Would you rather live in a world without science...or in a world without religion? Showing 501-550 of 12,463

[Bunnie]

jeff--what scientific advances do you spurn? why?

[Bunnie]

geofry--i love Dan Brown's books even though they were actualy the same story all the way through-it's probably because i am easily entertained.

[cerebus]

Jeff wrote: "You seem to be quite angry Cerebus."
Not in the least, but I do believe in challenging things that people say when I feel they are incorrect, unclear (either poorly explained or poorly understood on my part), or poorly thought out. In some cases what comes across as anger is probably more likely to be frustration, usually as a result of disputing something for the n'th time (e.g. the concept that atheists cannot be moral people).

Jeff wrote: "I think you misunderstood my last post. I'm not at all Christian,"
No, I got that, but you also said "This is spirituality, which if far more important than either science or religion.", and any time I have heard people use the term 'spirituality' when trying to distance themselves from religion, it's usually some vague "there's something supernatural out there" concept, which to me is religion without the rules. If you define spirituality as "...merely belief, regardless of what you believe in.", then what is it you believe in?

Jeff wrote: "Not sure what you're refering to with your comment about "imaginary friends being more important than science". You're either twisting my words or misunderstanding my communique."
Any twisting of words in any of my posts is unintentional, in this case based on my previous point in this post about the wishy-washy supernatural meaning most people have when they use the word 'spiritual'.

Jeff wrote: "And No, you cannot assume that I spurn the use of scientific advances over the last 10,000 years, although I do spurn many of them. "
So how do you reconcile the ones you don't spurn with your earlier statement, "The biosphere of life on this planet is dying because of homo sapiens' behavior and application of "science" over the last 10,000 yrs." ?

[Bunnie]

jeff--cerebrus--now now--no fighting over semantics--try to explain yourself a little better jeff

[Maquela]

As skeptic as I am on religion, I believe that we need both science AND religion in the world. As others ahead of me have said, they keep each other balanced. We probably wouldn't be so encouraged to look into science if religion didn't exist and vice versa.

[Hazel]

Easy, god (in any form) does not exist, there is no empirical evidence, nor any logical argument for the existence of an all knowing being, thus removal of the teachings that include sexism, racism, murder, child sacrifice, and genocide as standard could only be a good thing. SO, lets get rid of the outmoded belief systems that were invented to explain the world at a time that the knowledge of evolution and natural selection, and all the stuff astronomy and physics has taught us were lacking. We have the real explanations developing everyday.

Religion doens't balance science, it often refuses to believe it, and contradicts it, and persecutes it, but it doesn't balance it. I prefer the idea that people are moral and ethical without religion, because its the right way to live, and the right thing to do, rather than because of fear of some sort of vague divine retribution. Its a much better view of humanity than "fear of some, some intangible parent figure who, who shakes a finger at us from thousands of years ago and says, and says, "Do it... do it and I'll fuckin' spank you." (gotta love Kevin Smith...)

"Is god willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent; is he is able, but not willing? then he is malevolent; Is he both willing and able? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" Epicurus, 33 A.D.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXC...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5y0_P...

[Layal]

I would rather live in world without science but a world with religon, because religon is the bases of our laws, religon is hope, its faith between you and your GOD but science is 1+1=2 only facts. Religon is a belive but science are facts.

[Bunnie]

hazel--YOU ARE AS WOMAN AFTER MY HEART--thank god that there is a thinker among us--hooray for HAZEL

[Lynette]

Cerebus wrote: "Lynette wrote: "Science is valuable. There are questions though on how far can it push before it is just like religions. "
What do you feel these questions are? What is it about the direction of s..."

By seeing science as the only way. Closed minds are the most dangerous.

[Travis]

Closed minded by seeing science as the 'only way'?
The way that has gone through centuries of trial and error and study and can provide actual information, proof and answers has the danger of being closed minded?

The argument that science can become a religion only works if you ignore the fact that the 'belief' people have in science is backed up by actual facts.

