I think that religion finds receptive, open and willing people.

In other words, people don’t choose religion after careful consideration, but religion “finds” (targets) people who are more receptive to it — such as, say, having recently lost a loved one. In other words, religion preys on sorrow, grief, sadness, troubled individuals.

God loves all; me, you and the radical muslim who wants to kill us.

In other words, God doesn’t care who you are or what you do in life. Like a senile parent, he still loves you, no matter what. And since getting God to like you is the ultimate goal in life, progress and achievement are ultimately meaningless. God loves you no matter what you do.

Regardless of your understanding, belief or knowledge, He still loves and cares for you, and as a Christian so do I. Just like me, you were created for Him.

In other words, you owe God to become his personal soldier, and God’s purpose is revealed to you by your priest and other religious leaders. You must do as they say, even if it means killing other people. Because, after all, you’re just a tool of God and to die in the name of His cause is the greatest honor of all.

I respect the conviction whith which you speak, I only wish it were different. Jesus loves you, died for you, and will return for you…if you let Him.

In other words, if you don’t join us and do as our leaders tell you, then you will be disgracing the memory of the son of God, who died for your sins 2000 years ago, despite the fact that you didn’t actually ask him to die for your sins. But you still owe him for that and should really do as we say without questioning or demanding evidence.

I haven’t changed anything here, I’ve merely extended via logic and painted the message in a different mood. From the peaceful rhetoric of Christianity or any other religion, there’s only a small step to be taken to justify the cheating or murdering of those of another creed. The Bible, through its outdated nature, invites interpretation. And it’s the religious leaders who do the interpreting. There isn’t a crime on this Earth that cannot be justified by interpreting the Bible in just the right way.

When your belief system does not rely on your best understanding of reality, but on an ancient document that cannot be taken literally and where people find it impossible to agree on the right interpretation, you’re inviting a ton of trouble. Hell, you two can’t even agree on an interpretation of the Bible. Lori here loves me, because she’s a Christian. DcnC calls me names and clearly finds joy in the belief that I’ll be burning in hell for all eternity.

Why do outsiders have to expose the problems with any closely held beliefs? Is it too much to ask for a bit of honest introspection nowadays?

FDA does not test drugs, they set the standard that pharmacuetical companies must meet to obtain approval for a drug. Although some drugs do take as many as 10 years to get to market, that time frame is not hard and fast; it changes depending on the drug, the indication and the public need. (Minor point…agreed…just wanted to clear that up for ya!)

Elver, I personally don’t think that anyone ‘happens upon’ religion. I think that religion finds receptive, open and willing people. Fr. Dave reciently made some comments that I found moving. God loves all; me, you and the radical muslim who wants to kill us. Regardless of your understanding, belief or knowledge, He still loves and cares for you, and as a Christian so do I. Just like me, you were created for Him. I respect the conviction whith which you speak, I only wish it were different. Jesus loves you, died for you, and will return for you…if you let Him.

It is no wonder you do not get it…you share the same beliefs as a comedian for god’s sake. As a matter of fact, it sounds as if you lifted most of your dialog from his video.

1. Wow, I must be a psychic or something, because I hadn’t seen that video until yesterday.

2. That video is not a comedy routine. That video is an educated person expressing his views. He works as a comedian. I’d have no qualms about linking to a video of a priest advocating condom use in Africa during a debate about AIDS. Why do you deliberately attack a man’s profession instead of what he’s saying? Is it because you know he’s right and don’t want to admit it?

3. If he’s so wrong, you should be able to point out flaws in his reasoning. Or in my reasoning. Clearly you are not able to do so.

Well kudos to you for forcing your view on us that my solid and grounded experience in the salvific power of Jesus Christ is fantasy and mental illness!

I’m not forcing anything on you. I was replying to “inWorship’s” post about my lack of respect for religion. I happen to agree with Pat Condel’s reasoning about why religion does not deserve respect.

It appears that (since you linked us to your comedian) that you share the same views and for that reason alone, we will never be able to agree.

Well, no. The reason we will not be able to agree is because your beliefs are based on just that, belief, while mine are based on what I can see and examine for myself. I would and have changed my views in the face of new evidence, new facts, better reasoning, better logic. I have an open mind. You have your “absolute truth” that won’t change no matter what you see, hear, read, or otherwise consume. You have a closed mind.

