One can use science to support almost any hypothesis.
And I do know that God exists. Just because I'm not able to scientically explain that God exists and that He makes Himself known to me, in a manner that you might accept as sufficient proof, that doesn't mean that He doesn't exist. It either means that I'm not very good at arguing my case or you're stubborn enough to not want to accept it. Either way, I'm absolutely certain that He exists and that He cares about us.
I would encourage you all to read More Than A Carpenter by Josh McDowell. Among other things, he writes about how you should use historical and legal proofs, not the scientific method, to prove/disprove the authenticity of the Bible and, by extension, the divinity of Jesus Christ.
I was born of pretty proud Mormon stock, with believing ancestors pulling handcarts and even giving Joseph Smith a cow. I grew up as such with going to church every Sunday for the full 4 hours, fasting every first Sunday of the month, getting baptized when I was eight, and doing all the silly Mormon stuff like going on a pioneer trek. It wasn't until fairly recently that I left the faith as well as religion in general. I was a very strong believer in the faith even to passionately defending/pushing my beliefs when it it was erm... inappropriate, while heavily criticizing other people of other faiths.
I wasn't even really struggling in my faith or whatnot. It was just simply sudden revelation that applied to all the study of world religions as well as my inborn skepticism and curiosity. I remember it coming to me as wondering what if there actually were no god. From right there I realized that I had been purposely blocking logical evidence that could have easily been backed up of the naturalistic nature of the world, while blindly accepting the supernatural. And with that I realized that if there had been one true religion, then what I had considered inconsolable proof would have been accepted by all.
It was a fairly hard time for me briefly trying to cope with the idea that I wouldn't live forever (as well as upset parents). I felt so lost and upset that there really wasn't any purpose to my life. Why was life worth living if I had nothing to live for? It wasn't soon after until I found myself having such a grand time with close friends that I realized that I didn't need to have some divine purpose to have something worth living for. I began enjoying life as it is right now. I'm feel extremely lucky to be able to live right now and I only wish to make this crazy ride called life just as enjoyable for other people.
So I guess I'm what most folks would call a Secular Humanist. I have no problem with folks calling me this, however, I am an Atheist before anything else. That said, I do think that many religions do have some good parts to them that emphasize charity, kindness, and the progression of mankind that I do commend greatly. I have considered attending some Unitarian Universalist meetings because I do love meeting new people and chummy comraderies, but at the moment I have not. Perhaps in the future. I'm also kinda a dork and go to sleep listening to lectures about science, philosophy, and atheism. haha
One can use science to support almost any hypothesis.
You are confusing "sceince" with religion here. The God card (God is omnipotent and moves works in mysterious ways) can be used to explain anything or support any hypothesis. Science is about the search for truths and facts. The only hypotheses fully supported by science are those which at this point in time are supported by all evidence, and contradicted by none.
And I do know that God exists. Just because I'm not able to scientically explain that God exists and that He makes Himself known to me, in a manner that you might accept as sufficient proof, that doesn't mean that He doesn't exist. It either means that I'm not very good at arguing my case or you're stubborn enough to not want to accept it. Either way, I'm absolutely certain that He exists and that He cares about us.
I'm fine with that. Accepting that belief in God is despite of scientific evidence, not because of it, is all I'm arguing.
I haven't read the whole thread, so i might be a bit off topic (i'm mostly reacting to the last two threads (EDIT : okay, to the two threads BEFORE the last two, which have been posted while i was writing)) but does it really matter if those things are "true" or not ?
I'm an atheist myself, but i think one can chose to believe in what jesus (for instance) SAID without caring if the guy actually existed or not. Sure, we now know some stuff that contradicts what the bible says, but so what ? One can still chose to believe that something did create the universe, etc, etc etc...
Who really cares if it happened in 7 days or millions of years ? That stuff is mostly symbolic anyway.
I'm currently reading Joseph Campbell's books on the structure of myth (The Hero with a Thousand Faces), and i love the idea that all myth, no matter where they come from, are expressions of the same, basic, existential questions of mankind. The WAY in which they are told doesn't really matter, it's what the stuff means that's important.
And I do know that God exists. Just because I'm not able to scientically explain that God exists and that He makes Himself known to me, in a manner that you might accept as sufficient proof, that doesn't mean that He doesn't exist. It either means that I'm not very good at arguing my case or you're stubborn enough to not want to accept it. Either way, I'm absolutely certain that He exists and that He cares about us.
In my opinion, you can't be positive about something without a certain amount of proof or evidence. Sure, you can assume that God exists, but to suggest that somebody would be stubborn to disagree with you is wrong. There is only a handful of proof for the existence of God, so anybody who disagrees that God exists is, in fact, neutral rather than stubborn.
I would encourage you all to read More Than A Carpenter by Josh McDowell. Among other things, he writes about how you should use historical and legal proofs, not the scientific method, to prove/disprove the authenticity of the Bible and, by extension, the divinity of Jesus Christ.
I'm not 100% sure what you mean so this response could be meaningless, but you can't prove the method by which something happened just by proving that it happened.
An analogy to explain what I mean better: Say somebody wrote an autobiographical book, and in that book they wrote "twenty years ago, when I was a child, I burned down my shed using my uncle's makeshift flamethrower." If you were to go down to that person's childhood home and see the remnants of a burnt shed, you would confirm the validity of the claim "I burned down my shed". You would not, however, confirm the valifity of the claim "I burned down my shed using my uncle's makeshift flamethrower."
Similarly, if you were to assess the claim "Many years ago, the world was flooded by an angry God", you could use scientific methods to prove that there was, indeed, a flood around the time of the claim. You could therefore confirm the validity of the claim "Many years ago, the world was flooded". However, you would be unable to confirm the validity of the claim "Many years ago, the world was flooded by an angry God". Such a claim is unknowable, hence my agnosticism.
In my opinion, you can't be positive about something without a certain amount of proof or evidence. Sure, you can assume that God exists, but to suggest that somebody would be stubborn to disagree with you is wrong. There is only a handful of proof for the existence of God, so anybody who disagrees that God exists is, in fact, neutral rather than stubborn.
But ain't that the whole point of faith ?
Believing without demanding proof ?
Similarly, if you were to assess the claim "Many years ago, the world was flooded by an angry God", you could use scientific methods to prove that there was, indeed, a flood around the time of the claim. You could therefore confirm the validity of the claim "Many years ago, the world was flooded". However, you would be unable to confirm the validity of the claim "Many years ago, the world was flooded by an angry God". Such a claim is unknowable, hence my agnosticism.
There is archeological evidence of a flood around the Black Sea area at the appropriate time (town remnants at the bottom of the Black Sea, etc...). It looks as though the Mediterranean overflowed into the Black Sea, maybe because of a glacier melt or shift. The flood definitely did not cover the entire earth, but was pretty big.
There are also comparable myths from other cultures to support this such as Gilgamesh and a Roman/Greek myth that I can't quite remember at the moment...I think Zeus had something to do with it.
