOLE time to make an exact system on dating things.

I think carbon dating is BS, they are making estimates, and they don't have an exact system to it...

If you take the fossil to 3 different carbon dating places, you will get three totally different answers.

What solid proof is there that dinosaurs came before humans.

Do you even know how carbon dating works? Do you understand the science behind it? Do you understand how the method was developed?

Because if you did and you still thought it was BS, I would have to conclude that you are willfully blind. I'm sorry if that sounds offensive, but that's what I think. You are perfectly welcome to believe what you will about God, but I still want to hear your reasons for not believing the results of carbon dating. You're right in that it produces estimates, but no carbon dating I've ever heard of has stated that dinosaurs and humans existed at the same time.

Keep in mind that there are other elements besides Carbon that scientists use to date fossils. Carbon is just the most commonly used.

Theorys aren't facts, period.

Estimations aren't facts, period.

call me willfully blind all you want, NOBODY knows what the earth was like Pre-Humans, and it's impossible to know unless you have been there.... until this science is studied for a million years, and the bones follow the exact same system, you can't make a valid estimation.

The science is good enough now, in 1-10 million years study time, they can find an extremely accurate system, but finding the solution to this will take more time. I simply don't believe that it is even close to being accurate in it's current form.

But God is?

In my eyes, yes... from experience I have been through, and things I have seen, my explination is god.

I can't change your personal views, because you have a different life from mine, if you lived in my brain, and knew every thought, maybe you would see things the same as me.

I'm not forcing my opinion on anybody, if you don't believe, oh well, the point of the thread is a question "why don't you belive?"

"No... you constantly assume that I assume that everybody who isn't thinking the same as me will go to hell."

Well I'm sorry if you think I've misinterpreted you, but time and time again you seem to state as a fact that what you believe is the only possible truth. And because of the nature of what this is related to, I consider it to be somewhat offensive.

"I said IF (keyword: IF) you go to hell, you know who to blame."

But there are plenty of other occasions where the word "if" or "IMO" was absent. hence I could only assume that you were stating what you thought was a fact.
Even with the word "if" it can still be seen as offensive in some lights. What if I said if YOU go to hell you'll know who to blame? It still doesn't sound very nice.

"The fact is, a scientist 120million years ago would have to be studying it the WHOLE time to make an exact system on dating things."

You're right, and we are never going to know exactly down to the last electron and subatomic particle what happened 120 million years ago. But we know that some laws never change; we can infer. Obviously there is margin for error, and that is why we have to study as much as we can in order to formulate the best possible hypothesis/theory.

"I think carbon dating is BS, they are making estimates, and they don't have an exact system to it..."

Have you made an in-depth study into the processes behind carbon dating? If you did, you would know that C14 dating is one of our more imprecise methods of dating, due to the nature of C14 radioactivity, which only has a half life of about 5500 years. Hence dates can only go back about 30,000 years before the noise in the system becomes so dense that the margin for error exceeds the time period we are trying to date (basically, it will come up with a date like "this is 60,000 years old, plus or minus 100,000 years). But I assure you, C14 will date any organic remnant up to 15,000 years old very well indeed, with errors of only +/- 2000 years for an imprecise test... precise tests can give accuracies of +/- 500 years, or even less as techniques become more refined.
To say that just because in a few cases it has produced inconclusive results that the whole thing is crap is rather arrogant, no?

"If you take the fossil to 3 different carbon dating places, you will get three totally different answers."

Firstly, hardly any fossils are dated by carbon dating due to their a) being no carbon in them due to fossilisation and b) being far too old for carbon dating to take place anyway. Most fossils are dated by dating the rocks they lie in using one of the several other radiometric dating techniques we use.
And the answers are not totally different. Modern dating methods along with stratigraphical and morphological analysis typically provide dates of +/- 1 million years, with really good stratigraphical sequences getting +/- half a million years. You might think that this is a huge margin of error, but you'd be wrong: in geological time, a million years is nothing.

"What solid proof is there that dinosaurs came before humans."

Sigh... where do I begin?
1) Radiometric dating shows the rocks the fossils lie in were formed at least 65 millino years ago
2) Dinosaur and human remains have never been found together
3) In fact, they have been found to be separated by several kilometres of rock containing no dinosaur or human remains which ranges from 65 to 2 million years old
4) There are no human records of dinosaurs co-existing with humans (cave paintings and the like do not depict them at all; they depict the woolly mammoth and other fauna of the Holocene)

Is this not proof enough?

