The god delusion... Religious debate

JBod said:
Two things I hope someone who is religious can explain for me:

1) Gay priests
2) Lightening rods on religious buildings
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I'm not exactly religious, but I can attempt to explain both.

2) God 'gave' stewardship to man. No man is immortal, no man will be spared, no man will be saved. You could argue that those with ultimate faith might want to hurry the journey to God, but they may want to spread the faith, so prolong life.

1) Homosexuality in priests... well the Bible is just a book. Granted a book they should live by, but the whole pick-and-choose thing.
 
Dolph said:
The god delusion is like every other fanatics book, and should be treated with equal contempt as anything written by people like Fred Phelps, any of the mad immans and David Icke. There are much better philosophy books about than this crap.
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How about people who believe in ghosts? Just sayin'.
 
meh - the bible is too open to interpretation to be debated. There really is no point. Especially when people *believe* in. You cant change someones belief.

IMO, there's a god out there, but what ever it was never spoke to anyone, didnt conciously do something and never will. Anyone that would think otherwise I would give the question why doesnt he wipe out humanity and make a better version because the majority of history I have seen from the human race that is notable is largely negative (war etc)

I'd be quite happy to believe that SOMETHING created the universe - something had to, but I doubt it was sentient.
 
codec said:
I'd be quite happy to believe that SOMETHING created the universe - something had to, but I doubt it was sentient.
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Why did the Universe have to be created? Not...what reason for it...but rather, perhaps it never was "created"?

We percieve ourselves to be linear, we exist at one point in time, there is a beginning, and thus an end. But what if "the Universe" isn't linear? What if time itself isn't linear? And as such, the Universe...quite simply...is.
 
so two 'men of honour' are agnostic. what about the others? you guys are pretty intelligent it would be nice to know what your beliefs are :)

atm we got:
dolph - agnostic
semi-pro waster - agnostic

am i seeing a trend in society of rebelious atheists maturing and switching to the agnostic camp? i think a lot of atheists chose their position simply because they were sick of man made religion. it seems to me only atheists and religious people need to prove/disprove of god existence, which they cannot.
 
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ShaolinDreams said:
so two 'men of honour' are agnostic. what about the others? you guys are pretty intelligent it would be nice to know what your beliefs are :)

atm we got:
dolph - agnostic
semi-pro waster - agnostic

am i seeing a trend in society of rebelious atheists maturing and switching to the agnostic camp? i think a lot of atheists chose their position simply because they were sick of man made religion. it seems to me only atheists and religious people need to prove/disprove of god existence, which they cannot.
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religous types don't need to prove cos it's about faith, atheists on the other hand...
 
Well I am half way through chapter 1 of the audio book and I'm finding it to be great if you have problems sleeping!

Maybe I need to give it more of a chance some parts are interesting but I am finding it very tedious so far and kinda annoying. Too many quotes so soon and not enough draw to capture my attention.
 
ShaolinDreams said:
so two 'men of honour' are agnostic. what about the others? you guys are pretty intelligent it would be nice to know what your beliefs are :)

atm we got:
dolph - agnostic
semi-pro waster - agnostic

am i seeing a trend in society of rebelious atheists maturing and switching to the agnostic camp? i think a lot of atheists chose their position simply because they were sick of man made religion. it seems to me only atheists and religious people need to prove/disprove of god existence, which they cannot.
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Add me to the atheist camp then ;)
 
Hellsmk2 said:
How about people who believe in ghosts? Just sayin'.
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Define 'believe in ghosts'. I lived for three years in a house with most of the classical symptoms of a haunting (including physical movement of objects, items vanishing and reappearing in places where they couldn't possibly have been previously, strange noises and smells, certain areas of the house that provoked very unpleasant feelings/senses and so on). I'm no closer to be being able to offer a rational explanation for the evidence gathered in that house that doesn't require randomly discarding evidence or adding false assumptions to make sense.

Does that mean I 'believe' in ghosts?

ShaolinDreams said:
so two 'men of honour' are agnostic. what about the others? you guys are pretty intelligent it would be nice to know what your beliefs are :)

atm we got:
dolph - agnostic
semi-pro waster - agnostic

am i seeing a trend in society of rebelious atheists maturing and switching to the agnostic camp? i think a lot of atheists chose their position simply because they were sick of man made religion. it seems to me only atheists and religious people need to prove/disprove of god existence, which they cannot.
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I've not been an atheist since I was about 15 when I had the limitations of science explained to me. I don't see how you can be an atheist on anything other than faith.

manoz said:
religous types don't need to prove cos it's about faith, atheists on the other hand...
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Atheism is all about faith too, not that faith is a bad thing. The point where they differ is what the faith is in. Both theists and atheists have to go through a set of steps to rationalise belief (because remember that rationality only requires internal consistency, not external approval) in their position, and at some point both sides have to take steps where the only justification is 'because I think it's right'.
 