Yup. I was just agreeing to what Fealicks said, but with a bit more proof. I actually didn't know about the name of the theory, I just watched an archeology/documentary a few years ago and though it was pretty sweet.:D
In my opinion, you can't be positive about something without a certain amount of proof or evidence.
In ages past, people used the tools of observation available to them to "prove," using then modern science, that the Earth was flat or that the Sun revolved around the Earth or that wood contained the element of fire and just needed a little coaxing to reveal itself.
It used to be said that eggs were good for you, then studies were done and eggs were deemed to be bad. Now they're thought to be good again.
When I was a baby, it was taught that parents should lay their babies on their stomachs so they don't choke if they vomit in the night. Now it's taught that babies should lie on their backs so that they don't suffocate on their sheets. Sure, there is evidence that babies who lie on their backs are less apt to die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but noone really even knows what causes SIDS. It's just a syndrome people created for infant deaths that defy current explanation. In fact, there are many medical conditions out there that can not be explained by science when using our current levels of knowledge and technology.
Why is it so hard to believe something that you can't explain by using the scientific method? Scientific explanation changes its mind all the time about why things happen, not to mention the plethora of things around us that are inexplicable by only using such methods.
If the scientific method holds the unequivocal solution to the knowledge of all things, then explain to me why objects of mass attract each other (that is, explain why the laws of gravity and magnetism exist.) You can't explain why it exists. You just know that it does. You can prove that it does, so far as your level of understanding can explain, but you don't know why it does. For that, you need faith in why because you can't readily explain it.
In ages past, people used the tools of observation available to them to "prove," using then modern science, that the Earth was flat or that the Sun revolved around the Earth or that wood contained the element of fire and just needed a little coaxing to reveal itself.
At least check your facts when you are trying to argue against science as a whole. No scientist in the history of mankind has ever claimed the earth is flat. Even the ancient greeks, the inventors of the scientific method, reasoned that the earth was round. Also, it was science that freed us from the commonly held religious belief that the earth was in the centre of the universe, and the stars revolved around us.
Science is supposed to change as new evidence are discovered. Failure to modify your original idea, thesis or world-view in light of overwhelming evidence is commonly called religion.
Chyron, believing anything without any logic or reasoning behind it, then going on and criticizing concepts that have replaced previous concepts based off new observations is somewhat troubling to me. To me, its just being dishonest.
I really do urge you to watch this video (which explains this better than I can) at least before further criticizing the scientific method.
My criticism is of the notion that faith in and of itself is foolish and that we can only believe in what can be explained by scientific observation.
I'm not saying science is entirely unreliable. I'm saying that science isn't the only answer to life, the universe and everything.
EDIT: I watched that video, and I'm not saying that for science be vaild it requires faith. I'm saying that I personally am looking for more answers in life than science alone can explain, so it makes little sense to me for someone to say "I don't believe it if science can't prove it yet," especially when scientific theories change all the time (and sometimes reverse position entirely) when given futher available evidence.
If the scientific method holds the unequivocal solution to the knowledge of all things, then explain to me why objects of mass attract each other (that is, explain why the laws of gravity and magnetism exist.) You can't explain why it exists. You just know that it does. You can prove that it does, so far as your level of understanding can explain, but you don't know why it does. For that, you need faith in why because you can't readily explain it.
The scientific method can't explain everything.
Science has explaind why, as in the causal effects, these forces exist. If you are talking about why as in the reason behind them, you are already assuming there needs to be a reason, and thus and intelligence behind everything, in which case the wole premise of the argument falls.
Secondly, no-one has claimed science has the aswers to everything. To quote Dara O'Briain; "Well, science knows it doesn't know everything. Otherwise it would have stopped."
I watched that video, and I'm not saying that for science be vaild it requires faith. I'm saying that I personally am looking for more answers in life than science alone can explain, so it makes little sense to me for someone to say "I don't believe it if science can't prove it yet."
Fine by me. I'm just saying don't say that science is flawed because it can't explain everything because that's entirely faulty thinking.
In ages past, people used the tools of observation available to them to "prove," using then modern science, that the Earth was flat or that the Sun revolved around the Earth or that wood contained the element of fire and just needed a little coaxing to reveal itself.
It used to be said that eggs were good for you, then studies were done and eggs were deemed to be bad. Now they're thought to be good again.
When I was a baby, it was taught that parents should lay their babies on their stomachs so they don't choke if they vomit in the night. Now it's taught that babies should lie on their backs so that they don't suffocate on their sheets. Sure, there is evidence that babies who lie on their backs are less apt to die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but noone really even knows what causes SIDS. It's just a syndrome people created for infant deaths that defy current explanation. In fact, there are many medical conditions out there that can not be explained by science when using our current levels of knowledge and technology.
Yes, this is all completely true. In fact, what you're saying just offers credence to the scientific method.
The pursuit of knowledge through science commands humility; in order to achieve a full understanding of something, you must be willing to accept that what you thought was true is false. So while we once believed that the Earth was flat, we now have accepted that it is round. While we once believed that lightning was thrown down to Earth by Gods, we now know that it is simply caused by electrical discharge. In order to realise these things, we have had to swallow our pride and concede that what we once thought was scientific fact is actually not.
Why is it so hard to believe something that you can't explain by using the scientific method? Scientific explanation changes its mind all the time about why things happen
Just because scientists change their mind doesn't mean they're wrong. In fact, it means the exact opposite. If you looked at a red piece of paper and said "this is blue" before realising that it was actually red, would you be better off saying "actually, it's red" or "it's still blue"? There's nothing wrong with updating our understanding of the world. Surely that's how we progress?
not to mention the plethora of things around us that are inexplicable by only using such methods.
Things such as the existence of God - and since there is no method to test validity other than the scientific one, I think it's most sensible to take an agnostic view toward such things.
If the scientific method holds the unequivocal solution to the knowledge of all things, then explain to me why objects of mass attract each other (that is, explain why the laws of gravity and magnetism exist.) You can't explain why it exists. You just know that it does. You can prove that it does, so far as your level of understanding can explain, but you don't know why it does. For that, you need faith in why because you can't readily explain it.
The scientific method can't explain everything.
How does faith explain why something happens better than science does?
To have faith in a certain value, you must first have established said value. For example, to have faith that gravity exists, you must first have established that gravity exists. To have faith that God exists, you must first have established that God exists.
It's the grounds on which these things have been established that I'm the most concerned about - If I told you that there was a spider under your desk, you would probably not have faith in this assertion because the grounds on which it was established are very weak. If, however, I showed you a photograph of the spider, then you would be more justified in having faith in the spider's existence.
To have faith in God does not explain why gravity exists any better than the scientific method does. During the time that the Bible was written, gravity wasn't yet established on any grounds. Since gravity has only ever been asserted on scientific grounds, it is best explained by scientific terms (even if that explanation is "we have no idea why gravity exists").