[[deleted user]]

"I prefer the idea that people are moral and ethical without religion, because its the right way to live, and the right thing to do, rather than because of fear of some sort of vague divine retribution."
This is the part of Christianity that most people seem not to understand, (and I mean most Christians too). Christianity says that God created us because He wanted us, to love us. He knew that we would be terrible in some ways, and we would sin and cause war and be really bad, but in the same way that parents know that if they have children they will turn into stressy, annoying teenagers, they still have children, because they want children, to love them. God created us, so that we could have personalities and make all our own choices, knowing this would mean we would mess up. He loves us so much, He thinks we're worth it. We mess up, so God came to Earth through a human (Jesus), and suffered for us, taking the punishment for humanity's sins, and then coming back to life to show humanity that He really is God. This is what Christians call "being saved by grace". Because we have been saved by grace, and we know that we are entirely forgiven for all our sins, the Bible teaches us to respond by loving God and "bringing His kingdom on Earth" - and living the right way, just because that's the right thing to do (like you said). Christianity doesn't say that if you're bad you will suffer divine retribution, it just says God saved you so that you could be an amazing person, so that's what you should be. The Bible doesn't say: You must do this or you will die - it's says you don't have to do anything, God will just save you if you let Him, because that's how amazing He is. He wants you to help other people be saved, and He wants you to be kind and loving, so that's what you should try to do, but if you mess up, God won't hurt you. He loves you and forgives you for everything you do wrong.
With the whole Epicurus "Whence cometh evil" argument -- I'm not saying I understand evil at all, but basically I think that God gives us free will and doesn't interfere with that, though He does influence us and speak to us in various ways (no I don't mean a voice booms down from the clouds telling us what to do!). If we didn't have free will, we wouldn't be people, we wouldn't have personalities. Because of this, we sometimes make the wrong decisions and cause lots of pain and suffering. However, God does perform miracles, possibly, and save people in amazing circumstances sometimes. This doesn't happen all the time, as that just wouldn't be possible - if God saved everyone from cancer and disasters and murder, the world just wouldn't work. If no one died except from old age, and there was no illness or war, overpopulation would kill everyone off, and God couldn't save everyone from that because that just wouldn't be logical. There has to be suffering for this world to be the way it is. Or something. (But that's not to say that God causes suffering. )
Yeah, I'm sorry that this is a really long, badly written post, but anyway. I don't completely get it, but I don't just "ignore scientific observations", and I think there's a God out there, and I think He's amazing. I'm pretty certain our world needs Him.

[Bunnie]

Elena,you are entitled to your opinion--i do not agree at all with your visions of the world. explain to me why the world would not work if there were no cancer,disasters or murder--if no one died from old age, illness or war, starvation would kill us off
and seems to be doing that right now.i asked someone recently what God had against Japan and she said 'GOD WASN'T THERE' why would a loving God want a world full of misery instead of a peaceful world??what is sin? to some it's dancing, putting on makeup,living with a partner without benefit of a ceremony-being a Gay person,which is just a biological fact not a sin-I'll bet you won't ignore scientific observations and facts when it comes to helping you with a medical problem you may have either now or later in your life,did you ever think where is the proof of the existance of a god,a heaven or a hell for that matter? hell is right here on earth for many people!

[Old-Barbarossa]

On a lighter (and slightly smutty note): http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/sc...
(NB: this is a satirical website and therefore to be treated as such...Dawkins didn't actually say this...)

[Old-Barbarossa]

And on a more serious note: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14...
Just to add fuel to the fire?

[Layal]

Who told you God wasn't there answer the one that told you that is a stupid person. AT this moment GOd is next to you. You cannot see him but he is next to everyone on this world that you htink is hell. He tries to keep it as heaven but just want to follow the path to HELL. You have to ways the GOOD way and the BAD way if you choose the bad way God will try to help you all the time but you should understand what is bad and what is good try understanding what i said and answer me back

and i am 13 by the way

[Old-Barbarossa]

Which god?

[Hazel]

Deities, fairies, vampires, anything like that, they're fictional, they're not real.

Elena, read a book called Believing Bullshit, by Stephen Law, you've just fulfilled every one of the requirements for what you're arguing to come under total claptrap designed to defend a viewpoint that has no basis in fact or empiricism.

At Lynette, being scientific and skeptical doesn't mean you'reclosed minded and cynical, it just means that we don't come up with whatever airy fairy idea suits us best to explain something you don't understand. IN the words of Neil Tyson "if you don't know something, that's where the conversation should stop, you don't say "I don't know, but it may be this, you just stop at I don't know what it is" (paraphrased but essentially what he says, and he's awesome, I suggest you look him up... in fact, here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZwInL...