No, it isn't

1) Raidiometric dating is an estimate
2) Humans are smart enough to know not to be anywhere near dinosaurs
3) Raidiometric dating is an estimate
4) This is a different level of brain power. Humans may know that fire hurts, hell, a 4 month old baby could figure that out if it touched it, but can he figure out how to paint on cave walls eaisilly?

nothing is full proof

"Keep in mind that there are other elements besides Carbon that scientists use to date fossils. Carbon is just the most commonly used."

Well actually no... carbon 14 is hardly ever used to date fossils. They are just too old - carbon 14 only works well up to about 15 to 20,000 years, and most fossils are several million years old at the very least... I have on in frony of me from the Devonian period... that's at least 365 million years old.

"Theorys aren't facts, period.
Estimations aren't facts, period."

Who said they were? A theory is not a fact. A scientific example:

The law of gravity shows that objects move toward objects of greater mass (this is a gross simplification, but it would take ages to explain).
The theory of gravitation says that this is due to mass exerting a force called gravity. This theory does not work for very small or very large masses (or very small distances); this is why quantum physics was developed: to explain the holes in the theory of gravitation.

We have no proof that gravitation actually exists. We just have a theory (or rather, a group of theories) which explain the whole thing perfectly on everything of a normal scale (they still haven't quantified all of quantum mechanics yet).

Yet you seem to think that just because there is the slightest bit of doubt that a theory which has managed to satisfactorily explain more than half the universe is not true, then it MUST be due to a god. Fine, you're entitled to believe this; personally, I just can't accept that kind of a lapse of logical thinking.

"call me willfully blind all you want, NOBODY knows what the earth was like Pre-Humans"

So I suppose that we can't infer anything at all from the rocks then? Like the presence of fish meaning that water existed? Like the presence of cyanobacteria in the Archean began to convert our methane/ammonia atmosphere into the one we have today? Why can't we say that the geological and palaeomagnetioc record shows that America was once part of a huge mega-continent at a different latitude and longitude than it is today? Why can't we then say that any fossils found at particular times must have lived in a prticular latitude and longitude x numbers of kilometres from the sea? Why can't we say that because its cold at the poles now it was cold at the poles then, and from that deduce exactly what kind of climate these fossils lived in?

So it's not the same as being there, but again you are making the same illogical assumption that because no-one living today has actually seen it, a completely different theory that it all just hapened cos some dude with a beard said it did MUST be true? How the heck does that happen?! Just because something isn't 100% explicable or demonstratable doesn't mean we have to go off and find a totally different explanation.

Besides, everything we know about the early earth fits together. We can see how the continents were joined, how they moved, where animals originated from... it's quite balletic really.

"until this science is studied for a million years, and the bones follow the exact same system, you can't make a valid estimation."

Then surely religion should follow the same rules, if you're going to be fair about it? We have been studying it for oooh lets be generous and say 150 years. Plate tectonics has only been around for 50. And we have already calculated the age of the earth and how it's continents and animals evolved, and have made several estimations which hey all fit together very nicely indeed. But you're saying these won't become valid in any way shape or form for another 999,800 years? Why is this?

Surely then you should only start believing in this christ dude in 998000 years? You know, when it becomes a valid estimate?

"The science is good enough now, in 1-10 million years study time, they can find an extremely accurate system, but finding the solution to this will take more time. I simply don't believe that it is even close to being accurate in it's current form."

So you say that because it's inaccurate by your seemingly ignorant standards now, it's going to take 10 million years? An entire civilisation can evolve from a single family of worms in that time. Why do you think science is only valid after hundreds of millenia of study? I'm not saying it won't all be proved wrong tomorrow, but it explains it all to me very nicely indeed.

"I can't change your personal views, because you have a different life from mine, if you lived in my brain, and knew every thought, maybe you would see things the same as me."

And if you had lived my life through my eyes is my brain, you would probably think the same as me. But you asked us to explain why various people like myself didn't believe in god... do you have your answer yet?

