Would you rather live in a world without science...or in a world without religion? Showing 2,101-2,150 of 12,463

[Hazel]

Danyelle wrote: ""Science without religion is dull, Religion without science is blind" Albert Einstein"

you know that Einstein gave up on christianity, right? He used god as an alternative word for nature, and based any "religious" beliefs he had around that by the end. He followed a "religious" ideal that was invented by someone who was denounced as the worst kind of "atheist heretic". He was an adherant of Spinozism, which considered, in simple terms, the universe to be one organism, of which we are all part, and that is deterministic. No god, as such, and no real doctrines, except that determinism and ecology are the basis for moral choices, and that "god" was a name for nature doing what nature does, and another word for "universe", with the world as a subset of that, and us as a further subset.

[Paul]

Shari wrote: "Science all the way. The only faith you need is faith in yourself and the people that you love. We will never truly be 'one world' until religion ceases to be..."
I decided a few days ago to step out of this discussion, but I have to say Shari, I totally agree with you on that.

[Hazel]

Shanna wrote: "Hazel wrote: "Shanna wrote: "Reenie wrote: "Science, as science, or lack thereof, sets the intensity of religion."

Care to elaborate? I'm not sure I get your point."

I think Reenie means less sci..."

I think I just worked it out, she means she chooses science, as science, or the lack of science, sets the intensity of religion. So, less science means that there's more religion, and its more fundamental, or something like that. Again, I may be wrong.

[Mike]

Sorry shamen and other snake oil salesmen, but I could do without religion, preferring rather a healthy respect for a higher power and an unbounded curiosity about our environs and origins that seeks real, and not mythical, answers.

[cerebus]

cs wrote: "Hazel wrote: "If in years to come, someone proves there is a god, then I will admit I was wrong, and that it existed all along. However, now, being a rational person, I understand that there is no ..."

Please reread the previous pages for mentions of Einstein...he has been brought up before, and this has been dealt with. The long and short of it is that the clearest message he left on the matter was that he did not believe in god, and secondly, who cares if he did? Appeal to (in this case) an irrelevant authority does nothing for your argument.

[cerebus]

Nada wrote: "It's mathematically proven that the more complicated the thing is the more impossible it becomes to suppose that it happened by coincidence."
'Improbable'.....not impossible. That is all.

[cerebus]

cs wrote: "Without belief there is little need for morals."
Utter rubbish.
It also suggests that the only reason you have morals is because you fear retribution from your deity. Doesn't really make you seem all that moral after all....

[cerebus]

cs wrote: "Come on now, you must know that he created everything in six days."
And as Bill Hicks said "...yeah, and it looks like he rushed it..."

[cerebus]

Nada wrote: " ..utterly impossible don't you think.."
There's that word again. You confuse impossible with improbable.

[cerebus]

Nada wrote: "My religion provides enough and sensible answers for me that make happy and grateful and most important certain of why I'm on this earth."
What your religion (*any* religion) provides is an excuse not to think. If you already have the answer, why look any further? If you already know that people get sick because it is some god's will, then why look for cures?

[cerebus]

Nada wrote: "...because it makes me happy and comfortable and life has taught me that when you feel good about sth,,it's right"
...it's thinking like this that allows people to be pushed around and told what to believe, what to listen to, what to watch, what to read. It's almost like thinking has gone out of fashion....

[cerebus]

Nada wrote: "I once watched a a scientific program they calculated how possible it is to an atom to happen ..it was undefined quantity .. "
"to an atom to happen"? What exactly do you mean by this? This sentence doesn't make any sense....if you can elucidate I'm sure we'll be able to clarify for you...

[Shaun]

Nada wrote: "that's what I'm talking about the more complicated things get the less likely it is for them to have just happened by coincidence"

I can't think of anything more powerful than an omnipotent, omnicogniscient, omnipresent superbeing that exists outside time and space and yet who somehow remains utterly indetectable and unprovable.

I guess its existence just didn't happen.

[Hazel]

Hey Cerebus, welcome back, I've missed your contributions :D

[cHriS]

Cerebus wrote: "cs wrote: "Without belief there is little need for morals."
Utter rubbish.
It also suggests that the only reason you have morals is because you fear retribution from your deity. Doesn't really make..."

Saying utter rubbish without saying why is utter rubbish.

[Hazel]

Actually CS, you said there was little need for morals without belief, and then didn't explain why. You were the first to not offer up explanation.

