Anyone can troll a website, but it takes talent to troll a whole town

• OSH

  

  I Wear Pants;1149776 wrote:So how about people who have never heard of the Christian god? How about them?
  
  Or what about people who grow up Muslim and are indoctrinated to believe in the Muslim faith? How is that any different then the Christian equivalent?
  
  A just god would not punish people for not "knowing" him when there's not any good evidence for his existence other than one ancient book who's validity is not without question.

  Those that have never heard of the Christian God are no different than the babies that die. They don't reject God. Just like those before Jesus who were Jewish. They aren't "left behind" (for lack of better terminology, even though I hate using those terms). God is fair, right, and just.
  
  Muslim's are different, in my opinion. They are given the Bible. They are able to make decisions. They are able to see the Christian God and the Muslim God (Allah). To me, there is a clear distinction from what I've read in the Bible and what I know of the Koran -- especially in the talks of Jesus fulfilling the prophecies. The Muslim faith completely contradicts the Old and New Testaments in multiple ways, especially concerning Jesus. To me, there HAS to be some assessing of beliefs going on with the Muslim faith using the Bible and the Koran.
  
  I really don't understand how the two books can go together. Just like I cannot understand how Mormons can use the Book of Mormon in conjunction with the OT and NT. I don't put a lot of weight into "indoctrination" since people have the ability to make decisions on their own.
  
  EDIT:
  I need to add that the Holy Spirit does play a HUGE role in those who have not heard of Jesus. We have a conscious that plays a role in this right/wrong choice. I have complete faith that there is more to it than just "our" consciousness. No matter what sort of "faith" someone may grow up in, around, or without, there's always a conscious that weighs in on decisions. It could be a completely different area and people still make "right" decisions that are "wrong" in the eyes of that people group. I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit plays a role in the holiness of the world.
• I Wear Pants

  OSH;1149780 wrote:Those that have never heard of the Christian God are no different than the babies that die. They don't reject God. Just like those before Jesus who were Jewish. They aren't "left behind" (for lack of better terminology, even though I hate using those terms). God is fair, right, and just.
  
  Muslim's are different, in my opinion. They are given the Bible. They are able to make decisions. They are able to see the Christian God and the Muslim God (Allah). To me, there is a clear distinction from what I've read in the Bible and what I know of the Koran -- especially in the talks of Jesus fulfilling the prophecies. The Muslim faith completely contradicts the Old and New Testaments in multiple ways, especially concerning Jesus. To me, there HAS to be some assessing of beliefs going on with the Muslim faith using the Bible and the Koran.
  
  I really don't understand how the two books can go together. Just like I cannot understand how Mormons can use the Book of Mormon in conjunction with the OT and NT. I don't put a lot of weight into "indoctrination" since people have the ability to make decisions on their own.

  So you don't believe in psychology? Because indoctrination of children with ideas and telling them they will be punished if they don't believe a certain way is a very powerful thing.
  
  A just god would not punish a good person at all no matter if they believed in a deity, whether it be that particular god or another, or not. Actions are important.
  
  Otherwise you're saying god is an egomaniac, which is accurate of the Christian god.
• OSH

  

  I Wear Pants;1149781 wrote:So you don't believe in psychology? Because indoctrination of children with ideas and telling them they will be punished if they don't believe a certain way is a very powerful thing.
  
  A just god would not punish a good person at all no matter if they believed in a deity, whether it be that particular god or another, or not. Actions are important.
  
  Otherwise you're saying god is an egomaniac, which is accurate of the Christian god.

  I know "indoctrination" happens as kids. But that doesn't mean things can't change later. "Ignorance" happens and I do believe God "forgives" ignorance. Ignorance isn't a "sin." It's simply not knowing. Ignorance isn't blatantly rejecting God.
  
  A just God would not allow someone to spend eternity with Him (wherever that may be and whatever that may look like) when that person would rather spend eternity with another deity. Why would God keep someone with Him if he/she didn't want to be with Him? Actions are important...but in the end, we all fall short of the glory of God.
  
  When humans are egomaniacs, they rob others of joy and are not blessings. When God shares joys and blessings, they are shared with everyone and everything. If God is perfection, is there anything else He can be? He cannot be less...and nothing can be more. He cannot look beyond himself for anything greater and nothing can be greater than Him. God's glory is made known so we can receive atonement for sins -- a joy and a blessing. When someone else makes their glory known (let's use Jon Jones here... ) people get turned off by him, he is not a joy or a blessing. But God's glory is for us. Human glory is for their own advancement.
• I Wear Pants

  OSH;1149791 wrote:I know "indoctrination" happens as kids. But that doesn't mean things can't change later. "Ignorance" happens and I do believe God "forgives" ignorance. Ignorance isn't a "sin." It's simply not knowing. Ignorance isn't blatantly rejecting God.
  