Sadly, you will be consigned to the nether regions where there is gnashing of teeth - unless you come to faith in Christ.

I should file a complaint with the police for threatening me.

Personally, based on your discourse here with me (and others), and your obvious rudeness and crudity, I would never choose you for a friend, so you would be stuck with crude and rude people of your own ilk.

I would gladly be “stuck” with open-minded people who value truth and honesty.

However, for Christ’s sake, and for the great love He has shown me in His deliverance of me from the demonic, the drugs and the gangs and prison, I chose to love you and will pray for you.

I’m glad that you wanted to change yourself for the better and abandoned your life of crime, but I’d like you to think about the possibility that this change for the better came from within yourself and from the love of fellow humans — Christians, in this case — and not from God.

You wanted to change your life and Christians were nearby to help and support you. Those two aspects are the key: willingness to change and outside support. The religion aspect is interchangeable with pretty much any other activity where you’ll find support from others.

Countless people in similar situations have found meaning in singing, dancing, yoga, public speaking, teaching, mathematics, physics, racing, skating, biking, hiking, philosophy, art, theater, writing, film, love, children, etc. You happened upon religion instead. That does not make religion any more special. In fact this whole life change through a new habit thing is a well-understood psychological phenomena.

It is no wonder you do not get it…you share the same beliefs as a comedian for god’s sake. As a matter of fact, it sounds as if you lifted most of your dialog from his video.

Well kudos to you for forcing your view on us that my solid and grounded experience in the salvific power of Jesus Christ is fantasy and mental illness! It appears that (since you linked us to your comedian) that you share the same views and for that reason alone, we will never be able to agree.

Sadly, you will be consigned to the nether regions where there is gnashing of teeth - unless you come to faith in Christ.

But alas, from all your stats and quotes, it appears you will be consigned to the dung-heap of the faithless due to your own blindness (which has no scientific sure or answer).

I wish it were not so for your sake.

Personally, based on your discourse here with me (and others), and your obvious rudeness and crudity, I would never choose you for a friend, so you would be stuck with crude and rude people of your own ilk.

However, for Christ’s sake, and for the great love He has shown me in His deliverance of me from the demonic, the drugs and the gangs and prison, I chose to love you and will pray for you.

If you feel that doing that is imposing my beliefs on you, then so be it. I will gladly bear that label and charge.

For the sake of holy trinity,

DcnC

Obviously we aren’t going to see eye to eye, but it would do you good to quit treating Christians and people of other religions like we are the scum of the earth…you might actually learn something. Heck, you may even learn to be a better person

Your reductionism does not allow you to enjoy the variety of life as it simply sets you into the cog of the machinery.

Truth be told, I largely think the same thing about Christianity. How can you enjoy the variety of life if you can only have one kind of life — the kind that’s described in the Bible?

The earth and all life then becomes mere categorized atoms without a purpose or soul. For what is the value of a “soul” without the God who created it?

Why, as you say, is there an intrinsic value placed on human life in your moral/value system? From whence does it proceed. To what end? Simply for the here and now?

The intrinsic value placed on life, and human life in particular, comes from the simple fact that we, humans, create the rules and to us, humans, we ourselves are most valuable. Now, of course, a bit of logic is applied. If we all thought “I am the most valuable”, then society would not work. Therefore we compromise and come up with “all humans are of equal high value.” Likewise we extend this value, but to a lesser degree, to other living beings we recognize as being similar to us.

Life and intelligent life in particular have value to us, because we are intelligent life forms. It’s as simple as that.

And yes, for the here and now. If you know that this is the only life you’ll have, you’ll spend it the way you like, not the way someone tells you to spend it in order to have a good afterlife.

It doesn’t mean that atheists don’t value their dead ancestors. If anything, the grief is more powerful, because there’s no false hope. But, you know, the important parts of the person still live on. I don’t visit my grandfather’s grave, but not a week goes by when I don’t think about his influence on my life. He was a great guy. Built our home with his own hands and taught me a lot about the world. No other person has had more influence on me than he did and that influence, not to mention the genes, live on inside me and I’ll pass it on to my friends, family, children.