I for one just can't believe god exists because I see no evidence at all of him ever having had a hand in anything. Why worship something I can't see or feel or believe will ever give me any benefit whatsoever? There is no point for me. I have more useful things to do.

Sorry, I meant commonly used in the sense that that's what the general public usually hears about.

That's what the last topic was about... I did my explaining

I will not argue with that, because you claimed to have given religion a chance. Everything is a choice, your path is different from mine, can't do anything about it.

"Raidiometric dating is an estimate"

No it isn't. It is a perfectly scalable, reliable and accurate method of determining age. Exaplin to me everything you know about radiometric dating and why it is an estimate, and I will explain to you why it is not.

"Humans are smart enough to know not to be anywhere near dinosaurs"

60 km of horizontally deposited rock apart? Wow, that's very smart; the humans must have either lived floating 60km in the air, or they must have forced the dinosours to live 60km beneath the surface of the earth... in the upper mantle, at about 1500 degress celsius. That is indeed pretty clever. Or total nonsense, depending on how you look at it.

"This is a different level of brain power. Humans may know that fire hurts, hell, a 4 month old baby could figure that out if it touched it, but can he figure out how to paint on cave walls eaisilly?"

So... how does this prove that dinosurs co-existed with humans? How come they managed to paint pics of themselves and mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers and yet totally forgot about those huge lumbering reptiles which would have provided an excellent source of food?

Oh yeah, I was forgetting... the dinosuars are busy combusting at the base of the lithopshere at this point. Silly me.

"nothing is full proof"

You are right; nothing can ever be proven. I cannot say "I think therefore I am"; this only proves that I believe myself to be thinking, and philosophers aren't even sure about that.

But don't you find it mre likely that theories that actually make scientific sense are true, rather than some deity who can also never be proved (not to the extent you demand of science anyway)? It is all a matter of perspective.

"Sorry, I meant commonly used in the sense that that's what the general public usually hears about."

Yep... this is true. Carbon dating affects more recent (and to most people, more interesting) events than uranium, thorium, strontium helium etc. dating does... hence you hear about it more in the press.

"That's what the last topic was about... I did my explaining"

You may well have done your explaining; that's fine. But I am asking: do you understand why people like myself do not believe in god? Can you see our reasoning and our logic?

I think it's been explained clearly enough several times.

"I will not argue with that, because you claimed to have given religion a chance. Everything is a choice, your path is different from mine, can't do anything about it."

True enough... but I just wanted you to understand my POV, since (as you started this thread), I imagined you must have been confused on my/our perspective and were seeking some answers as to what and why we think the way we do. So my question is: can you understand our viewpoint?

God can only be proven when he comes back, and even if that happens, I'm sure people still won't belive it. They will have to find some scienific evidence that the disappearances were acctually caused by god.

So, in conclusion, I doubt this arguement will go anywhere, it was fun while it lasted ;)

From my perspective, your reasoning is:

"Nothing I have seen or experienced in my liife proves to me that there can possibly be a God"


We both live our lives through our own eyes, and in our own mind. We can look at the same thing, and our minds can tell us two different things.

It's like the question: "Is the glass half empty, or is it half full"

Science couldn't prove it one way to you, and it couldn't prove it the other way to me.

So I understand (I think)

"God can only be proven when he comes back"

Well if we are to use your rather stringent definitions of what constitutes proof or evidence on a scientific basis, even god coming back wouldn't prove he existed.
Is it really a supernatural force?
Is it not just a guy from the future having fun with a randiom planet, using all kinds of futurisitc machines to make us think he's a god?
Could it be aliens maybe, doing the same type of thing?
Could it all just be a figment of my imagination?

All of these are possible, and by the standards you apply to sceintific regimes just as provable as god is. Hence:

"... and even if that happens, I'm sure people still won't belive it"

"They will have to find some scienific evidence that the disappearances were acctually caused by god."

And what's wrong with that? What is wrong with questioning everything? Knowledge can't kill anything apart from igonorance and misunderstanding. There is nothing wrong with wanting to figure out how the universe works. IMO, god is the overly simple and wrong explanation for everything I have ever seen in my life.

"So, in conclusion, I doubt this arguement will go anywhere, it was fun while it lasted"

Well in that case, I hope you've come to some understanding of how my/our mind(s) work(s)... otherwise, this carpal tunnel syndrome was all for nothing...