  A just God would not allow someone to spend eternity with Him (wherever that may be and whatever that may look like) when that person would rather spend eternity with another deity. Why would God keep someone with Him if he/she didn't want to be with Him? Actions are important...but in the end, we all fall short of the glory of God.
  
  When humans are egomaniacs, they rob others of joy and are not blessings. When God shares joys and blessings, they are shared with everyone and everything. If God is perfection, is there anything else He can be? He cannot be less...and nothing can be more. He cannot look beyond himself for anything greater and nothing can be greater than Him. God's glory is made known so we can receive atonement for sins -- a joy and a blessing. When someone else makes their glory known (let's use Jon Jones here... ) people get turned off by him, he is not a joy or a blessing. But God's glory is for us. Human glory is for their own advancement.

  Would rather has nothing to do with it. You do not control what you believe. You couldn't anymore believe in Santa Clause (genuinely) again than I could god anymore (without evidence for believing). It's not that I would rather not spend eternity being pals with a god (in this case the Christian god), it's just I don't think that's a possibility.
  
  And that last part was entirely babble. Seriously, what the fuck did you just say that was useful for us discussing this?
• OSH

  

  I Wear Pants;1149793 wrote:Would rather has nothing to do with it. You do not control what you believe. You couldn't anymore believe in Santa Clause (genuinely) again than I could god anymore (without evidence for believing). It's not that I would rather not spend eternity being pals with a god (in this case the Christian god), it's just I don't think that's a possibility.
  
  And that last part was entirely babble. Seriously, what the **** did you just say that was useful for us discussing this?

  You cannot control what you believe? Really? So we are all just pawns on earth then? We are born, live for a few years, and then we die. That's all there is to life. Somehow, the earth was created 4.52 billion years ago to just exist. All of a sudden, we have living, breathing, talking, thinking, eating, etc. beings that cannot believe what they want. I can choose what I want to do with my life, what I say, what I eat, what I do, but I cannot choose who I believe in.
  
  The last part was all about your statement about the Christian God being an egomaniac. Read it in terms of that and you may understand. If not...go to bed. That's what I am doing. I'll reconvene tomorrow at some point whenever I can get moving and get things done before the wife comes home.
• I Wear Pants

  OSH;1149795 wrote:You cannot control what you believe? Really? So we are all just pawns on earth then? We are born and die. That's all there is to life. Somehow, the earth was created 4.52 billion years ago to just exist. All of a sudden, we have living, breathing, talking, thinking, eating, etc. beings that cannot believe what they want. I can choose what I want to do with my life, what I say, what I eat, what I do, but I cannot choose who I believe in.
  
  The last part was all about your statement about the Christian God being an egomaniac. Read it in terms of that and you may understand. If not...go to bed. That's what I am doing. I'll reconvene tomorrow at some point whenever I can get moving and get things done before the wife comes home.

  Could you believe in Santa Clause? The answer is no. Even if someone held a gun to your head and told you to believe in Santa or you'd be killed or they'd kill your family or whatever you still wouldn't be able to believe in Santa. Of course you'd say you did to try to save yourself/family but it'd be a lie.
  
  What we believe in that regard is not up to us. You and I both would need a lot of evidence to even begin to believe that Santa actually existed.
  
  And no we aren't pawns on earth since there is no great game or deity or anything controlling us. But we are born and die. That's it. There is no "point" to life, it just is. And earth wasn't just "somehow" created, we have some pretty good theories on how that happened. And then evolution explains how life came about. Intelligent life, for the genesis of life I talked earlier about the probability in regards to how massive the universe is.

