Religion and Science

[Carly]

Many seem to believe that the two cannot co-exist in such a stubborn world. However, there are many ways to look at both religion and science to which they do not necessarily contradict.

One to believe in creation, I personally do not discredit all parts of evolution. Simply, I do not think that man's ancestor was a primal ape. Darwin did many other wonderful things (ie his trip to the Galapagos). This also means that I have faith in something besides microscopes and theories. I firmly believe in the Judeo-Christian God and the Christian ways of life. On the other hand, I am obsessed with Biology, science in general.

Working towards a conclusion to this post, I ask of you to tell me what you think of the debates between what religion claims and what science claims. I've seen science as a search for God, religion as a way to answer the why and science the how, etc. I'm a bit torn on some subjects and very set in my ways on others.

Thoughts?

[Evilone]

I'll believe in religion when I see some evidence for it. When you boil it down, the only real support for any religion is faith, as most Christians will openly tell you. I'm just not prepared to suddenly believe something just because a lot of other people do when there isn't really any evidence for it. Just because everyone believed the world was flat, doesn't mean they where right. I don't mean to insult anyone's beliefs, and I can understand why you hold them (If my parents told me that, say, the universe was sneezed out by a giant cockroach and a sizable portion of the people around me believed it too, I probly would too.).

But from another point of view, if Christianity were true it would perfectly possible for it to connect with science. Most Christians I know simple belive Genesis to be largly symbolic, as the people who wrote the early Bible wouldn't have known themselves how the earth was formed.

Carly - as to your beliefs on evolution, if humans didn't evolve from apelike creatures, who DID we evolve from? Human's didn't just appear on the planet, and we know that humans weren't around at all, say, when the dinosaurs were about...

[DarkTrojan]

Originally posted by Evilone
I'll believe in religion when I see some evidence for it. When you boil it down, the only real support for any religion is faith, as most Christians will openly tell you. I'm just not prepared to suddenly believe something just because a lot of other people do when there isn't really any evidence for it. To bastardise a Matrix quote, no-one can be told what God is, you have to see it for yourself. If you need evidence one way or the other, seek Him and you shall find it.

As for the matter of science vs faith, it is impossible to discredit entirely Darwin's Theory of Evolution - it is staring us in the face, humans and other species are evolving every day. What we can question, however, is when and how this evolution began. Darwin proposes that we evolved from single-cell life forms, and that the best evolutions in a generation survived. This I do not believe.
Genesis states that God created Adam from the Earth, and Eve from the rib of Adam. While this to me seems like a more realistic starting point given the evidence available to us today, it is worth considering that the writer of Gensis did so many centuries after the events supposedly occured, and what his sources were, we do not know. Perhaps the story was, as they say, 'Lost in translation.'

[Tommuz]

Personally given all the genetic evidence, I find evolution more convincing. I don't like the idea of us just appearing out of thin air as it were, its too neat and nothing in the universe is that simple. However that does not mean I do not believe in a God. What I do believe is that evolution occured but was guided by God and is still going on. You only have to look at the Anthropic Teleological argument to see what I mean. (the only problem with that argument is that it suggests an Anthropomorphic God which I, personally find absurd)

[plattbridger]

lol ah ive debated this many a time

the one that i always find amusing is how people seem to believe the big bang and creationism are different

in both cases the entire universe suddenly appeared

whether god made it happen or not- everything came from nothing either way

so to discredit either argument on the basis of the big bang is nonesense

anyway i dont think science and religion are going to learn to live side by side

especially with the catholic church telling people that condoms actually help spread aids and that the latex used has little pours which let the virus through anyway :confused:

[Tommuz]

The big bang theory is beginning to be rejected by most of the scientific community anyway. I think superstring is the new 'big bang' although its quite a new theory and if you ask me, the superstring theory just raises more questions about the nature of the universe than it resolves.

On a side note, most of the catholics i know, myself included, think that the whole thing about contraception in general is a load of rubbish. Its only come about due to natural law practically forbidding it as it denies potential and purpose. However, with the current state of the world you need to ignore that rule.