""Nothing I have seen or experienced in my liife proves to me that there can possibly be a God""

Well, I would go further than that myself: I would say that nothing I have seen or experienced in my life has ever suggested to me the slightest possibility that there can be a god. I guess I am as unshakeable in my faiths as you are... for the time being. ;)

"Science couldn't prove it one way to you, and it couldn't prove it the other way to me."

Well, that's your choice... but from the little I know of science, the world can be more than adequately explained by natural processes than by the influence of a divine being. That is my belief, and there's not much I can see that is likely to change it... but obviously if someone came up with a theory more plausible than science involving a god, then I would have to accept it.

"So I understand (I think)"

Good! I've almost worn out this keyboard...

i say, we all get thrown in a big field, and we all get big guns and knives and tanks and........ rats!! with big teeth. then we all fight and kill each other!!!!! I SHALL TRIUMPH

or you should all just accept the fact that you all have different thoughts and go on playing GTA3.
and if you don't think GTA3 is a good game you are WRONG and you should DIE your opinions are STUPID.

carbon dating has proven it

:hmm:

As always an extremely interesting topic on religion at GT, I think it';s been a whole 2 months since we had one last.

Being lazy and catching the thread after some 100+ replies, I won't read through most of this, but it seems to have turned into another science vs religion thread.

The fact of the matter is I really don't trust either one. I mean they both share common problems...

1)For the most part neither can be proven.
2)For the most part either can be disproven also
3)You can't believe in both (I mean some can, but they basically try to disprove each other)


Well yadda..yadda..yadda...

Anyhow I also find it hard to buy into either since they aren't proven, but all exist in theory. I mean in Biology alone there are all these "If" this happens and then they find something to disprove it or change it..it's all so confusing...

Well, I would say this is because you misunderstand the nature of the word "theory" in the scientific sense. Time and time again I hear people saying "it's only a theory", using it in the same context as "the Loch Ness monster is only a theory".

There is a difference between a genuine scientific theory and what most people understand as theories... a scientific theory is a "rule" based on obervations... it IS substantited and "proven" to a reasonable level of certainty.

The reaon they are called theory rather than fact or law is that science is continually changing and adapting as more and more is discovered or re-examined... hence to call something a rule or law when you know very well that it might have to be changed next week is a bit daft.

"they basically try to disprove each other"

I wouldn't say so; science does not set out to try and disprove religion, although manysee it like that. There are many aspects of science that have little or nothing to do with belief and vice versa; many scientists are in fact religious to some extent. There is room for both of them in someone's life.

Even the pope managed to admit that evolution occurred...

"For the most part neither can be proven."

Well, science can be proved to be true beyond reasonable doubt for the vast majority of cases... that's how our theories come about.

"For the most part either can be disproven also"

What aspect of science do you know of that can be disproved?

""If" this happens and then they find something to disprove it or change it.."

Such is the nature of scientific adaption... if something happens that your theory can't account for, then the only option you have is to think up a better one which fits in with the available evidence.

"it's all so confusing..."

I guess it can be!

thanx for posting your beliefs guys. i'm eventually going to go through it and write down the good arguments and come up with answers for them sometime.

chris did a really good job of anwering and i agree with him a lot. i scanned some stuff so i'll give some brief statements...

gekko, nowhere in the bible does it say it waas an apple! quit listing that as a reason:p and i believe the garden was destroyed shortly after adam and eve were kicked out or during the flood, which by the way this story is found in many many more places around the earth in different forms of writing.

i saw some stuff about religion. don't let religion get in the waay of your belief in god or your relationship with him. the right religions are the ones that go by the bible. the wrong ones are the ones that do things that go against it.

carbon dating is very innacurate.

something i saw said believing more in satan cause more bad going on. the bad is going on because so manty people have turned their back on god.

and finally, its about faith. god sent his son to die for us, shows us endless mercy, etc etc. now what he wants from us is our faith, our belief in something not physically seen. if he showed himself to us, physically, of course we would believe. but he want people who believe because they want to return his love he showed to them. btw, who are we that god should show himself to us.

thanx again for posting. hopefully someone will benefit from this, either through this thread or because next time i get asked some of these questions i'll be ready to answer them.

anything else to say you can contact me at dunadan00 on aim. my icq is in myt profile. or you could just post of course:)

"i saw some stuff about religion. don't let religion get in the waay of your belief in god or your relationship with him. the right religions are the ones that go by the bible. the wrong ones are the ones that do things that go against it."