  It has been estimated that there are between 1 billion and
  30 billion planets in our galaxy, and about 100 billion galaxies in
  the universe. Knocking a few noughts off for reasons of ordinary
  prudence, a billion billion is a conservative estimate of the number
  of available planets in the universe. Now, suppose the origin of life,the spontaneous arising of something equivalent to DNA, really
  was a quite staggeringly improbable event. Suppose it was so
  improbable as to occur on only one in a billion planets. A grantgiving
  body would laugh at any chemist who admitted that the
  chance of his proposed research succeeding was only one in a
  hundred. But here we are talking about odds of one in a billion.
  And yet . . . even with such absurdly long odds, life will still have
  arisen on a billion planets

  
  
  That's from Dawkins and it's an excellent point. The odds there are purely speculative obviously but it shows that even if the odds of something like DNA or RNA or some of the other current ideas of how the building blocks of life initially began was an exceedingly rare event. Monumentally rare, vastly more rare than winning the lottery or anything like that. There would still be a bunch of planets that would do so. Now you have to narrow that number down to the number of planets within the "Goldilocks zones" for various things like distance from stars, planet size, etc. But you should get the point that when you're playing with numbers the size of the universe even really rare events will happen. Earth is obviously one of those planets because we're here.
  
  As for evolution, that's probably the simplest explanation out of those things. We didn't "all of a sudden, we have living, breathing, talking thinking, eating, etc beings". Very slow, very gradual changes happened over millions, hundreds of millions of years. We can see evidence of these changes. We can and have observed both micro and macro evolution. It happens. Fact. So this is a beautifully simple and elegant answer to the question of how did life become so complex.
  
  " I can choose what I want to do with my life, what I say, what I eat, what I do, but I cannot choose who I believe in."
  
  That's what I said as well. You can't choose what you actually believe. I can't choose to believe in the Christian god right now because I don't believe in it. It's not a choice I can make but rather something that I find/don't find to be true. We can't choose that anymore than we can choose to disbelieve in gravity. We can gain new insight and learn new things which can change our beliefs but we can't just choose to change them.
  
  As for:
  "I need to add that the Holy Spirit does play a HUGE role in those who have not heard of Jesus. We have a conscious that plays a role in this right/wrong choice. I have complete faith that there is more to it than just "our" consciousness. No matter what sort of "faith" someone may grow up in, around, or without, there's always a conscious that weighs in on decisions. It could be a completely different area and people still make "right" decisions that are "wrong" in the eyes of that people group. I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit plays a role in the holiness of the world. "
  
  Here you're making the mistake of assuming that what we consider moral behavior is something unique to the Christian faith and stemming from it. But it can likely be explained by Darwinian processes (and again, I'm not an anthropologist or biologist so please don't try to find some tiny inadequacy in the science of my laymans explanation and say it debunks the whole thing). We have over time found that we're better off not fucking killing and raping each other, etc left and right. It doesn't benefit the species.
• Skyhook79

  

  I Wear Pants;1149801 wrote:Could you believe in Santa Clause? The answer is no. Even if someone held a gun to your head and told you to believe in Santa or you'd be killed or they'd kill your family or whatever you still wouldn't be able to believe in Santa. Of course you'd say you did to try to save yourself/family but it'd be a lie.
  
  What we believe in that regard is not up to us. You and I both would need a lot of evidence to even begin to believe that Santa actually existed.
  
  And no we aren't pawns on earth since there is no great game or deity or anything controlling us. But we are born and die. That's it. There is no "point" to life, it just is. And earth wasn't just "somehow" created, we have some pretty good theories on how that happened. And then evolution explains how life came about. Intelligent life, for the genesis of life I talked earlier about the probability in regards to how massive the universe is.
  
  That's from Dawkins and it's an excellent point. The odds there are purely speculative obviously but it shows that even if the odds of something like DNA or RNA or some of the other current ideas of how the building blocks of life initially began was an exceedingly rare event. Monumentally rare, vastly more rare than winning the lottery or anything like that. There would still be a bunch of planets that would do so. Now you have to narrow that number down to the number of planets within the "Goldilocks zones" for various things like distance from stars, planet size, etc. But you should get the point that when you're playing with numbers the size of the universe even really rare events will happen. Earth is obviously one of those planets because we're here.
  
  As for evolution, that's probably the simplest explanation out of those things. We didn't "all of a sudden, we have living, breathing, talking thinking, eating, etc beings". Very slow, very gradual changes happened over millions, hundreds of millions of years. We can see evidence of these changes. We can and have observed both micro and macro evolution. It happens. Fact. So this is a beautifully simple and elegant answer to the question of how did life become so complex.
  
  " I can choose what I want to do with my life, what I say, what I eat, what I do, but I cannot choose who I believe in."
  
  That's what I said as well. You can't choose what you actually believe. I can't choose to believe in the Christian god right now because I don't believe in it. It's not a choice I can make but rather something that I find/don't find to be true. We can't choose that anymore than we can choose to disbelieve in gravity. We can gain new insight and learn new things which can change our beliefs but we can't just choose to change them.
  
