I don’t believe in God, and I am not anti-religion. However, I am strongly opposed to the way some of the religious people see things.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) wrote “It is thoroughly necessary to be convinced of God's existence; it is not quite so necessary that one should demonstrate it." This just summarized what I wanted to say. Believe in God or any other religion depends on someone’s “faith”, the stronger faith you have, the stronger you feel God’s existance, thus I say, religious believe is spiritual. In contrast, science is based on the material world: we use logic, observations, evidence to investigate the material world. Religion and science, they are two totally different way of thinking, religion is based on “believe”, while science is based on “not to believe”, until there is solid prove, solid evidence and solid logic. Proving God exist is never-ending because religious people simply believe.

In the same way, I am strongly opposed to people that use their spiritual thinking to understand the material world. We often encounter people (as in this forum) that use “God” to explain the origin of the universe or the origin of life. In modern views, the origin of the universe is explained by the “Big Bang” theory, and the origin of life is explained by “Abiogenesis” hypothesis. Although these two hypotheses are yet to be proven, they are so far the most “logically valid” hypothesis, there are evidences and they can stand on its own without introducing a God. The hypothesis that God create life/the universe (either according to genesis or in other boarder sense) is not as logically valid as the above.

In our lives, we often encounter things or phenomenon that we couldn’t explain, but this is not a reason to bring a God into the equation. You cannot explain doesn’t mean that other people cannot explain; no one can explain it now doesn’t mean that no one can explain it in the future. Simply bringing in a God (or any other mysterious beings such as ghost, soul or alien) is an escape in thinking, it is a wrong approach to deal with things unknown, and does not help us understand the material world better.

This does not imply that science and religion cannot coexist, the only way they can coexist is to view them separately, since they are in different niche (material and spiritual). This brings up another common error I am opposed to. I am strongly opposed to religions that are not able to “contain”, in other words, those that are not able to accept other’s view point. This is not only the scientific viewpoint, but also other religion. In history we had the great witch hunt, the massive persecution of pagans, numerous wars between religions; in modern we have the wars in Lebanon and many others. You believe in your God, he believe in his Buddah, I use my scientific sense to see thing, each does not interfere each other, yet some religion propose that believes other than theirs are “crime” or “evil”, these religion are not able to contain.

Now, a word to atheist, in the same way, if people want to believe in God, just let it be so, we don’t have the right to interfere their believes, the best we can do is to accept, and to discuss. After all, scientific thinking does not teach us to be a nicer guy. The way Christians think we should care/love each other is golden, despite of what they believe.

And a word to those that are religious, don’t use your spiritual thinking to understand the material world, it is science’s job.

Lastly, a word to those that are intelligent, vouch me.

(the same post is posted in the religion and politic forum becoz i think it is relevant)

well, besides the tl:dr



I can see what science would have against religion but...


what would religion have against science

edit- and btw, wrong forum, your looking for the religious one

This post was edited by Garethsir on Jan 21 2009 07:42am

some religious people firmly believe what is written in bible and take those very seriously, not realising that it is written 2000 years ago by human where their knowledge is limited. and they simply use bible to argue against hypothesis like evolution

This post was edited by hk_nobody on Jan 21 2009 07:46am

he already posted there to.

@ hk_nobody

i agree.

In all honesty most people seem to have lost the whole point of prayer, religion, etc. I'm not religious either (I'm pretty much as hardcore atheist as you get) btw, but even I know that Jesus said do good to others and you will be rewarded. This somehow turned into "pray to God really hard and you get what you want".

Science often tries to disprove religion, and the other way around.

Take the age of the earth for example, science says it's billions of years old, religion says it's not even 10 thousand years old.

discredit***

Re-posting this in the science forum is just gonna get you the same answers, from different people.

EDIT: And, subsequently, the same arguments.

This post was edited by Dark Phoenix on Jan 22 2009 04:34am

http://forums.d2jsp.org/index.php?showtopic=27520575&f=119

this is not a repost, they are posted at the same time if you notice, but the discussion in political and religion forum started earlier.

the topic is also discussed in political and religion forum, some nice argument poped up, however it is ruin by some religious idiot that think Cheri Huber is the main stream in buddism, without knowing that Zen had 3000 years of history in asia, without knowing that Cheri Huber dont have any training by any buddist authority. that idiot also thinks that he has something call "holy spirit" in him, which classical buddism would never propose such thing.

as said by indiadrummer, religion has transformed into something else through the differential understanding by different people, which is what ruining religion most

This post was edited by hk_nobody on Jan 22 2009 04:45am