Absence of evidence is invitation to crackpot conspiracy theories, more like.

Exactly.

Really? No need to be bitter when I bring up a decent point. Contrary to your OPINION, I am debating. You just don't like an argument which challenges you.
Before you go off assuming that I haven't examined the aspect of God from multiple angles, I tried to believe in God for a number of years and I am apparently still fairly angry at being deceived by the church after coming to the conclusion that IT simply doesn't exist.

In any event, you shouldn't feel that my opinions cancel yours out. It seems like you feel threatened...

If something I say seems biting towards the idea of faith substantiating a claim over reasonable cause, well I won't feel the need to apologize.

because thats the point of debate. If you don't like thinking about this discussion, and wish to only converse with like minded fellows that substantiate your own beliefs, then get the hell out of this thread.

I am not going to stop talking about these things simply because you threaten to soil yourself.

Then why are you so angry?

I realize that. :) However, it seems your taking all of my 'stupid comments' dreadfully serious. Quit being so defensive.

I have a feeling that you are getting dangerously close to questioning yourself because of some previous comments...god forbid that I should bring up a point which turns your world upside down. :roll:

Its one thing if you are annoyed. You could simply leave it at that, but you have revealed your immaturity in the fear of having your own principles turned on their head and now you feel that you need to defend yourself by going on the offensive. I don't know what to say to you other than, "Sorry. I do not care."

Uh, what? I suggest you take your own advice. Quit making it look as if your side of the debate is without flaw because your shit DOES in fact stink.
If your argument for God is so good, why does it fail everytime in lieu of common sense? That is why you're really upset, isn't it?

Bullshit! :)

WHA? Why the hell would they need to do that? Because evolution interferes with the fragile teachings of the bible? LOL. Some scientists don't need such distractions.

Do you actually think intelligent design is going to gain wider prominence as time unravels?

I am sorry dude, you aren't looking real smart.

Hey, Rainman! This isn't a place to debate about your religious beliefs. Shut up or get out. This thread was meant for people to state their beliefs and be done with it, not for some moron to come in and start trouble by saying they're wrong.

Why don't you listen when Devo and Smelnick and others tell you to just drop it?

Common sense tells me that the theory of evolution is bullshit. You're gonna sit there and tell me that something as complex as the human eyeball became perfected through random mutations. Common sense should tell you that ain't gonna happen. If you took apart a watch, and dropped the handful of pieces onto the ground over and over again. What are the chances of it landing in such an orientation as to work perfectly? Or even at all? Common sense will tell me that it's not going to happen. It's this level of common sense that is making scientists lean away from the theory of evolution.

To suggest that I'm worried about anything you have to say changing my beliefs is to suggest that I'm an idiot. Only a fool would take anything you say seriously.

Smelnick, you need to drop it as well.
This is not a thread in which to debate your beliefs.

This argument's arrogance is only overshadowed by its ignorance. You don't know a damn thing about what my life has been like, yet you presume to. Also, I've seen many people conquer many problems much more tragic in nature than my own without needing a god.

I have a friend who just finished with 9 months of Chemotherapy for lymphatic cancer, he did this without a religion. What's amazing about this guy is not just his recovery from cancer, but the fact that he was raised by the state foster care system, he was taken away from his mom when he was 9, she later died from the hole in her heat when he was 11. Grew up on the streets here, after he was ejected from the system after about 9 years of abuse in foster homes. He ended up on crack, due in large part to the exposure to sexual predators (this is actually a huge problem in this city, pedos and such getting kids hooked on this like meth and crack to get them to perform sexual acts), overcame the 4 year addiction and then the cancer hit him. Myself and a few other mutual friends have helped him back on his feet, we found him a place to live and got him enrolled into college. At 23 he's a little on the late bloomer side, but with no family other than, basically, us he's done pretty damn well. He maintains no religious affiliations.

It's still metaphor, just like the Bible. Whether or not it retains meaning to YOU as entertainment or not is beside the point. Christianity never ceases to demonstrate itself as a source of entertainment-- albeit akin to the kind of entertainment one derives from a TRAINWRECK, but entertainment nonetheless.

It is?

Then why is the name of the thread Religion: 'what it means to you'? I feel that I've made this quite clear. I understand where you are coming from but kindly lay off of me, or don't. I simply don't care.

