I really wish Conviction would stop posting his mumbo jumbo. I'd be willing to bet he doesn't understand half of what he says, and his interpretation of various Bible verses is so literal and so off it's a wonder anyone takes him seriously enough to argue. As a Christian who's done a lot of research and soul searching, I understand how frustrating it can be to argue with a member of religion who argues only with evidence from their religion's holy book. I mean seriously, if I'm telling you I don't believe what's written in the book, why would I believe evidence that you put forth FROM THAT BOOK? This is why I've taken a more generalist approach to studying religion, and why my beliefs are the way they are.

About carbon dating...lol. Okay. How do you know the bible is old? Okay, and to explain carbon dating would take a very long time. I'm sorry to hear you don't believe carbon dating is real. If it was just "SOME GUY" that discovered a factual way to date things, I would be as skeptical as I am towards the bible which was supposedly written by a couple of guys. Carbon dating is a technique that is PROVEN by thousands of scientists all around the world. Elements degrade at certain speeds, which you can measure. They turn into other elements, etc. If you really want to educate yourself, here's some information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dating

The theory of the big bang is the most likely POSSIBLE explanation. Yeah, God could have created the universe or earth or whatever in like 7 days, sure. But, if you believe in any kind of supernatural you can't deny that the KOOL-AIIIIIID guy did it either. You can't just say something is supernatural if you don't understand it. Honestly, if you think it's more likely that God made the earth and everything on it in 7 days (I don't even know, is it the universe or the earth and is it 7 days or 40 days?) than the earth or universe manifesting over BILLIONS of years...I shouldn't be wasting my time. I know you won't read some of the stuff on here, but here's the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

Do you think your religion is better or more right than any of the other millions of religions? Yes? How? You haven't learned about every supernatural religion. No, you don't think yours is better than all of the others? Good, you are starting to think clearly.

Do you think humans are superior to any other species? Yes? Why? Cause we're more intelligent? That's just one factor. There are species that are stronger, faster, light, heavier, can hear better, can see better, can see in the dark, can fly...intelligence is only one part of it. You don't think humans are superior to all other species? Good, you're getting there. Do you think all species go to "heaven?" Yes? So, ants go to heaven? You've killed hundreds of ants and other living species. Are you a bad person for that? No, you don't think all species go to "heaven?" Why? Intelligence isn't the "best" ability...it's one of the abilities.

Every time you drive to church you are destroying God's creation with greenhouse gases. Every time you kill an insect or animal, you are destroying God's creation. I'm not an animal rights activist by the way

About evolution...Oh man. Okay. Whales, currently, if you were to go spear a whale right now, skin it, remove all it's blubber and look at it's bones - you would see that it has a hip bone and leg bones. Okay. Whales don't have legs or hips. Why did God put POINTLESS bones in a whale? Like, they are vestigial, there's absolutely no point. The only explanation is that at some point they walked on land, that's the only reason. Humans have a lot of vestigial organs and bones that primates have, but the primates use them and we don't. Our tail bone serves no purpose, but we have it. Primates make use of the tail bone for balancing and stuff. Over time, things change. Even creationists can't deny that. Over time, while adapting to their environment, some species had to relocate to survive. If they couldn't relocate, they died. Some animals were born with a mutation that gave them a tiny advantage. Today, people are born with a mutation every day. 1 in 10,000 humans is born with a tail (that is usually vestigial). But, if for some reason we had to adapt to our surroundings and a tail made it easier, over millions of years people would die off, but when a human was born with a tail they would survive longer. If two people meet with a tail they will most likely have a child with a tail. It keeps going on and on, mutating. It's not happening over 500 years - it's millions. The monkeys now weren't the same as they were millions of years ago. Both humans and primates have a common ancestor - we both evolved from a similar thing. The reason primates look different than humans is because over millions of years of adapting to the surroundings, it changes your species. There are fossils showing the progression of primate to human... I know you probably won't believe that but I guess that's just something that goes along with being religious...denying things that can be proven just because someone said to... Take a look at this image http://home.honolulu.hawaii.edu/~pine/book1qts/embryo-compare.jpg all things start off looking almost identical...it's a proven fact. If you didn't believe it you could find someone to actually let you look through a microscope or something. Enough about evolution...if you probably don't believe in it now, nothing can change your mind.

Do you believe land is moving? All the land on earth used to be connected. Now, it's all split apart. This can be proved by going to the areas where land is just starting to detach and putting markers on each side of the land. If you come back to that spot in a year the markers will usually be like 2 inches further from each other.

