creationist vs evolutionists debate, the big one.

so what religion do you follow because that is non that i know of.
everything you just said goes against the bible and other religious books.
where do you take your knowledge of god and if you think he made the world and stepped back whats your stance on jesus and all his pals from around that time that had encounters with god

 

I think that would answer your question, equitypetey.

Anyways, I'm trying to look at this at the "god without religion" perspective. What if we take religion out of the equation? Belief or non-belief in God. No additives, so to speak, and nothing based on the Quran/Bible/ other holy books. Would it be any different? I think it certainly would. After all, as many atheists have told me, it's the idea of RELIGION itself that they (mostly) attack. Just pondering here.

 

it doesn't answer it at all as that answer contradicts the rest of the post and many other things he has said contradicts other things he says so i'm blatantly asking questions to try and suss where this idea comes from.

god with out religion in the sense of a creator and nothing more.... well i'd feel no different and i wouldn't worship something just because it made the universe that my kind just happened to come in to being from, why should i.

 

DeathBreak911
You state that as if your opinion is a fact

Take other views into perspective and facts have to have evidence, you have none

 

Actually, he did a pretty good job at making sure people know that they were his beliefs... He even started the post with "Ok, I'm going to put my beliefs simple."

Anyway, as I said before, I believe in God and evolution. I am also a Christian, but I do not believe in everything in the Bible. And, no, I do not try to shove my religion down other peoples throats like I see some people doing in real life. :

 

He should post his beliefs as something questionable, it's like he doesn't want anybody to disagree

 

it was fine i was just putting questions out because its a bit wishy washy

i have a question for you
what parts of the bible do you believe, how can you believe in some but parts but not the others. what is "truth" and what is fiction.
what parts are the closest thing to actual events and what parts are made up or manipulated by man.
and finally how can you believe in the hole thing when you know parts of it are false.

i'm only asking cause the two of you both seem to not know much about your own religion or that which would fail it.
i just want to see where your coming from on this cause your arguments are nonsensical and showing a great lack of knowledge.

don't worry i'm always testing peoples faith to see what they believe and why, you too are very poor at it. i'm used to better as i have two work buddies that are both Christians and we have some wicked debates and they come up with some good stuff. one is a theologian who was studying to be a minister (or something of that effect) but gave it up when she saw the corruption in the church and were teaching the bible wrong. and the other is a very intelligent man that knows his bible and when i pose question meets them with wicked stories from the bible to give me a good answer.

 

Oh, yeah no offense, I'm stupid, duh yeah I know. But to say no offense and then say that I'm stupid is a stupid statement. Of course It's goin' to cause offense! And if I remember correctly, wasn't Darwin, considered stupid, and Einstien. Hmm, think about that. Now if I can' t discuss my beliefs without being called stupid, then there's really no point in discussing them here. My beliefs may seem a little wacky, but their mine, and yours are yours. I'm not asking anyone to believe what I say here, but If i can't state them in a civilized thread/enviroment then goodbye, then that and in the hopes of futrue friendships I'll leave the thread. tah, tah.

 

you can but you have yet to explain anything or back anything up, you did not state anything but that you agree with a statement that contradicted its self greatly. if you don't understand why it did then sorry your not stupid you have just yet to gain the knowledge to understand why.

i have not even mentioned my beliefs cause they are changing constantly as i don't claim to know what there is and there isn't. i'm still on a quest to know whats what. ok i don't believe in god but i choose not to (i won't go in to it as its extremely complicated and as most people don't understand my simple ramblings so i won't step it up a notch)
i'm not attacking your belief i merely ask simple questions because that belief makes no sense to me religiously, scientifically or historically
if you want to get offended then go ahead but it will get you no where in a debate.

defend your self don't be a pussy and run away, bring some enlightenment to the table add something don't just say
"Makes a lot more sense than anything I've read in this thread"
as if we are being pedantic this could be offensive to every one in this tread posting much more relevant posts that contain perspectives that actually give food for thought.

 

As I said before, I don't believe in the whole thing.

