I'm sorry, Matt, but perhaps I'm missing the obvious here -- who, exactly, do you feel to be qualified to interpret the word of God? You've said, so far, that the spiritual and political leaders of three of the largest religions in the world have corrupted the word of God in their quest for more power. Yet, somehow, such people are still exalted by their followers. So, then, if you don't believe the Pope is qualified to be an unbiased interpreter of messages from God, who is? You? Do you believe that you don't have your own bias influencing your interpretation of scripture?

God was created (or exists, depending on your perspective) to be an infallible entity. That was a really smart move, really, because the moment something intangible and ethereal becomes omnipotent and infallible, there exists no logic that can defeat it. It is the ultimate justification for the most unimaginable and horrific of actions. It's carte blanche for people to exercise their will -- as you've said.

As far as I can see, you're responsible for a good amount of the posting in this thread -- trying pretty hard at convincing others that they're misguided or wrong. Does this thread satisfy a missionary requirement for a merit badge or something?

I understand the desire to want to to compare your belief system with others. It's natural and healthy for us to reexamine our views of the world periodically so that we don't become complacent in our existence. However, where matters of metaphysics and belief systems are concerned -- where there are no "hard facts" -- it's pretty rude to consistently reply to every disparate viewpoint and explain why it's incorrect. In fact, it's annoying and reflects pretty poorly upon you.

If you're truly interested in learning about other's feelings on this matter, to put it bluntly, shut your trap and listen. If you're interested in reassuring yourself about your belief system by silencing or dismissing others, please, shut your trap.

Have a nice day.

Not when you are analyzing everyone's post...
good-day

Personally i like the idea of this thread. I think it interesting to pose science versus religion in a science based message board.

Aww. But he hasn't done mine, yet! I feel so ignored.

As for the thread, it could have been good. The concept is honest enough. Execution, however, is slightly on the lacking side...

Awww...maybe he wont ignore you soon :p

What you said about the thread is exactly what I'm feeling, but said a lot nicer. heh

Fine i shall shut my trap then, and let all your questions go unanswered.

Oh and there isn't any merit badge that i could get for this, and it would be no use for me anyways I'm already Eagle...

No option for agnostics? :)

There really isn't enough evidence for or against...so I stay neutral. If I had to choose, I'd go atheist, but calling myself agnostic is easier...especially since there are more than a few poeple that have no idea what it means. :)

When I read this, I was concerned partly. From what I've gathered, you've already gone against 3 points of the Scout Law -
Courteous, Kind, and Reverent.
I've found some of your replys flat out rude.
In my opinion, you're not showing the 12th point of the Scout Law very well. I understand you may be trying to influence others with your Religious beliefs, but don't here. The question originally was "Do you believe in God?", but since then it has turned into a shake-down on people's beliefs. Hopefully these posts will help do to continue to do good turns daily in a more constructive way.

/ends Scout references ;)

Does the word debate mean anything to you?

could we possibly get an aim chat going this weekend inspired by the subject of th is post?

This thread isn't about a debate over religion, it's about whether a person believes in God or not.

I believe that religion is strictly personal and that there should be no men who are given power to feed their interpretations of god to large amounts of followers.

As long as your religion does not involve the wholesale sacrifice of human infants, or something along those lines, you should be free to practice it, and, more importantly, you should follow personal beliefs more readily than you follow the words of your nearest pastor/rabbi/sheik/etc.

The Bible is also a bad thing for personal freedom of religion, it leads too many to accept too much without thought. An intelligent person can read the Bible and, for him, it can be a good thing. But too many people take the Bible at face value, especially seeing as how many contradictions exist, especially between the old and new testaments.

Just a few notes and elaborations after reading a couple select posts....

Quote:

Originally posted by Blacknight First off science has never explained where the universe came from. They say that Stephen Hawkings (sp) found the equations that created the earth, and created the theory of randomally appering matter. One question for this, since we have the equation y can't we create our own randomally appearing matter, and if it happened before, y don't we occationally see something just appear out of nowhere. And if you say well the universe was just there, then where did all the dust and derbis come from? Man twisted religion to his own uses, such at Government. Religion by itself has no political stances

Regarding the first paragraph, there's no easy way of saying this: that really makes no sense. I realize certain forum members are sort of talking down to you, but they are, as am I, frustrated with certain things you said which show bias affecting reason, or a lack of research. I think you need to read about the physics side of this debate. I (and most others would) suggest reading A Brief History of Time by the aformentioned Stephen Hawking. It's a very light read and is very basic; it is a good way to start off in terms of physics, and is fun at the same time. Seriously. I love that book, and I've read it three times over a span of 5 years.

