lobsta

Our 'souls' are simply the complex interplay of neurological impulses. Neurones on their own will do nothing, but together they create our consciousness. Souls in the superstitious sense do not exist.

God does not exist, I am 99.9% certain of that fact. Just because there are things that we (currently) do not know about the universe, does not mean that 'God' automatically should fill that gap. It would be just as plausible to suggest manbearpig created the world and all of us in it. To believe in God creates an even bigger question; 'Who created the creator?' and the same could be asked of the creator of the creator, and so on ad infinitum. And Evolution is a proven fact. Whether or not the true line from 'start' to 'present' can be traced exactly maybe debatable, but that does not disprove evolution. Evolution is one of the most simple and beautiful models and probably the most important theory ever - because it explains our very existence. To believe in a God, is to belittle the complexity of nature and the universe. (sorry for spelling)

You are absolutely correct. I agree, people should spend time to research and try to understand these issues. Please do not missunderstand me - I do not hate all religious people. The people who I dislike, are those who wish to harm others in the name of religion. I do not hate people who would believe in the Flying Spaghetti monster, for example. My argument is; that there is no difference between believing in things such as the 'Flying Spaghetti Monster' and believing in God. The problem is when people use their beliefs to justify harming others. If I told you that the Flying Spaghetti Monster told me to kill all those who do not believe in him, you would think me insane! (At least i hope you would :) ) For me, this is a list that helps to summarise the principles for leading a good life today: This is a list of commandments from an atheist website; 1. Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you. 2. In all things, strive to cause no harm. 3. Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect. 4. Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted. 5. Live life with a sense of joy and wonder 6. Always seek to be learning something new 7. Test all things; always chec your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them. 8. Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you. 9. Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others. 10. Question Everything.

No I am not.

oh ok, I am then

I shall concede that Dawkins words are strong and his hostility to religion in some instances maybe regarded as intellectual arrogance. I do not take any teachings (that are not proven by irrefutable evidence) as infallible, to do so would be silly. Until I am shown evidence to the contrary, I shall believe in part (not all) Dawkins argument. This hyperbolic statement is absurd: I am not getting into a debate about this. . Religions do not respect the beliefs of other religions. And I do respect other peoples beliefs, provided their beliefs are grounded in logic and rationality. I do not respect the belief of someone who wishes to harm others because they believe it is ok. I respect the belief of someone who wishes to do good to others. You have misunderstood me, probably due to miss-articulation on my part I apologise. I do not believe anyone on this planet is perfect. I dont understand. No, I am not.

When people reject irrefutable evidence and their religious beliefs directly oppose science the result can be very dangerous. There are two ways of looking at the world; by faith and superstition, or through the riggers of observation, logic and reason. Irrational superstitious thinking is a blight to society and in extreme circumstances can be very dangerous. Richard Dawkins writes: Christianity, just as much as Islam, teaches children that unquestioned faith is a virtue. You dont have to make the case for what you believe. If somebody announces that it is part of his faith, the rest of society, whether of the same faith, or another, or of none, is obliged, by ingrained custom, to respect it without question; respect it until the day it manifests itself in a horrible massacre like the destruction of the World Trade Center, or the London or Madrid bombings. Some rapture Christians yearn for nuclear war because they interpret it as the Armageddon which, according to their disturbingly popular interpretation of the book of Revelation, will hasten the Second Coming. Sam Harris, in his Letter to a Christian Nation writes: It is, therefore, not an exaggeration to say that if the city of New York were suddenly replaced by a ball of fire, some significant percentage of the American population would see a silver-lining in the subsequent mushroom cloud, as it would suggest to them that the best thing that is ever going to happen was about to happen: the return of Christ. It should be blindingly obvious that beliefs of this sort will do little to help us create a durable future for ourselves socially, economically, environmentally, or geopolitically. Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government actually elieved that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of hte American population apparently believes this, purely on the basis of religious dogman, should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency. If we take the World Trade Center as an example, what can we ask were the motives? To call bin Laden evil is to evade our responsibility to give a proper answer to such an important question. Sam Harris goes on to add: The answer to this question is obvious if only because it has been patiently articulated ad nauseam by bin Laden himself. The answer is that men like bin Laden actually believe what they say they believe. They believe in the literal truth of the Koran. Why did nineteen well-educated middle-class men trade their lives in this world for the privilege of killing thousands of our neighbours? Because they believed that they would go straight to paradise for doing so. It is rare to find the behaviour of humans so fully and satisfactorily explained. Why ahve we been so reluctant to accept this explanation? Religion is the Enemy of Reason, and fosters irrationality amongst those it infects. It is no more logical to believe in Christianity or Islam than to believe in Witch Doctors and Voodoo magic.

Without getting into the nature/nurture debate...and for the sake of conversation, lets assume that bravery and cowardice are naturally inherited characteristics. Lets say that there are genes that code for cowardice, and genes that code for bravery. If brave individuals were unable to propagate their genes over many generations, then the genes that code for braveness would die out and yes the cowardice genes would be the most successful. However to make this statement about war, you have to make sooooo many assumptions. Have the brave reproduced before going to war? Does the war exist over thousands of years? And so on, ad infinitum.... The most successful genes, are those that allow for reproduction.