Wow, now that IS offensive. You are a bigot. That was worse than anything that BJW has said. Instantly you've just dissed more than half of the worlds population. Well done.

Who are you to say what is right and wrong about someone's belief?

" the bad is going on because so manty people have turned their back on god."

Yeah? Prove it. I suppose you'll agree with Jerry Falwell and say that the 11-9 attacks are the fault of people like me... not forgetting the homosexuals, liberals, agnostics, hindu's, islamics and all the rest of it? Well I guess you may as well just kill me now, because in your eyes I'm obviously grossly inferior to human beings.

Your post displays a spectacular sense of total inconsideration for anyone with a belief that does not centre around the christian bible. It is people like you who give religion a bad name. Why can't you learn to accept people on their character instead of what god(s) they do or don't believe in? You have no right to decide which religion is "right" or "wrong" merely because your religion says that all others are wrong.

"hopefully someone will benefit from this"

Well maybe all the people who beileve in the same religion as you will. Everyone else however will have had their beliefs insulted by you.

Thank you very much for getting me annoyed. I hope you will choose your reply with a little more care and tact.

we'll do it one at a time. first thing, how did i diss half the world's population?

Cos more than half of the world doesn't follow the bible

i was talking about religions. somebody said how do we know which ones are right and which ones are wrong. so i said the right ones are the ones that follow the bible. they don't say things like....the world wan't created by god. it happened through evolution. that would be going against the bible. i wansn't really talking about people.

does this straighten things out?

Yes, it straightens things out: you have just re-asserted your original statement; namely that you consider religions which follow the bible to be "right" and iones which do not to be "wrong". Even if applied only to religion, you are still slagging off about three billion people.

I agree that atheism as far as I'm concerned isn't a religion per se, but it's a system of belief and you are claiming that all beliefs contrary to your own are "wrong"

When it comes to Religion, I trust my gut.

My gut tells me there is a God. Not necessarily THE God. I believe there is a greater force because when I try to convince myself there's not, I don't even buy it. Something just tells me there is.

As for the rest of it, I don't know. I'm not goign to say that the Bible isn't true, I just don't know that it is. I mean, how many times was is passed down word of mouth before it was put on paper? And how many times after that was it copied and recopied before a definite text was established? How sure is anyone how much has been mis translated or competely left out after all these year?

For all we know Christ was really a chicken and we really piss God off every time we go to KFC for some Honey Barbecue Wings:D

i'll talk to you on icq soon when mine is back up.

Well, you'll have to hurry; it's 2 in the morning here and I'm about to go coma.

Strangler; not only do I agree with alot of what you say about the bible... I thought that bit at the end was especially poignant... ;)

Good night everybody... bleurgh. Sorry this is is my second night without sleep and I think I might die soon...

The_Dunadan, remember what I told you about your first post? You're doing it all over again. You're speaking as if the Bible is fact. That is not the way to debate. It won't incline any atheists to listen to anything further you have to say.

In a debate, you just have to treat your side (namely the Bible) as a theory and argue it from there, always keeping in mind that some people genuinely don't believe the Bible and never will. BigJustinW has done a pretty good job of doing that, and as far as I can tell, the atheists have as well. You should do the same. Otherwise, you come across as bigoted and narrow-minded.

Anyway, we managed to have a civilized debate about religion for once. Some doubloons are in order...

the reason i didn't feel like saying what you said i should say is because there were post in here saying there is no god its crap and other stuff of that nature as if it was a fact. i didn't see them say anything otherwise or you warn them about it. sorry, i'll do it next post(this time i'll actually do it; i'm serious, i will:) )

Actually, if you read all the posts carefully, you'll see that almost every post has an "I believe" somewhere in it. Those simple two words can change the tone of an entire post. The only time I saw posts either way where the person didn't say "I believe" was when he had already explained "I believe God does/doesn't exist" in a previous post.

I'm not perfect, so I won't say that some posts haven't slipped by me. But I've been reading this topic very carefully, and I think you'll find that what I saw is at least true for the most part.