I think that things like creation in the Bible are not true. There are actually two Creation stories in Genesis, the one week creation story and the story in the Garden of Eden. Having two conflicting stories in the same book will make some people wonder if it is true. I honestly don't think it was deliberately made up, I think that that was peoples understanding back then. Now, we have more technology and we have a better understanding of what really did happen. So, I don't believe in the Creation stories.

Another think you may notice in the Bible is "demons". You will notice some people who are said to have "demons" and some who were cured from these "demons". I don't think that they were literally possessed by anything, it could have been some type of disease. And, no, I don't know what type of disease it could be, but if you read "John", you will read about a few demons and I think it is strange that so many people have them. I doubt they are all possessed. Once again, I don't think this was done on purpose, I just don't think they had the knowledge of what was actually happening like we do now.

When I read the Bible, I try to do so with an open mind and I try not to read it with a "This happened word for word just as it says right here" attitude.

 

That's similar to how I became agnostic. I read the bible, figured out some of it didn't make sense, realised that, as a product of man it was unreliable and sought to find my own truth in it, unfortunately any sources are ridiculously prejudiced. So now I just leave it, I don't know, I can't understand how anyone can know one way or the other, what parts are real and what parts are utter nonesense. I found that the main reason I left the belief though was because of certain Christians, some of them ministers, who refused to acknowledge that the bible could possibly be in any way wrong, that every story was either true in essence or literally.

@Fearon: Chill, equity's language was a bit harsh, but you have adopted a fairly condenscending tone to your posts, as if you were right and everyone else was wrong.

 

hi eveyone,
I'm a newbie here.. joined yesterday.
But I just can't help myself with this one!

In actual fact, The big MR E himself WAS considered stupid his entire life. And by his biggest critic of all... himself. His beliefs drove him round the bend in the end because his belief that the world was fixed, not moving, meant he was CONTINUALLY proving his own theories wrong. So he pretty much debated himself to death.

I guess the point is, a debate is about expressing ideas. No new concepts will EVER be born, no new horizons will ever be seen, if we take it too personally.

Take Hitler for example. One of the worlds most hated men. Yet with the *&^$%^ things he did, the incredible experiments, foul and cruel as they were, were documented in such great detail that when they discovered the cellar with hundreds upon hundreds of children's brains in jars, it literally boosted the medical awareness decades ahead in one step. As disgusting as it is, he took all the kids that were crosseyed, dislexic, walked with a limp, whatever, and put them in a boarding house. one by one their brains were extracted, studied, measured in all manner of form and recorded. It was this information that led to incredible leaps in understanding, diagnosing, and treament of hundreds of disorders. Without that information, there are millions of people alive today living an incredible life compared to the hell they would have lived in had these experiments not taken place.

Now please don't get me wrong, I'm not a nazi and I am not saying the man's a nice guy. And I am certainly not going anywhere near the genecide that was performed at his instigation. But nobody can deny the incredible positive impact those experiments had. This is just another example of what I am trying to get people to think about.

Perspective.

It's in the eye of the beholder. You can choose to not acknowledge another perspective other than your own, or you can choose to understand the motivation and grounding another perpective has been built from. You never know, it might change everyone's perspective and come up with something brand new.

They could have buried those brains, or put them in a memorial or whatever, and chosen to set fire to all the records in a huge ceremony of disgust and anguish for what he did to those children who belonged to those brains. BUT they took the information, studied it to ascertain the motivation and groundings the findings were built upon, and chose to use that information to do something incredibly positive for millions of others. Perspective is a choice, and should be based on the seeking for information. Emotive arguments are no longer a debate, because the message is lost from that point on. nobody wins, everybody loses. Why? Because nodody had the chance to seek the information needed to change or enhance ones perspective.

I don't believe any ideas are 'whacky', and I don't believe anybody has the right to say anybody else is wrong. You can disagree, but it doesn't mean one is right and one is wrong. It should be THOUGHT PROVOKING. Certainly not just PROVOKING!!

Anyway, little ole flatlined brain me who can't work anymore at the age of 35 because of a sickness I now have, does tend to get somewhat philosophyical. I've heald by son in my arms after he died, i've watched my daughter grow up a year after him and she is a living miracle in front of my eyes. I peeled back the onion skin on the meaning of life over and over and over, and all i've come up with is this. We aren't meant to know. What would be the point if we did? It is what it is, no more no less. Some things we just aren't meant to know.