And seeing as other people are always better at saying things than I am, another quote for you, from the tim minchin beat poem I linked previously:

"Science changes its views based on what's observed, faith is the denial of observation in order to preserve belief"

Retaining a belief in a story written hundreds of years ago to explain the world in the absence of knowledge of how the world actually works is pointless in a time when we have explanations, and more and more information coming in every day. Just because an idea is tenacious doesn't mean its worthy.

Ever heard of HADD? That stands for hypersensitivity agent detective device. Essentially, evolution has made us hypersensitive to outside agents acting upon us, this is believed to have developed because its better to think you see the tiger that isn't there, and react, than to not see the tiger that is there and getting eaten. So, we think there's something there when there isn't for the majority of the time, as if we're always being watched. Its your brain playing tricks on you, because evolutionarily its better to overreact than to under-react. And so, in the absence of the understanding of this sort of thing, our ancestors saw fairies and monsters in the corners of their eyes, and felt like something (call it "god" if you want) was always watching us. ON top of this, a lack of understanding of how the world works means people tried to explain it, and due to the lack of the apparatus and learning we have now, they explained it through outside agents, "gods" making the world act as it does. I agree completely that without religion, there would have been no-one funding the research that did start happening, but now that we have learned what we have it has now made religion moot.

Another tim minchin song to finish on, cos you should always end on a song :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxXrTR...

[Layal]

the one GOD of our world

[Layal]

You all have to know that my opinion is mine no one tells you to belive what i say
and the one that wants to belive me let him or her belive me

[Hazel]

oh, you misunderstand, you can believe what you want, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. I just think you're missing the point if you try to reduce the universe, the unfathomably huge and beautiful universe to such a simple and manageable explanation as "god".

And what do you mean the one god? Are you claiming that other religions are wrong? That only yours is right? And are you differentiating between, Yahwah Allah and God? Them all basically being the same abrahamic god. Are you discounting the hindu gods? The sikh beliefs? The hundreds and hundreds of other belief systems? The pagan systems? Are you discounting them?

[Layal]

thats your opinion
please if you don't understand what i mean just close the subject becuase i don't want it to end as a fight

[Hazel]

I note that you haven't answered the question. Are you discounting every other religion? And if so, why are you doing that?

"please if you don't understand what i mean just close the subject becuase i don't want it to end as a fight"

I'm not looking for a fight, I just want to try and understand what you mean.

[Layal]

For me as a muslim i am saying that i would like to live in a world with religon than a world with science
but me myself sometimes say why is religon important
Its not that i dont like science. science is one of my two favorite subjects
Do you still dont understand me

[Old-Barbarossa]

I know this isn't technically work, but as we're using the internet on Sunday should some of the religious posters be a bit edgey re their immortal souls?
Exodus 31:13-15
"Six days my work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death."

[Hazel]

oh, and because i remembered this, and wanted to share it:

http://www.gifbin.com/bin/1232024489_...

I watched that, and was astounded. The largest star is so big, you can't actually imagine the size, its just too big. And then you have to think there's space for all the tremendously massive things to fit in, its so astounding, its beautiful, its mind blowing, and it helps me understand why people prefer god, because god is so much easier to imagine (mostly because all gods are a human construct designed for control, subjugation, and to make you feel that you have meaning), god is small and manageable, and people are able to grasp the idea of a "divine watchmaker". The universe is so much more than that, theres so much to see, to learn, to try and understamd, and it saddens me to see people reduce it down to the level of "god did it"

[Hazel]

Layal, I understand that you have chosen religion over science in this theoretical debate, but you still haven't answered my question. DO you think the other religions are wrong? DO you think there is just one god? Is Allah that god? (I assume you mean Allah, seeing as you said you're a Muslim). DO you think the idea of other gods is ridiculous? I promise, I will not start a fight over this, I would just like to know your reasoning.

[Old-Barbarossa]

Or maybe not:
Matthew 12:2
"Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day."

[Old-Barbarossa]

Feel free to pick the quote you want to bolster any opinion that needs it...

[Layal]

NO i am not claiming that other religions are wrong. But in my religon i belive in one God.
i love the world right now
i love it with religon and science but the question is
Would you rather live in a world without science...or in a world without religion?
are kind of understanding me now

[Layal]

i dont think other religons are wrong
other religon say there are more than one God and i agree with that religon but my religon says there is one God so i follow my religon
like you follow your religon

[Hazel]

See, I can't get my head around the idea of believing in one god, as dictated by your religion, and then saying "oh, but all these other religions, they're alright too". If one is right, then how can others that contradict it also be right? However, thankyou Layal for trying to answer my question.

