The Religion/Spirituality Thread

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

I find the new athiest vs religious fundie type debates to be very boring I'd just say to the two camps:

Militant Atheists - People can believe in evolution and everything scientifically that you do and STILL believe in God. Material science will never disprove God or even the idea of God.

Religious fundamentalist types - stop using God of the Gaps arguments, those are played out and become dated very quick.

[SoulMonster]

1 hour ago, Kasanova King said:

It's more of a  feeling that a "belief".    At the same time, I understand evolution, science and theory.   

On a side note, do you believe the origins of DNA were created spontaneously?

The very simplest, first replicators, were created through random self-assembly. Yes. But now we are likely talking about simplest forms of RNA molecules that can self-replicate.

[action]

1 hour ago, SoulMonster said:

The very simplest, first replicators, were created through random self-assembly. Yes. But now we are likely talking about simplest forms of RNA molecules that can self-replicate.

random self assembly? look at what you're saying. you believe in random self-assembly. What is that? things putting themselves together and becoming life? Not very likely.

why is random self assembly more probably than god? it's equally esotheric, but out of the two a creator seems like the least improbable.

if random self assembly was a thing, I would have never needed to assemble my ikea furniture anymore

Energy does not add, and energy does not go away. So how can things spring into existence, "ab nihilo"?

[Dazey]

13 minutes ago, action said:

Why is random self assembly more probably than god? it's equally esotheric, but out of the two a creator seems like the least improbable  

Not really since then you are just left with the question of where the creator came from. 

[action]

10 minutes ago, Dazey said:

Not really since then you are just left with the question of where the creator came from. 

pure logic (I know, our logical capabilities are limited as per definition, but it's the only thing we have so we'll just make do with it)

observation: there is a universe with life in it

explanation 1: abiogenesis (or whatever it is called) the universe and life, with all it's proven intricacies, all happened spontaneous, out of a vacuum (it must be a vacuum in this theory, or else you imply a creator)

or....

explanation 2: a creator made it all and fine tuned the universe in such a way, that life can emerge in it. 

If you look over all the scientific data, that is already gathered (extremely fine-tuned cosmic values; quantum inconsistencies and the observation of pixels and computer code on a fundamental level of matter), and you apply logic to it, then the more probably answer is a creator, rather than a vacuum

Edited June 24, 2019 by action

[janrichmond]

I'm an atheist. I don't go around promoting it and i have never tried to change anyones opinion on religion. I have friends that are christian who go to church regularly and we get along just fine. My best mate was raised muslim. Religion is something that my group of friends rarely discuss, it's a personal choice what you believe in and would not judge someone on their beliefs.

 

Everyone knows that Slash is the only god 

[Lio]

19 minutes ago, janrichmond said:

I'm an atheist. I don't go around promoting it and i have never tried to change anyones opinion on religion. I have friends that are christian who go to church regularly and we get along just fine. My best mate was raised muslim. Religion is something that my group of friends rarely discuss, it's a personal choice what you believe in and would not judge someone on their beliefs.

 

Everyone knows that Slash is the only god 

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I'm a christian myself, a catholic more specifically, and sometimes people will try to get in a debate or whatsoever. I don't feel the need at all to defend my beliefs or attack others' beliefs or lack thereof. It is a personal choice to me too, I don't harass others with it, and I don't want others to harass me about it.

Come to think about it, it's mostly people on the forum questioning it In everyday life, not so much. I don't really care what my friends and/or family believe in, as long as it's nothing too outrageous and they don't annoy me with it.

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

1 hour ago, Dazey said:

Not really since then you are just left with the question of where the creator came from. 

Belief in an all-powerful creator actually gets you out of the infinite regress paradox (there was a big bang, but what came before that, so on and so forth). You can't say who created God because God is all-powerful and not completely knowable to human beings. Now you can say that's a cop-out, but belief in an order to this whole universe which comes from an all-powerful being rather than just randomness seems more logical to me.

[action]

I believe in the intricate framework of the universe that, if programmed by humans it would require a computer the size of earth.

I believe in the way quantum particles can go back in time to mess with our experiments (proven in a scientific setting)

and I believe in the computer code that is found on the deepest elemental level.

in other words, I believe in God

Edited June 24, 2019 by action

[DieselDaisy]

1 hour ago, janrichmond said:

Everyone knows that Slash is the only god 

Even when he is reeking of urine after a heavy night on the turps?

[janrichmond]

6 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

Even when he is reeking of urine after a heavy night on the turps?

[SoulMonster]

10 hours ago, action said:

random self assembly? look at what you're saying. you believe in random self-assembly. What is that? things putting themselves together and becoming life? Not very likely.

