Any atheists in here?

POSTED BY: BlackCollarBrowncoat
UPDATED: Sunday, March 12, 2006 20:19
VIEWED: 38267
PAGE 8 of 18

Instigation:

Most real notable scientists (with very few exceptions such as Steven Hawking) have been men of faith. It's not the scientists or the clergy that draw a line between rational and spiritual thought .... it's the people that know little about both.


Modern Science and Modern Religion are both children of philosophy. They are brothers... and much the same process attempting to describe two compeltely different things.

The only time they conflict is when someone claims that one of the things being described does not exist. That doesn't happen from scientists or clergy... it happes from people who have bad experiences with faithless eighth grad teachers or biggoted and self-help book sytle preachers.

I don't believe in athesists. We all believe in God. Some of us just use a different name.

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that being said - I draw a distinction between "Real Religion" and "Bible-Belt Self-Help Book Easy Answers Religion"

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Quote:

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Originally posted by zeke023:
I don't believe in athesists. We all believe in God. Some of us just use a different name.

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Unless you include the results of pure random chance, and basic scientific laws (eg. gravity, thermodynamics, natural selection), in what must be your extremely broad definition of God then I'm afraid you're wrong in your opinion that there are no atheists.

...................................
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With cries of “Death or Glory” comes the mighty Twenty-First

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Science is the search for Fact.
Religion is the search for Truth.

The facts you mention are all in dispute. Gravity is a theory and no one knows how it works - we just all know it does (are you old enough to remember Gravitons or Ether? they were both popular scientific thought until VERY recently).
I fail to see how that's different than God. Theists don't know or understand how it works, it just does.

You have faith in a metaphor that explains your surroundings that you know will be disproven in ten years (maybe 100). Science advances by continually disproving parts of itself. There are also aspects of it that are both true yet conflict. You know your metaphor for reality is flawed... but it's the best you have at the moment to help you live your life.

Again, I fail to see the difference.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by zeke023:

I don't believe in athesists. We all believe in God. Some of us just use a different name.

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That's a most untrue statement. Neither Buddhists nor Taoists worship any sort of Godhead or diety (The Buddha is not a diety and I cringe every time someone compares the Buddha to a God or Gods) though Buddhism does not necessarily reject the idea of entities that other religions would describe as divine.

Of course, someone could bring up the fact that the Chinese Imperial Government established Taoism as an official State religion with Lao Tzu as the godhead at some point, but I don't think that's what a lot of modern Taoists believe. I know I don't pray to Lao Tzu...

Anyway, I'd never condemn anyone for their religious thought, I might say they were misguided, but I'd never condemn them. But you can't just make broad assumptions like that, many religions are so different that drawing up similarities only proves you don't know what you're talking about. Again, I'm not trying to be offensive, so please don't take this as a personal attack.

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Where's the KABOOM?! There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom! *sigh* Delays...delays...

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I'm a deist of sorts, myself. The common Judeo-Christian conception of the deity is false and needs to be seriously questioned by any who accept it. The largest philosophical and theological failing of Christianity has to do with the nature of infinity and the exsitence of evil. I could go on and on but is this a debate we really want to have on this board?

Not to be rude, but lately it seems like all I hear from Christians in the public sphere is "God the Father this, Holy Spirit that, Jesus Chirst hit me with a whiffle-ball bat..." They just don't make any sense and irrationality is no way to convert heathens.

"...there's a whole universe of folk who are gonna know it too. They're gonna see it. Somebody has to speak for these people." -Mal

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Quote:

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Originally posted by BrownCoatRecruiter:
I'm a deist of sorts, myself. The common Judeo-Christian conception of the deity is false and needs to be seriously questioned by any who accept it. The largest philosophical and theological failing of Christianity has to do with the nature of infinity and the exsitence of evil. I could go on and on but is this a debate we really want to have on this board?

Not to be rude, but lately it seems like all I hear from Christians in the public sphere is "God the Father this, Holy Spirit that, Jesus Chirst hit me with a whiffle-ball bat..." They just don't make any sense and irrationality is no way to convert heathens.

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I would really recommend learning about what Christianity really is before you criticize it. I felt the same way you do before I learned anything about it.

I don't want to attack you, but it seems that you are falling into the trap of equating a system of belief into the way its practiced by the majority.

It may seem that Christianity is a majority - but its in the minority. We Christians are just as pissed about the so called "Christian Right" as you are.

Also, Islam doesn't teach suicide bombing. The radicals of any religion are the first to be seen and heard.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by Algus:

Quote:

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Originally posted by zeke023:
Again, I'm not trying to be offensive, so please don't take this as a personal attack.

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I don't take it as an attack.

However, I will make the claim that Buddhists believe in a divine reality. The difference between God and divine reality is a personification. In the scheme of inifinity, that's not a whole lot of difference.

What I meant was... all people are called to discover the divine. How they interpret that divinity in different ways.

I'm not a Catholic, but the Catechism of that faith states that Scientists do the work of God even if they are opposed to that idea - they discover God's world and the processes by which it operates and was created.
That is what the religion teaches - whether or not your average catholic believes that or not is largely up to them.

It's a matter of perspective, is what I'm trying to say. Easy answers whether they be scientific or religious are just an escape for what is truly a complicated universe.

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