ShaolinDreams said:
am i seeing a trend in society of rebelious atheists maturing and switching to the agnostic camp? i think a lot of atheists chose their position simply because they were sick of man made religion. it seems to me only atheists and religious people need to prove/disprove of god existence, which they cannot.
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I'm not sure if I'd ever have described myself as an atheist, if I did then I suspect it was only because I was too young to know what the term agnostic meant. As far back as I can remember I've neither believed or disbelieved in religion or the idea of a god - I just couldn't see the relevance to how I live my life and by extension there is therefore no need for me to make a decision on it, while it can be interesting to debate it doesn't matter much either way to me.

I try to respect other peoples beliefs and hope that equally they will respect mine - as far as I'm concerned you are free to believe in whatever you want, up to the point where it will directly and negatively impact on others.
 
Religion and money.... The cause of all WARS!

However the fact the universe shouldn't technically exist, suggests perhaps we need to sumtimes wonder if god is real.

Can i just say Stargate SG1 explained heaven and death fantastically, in that our body dies but our mind can live on with out our body and can be transferred as energy, who's to say there isn't a race out there that waits for us to die and offers us an alternative route.

also there is no heaven, earth and hell, There is only heaven and hell, we live in hell think about it..... We spend our whole life scared of dieing, and if your not scared you prob hate life..... oon top of that look at all the bad that goes on around!
 
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ShaolinDreams said:
am i seeing a trend in society of rebelious atheists maturing and switching to the agnostic camp?
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This sums me up quite neatly. I think it's just a case of growing up and acknowledging that we don't know all of the answers and we probably never will. Also, my education has subsequently taught me to question everything and remains extremely open minded at all times. More often than not, those who play the 'science trumps religion' card certainly haven't been educated in science beyond wikipedia.

However, I do believe that the 'limitations of science' card can be overplayed by a few (I picked up this phrase from Dolph's post above, but I am not refering to Dolph himself) who claim that some science is 'partially flawed' or sketchy, which is, in my own field (biological sciences), absolute nonsense.
 
When you look into the physics of the Universe, it does look as if there is a creator, the numbers that are needed to allow life are something like 10 to power of 120, that's just insane, but then who created the creator?
 
Mik3 said:
When you look into the physics of the Universe, it does look as if there is a creator, the numbers that are needed to allow life are something like 10 to power of 120, that's just insane
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Be extremely careful when dealing with 'chance', because the apparent results can be extremely misleading if you are using backwards mathematics.

but then who created the creator?
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It may sound like a huge cop-out, but who is to say that the creator must have been created, or must be bound by the reasoning of our own observations? If an entity that could be labelled as god exists outside of time and our existance, than the rules which you might apply to our universe might not apply to the existance of some sort of god.

The problem with arguing against a god is that it is very easy to answer questions with a 'god is mysterious'-esque answer. Nevertheless, these responses are not always unfair.
 
JBod said:
Two things I hope someone who is religious can explain for me:

1) Gay priests
2) Lightening rods on religious buildings
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I hate the way that just because some organised religions are guilty of point 1) it gives a bad name to the whole thing. Yes we know all about the scandals in the catholic churches of child abuse, and other churches adopting gay bishops etc. Obviously they are picking and choosing what they take from the Bible and altering their 'standards' to suit the church. By being more open in their views they will attract a wider audience and then that means more money. a lot of them are just money makers in fairness but there is a difference between organised 'business' type religion and those who practise and hold what the Bible states without being linked to a specific church with a name tag above its door. You cannot generalise here im afraid.

On the lighting rod things and big exotic buildings - I have no idea. If they follow the Bible closely they would notice that a church is actually the company of people and no emphasis is placed on the building itself. Some people think the building in itself are holy. Its only concrete and cement!
 
rexehuk said:
I believe there is only one god... and that is yourself. I believe religion was invented originally as an honest story in order to reach morals etc.
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I don't think it was invented as such, not with the intention of mind washing billions of people throughout generations anyway!

It's more likely the basic human flaw that when a question has no answer that an answer must be created because accepting things we don't understand is a very hard thing to do for humans.

The same way life has evolved over the generations religion has also evolved. It's becoming more commercialised if anything. Nobody celebrates Christmas for its traditional value any more for example and then there's extremism...


Also, everyone will burn in hell because if you follow one religion then the god from another will smite you. You simply cannot win in the afterlife :p
 
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