  As for:
  "I need to add that the Holy Spirit does play a HUGE role in those who have not heard of Jesus. We have a conscious that plays a role in this right/wrong choice. I have complete faith that there is more to it than just "our" consciousness. No matter what sort of "faith" someone may grow up in, around, or without, there's always a conscious that weighs in on decisions. It could be a completely different area and people still make "right" decisions that are "wrong" in the eyes of that people group. I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit plays a role in the holiness of the world. "
  
  Here you're making the mistake of assuming that what we consider moral behavior is something unique to the Christian faith and stemming from it. But it can likely be explained by Darwinian processes (and again, I'm not an anthropologist or biologist so please don't try to find some tiny inadequacy in the science of my laymans explanation and say it debunks the whole thing). We have over time found that we're better off not fucking killing and raping each other, etc left and right. It doesn't benefit the species.

  That is called making a choice. You are choosing to not believe right now. How can you say you don't have a choice? I honestly hope you keep researching this subject because I know in the end you will come to the same place that CS Lewis and many others have.
• Skyhook79

  

  sleeper;1149736 wrote:God is responsible for all the good, atheists are the responsible for all the bad.
  
  That is what they are teaching in churches now. Let's just call religion what it is, a cult. It's a cult; there's no way around it.

  You don't go to Church, how do you know what they are teaching? I would also ask for a link to a sermon that says atheists are responsible for all the bad on the earth but I know you don't have one.
• Skyhook79

  

  enigmaax;1149664 wrote:This makes god sound like a butt hurt egomaniac.

  OSH;1149668 wrote:I thought the same thing. I hope I never hear a whiny little rant like that.

  That obviously was a hypothetical conversation ,that I took from an e-mail I received, but I am curious as to what you two think the conversation between God and a non-believer or believer on Judgement day will sound like based on what God has revealed from the Bible on this matter?
• Con_Alma

  DeyDurkie5;1149702 wrote:You didn't capatalize he, you are ****ed con alma. You owe two hail mary's and buttsex with the wife. that is the only way to save you after this horrendous error.
  
  
  
  ...

  I am not perfect, just forgiven.
• Con_Alma

  sleeper;1149564 wrote:Sorry Con_Alma, but I believe both of these statements are cop outs. You are creating rules to prevent God from having to answer to the irrationality and conflicting ideals of your beliefs. This is unfair and dishonest way to discuss something when the rules will always be changed and part of the frustration shared by many of my atheistic brethren.

  I any not creating any rules. I am telling you if it is logic you wish to use, you might consider following the rules of logic.
  
  If you want to use logic you might follow Russell's rule of incompleteness. If you don't you aren't being logical. I have already claimed that it is not logic that determines my belief. Are you not using logic now either?
• OSH

  

  I Wear Pants;1149801 wrote:Could you believe in Santa Clause? The answer is no. Even if someone held a gun to your head and told you to believe in Santa or you'd be killed or they'd kill your family or whatever you still wouldn't be able to believe in Santa. Of course you'd say you did to try to save yourself/family but it'd be a lie.
  
  What we believe in that regard is not up to us. You and I both would need a lot of evidence to even begin to believe that Santa actually existed.

  How is it not up to us? We can believe what we want. Look at all the different cults out there, there is a lot of "stuff" out there to believe in and people do it. There are people that die for those beliefs...even if they make no sense whatsoever -- i.e., Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses.
  
  How is that choice to believe or not believe in Santa Claus real? You still have the choice to believe. Kids do. But then they find out there is absolutely NO evidence for Santa Claus...and they don't believe. Whereas, there are millions of Christians who continue to believe because they believe the evidence is there -- whatever the evidence to them is and looks like.
  

  I Wear Pants;1149801 wrote:And no we aren't pawns on earth since there is no great game or deity or anything controlling us. But we are born and die. That's it. There is no "point" to life, it just is. And earth wasn't just "somehow" created, we have some pretty good theories on how that happened. And then evolution explains how life came about. Intelligent life, for the genesis of life I talked earlier about the probability in regards to how massive the universe is.

  There's no point to life? That's minimalizing this somehow improbable creation of the earth. Evolution doesn't explain how life came about. This macroevolultion from primordial ooze is a weak explanation. Those theories have really no basis on much. There's really no evidence for it.
  