The reason I saw religious people have low self-esteem is because they have to PRAY FOR GUIDANCE from an imaginary thing. Like, you don't have the confidence in yourself to do things without filling your void of doubt with something an imaginary thing is telling you. I think it kinda sucks that the president of the US prays every day...for guidance. That sends the signal that he's not totally confident in his own ability to lead.

If you knew someone that was like 30 that still believed in Santa Claus, you'd try to help them, right? How is Santa different from God? If there wasn't a book about it, would you know about God? Would you know to pray? Would you feel like someone is telling you stuff in your mind?

Only with religion can a person find a way to deny that the bottle cap on their desk is really there.

The Hypothesis doesn't HAVE to be tested with an experiment, it can be tested with observations and numerous other things. For example, checking to see if the hypothesis is logically consistent.




I don't understand what means by 'planets', as it's really the whole universe that is expanding over time, but the big bang does have a tested hypothesis (which makes it a theory) that the redshift is caused by recessional velocity.



It can be tested with observations, such as intermediary fossils that show that monkeys started developing human anatomy.



Even though I don't agree with the big bang for scientific, and not faith based reasons, the big bang is infinitely more valid than a creation idea, the idea of creation completely depending upon faith and not evidence.



I agree that the age of the earth is much older than creationists believe. Your belief that a creator created the universe has no basis in factuality, so the big bang is actually more credible, even if it is wrong. All you have is your bible that says so.




To your Hitler comment: Back then they had no fucking clue about genetics, they were really just making it up as they went, and all of the 'evidence' that jews were inferior was completely pseudo-scientific.

This post was edited by AEtheric on Sep 8 2010 03:40pm

i just realized 3/4ths of eatin my samwich that i forgot to put mayo in it...

Do you believe that there were/are Gods on Mt. Olympus? No? Do we know there aren't Gods on Mt. Olympus? Yes. Well the people that believed in them swore there were, but now we know there wasn't. There are millions of religions...there isn't enough room for all of them. None of the religions are more correct or make more sense than the others... how could there be so many that are very different? In Africa, one of the tribes believes their God created every person out of clay, that's why people have different color skin - because of their geographic location. I don't see how you could deny that if you are able to believe in christianity.

Content.

Your post has it.

Sorry, yeah, I meant the universe. The planets are moving away from the center where the big bang is believed to have originated.

This post was edited by vinster on Sep 8 2010 03:39pm

Well, just wondering, people believing in a lot of the bible but if they find something they don't think is true they just say it's a metaphor or something? That's kinda convenient...

Well, I don't like how that guy did that so I'm going to say it's a metaphor. But, oh! I guess I think the guy doing this could be possible, that's true!

I understand that the main reason for reading the bible and being religious is to use the morals...but I'm not and I have almost the same morals. They are logical. You don't go kill other people because you don't feel like someone coming to kill you. I know that's somewhere in the bible, like the golden rule or something. But just because you think that doesn't mean you have to take all the faith and stuff. Like, that's my moral, but I could also go burn a holy bible or do something that completely destroys the faith I'm supposed to have. Just because gender is differentiated in the bible doesn't mean that they made it up... I don't go killing people. I don't steal. I lie as much as a christian does. I kill as many animals as a christian does.

The reason for believing in Santa Claus is obviously to work in a similar way as religion. If you are good you get presents! If you are bad you get coal If you are good you get to go to heaven! If you are bad you have to go to hell They are both used for the same reason.

This post was edited by vinster on Sep 8 2010 03:48pm

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein

Please blow up a library to produce a new book, and I'll believe in the big bang. Go ahead, blow up as many libraries as you might need.

Order does not result from chaos absent some sort of guiding force.

This post was edited by Subdue on Sep 8 2010 03:48pm

such an asthetic point of view.
if you think that there can possibly be 66 books that id read about morals, your 100% wrong. lol.
the Creator of everything CAN write 66 books about morals obv, but noone wants to read that. ALL of it is factual, and much of it has been proven
(sodom and gomorah found, noahs ark found, etc.) so the fact that your pride doesnt let you come close enough to it is said on your part, because you dont know true love.
which is the point of Christianity, not Heaven, not rewards, but the LOVE of CHrist.
I can tell you how many days i forget Heaven exsists because i pray and just get wrapped up in God's love, until i come on here, and seea different atheist posting about Heaven.

e/ spelling.

This post was edited by Keasbey_Nights on Sep 8 2010 03:52pm