This is my favorite version of Hell (in the sense that I find it to be the most striking).
That is absolutely fantastic. I love how the devil wears all white; and I love his laugh at the end. He reminds me of Gutman from The Maltese Falcon. Now I have to draw him.
And I feel it would be incredibly unfair if such a person was rewarded over someone who's always been good just because it felt right and with no expectation to ever be rewarded for it, but just happened not to believe in God, or not in the right one, or not in the right way or something.
I'm just giving my opinion here, so take it however you will. I believe God can read a person's heart. One way or another, it is inevitable for the good to leave behind their suffering and the bad to be destroyed. If you look at it that way then what happens on Earth is very inconsequential. God won't reward a bad person, whether they praised Him or not. I believe you can do all the good things you want or praise God or preach for Him your whole life; if you weren't really good, God will say "I didn't know you" and you'll be destroyed or sent to exist in misery, or whatever happens. We have free will on Earth but in the end our fates are inevitable.
I can't say God is arrogant. How can someone who is perfect be arrogant about it? Seems like normal self-acknowledgment to me.
This reminds me of the Wiccan Rede: "An it harm none, do as ye will." (hence my belief that all religions are but separate paths to the same end)
My sister is/was a wiccan, so I researched it a bit. I've lived near "witches" before. Even if magic doesn't exist, they can still be damn scary people if they aren't nice people.
And last but not least my personal experience with having cancer after a couple of months born, and the pictures taken are so profound that science is left baffled not finding the answers to the reason of why i am alive. Yet it is this things that science is unable to address adequately. If it wasn't God, then my body suddenly developed defense system to attack and aggressive cancer that almost killed me?
Interesting. Thanks for sharing.
In order to advance our knowledge, sometimes we have to go outside of what we know and act on a little faith. If we stick to what we can sense all the time, then we'd never get anywhere.
Science is supposed to change as new evidence are discovered. Failure to modify your original idea, thesis or world-view in light of overwhelming evidence is commonly called wrong religion.
Fixed.
To be fair, in that time, there's a lot more involve than simple "religion". The Church is Holy and Sinful at the same time and that's mostly because is made by people. And those people hold power to the other people who believed blindly in them. Science was menasing their power and then has to be erradicated. Copernicus, for example, was a priest, and his theory of the Sun been the center wasn't in the way of his faith, but was in the way of the rest of the Church Power. So, at the end, the Dark Ages wasn't because Religion per-se, was because the people which were abusing of that believe to control other people. In other words, Conflict of Interests.
Ironically at probably sounds, the Science Discoveries are not in the way of what you believe, and I hold that because my Religious Teacher when I was in the school was also my Biology Teacher and she was agree with the Darwin Theory. So, what's gives? I don't get the problem.
You are entering a difficult territory when you try to explain the existence of God through logic or facts. The bible is very inconsistent, and an enormous amount of claims made in the book are obviously historically erroneous. The earth was not created in six days, nor was it created 6000 years (or so) ago, there was no mass extinction through floods four thousand years ago, and there is not a shred of proof that thousands of jews wandered through the desert for 40 years - it's even highly unlikely that Egypt ever had a sizeable population of jewish slaves.
The fact that christianity has had a huge cultural impact on the western civilizations is not proof of anything. An Indian hindu or a Saudi-Arabian muslim could use this very same logic to prove the validity of their gods and myths. Other religions are extremely influential in other parts of the world - perhaps even more than christianity in people's day-to-day life.
Anecdotes about how people suddenly recover from a seemingly terminal illness can be attributed to any number of causes. It is wonderful that you made a full recovery, but ask yourself why God would intervene and heal just you. Millions of children die every year from various diseases and ailments. Why would God ignore so many, yet help a tiny, miniscule fraction seemingly at random (and also, seemingly, without regard for the religion of the parents). And, of course, "God exists" does in no way follow logically from "science does not know everything".
I like your reply toward my my point of view. I agree it's a difficult territory to enter, but yet i feel that is one that must be discussed since it's one of the reasons people have contended why the hold such beliefs. However some people's point of view rely on science, or other on spiritual experience that comes from other backgrounds, and others for life experience. I'd like to reply towar 3 points you touch just so there isn't any missunderstanding.
1. The Bible was written thousands of years ago, it hold historic accounts toward the beginnings of Israel. As a matter of fact the most concrete fact of egiptian influence is the most revered object in Christianity which is the Ark of Covenant. http://alex.alexmayers.com/?p=121/SIZE] The beginnings of the Israel nation is an historical account and it's widely considered as a fact.
However i'll give you a point on the important aspect of the origins of Earth, theres too much mistery for me to be able to consider this aspect. And so i remain distant toward it. I believe that every mistery will be explained eventually through God. And thats why i don't bother to question it, or to find a logical answer.
2. I believe the influences of other religions in other countries is duly noted. But then again the most practiced religion in the world is Christianity by a 33%, followed by the Islam 21%. http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html It is important to notice there is an estimate, but what provides more validity toward this results it's the consistency in the order of most practiced religions. I concede to you that other religions has influenced our cultures, like indians and other localized religions in Europe that influenced the christian practices. My point in this topic is the influence in the cultural practice of Christianity is one of the most evident in our culture and especially in Europe, Africa and the Continental America's and Caribbean [where i come from].
I will however accept that this map is not a 100% accurate and so are the estimates.
3. This 3rd point of view has more to do with my personal experience. Your questions are the questions that everybody has that sum up to "why things aren't as perfect as they should be? " Well those are the questions that i say are extremely hard to answer and to sustain. I pass those questions to God, it's not for me to answer those, it's questions that are made for a God to answer. I know you will not agree with me a 100%, since we all believe to hold the complete truth but the reality is all of us posting our own reasons are wrong. But when death comes we will have to face our existential questions that hunts us through our lives, and we must be ready to die believing by faith. I decided to believe those articles i linked by faith, but theres no true reality to them. I think the problem is we humans want to see, touch and have a more interactive relationship with God. But the will of the creatures can't be imposed on the creator.
I once heard a saying that goes as followed "If you knew what God is doing for you, you would allow God to remain silent" I once heard a preacher say God has the tendency to things in the last moment, i dont know why he does that but maybe it has to do with faith.
Again, I'm not saying that science is wrong or stupid. I'm saying it doesn't hold all the answers, and in fact I'm not personally satisfied with believing exclusively in the answers it gives.
Also, I can believe you when you say that you saw a spider under my desk without having seen it or a picture of it myself, so long as I consider your personal testimony to be valid. I don't always require hard evidence to believe someone when they say they witnessed something, and by definition I would then have faith in that person and their testimony.
I have faith in the testimony of those who wrote the Bible, whether or not it is entered as evidence the multitude of historical documentation that corroborate each other in establishing its vailidity.
That is absolutely fantastic. I love how the devil wears all white; and I love his laugh at the end. He reminds me of Gutman from The Maltese Falcon. Now I have to draw him.
