First off, don’t cut and paste my comment. Fellowship has nothing to do with religion either. The Elk’s Lodge is a place of fellowship. A fellowship is also a grant. So in addition to seperating religion’s hold on gods, spirituality, and prayer, I must also add fellowship.

None of these concepts or activities require religion. Religion, especially arrogant christians, have co-opted, or should I say, stolen these ideas and endeavors from the people.

Belief has nothing to do with religion. Religion exploits our ability to believe. Gods have nothing to do with religion. Gods, which don’t exist in the first place, would if they existed have no need of divisive, intolerant religions.

Which brings me to my next point. Listening to a christian talk about religion bringing us together is a hoot. There are almost 40,000 christian cults. Need I say more about the divisive nature of religion?

You then go on to explain why we created religions. This is pure conjecture on your part. No one knows why we started religions. What is apparent now, is what religions have done. Religions have exploited the fear, insecurity, and ignorance of the people for thousands of years. Religion provides power and wealth to a ruling class of priests, who either directly control societies or work in conspiracy with the powerful and wealthy elite.

Then you trot out this tired load, which starts with a snippet of my comment.

You said we will finally be united if we remove religion from out lives. I don’t see how this is possible. It has happened before, and been a great disaster. We can all recount the atrocities of the various religions, we are much more hesitant to recount the atrocities when religion is replaced with the doctrines of racism, or nationalism or wealth.

Well,of course you don’t see how this is possible, your up to your neurons in religious indoctrination. And the major sick and tragic thing christian indoctrination teaches is that we are all sinful pieces of shit. Christianity robs us of every bit of confidence we should rightly have in our own ability to live an ethical, moral life.

Because religions, and especially christianity, need a reason for being. So they pretend to be the bringer of morals, the teacher of right and wrong when nothing could be further from the truth. Religion is a business, while some are better than others, most of them are self perpetuating. Religion learned right and wrong from the people. Religion then goes on to redefine right and wrong and along the way murders and divides the people.

Remember this, the christian god is a lie. The christian god is not the god of forgiveness. If this lie were the god of infinite forgiveness, we would still be in the garden. Your god has been holding a grudge for 6000 years. Judaism is a lie. Christianity is a lie. Islam is a lie.

Yes. Tolerant of those who do not deal in terms of idealogical perfection (religious or not). Tolerant of those who don’t sacrifice peace, love and brotherhood in the name of… well… anything.

But some may say, “Certainly these people are not Hitler! Certainly they’re not the murderous Crusaders! Certainly they’re not the 9/11 bombers! And they certainly don’t deserve to be dismissed and shunned because of their choice of religion!”

Luke 8:11 “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.” If the word of God is used to serve hate be wary of what the seed grows into.

I mean, there should be takuan on the pizza.

The bigger organised religions are merely tools of control and therefore attacking them is mandatory. Their roots however are in science itself. The first five books of the bible were (allegedly) written by Moses. They represent a scientific view of the nature of reality as understood by a leader of desert folk 4000 years(ish) ago. We now know that his theories are a little misguided and so they fall by the wayside (as is always the way with evolving theories). The bible’s usefullness as a scientic treatise is getting less and less…that doesn’t diminish its value as an historical document. But, all that aside…this business of God, Angels, Heaven, Hell etc is patent nonsense..Moses was mistaken (and he can be forgiven) but in a modern ‘educated’ society there really is no need to ‘muddy the water’ with piffle. Even if it does help Zawan to sleep at night.

IMO

Nice effort for something so brief.

“They are *definitely* related.”

See what I mean about being so definite on what your scientists tell you?

Lots of animals that exist now share similarities. And we are HERE…NOW.

We can observe what we know exists so we can get definite statements.

But now you look at the lingering remains of thousands of years past and you come up with a theory or assumption then you introduce it as factual???

Fact is, things change, animals, cosmos, plants, humans, human thought. But the definition of Evolution suggests all living species of
plants and animals evolved in a slow process through random mutations and natural selection over the course of billions of years.

And that does not exist. It’s all conjecture. And a million books with self derived information cannot stand up to one statement of truth.

We Do Not Know.

Things change to survive. But they do not become a new thing, they are always the same.

We have always been humans, and we will always be humans.

I heard there was a big thread on atheism and you had a live creationist… and… and.. did I miss anything?…..

Oh crap.

If I showed up at a Bible reading and started discussing “the 14 Apostles” or the “6 Commandments” they would start laughing and/or feel sorry for me– that’s how scientists feel when they try to argue against evolution; their arguments show a profound lack of understanding, and yet they insist they are right and are vehement about it as well.