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens

[cHriS]

Hazel wrote: "Actually CS, you said there was little need for morals without belief, and then didn't explain why. You were the first to not offer up explanation.

“That which can be asserted without evidence, ca..."

Unless you can prove that there is no God, then you have to keep an open mind until, as you said previously,someone proves that God exists. The same Christopher Hitchens quote applies to your comment as well.

I can offer an explanation, it might be a bit long though, but first, do you believe in life of some kind after death?

[Allarice]

"Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind."
-Albert Einstein (1954)

[cHriS]

Cerebus wrote: "cs wrote: "Hazel wrote: "If in years to come, someone proves there is a god, then I will admit I was wrong, and that it existed all along. However, now, being a rational person, I understand that t..."

an irrelevant authority........... why?

[Hazel]

cs wrote: "Hazel wrote: "Actually CS, you said there was little need for morals without belief, and then didn't explain why. You were the first to not offer up explanation.

“That which can be asserted with..."

sigh, we're back to burden of proof again. People assert god exists, they assert it without evidence, as such we dismiss the assertion without evidence. The onus of proof is on the person making the claim, not the person rejecting the claim.

No, I don't believe in an afterlife, I reject the idea on the grounds that there is no proof for such, and therefore, until someone who claims that there is such a thing provides the proof, I reject the concept.

[cHriS]

Hazel wrote: "cs wrote: "Hazel wrote: "Actually CS, you said there was little need for morals without belief, and then didn't explain why. You were the first to not offer up explanation.

“That which can be asse..."

I don't assert God exists, you must mean that maybe some people do. I 'believe' God exists and with belief you don't need proof. It's only people that don't believe in God that can't see how others can do so with out needing proof. It is they, that need proof and if they say that there is no God then they would need to prove that unless they just 'believe' there is no God.

I believe man will land on Mars one day but I can't prove it. So should I wait until they do and in the mean time keep an open mind. No, I don't need to, I have enough information (not evidence)from books, tv etc. to think (or believe)that man will visit mars one day.

[Mike]

Actually, there is a vast difference between the existence of a supreme being and religion. A creative inteligence of the magnitude indicated by the establishment of an ordered universe needs no accolytes to proclaim the existence of that being. Disciples and apostles are just the surest indicators of the general public being herded and fed upon by the opportunistic.

[Hazel]

Apples and oranges, cs, believing that people may one day land on mars is in no way equivalent to believing that a god exists that created everything. One is a conjecture about something that may happen in the future based on the evidence of what we have done in relation to space travel thus far, and so is very much evidence based, whereas the other is a baseless claim of the existence of a deity for which no sound evidence exists.

I have not said there is no god, I have said I reject the claim that there is god. By saying you believe in god, that is a claim that a god exists, as you believe that a god exists. If you believe it exists, then prove that its there. I understand you feel you don't need to, but in that case, you're choosing to wilfully believe something that you haven't determined to be true. You are wilfully allowing yourself to be credulous to someone else's claim that god exists, you must have been taught it to believe it, you wouldn't have just decided for yourself without outside input, as the only way we gain information is from outside sources, be it books, or other people.

People have been claiming that god, in one form, or another, exists for a long time, people are now starting to say "no, we reject that idea, as you have no proof". It is a rejection of the claim on which the belief is based, and until that claim can be substantiated, then there is no rational reason to accept the claim, nor form a belief based on it.

The onus of proof is on the people making the claim, not on the people rejecting the claim. If you say you're not making a claim, then fair enough, don't accept the onus of proof, we'll move up to the next level, and ask the people who taught you about god to prove the claims that they made to you in relation to it then.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Mike and Hazel nailed it.

[Shaun]

Or, to put it in really simple terms:

CS, I believe Odin exists. Unless you can disprove it, I must be right.

Knock yourself out.

[Sarah]

I belief that we need both , to me science will guide you to religion

as a Muslim I have been taught that I should do and believe what my science would guid me to.

it is a simple matter the right religion will guide u to the brain , and the good science will guide u to the religion .

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Science does not verify the myths of any religion where 'faith' in gods' edicts are expressed. No legitimate science has proofs of any mortal having a conversation with a god. Science does not believe the right hand is clean and the left hand is too dirty to use, or science will not tell you to dress in a huge tent in120 degrees (F) because otherwise a man should kill you for making him see you as a devil and not human. Science thinks women are human beings.