The idea of an all powerful creator is so very very illogical. Basically, if there is a creator, then he/she/it (it could be a purple alligator for all I care) created everything. People who are proponents of this idea argue that the design of everything we see was created by an intelligen complex being, because you can't make some thing like us, which is an intelligent and complex being, without being intelligent and complex. But there is a logical fallacy there, if you need something complex and intelligent to be able to create all that we see, then what created the creator? Are they not a complex intelligent being? Does that not mean, by logical extension that they needed to be built and designed by a complex and intelligent being? So, who created the creator?

Maybe I'm getting too caught up in this. I don't actually need anyone to answer this, because there is no logical answer to it. And if someone claims that god doesn't fall under the heading of logic, that means he's illogical, and if an idea or explanation is illogical, we should dismiss it.

[Travis]

I'd like to attend a service at the first church of the purple alligator.

[Old-Barbarossa]

Travis wrote: "I'd like to attend a service at the first church of the purple alligator."

Heretic! The Mauve Crocodile is the one true god!
Do not follow the false path of the alligator!
Repent your misguided and evil ways!

[Travis]

My fear is the purple alligator will turn out to be Barney the singing dinosaur.
or maybe he's the devil in the gospel according to the purple alligator.

[Old-Barbarossa]

layal wrote: "I don't understand who or what is the purple alligator"

A false god...
Do not be tricked by her reptilian smile.
The true avatar of Sebek is the Mauve Crocodile!

[Travis]

serious answer: Layal, it's a joke on an earlier post where Hazel references god by saying 'he/she/it could be a purple alligator for all I know'
it appealed to my warped sense of humor.


Though, if god is a big purple alligator it would be really interesting reimagining all that religious based artwork.
All of Michelangelo's stuff would look like poster for a Godzilla movie.

[Old-Barbarossa]

And Sebek is portrayed in ancient Egyptian art as a god with a crocodile head, therefore a precedent has been set well before the new testament.
This doesn't make crocodilian gods real though...well...anymore than any other god. Not very fashionable these days though.

[Travis]

Always liked that the Egyptian gods were all portrayed with animal heads.
get my vote for deity most likely to be cool looking action figures.

[cerebus]

Hazel wrote: "See, I can't get my head around the idea of believing in one god, as dictated by your religion, and then saying "oh, but all these other religions, they're alright too". If one is right, then how can others that contradict it also be right?"
Couldn't agree more, this is one that gets me too. But as we've seen faith is the ability to ignore contradictory evidence....so it is actually possible for believers to say "my god is the only true god, but those other religions are fine too" and not see the inherent problem with that statement.
The other point I've made before and which I can't seem to get people of faith to accept is that at the end of the day they're almost (99%) as atheistic as I am, I just go that one god further than they do. As the well-known quote says:
"I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
...Stephen F Roberts
But I can't seem to get people to accept that idea, not sure why.

Anyway, keep it up Hazel, you're doing an excellent job....

[Mridu]

In my life of 30 years, I have not seen religion helping the man-kind in any useful manner. Of course, a belief and faith in God help all of us keep going, but God is strictly different from religion. I would rather live in a world without religion than living in a world without science.

[Hazel]

Bows to Cerebus :P Oh, and between you and me, I think that its usually a case of public statements and private beliefs not quite.... lining up, not in all cases, but in many. What people say in public and what they think behind closed doors are often distinct from each other. Oooooo controversial :P

I don't see how a faith and belief in god keeps us ALL going. Honestly, I have none, and I get along just fine, as do many people I know. IN fact, and even everyone but the most zealous fundamentalist (or a hermit miles away from anyone experience an acute schizoid episode) would probably agree, the thing that people need is family, they're who you turn to first when you need support and help. If you have no family to speak of, you probably turn to your friends, and if you have no friends, and just have God and your vicar/priest/imam/high priest etc etc to turn to, then you have my deepest sympathies for living a life without a support network that actually cares about you. The only way I can think of putting it is that atheist, plus many of the non-fundamentalist theists externalise and seek external help and support from friends and families, while many theists (esp fundamentalist ones) internalise and seek help from a god that only exists inside their head. Its much healthier to talk to your friends and family, or if you're seriously screwed up, to a counsellor, psychiatrist or therapist.