I was once a pretty devout Christian, but I found myself needing to shed that belief system. It was painful for me, and alienated me from a lot of people. I lost a lot of connection with my family, I lost people I had called my friends, and I lost a girlfriend over it. More than that, I lost the feeling that there was an omnipotent being that had a vested interest in me, my life, and my personal troubles. I'm by all means a lot less happy than I was only a few years ago.
But I stand by it. I can't say I trust in the Bible, not when passages outline how to beat slaves and when killing them is appropriate, when it is lawful to stone women to death, when it is right to commit genocide, etc. I can't trust a book that I find to be in part abhorrent to be the ultimate source of truth. If I can't trust in the Bible, then how can I trust in a Judeo-Christian concept of God? Why him, and not any other deity, or pantheon of deities?
I refuse to worship an evil God. The fact that modern churches have done a marvelous PR campaign for the guy doesn't really undo the content of the books they hand out.
I'm an atheist by choice. I understand the agnostic's view, but I don't share it. I think we need to realize that, while the possibility of some things is unknowable, you have to acknowledge that some things are far more likely than others. I can believe that a person saw a spider under their desks because I have seen spiders, and I have known them to go indoors and get discovered in unwelcome places. If I heard someone say that they found an airplane in their parking lot, a jackalope in the fridge, or a transcript detailing the third Monkey Island game as written by Ron Gilbert, containing in full The Secret and an explanation of its logic on their bathroom sink....I'd be somewhat incredulous.
But I stand by it. I can't say I trust in the Bible, not when passages outline how to beat slaves and when killing them is appropriate, when it is lawful to stone women to death, when it is right to commit genocide, etc. I can't trust a book that I find to be in part abhorrent to be the ultimate source of truth. If I can't trust in the Bible, then how can I trust in a Judeo-Christian concept of God? Why him, and not any other deity, or pantheon of deities?
I refuse to worship an evil God. The fact that modern churches have done a marvelous PR campaign for the guy doesn't really undo the content of the books they hand out.
I respect your point, but I can't really understand why. Really. Because, at least from my understanding, that book is obsolete by the New Testament. In a way, for me at least, the Old Testament is a somewhat nice History Book about where the Teacher of all Teachers was born and raised, but nothing more. I remember to myself which was his stand point about stone women, for example.
It's not like I want to change your point of view, but this is how I understand that, and I share it.
I respect your point, but I can't really understand why. Really. Because, at least from my understanding, that book is obsolete by the New Testament. In a way, for me at least, the Old Testament is a somewhat nice History Book about where the Teacher of all Teachers was born and raised, but nothing more. I remember to myself which was his stand point about stone women, for example.
It's not like I want to change your point of view, but this is how I understand that, and I share it.
I hear this, and I don't understand why it's appropriate then. Just because unjust and evil laws don't apply to us now, why were they okay thousands of years ago? Why didn't God, who is apparently perfect and good and all-loving, go against the violence and evil of the time until roughtly 2,000 years ago? Why does God seem to have all the evils and intolerances of the people of his time until relatively recently, and why shouldn't he be reprimanded for it?
I hear this, and I don't understand why it's appropriate then. Just because unjust and evil laws don't apply to us now, why were they okay thousands of years ago? Why didn't God, who is apparently perfect and good and all-loving, go against the violence and evil of the time until roughtly 2,000 years ago? Why does God seem to have all the evils and intolerances of the people of his time until relatively recently, and why shouldn't he be reprimanded for it?
Wrong person to have this discussion then (I'm talking about me, by the way).
Look, the only thing I really REALLY know is we just have the greatest Earthquake of this new century. A lot of people died, good and bad people. If that were written by that time, probably that will be treated by a punishment of god, because our society become something which money, partiing and things matters, and that why we suddenly had that earthquake. And those guys could be right, by the way.
The Bible was written by people, inspired by god supposenly, but a book written for people. People can interprete the things the way they want. If I interprete that Earthquake was sent not for punish us, but mostly for warn us about what is becoming of our society, I could be right too. I don't think God had change the slightest this 2.000 years, but I think people interpret it differently. Now we have enough stability for start to ask why those things happened, but in those days the only stability they had is God exist and nothing more. If suddenly something happened the only explanation they had was God's will. The king was there because god will too. Until people start to notice that couldn't be right and try to change it. But god give us free will too for something.
At the end, in those ancient times, god was the explanation and the only support they had because they didn't know if they're going to live tomorrow. But we have enough stability to ask why instead of just think of God's will and that's WHY we think that differently. If God sent us his own son just for tell us we were wrong all along, or sent an earthquake just for warn us about our decaing society, I believe this guy is just been neutral - good, but, somehow, love us anyway. There's a reason why we call him Father.
Disclaimer: By the way, this is what I think. I don't believe this is the complete truth, but it's at least something I can grab onto if something bad happened. And, really, been 2 days without knowing anything and suddenly know a lot of lifes could be saved just if just one person were corageous enough, give you a lot of stuff to think
Thanks! I love the shadow creatures climbing over him... adds the creepiness factor.:D Also, the black eyes...
I love Gorey, too. I used to have a set of note cards with famous murderesses on them, but I gave them all away as birthday cards to my friends. Still have a postcard book with creepy children, though.
I hear this, and I don't understand why it's appropriate then. Just because unjust and evil laws don't apply to us now, why were they okay thousands of years ago? Why didn't God, who is apparently perfect and good and all-loving, go against the violence and evil of the time until roughtly 2,000 years ago? Why does God seem to have all the evils and intolerances of the people of his time until relatively recently, and why shouldn't he be reprimanded for it?
This is essentially the problem that always occurs when a religion has a written canon. Before the advent of writing, religious traditions were passed down orally from generation to generation and their stories were able to change and adapt to suit the changing values and cultural needs of a people over time. Once these stories were written down, they remained fixed and unchangeable, even though people's values and ideals continued to change. A good example of this occurred in ancient Greece. The Iliad and the Odyssey are products of the early Archaic Greek culture, which believed in extremely anthropomorphic gods who were flawed and behaved according to relatable human psychology, and which idealized heroes whose skill in battle came from their sheer physical strength and their cunning and strategy. The Greek of the later Classical period held a different set of values and were made uncomfortable by the selfish, lustful, and childish nature of Homer's gods and the brutal violence and dishonorable trickery committed by his heroes. The entire Greek philosophy movement arose out of this need to reconcile the recorded religious ideas of the poets who lived centuries prior with the values and ideals of their current society.
This same phenomenon applies to the Judeo-Christian Bible. The stories and laws of the Old Testament made perfect sense in the context of the sexist, patriarchal, slaving-holding society of the ancient Hebrews. Our modern society is based upon the ideals of freedom and equality, and these stories and laws seem disturbing and abhorrent by our modern standards. The ancient Hebrews needed to believe in a cruel and wrathful god in order to account for the cruelty and unfairness of life. People today want to believe in loving, benevolent god capable of helping them through the pain and hardships they encounter in life. The god people need in our society today is very different from the god people have needed in other cultures at other points in history, but because the older god is the one recorded in the ancient texts and declared to be the canonical version, it can be difficult for people to reconcile the two.