He is dead. I will never meet him again. It would be nice if that was possible. If I were to meet him in the afterlife, assuming such a thing exists, I would be really happy. But I’m not going to spend my life hoping that things for which there is no proof actually exist. It would be a waste of time.

This is the purely atheist/humanist view of the world. If we add a big dose of science into the mix, we realize that all of us are actually made up of atoms that were made inside a huge star that went supernova billions of years ago and seeded our part of the galaxy. One day the atoms that make up who we are will return to the stars, to the void between the stars, to everything around us. Some of these atoms will surely end up in other living organisms, in other humans.

Purely statistically speaking, assuming that Jesus was a real person, then in every glass of water there is at least one water molecule that went through Jesus’ bladder 2000 years ago.

Scientists are talking about extending human life indefinitely. Based on a pessimistic view, those who are today under 30 would be able to live as long as they wanted through a series of treatments which first extend human life by a couple of decades and, as treatments get better, indefinitely. While keeping you alive, happy, in good condition, and able to work. This isn’t science fiction anymore. This is real science.

And it provides more wonder, mysticism, meaning, feeling of unity, and all those other things than religion ever could. The barrier for entry is higher — you have to make an effort to understand these ideas and the proof for them — but once you make that effort, anything that religion could ever provide pales in comparison.

While I cannot present the argument you need that the God of the bible - the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ – does exist in terms that are empirical, or supported by your scientific “fact”, neither can you prove that He does not exist.

Proving a negative is a logical impossibility. You cannot prove that Santa doesn’t exist. Yet there’s no real evidence to support that he does exist and does do all the things we attribute to him, so we must conclude, for lack of evidence, that Santa does not exist. Same thing with God/Jesus.

In any case the burden of proof is always on the person making a positive claim. If you claim something then it’s reasonable to expect that you provide proof for your claim.

Further, you still have not provided the first cause of creation. You have only presented theory’s with no empirical data to prove your position.

I should explain something. When scientists say “theory”, they don’t mean “guess”. What they mean is more like: “an established, self-consistent model supported by available data that either makes testable predictions or could in the future make testable predictions.”

I should also point out that you haven’t provided the first cause of creation either. What you have provided is your guess at what the first cause of creation is. Your belief. Science doesn’t work with beliefs, it works with knowledge. Reality works with knowledge. There is no evidence to support the idea that your belief of what the first cause is has anything to do with what the first cause really is in reality.

For in order to have mystery, you have to have faith in what cannot be known empirically. If you can know it empirically, it is not mystery.

Aside from a lot of minor things there are two great sources of this mystery you speak of in science:

1. The underlying unity of the laws of nature. We didn’t expect them to be so elegant and simple. And so united with one another. And we didn’t expect the same mathematics to appear on wholly different levels. For example, the same exact (statistical) mathematics can be used to describe rabbit breeding and flower patterns. How’s that for a sense of mystery?

2. The mystery of unanswered questions. There’s a ton of questions in science that nobody knows the answer to. So people work on these questions and, slowly, answers are obtained. Some questions, like Fermat’s Last Theorem, take hundreds of years to answer. It’s like sailing in uncharted waters, or discovering uncharted land.

And yet in looking at all of creation, one cannot help but stand in awe and wonder at the delicate balance of nature and the universe that He created. One bump in the process and all of it is gone. One planet out of alignment and it all burns or freezes.

Exactly! Yes! You understand it! This same exact mystery is also present in science! This mystery you describe does not require God to be appreciated.

Science is only good so far as it describes what we are made of and what our world is made of. It cannot tell us “who” we are or why we are who we are.

Well, it can tell us who we are and why we are. Problem is: the answers are different from those in the Bible. But I’d like to ask you this: what kind of answers would you accept to the “who and why” question? Don’t say “Lord God Jesus”. Say what kind of answer you would accept.

So your arguments do not have a purpose here. You have no way of knowing what I know or don’t know. You make propositions based only on your reading of my posts and not in knowing who I am. That is the real problem here. You can quantify from a distance based solely on what you see and can prove and yet you cannot know me at all.

