Christianity doesn't own the ethics of 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. It's a simple logic statment of ethics for any group of people living together in proximity, and better stated as 'DON'T do unto others as you would NOT have them do unto you'. That's all our laws boil down to: fair play; live and let live.

History is full of fine examples .... and then we rewrite history to make ourselves look good.

when we look closely at the actual events of history the theme is
DO IT TO THEM BEFORE THEY DO IT TO YOU.

Seth's post made it clear he understood nothing that I said.
Scientists DON'T 'believe'. (Because then they wouldn't be practicing science.)

Maybe so it`s not that big of a deal my bad...

Religion is not needed at all. People could be raised fine without it.

I agree religion is not necessary.

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To add to the discussion of proof, I cant remember who said this but "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" an example being ET.

Religion may be necessary for a civilized world. It provides people with a moral/ethical code by which to live, yes there are a few extremists. It can give people hope and comfort for the future. As humans we have a need for religion or it would have not been created at all.

I think a good study to do would be to find some atheist parents who plan on raising their newborn without religion and some religious parents who raise their child to believe in a God. Once these kids hit about 18 give them some tests such as a moral/ethical tests. Check their grades in school, how involved they where in clubs and the list can go on.

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im often amused by peoples attempts to rationalize something they dont understand, such as one question here what are the ingrediants of god?

how could you begin to theorise the ingredients of god or even the existance when we dont understand the nature of god?

there isnt a single person here that can prove beyond all doubt there is no god.

God could be all knowing and all powerful
god could be an alien race and were nothing more than a science experiment
god could exist on a different level of reality that isnt bound by the limitations we have placed on ourselves.

maybe my faith in god is misplaced, i guess thats an answer ill get when i die hopefully.

but there has to be more to life than what we can currently see and feel.

look at everything in the milkyway, earths position on the outer-spiral protects us from deadly radiation, bands of asteroids in our own solar system combined with jupiter protect the earth from most asteroid hits, the coincedence that earth was in the perfect position in relation to the sun and the earth is tectonically active all are factors to life on earth.

then we look at earth itself every plant and animal has a purpose .. except humans

everything sems alittle too perfect to have come from random formations, the universe doesnt create without a purpose so what is the purpose of man? why are we self concious and self aware what purpose does this serve other than to be able to acknowledge the existance of god ?, lets face it if our only purpose is to fill a position on the food chain we could have done just as well with out being sentient but we were given a gift beyond what other species on this planet were given.

far too many coincedences for my tastes...

the world isn't just black and white, there are many shades of grey

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If we do as we have always done, Then we get what we have always gotten.

My Space - http://theblight101.spaces.live.com/

Go and religion...what is the point of discussing it here?

It is an archaic invention of ancient societies to explain the natural world which was unexplainable and to control populations through fear of retribution...it was about power over people, nothing more or less..

AND NOTHING HAS CHANGED...........

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So why would anyone scientific 'believe' this or 'believe' that with no proof at all???

Scientists don't just dig in their heels and refuse to consider anything that's not already conclusively proven. They'd never get anything done if they carried on that way. Many breakthroughs and new theories have come from scientists going, "Let's assume such-and-such, and see where it takes us", or even "I'm sure you're wrong but suppose for the sake of argument that you're right."

The fact is, when you've got a hypothesis with not enough proof to decide it either way, you can legitimately "believe" one option or the other. Your only obligations are to accept facts that contradict your belief, and provide proof yourself if you expect others to change their minds. You often see scientists seperate into two groups, one supporting one hypothesis and the other group opposing it. There's usually heated debate, but this is where the science happens.

Take the old theory of phlogiston. Here you had this decent old hypothesis that flammable materials contained a substance called "phlogiston" that was given off during combustion. On the surface it looks quite reasonable. We see stuff given off by burning objects all the time. We now know that there is no such thing as phlogiston, that it is actually oxygen being taken up by the material. The hypothesis was wrong, but you had enough scientists believe it was right to force the opponents to prove them wrong. They eventually discovered that magnesium actually become heavier when supposedly giving off phlogiston, among other fatal holes they were able to poke in the theory. Phlogiston is now deader than dead, but the thing to remember is that if the scientific community had just said, "Nope. You're wrong. I won't even consider it unless you prove you're right", scientific progress would have been delayed by several years.

Getting back to the subject of religion, suppose we consider God to be just such a hypothesis. Suppose we postulate, "There is an intelligent supreme being that devised the universe and it's physical laws, but operates outside them." Where does that get us? It's been a open question for at least 6,000 years. I'm not aware of any other hypothesis that has survived for so long without being accpeted or shot down. It really is the ultimate puzzler, particularly because it enters into areas that aren't strictly the domain of science. So what say you quit giving people a hard time because they think differently to you?

[Baloney*]. You don't "legitimately "believe" one option or the other." The true scientist uses his BRAINS and makes a best estimate based on experience, reserving the possibility that he could be wrong. Don't try to mislead people!

The only reason any god at all has been a 'hypothesis' (which it isn't) for more than 6,000 years is because humanity is made up of lots and lots of uneducated and frightened people who cling to whatever fantasy they can to make them feel better. It gives no ghost of 'proof' at all that it might possibly be true just because it's been around so long. You're trying to mislead people again.

When religious people stop judging others on that basis, stop brainwashing their children who have NO chance to learn other possibilities, stop trying to enforce their doctrines in schools and dumb down the population, stop giving up the obligation to make decisions; referring only to their 'holy book' and religious leaders for direction, stop trying to MISLEAD people subtly into the directions their own religion lies, and when they stop KILLING others over minor differences in 'holy books', then I will let up and stop giving such [people*] a hard time.