[plattbridger]

lol this is what i mean how can they possibly dismiss it?

its exactly the same as their hypothesis

either way you must explain how everything came out of nothing


besides if god is infinite he would never of reached the point at which he created the universe

unless he is not infinite therefore something must have made him so he could make the universe and god cannot be everything everywhere otherwise he would be greater than the universe itself and he must exist outside existance or summat :confused:

i suppose the only way you can be certain is when you die and then if you go to heaven and there are aliens there then you know god was responsible for the entire universe

(If God Created The Angels To Be Without Free Will Then How Could Archangel Lucifer Rebel? Doesn't This Mean God Is Responsible For The Fall Of Lucifer I.e. Satan And Therefore The Creator Of All Evil?

lol another favourite of mine)

[Tommuz]

One of the answers to your question is that God is infinite and timeless, meaning he exists outside of time and space. He created the universe and everything that has happened, is happening and will happen in the future in one instance. If God was infinite and within time then He would not be able to create the universe because of what u said.
This means that God cannot interfere with the universe, which is why He didn't stop such events from happening, like the Holocaust. Also, due to the nature of the universe creation, we do not have freewill, which is why some people, although some of them may not know the reasons behind it, believe in a Divine Plan, of some sorts. One final point, there would be no such thing as good without its privation (evil), as there is no such thing as light without its privation (darkness). If there was no evil, we would be mindless automatons. We need a concept of good and evil to give us some purpose, even if it is determined.

[plattbridger]

if good an evil both exist outside our universe then surely they are the same thing? especially seen as god seemingly orchestrated the fall of lucifer, angels were and are without free will

and how is he outside our universe yet omnipresent/omniscient with in it?


anyway im a staunch athiest as u may have guessesd and there are ifs and buts to both sides, and answering where did the universe come from? with "something outside the universe made the universe" is just very dubious to me


the hole point of religion is that it offers an alternative from science so i very much doubt theyll ever live side by side

[Tommuz]

firstly, i didn't say there was good or evil outside the universe, nor did i say that God acted within the universe. Both are impossible. Also, when you make a toy for example, do you make it from the inside? Do you get inside the toy and start building it, or do you build it from outside the object? The same principle could be applied to the universe. God created it from the outside, but as a timeless act. As time is the same as space, therefore God is within neither and so the entire universe was created at an instant. If you follow this argument we have no freewill whatsoever.

[plattbridger]

hmmm but to say that good and evil are not outside the universe would mean god has no hand in them?

then surely heaven and hell (and angels) are inside our universe? unless god had them as inbuilt features of our universe

lol if i was god id of not bothered cos id be pretty miffed at having this great toy that i cant interact with

other than destroy it of course :D i hope he doesnt do that too soon :nana:

[Carly]

Originally posted by Evilone
Carly - as to your beliefs on evolution, if humans didn't evolve from apelike creatures, who DID we evolve from? Human's didn't just appear on the planet, and we know that humans weren't around at all, say, when the dinosaurs were about...

I believe I already answered this in my first post, but I shall make some clarifications.

I believe in Creationism, I am a Christian, and I also love the study if science.

During the those 'seven days' in which God was creating the earth and heavens and resting, Humans did not appear until the sixth day. To me, those six days were probably billions of years. Reading the creation story will tell you when certain parts of life appeared according to those that wrote the Old Testament.

Science and Religion do conflict, but this seems to be the only place. How everything came to be. A pastor or a priest or a rabbi will not argue when you show them a cell wall in plants and no cell wall in animals or explaining that mammals are the only animals that can have facial expressions or that feathers, hollow bones, reduced organs, and no teeth are adaptions that birds have to flying. Things of a certain nature (pardon the pun) have nothing to do with religion and most of religion has nothing to do with science.

Tommuz made a great point with saying that one thing cannot be without its polar opposite. Lucifer fell because he said that he did not need God, that he was better off on his own. He fell from Heaven and into the earth. Mt. Pergatory is the result of him coming through the other side. Thus, hell is eternal separation from God. Dante's three novels about Heaven, Purgatory, and the Inferno give deeper insight into this. Science books, however, cannot. To scientists, mountains come from the merging (or dividing) of techtonic plates or hot spots (Hawaiian islands), not angels popping through.

However, I stand by my religion and I stand by science. Both answer questions, religion answers the why and science tells me how.

[Tommuz]

Maybe a toy was a bad analogy and should have said clock.