I can read your claims and I can evaluate your claims based on purely what those claims are. Or would you rather have me evaluate your claims based on who you are? Isn’t that the definition for discrimination?

So therefore, the only proof of my existence is the written word that I am presenting here. There is no other proof.

And yet…you respond to me as if I do in fact exist.

I assume that you exist, because this is the likeliest, the most probable explanation for your comments. There’s no evidence to even entertain the idea that you don’t exist.

Your religion is in arguing with those that believe in God to prove (if it were possible) that God does not exist.

The reason why atheists care about religion is because religious people discriminate against atheists.

Once you have faced real crisis – real life changing crisis – and come out the other side, then we can talk.

Oh, believe me. I’ve had a harder life than most people my age.

Science only provides knowledge. It is limited in what it can prove. It cannot prove evolution.

Give me $500 and I’ll do an experiment that proves evolution. Or, well, you could just read this. Furthermore, science has repeatedly observed evolution taking place in nature. New species are created almost every year.

It cannot prove extinction.

Uh. What? A species once existed. It doesn’t exist anymore. It went extinct. Extinction isn’t something that happened a million years ago that we only know about thanks to fossil evidence. Several species have gone extinct in the last 100 years. We have photos of species which no longer exist. How can you say in the face of such evidence that science cannot prove extinction?

It cannot prove or disprove God, nor our need for a belief system.

Sociology, evolutionary psychology, plain psychology, economics, statistics, and other fields have all shown that a society needs some common framework to survive. We have laws for this.

It can prove God if any evidence for God is ever found. Unlikely, though.

It can provide evidence but not proof.

If there’s a wealth of evidence that all fit a given theory where the theory makes predictions that turn out to be true, then we say that the theory has proof. It’s never a 100% thing, but we can get an arbitrary number of 9s after the point in 99.99999%

At this point claiming that some idea lacks proof would be pretty insane without extensive evidence that doesn’t fit the theory.

You cannot reproduce evolution for example.

It is possible to reproduce evolution in a lab over 10-20 generations of mice. It’s even easier and more commonplace to use a species with a very short life span, like the Drosophila flies. Experiments have shown that two isolated populations of Drosophila flies can branch into two separate and sexually incompatible species over just 30 generations when given different food. We can even measure the rate of evolution in the human genome and what we’ve found is that evolution has accelerated over the last 150 years.

Your string theory is a good example. Nothing is proven. Everything depends on “proof” and “if” (Thank you Lori) yet to come. Therefore you cannot make a definitive statement one way or the other.

There are good reasons to believe that String Theory will turn out to be correct. (There isn’t much resembling a definitive proof, but there are mountains of evidence that do fit.) And yes, this is belief we’re talking about. But science only “believes” in String Theory because it has been useful in solving many problems we previously had in physics. Think of it like this: your daughter brings home a guy who asks for her hand in marriage. He’s a nice guy, a good Christian, gives to charities, is humble, respects you and everything. Will he still be a good guy five years into the marriage? You don’t know, but based on what you’ve seen, you have every reason to believe that it’s gonna work out.

But you cannot argue against the existence of God. You have absolutely no proof scientifically.

I cannot argue against the existence of Santa. I have no proof scientifically.

What we do have, in terms of both Santa and God, is a lot of claims about Santa and God. We can look at those claims and based on those, look for evidence in the real world. When we do that, we discover that no evidence exists to support the idea that Santa or God exist. We find that our knowledge of reality does not support the idea of Santa or God being real. Therefore we can say, with very high probability, that Santa and God don’t exist.

ELVER:
Christianity provides answers to the big questions, but there is no way to verify some of the answers and some other are demonstrably false.

DcnC REPLIES:
Okay Elver, which is it now – is it “Science provides answers to the big questions” from your previous paragraph, or is it this one “Christianity provides answers to the big questions” from this paragraph?? Can’t be both.

You are confusing true answers with answers. If you want answers which are either demonstrably false or unverifiable, then you can get those from either a church or from a crazy homeless guy — in both cases the probability of these answers being true is very low.

If you want true answers, you must turn to science. The answers that they give are true with very high probability.

And there is no way to verify some of the answers that science gives either. If you claim otherwise, you are being disingenuous.