*(original message modded)

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

Putting the subject of faith aside for this discussion, I would expect any scientist that would post about religion to know the basic facts that surround Christianity. The comments of the new testaments being written between 70-150 years as somehow being a bad thing and the comments about "telephone" show nothing but ignorance on this topic.

As a historical document, the New Testament is easily one of the most authentic documents of that period or earlier. 70-150 years (although the general consensus is between 60 and 90 years) is absolutely nothing compared to the majority of historical documents and figures at or around that time. The Epistles (letters) of Paul were written (and corroborated by Roman records) within 2 years of Jesus' death. Alternatively, the earliest recorded document regarding Alexander the Great occured 500 years after his death. How many people take what they know of him and take it for granted?

As for the "telephone" comment, again, total ignorance. Oral history has been around for a long time and it's been the primary method of knowledge transfer before written records. Are we to throw out all history that occurred before papyrus? There are many people alive today that can recite sections of literature word for word without any degradation from the original text. Yes, it is possible over several generations to get some errors, but it's nothing like the "purple monkey dishwasher" errors found in the "telephone" game.

Faith is a personal choice, but the facts that surround the things that some faith is based on cannot be casually tossed away because you don't beleive in the underlying faith.

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And where is science in all of that?

This garbage all belongs in the religion thread.

My orginal argument is this: scientists who profess to have faith in this belief system or that deserve NO respect AT ALL for having suspended science in that area.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.

There was 2 videos by Richard Dawkins on YouTube called the "Root of all Evil?"
They appear to be missing now. Luckily I downloaded them before they got deleted. Anywho Chuck you wouldv'e loved them. Here's a summary on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Root_of_All_Evil%3F

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My orginal argument is this: scientists who profess to have faith in this belief system or that deserve NO respect AT ALL for having suspended science in that area.

I see. So Isaac Newton, who was a devout Christian, deserves no respect. Neither do the great Muslim astronomers of the middle ages, the Hindu mathematicians, the Greek geometers or the ancient Egyptian pyramid-builders. Steven Jay Gould, good, Paul Davies, bad. Charles Darwin, bad, Richard Dawkins, good.

Obviously, having an opinion about a subject that isn't fundamentally scientific in nature means that you can't be trusted to think rationally. Why not extend the principle? I'm obviously a poor excuse for a scientist because I do not exclude the possibility of a God, but also because I follow the Geelong Football Club. I mean, there's no real reason for me to have selected this team to follow and logically I ought to switch allegiance every season to a team that's more likely to win. Also I love my lasagne but hate cauliflower. I know that lasagne is full of fat and will likely give me high cholesterol, and that cauliflower is better for me. Obviously my preference for evil lasagne throws doubt on my ability to thing rationally about anything.

So there we go.

Why was this thread moved from the science forum to here?

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

Why was this thread moved from the science forum to here?

Threads about Religion, anti-religion, and other faith-based topics belong in the Cafe.

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me@rescam.org

Why was this thread moved from the science forum to here?

I suppose it's because the Mods/Admins think that anything subject to debate belongs in the Café.

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Why was this thread moved from the science forum to here?

Threads about Religion, anti-religion, and other faith-based topics belong in the Cafe.

Perhaps Chuck would not like me to speak for him. However, it seems pretty clear to me that he wanted it in the science forum to spark scientists, as he defines them, to post there and spark scientific debates, not to be a thread parallel to the Religious Thread here in the Cafe. Reading the posts over the last several weeks, he has not completely received what he hoped for. Yet, there are people that have posted in it while in the Science forum that will probably never find it here in the Cafe. People more interested in science than the general chatter of the Cafe. I think you should let Chuck keep it where he intended it to be and for good reason.

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

Why was this thread moved from the science forum to here?

I suppose it's because the Mods/Admins think that anything subject to debate belongs in the Café.

I can say for sure that it was moved because it was off topic to that forum. This thread is about religion. So it was rightly pulled out of that forum into this one.

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Sarge, the intent of the thread can be read in the initial post. Flames in this thread can be seen by all the mods. Please see Thierry's sticky in Science. If you wish to debate the issue further please use the setimods email addr so we don't hijack the thread with a bunch of off-topic posts. Thanks.

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me@rescam.org

Thanx Sarge, you hit the nail on the head completely and squarely.

I'm just about done with this friggin website. I either want to bang my own head against a brick wall (not bloody likely) or someone else's; it's about as effective as trying to reason with them.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

How many people (besides myself) here in the SCIENCE part of the boards want to bash their own heads against the wall over religion??

I saw 'Oprah' today, for example, and all there was on it was 'god gave me this' and 'god did that' and 'I have a gift from god'. It made me want to puke. What - you have to thank 'god' if you want to be on the Oprah show?!?

Really, could the scientifically-minded ONLY please speak up?

Getting into this only very briefly:

You've never had the many blessings in your life that Oprah has had in hers. If you had come as far as she has in life, you might just find yourself thinking differently about these things.

So, I respectfully say: Don't tell Oprah how she should feel about life until you've walked a mile in her shoes.


We can discuss these things in Cafe Seti, because it is broader than merely the science forums. If you want to stick to science, why even bother coming to Cafe Seti?

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You've never had the many blessings in your life that Oprah has had in hers. If you had come as far as she has in life, you might just find yourself thinking differently about these things.

Let's not assume things about another's life based on limited information. (That wouldn't be very scientific, would it?) Beethoven, this portion of your post seems to suggest you believe people choose atheism due to a difficult life. Yet we know plenty of people choose religion to due to a difficult life as well.

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.