  Again, I do not believe science will come close to figuring out how life came about OR how the earth was created. There's no on out there that can verify OR deny these scientific theories. So they can continue to theorize and be completely in outer space.
  

  I Wear Pants;1149801 wrote:As for evolution, that's probably the simplest explanation out of those things. We didn't "all of a sudden, we have living, breathing, talking thinking, eating, etc beings". Very slow, very gradual changes happened over millions, hundreds of millions of years. We can see evidence of these changes. We can and have observed both micro and macro evolution. It happens. Fact. So this is a beautifully simple and elegant answer to the question of how did life become so complex.

  These gradual changes probably have happened. But we have no examples of macro evolution. There are no examples of a vertical movement in species or creatures. There is micro evolution occurring daily, probably...I do agree.
  
  Meanwhile while these "very slow, very gradual changes" were happening, this primordial ooze created millions of different creatures and species just because this ooze evolved and developed. Highly doubtful. And, in my opinion, this is about as far-fetched as anything else is. I do not believe there was this ooze that could all of a sudden create humans (or monkeys first), dogs, cats, cows, dinosaurs, mosquitoes, ticks, birds, sharks, fish, etc.
  
  This "beautifully simple and elegant" but complex life has no meaning...it seems all too "beautiful, simple, elegant, and complex" to have NO meaning.
  

  I Wear Pants;1149801 wrote:That's what I said as well. You can't choose what you actually believe. I can't choose to believe in the Christian god right now because I don't believe in it. It's not a choice I can make but rather something that I find/don't find to be true. We can't choose that anymore than we can choose to disbelieve in gravity. We can gain new insight and learn new things which can change our beliefs but we can't just choose to change them.

  I just simply do not agree you cannot choose to believe in something.
  
  At one time, I did not believe in God. That was a choice, mainly because I had not heard -- ignorance. I never rejected or anything, I just had no idea. I gained new insight and learned things that changed my heart, mind, and soul. I chose to believe in God.
  

  I Wear Pants;1149801 wrote:Here you're making the mistake of assuming that what we consider moral behavior is something unique to the Christian faith and stemming from it. But it can likely be explained by Darwinian processes (and again, I'm not an anthropologist or biologist so please don't try to find some tiny inadequacy in the science of my laymans explanation and say it debunks the whole thing). We have over time found that we're better off not ****ing killing and raping each other, etc left and right. It doesn't benefit the species.

  Not at all. I believe anyone can be moral and have moral behavior. But that doesn't mean I don't believe the Holy Spirit acts on anyone and everyone -- which does happen, in my opinion. I think there is morality, in all people groups and doesn't necessarily have to be "Christian." I have no problems with that. But I do believe the Holy Spirit is alive and involved in many thought processes/actions.
  

  Skyhook79;1149822 wrote:That obviously was a hypothetical conversation ,that I took from an e-mail I received, but I am curious as to what you two think the conversation between God and a non-believer or believer on Judgement day will sound like based on what God has revealed from the Bible on this matter?

  I figured it was a hypothetical conversation...and one that I really hope doesn't happen. It just sounded like a whiny little kid basically saying, "I'm taking my ball and I'm going home." I don't know what the conversation will look like, I hope I don't have to hear THAT side of the conversation.
• DeyDurkie5

  

  Con_Alma;1149553 wrote:He does want you to follow Him, but if he made you, you wouldn't be following him for good purpose but rather because you were being forced to. He wants you to follow him out of love.
  
  Clearly there hasn't been a response or you would believe. If it were a response that's required for your belief then it wouldn't take much faith at all would it?

  Skyhook79;1149822 wrote:That obviously was a hypothetical conversation ,that I took from an e-mail I received, but I am curious as to what you two think the conversation between God and a non-believer or believer on Judgement day will sound like based on what God has revealed from the Bible on this matter?

  Person 1: what's up ngga?
  God: Not much homie
  Person 1: So, I just died and I never believed in your bullshit. I'm sorry for that
  God: It's okay man, I like to fuck with people. Technically you guys are right though, as I don't "exist" in the real world, only when you die.
  Person 1: OH SNAP
  God: but anyways, here's some Kush and a bitch. enjoy my heaven ngga.
  Person 1: thanks god!..oh yeah, god..is skyhook and cats gone wild up here?
  God: No, son. Those two were huge ****. We sent them to hell to get butt raped.
  Person 1: i love you, god
• OSH

  

  I will say, I do enjoy this:
  
  [video=youtubet2gHpqfZNA][/video]
• pmoney25

  

  Iwp- Do you believe in absolute morality or do you believe society/cultures create morals? How would you say absolute morality exists witbout God. Dont confuse that with me saying people cannot act moral while not believing in God, cause they can.. But if you dont bieve then why believe in morality when it is all relative to society at the time?
  