I have to completely agree with Carly on this one. I don't believe that the universe was created in 6 days but that these 6 days were metaphors for a much larger amount of time, i.e. billions of years. If you read Genesis, there are two different accounts of Creation and I think this suggests that the Creation story is just a story, but is based on some truth. A legend would be a better term.
There are conflicts between two but if someone asks me if i'm religious or a scientist, my answer is always the same. To me, they're not mutually exclusive

[plattbridger]

the universe was formed in less than a second

there were however billions of years between the formation of the universe and the formation of our sun

and then a few more billion years before our planet formed and a few more billion years before life formed on it and a few billion years more before we appeared


lol i know god has a lot of time on his hands but why take so long? and why create so much that it becomes meaningless to the people he created to give everything meaning


lol science can explain that but religion just leaves me wandering about gods mental condition

[Tommuz]

I know religion as a whole is very antrhpocentric (sp?) but I don't believe that we are the first 'intelligent' race to exist.
Also i'm doubtful as to whether the universe was created in an instant, the Big Bang theory has too many problems in it for my liking. Superstring theory or M theory makes much more sense to me and will probably replace Big Bang within the next twenty years or so.

[Carly]

Originally posted by plattbridger
the universe was formed in less than a second

there were however billions of years between the formation of the universe and the formation of our sun



Really? Would you like to provide me with your proof for this? I'd like to see how you reached this claim.

[Destrukto]

As far as our knowledge goes, that is how it happened.
Of course science is constantly updating that view of how it happened, that is what science is all about, challenging the results of former scientists to arrive at a more accurate view of how things are.

As to your distinction between science and religion, you are right. Science is not in the business of explaining the "why" of our universe.

The fact that scientists are always willing to challenge their view (provided it is backed up with evidence) of how the universe works, is what makes me trust them more than what religion tells me. This dicussion to a point illustrates this. If you are willing to defend a story that has been around for 2500 years by amending the "days" to billions of years, but still defending the basic fact of Creation, seems a bit closeminded.
It would be ok if you had any evidence other than "it is written". Then it would be a scientific procedure. What I see here is a few people taking creation as an axiom, not as a well-founded theory.
Scientists who defend the Big Bang against the Superstring theory would do so because they can back up their claim. At the point where they are presented with evidence that would falsify their theory they will be forced to give up that standpoint.

As to Lucifer being the antithesis to God: this would not be possible. If that were so, God would not have been able to cast him out, but a stalemate would have ensued. Btw, according to Isaiah God created Good AND Evil. He would have to have had, because otherwise he wouldn't be allpowerful.
Lucifer btw wasn't thrown out of heaven because he thought he could live without God, he was thrown out because he refused to bow down to Adam. He wanted to award that privilege only to God.
Dante's cosmology is compelling, but has never even been adopted by the Church.

[Carly]

I cannot prove my place, Destrukto, you are correct. Religion only has a book (or two) that was written before the time of Christ and finished hundreds of years after.

I do not stand to say that if science proves how the universe was created, I would disbelieve. Perhaps God begun with a 'bang' and Adam and Eve were the first two humans when evolution got to them. Perhaps the Old Testament merely was for the uneducated to understand something in simple terms such as 'God made everything. The End.' A lot of what science has done and will continue to do is beyond me. I have not taken enough science to bat someone on the head and claim they are incorrect. I would never do that. (:

All in all, flowers are pretty and grass is nice to walk on and I like stars.

[Destrukto]

True :)

The one thing science and religion share is a feeling of awe and wonder for what is...

Also, I still believe that for some things, logic is not enough to explain them, but it should be treated with great caution.

[Carly]

Originally posted by Destrukto
Also, I still believe that for some things, logic is not enough to explain them, but it should be treated with great caution.

Definitely. Makes me think of this quote I heard somewhere:

"Do you always believe in things you can't see?"
"Sometimes you have to believe in something before you can see it."

[plattbridger]

i dont quite get it when people say that religion can answer the questions science cant

its like leaving a pair of kids alone in a room and coming back finding it an absolute tip

you have no way of knowing how it got like that and the kids just say "he did it"

and thats how religion seems to sum it up it doesnt explain anything it just says "god did it"


just because there are questions we cannot answer and things we do not understand it does not mean there is some super almighty being behind it all

it simply means we are not the masters of all the knowledge in the universe


(IMHO)

[PoofBird]

Originally posted by plattbridger

just because there are questions we cannot answer and things we do not understand it does not mean there is some super almighty being behind it all


there is more to religions than superbeings...

only hardliners believe in the entity god that has a will a mind and even a body, who thought one day: let's create this and that...

read any theologian discussion in the past 1500 years... most christians are far ahead the "bearded bloke" discussion.

