why don't you believe in god? were you religious before? what turned you away?

who cares?

Well idk what you mean , but you can't be a christian then atheist impossible lol AussieePet

I just wanted to say, guys:

When discussing these matter can you please stick to the scientific deifnition fo the word theory, or otherwise let the reader know you are using the layman's deifnition isntead.

It's hard to follow a thread when person one uses the layman's definition and persons 2 and 3 use the scientific one, but then apply it to discussions where using the word hypothesis would be more accurate.

You don't get it, do you? The reason that science doesn't threaten *some* religions (a large proportion of religious people hold beliefs which have been falsified scientifically - creationism, etc.) is that those religions have retreated. As science explains more and more of the world, religion is confined to an ever-decreasing set of possible beliefs. Also, even those religions which do not directly contradict scientific knowledge are still totally inconsistent with science because there is no evidence for them, and therefore not rejecting them is unscientific.Funky_Llama

Edit: Fixed quote format

[QUOTE="Funky_Llama"]You don't get it, do you? The reason that science doesn't threaten *some* religions (a large proportion of religious people hold beliefs which have been falsified scientifically - creationism, etc.) is that those religions have retreated. As science explains more and more of the world, religion is confined to an ever-decreasing set of possible beliefs. Also, even those religions which do not directly contradict scientific knowledge are still totally inconsistent with science because there is no evidence for them, and therefore not rejecting them is unscientific.Acemaster27

Edit: Fixed quote format

[QUOTE="Funky_Llama"]You don't get it, do you? The reason that science doesn't threaten *some* religions (a large proportion of religious people hold beliefs which have been falsified scientifically - creationism, etc.) is that those religions have retreated. As science explains more and more of the world, religion is confined to an ever-decreasing set of possible beliefs. Also, even those religions which do not directly contradict scientific knowledge are still totally inconsistent with science because there is no evidence for them, and therefore not rejecting them is unscientific.Acemaster27

Edit: Fixed quote format

not possible, i understand religion and christianity in your case trying to "adapt" scientific theories to your beliefs, because they realize they cant win against science in this day and age where people don't believe in every single mad man talking, but how can you explain that acording to bible earth is 6000 years old? there is no way to "adapt" the genealogy of the old testament to real science and evolution. And many more examples like that or are you saying the bible is not true?

not possible, i understand religion and christianity in your case trying to "adapt" scientific theories to your beliefs, because they realize they cant win against science in this day and age where people don't believe in every single mad man talking, but how can you explain that acording to bible earth is 6000 years old? there is no way to "adapt" the genealogy of the old testament to real science and evolution. And many more examples like that or are you saying the bible is not true?

Krelian-co

What if I told you that the original authors of Genesis never intended it to be taken literally? Or that this whole Earth is 6000 years old idea was only created in the last several hundred years? Science will can tell us some things, but it cannot answer questions like why we exist (only how). The most fundamental questions of the human experience are not in the realm of science, so we need other forms of inquiry, be it philosophy or theology, to even attempt to answers them. This has always been true and always will be true.Acemaster27

We can apply this logic to literally any part of any religious text. Yay, let's pick and choose whatever we want to be true based on what's convenient! :roll:

[QUOTE="Acemaster27"] Science will can tell us some things, but it cannot answer questions like why we exist (only how). The most fundamental questions of the human experience are not in the realm of science, so we need other forms of inquiry, be it philosophy or theology, to even attempt to answers them. This has always been true and always will be true.Funky_Llama

Our own individual existence is ONLY thing we can know for sure without making assumptions. Everything else we believe about the universe, science included, requires us to accept some unproven presuppositions. In terms of science, we believe that if gravity works one way in our solar system, then it works the same way on the other side of the universe, despite never actually observing how galaxies on the other side of the universe currently behave. So even deciding what presuppositions should be made requires some type of nonscientific, philosophical inquiry.

Edit, just saw this:

We can apply this logic to literally any part of any religious text. Yay, let's pick and choose whatever we want to be true based on what's convenient! :roll:

Barbariser

Interpertation of text requires you to study the context, the meaning in its original language, the cultural audience it was written for, and the style it was written in, aka the original purpose of the text. That is not an easy task, nor can it be used to prove whatever you want the text to say. If you want to know why Genesis doesn't contradict science, well, I'll just leave this link here to a resource with a lot of answers: http://biologos.org/questions (the biologos foundation promotes the idea that science and Christian faith coexist in harmony).