I was to contribute in the science / religion thing.
I don't think that they're incompatible, I think they're completely different. Science focus on "how". We try to understand what happened, in what order, and how these things happened. We try to establish rules out of what we have seen happen and reproduced successfully.
Religion focuses on "why".
Nothing that science finds can even disprove God. Whatever is discovered could still happen to have been done by God. Evolution is a good example, there is nothing disproving God in it, and it makes sense that a God who seems to give people free will and urge them to progress towards goodness on their own, that is evolve mentally, would do the same physically, and create a first form of life in a way that it would evolve, rather than create it the way he wants from the starts.
Anything we observe could have been the result of what God did. So science doesn't disprove God in any way. And if God doesn't exist, it's impossible to prove that. How do you prove a negative? Come to my place and prove I don't own drugs. Even if you don't find any you could always figure I'm hiding them, or I gave them to a friend or something.
If all we have is the absence of any proof that God exists, he could still exist and be "hiding".
It is absolutely possible to figure that since there is no proof beyond the margin of error (in the person's opinion), then it makes more sense, from a rational point of view, to assume there is no God. Just like you don't tend to assume things if there is nothing backing up your hypothesis.
But belief in God doesn't work that way. It's something completely different. If you believe, a lack of evidence isn't going to convince you. Plus, you will see evidence where other people won't. Such as miracles, and things like that.
I believe that miracles are all explainable. People are healing or surviving things in a conceivable way. I believe that if God exists, he's definitely "hiding", and not doing anything that makes it obvious he exists. For instance, he never heals amputees, one class for which is could be easily observed that the person is actually suffering from the ailment and that there wasn't a wrong diagnosis or a placebo effect of some sort (does that work for ailments too or only treatments), and for which at this point in time we don't know of any way limbs could regrow naturally (while there have been many people surviving cancer, being able to walk again, and so on due to perfectly explained sources).
Of course religions have an explanation for this: faith. God isn't being obvious, God isn't proving he exists because he wants people to believe in him out of faith.
As a result, I believe the two are completely separate and compatible.
Personally, I believe the existence of god(s) is very unlikely. My main reason for this is that there is not a shred of evidence for their existance. While there is no evidence against god(s) either, the same goes for gnomes, unicorns, and talking animals, so IMO god is no more likely to exist than either of those. I consider oranized religion a very evil thing, but the beliefs and believers themselves are generally harmless and OK.
Plus, you will see evidence where other people won't. Such as miracles, and things like that.
Therein lies the key, I think.
The Bible even says:
1 Corinithians 1:18-19
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
(quote refers to Isaiah 29:14)
I was in church the other day, and at one point we talked, among other things about rituals.
In the Bible, it says:
14Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.' "
[...]
18b "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? 19For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.") 20He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' 21For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' "
Mark 14-15,18b-23
This, among other passages in the Bible explain why Christians don't worry about eating pork or other foods that aren't "kosher".
Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.
As, somehow after 4 pages everyone is still talking about religion, I thought I'd contribute. I have no religion and believe in nothing, the idea of God makes absolutely no sense to me - I wouldn't believe anything else without any proof so why would this be any different?
I think the ideas in the Bible (I can't comment on other religions' texts as I know too little about them) are in general positive. The morals are often outdated but they can be adjusted slightly in order to retain their original meaning while being more relevant to 21st century life. I think of it more as a self-help book rather than a document of fact.
To some extent I do envy those who believe because it must be comforting but I know there's no way I'd ever be able to.
Religion makes factual claims, and these are the very things that science test. There are parts of religion that are not scientific (due to not being objectively factual) such as how to live your life, how to care for others, etc. but there are parts which are just full on factual claims, such as God exists, the earth is 6,000 years old, when you die you will be greeted by 72 raisins, etc.
For each of these claims there is no reason to treat them any differently than one would treat any other scientific hypothesis. That is with skepticism, until the level of evidence is enough to push the hypothesis towards being a likely answer.
That doesn't mean you believe something to be false, you just don't believe it to be true. If I brought a box along that you hadn't seen before, and asked if you would bet money that there's a set of Sam and Max plush toys in there, would you? Probably not. Would you bet money that there isn't a set in there? Again probably not. You instantly take the most reasonable stance; you do not believe anything about the contents of the box, or about the lack of particular items in the box.
That is agnosticism, and atheism.
Why is that it seems the agnostics and atheists are the most vocal/confrontational/belittling/belligerent on this thread? It's like you think you have something to prove and are therefore compelled to try to get a rise out of people.
Fortunately, it hasn't been very successful, but my point still stands.
...Whatever happened to trying to have an intelligent and civil conversation?
hm... Well I was just asking a question out of curiosity. Honestly, I find myself to be more curious about why people believe things, though I can understand why some agnostic/atheist folk may be more vocal. When you're a minority, you tend to speak up about you believe otherwise you won't be heard. Especially if you're a minority that is demonized by a good majority. If you don't say anything, you'll just get swallowed up.
Some things said might seem harsh, but I've seen harsh words said from just about any point of view, and one harsh comment from one person may be the right thing to say to another.
Comments
And I do know that God exists. Just because I'm not able to scientically explain that God exists and that He makes Himself known to me, in a manner that you might accept as sufficient proof, that doesn't mean that He doesn't exist. It either means that I'm not very good at arguing my case or you're stubborn enough to not want to accept it. Either way, I'm absolutely certain that He exists and that He cares about us.
I would encourage you all to read More Than A Carpenter by Josh McDowell. Among other things, he writes about how you should use historical and legal proofs, not the scientific method, to prove/disprove the authenticity of the Bible and, by extension, the divinity of Jesus Christ.
I wasn't even really struggling in my faith or whatnot. It was just simply sudden revelation that applied to all the study of world religions as well as my inborn skepticism and curiosity. I remember it coming to me as wondering what if there actually were no god. From right there I realized that I had been purposely blocking logical evidence that could have easily been backed up of the naturalistic nature of the world, while blindly accepting the supernatural. And with that I realized that if there had been one true religion, then what I had considered inconsolable proof would have been accepted by all.
It was a fairly hard time for me briefly trying to cope with the idea that I wouldn't live forever (as well as upset parents). I felt so lost and upset that there really wasn't any purpose to my life. Why was life worth living if I had nothing to live for? It wasn't soon after until I found myself having such a grand time with close friends that I realized that I didn't need to have some divine purpose to have something worth living for. I began enjoying life as it is right now. I'm feel extremely lucky to be able to live right now and I only wish to make this crazy ride called life just as enjoyable for other people.