I didn't aim for this last page and a half to become so full of rage, but its an easy thing to have happen when it comes to religion.

No, you were already an idiot to begin with. Speaking of Darwin...

(Darwin Awards 2006)

Trust your faith if you will.

It's exactly that, what it means to you. However that does not give you the right to go around saying that someone else's beliefs are false, that's not the point of this thread. You can defend your beliefs, but you may not tell someone else they're wrong simply because you disagree religiously.

Debating religion is as futile as debating musical tastes. Everyone has a different opinion and you need to respect that and there's no way to empirically measure which is better.

On another note, science has in no way disproven or proven the existence of a God. God is not of the natural, observable world. He(or She) is not something you can hypothesize and then make a repeatable experiment about. At this point, science has neither the means nor the will to prove or disprove a God. If you don't believe me, ask any science professor.

This is true from a biblical point of view. You tell me to think, and I do. I have confirmed what the bible says in my lifes efforts, I know for a fact that the promises in the book are verifiabel truths. I just dont read the texts I test them out. This is the reason why I pray for folks so I can see my God at work.

No, see what you're doing is preaching to US, the one's you're supposedly "praying for." You're shoving your ideals down our throats, and comparing us to the poor folk of ages past.

I said it before and I'll say it again - Fuck you buddy.

Some of us don't need blind faith to get through the day. Some of us have, what's it called... Ah yes, a soul. Our own free will. Try it out sometime.

I couldn't find the webpage that actually did a design review of the human eye in a humorous way, but this one does it in a pretty good fashion.

Evolution and the human eye

Not really sure what evolution has to do with God, but whatever.

I wonder if prayer can fix your horrific spelling. I think you ought to try that theory out.

KEEP PRAYIN'! I betcha God will FIX YOUR POOR SPELLING FOR YOU!

If you want to pray for people you know privately, that's cool. No one has the right to tell you what to do there - pray to whatever for whatever. I actually encourage this shit, if it helps you.

HOWEVER. If you want to pray for them IN THEIR FACE, you're being intentionally provocative and deserve to be punched in the neck.

No, i'm sharing the different aspects of what my religion means to me. If its preachy I am sorry.

But I am just showing what my religion means to me. Often people just say what they believe, i'm showing it, whats the harm?

I think you're confusing evolution with entropy. And even then, evolution does not violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Complexity is relative. For example, let's use number of chromosomes as a measure of complexity for living things . . . humans have 46 pairs, yet a potato has 48. Do those 2 extra pairs make them any more "advanced" than humans? Common sense says that it should since it has more DNA to deal with, so is this really true?

Just to name a few. There are plenty more, if you want me to go into it. You're not talking about what it means to you. You're PREACHING. No one likes to be preached to about their beliefs. People usually take the time to think about their choices in belief - RESPECT their choices. Don't tell them they are wrong, don't tell them you'll pray for them to find what you have found, don't think you are holier than any one else.

Like Capo said quite nicely: religion is a personal choice. What works for YOU isn't necessarily what works for others. You may think your god is the one and only, but I assure you, many many many other people think THEIR god (or lack thereof) is the ONLY way it is.

You need to take a step back and understand religion is not just Jesus and God. That system may work for you, but you can NOT tell others that it is the ONLY way.

You're on a high-horse. You have no more answers than anyone else on this entire planet. You offend people by stomping on what they believe. You went as far as to doubt that atheists have any compassion or have never been through a period of hard times. How presumptuous of you.

If you'd take a moment and think (as I often recommend), you'd start to see that people don't need religion to be good people - you can stop telling them that they do.

If it works for you, that's awesome, and I am happy for you. Honestly. But you have NO RIGHT to tell others that they're not believing in the right thing.

Yea, see above. You're not talking about what it means to you. You're condescending to others.

And that's why everyone hates a great Evangelist!

I see your point, though.

In the same vein, I could pull a scientology move and claim that "destroying" people is fair game 'cause L Ron and the thetans said so!

I could really use a blowjob, would you like pray to divinely influence a nice brunette around 5'2"-5'4" with C-cups to show up at my place and go to town? I might consider taking organized religion seriously and not laughing at dipshits like you if this happens.

Prayer is supposed to be a demonstration of faith. I dunno why or when people started thinking God was some kind of genie who grants wishes for brownie points.