Give me a claim that science makes and I will show how either science does not make that claim or how science can verify that claim. I challenge you.

Heck, look at all the food and medical advice that has flip flopped over the last 5 decades. That is enough to prove you wrong here.

Uh. I worked as a journalist for a year. About 90% of the “science” articles in non-science magazines are made up by the hacks who for some reason call themselves journalists. The other 10% tend to be misreported or heavily distorted. The simple answer is that “revolutionary” medical and food advice sells magazines, so people make that shit up to boost the sales. Such sickening approach to a job with social responsibility is part of the reason why I left.

And yet there are so many drugs that seem to have recently developed negative side effects that supposedly were negligible or non-existent when the drug was initially approved.

Some of the experiments that FDA is supposed to be doing are actually done by the drug manufacturers themselves. Sometimes they hide the negative side effects. This is called corruption and has nothing to do with science.

How about the Kinsey studies? How about the claims that homosexuality is genetic. They didn’t even have a control group during that study, yet it was widely claimed as fact even today.

I promise to read up on the subject before my next comment. I’m not familiar enough with it to have an opinion.

ELVER:
Religion is held to no standard.

DcnC REPLIES:
This statement is simply wrong on its face. Our standards are held through the historic church of 2000 years. You said so yourself in an earlier post that it was static and unchanging. While I disagree with you, for the purpose of this portion of the argument I will grant you that it is unchanging and held to the highest standard where the historic consensus is concerned.

I don’t understand your argument here. When I said it’s held to no standard, I meant it’s not held to any standard of proof. The claims that a religion makes do not have to be verifiable or even truthful.

You have fooled yourself with your confusing arguments. I would say you are a study in contradictions. You have failed at your task of proving God does not exist and that all religion is bad.

1. If you don’t understand one of my arguments, ask for clarification and I will provide it.
2. Please stop commenting on my personality and start commenting on my arguments.
3. I never set out to prove that God does not exist. Proving a negative is impossible. I have proven, however, that the existence of God is extremely unlikely, just like the existence of Santa.
4. I have never claimed that “all religion is bad”.

Science cannot save the soul.

There’s no soul to save, nor no need to save it.

Science has been used for good and bad (Nazi experiments) as well.

I’ve read descriptions of their so-called “experiments”. Their methodologies are so fucked up, their experiments had nothing to do with science and everything to do with torture for the fun of it.

There is ultimately no need for science and religion to be at odds. One deals with the physical world and the other the metaphysical/theological.

Sorry, but this is not true. Let me give you examples.

1. The United States has a Christian leader who invokes Jesus to justify wars and because he invokes Jesus, he gets the support of Christians all over USA. Jesus has become a justification for war.

2. Majority of Christians in the USA believe that the Rapture or Second Coming will happen within their lifetimes. They see no need to drive less polluting cars or help the planet in any way, because they don’t care: it’s going to be over in just a couple of decades, so why should they? Jesus has become a justification for not caring about future generations.

3. Christian lobbyists are pushing the Bible and “intelligent design” into schools all over USA. They are pushing for equal treatment of evolution and “intelligent design” in science class — let me remind you that “intelligent design” has nothing to do with mainstream science and everything to do with religion. Jesus has become a justification for ruining the quality of science education.

There are countless other examples from the past 10 years where religion, especially Christianity, has gone from being metaphysical/theological/spiritual/private into attacking science, gays, other countries. Christianity is invading public space, is trying to destroy science. There weren’t serious debates between atheists and Christians before Christianity started actively attacking atheists and science. And now that atheists are providing counter-arguments, Christians try to make themselves be seen as the victims. It’s dishonest.

DcnC REPLIES:
It’s not here to prove anything. It simply IS. It is presented to you to either believe or not. God is the great I AM.

ELVER:
Science provides answers to the big questions. Not all of them, but it’s working on it. We can consistently demonstrate, if need be, that the answers science produces are, in fact, true. Science provides knowledge.

DcnC REPLIES:
Science only provides knowledge. It is limited in what it can prove. It cannot prove evolution. It cannot prove extinction. It cannot prove or disprove God, nor our need for a belief system.

