[Brenda]

romanP romanP:

One can believe in no God, or one can simply not believe in God. Belief in no God signifies that one has decided there is no God, and has stopped thinking about it. A lack of belief in God signifies that one still has an open mind about the subject.

Why the generalization?

Why state as a fact that one who decides there is no such thing as a god stopped thinking about it? Why make those people so narrow minded, while that might be a complete unthruth?

[PluggyRug]

romanP romanP:

Blue_Nose Blue_Nose:

If someone asks why there was a rainstorm during their birthday party, the only rational answer is that the natural processes that exist happened to cause one. The notion that God intentionally and purposely caused the rainstorm (for any reason) is baseless and irrational.

It's not really baseless or irrational, as long as you don't try to apply your own selfish reasons to it. It's just something that was going to happen.

$1:

All people did thousands of years ago when they saw a lightning storm was assume that was God - all you're doing is taking it one small step further now that we understand the processes that caused that thunderstorm and saying that's God.

It is God. We still don't know what electricity is, we just know how to generate lots of it. Even if, some day, we should discover what electricity is (have they turned on the Large Hadron Collider yet? I'm really anxious to find out what happens when they do), it will still be God's creation, because we will likely never be able to fully understand everything about our universe or how a universe can even exist. There are only theories as of yet, and all of them are untestable since they all have the potential to be about places that do not follow the known laws of physics that apply to our universe.

Electricity is simply the flow of negatively charged electrons moving at close to light speed toward a positive potential. Nothing God like about it.
Nature always tries to create equilibrium.

The Hadron Collider tests results will be very interesting.

[ShintoMale]

dog77_1999 dog77_1999:

And people believe in God to explain what happens in the natural world. Religion and science are persuing the same thing. However, alot of people on both sides can't accept that the other side has a valid reasoning. Worst yet is when people shove down their beliefs down my throat. It's utterly disgusting.

science and religion is not the same. science has giving us computers which are connected to the internet, food in thelocal supermarkets, cellphones, advances in health and medicine which increase our life expectancy, reduce the infant mortality rates, TVs, cable, planes that make us fly from canada to other places, etc science has made our lives easier and more comfortable so that most of us don't need to live a hunter/gatherer lifestyles like our ancestors did. science is not about proving and disproving the existence of gods and goddesses

[ShintoMale]

ManifestDestiny ManifestDestiny:

Why compare to the USA?

I mean, I know that a large segment of Canada loves to point and say "look look told we are not like them" but this article seems to want to use that weakness to spread their agenda.

because the U.S have a large religious Christian right movement that think they know what's best for the masses and research show that religious societies are worst off than secular societies. The U.S always say they are number one in the world. therefore it is OK to compare the U.S with other industralised nations


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 571206.ece

The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”

Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions.

He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.

The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from “ uniquely high” adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.

Mr Paul said: “The study shows that England, despite the social ills it has, is actually performing a good deal better than the USA in most indicators, even though it is now a much less religious nation than America.”

He said that the disparity was even greater when the US was compared with other countries, including France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries. These nations had been the most successful in reducing murder rates, early mortality, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion, he added.

[romanP]

Brenda Brenda:

romanP romanP:

One can believe in no God, or one can simply not believe in God. Belief in no God signifies that one has decided there is no God, and has stopped thinking about it. A lack of belief in God signifies that one still has an open mind about the subject.

Why the generalization?

Why state as a fact that one who decides there is no such thing as a god stopped thinking about it? Why make those people so narrow minded, while that might be a complete unthruth?

It's not a generalisation. If you believe something, you've stopped thinking about that aspect of reality - you are firm in your convictions, and nothing can sway you.

[RUEZ]

romanP romanP:

Brenda Brenda:

romanP romanP:

One can believe in no God, or one can simply not believe in God. Belief in no God signifies that one has decided there is no God, and has stopped thinking about it. A lack of belief in God signifies that one still has an open mind about the subject.

Why the generalization?

Why state as a fact that one who decides there is no such thing as a god stopped thinking about it? Why make those people so narrow minded, while that might be a complete unthruth?

It's not a generalisation. If you believe something, you've stopped thinking about that aspect of reality - you are firm in your convictions, and nothing can sway you.

I disagree. I believe in God. I also believe there is a possibility that he could be a myth. I'll never know for sure until I die.

[Brenda]

romanP romanP:

Brenda Brenda:

romanP romanP:

One can believe in no God, or one can simply not believe in God. Belief in no God signifies that one has decided there is no God, and has stopped thinking about it. A lack of belief in God signifies that one still has an open mind about the subject.

Why the generalization?

Why state as a fact that one who decides there is no such thing as a god stopped thinking about it? Why make those people so narrow minded, while that might be a complete unthruth?

It's not a generalisation. If you believe something, you've stopped thinking about that aspect of reality - you are firm in your convictions, and nothing can sway you.

I disagree with you. It IS a generalization. I don't believe in a god, which according to your statement means I am narrow minded and have stopped thinking about it.

Like I said before, a non believe in a god is a choice. People make choices every day, and choosing something once, might not mean they will never change that choice.

If I had stopped thinking about it, I might as well not discuss it here. There is always the possibility someone comes with such good arguments, I might change my mind...