So I guess I'm what most folks would call a Secular Humanist. I have no problem with folks calling me this, however, I am an Atheist before anything else. That said, I do think that many religions do have some good parts to them that emphasize charity, kindness, and the progression of mankind that I do commend greatly. I have considered attending some Unitarian Universalist meetings because I do love meeting new people and chummy comraderies, but at the moment I have not. Perhaps in the future. I'm also kinda a dork and go to sleep listening to lectures about science, philosophy, and atheism. haha
In the end, I guess I feel that I'm fine with people believing in whatever they wish to believe as long as they don't try to force those beliefs on me or others who don't share those beliefs.
Also, for I think this is a good video talking about the misconception about idea that scientists claim to know everything.
You are confusing "sceince" with religion here. The God card (God is omnipotent and moves works in mysterious ways) can be used to explain anything or support any hypothesis. Science is about the search for truths and facts. The only hypotheses fully supported by science are those which at this point in time are supported by all evidence, and contradicted by none.
I'm fine with that. Accepting that belief in God is despite of scientific evidence, not because of it, is all I'm arguing.
I'm an atheist myself, but i think one can chose to believe in what jesus (for instance) SAID without caring if the guy actually existed or not. Sure, we now know some stuff that contradicts what the bible says, but so what ? One can still chose to believe that something did create the universe, etc, etc etc...
Who really cares if it happened in 7 days or millions of years ? That stuff is mostly symbolic anyway.
I'm currently reading Joseph Campbell's books on the structure of myth (The Hero with a Thousand Faces), and i love the idea that all myth, no matter where they come from, are expressions of the same, basic, existential questions of mankind. The WAY in which they are told doesn't really matter, it's what the stuff means that's important.
In my opinion, you can't be positive about something without a certain amount of proof or evidence. Sure, you can assume that God exists, but to suggest that somebody would be stubborn to disagree with you is wrong. There is only a handful of proof for the existence of God, so anybody who disagrees that God exists is, in fact, neutral rather than stubborn.
I'm not 100% sure what you mean so this response could be meaningless, but you can't prove the method by which something happened just by proving that it happened.
An analogy to explain what I mean better: Say somebody wrote an autobiographical book, and in that book they wrote "twenty years ago, when I was a child, I burned down my shed using my uncle's makeshift flamethrower." If you were to go down to that person's childhood home and see the remnants of a burnt shed, you would confirm the validity of the claim "I burned down my shed". You would not, however, confirm the valifity of the claim "I burned down my shed using my uncle's makeshift flamethrower."
Similarly, if you were to assess the claim "Many years ago, the world was flooded by an angry God", you could use scientific methods to prove that there was, indeed, a flood around the time of the claim. You could therefore confirm the validity of the claim "Many years ago, the world was flooded". However, you would be unable to confirm the validity of the claim "Many years ago, the world was flooded by an angry God". Such a claim is unknowable, hence my agnosticism.
But ain't that the whole point of faith ?
Believing without demanding proof ?
There is archeological evidence of a flood around the Black Sea area at the appropriate time (town remnants at the bottom of the Black Sea, etc...). It looks as though the Mediterranean overflowed into the Black Sea, maybe because of a glacier melt or shift. The flood definitely did not cover the entire earth, but was pretty big.
There are also comparable myths from other cultures to support this such as Gilgamesh and a Roman/Greek myth that I can't quite remember at the moment...I think Zeus had something to do with it.
...but the point is that you can't prove that an angry god did this.
Just to be clear, you're talking about this, right?
In ages past, people used the tools of observation available to them to "prove," using then modern science, that the Earth was flat or that the Sun revolved around the Earth or that wood contained the element of fire and just needed a little coaxing to reveal itself.
It used to be said that eggs were good for you, then studies were done and eggs were deemed to be bad. Now they're thought to be good again.
When I was a baby, it was taught that parents should lay their babies on their stomachs so they don't choke if they vomit in the night. Now it's taught that babies should lie on their backs so that they don't suffocate on their sheets. Sure, there is evidence that babies who lie on their backs are less apt to die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but noone really even knows what causes SIDS. It's just a syndrome people created for infant deaths that defy current explanation. In fact, there are many medical conditions out there that can not be explained by science when using our current levels of knowledge and technology.
Why is it so hard to believe something that you can't explain by using the scientific method? Scientific explanation changes its mind all the time about why things happen, not to mention the plethora of things around us that are inexplicable by only using such methods.
If the scientific method holds the unequivocal solution to the knowledge of all things, then explain to me why objects of mass attract each other (that is, explain why the laws of gravity and magnetism exist.) You can't explain why it exists. You just know that it does. You can prove that it does, so far as your level of understanding can explain, but you don't know why it does. For that, you need faith in why because you can't readily explain it.
The scientific method can't explain everything.
At least check your facts when you are trying to argue against science as a whole. No scientist in the history of mankind has ever claimed the earth is flat. Even the ancient greeks, the inventors of the scientific method, reasoned that the earth was round. Also, it was science that freed us from the commonly held religious belief that the earth was in the centre of the universe, and the stars revolved around us.
Science is supposed to change as new evidence are discovered. Failure to modify your original idea, thesis or world-view in light of overwhelming evidence is commonly called religion.
I really do urge you to watch this video (which explains this better than I can) at least before further criticizing the scientific method.
I'm not saying science is entirely unreliable. I'm saying that science isn't the only answer to life, the universe and everything.
EDIT: I watched that video, and I'm not saying that for science be vaild it requires faith. I'm saying that I personally am looking for more answers in life than science alone can explain, so it makes little sense to me for someone to say "I don't believe it if science can't prove it yet," especially when scientific theories change all the time (and sometimes reverse position entirely) when given futher available evidence.
Science has explaind why, as in the causal effects, these forces exist. If you are talking about why as in the reason behind them, you are already assuming there needs to be a reason, and thus and intelligence behind everything, in which case the wole premise of the argument falls.
Secondly, no-one has claimed science has the aswers to everything. To quote Dara O'Briain; "Well, science knows it doesn't know everything. Otherwise it would have stopped."
Fine by me. I'm just saying don't say that science is flawed because it can't explain everything because that's entirely faulty thinking.
Yes, this is all completely true. In fact, what you're saying just offers credence to the scientific method.
The pursuit of knowledge through science commands humility; in order to achieve a full understanding of something, you must be willing to accept that what you thought was true is false. So while we once believed that the Earth was flat, we now have accepted that it is round. While we once believed that lightning was thrown down to Earth by Gods, we now know that it is simply caused by electrical discharge. In order to realise these things, we have had to swallow our pride and concede that what we once thought was scientific fact is actually not.
Just because scientists change their mind doesn't mean they're wrong. In fact, it means the exact opposite. If you looked at a red piece of paper and said "this is blue" before realising that it was actually red, would you be better off saying "actually, it's red" or "it's still blue"? There's nothing wrong with updating our understanding of the world. Surely that's how we progress?