It can provide evidence but not proof. It can only surmise existence prior to written recordings, and they themselves are suspect in many cases.

You cannot reproduce evolution for example. No one can do so as it supposedly occurred over millions of years according to science and there is no way to empiracally prove that. No one was alive then. Neither do we have any photographs.
We have no written documentation other than that of a scientist of 100 years ago or so, who SUPPOSED that due to certain traits found in certain animals that they MUST have come from such and such. Yet there is not continuous proven link all the way back to the primordial ooze to prove it or anything else for that matter. It is all theory and supposition. Your string theory is a good example. Nothing is proven. Everything depends on “proof” and “if” (Thank you Lori) yet to come. Therefore you cannot make a definitive statement one way or the other.

If you want to argue the validity of scientific theory, that is something entirely different. But you cannot argue against the existence of God. You have absolutely no proof scientifically.

ELVER:
Christianity provides answers to the big questions, but there is no way to verify some of the answers and some other are demonstrably false.

DcnC REPLIES:
Okay Elver, which is it now – is it “Science provides answers to the big questions” from your previous paragraph, or is it this one “Christianity provides answers to the big questions” from this paragraph?? Can’t be both.

And there is no way to verify some of the answers that science gives either. If you claim otherwise, you are being disingenuous.

ELVER:
At best, Christianity makes you believe that you know the answers while giving you either unverifiable or demonstrably false claims.

DcnC REPLIES:
Darwinists are in the same boat.

ELVER:
We hold science to a high standard.

DcnC REPLIES:
Until the next research grant wants a different outcome (tobacco companies.)
Heck, look at all the food and medical advice that has flip flopped over the last 5 decades. That is enough to prove you wrong here.

ELVER:
Its claims must be proven with experiments. With mountains of evidence. The FDA takes 10 years to approve a drug, because they do scientific testing to make sure that the side effects are minimal and you don’t get sick by taking it.

DcnC REPLIES:
And yet there are so many drugs that seem to have recently developed negative side effects that supposedly were negligible or non-existent when the drug was initially approved.

How about the Kinsey studies? How about the claims that homosexuality is genetic. They didn’t even have a control group during that study, yet it was widely claimed as fact even today.

No, your belief in science is at least as untenable (if not moreso) that my belief in Jesus.

ELVER:
Religion is held to no standard.

DcnC REPLIES:
This statement is simply wrong on its face. Our standards are held through the historic church of 2000 years. You said so yourself in an earlier post that it was static and unchanging. While I disagree with you, for the purpose of this portion of the argument I will grant you that it is unchanging and held to the highest standard where the historic consensus is concerned.

ELVER:
In fact, it’s taboo to even criticize claims made by any religion. Any claim made by any religion is treated as “sacred”. No proof required. And the way to get there is to claim something, find a following, and be declared a religion. Suddenly you’re exempt from any requirements of proof.

If in the face of this you claim that religion provides better answers than science to the big questions of the world, you are obviously fooling yourself.

DcnC REPLIES:
You have fooled yourself with your confusing arguments. I would say you are a study in contradictions. You have failed at your task of proving God does not exist and that all religion is bad.

Depending on what measure you use, liberal, good, just or moral, Christianity is the only religion that is good. Granted there have been aberration, but in its 2000 years it has done far more good for mankind than science (unguided by Christian morals). In fact, there really is no comparison. Science cannot save the soul.

Science has been used for good and bad (Nazi experiments) as well.

There is ultimately no need for science and religion to be at odds. One deals with the physical world and the other the metaphysical/theological.

Science will give you food and medicine, but only Jesus Christ will give you real and lasting peace in your soul. I will stick with Jesus. After all, I have been on both sides of the fence having messed around with Satanism as well, so perhaps I am not the right one for you to argue with in the first place. It is not so much what my religion tells me about what I can or cannot do, what I can or cannot believe; It is all about the overwhelming, crushing, all consuming and omnipotent power of Jesus Christ that literally saved me from the clutches of hell that I had got myself into that I cling to and believe in. The other stuff simply fills out who it is I believe in and how I should relate to His other followers. That’s what makes the cross – both my relationship with Him (vertical) as well a relationship with other believers (horizontal.)