  Quick disclosure, I dont believe christianity created nor holds morals exclusive. Just curious what you think.
• I Wear Pants

  pmoney25;1149872 wrote:Iwp- Do you believe in absolute morality or do you believe society/cultures create morals? How would you say absolute morality exists witbout God. Dont confuse that with me saying people cannot act moral while not believing in God, cause they can.. But if you dont bieve then why believe in morality when it is all relative to society at the time?
  
  Quick disclosure, I dont believe christianity created nor holds morals exclusive. Just curious what you think.

  That's an interesting question and one I thought about a lot when I was reading a bunch of philosophy texts for a class a few semesters ago.
  
  I think it depends on what exactly we consider morals. If it's things like swearing, being rude by interrupting someone in conversation, or other things along those lines then yes I think society/cultures define what is moral behavior.
  
  But things like not murdering people, not raping people, etc I think are more universal truths. I don't ever recall being told not to murder someone when I was a kid and I always found this reprehensible (could be because of societal influence there of course). I think perhaps the reason that universally (essentially, of course there are some that don't) understand that something like killing is wrong and have the feelings we do could be an evolutionary thing. Killing other people doesn't help our group's chances or ours (especially since people usually defend themselves) of reproducing. I have no idea if there have been studies to determine if there is a neurological/genetic reason that we all have the same universal morals for the most part (again, most people).
  
  A difficult question and one that I think would better be suited discussing over a beer/brandy with a cigar or pipe rather than on a message board. I find it difficult to accurately represent my thoughts on philosophy in text sometimes.
  
  And even if I thought it was all relative to society that doesn't mean I couldn't hold one society above the others. Because even if it's relative I find societies who's morals are set up to achieve the lowest amount of suffering to be better than those which promote for example slavery which creates an incredible amount of suffering.
• I Wear Pants

  OSH;1149850 wrote: How is that choice to believe or not believe in Santa Claus real? You still have the choice to believe. Kids do. But then they find out there is absolutely NO evidence for Santa Claus...and they don't believe. Whereas, there are millions of Christians who continue to believe because they believe the evidence is there -- whatever the evidence to them is and looks like.

  Okay right now for the sake of our discussion I want you to choose to believe in Santa Claus, disbelieve in the Christian god, and believe in the Greek gods like Zeus. Genuinely do that. You won't be able to. Or I want you to disbelieve that fire is hot and place your hand into it without fear of being burnt. You won't be able to. Beliefs in the sense that they are things we build from our experiences and evidence we've seen can't simply be changed because we want to change them. You didn't believe in god at one time because the evidence you had/hadn't seen suggested to you that god did not exist. Apparently you've seen evidence or heard arguments which changed your mind (of course I'd disagree with those evidences and arguments but that's not really the point here). Now that you believe in god you can't just choose to not believe, this instance, without having some evidence or argument to change your mind.
  
  Kids don't choose to believe in Santa, they believe because we tell them it's the truth and they trust us and they see evidence of Santa (presents laid out "from Santa", milk and cookies eaten just like we tell them happens, etc). Once they see behind the curtain and realize it was all a rouse they don't believe in Santa and it would take a phenomenal amount of evidence to rekindle that belief.
  
  
  

  There's no point to life? That's minimalizing this somehow improbable creation of the earth. Evolution doesn't explain how life came about. This macroevolultion from primordial ooze is a weak explanation. Those theories have really no basis on much. There's really no evidence for it.
  
  Again, I do not believe science will come close to figuring out how life came about OR how the earth was created. There's no on out there that can verify OR deny these scientific theories. So they can continue to theorize and be completely in outer space.
  
  These gradual changes probably have happened. But we have no examples of macro evolution. There are no examples of a vertical movement in species or creatures. There is micro evolution occurring daily, probably...I do agree.
  
  Meanwhile while these "very slow, very gradual changes" were happening, this primordial ooze created millions of different creatures and species just because this ooze evolved and developed. Highly doubtful. And, in my opinion, this is about as far-fetched as anything else is. I do not believe there was this ooze that could all of a sudden create humans (or monkeys first), dogs, cats, cows, dinosaurs, mosquitoes, ticks, birds, sharks, fish, etc.