Well, what you are describing is not likely at all. But I never said that things would spontaneously come together to create life.

10 hours ago, action said:

why is random self assembly more probably than god? it's equally esotheric, but out of the two a creator seems like the least improbable.

Because we know from organic chemistry that organic molecules, like nucleic acids and polypeptides, can spontaneously form under the right conditions. Whereas we have no reason to assume gods exist.

10 hours ago, action said:

if random self assembly was a thing, I would have never needed to assemble my ikea furniture anymore

Of course it is a thing, and you would have know this if you knew more about chemistry: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2014/cc/c4cc03688c#!divAbstract

And why would you think IKEA furniture could self-assemble?

10 hours ago, action said:

Energy does not add, and energy does not go away. So how can things spring into existence, "ab nihilo"?

There was plenty of energy available to drive these processes.

[SoulMonster]

10 hours ago, action said:

explanation 1: abiogenesis (or whatever it is called) the universe and life, with all it's proven intricacies, all happened spontaneous, out of a vacuum (it must be a vacuum in this theory, or else you imply a creator)

Life did not arise in a vacuum. You are conflating Big Bang with the evolution o life.

Life originated in a highly energy-rich early-Earth with plenty of pre-cursors for simple self-replicating organic molecules like catalytic nucleic acids and peptides. As soon as you had these first replicators evolution could work on them to slowly create more and more complex molecules and association of molecules that would, at some point, adhere to our definitions of what life is.

Edited June 25, 2019 by SoulMonster

[SoulMonster]

9 hours ago, janrichmond said:

it's a personal choice what you believe in and would not judge someone on their beliefs

It is a personal choice. But if your beliefs hurt others then I will certainly judge you based on that. Like if you hurt your children because you think your god would approve, or you refuse blood transfusion because you think your god is against it, or if you force women to not go outside alone without a male chaperone, and so on. We all have no problems with aspects of religion that are harmless, but we should all be opposed to those that aren't.

[SoulMonster]

8 hours ago, Basic_GnR_Fan said:

Now you can say that's a cop-out, but belief in an order to this whole universe which comes from an all-powerful being rather than just randomness seems more logical to me.

If you think life has come about as the result of a random process, then you don't understand evolution.

And yes, it is a cop-out.

[action]

1 hour ago, SoulMonster said:

Life did not arise in a vacuum. You are conflating Big Bang with the evolution o life.

Life originated in a highly energy-rich early-Earth with plenty of pre-cursors for simple self-replicating organic molecules like catalytic nucleic acids and peptides. As soon as you had these first replicators evolution could work on them to slowly create more and more complex molecules and association of molecules that would, at some point, adhere to our definitions of what life is.

this does not in any way violate the theory of a creator of the universe

No one is denying that life originated due to the processes you describe. We are in agreement on this.

what I'm saying (and what you fail to grasp) is that a creator has created the singularity, this infinitely small and dense point in a vacuum that contained all the information and energy needed to form our universe including life, from which the big bang could happen. The theory of a creator is in line with the latest scientific discoveries, of which I have already showed you three examples (and which you haven't adressed).

Your explanation of abiogenesis and what not, is an explanation of the universe after it was formed. Science can observe the universe as it is, discover the processes behind this, and it's all nice and dandy but ultimately is doesnt offer an explanation for the universe to begin with, nor does it make a creator unlikely.

The less science can explain how the universe could pop out of nowhere, the more likely a creator becomes.

I don't care if the bible, the quran and other books seem ridiculous. Those are just books. Take them for what they are. The books are not a topic of discussion, they are not the backing of my argument. Just because these books are ridiculous / incoherent does not change a single fact about scientific observations.

[SoulMonster]

19 minutes ago, action said:

this does not in any way violate the theory of a creator of the universe

No one is denying that life originated due to the processes you describe. We are in agreement on this.

what I'm saying (and what you fail to grasp) is that a creator has created the singularity, this infinitely small and dense point in a vacuum that contained all the information and energy needed to form our universe including life, from which the big bang could happen. The theory of a creator is in line with the latest scientific discoveries, of which I have already showed you three examples (and which you haven't adressed).

Your explanation of abiogenesis and what not, is an explanation of the universe after it was formed. Science can observe the universe as it is, discover the processes behind this, and it's all nice and dandy but ultimately is doesnt offer an explanation for the universe to begin with, nor does it make a creator unlikely.

The less science can explain how the universe could pop out of nowhere, the more likely a creator becomes.

I don't care if the bible, the quran and other books seem ridiculous. Those are just books. Take them for what they are. The books are not a topic of discussion, they are not the backing of my argument. Just because these books are ridiculous / incoherent does not change a single fact about scientific observations.