The historical data for the Bible is incomplete and inconsistent. If you truly based your beliefs on the facts that are present, then you would not believe in God. There are no facts that support the existence of god. This is a very interesting statement, and if you prove it to be true then please let the scientific community know about it. Man appeared out of nowhere? As I am sure someone with your intellectual capacity will be aware, the fossil record is incomplete and we are lucky to have fossils if at all. The archaeological archive is incomplete. Man appeared after millions of years of accumulative change. Advances in Biology have enlightened us to the existence in D.N.A. If we were to remove all fossils from existence, there would still be an insurmountable amount of evidence for evolution. I was not insinuating that there is evidence against him. I was quite clearly saying that there is no evidence to suggest that he does exist. Sir, it is not I that must prove the non-existence of God, that is impossible. It is you, who must prove his existence. It is impossible to disprove the existence of anything. You can not disprove the existence of the flying Spaghetti monster... But I promise you he exists (unless you can disprove his existence?) There is no proof of Gods existence, therefore it would be logical to not believe unless proven otherwise.

Why are you a Christian? (i am not asking why you are religious, but why you have chosen christianity) I was raised on Christian morals and when I was twelve my pastor sat me down like all the other children and said "You are growing up and it's time you started to decide for yourself what you believe in." And thus began an intensive study into other religions and cultures, reasonings and ideas and I found that I explain the Universe around me with the teachings of the Bible. To me, it's logical that a divine being created the Universe, and that the Universe echoes with his creation. However, I also approached my conclusion through years of study and research. I'm a Christian because I choose to be. And here I am. In the end, it's what I believe that matters to me. And what should it matter to you? That's the problem I have with most of these threads is the complete closed-minded hypocrisy that comes from, ironically, the very people who claim to have open minds. I am very open minded thank you very much, however to empircal data, there is absolutely no proof for the existence of God. I was simply trying to have a discussion with you. Do you not believe that an intelligent designer that created the universe, is more illogical than not having one? Do you believe in evolution? Why do you believe in something, for which there is no evidence for?

Nearly every philosopher of the last thousand years calls BS on this sentence. Hence the need for government, or at least at the lowest levels, religion. I think thats a question for biologists, not just philosophers. Modern biology has used evolutionary theory as a means to account for moral principals like the golden rule. See this article for an interesting read. If we have an innate sense of reciprocity geared towards survival, then we will tend to avoid violence or killing others. Those lines could be blurred based on what you or I see as our in group, but given the existence of things like war and racism, evolutionary theory would account for those blurred lines all the same. I disagree. I think we would tend to group together and work as communities if there were no religion, because thats more beneficial to survival than everyone just fending for themselves. There was a binding force before religion, and thats biology. Besides, if a society cast off religion these days, that doesnt necessarily mean it will degenerate into anarchy. Think of the trends in Scandinavian countries and some other western countries like Australia. Religiosity is down, but were far from anarchy. Personally I think religion is more of a means to an end of sorts rather than the direct source of morality. I agree with all of this. Just to add to it regarding morality...Certainly it is not derived from Religious texts. If we based our morals on the Old Testament for example, we would live in a rather distasteful society (although having said that it probably already is...) Morality has changed throughout the ages... changing moral zeitgeist (german for spirit of the times). Morality is most likely a force that flies beneath the conscious radar

Funnily enough, I am very much aware of that fact

Why are you a Christian? (i am not asking why you are religious, but why you have chosen christianity)

I am sorry for not articulating myeself properly. I totally agree that not all terrorists are motivated by religion. But also it must be said that it would be wrong to say that the majority of terrorists are motivated by fiscal reasons. The world is filled with poor ineducated and exploited peoples, who do not commit terrorism. The Arab world has no shortage of educated and prosperous men and women who suffer from infatuation with Koranic escatology who are eager to murder infadels for the sake of God. (sorry for spelling)

I mean this not to be provocative, Im just curious to know your view point. You know that some religious fundamentalist are so deluded that they actually believe they are in a battle between good and evil. Religion is what motivates people to blow themselves up, because they believe they will be met by virgins in heaven (spare a thought for them!) Unfortunately, religion is motivating people to do terrible things. Certainly it could be said that there are terrorists who are not motivated by religious morals, sadly it is so, that the majority are.

We do NOT get our morals from religious texts. Does religion benefit society? I must conceed that in some circumstances, it does - however, I think the damage it causes outweighs the good. My opinion nicely summarised in a quote from Steven Weinberg, who was a physicist who won the nobel prize: "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.

Fatalism is not about the future being planned, it's about inevitability. Please let us not get into a debate about semantics. I meant inevitability.

This reminds me of a quote: "if you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics" I dont think the future has been planned. I am of the opinion that the human brain, that has evolved in 'middle earth' will simply be unable to comprehend the queerness of the universe.

Yes, you are right. If he was truly omnipotent, surely he would have the power to change this decision? yes, but since an omnipotent being can make what it deems the best decision in a time interval of 0 he has already made the "correct" decision and then can forsee what he has already chosen after he has chosen it. If you claim god has no limits then it is logical he can do things while negating our convention of time. You are over-complicating it, and do not appear to understand... This paradox involves an infinite regress - the answer to a question raises a prior question, and so on ad infinitum. Therefore, logically omniscience and omnipotence are mutually incompatible.

Yes, you are right. If he was truly omnipotent, surely he would have the power to change this decision?

You are completely missing the point. Although you intend to go in and by your confectionary, you can not know the future - an event may occur that prevents you from doing this, however God does not suffer these constraints. God 'knows' the future.

you have missunderstood the paradox. If God is omniscient, he must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can't change his mind about his intervention, which means he is not omnipotent.

Can omniscient God, who Knows the future, find The omnipotence to Change His future mind?

Nice. This new beast hard to kill?