[plattbridger]

lol alright super almighty being is a bit of a generalisation but anything other than nature itself

just like how natural forces like volcanic eruptions were explained away by religion and now by science most things in life will be

but there are somethings we are never going to know

and that doesnt mean there is anything more to it than that we simply cannot know everything

[NIGHTCOW]

I like the really hard line creationists who stand by the fact that it was literally a six day process (such as the institute for creation research) and that the earth was formed in about 4000 BC (as worked out by that guy who I can't remember the name of)

They tend to just explain everything away using the flood story
e.g Q. "How can you explain the sediment record that geologists have built up from deep sea cores?
A. Because the flood was so powerful that it quickly redeposited all thesediments in these nice layers.

I am doing a degree in archaeology and its amazing the amount of flack we get from these people

[Destrukto]

Originally posted by NIGHTCOW
They tend to just explain everything away using the flood story
e.g Q. "How can you explain the sediment record that geologists have built up from deep sea cores?
A. Because the flood was so powerful that it quickly redeposited all thesediments in these nice layers.

I am doing a degree in archaeology and its amazing the amount of flack we get from these people

This is what pisses me off about those kinds of people...
If they could present scientifically sound evidence to their claim, ok.

Beut they can't, they bypass years of study that has been well-documented, and answer it with a nondocumented claim

i can answer them from their biblical reference system, as well as from multiple theological standpoints.

I would expect them to do me the curtousy of doing the same...
They never do, which is a serious letdown and a bit dodgy...

[el_diablo5711]

honestly, there is no god...

alright ppl, we see pics of Jesus everywhere in catholic churches... the carcasian dude with the brown beard... wtf are you thinking? Isreal is in the middle-east, he would have had a very dark complexion and black hair...

To believe there is a superior being is total nonsense... heaven is in the clouds eh? airplanes show no reports of it....

God made man from earth huh? can someone explain to me why he did this? and eve was from adams rib eh? sure.

all the egyptian and mesopotamian, and other ancient god stuff is nonsense, right? what makes god different?

will someone please tell me how Moses parted the red sea? how im supposed to believe that noah took two of every single living thing aboard this ark?

God created man in his image? then how is he able to do this stuff? the human brain isnt complex enough to?

this bible is a cheap excuse for churches to make money. some guy wrote it and in his lil hellhole said to his corporate sponsors "lets sucker some people into buying this BS"

lets review: *gods not real.... *you've been scammed... *humans were created from apes

Evolution, baby. i saw this thing on Nova, which makes perfect sense... chemicals created a reaction, which started a life, which spawned into todays world... anybody who says BS should give it a look...

ask ur good buddy jesus about these conspiraces why dont you?

oh, and dont get me started on the "sins" the catholic church has done

[PoofBird]

Originally posted by el_diablo5711
honestly, there is no god...


yawn...

read a thread before you join in... all your points have been dealt with...

you cannot disprove God by shouting that jesus doesn't look Jewish or there is no heaven to be seen at 30.000 feet...

there is a lot more to christianity and religion than that... your points are hardly relevant

go read a book.

[el_diablo5711]

im expressing my opinion and care not weather they have been expressed before.

go hump a cow

[squealpiggy]

Originally posted by Evilone
I'll believe in religion when I see some evidence for it. When you boil it down, the only real support for any religion is faith, as most Christians will openly tell you. I'm just not prepared to suddenly believe something just because a lot of other people do when there isn't really any evidence for it. Just because everyone believed the world was flat, doesn't mean they where right. I don't mean to insult anyone's beliefs, and I can understand why you hold them (If my parents told me that, say, the universe was sneezed out by a giant cockroach and a sizable portion of the people around me believed it too, I probly would too.).