Things such as the existence of God - and since there is no method to test validity other than the scientific one, I think it's most sensible to take an agnostic view toward such things.
How does faith explain why something happens better than science does?
To have faith in a certain value, you must first have established said value. For example, to have faith that gravity exists, you must first have established that gravity exists. To have faith that God exists, you must first have established that God exists.
It's the grounds on which these things have been established that I'm the most concerned about - If I told you that there was a spider under your desk, you would probably not have faith in this assertion because the grounds on which it was established are very weak. If, however, I showed you a photograph of the spider, then you would be more justified in having faith in the spider's existence.
To have faith in God does not explain why gravity exists any better than the scientific method does. During the time that the Bible was written, gravity wasn't yet established on any grounds. Since gravity has only ever been asserted on scientific grounds, it is best explained by scientific terms (even if that explanation is "we have no idea why gravity exists").
That is absolutely fantastic. I love how the devil wears all white; and I love his laugh at the end. He reminds me of Gutman from The Maltese Falcon. Now I have to draw him.
I'm just giving my opinion here, so take it however you will. I believe God can read a person's heart. One way or another, it is inevitable for the good to leave behind their suffering and the bad to be destroyed. If you look at it that way then what happens on Earth is very inconsequential. God won't reward a bad person, whether they praised Him or not. I believe you can do all the good things you want or praise God or preach for Him your whole life; if you weren't really good, God will say "I didn't know you" and you'll be destroyed or sent to exist in misery, or whatever happens. We have free will on Earth but in the end our fates are inevitable.
I can't say God is arrogant. How can someone who is perfect be arrogant about it? Seems like normal self-acknowledgment to me.
My sister is/was a wiccan, so I researched it a bit. I've lived near "witches" before. Even if magic doesn't exist, they can still be damn scary people if they aren't nice people.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing.
In order to advance our knowledge, sometimes we have to go outside of what we know and act on a little faith. If we stick to what we can sense all the time, then we'd never get anywhere.
Fixed.
To be fair, in that time, there's a lot more involve than simple "religion". The Church is Holy and Sinful at the same time and that's mostly because is made by people. And those people hold power to the other people who believed blindly in them. Science was menasing their power and then has to be erradicated. Copernicus, for example, was a priest, and his theory of the Sun been the center wasn't in the way of his faith, but was in the way of the rest of the Church Power. So, at the end, the Dark Ages wasn't because Religion per-se, was because the people which were abusing of that believe to control other people. In other words, Conflict of Interests.
Ironically at probably sounds, the Science Discoveries are not in the way of what you believe, and I hold that because my Religious Teacher when I was in the school was also my Biology Teacher and she was agree with the Darwin Theory. So, what's gives? I don't get the problem.
I like your reply toward my my point of view. I agree it's a difficult territory to enter, but yet i feel that is one that must be discussed since it's one of the reasons people have contended why the hold such beliefs. However some people's point of view rely on science, or other on spiritual experience that comes from other backgrounds, and others for life experience. I'd like to reply towar 3 points you touch just so there isn't any missunderstanding.
1. The Bible was written thousands of years ago, it hold historic accounts toward the beginnings of Israel. As a matter of fact the most concrete fact of egiptian influence is the most revered object in Christianity which is the Ark of Covenant. http://alex.alexmayers.com/?p=121/SIZE] The beginnings of the Israel nation is an historical account and it's widely considered as a fact.
However i'll give you a point on the important aspect of the origins of Earth, theres too much mistery for me to be able to consider this aspect. And so i remain distant toward it. I believe that every mistery will be explained eventually through God. And thats why i don't bother to question it, or to find a logical answer.
2. I believe the influences of other religions in other countries is duly noted. But then again the most practiced religion in the world is Christianity by a 33%, followed by the Islam 21%. http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html It is important to notice there is an estimate, but what provides more validity toward this results it's the consistency in the order of most practiced religions. I concede to you that other religions has influenced our cultures, like indians and other localized religions in Europe that influenced the christian practices. My point in this topic is the influence in the cultural practice of Christianity is one of the most evident in our culture and especially in Europe, Africa and the Continental America's and Caribbean [where i come from].
I will however accept that this map is not a 100% accurate and so are the estimates.
3. This 3rd point of view has more to do with my personal experience. Your questions are the questions that everybody has that sum up to "why things aren't as perfect as they should be? " Well those are the questions that i say are extremely hard to answer and to sustain. I pass those questions to God, it's not for me to answer those, it's questions that are made for a God to answer. I know you will not agree with me a 100%, since we all believe to hold the complete truth but the reality is all of us posting our own reasons are wrong. But when death comes we will have to face our existential questions that hunts us through our lives, and we must be ready to die believing by faith. I decided to believe those articles i linked by faith, but theres no true reality to them. I think the problem is we humans want to see, touch and have a more interactive relationship with God. But the will of the creatures can't be imposed on the creator.
I once heard a saying that goes as followed "If you knew what God is doing for you, you would allow God to remain silent" I once heard a preacher say God has the tendency to things in the last moment, i dont know why he does that but maybe it has to do with faith.
Also, I can believe you when you say that you saw a spider under my desk without having seen it or a picture of it myself, so long as I consider your personal testimony to be valid. I don't always require hard evidence to believe someone when they say they witnessed something, and by definition I would then have faith in that person and their testimony.
I have faith in the testimony of those who wrote the Bible, whether or not it is entered as evidence the multitude of historical documentation that corroborate each other in establishing its vailidity.
Pic please?:D
But I stand by it. I can't say I trust in the Bible, not when passages outline how to beat slaves and when killing them is appropriate, when it is lawful to stone women to death, when it is right to commit genocide, etc. I can't trust a book that I find to be in part abhorrent to be the ultimate source of truth. If I can't trust in the Bible, then how can I trust in a Judeo-Christian concept of God? Why him, and not any other deity, or pantheon of deities?
I refuse to worship an evil God. The fact that modern churches have done a marvelous PR campaign for the guy doesn't really undo the content of the books they hand out.
I'm an atheist by choice. I understand the agnostic's view, but I don't share it. I think we need to realize that, while the possibility of some things is unknowable, you have to acknowledge that some things are far more likely than others. I can believe that a person saw a spider under their desks because I have seen spiders, and I have known them to go indoors and get discovered in unwelcome places. If I heard someone say that they found an airplane in their parking lot, a jackalope in the fridge, or a transcript detailing the third Monkey Island game as written by Ron Gilbert, containing in full The Secret and an explanation of its logic on their bathroom sink....I'd be somewhat incredulous.
I respect your point, but I can't really understand why. Really. Because, at least from my understanding, that book is obsolete by the New Testament. In a way, for me at least, the Old Testament is a somewhat nice History Book about where the Teacher of all Teachers was born and raised, but nothing more. I remember to myself which was his stand point about stone women, for example.
It's not like I want to change your point of view, but this is how I understand that, and I share it.
Wrong person to have this discussion then (I'm talking about me, by the way).