Post-Resurrection Jews in Jerusalem or the Christian-pagan Constantine. Take your pick.

I take the grand rule that any argument which explains everything explain nothing. What do I mean by this? Well it’s a tactic employed by the faithful when they attempt to prove their junk claims. Religion comes from a time when we did not know, to use just one example, the wonders of biology. It was a time when we thought human males were fashioned from clumps of clay. We now know a great deal about our species, its kinship with other life and its origins. Religion is in large part our first and worst attempt at both Philosophy and Science. Although the text has not changed, today’s Christianity is vastly different from its original doctrine. Because of advancements in Western culture, Christianity has had no choice but to adopt science with modernity. There are many Christians who happily accept evolution and the theory of natural selection only to conclude that evolution was the result of God. And here I return to my opening statement, you can be rest assured that an argument which includes any proposition as its assumption can be dismissed as false.

Irreducible Complexity is such an insult to intelligence it need only be refuted with an amusing analogy.
The Stubborn Curmudgeon: The Michael Behe Minivan!

“But what is really great about this van,” said Mr. Sallis, “is that if any one part quits working, the whole van shuts down! Isn’t that great?”

Even if it was true that Darwin himself converted to Christianity on his deathbed, how would this undermine his theory of artificial selection and natural selection? How would Darwin's conversion eliminate the mountains of evidence which support his ideas?

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Therefore, people who live a righteous life are retards.

That was a slight digression but how can anyone pass up on an unintended syllogism full of irony?

You said you called yourself a Baptist yes? Do you hold the view of John Calvin’s doctrine of Predestination, and if not, then I would like to know on what authority you still call yourself a Baptist. Likewise, if you are a Christian but view the virgin birth, the Trinity, or any other fantastically inconsistent and false claim made as merely allegorical or metaphorical, then on what grounds do you call yourself a Christian? In this vain it is nearly impossible to refute religion and Christianity because those of us who try would need a different argument for everyone we debated with who just simply take their religion a la carte. It's very difficult to get a Christian to admit what they belief. They don't like the questions one bit. Which is why the faithful will try very hard to steer the debate into obscurantism. It’s a logical fallacy to say religion is a matter of faith or a personal opinion because it does not follow that a belief or opinion held is therefore true. It may be an astonishing fact for those to learn that reason and logic do not care about personal injury sustained when a deeply held belief is proven false.

I'll raise the issue of morality since a discussion on religion cannot properly be had without its mentioning. It’s a very serious question put forth by the religious and posed in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov: without God isn’t everything permissible? I submit to you the reason why the majority of us don’t go about murdering and stealing and raping at this very moment is not because we are afraid of divine punishment or are expecting a divine reward. No, I think there is a better explanation. Human solidarity demands that we look upon each other as brothers and sisters. If it wasn’t for our innate morality we would have never built a society or developed a language in the first place. Christopher Hitchens has a wonderful test which I enjoy repeating to those I speak with on the subject. You are to name an ethical statement made or a moral action performed by a believer which could not have been uttered or performed by an atheist. That’s all you have to do. So far from the debates I have listened to and of those I have asked myself, no one brave enough to tackle the challenge.

Now reverse the question. Think of a wicked statement or evil action in the name of religion which would have not been done otherwise. None of us would have even a moments hesitation in naming our favourite examples. And this leads rather nicely into Hitchens' second challenge in response to Nazism and Stalinism. Name a society that adopted the teachings of Epicurus, Democritus, Spinoza, Einstein, Hume, Russell, Paine, Voltaire, or Jefferson which fell into despotism, famine, war, slavery, and persecution as a logical consequence of its demand for evidence, reason, logic, and skepticism.

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. I can't disprove God explicitly because it's just not possible. But I can disprove God implicitly by refuting the claims of religion. According to the dogma, God created Earth in 6 days roughly 6,000 years ago. This claim is made in the teeth of contradictory evidence from sciences such as: anthropology, paleontology, archeology, biology, astronomy, geology and likely dozens more. Absense of evidence is not evidence of absense. True. But what makes you think you can join us at this table and have a discussion about the origins of the universe when you have evidence amounting to nothing and not one single good reason to back up the claims you are making?