So you won't believe something like Christianity because the only evidence is what people have told you or what is in a book... so why do you believe in evolution? Oh it can be argued that evolution is happening as we speak and it has been studied. Has it been studied by you? Or have you read it in books and been told it by people? The bible started to be written probably about 4000-5000 years ago and was completed round about 1700 years ago. Why are the words of modern scholars taken to mean more than the words of scholars who were there at the time? Because they don't fit in with your particular take on reality? That is faith you have there. And that is where religion and science are exactly the same.

el_diablo your "opinion" is infantile and boorish, it is entirely unreasoned and offensive and you so far have not backed up a single one of your beliefs with either evidential or ecunemical reasons. Saying "Oh yeah so the world is round eh? And everyone stays on it due to some invisivle force called gravity? Yeah sure..." s hardly likely to either convince people that you are correct or convey any sense that you know what you are talking about. Oh and the middle eastern comment, ok here is a picture of someone from the middle east:

http://www.israelnewsagency.com/morandead.jpg

She was an israeli who was sadly killed. Now I am of caucasian origins and my skin is not much lighter then hers. So it is entirely possible that Jesus had light skin.

Now read some other debates and you might learn something. I don't believe in God personally but not for any of the silly attempts at reason you have given here and I haven't ridiculed or belittled anyone that does believe in God because I reserve the right to be wrong.

[PoofBird]

Originally posted by el_diablo5711
im expressing my opinion and care not weather they have been expressed before.

go hump a cow

i am not attacking your opinion. Your opinion is fine.

i am attacking your way of backing it up.
It's either obviously untrue, unfair, inacurate or offensive, and sometimes all four at once...

also: learn to spell.

[Destrukto]

Originally posted by el_diablo5711
im expressing my opinion and care not weather they have been expressed before.

go hump a cow

WAKE UP CALL!!

Not every opinion is equally valid...

:eek: [/shock] [/horror]

An opinion that is well-documented and given in an openminded way is valid...

this bible is a cheap excuse for churches to make money. some guy wrote it and in his lil hellhole said to his corporate sponsors "lets sucker some people into buying this BS"

There weren't any churches at the time of the bible...
Corporate sponsors were a concept that evolved in the 1900s
More than 20-30 writers of the bible have been identified by means of literary analysis.
Priesthood in Judaism didn't arrive until after they settled Canaan, probably...before that worship was a matter of personal choice, and each had their own God...
Monotheism probably came around during the Babylonian Exile, so a united priesthood would probably have come into being at approximately the same time...

lets review: *gods not real.... *you've been scammed... *humans were created from apes

Do I notice a contradiction arising from the fact that you use the word "create" in that sentence?

Evolution, baby. i saw this thing on Nova, which makes perfect sense... chemicals created a reaction, which started a life, which spawned into todays world... anybody who says BS should give it a look...

To my knowledge chemicals do not have a will.
Also, you are making a terribly large leap from the "starting of life" to the present. Any idea how this came about or are you taking that on faith?

all the egyptian and mesopotamian, and other ancient god stuff is nonsense, right?

You are putting words into our mouthes. Nobody has claimed this.
You assume we will agree with this statement, and then proceed to use that as proof.

You seem to know precious little about the last 1500 years of theology. Could it be you have no knowledge of an allegorical interpretation of the Bible? Or of the fact that a lot of believers actually don't believe in a physical Heaven? Or of the fact that 80 % of Christians do not take the Bible literally?

Btw, I do not say there is a God.
I am saying you should try to be informed before blowing your cap off in a way that betrays your lack of knowledge on the subject :D

[plattbridger]

religion is just an extension of mans arrogance that he thinks something he understands or creates, founds, forms or discoverys solves the puzzle

i.e. start of with a really primitive religion (pedants read "religion explains" for gods)

the gods make the rains fall
no. evapouration and weather fronts control rainfall
ah! the gods control the weather
no. the climate controls the weather
ah! the gods control the climate!
no. the climate is controlled by variations between the sun and earth- things like milankovic cyclicity
ah! the gods control the heavens and the planets!
no. the heavens and the planets are controlled by newtons gravitational constant amongst others
ah! the gods control....

and so on


you get to the point where science cannot come up with a reply that doesnt mean religion is truth it means man cannot know or understand anything there again maybe one day we will

if we were to travel to a planet where the religious population SOLIDLY believed that rainfall was governed by religion then how would they be different to our own religious beliefs that destiny etc is governed by something religious?


if what i am saying is wrong then history is a fraud because throughout it science has answered questions and pushed the boundaries of religion further and further away- just because there are still questions means nothing

[squealpiggy]

So you could sum it up by saying that "god" represents what we do not understand. Why is that a bad thing?