People need people, they don't need gods, often they also need cats, or dogs, or guinea pigs. However, having a god is a good way to remove all responsibility from ourselves for certain decisions made regarding our treatment of other people. From the crusade preachers who told the soldiers going to Jerusalem that the Muslims weren't human, and that if they killed a "heathen" in the holy land they were guaranteed a place in heaven, and that that is what god wants them to do, right through to justifying the murder of a doctor from an abortion clinic because god doesn't want you to murder an unborn child while its nothing but a bundle of cells. OOO, I'm sounding preachy now, best stop with this tack.

In a previous post, I mentioned Russell's Teapot, now doubt some people looked it up, but here's the important bit:

"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time" Bertrand Russel, 1952

And later:

"I ought to call myself an agnostic; but, for all practical purposes, I am an atheist. I do not think the existence of the Christian God any more probable than the existence of the Gods of Olympus or Valhalla. To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely." Bertrand Russell, 1958

[Mridu]

@Hazel

I agree with you and would like to clarify that by believing in God I didn't mean, Idol worshiping or visiting church/temples/mosque or consulting priest/imam/bishops etc.

I believe in super power and I find it everywhere, including within myself and I believe in it have faith in it and it helps me keep going.

In a volatile situation I first turn to my family and friends and there are situations when people or pets can become helpless, and then I turn to God.

My husband is atheist, and since marriage I had never visited any temple. I don’t do any daily rituals to please my God, I don’t worship, but I still believe in something that I know will be with me even when no one else would be. You may call it my conscience.

[Hazel]

I call it "you". But that's just arguing semantics now. You've said its something internal, so in my mind, that means that its you and your strength that keeps you going, not a god or deity of any sort. Having faith in yourself is a good thing :)

I have no problem with people believing in god, allah, the flying spaghetti monster, or the purple alligator, as long as it hurts no-one. And if your rituals (from full blown mass for some, to a whispered prayer for others) make you feel better, then knock yourself out, I'm not going to tell you not to.

[Old-Barbarossa]

“Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.”
― Lenny Bruce

[cerebus]

Hazel wrote: "People need people, they don't need gods, often they also need cats, or dogs, or guinea pigs. However, having a god is a good way to remove all responsibility from ourselves for certain decisions made regarding our treatment of other people. From the crusade preachers who told the soldiers going to Jerusalem that the Muslims weren't human, and that if they killed a "heathen" in the holy land they were guaranteed a place in heaven, and that that is what god wants them to do, right through to justifying the murder of a doctor from an abortion clinic because god doesn't want you to murder an unborn child while its nothing but a bundle of cells. OOO, I'm sounding preachy now, best stop with this tack."
Nope, don't stop with this tack....this is precisely the kind of discussion which usually either never comes up, or, if it does, is quickly shut down with the "this is my religion, it is something you can't discuss". Religion is no different to any other subject....
It is situations like the ones you describe which are directly relevant when those of us without faith are assumed to be without morals, and that those of faith are somehow by default assumed to be moral.

I agree with what you say when you say when you say "I have no problem with people believing in god, allah, the flying spaghetti monster, or the purple alligator, as long as it hurts no-one. And if your rituals (from full blown mass for some, to a whispered prayer for others) make you feel better, then knock yourself out, I'm not going to tell you not to." but that does not mean we should refrain from debating religion or holding it up to the same level of scrutiny as any other subject......

[Hazel]

Cerebus wrote: " but that does not mean we should refrain from debating religion or holding it up to the same level of scrutiny as any other subject..."

Hell no, to give religion a "no-touch" status is given it a credance I personally don't think it deserves, it is, and should be, open to debate, criticism and scrutiny in the same way as any other subject. It should not be placed higher than any other subject, it should not be held sacred (>.>) when it comes to investigating it. Anyone who gets upset about their religion being scrutinised, dissected and commented upon, to my mind, mustn't have very strong faith in their religion or god, someone who has complete faith in the god/religion would be strong enough in it that nothing anyone says that contradicts their view would be able upset them. And if you don't have the strength of faith to withstand criticism, then maybe its time to question that faith.