Our own individual existence is ONLY thing we can know for sure without making assumptions. Everything else we believe about the universe, science included, requires us to accept some unproven presuppositions. In terms of science, we believe that if gravity works one way in our solar system, then it works the same way on the other side of the universe, despite never actually observing how galaxies on the other side of the universe currently behave. So even deciding what presuppositions should be made requires some type of nonscientific, philosophical inquiry.Acemaster27

Science presupposes that physical laws are constant because we literally cannot solve any problems whatsoever using the scientific method without doing so. In any case, science hasn't found any "places" where physical laws contradict, and the results of the scientific method have shown its reliability.

Why should we presuppose that there is a "reason" for humans to exist?

Our own individual existence is ONLY thing we can know for sure without making assumptions. Everything else we believe about the universe, science included, requires us to accept some unproven presuppositions. In terms of science, we believe that if gravity works one way in our solar system, then it works the same way on the other side of the universe, despite never actually observing how galaxies on the other side of the universe currently behave. So even deciding what presuppositions should be made requires some type of nonscientific, philosophical inquiry.Acemaster27

Bollocks.

If experimental data contradicts assumptions, then the assumptions are discarded.

According to classical physics every body should be radiantly lit up, and one particle energy function that I don't remember specifically should have diverged to infinity, while evidence showed it converged to zero, both of them were fixed by Planck with the introduction of quantum mechanics.

If everything we know of astrophysics turns out to be wrong when and if we manage to leave the solar system, we'll change astrophysics aswell. We already know what we know is wrong, considering 90% of the mass of the universe is missing from our sight and there are galaxies that according to our theories shouldn't be able to become as big as they are.

Our limited perception does in no way imply assumptions. Nothing in science works on "unproven presuppositions".

Which god?

Blue-Sky

who cares?

tenaka2

I don't believe in religion but I believe in a God sort of

[QUOTE="Krelian-co"]

not possible, i understand religion and christianity in your case trying to "adapt" scientific theories to your beliefs, because they realize they cant win against science in this day and age where people don't believe in every single mad man talking, but how can you explain that acording to bible earth is 6000 years old? there is no way to "adapt" the genealogy of the old testament to real science and evolution. And many more examples like that or are you saying the bible is not true?

Acemaster27

do you even know where the 6000 year old comes from? make the genealogical tree from the people in the old testament, abraham and all those guys and since the bible tells their specific ages, not just the genesis, i'll even concede you the "genesis is not to be taken literal" argument, but what about the biographies of all those guys?

"the most fundamental questions of the human experience are no in the realm of science" - maybe, maybe not, but for certain those questions can't be answered by anyone, and i prefer to believe in the understanding i have of them limited as it may be, that what other people tell me about those answers. Plus i'd rather people focused on finding answers that are useful like the questions science makes that go around listening to what people "think" may be the answer to why are we here, which is so personal that everyone in the world has a different view on them.

[QUOTE="Acemaster27"]One thing I don't understand, how can people say that science turns you away from God? Science proves how amazing and beautiful the universe is. And doesn't seeing a masterpiece painting indicate that there existed a masterful artist to paint it?GrayF0X786

Really? The universe being 13.7 billion years old proves that it's 6,000 years old?

The ignorance of some of the clueless Christians here is laughable.

this board seems to have more atheists and agnostics and other variations of non-believers than believers. god had to have been the catalyst for the universe seeing as how something cannot come from nothing. so why don't you believe in religion? were you religious before? what made you see the light? if you're still religious, have you ever considered atheism?ZumaJones07

What if I told you that the original authors of Genesis never intended it to be taken literally? Or that this whole Earth is 6000 years old idea was only created in the last several hundred years?Acemaster27

Our own individual existence is ONLY thing we can know for sure without making assumptions. Everything else we believe about the universe, science included, requires us to accept some unproven presuppositions. In terms of science, we believe that if gravity works one way in our solar system, then it works the same way on the other side of the universe, despite never actually observing how galaxies on the other side of the universe currently behave. So even deciding what presuppositions should be made requires some type of nonscientific, philosophical inquiry.Acemaster27

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TAtRCJIqnk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TAtRCJIqnk

Matthew-first