And that I think is quite enough for now. I won't bother providing sources as you requested because they are not necessary and I have not asked for any in return. I will however suggest to you a book to read which is Richard Dawkin's The Selfish Gene so you can increase your common sense about that bullshit fact of Evolution.

Its only a syllogism full of irony if you take it completely out of context. Obviously English seems to be something you haven't grasped yet. I say that people who follow the bible soley are retards. Yes. And that the bible is merely a set of guidelines. Not the law. So yah, your not a retard if you read the bible and try to apply some of the common sense in it, but to base everything you do and say on what the bible 'told you to do' is retarded simply because today's society is so much different than society was at the time the bible was written. Now, how about discussing the topic on hand rather than finding anyone's posts that go against your opinion and dissecting and attacking them.

Also, as for admitting what I believe? Its simple. I believe that there is a higher power who I call God. I believe that he sent his son to earth to be born of a virgin mother. He grew up, and then died on the cross to provide a way for us to have our sins forgiven. I believe that if I pray to my God, he'll provide me with the answers I need. I believe that because I have asked for God to forgive me of my sins, and because I have chosen to follow him, my soul will rise to heaven when I pass away. So I go to church, and I pray, and I read the bible, applying different things that I learn from the bible to my everyday life as much as I can. I am happy. And that's what matters.

I see your belief system is not too different than mine. By your statements you show what your religion means to you as well by your dedication in speaking for your view. You preach just like I do and you point out that no other way is right except your own.

We may have some differences though. My religion means security to me.
What I mean by this is the fact that I measure myself by biblical standards.
Unlike the standards of personal preferences, other people or trends mine are written down and don't change with the times. Sure, people come along from time to time to impose their own views on the texts but the book says what it says and its messages have remained consistent over time.

Security comes in other ways as well. As a christian when I do what the book says and I get flack for it, I am secure in the knowledge that the book is dead on with its promises. I knew before hand that attacks on my views would come because the book said so.

I am made secure in the fact that my book is the only one that is consistent with science. The bible is the only religious book that is aligned with reality as we know it. (Isaiah 40:22) People have attacked the bible more than any other religious book over the course of centuries and ultimately have failed because its full of truth.

The bible & its message through religion mean security to me because views like yours bring me none. I can't be secure in personal strength because with time I will lose that and you will too.

Finally I am secure in the hope that I will see some of you on the other side. My book has accurately predicted things that happened in the past and so I trust in is future predictions. As the years roll by, many of you will forget what you typed here on this forum but you must consider that it may be more evidence to condemn you. My religion means security in eternal life with my maker and the folks who took his offer of salvation through Jesus Christ. It means patience, mercy & forgiveness which I have for all of you cause I know where youre coming from.

Did you read any of my posts?

I HAVE NO RELIGION.

YOU assumed that because some people don't have religion in their lives they either a.) haven't been through enough shit in their lives to find a religion or b.) they're not as awesome as you c.) are generally not good people

I don't "preach" anything. What I believe is MY business and MY choice. I have no right to tell others how to lead their lives or what to believe in.

I do have OPINIONS about people who flock to religion, but that doesn't mean I am telling you and your ilk to BELIEVE IN WHAT I BELIEVE IN, or else you're DAMNED and HOPELESS.

You put up with the religious crap - not me. I don't really care what or how people interpret their religious texts, so long as they mind their business.

So you believe in your god because you.... jeez. Because a book told you so, pretty much.

Well, alright. But don't expect me (or anyone else) to necessarily share in your convictions.

Or it could be because not everyone believes in the same thing. Don't think that it's special because it's disliked. Consider Islam, for instance. Or perhaps Jews.

Every religion has it's persecution.

I'd like to point out your preachiness RIGHT HERE.

If my thoghts and ideas of religion don't work for you - don't believe in them! It's really quite simple, here.

My system works for me. Yours works for you. You have NO RIGHT to say what should and will work for me, as I have no right to say that to you.

RESPECT other people, LordSword. I am pretty sure Jesus was all about it.

Nostradamus "predicted" a lot of shit too, you know. It's called "vague as fuck metaphors which can pass."

Yea, you're not preachy AT ALL.

If thats what you want to believe, go for it. But it's not a universal truth - never think religion in any form IS a universal truth. It's not.

There's no evidence, there's no way to research - it's all a matter of personal belief. And that's all you've got.