[cerebus]

cs wrote: "Saying utter rubbish without saying why is utter rubbish."
If you feel that way fine, I felt it was self-explanatory, and also something which has been dealt with repeatedly in this discussion, but assuming you haven't bothered reading the previous discussions before jumping in, I'll reiterate.....it is easily observed that those of us without religion or faith are no less moral than those of faith....if the opposite were true then prisons would be overwhelmingly populated by those of no faith, which repeated studies clearly show is not the case. In fact prison populations in countries like the US are populated almost exclusively by those of faith.
Better?

I would now like you to address the implication I your original statement that the only reason you have morals is a) because someone else has told you to and b) you fear retribution. I would maintain I have morals because I treat people the way I would like to be treated, not 'cos some imaginary friend in the sky told me how to behave. Also, as has been pointed out, the bible is a poor source for morals, advocating slavery and rape amongst other things.

[cerebus]

Hazel wrote: "Hey Cerebus, welcome back, I've missed your contributions :D"

Thank you :) I suspect you may be in a minority in having missed my contributions :D

[cerebus]

Allarice wrote: ""Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind."
-Albert Einstein (1954)"

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.
-- Albert Einstein, following his wife's advice in responding to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein of the International Synagogue in New York, who had sent Einstein a cablegram bluntly demanding "Do you believe in God?" Quoted from and citation notes derived from Victor J Stenger, Has Science Found God? (draft: 2001), chapter 3.

The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.
-- Albert Einstein, in a letter responding to philosopher Eric Gutkind, who had sent him a copy of his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt; quoted from James Randerson, "Childish Superstition: Einstein's Letter Makes View of Religion Relatively Clear: Scientist's Reply to Sell for up to £8,000, and Stoke Debate over His Beliefs" The Guardian, (13 May 2008)

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.
-- Albert Einstein, obituary in New York Times, 19 April 1955, quoted from James A Haught, "Breaking the Last Taboo" (1996)

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.
-- Albert Einstein, 1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press

It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere.... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.


There's more if you'd like. Still trying to claim him as your brand of religious?

[cerebus]

cs wrote: "An irrelevant authority............. why?"

Because we're not talking physics, which is what he was an authority on. I no more care if he believed in a god than whether he preferred crunchy over smooth peanut butter.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument...

[cerebus]

Sarah wrote: "I belief that we need both , to me science will guide you to religion.."

how will science guide you to religion, and how do you deal with instances where science leads you to a point which directly contradicts religion? Do you accept the science, or do you just cherry-pick the bits you like?

[Shanna]

Cerebus wrote: "Sarah wrote: "I belief that we need both , to me science will guide you to religion.."

how will science guide you to religion, and how do you deal with instances where science leads you to a point..."

Well put Cerebus, I'd like to add if I may.
Sarah can you name one instance where science has lead to religion?

[Giansar]

Shanna wrote: "Sarah can you name one instance where science has lead to religion? "
I can.
Did you watch Mad Max 3?
There was this bunch of kids that worshiped an airliner - religion out of sience and technology.

[Shanna]

Giansar wrote: "Shanna wrote: "Sarah can you name one instance where science has lead to religion? "
I can.
Did you watch Mad Max 3?
There was this bunch of kids that worshiped an airliner - religion out of sience..."

LOL
Any REAL LIFE occurrances?

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Shanna wrote: "Giansar wrote: "Shanna wrote: "Sarah can you name one instance where science has lead to religion? "
I can.
Did you watch Mad Max 3?
There was this bunch of kids that worshiped an airliner - religi..."

I guess I kinda worship my ipad...

[Giansar]

Shanna wrote: "Any REAL LIFE occurrances?"
Sure.
Natives in different parts of the world used to regard Europeans with their technology as demons, gods, magicians and so on.
As I wrote before (and I still don't know whose phrase this is): every technology advanced enough will seem like magic to a primitive enough culture.
Anyway, I am goofing around here of course - I am sure it is not what Sarah meant but this is the only way I can imagine in which science can lead to the birth of religious cult.

[Shanna]

April the Cheshire Meow wrote: "Shanna wrote: "Giansar wrote: "Shanna wrote: "Sarah can you name one instance where science has lead to religion? "
I can.
Did you watch Mad Max 3?
There was this bunch of kids that worshiped an ai..."

LOL
I feel a bit the same about my kindle

[Hazel]

Giansar wrote: "Shanna wrote: "Any REAL LIFE occurrances?"
Sure.
Natives in different parts of the world used to regard Europeans with their technology as demons, gods, magicians and so on.
As I wrote before (and ..."

