Atheism

[Onua Wingstar]

Originally posted by bluesalamanders:
Show me a religion - a god-based religion - that can stand up to real scientific testing. Please.

And I say, develop me an experiment that can conclusively disprove the existence of God. Seriously. Do it.

[bluesalamanders]

Onua Wingstar -

But the onus isn't on me to disprove the existence of god. There are plenty of things that science "can't disprove" - faeries, unicorns, Zeus, Thor, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, all the innumerable things people have believed over the millenia. It's on you [whoever is arguing it] to prove it.

Blue~

[InkSlinger]

Cress- Most people would say the world is proof. some people would say the bible is proof. people would hand you lots of their kind of proof, it's just that there's always another explanation for everything everywhere, and people like you always take it.

[maxxrox]

The catch is that the proof has to stand up to the scientific method. That is what decides if the evidence is valid or not. There is no experiment that can be conducted using the scientific method to prove the existance of a god. Saying that the world or the bible is proof is not enough. There are no numbers, no testable evidence to prove that that is what your evidence indicates.

[Gryphon]

Neets:
Cress- Most people would say the world is proof. some people would say the bible is proof. people would hand you lots of their kind of proof, it's just that there's always another explanation for everything everywhere, and people like you always take it.

"People like you." Well, what do other people do? If I said, "Apples grow on trees, and I have proof here... see -- that apple grows on a tree and so do all of these apples over here," those other people would be like, "no." Is that what you mean by those the other people, who are unlike Cress, that you're talking about?

Like,
"A circle is round; that is the definition of a circle."
"Nope. I don't beleive you."

It's not wrong to beleive in something. And besides, in school, when teachers have you do labs, that's you discovering that everything they say is true and that, yes, things can be found out by expirements. That's how people reach conclusions in life. If, on every day there are clouds, rain follows, then you know that clouds lead up to rain. That's an observation, and now you know some science about clouds.

There's a word for people who deny everything; a nihilist. It's honestly okay to beleive in something.

[InkSlinger]

maxxrox- i'm not saying that I beleive that. or think like that. or whatever.

gryphon- not necessarily. I'm just saying that that there always is another option, and on certain subjects, particularly in the matter of religion, people are more likely to look for a different way to explain it and cling to that theory. I think we all pretty much believe that apples grow on apple trees. By the way, are you trying to say that I think that it's not okay to believe in something? where'd you get that idea?I'm not talking in matters of belief mostly because that's not the feeling i'm getting from this topic and i'm not sure how it would be taken, aside from how I feel about stating my beliefs.

But anyway, I think i'm gonna stop writing here because this really gets me worked up. so please, no one attack me because i'm not going to be around to counter. like, "oh, she backed off real quickly". but i'll stop my ranting here, and shut up. yeah. thanks.

[the_peridexis]

Neets, most people here are cool about stuff like this--they won't make fun of you. And if they do, well, that's their problem, and just ignore them.

And maxx--okay, the energy causing our universe to expand came from another universe. Got it. Now, where did the other universe come from? What caused that other universe to expand? Another universe that was once a singularity? But then where did all these singular universes come from? Universes, when they were singularities, (and that I believe) had to be made by something.

Oh. The "faith" thing? I think, if religion was completely proved by science, it would still be a religion. Why? Because science can't prove everything. I think religion is the same way. It can't prove everything, AND it offers an explanation for things that seem to be unproveable; we just can't understand them. And I guess this would mean nothing to some, but has it ever occured to you that there are some things humans will never be able to understand? No, probably not. Well, some people with a religion are willing to accept that--but for those things that are unexplainable, science offers nothing but a gaping hole. I'll get flamed for that. :P

And by the way, my religion doesn't say that everyone who's not part of it goes to hell. I've always thought believing that was ridiculous; after all, if you DID beleive it, wouldn't it be depressing to think all your non-religious friends are going to burn for eternity? So, jst putting that out, 'cause none of you people deserve to go to hell.

-peri

[maxxrox]

I respect your beliefs, but I personally cannot believe what can't be proven. If no person has a certain piece of knowledge, then it is a scientist's job to find it out, not to "make up" something to fill the empty space (no offense intended).

As for the "where did it all come from" question, I said before that once you get into singularities and physics outside of our universe, time is irrelevant. The universe that gave us energy could have started expanding when our universe leaked energy. Things in that setting don't move in a chronological order. You don't have to understand it, but you do have to accept it. There is a good amount of evidence behind it.

Lastly, the universe is expanding because the universe contains energy and is still going on the energy that was released in the Big Bang. Actually, the commonly accepted theory is that once the expansion reaches a certain point, the set amount of energy in the universe will be too spread out and there won't be enough concentrated in one place to sustain any kind of matter whatsoever, and the universe will stop expanding and become a big, nearly-empty area of nothingness. That's the death that DD talks about in her books relating to entropy.

[Frivs]

Alrighty, with PM's description I get the lack of time thing a little more, makes some sense.

I do however, think that with the kind of science you're talking about, what with time being non linear and whatnot, my statement before about being able to proove someone created it is relevant. Whether or not that would proove or disproove religion because of the "Faith" thing, I'm not sure.

Getting back to the actual topic of the thread, an interesting occurance happened to me just the other day, that made me think of this immediately:

Someone asked me what my religion was, which always turns out to be a lengthy and frustrating conversation. I told them I didn't have one, and you know what their very first question was? "Then how do you know what's right and wrong?"

I honestly was in shock. I'm sorry, but at the risk of offending people, if you're not teaching your children that "God" isn't the only reason you shouldn't hurt someone, we are all in serious trouble. I couldn't believe that this poor girl actually had no idea how I could distinquish between good and bad without a religion. It makes me sad for her, actually. I can't imagine going through life without that kind of basic knowledge.

[maxxrox]

Ah, how I pity the ignorant. I feel your pain, Piper.

[Cress]

I know that feeling...
peri-I'm an atheist...agnostic....depends on the day, but I have no problems saying there are just some things I just don't understand and I don't know if I ever will. However religion tries to explain those things with a God, or miracles, or "faith". I'm happy just to say I don't know and leave it. That's just my take though...

[maxxrox]

Cress, you described my feelings better than I could. What is it that makes people need to have an explination and be willing to make up one than to find it out for themselves?

Oh man, am I gonna get flamed for that.

[Gryphon]

Naw, I'm on your side, Max. However, I'll play devil's advocate and say, but don't scientists do the same thing? In science, people make assumptions that are wrong. Such as, for many years, people beleived in the blending theory -- that you were just a mixture of your two parents. But they couldn't explain how some cihldren ended up looking more like their grandparents than parents. They just didn't have an idea of how inheritance worked.

But I guess it's different because scientists did actually refute the blending theory when Mendel did experiments with peas later. So scientists do try to find an explanation. And actually attempt to prove their junk in the trunk.

Shiz, what a worthless post. XD I just argued against my own point

[maxxrox]

You saved me the energy.

[the_peridexis]

I get how you feel, Piper. >.< I've never assumed that Atheists have no moral compass; and like maxx said, I pity whoever thinks that you need a religion to know what's right and what's wrong.

I'm obviously not going to budge all you hard-core Atheists out there, and I don't think anyone else is either...so let's just agree to disagree. Religion or not, you're a cool bunch in my eyes.

-peri