Know your audience

[Beldaran]

Then why am I being told that I need to prove that God exists?

The theory of gravity may not have a formal proof, but it is based on an insanely huge pile of observable evidence. You don't understand science. A theory can be disproven at any moment if it is ever observed to contradict reality. However, accepted theories have been tested thousands upon thousands of times under strict observation of highly trained scientists.

Not only can you not prove a god exists, you can't even provide one single instance of observable, testable evidence.

[Dechipher]

Not only can you not prove a god exists, you can't even provide one single instance of observable, testable evidence.

You can't argue religion on scientific terms because they are two separate concepts. You have to argue religion on religious terms.

[shadowboxer2007]

Far be it for me to say everyone here is a moron. Christians or the worst of them all. Don't even get me started on others. If you really beleave in something beleave in it. Don't try to thow it down on people. Any group that whats money is a rip off. Why do you really need them to help you? Can't you even read on your own. understaining it is easy. The USA is the beast that it speacks of. We have forurced our selfs on soo maey others it an't funny. So keep this fight going you will just make it a lot worst try to prove you points. I bet 99% of you are port of a group that thinks one thing and thats it. No one here is really thinking 100% on there own. You where told it at one time or other. The thing is it got stuck in there so now you call it you own! this kind of thing sould never even come up. beleave what you will keep others out of it. unless they ask ya.

[redmage777]

So, Athists have persecuted the church in communist countries for years now, and will very likely continue to do so. I blame human nature more so then religion, or lack there of. I beleve in both Christ and Science, and don't see how they are incompatable apart for from people on both sides of the argument wanting them to be.

[Beldaran]

You can't argue religion on scientific terms because they are two separate concepts. You have to argue religion on religious terms.

Oh I completely agree. Unfortunately for religion, scientific terms are the only terms under which anything can be rational. Anything non-scientific is nonsense. A belief in god is as precisely reasonable as a belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Believing in "god" is absolutely no different from beleiving in ghosts, voodoo, luck, Zeus, Thor, or imaginary friends. People who believe these ideas have a damaged rational faculty. Worse, the condition is designed to spread itself from host to host. Religious people feel cosmically driven to infect others with their crippled logic and world of magic and fairy tales.

And atheistic communist oppression was guilty of the same evil as religion, because they merely supplanted "the state" for "god". It was the same self-sacrificing delusion under which individuals were expected to surrender their intellect and will to a higher concept which is completely bogus. The communists believed in god just like you do, and their god was the empire.

[The_Amaster]

Anything non-scientific is nonsense

Interesting....

I love my parents, however love can't be proven or tested by science, so my love of my family is nonsense. Huh, interesting.

[Beldaran]

Interesting....

I love my parents, however love can't be proven or tested by science, so my love of my family is nonsense. Huh, interesting.

Your love for your family can be explained in terms of the sciences of psychology, genetics, and biology.

Now if your family was invisible and you believed they created the universe, then yes your love would be nonsense.

[Dechipher]

Oh I completely agree. Unfortunately for religion, scientific terms are the only terms under which anything can be rational. Anything non-scientific is nonsense. A belief in god is as precisely reasonable as a belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Believing in "god" is absolutely no different from beleiving in ghosts, voodoo, luck, Zeus, Thor, or imaginary friends. People who believe these ideas have a damaged rational faculty. Worse, the condition is designed to spread itself from host to host. Religious people feel cosmically driven to infect others with their crippled logic and world of magic and fairy tales.

And atheistic communist oppression was guilty of the same evil as religion, because they merely supplanted "the state" for "god". It was the same self-sacrificing delusion under which individuals were expected to surrender their intellect and will to a higher concept which is completely bogus. The communists believed in god just like you do, and their god was the empire.

I was pretty much drunk when I wrote that, but I'm glad you agree

My point is merely that just because people do put some faith into religion doesn't automatically exclude them from having any kind of intelligence whatsoever, which from your posts you appear to believe. I personally don't believe anything. Religion is too big of a thing for me to just say "No. That's totally wrong." But I certainly can't say it's right either.

[phattonez]

The problem here is with someone's beliefs. Beldaran thinks that he is right, and I think I am right. It is the only thing that makes sense, so that is all we can see. The only difference though is that I am not mocking science (because I believe that science and religion can come together), but Beldaran is calling me a fool for what I believe.

[Beldaran]

Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo all believed in a God. It doesn't make you un-intelligent. It doesn't corrupt your ability to reason through problems in front of you.

However, they believed in God because they lived in a culture where Religion had a stranglehold on all thought. They made the discoveries in spite of the religion that surrounded them, and never because of it.

An otherwise rational person can believe in god, but that doesn't make a belief in god a rational act. I used to believe in god. I was raised a devort, Jesus loving christian. And you know what? I could still do my math homework without drooling and clawing at my eyes.

The danger in belief lies in the absence of doubt. It trains your mind to accept profound ideas without questioning their legitimacy. And much much worse, it can inspire horrible, irrational behavior that no sane person would engage in.

There may in fact be a god. Jesus may be exactly what he said he was. Any number of amazing and unbelievable things may be true. But to accept their truth without evidence is a dangeroud act of mysticism and irrationality.

Until the day when we can scientifically verify the answers to the great unanswered questions in the universe, any unfounded belief is little more than a tribal mysticism that an enlightened soceity should work to eliminate through education, argument, and example.