Arguing evolution with them is just a distraction. Evolution is a given. The only reason they argue evolution is because if evolution is true, which it decidedly is, then their Torah and the other books based on Genesis are wrong. Since they take these works as inerrant, then this then calls the entire theology into question. This is not important for the rest of us, but does affect the believers doubt. In fact it calls into question the very foundation of the religions of over 3 billion people.

Additionally, this is not even about whether there is a god; as far as I am concerned, arguing the existence of gods is also silly. What is decidedly dangerous is what people think their gods are telling them to do.

These people are actively seeking to take over the world. Their ultimate goal is no different than that a any other fascist movement. Whether it is a anti-theist dictatorship or a theological dictatorship it is all the same to those excluded from its safety.

These people are dangerous. They represent a real threat; a threat that given the chance would return our civilization to the beliefs of the Dark Ages. These religions have fought science from the beginning. These religious nut jobs, the clergy, live in fear of losing their jobs.

but seriously… I’m a “christian” a nostic christian to be sure but still I’m not on the fence… and thou I have met those who have shut their minds to reality… I’m not one of them… there are a few things that happen in this world that tell me that there is more out there…. but nothing to tell me that we did not evolve… only problem with this thought is that I fear we are currently de-evolving… going backwards from any real progress…

I also see those who have shut their minds on both sides of the fence… an open mind is the key to life… and people with closed minds are very easy to control… and that holds true for everyone…

Should I start smoking now?

Thanks for saving my butt, BB!

You’re getting it exactly backwards. As someone stated earlier, no one would care about creationists if they weren’t actively attacking the teaching of evolution in science classes.

There is a fundamental philosophical basis for wondering, if there is no “god” or whatever, then why do we NOT commit whatever immoral acts we so desire. It’s covered in the theories of existentialism. The answer is that morals themselves, ie, values, ie “good and evil” are created by man in the first place (yes, paraphrasing Neitzche). So we atheists create (or retain from our upbringing) OUR OWN values and morals–which are almost always much more rigid than religious ones anyway, eg, we generally adhere to the concept of “thou shalt not kill.”

I can’t believe that after all these years religion still even exists.

Foetusnail: Hell yes, baby!

pot. kettle. black.

Evolution does not explain existence, it is simply something you are holding on to so you can live this life without fear of the unknown truth. The God people sort of understand that we do not know certain things. That there is someone in control of everyone’s life. And that after your last breath you will face all that you have avoided.

Ever been dead? Anyone observe the afterlife? Seen gates with actual pearls on them? Seen the levels of hell? You know, observed?

No?

And yet, here you are, condemning observation of evolution and saying evolutionists are making up some story because they’re too afraid to face the fact that God is in control of their lives and they’re too afraid of having to face God after they breath their last breath.

Meanwhile, you’ve got an entire mythology based on zero observation that a lot of non-religious folks would accuse you of holding to because you’re too afraid of the idea that there is nothing after you breath your last breath, and it all ends for you at that moment. Something you have absolutely no observatiosn for. Something that is based on nothing more than self-derived information in millions of religious books.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Except we can actually observe evolution.

You want to condemn evolution because it doesn’t observe? You want to condemn evolution because you think evolutionists are too afraid to admit the truth about what happens when we die?

Right back at you, bub. In spades.

When you say “many” do you mean like…five?

First of, there are many fields in science, so a physicist could claim he can disprove evolution. But it’d turn out that it’s just the result of his lack of knowledge in biology. What I mean is that not every scientist is qualified to prove or disprove evolution.
Second, most of these pseudo-scientists just have a strict Christian education, love their moms a little too much, and have a big mouth.

So basically what you’re saying is a lie. There is no such thing as a real scientist, and a proponent of creationism at the same time in one person.
If you find even two creationist scientists who can be taken seriously, I will apologize to you.

Oh, and you don’t seem to understand “science has no bias”. If I had to explain it to a child, I’d say that nature/our environment/the world we live in doesn’t care about our opinions, facts are as they are, that’s why our goal in science has to be total objectivity. It may be not possible, but the scientific community is not as far from the goal as creationist “scientists” are.
You don’t observe something and try to explain it by adapting it to your religious views. There are many Christian scientists who you can trust, but with whatever they do, they will have to separate their religious beliefs and their work…otherwise they would be subjective.

http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2009/03/anti-veloism-weird-creepy-bike-hate.html

What is it about the lumpen right – religious, redneck, or retarded rockist – and homosexuality? They’re obsessed!

Surely it is obvious that adaptation (small changes from one generation to the next due to environmental factors) over the process of millions of years will lead to an organism that is hugely different to the organism you began with?

I find it baffling that you accept adaptation but not evolution, when evolution is just the logical progression of adaptation.

Fran

live miniature frogs.