Cargo cults are fun :D

I recall watching a documentary, in which a researcher was talking about a conversation between a christian missionary and a John Frum cargo cultist. The cultist was saying that they were waiting for John Frum to return to them, and the missionary said, "you've been waiting over 50 years, don't you think its time to stop and accept theres no such person", to which the cultist responded "you've been waiting 2000 years for yours".

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Hazel wrote: "Giansar wrote: "Shanna wrote: "Any REAL LIFE occurrances?"
Sure.
Natives in different parts of the world used to regard Europeans with their technology as demons, gods, magicians and so on.
As I wr..."

Rotflmao!!

[Hazel]

Shanna wrote: "Any REAL LIFE occurrances? "

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-...

draw your own conclusions...

[Hazel]

Giansar wrote: " every technology advanced enough will seem like magic to a primitive enough culture.
"

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
— Arthur C. Clarke

[Shanna]

Hazel wrote: "Shanna wrote: "Any REAL LIFE occurrances? "

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-...

draw your own conclusions..."

You know I actually forgot about them... I might accept that if I didn't just think they were trying to get away with piracy

[cHriS]

Hazel wrote: "Apples and oranges, cs, believing that people may one day land on mars is in no way equivalent to believing that a god exists that created everything. One is a conjecture about something that may h..."

Again Hazel you are missing the point, or you keep singing from the same hymn sheet (needing evidence and misinterpreting the word belief).

If you believe then you don't need evidence, and I am not trying to convince anyone that they should believe, and I am not that religious, and I think you can seperate God and religion.

It is those who do not believe in a God that keep asking for proof yet they are unable to provide a more logical solution as to what it's all about. If you are waiting for science to give you answers then you are out of luck, they can only provide theories and theory is only a scientists belief that his idea could be right.

Very soon there will be no one left on earth that walked on the moon and with conspiricy theories ripe about the moon landing being staged, all future generations will have as proof is documentation. Much the same as the bible.

[cerebus]

cs wrote: " If you are waiting for science to give you answers then you are out of luck, they can only provide theories and theory is only a scientists belief that his idea could be right. "
Wrong. I suggest you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientif...
The word 'theory' has a narrower definition when used in science as compared to everyday use.....in is a common creationist tactic to claim 'but it's just a theory!'.

[cerebus]

cs wrote: "Very soon there will be no one left on earth that walked on the moon and with conspiricy theories ripe about the moon landing being staged, all future generations will have as proof is documentation. Much the same as the bible. "

And the equipment they left behind.....evidence, corroborating the documentation.
You don't even have to go there to confirm this.... http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/...

[Giansar]

cs wrote: "It is those who do not believe in a God that keep asking for proof yet they are unable to provide a more logical solution as to what it's all about. If you are waiting for science to give you answers then you are out of luck, they can only provide theories and theory is only a scientists belief that his idea could be right."
How is God a logical solution if he represents a soution based on belief?
You show utter lack of understanding what a scientific theory is.

Hazel wrote: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
— Arthur C. Clarke"
Thanks! I knew it was Clarke or Sagan or Asimov.

[Hazel]

ok, now lets provide you with the correct scientific definition of the word theory:

"A set of hypotheses and observations supported by a large body of evidence and date from which further hypotheses are created to further test the theory"

The bible and the records of the moon landing are, once again, apples and oranges. No-one knows who the authors of the bible were, the majority of it is by anonymous, despite the names that the books are attributed to. There are no contemporary supporting accounts of the events in the bible. So, it is a poor resource.

Whereas the moon landings have a lot of supporting evidence, there are contemporary accounts, the authors of whom are known, and can be shown to be real people through things like birth records, death records, paperwork for things that they did throughout their lives, like getting married, having a bank account, paying taxes, holding a drivers license.

As for the conspiracy theories, anyone who follows them back to their source will find a flat earth creationist, who in the late 60s and early 70s spread all sorts of propaganda because he believed the earth was flat and the moon only a couple of hundred miles away, and too small for people to stand on, and thus refused to believe, despite the evidence, that man could go to the moon.

The difference between the bible and accounts of the moon landing is reliability of the sources. The bible isn't reliable, the records of the moon landings are.

[Hazel]

Giansar wrote: "cs wrote: "It is those who do not believe in a God that keep asking for proof yet they are unable to provide a more logical solution as to what it's all about. If you are waiting for science to giv..."

I was actually convinced it was asimov until I found it was Clarke...

and one of asimovs quotes came to mind just now:

"Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night."
Isaac Asimov

[Giansar]

Aaaah, I really miss these guys :(