Religion? Forced on you, You want it, You dont care

What would you do different? The code we have allows for change within a species. There is much talk about creationism vs. evolution. I'll go out on a branch and say I believe in both. Let me explain.

I believe the God created the universe, the world, man, the animals, etc. However, I also do not believe he created every particular species as it now exists, there has been some evolution. I clarify in that I believe there is a difference between Macro evolution (apes turning into men), and Micro evolution (minor changes within a particular species).

Life unpleasant? Was life meant to be easy? I was taught that life is a time for us to prove to God that we are willing to accept Him and follow His teachings in the face of constant and sometimes tremendous temptation and trial. The corollary is that men are free to choose how they will act, they can choose good or evil. If God stepped in and "fixed" every evil action people took, where is the freedom to choose? It rains on the just as well as the unjust and bad things happen to both those who believe and those who do not. I do not interpret problems within the world as evidence that there is no god, just as evidence that sometimes people choose to act contrary to the way God would have them.

God did not create only man, but also all kinds of other types of life. There are life-forms that live in the ocean at depths that are not hospitable to man - Does that automatically mean that there is no God?

As man is not God's only creation, it should follow that not necessarily all of God's creations are meant to necessarily be hospitable to man.

Gramps...

 

Nothing personal but I'm gonna call you on this anti-intellectual line of reasoning every time I see you post it. The problem you are describing is simply beakdown of the family due to poverty and lack of education, and there is zero evidence it has anything at all to do with atheism or lack of accountability to "god". Many gang members believe in god. Also obviously the un-neighborly Muslims you describe feel the way they do BECAUSE of their accountability to their idea of god, not because of lack of belief in god. And many Christians in America in fact ARE intolerant of people who don't share their belief - as much as they can get away with in a society restrained by the moral principals you are shooting for, which are in fact secular. As previously noted in other threads some European countries with the lowest level of religious belief have the highest standards of living and lowest crime levels.

In my wide experience atheists are just as moral as theists if not more so on average, precisely because they feel accountable to their neighbors and their society and their species *instead* of to "god".

 

This is a bit massive, but PLEASE read over it.

 

Are you disputing that religion and science represent different incompatible approaches to knowledge? I would think that's pretty much true by definition. If a scientist said he believed something based on faith and personal revelation and there was no reason to prioritize observation he would have a pretty hard time finding work.

He believed nothing of the sort. He believed the universe looked designed, but otherwise did not believe in anything metaphysical and was vehemently anti-religious.

Also as a side note I'm not the worlds hugest fan of Einstein because later in his life he came to overvalue his personal instincts over observation.

 

It would be a breeze to make the genetic code exponentially more efficient, not to mention more stable and safer for life.

what god supposedly meant for us is a different claim. I was responding to the notion that things are too perfect to have evolved. my question was what exactly is too perfect. the unpleasantness of life certainly fits well with what you would expect from evolution.

 

Somehow I don't see you going Amish any time soon.

You mean it potentially could if it was designed. Yet almost all of it doesn't. That's my point.

 

I grew up in a very fundamentalist household. So yeah it was sort of forced on me, but I remember at a very young age having lots and lots of questions that nagged at me and getting some really unsatisfactory answers. Example. I was obsessed over dinosaurs in early elementary school and I remember practicing drawing them and trying to copy the illustrations from a couple of dino books I had. I remember asking how did people and dinosaurs live next to each other without getting eaten and how could they have lived millions of years ago if God created Adam and Eve maybe six to ten thousand years ago. No joke, my dad (an educated guy with a master's degree in Social Studies and a school teacher at the time) told me that Satan put dinosaur bones in the ground to tempt people into disbelieving in God.

By age fifteen I finally told my parents that I wasn't going to church with them anymore because I didn't believe and I didn't want to be a hypocrite. They weren't very happy with this decision and my Dad and I don't talk to this day partly because of this. I always wished I could make myself believe because I think it would have been a lot easier to just go along with what everybody else around me wanted, but I don't regret being true to myself and following my passion for scientific inquiry.

 

Wow! Good points gramps! Where have you been?!

 

Yes I am. Especially since most of what you believe today, through science, where discovered by theists.

He did not believe in a God you pray to; but a spiritual, conscious universe. He would meditate and theorized to try and tap into the conscious universe. I didn't say Einstein believed in God. I said Einstein believed in spirituality. Big difference brother...

And I say it again. You say science and belief in spirit is incompatible. Obviously you have no idea what the concept of spirit is.