Look, the only thing I really REALLY know is we just have the greatest Earthquake of this new century. A lot of people died, good and bad people. If that were written by that time, probably that will be treated by a punishment of god, because our society become something which money, partiing and things matters, and that why we suddenly had that earthquake. And those guys could be right, by the way.
The Bible was written by people, inspired by god supposenly, but a book written for people. People can interprete the things the way they want. If I interprete that Earthquake was sent not for punish us, but mostly for warn us about what is becoming of our society, I could be right too. I don't think God had change the slightest this 2.000 years, but I think people interpret it differently. Now we have enough stability for start to ask why those things happened, but in those days the only stability they had is God exist and nothing more. If suddenly something happened the only explanation they had was God's will. The king was there because god will too. Until people start to notice that couldn't be right and try to change it. But god give us free will too for something.
At the end, in those ancient times, god was the explanation and the only support they had because they didn't know if they're going to live tomorrow. But we have enough stability to ask why instead of just think of God's will and that's WHY we think that differently. If God sent us his own son just for tell us we were wrong all along, or sent an earthquake just for warn us about our decaing society, I believe this guy is just been neutral - good, but, somehow, love us anyway. There's a reason why we call him Father.
Disclaimer: By the way, this is what I think. I don't believe this is the complete truth, but it's at least something I can grab onto if something bad happened. And, really, been 2 days without knowing anything and suddenly know a lot of lifes could be saved just if just one person were corageous enough, give you a lot of stuff to think
Yeah, sure.
Speaking of that, my favorite artist Edward Gorey did a simple, intriguing story about the devil and hell, which you can read
here.
I love Gorey, too. I used to have a set of note cards with famous murderesses on them, but I gave them all away as birthday cards to my friends. Still have a postcard book with creepy children, though.
This is essentially the problem that always occurs when a religion has a written canon. Before the advent of writing, religious traditions were passed down orally from generation to generation and their stories were able to change and adapt to suit the changing values and cultural needs of a people over time. Once these stories were written down, they remained fixed and unchangeable, even though people's values and ideals continued to change. A good example of this occurred in ancient Greece. The Iliad and the Odyssey are products of the early Archaic Greek culture, which believed in extremely anthropomorphic gods who were flawed and behaved according to relatable human psychology, and which idealized heroes whose skill in battle came from their sheer physical strength and their cunning and strategy. The Greek of the later Classical period held a different set of values and were made uncomfortable by the selfish, lustful, and childish nature of Homer's gods and the brutal violence and dishonorable trickery committed by his heroes. The entire Greek philosophy movement arose out of this need to reconcile the recorded religious ideas of the poets who lived centuries prior with the values and ideals of their current society.
This same phenomenon applies to the Judeo-Christian Bible. The stories and laws of the Old Testament made perfect sense in the context of the sexist, patriarchal, slaving-holding society of the ancient Hebrews. Our modern society is based upon the ideals of freedom and equality, and these stories and laws seem disturbing and abhorrent by our modern standards. The ancient Hebrews needed to believe in a cruel and wrathful god in order to account for the cruelty and unfairness of life. People today want to believe in loving, benevolent god capable of helping them through the pain and hardships they encounter in life. The god people need in our society today is very different from the god people have needed in other cultures at other points in history, but because the older god is the one recorded in the ancient texts and declared to be the canonical version, it can be difficult for people to reconcile the two.
I don't think that they're incompatible, I think they're completely different. Science focus on "how". We try to understand what happened, in what order, and how these things happened. We try to establish rules out of what we have seen happen and reproduced successfully.
Religion focuses on "why".
Nothing that science finds can even disprove God. Whatever is discovered could still happen to have been done by God. Evolution is a good example, there is nothing disproving God in it, and it makes sense that a God who seems to give people free will and urge them to progress towards goodness on their own, that is evolve mentally, would do the same physically, and create a first form of life in a way that it would evolve, rather than create it the way he wants from the starts.
Anything we observe could have been the result of what God did. So science doesn't disprove God in any way. And if God doesn't exist, it's impossible to prove that. How do you prove a negative? Come to my place and prove I don't own drugs. Even if you don't find any you could always figure I'm hiding them, or I gave them to a friend or something.
If all we have is the absence of any proof that God exists, he could still exist and be "hiding".
It is absolutely possible to figure that since there is no proof beyond the margin of error (in the person's opinion), then it makes more sense, from a rational point of view, to assume there is no God. Just like you don't tend to assume things if there is nothing backing up your hypothesis.
But belief in God doesn't work that way. It's something completely different. If you believe, a lack of evidence isn't going to convince you. Plus, you will see evidence where other people won't. Such as miracles, and things like that.
I believe that miracles are all explainable. People are healing or surviving things in a conceivable way. I believe that if God exists, he's definitely "hiding", and not doing anything that makes it obvious he exists. For instance, he never heals amputees, one class for which is could be easily observed that the person is actually suffering from the ailment and that there wasn't a wrong diagnosis or a placebo effect of some sort (does that work for ailments too or only treatments), and for which at this point in time we don't know of any way limbs could regrow naturally (while there have been many people surviving cancer, being able to walk again, and so on due to perfectly explained sources).
Of course religions have an explanation for this: faith. God isn't being obvious, God isn't proving he exists because he wants people to believe in him out of faith.
As a result, I believe the two are completely separate and compatible.
Therein lies the key, I think.
The Bible even says:
1 Corinithians 1:18-19
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
(quote refers to Isaiah 29:14)
In the Bible, it says:
14Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.' "
[...]
18b "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? 19For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.") 20He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' 21For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' "
Mark 14-15,18b-23
This, among other passages in the Bible explain why Christians don't worry about eating pork or other foods that aren't "kosher".
I guess it's typical, coming from me.
I think the ideas in the Bible (I can't comment on other religions' texts as I know too little about them) are in general positive. The morals are often outdated but they can be adjusted slightly in order to retain their original meaning while being more relevant to 21st century life. I think of it more as a self-help book rather than a document of fact.
To some extent I do envy those who believe because it must be comforting but I know there's no way I'd ever be able to.
For each of these claims there is no reason to treat them any differently than one would treat any other scientific hypothesis. That is with skepticism, until the level of evidence is enough to push the hypothesis towards being a likely answer.
That doesn't mean you believe something to be false, you just don't believe it to be true. If I brought a box along that you hadn't seen before, and asked if you would bet money that there's a set of Sam and Max plush toys in there, would you? Probably not. Would you bet money that there isn't a set in there? Again probably not. You instantly take the most reasonable stance; you do not believe anything about the contents of the box, or about the lack of particular items in the box.
That is agnosticism, and atheism.
Fortunately, it hasn't been very successful, but my point still stands.
...Whatever happened to trying to have an intelligent and civil conversation?
Some things said might seem harsh, but I've seen harsh words said from just about any point of view, and one harsh comment from one person may be the right thing to say to another.