OK, back to "that tack" :P I've been told that the normal everyday lay worshippers are nice lovely people, who would never condone the actions of more extreme members of their faith. And for the vast majority this is no doubt true. But in my mind, the nice religious folk of the world, who get on with their lives without doing any obvious hurt or damage are the bedrock on which the more extreme versions are built upon.

Lets define "Extremist". In religious terms it is someone who takes the words of their given holy book more literally than others, which tends to make them bigoted, prejudice, and gives them an amazing amount of hubris about them being correct and better. These are the people who subjugate others, who will use force to enforce their views. However, turn your eyes to the U.S.A., where every year some of the largest, and mainstream religions put on "house of horror" events, which every child over the age of 7 are expected to attend. These houses have scenes of "moral depravity", such as sex before marriage, and being gay etc etc, and then they show these same people being hounded by devils and demons, and burning in the fires of hell. And this is for children to watch, to keep them on the straight and narrow. Its sick, its tantamount to child abuse. Closer to home (the UK for those of you from elsewhere), many recovering Catholics report that they spent their childhood terrified of going to hell, and living in almost constant fear, because all the adults around them would tell them they'd go to hell if they didn't behave. The same people have gone through years of counselling to get rid of that catholic guilt. It really should be counted as abuse, to make your child live in fear like that. And I could go into the whole catholic child abuse debacle, but that would just get me fuming. If you've half a mind to, and aren't easily offended, go to you tube and find Tim Minchins pope song (the cartoon version - its eaier to hear what he's saying), and you pretty much sum up my feelings on the subject.

As for morals, and I can only comment on the 3 abrahamic religions here, any book that includes a man saving his guest from sodomy by giving the crowd his daughter to use instead (she dies from it), or that includes requests from the deity for child sacrifice (it happens more than once, and only once does God stop it), that has a deity that encourages the complete genocide of your enemies, and that makes demands for the heads of the unbeliever, that teaches that we should smite those who disagree with us etc etc, is hardly a good moral compass. And beforer any christians out there say "but the new testament tells us to be nice", Jesus himself said "what was held true before, is still held true now", or something like that. Basically saying that all the laws set out in the old testament should be adhered to.

[Layal]

what are you saying

[Hazel]

Layal, perhaps you could phrase your question in a way that lets us know who you are addressing, and which bit of what is being said is confusing you.

[Hazel]

on a side note, there's something about ELena's response to me, way up there, that has been bothering me. And its this. She says that God gave people free will. That in itslef is a logical fallacy, your will is not free if the freedom were given to you by an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being who can take it away at any time. The free will is an illusion if there is a deity, no matter if that deity wants us to act "good" or to act "evil". If the being granted the free will, then the being can remove it at any point, this means that anything we do is what the being wants us to do, otherwise, being an all knowing, all seeing, all powerful god that we are told is a loving, caring good god, who doesn't want us to be mean to each other (which is bollocks obviously, because he demands almost continuous war in that bible of his - there will be examples in other holy books too) we wouldn't be allowed to do anything that is evil, because the deity wants us to be good. So, if we can do evil, either the deity doesn't care, the deity is evil themselves (another logical problem - as good things happen too, and an evil god would want to prevent us doing that), or there is no deity. And the worrying thing about it is, if there is a deity who granted us free will, and we did something the deity didn't want, that deity could change the world to make it so you don't do it, and you would never ever know it had been done.

The amusing part is that the problem of good and evil is the downfall of the argument for the existence of a deity. It reveals an inconsistency. Why does god allow evil to happen, the free will argument is pointless, as is the "part of a greater plan" (because that's a horrific explanation). Evil is only a word that can be used in relation to religion, outside of religion there is bad, there is suffering, but only with religion shall we label it as evil. If we assume there is a god, then by extension there are moral properties relating to the god, these are good and evil. When we look at the world, there is an awful lot of evil going on, not just to people, but to animals too. So much evil exists that there cannot be a god. So, theism leads us to the problem of evil, the problem of evil leads logically to us seeing that god does not exist. So, theism if true, is false, and if its false, it is false, and as such, it is false.

Not sure how well I explained that....

[Jeff]

Maquela wrote: "As skeptic as I am on religion, I believe that we need both science AND religion in the world. As others ahead of me have said, they keep each other balanced. We probably wouldn't be so encouraged ..."
Why do we need either science or religion? Every other form of life on this planet has neither science nor religion, and they do just fine.