Religion has no stances? Sure it does. Christianity for example, created Mosaic law, and is actually pretty liberal in nature I think. By "liberal," I do not mean "left wing" by the way.

Quote:

Originally posted by SuperDanman My thoughts on religion is that man created it as a means of comfort - there's probably some kind of Fruedian term for it. We're a social animal, and it's my belief that the fear of being alone scares us to death. We need something to comfort us, whether it's a loved one, a community, or the belief in a supreme being. I think it's our universal fear that everything we've ever expierienced means nothing that we've created religion as a way to deal with death.

Indeed.

Quote:

Originally posted by Frank(Aflak) If there was a Big Bang where did the singularity come from? (by which point I mean that we know that the universe has a definate 'starting point.' The logic is that for the Big Bang to happen, all the conditions that caused it to happen would have had to existed . . but if the conditions were not caused by an outside power then they would have always existed, and therefore the big bang would have gone off an infinite amount of time ago . . a paradox. The argument is that god is the uncaused cause. I believe in a god, but I don't believe that god takes an active role in influencing human life, nor do I accept Catholicism ( i was raised Catholic). I belief that any belief/prayer should be personal and not a public ceremony. But thats just me.

Regarding the Big Bang, the way you have to think about it is that because it's a singularity, our perception of the four dimensions are immaterial in that situation. It is not a paradox, because as far as we are concerned, time did not exist. There is also no experiment we can do to determine what happened "before" the Big Bang. By the way, the Vatican (and to my knowledge, other Christian beliefs too) recognizes the Big Bang however it doesn't like research into that which was "before" the Big Bang, with good reason I suppose. Just in case any Creationists want to try to strike it down (which incidentally can't be done at this point), it doesn't really conflict with the Bible very much anyway.

Regarding the views on prayer, I agree; prayer should (IMO) be a personal thing. Don't you think God would be a tad annoyed at hearing the Lord's Prayer every day? That's not praying, that's like doing chores. It's also a good sign of someone who is in their religion due to fear of God or of their peers' dislike of dissent. It's good, I think, that you are coming to your own conclusions as to your beliefs. A lot of people can't. I am supposed to be Christian, but I am agnostic, because my interpretation of everything I've learned makes me see that way. What I think people belonging to any religion should do, is research other peoples' beliefs and science, and then form their own based not on ignorance and refuting of others, but understanding where they're coming from. The argument that faith prohibits research into atheism/Islam/Budhism/whatever is a cop-out, especially since the concept of faith was invented by religion in the first place.

Quote:

Originally posted by Ryan_team710 I am raised in a protestant home. and i do Believe in God. I have gone to a christian school all my life. If you look at charlie darwins life at the end of his life he said that his theory could not be right and he did acknowledge that evolution can be real.

This is a classic argument made by those who take Genesis to the letter. One must remember however, that Darwin was about to die when he 'recanted'. He was the first to make such a radical postulation, and lived among Christians. If I made an arguably blasphemous theory like that, I'd be afraid of what's to come too.

I'm not going to try to sway Christians away from Creationism, but I do have to point out that evolution is a theory based on empirical data, and just about everything points to it's existance. I should also point out that the same is not true for Creationism.

Quote:

Originally posted by George1083 I just wanted to refute the statement that science and religion are mutually exclusive. Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. - Albert Einstein The test of courage comes when we are in the minority; the test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority. - Ralph W. Sockman

I like your second quote. Your first one also has to be put into perspective. Einstein spent the latter part of his life trying to refute unification and quantum mechanics because of his belief in determinism and that God almost 'prearranged' everything.


/me catches breath

Okay.

Would you look on me any different if i said i belived in a god. Would you look on me any different if i said i did not belive in a god. My question is what does it matter who belives what, why do people come up and ask me what religion i am, why should that have any barring on how i am as a person, i know some religious people who would run over an old person in the street just to get to a dime someone dropped, and i know some athesists that wouldn't hurt a fly (and the other way around). Life is better not knowing ways to seperate yourself from your peers, instead you should look in them to find their true character not the one defined by a sterotypical member of their "class".

this is exactly why I think religion should be private. Well, its some more good reasons, anyway. BTW, as far as I'm concerned, atheism is a religion . . in my sense of the word.