  I don't think you have a very good understanding of what the current theories in regard to this are. It's obvious since you keep saying "all of a sudden create humans".
  
  And there is evidence of macro evolution, it's just that people like you don't accept them since you employ the gap tactic instead wherein you expect us to have a fossil record of every single change in a species and if there is even one gap you dismiss it.
• tcarrier32

  

  I Wear Pants;1149989 wrote:Okay right now for the sake of our discussion I want you to choose to believe in Santa Claus, disbelieve in the Christian god, and believe in the Greek gods like Zeus. Genuinely do that. You won't be able to. Or I want you to disbelieve that fire is hot and place your hand into it without fear of being burnt. You won't be able to. Beliefs in the sense that they are things we build from our experiences and evidence we've seen can't simply be changed because we want to change them. You didn't believe in god at one time because the evidence you had/hadn't seen suggested to you that god did not exist. Apparently you've seen evidence or heard arguments which changed your mind (of course I'd disagree with those evidences and arguments but that's not really the point here). Now that you believe in god you can't just choose to not believe, this instance, without having some evidence or argument to change your mind.
  
  Kids don't choose to believe in Santa, they believe because we tell them it's the truth and they trust us and they see evidence of Santa (presents laid out "from Santa", milk and cookies eaten just like we tell them happens, etc). Once they see behind the curtain and realize it was all a rouse they don't believe in Santa and it would take a phenomenal amount of evidence to rekindle that belief.
  
  
  
  
  I don't think you have a very good understanding of what the current theories in regard to this are. It's obvious since you keep saying "all of a sudden create humans".
  
  And there is evidence of macro evolution, it's just that people like you don't accept them since you employ the gap tactic instead wherein you expect us to have a fossil record of every single change in a species and if there is even one gap you dismiss it.

  let us not forget that micro and macro evolution are not considered to be separate concepts, less you disagree with evolution. (like NASA apparently)
  
  i've posted it before but i'll leave it here again.
  

  The attempt to differentiate qualitatively between microevolution and macroevolution is considered to have no scientific basis by any mainstream scientific organization, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

  The AAAS publishes the academic journal Science. But i'm sure its just a conspiracy, right jmog?
• vball10set

  SportsAndLady;1148284 wrote:How in the hell is this thread 500 posts deep?

  800+ and still going strong--fucking crazy :rolleyes:
• majorspark

  

  I Wear Pants;1149793 wrote:Would rather has nothing to do with it. You do not control what you believe. You couldn't anymore believe in Santa Clause (genuinely) again than I could god anymore (without evidence for believing). It's not that I would rather not spend eternity being pals with a god (in this case the Christian god), it's just I don't think that's a possibility.

  There is no evidence of Santa Clause in creation.
  
  Romans 1:20, "for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood the the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse."
  
  The God of the Bible says he is a triune God. And that evidence of the Godhead can be clearly seen in creation.
  
  Here are some:
  
  Solids, Liquid, Gas
  Land, Sea, Air
  Animal Kingdom, Plant Kingdom, Mineral Kingdom
  Protons, Neutrons, Electrons
  Time - Past, Present, Future
  Three Primary Colors
  
  Water is a substance essential to the existence of life. Astronomers search for its existence outside of our own planet as evidence of life. Water takes three forms; solid, liquid, gas, and yet in each form is equally water. Water's chemical formula is H2O. 1 Oxygen molecule + 2 Hydrogen atoms. 1+2=3
• I Wear Pants

  None of those things are evidence for the Christian god.
• I Wear Pants

  tcarrier32;1150025 wrote:let us not forget that micro and macro evolution are not considered to be separate concepts, less you disagree with evolution. (like NASA apparently)
  
  i've posted it before but i'll leave it here again.
  
  
  
  The AAAS publishes the academic journal Science. But i'm sure its just a conspiracy, right jmog?

  This is an excellent point. Macro evolution is really just micro evolution given more time.
• OSH

  

  I Wear Pants;1149974 wrote:That's an interesting question and one I thought about a lot when I was reading a bunch of philosophy texts for a class a few semesters ago.
  
  I think it depends on what exactly we consider morals. If it's things like swearing, being rude by interrupting someone in conversation, or other things along those lines then yes I think society/cultures define what is moral behavior.
  