 

Not forced but I did go to a catholic grade school, mostly because we had some money and the education there was better. My grandma on my moms side was hard core Roman Catholic, loved the pope and all that, and went to the dawn service at least 5 days a week. My mom was a believer but never forced anything on me other than, other than occasionally going to church in my young childhood. My dad is atheist but comes from a very strong christian background. I was always encouraged to think for myself and believe in what I felt was right, and that no matter what I believed in it was ok.

Two questions always came up when I was considering conventional religions. 1) Why is the religion my parents believe in, right? and what if I was born in Iran, would I be any less right to believe in my parents? 2) Would God, in his infinite wisdom, give one race/geography (very broadly speaking) the one true word and say everyone else is wrong and going to hell? One main issue I have with organized religion is how they are used to control and manipulate people.

When considering atheism the main questions came up, which I feel can't be answered by science yet. Where did all this come from and why?

So here I sit, agnostic, believing in everything and nothing all at the same time. I think there is a high power out there, but I also think its not going to be what people think it is.

 

What lifestyle I choose to live has nothing to do with stress and depression being a major health concern. Way to try to through a curve ball.

No the point is; the entire universe was designed. For someone that loves science; you really have an odd way if picking and choosing what you believe in.

When a bio chemist wants to grow bacteria; there is a soup of what is needed to create that life. Out of a 100% soup; there maybe a 20% life that came from it. So it may have needed that amount of universe; just to create our simple ecosystem.

 

I can definitely respect that way of thinking. Hopefully one day you can find the truth; whatever it may be.

 

He was specifically responding to your statement that "technology has caused an increase in unpleasantness." Perhaps you would have lived without our increase in technology. I would have died during birth, I thank science for this. I don't think it's an increase in unpleasantness.

 

What if the pollution or unhealthy foods could have cause complications? So with high technology; comes a price. PVC manufacturers in china have polluted the environment so badly; that people in those areas have high health concerns.

So you thank science; while the Chinese mother in Beijing thanks science for an environment that is uninhabitable.

 

theism is not religion, and you missed my point about compartmentalization. I'm talking about methodology.

all I was saying is claiming knowledge through faith or personal revelation is not compatible with science. A person can be a fan of both things, but they don't/can't use them at the same time. People who do both use those different methodologies to deal with what they rationalize are different types of questions.

 

Then we can agree to disagree then. I think most are fully compatible. I just think the theist must have an open mind in what they find.

You still haven't answered this thread question though. It was a bit derailed...

 

I will agree that science and religion often find themselves at odds with each other. Neither is perfect. Science had many claims and changes over the years and so I take what it tells me with a grain of salt. However, there are items which science discovers which are at odds with conventional Abrahamic religion (Jewish, Muslim, Christian). The dinosaur example is an excellent one. How is it that if the life of the whole world is encapsulated within the Bible (6-10k years), that dinosaurs and other fossils could be discovered that are millions of years old?

Of course, some religions believe that until Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, they were not mortal and so perhaps they lived for millions or billions of years within the Garden of Eden while life outside the Garden went on. However, if Adam and Eve did not have children until they were escorted from the Garden due to their having partaken of the forbidden fruit, how is it that we have evidence of man and dinosaurs living side-by-side.

There are questions about which religion cannot provide an answer and any attempt to answer them is pure speculation (including mine above).

In the end, the choice to believe in God is a matter of faith. If you have faith and receive a testimony of God, that supersedes what science may tell and you believe in God and depend that after death, when you meet God again, you will gain a full knowledge of what has happened and when.

Until then, believe in both, have faith in God and faith in science (as much as you can) and recognize there will be paradoxes.

We cannot use science to either prove or disprove the existence of God. Thus it is pointless to use science to do so either way. Non-believers in God can scoff at the "blind faith" of believers and believers can scorn the lack of faith or belief in God of those who do not believe in Him, or believe in any of the religions. This is a case where tolerance and love, on both sides should allow both to co-exist. Sadly, too often that is not the case.

Gramps...

 

Thanks your one of the good ones. I respect your position as well. We will all find the truth one day. I just hope I can maintain some level on consciousness after I die.

Richard Bach writes a few good books if your interested in that I enjoyed, and brings alternate theories into childlike stories. Johnathan Livingston Seagull and Reluctant Messiah. JLS was about a Seagull that leaned the lessons of life on earth faster than the other "sheep" seagulls, so he quickly advanced to higher plains of consciousness. Reluctant Messiah was about God having many Messiahs and the one in the story is in modern day resisting the calling, Jesus was just the rock star of Messiahs. Easy fun reads and brilliantly done, if your interested.

 

completely missed the point.

you're saying god is constrained by the laws of physics. the universe "needed" to be a certain way to create our ecosystem.