There is absolutely zero reason to believe that a supernatural agent created the singularity. There is no evidence supporting such a hypothesis. And therefore it is an irrational religious belief. 

Granted, we don't know how the singularity came to be, science can't give a good answer to that (yet), but this hole in our understanding doesn't make supernatural creatures plausible. It just means that we haven't had enough time to explore this, or that it is too distant in time for us, with the scientific tools available to us, to ever figure out. 

We humans have a history of jumping to supernatural conclusions when we are stumped on something. "Why does the sun rise every morning?" "Where does lightning come from?" "Where do insects come from?" We now have good, natural explanations on almost all of these things that were previously "explained" by "god". Maybe one day we can also understand the singularity and what came before BB, or maybe not

Edited June 25, 2019 by SoulMonster

[Len Cnut]

2 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

Life originated in a highly energy-rich early-Earth with plenty of pre-cursors for simple self-replicating organic molecules like catalytic nucleic acids and peptides. As soon as you had these first replicators evolution could work on them to slowly create more and more complex molecules and association of molecules that would, at some point, adhere to our definitions of what life is.

Y'know, you're a bad motherfucker Soulie   I meant that as a compliment, you make me feel like i dunno what I'm talking about sometimes.  Feel like is wrong actually, that should be realise.  I mean because I believe the same shit as you but I know like 99.9% less about it than you. 

[SoulMonster]

32 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

Y'know, you're a bad motherfucker Soulie   I meant that as a compliment, you make me feel like i dunno what I'm talking about sometimes.  Feel like is wrong actually, that should be realise.  I mean because I believe the same shit as you but I know like 99.9% less about it than you. 

Nice that my countless hours pouring over biochemistry books is coming to some use 

[Len Cnut]

18 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

Nice that my countless hours pouring over biochemistry books is coming to some use 

It leaves me in a weird position like, if I believe what I believe shouldn't I know the shit you're going on about?  But I don't.  Its a good case for keeping your mouth shut and your ears open.  I don't really have a decent basis for my atheism.

Edited June 25, 2019 by Len Cnut

[SoulMonster]

2 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

It leaves me in a weird position like, if I believe what I believe shouldn't I know the shit you're going on about?  But I don't.  Its a good case for keeping your mouth shut and your ears open.  I don't really have a decent basis for my atheism.

Nah, you don't need to know how life could have come about through entirely natural processes to reject the idea of god's existence. You just need to know that there are natural explanations and that there is no evidence for god. Or that god seems so made-up by humans. Or that all religions are seemingly flawed in various ways. Or that if this god has no affect on my life, why even bother to believe? And why should you need to have a decent basis for your atheism? Most people don't have a decent basis for them not believing in ghosts. Or at least not a more substantial basis. If you haven't experienced a ghost yourself then you discard the possibility offhand. Like with any other supernatural phenomena. Same with gods. If you haven't had any personal meetings with god, then you reject it. And it doesn't matter if you are in the minority and the majority disagrees, because, from history, we know people have a tendency to believe in stupid shit yet time and time again they are demonstrated to be wrong. At some point we might be looking back at our time of believing in gods and wonder why we didn't discard this particular superstition earlier. And the reasons why it is so durable are likely because, in contrast to say ghosts, beliefs in gods can have personal benefits (security, hope, belonging) and that this superstition is enforced through strong social control and traditions. 

[EvanG]

21 hours ago, Oldest Goat said:

In fact I like you, Mikey, Gracii, Lio, Basic, action(think that's all the Catholics on here I've interacted with?).

Hey man, I'm a catholic! Well, not really, although I guess officially I am still registered at the catholic church. Oh my. But I believe what I want to believe without putting a label on it, and I definitely don't want to join some man made concept like a religion and follow traditions and rules that have nothing to do with ''god'' in the first place.

But out of curiosity, do you think there is nothing at all out there, or are you like me, open to the idea that there might be ''something'' without having any answers and being fine with that?

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

7 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

If you think life has come about as the result of a random process, then you don't understand evolution.

And yes, it is a cop-out.

There's probably nothing scientifically that you adhere to that I don't, and yet I still believe in God. Science is just a material human explanation for what God has done.

[Len Cnut]

19 minutes ago, Basic_GnR_Fan said:

There's probably nothing scientifically that you adhere to that I don't, and yet I still believe in God. Science is just a material human explanation for what God has done.

Get outta that one Soulie

[SoulMonster]

25 minutes ago, Basic_GnR_Fan said:

There's probably nothing scientifically that you adhere to that I don't, and yet I still believe in God. 

And that supernatural belief is founded on nothing at all. No supporting evidence. Nothing. Just hope.