And by the way, I saw reference to the bible here as well. I'm actually Hindu Dharma. Not Indian Hindu, Hinduism in a slightly different form, from Bali. So this poses another question. How can we project that this debate is only between those you know about the bible and those who don't? Are we discounting any other religion alltogether, and saying it is purely a debate between Christians and Athiests?

I don't believe this is an accurate assumption to make. I have my beliefs, just as everyone else has theres. In fact, I know many Christians who are totally opposed, just as I know Jehova's Witnesses who are quite opposite in their understanding. After all, isn't it all about again.... PERCEPTION of ..in this case.. the bible? Or the Koran? Or whatever Holy Scripture we want to talk about?

We continue to live and expand our knowledge and change our perspectives all our lives. If we didn't, we'd get pretty bored with hearing the sound of our own voices saying the same shit all the time lol

I wonder if Darwin persecuted himself as much as Einstein did, or if he just left it up to the mob?

In just about every base of religion and the meaning of life, to me it always comes back to the balance. You MUST accept the bad to be able to experience the good. If you never experience any depth of pain then your joy will be just as shallow. This is the basis of my religion, and of many others. Never run from life. Turn around face it head on and embrace it no matter what it is. This is the path for the true seekers of knowledge. Apply the same principle to geekland. Who here, who is by nature a true geek, has EVER backed away from a challenging techy problem? It might have made you feel bad at times, frustrated, but by nature, we are seekers of truth so we dig away and keep trying different appoaches until we figure it out. And the challenging ones are the best, most enjoyable.. don't you agree?

So what is more challenging than a debate like this? I think this debate is the hardest one for people to sustain, for in the end inside themselves at some point you start challenging yourself, and that's hard to do when you are shouting it from the rooftops that you are right and everyone else is wrong! the more louder the protest, the more the fear of the internal challenge presents itself. This is where you make your life choices. don't turn your back, embrace the challenge. It will take you to a world of understanding you never knew.

THAT'S what I hoped to see when I read this debate.

Okay, I'm off again, nice to meet you all, hope I didnt offend anyone as this was never an intention. But ask yourself the same questions you ask others, and try to answer them honestly. debate with yourself, and then post your comments. this is such an opportunity we can all get so much out of. And on that thought, I'm off to think! lol

Look at the Jedi!! lol

 

@nunya bizniss: long post, but interesting! It's hard to keep a debate like this open for all religions as there always seems to be far more atheists and christians posting than anyone else. I am not too familiar with Hinduism, and so would be wary to debate with you until I've read up on it a bit(whenever I get a minute!), but I get the impression that it is much more open to correction than some of the younger religions are. This, in my eyes would make it a more stable belief system, but, as I said, I'd have to read up some more before discussing further.

 

hey nice to finally see someone someone of a different faith especially Hindu Dharma (one of my favorites) although i know very little about it but you have sparked my interest away from Christians to do a bit of reading on Hinduism.

your right people should listen to each other but that's why this will never work because the atheists won't allow any faith in and throw stupidly aggressive statements in their faces rather then asking questions and the Christians know little about there own bible and belief structure let alone anything else and don't like what the atheists have to say.

by the way i stand no where in the debate as i can honestly say i don't know and i probably never will i have been looking at religions and bit and bobs to gain more knowledge but i pretty much have exhausted christianity, it has some cool stories but the rest of it is well... make your own judgement.
its next on to something else maybe Judaism and or Hinduism for some more knowledge as they seem to be pretty cool only problem is i don't know any so its lots of reading for me.

 

That seems like a very ignorant statement. You are saying that Christians don't know anything about the Bible and Atheists badger people because of religion. That is not how I see it.

Also, many Christians believe that the Bible is open for interpretation, so saying that they don't understand it doesn't seem to make much sense when it is sometimes a personal understanding.

 

yes many Christians do interpreted it differently and that's why i said that because if they knew their bible.......... you know what i'm not going to bother because you prove my point exactly and i'm not going to explain why because if you know your bible you'd know what i'm talking about.

 

Well then, according to you, I must not know the Bible very well. Please, explain the Bible to me. :-\