  But things like not murdering people, not raping people, etc I think are more universal truths. I don't ever recall being told not to murder someone when I was a kid and I always found this reprehensible (could be because of societal influence there of course). I think perhaps the reason that universally (essentially, of course there are some that don't) understand that something like killing is wrong and have the feelings we do could be an evolutionary thing. Killing other people doesn't help our group's chances or ours (especially since people usually defend themselves) of reproducing. I have no idea if there have been studies to determine if there is a neurological/genetic reason that we all have the same universal morals for the most part (again, most people).
  
  A difficult question and one that I think would better be suited discussing over a beer/brandy with a cigar or pipe rather than on a message board. I find it difficult to accurately represent my thoughts on philosophy in text sometimes.
  
  And even if I thought it was all relative to society that doesn't mean I couldn't hold one society above the others. Because even if it's relative I find societies who's morals are set up to achieve the lowest amount of suffering to be better than those which promote for example slavery which creates an incredible amount of suffering.

  I agree wholeheartedly. Although, I will drink a water, lemonade, or cranberry...
  
  I usually do not talk these sort of topics on a message board, but since you (and a couple others) can carry on a conversation/dialogue, it was worth staying around because it is fun. It's educational. And thanks to the "Ignore User" feature, I can enjoy this discussion.
  

  I Wear Pants;1149989 wrote:Okay right now for the sake of our discussion I want you to choose to believe in Santa Claus, disbelieve in the Christian god, and believe in the Greek gods like Zeus. Genuinely do that. You won't be able to. Or I want you to disbelieve that fire is hot and place your hand into it without fear of being burnt. You won't be able to. Beliefs in the sense that they are things we build from our experiences and evidence we've seen can't simply be changed because we want to change them. You didn't believe in god at one time because the evidence you had/hadn't seen suggested to you that god did not exist. Apparently you've seen evidence or heard arguments which changed your mind (of course I'd disagree with those evidences and arguments but that's not really the point here). Now that you believe in god you can't just choose to not believe, this instance, without having some evidence or argument to change your mind.
  
  Kids don't choose to believe in Santa, they believe because we tell them it's the truth and they trust us and they see evidence of Santa (presents laid out "from Santa", milk and cookies eaten just like we tell them happens, etc). Once they see behind the curtain and realize it was all a rouse they don't believe in Santa and it would take a phenomenal amount of evidence to rekindle that belief.

  People believe in all sorts of things. People change their minds all the time. I don't understand how you cannot control what you believe in. It's a choice.
  
  People choose to believe in Muhammad's sayings. People choose to believe in what Joseph Smith envisioned. People come out of those faiths and choose to believe in other things as well. Why couldn't I choose not to believe...if there were more evidence on the contrary?
  

  I Wear Pants;1149989 wrote:I don't think you have a very good understanding of what the current theories in regard to this are. It's obvious since you keep saying "all of a sudden create humans".
  
  And there is evidence of macro evolution, it's just that people like you don't accept them since you employ the gap tactic instead wherein you expect us to have a fossil record of every single change in a species and if there is even one gap you dismiss it.

  You have no idea what I believe in terms of this "gap tactic." I have said all along, I don't care for dating the earth. I don't care what science has to say in terms of how this world came to fruition...because it'll just change next week, month, year, or whenever. There'll be a new "flavor of the week" in terms of scientific discovery. Everyone will point to it as "fact" until MORE facts come out. But, there's no "proof" of humans evolving from ANYTHING. There's really not much fossil "proof" of any other transition in a species (especially to another "species").
  
  It is highly unlikely, even more highly unlikely than a Creator, that primordial ooze has created ALL the species we have on earth. Yes, there are some that weren't "created" but were brought about through reproduction. But, primordial ooze that were able to differentiate itself to create humans, cats, dogs, cows, sharks, birds, dinosaurs, etc. -- whenever it happened and however long it took to happen -- takes just as much belief as any religion does. I know the argument is never supposed to go to: "how come we don't see it now?" But, I am going to ask...how come we don't see this evolution of something being created out of an ooze or an amoeba? Why can't we see transitional species at work now? I know, I know, it happens over "millions of billions of thousands of years." But, there should be some evidence of some sort of evolution occurring right now -- unlike the evolution of humans to adapt to its surroundings (like adapting to technology).
• sleeper

  

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q55z6EsL8M
• sleeper

  

  No evidence of macro evolution. LOL
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_neanderthalensis
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_heidelbergensis
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_ergaster
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_antecessor
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_erectus
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_habilis
  
  Keep that head in the sand OSH.