[romanP]

Brenda Brenda:

I disagree with you. It IS a generalization. I don't believe in a god, which according to your statement means I am narrow minded and have stopped thinking about it.

Read again, that is not what I said.

[romanP]

RUEZ RUEZ:

I disagree. I believe in God. I also believe there is a possibility that he could be a myth. I'll never know for sure until I die.

You shouldn't say that you believe in things you aren't sure of. You may think about the possibilities, but that does not necessarily mean you believe in them. If you are not confident that something is true, you cannot believe in it.

[Brenda]

romanP romanP:

Brenda Brenda:

I disagree with you. It IS a generalization. I don't believe in a god, which according to your statement means I am narrow minded and have stopped thinking about it.

Read again, that is not what I said.

$1:

one has decided there is no God, and has stopped thinking about it.

What else can I make of that?

[dog77_1999]

Blue_Nose Blue_Nose:

Blue_Nose Blue_Nose:

dog77_1999 dog77_1999:

There might be a scientific explaination on why the mechanism happens, but ultimatly, why is there a mechanism?

You can ask "why" about a lot of things, but that doesn't mean there's necessarily an answer, nor does it in any way logically follow to label the answer "God". Your "believer" answer, therefore, is in no way rational, anymore than people who believe bad weather is caused by angry Gods are being rational.

This "God of the gaps" argument really has no merit, since you're simply attributing things to God arbitrarily out of ignorance, even if that ignorance extends throughout the entire human population.

God creates the weather and so does the convection heating of water from sunlight and it evaporating into the atmosphere and condensing. They are one in the same. The two are the same.

God may have created those processes, but there's absolutely no reason to believe (assuming we're talking about a personal God) he's actually involved in the day-to-day process. If you want to believe God created all the laws of nature, etc, that's absolutely fine, I'm not going to argue against that.

If someone asks why there was a rainstorm during their birthday party, the only rational answer is that the natural processes that exist happened to cause one. The notion that God intentionally and purposely caused the rainstorm (for any reason) is baseless and irrational.

All people did thousands of years ago when they saw a lightning storm was assume that was God - all you're doing is taking it one small step further now that we understand the processes that caused that thunderstorm and saying that's God.

I think you missed the point, though - in your original statement, all you did was point to something you may or may not fully understand (ie, a "gap" in your knowledge) and said, "I don't know the answer to this, therefore God has to exist in order to fill in that gap." It's a meaningless argument because you could insert any arbitrary "filler" into the gap and it's no more or less valid. You assumed something had to be there (a purpose), and arbitrarily speculated as to what it was (God) - that's not scientific at all.[/quote]

Absolutly correct. Why would God spend his time doing every single thing when he can create a process to do it?

I do fill in the unknown with religion. I think that is what religion does. Now am I going to deny scientific proof? Of course not.

[dog77_1999]

ShintoMale ShintoMale:

dog77_1999 dog77_1999:

And people believe in God to explain what happens in the natural world. Religion and science are persuing the same thing. However, alot of people on both sides can't accept that the other side has a valid reasoning. Worst yet is when people shove down their beliefs down my throat. It's utterly disgusting.

science and religion is not the same. science has giving us computers which are connected to the internet, food in thelocal supermarkets, cellphones, advances in health and medicine which increase our life expectancy, reduce the infant mortality rates, TVs, cable, planes that make us fly from canada to other places, etc science has made our lives easier and more comfortable so that most of us don't need to live a hunter/gatherer lifestyles like our ancestors did. science is not about proving and disproving the existence of gods and goddesses

You have named things in which science has created, but what makes it possible for us to do these things in the context of the laws of the universe? And while those things have made our physical body better, religion makes our mental body better. I can say I am truely happy with God. Moreso after the fact that I settled this petty science vs religion debate. It is quite an amazing feeling.

[Blue_Nose]

That's a misrepresentation of the word "believe", romanP - it's certainly not so absolute.

I believe my keys are in my jacket pocket, and I'm very confident in that belief, but if I ended up finding out that they somehow aren't there, I'd easily accept the reality that they aren't - my belief in this case isn't absolute, even though I'm certain of its validity.

Belief is always conditional, and therefore always open to change.

[fifeboy]

Brenda Brenda:

Why the generalization?

I gotta go with Brenda here! I think most people who either believe or don't, they spend at least some time thinking about their choice. This, of course, does not include the radicals on either side. There are atheists who loudly yell their belief in lack of belief for the benefit of their audience. Most non believers I know have thought about it a lot. The same goes with believers. You have those who just believe, think about it and continue to believe and those who BELIEVE. My brother in law is a good example. When he says Jesus, his voice goes up about two octaves. Going out to eat with him is an experience as he insists on standing, holding hands and very loudly and longly (is that a word?) pray. I keep thinking it is more for the show of how good a Christian he and his family are. He will broker no discussion of disbelief.

[dog77_1999]

Blue_Nose Blue_Nose:

That's a misrepresentation of the word "believe", romanP - it's certainly not so absolute.

I believe my keys are in my jacket pocket, and I'm very confident in that belief, but if I ended up finding out that they somehow aren't there, I'd easily accept the reality that they aren't - my belief in this case isn't absolute, even though I'm certain of its validity.

Belief is always conditional, and therefore always open to change.

Very true. My belief isn't absolute. I accept new things when they come to light.