[plattbridger]

well

because millions upon MILLIONS of people have died because of relgious beliefs

countries have been torn apart and pitted against one another women oppressed and entire races wiped out (ie incas)

it has done nothing to hinder the developement of humanity stoning those alive in most cases who dared to speak out against it

take catholicism and AIDS as another example



you do not need religion to be compassionate humanitarian and charitable before anyone comes out with all that sort of "but what about christian aid or the samaritans or sally army" crap

dont get me wrong i dont mind what beliefs people have ive more than enough christian friends

[Tommuz]

This is essentially what Anthony Flew. He used a principle of finding out if something had meaning by whether or not you could falsify it. He argued that you could not falsify religion because a believe would always come up with a counter comment. He said that religion 'dies the death of a thousand qualifications', which is true I suppose. To illustrate this point, type in Parable of the Gardener - Anthony Flew into Google and you should have a good example of what he means.
I would go on, but it'll be going way off topic. If you want the counter argument to this, if you don't know, I'll put it up.

[squealpiggy]

Originally posted by plattbridger
well

because millions upon MILLIONS of people have died because of relgious beliefs

)countries have been torn apart and pitted against one another women oppressed and entire races wiped out (ie incas

it has done nothing to hinder the developement of humanity stoning those alive in most cases who dared to speak out against it

take catholicism and AIDS as another example



you do not need religion to be compassionate humanitarian and charitable before anyone comes out with all that sort of "but what about christian aid or the samaritans or sally army" crap

dont get me wrong i dont mind what beliefs people have ive more than enough christian friends

The Samaritans are not a religious organisation. They took their name from one of the parables in the Gospel because it represented what they do: Helping out total strangers regardless of their background.

Funnily enough Catholicism didn't invent AIDS, unless you believe some of the more outlandish conspiracy theories. There has been some conspiracy regarding Catholicism and AIDS after a coupe of Bishops (based in Africa) made unhelpful comments about safe sex. The Papacy is sticking by it's original edict: Don't use condoms because they are wrong, and if you're not married you shouldn't be having sex anyway!

)countries have been torn apart and pitted against one another women oppressed and entire races wiped out (ie incas

Oh yes, General Cortez and his religious oppression of the Incas that had nothing to do with the obscene amounts of gold they were supposed to have. That's probably the most ridiculous example of religious persecution I have seen in a debate like this. What else has religion caused? The deaths of millions of people? Wars are started because of power and wealth, not because of god. The Inquisition coincided with the rise of unprecedented levels of power for the upper levels of the heirarchy of the church giving them free reign to pry into the lives of everyone. However this was tyranny, not religion. The same levels of control has been used in tyrannical governments throughout history regardless of whether religion was involved. You named some horrors of religion, here's another horror: The Third Reich. Hitler was not religious and the persecution of the Jews was entirely racial, not religious or even cultural. Religion had no hand in that. The Tianemen Square massacre was not caused by religion. The gassing of Iraqi Kurds was not religious. How about the flipside:

Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa of Calcutta three religious people who tirelessly worked for the betterment of fellow humans, all of them religious. The most you can say is that religion doesn't affect the course of history. All the past wars and sufferings would still have happened, but they would have fought them and inflicted them under a different banner: The King, the country, national security... there is always an excuse.

[plattbridger]

lol i love it when people add or twist words in a post

[squealpiggy]

Exactly where have I done that?

[plattbridger]

i did not say catholicism was responsible for AIDs

i did not say the samaritans where part of the christain church

and just off the cuff examples of religious wars etc: kosovo israel northern ireland, expulsion of the jews from britain and most european countries, the pope turning a blind eye to the holocaust despite the fact he knew because catholic fathers where amongst the 1st of hitlers victims- and so on and so on

and yes the spanish went there for gold but everysingle empire was also built on the premise of speading the word of god etc etc, you didnt see many budhist, muslim, jewish, hindu or sikh empires though granted...


religion has always been used as a front and a means to an end

of course im not saying the world would have been a completely peaceful place without religion- your either being facetious or daft

[squealpiggy]

Kosovo was racial and cultural, as is Israel, Northern Ireland has more to do with allegiance to Britain or Ireland than a straight Protestant v Catholic conflict, expulsion of the jews is again racial and cultural, the pope did not turn a blind eye to genocide because it says to do so in the bible, that is just absurd...

Yes religion is a means to an end but it is never an end in itself, not for the instigators of oppression and conflict. Without religion the aggressors would find something else to encourage people to fight. Hence empire building. Try this scenario:

"You, go and risk your life in a far away land so that I can become even richer and command even more people!"

How about

"You, go and risk your life for God and you will be rewarded in the hereafter."

The second one is a more attractive option, because you always ask what is in it for yourself. It doesn't work so well in the West any more because people don't really believe in that. Now it is "Go and fight because if you don't then those people will bomb our cities and hijack our planes".

And as for catholicism and AIDS, I get sick of hearing "The Catholic Church said this, the Catholic Church did that". My family are Catholic. I don't believe in it any more but my family do. So they are part of the Catholic church... so what, did they say that condoms help spread AIDS? Did they burn old ladies in the Inquisition? No they didn't. Saying that the Catholics are helping to spread AIDS is like saying that the Americans are defrauding investors because of the Enron debaucle. It's absurd.

The bishop who said that condoms were helping to spread AIDS is one individual, not an entire belief system.

[eleanor]

Originally posted by plattbridger
i did not say catholicism was responsible for AIDs

i did not say the samaritans where part of the christain church
Then stop posting stuff that is so vague that it can be reasonably interpreted in any number of ways. "catholics and AIDS" isn't exactly clear.

[plattbridger]

Originally posted by plattbridger
religion is just an extension of mans arrogance that he thinks something he understands or creates, founds, forms or discoverys solves the puzzle

i.e. start of with a really primitive religion (pedants read "religion explains" for gods)

the gods make the rains fall
no. evapouration and weather fronts control rainfall
ah! the gods control the weather
no. the climate controls the weather
ah! the gods control the climate!
no. the climate is controlled by variations between the sun and earth- things like milankovic cyclicity
ah! the gods control the heavens and the planets!
no. the heavens and the planets are controlled by newtons gravitational constant amongst others
ah! the gods control....

and so on


you get to the point where science cannot come up with a reply that doesnt mean religion is truth it means man cannot know or understand anything there again maybe one day we will

if we were to travel to a planet where the religious population SOLIDLY believed that rainfall was governed by religion then how would they be different to our own religious beliefs that destiny etc is governed by something religious?


if what i am saying is wrong then history is a fraud because throughout it science has answered questions and pushed the boundaries of religion further and further away- just because there are still questions means nothing


lol hey i get the feeling ive been dragged off my point here so people can gang up on me and flame me! thats what i said and thats what i stickin with ;)

[Carly]

I want this thread locked.

[Dr-Electro]

I don't blame you, Carly. From time to time, a thread is started with genuinely benign purpose in mind. There is not one thing wrong with wnatign to discuss how science and religion can be reconciled. I for one agree with Carly's general concept as per her first post in this thread.

As moderator of Debates, I have made myself a pledge to avoid joining in any arguments that erupt in this forum. I feel a need to try to remain as neutral as possible, even if I weigh in with one opinion on the issue.

For me, I choose to believe as I choose to believe; right, wrong or indifferent. My faith is my comfort and my shield against the world as it exists today. The level of my own acceptance of that belief and faith is my own business, not anyone else's to try and sway me from by any means, fair or foul. I do not exist for the purpose of swaying any other person or persons' beliefs.

Having said that, I find it a tad on the childish side for arguments to erupt over as benign a concept as this one. Stop the acrimony before the arguments become flame wars. There is absolutely no need to resort to infighting or flaming simply because two or more of you are unable to reconcile the beliefs of others.

Agree to disagree, but do so peacefully. Debate does not necessarily mean a fight to the death. This thread can still continue to exist with its intended purpose intact. Please post your views and feel free to discuss them. Do not post in haste or anger because another person disagrees with your ideas or beliefs.

Castigating other people's religious beliefs is frowned upon in a tolerant society. I personally have posted in the past that the one thing that disturbs me most is intolerance. Let the other fellow be at peace with his/her own beliefs and you be at peace with your own. If the temperature of the posts in this thread do not cool down, I will honor the author's request and lock it.

To those of you who have been posting peaceful remarks and rebuttals, I commend you. Please continue in the same vein, not rising up in anger against those who choose to snap off angry-sounding posts. They are not necessarily angry at you personally, even if their posts sound a bit mad, so try to understand their views as well.

Good night and peace be with you all. I am watching and intend to keep the peace.