God created everything

[kristus]

Mr. T said:

Ummm because it hasn't been around for thousands of years like the three I specifically mentioned. Don't worry, I thought about that too *hug*

I want you to think about this, so Bow about Hinduism, Buddism, Nordic mythology of Aesir. Greek Mythology, Mesopotamian Mythology. Do I need to go on? Others posting previously have already pointed out where they belong in the curriculum.

[Mr. T]

Enjay said:

But not in the science room. In a philosophy class, or a religious education class - fine. Indeed, that can and does happen in schools here.

However, evolution is a scientific theory and has a place in the science room. The others are not.

Yeah, we are on the same page. They should both be taught, seperately.

[Mr. T]

kristus said:

Ok, So Bow about Hinduism, Buddism, Nordic mythology of Aesir. Greek Mythology, Mesopotamian Mythology. Do I need to go on?

I think you need to read my post again before I start calling you names.

[Gez]

DoomUK said:

pro-Atheism lobby

Look how many atheist world leader there are. Let's be generous and adopt as definition of "world leader" someone who is President, Prime Minister, or Monarch (depending on local political system) of a G20 country. I can find one: Hu Jintao from China. The others? Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Shinto, Jewish...

Heck, assuming the UK in your username stands for United Kingdom, you live in a country that is technically a theocracy, since the reigning Queen (or King when it's a guy) is both Head of State and Head of the Anglican Church. Of course she's just a figurehead in both these roles, but can you find a country where constitution enforces an atheist figurehead?

Mr. T said:

I am religious and think that ID is a load of ass... If anything they should teach evolution alongside theories from the three main religions of the world: Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism so kids can see there is more than one way of looking at the world, that would be kewl (which is why it will never happen)

What the heck? Alongside evolution? Fuck no!

There is no issue with teaching kids about various religions in History class, because of the historic impact they have had and the way they have shaped cultures and human geography. That's where it belongs.

Evolution is to be taught in Biology class. That's where it belongs. Definitely not the same class as anything religious.

Belial said:

Fuck no. Why not include scientology in that bunch while you're at it.

Scientology has had no historic role; and I hope it'll disappear soon leaving nothing more than a footnote in history -- a footnote in the chapter about mafias rather than the one about religions.

[Shaviro]

kristus said:

I want you to think about this, so Bow about Hinduism, Buddism, Nordic mythology of Aesir. Greek Mythology, Mesopotamian Mythology. Do I need to go on? Others posting previously have already pointed out where they belong in the curriculum.

Don't forget Star Wars and Harry Potter in a couple of thousand years!

[kristus]

@Mr.T: Sorry, I skipped reading the religions you named because I expected you to say the regular 3, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Ok, So lets replace them with any other religion. Islam, Egyptian theology, Inca, Aztech, whatever. It really doesn't matter. If you want to teach the worldviews you shouldn't do that in the science classrooms. Evolution isn't a way to look at the world. It's a scientific theory. Naturalism, that is a way to look at the world.

DoomUK said:

The problem I have with these debates is that someone will invariably point out at some stage all the bad things that have happened because of certain religious convictions.

I don't really want to get into this, so I'll just say this. All the bad things done in the name of religion. You can't say that they would have been done as well had it not been because of their religious conviction. Some of them probably would have anyway. I mean, humans are capable of doing bad things regardless. But humans that are convinced they are right by a higher authority (whatever that authority may be) can do some horrible things that they otherwise wouldn't do.

Of course, there are a majority of followers of religions that don't do horrible things. But many of them do slightly less horrible things like force their belief on others. Force their religion's moral restriction on others. (Same sex marriage, Abortion) Did you know for instance, that a lot of Christians in America don't think that Atheists should have the same liberties that they do? Such as freedom of speech and expression.

Shaviro said:

Don't forget Star Wars and Harry Potter in a couple of thousand years!

And The chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the rings. That one even got it's own bible.

[Mr. T]

Well if you were going to arbitrarily choose three religions to teach that are a) global b) large and c) historical and most impotantly, relevant, it would be those three. Christianity and Islam are based on Judaism so to the best of my knowledge all three should be the same (Genesis: God made everything).

[MajorRawne]

Bad things are done by human beings who want to advance themselves politically or militarily (is that a word?). Religion is a means to that end.

Look at Pope Whatever when he launched the First Crusade. He needed manpower and he needed it A: in large quantities and B: now, so he said that anyone taking part would have all their sins absolved etc. Thousands upon thousands of people signed up, hell at some point they even started recruiting children, and these people went through some of the most horrendous fighting in the most inhospitable terrain, all because the Pope wanted to achieve something.

Religion can be a great comfort and it definitely unites people of the same beliefs but it is also extremely divisive, sinced you are NEVER going to get a large number of people who all believe exactly the same thing without brainwashing them.

It's human beings that cause the mass killing, not the actual faith. I'm not sure where it says in the Koran that killing yourself will net you a load of virgins in the afterlife (where do all those virgins come from, and what happens to them once you've shagged them and they aren't virgins any more?). Islam is a religion of peace. IIRC its actual meaning is "surrender" unless I'm getting it mixed up with something else. Surrender, as in "give up fighting and violence". How does that become mass murder?

Perhaps the best example of religious extremism is seen in 40K in which genocide, "heresy" and homicidal religious fervour can be addressed in the total safety of knowing no real-life faith is directly implied, unless of course someone out there has started worshipping Nurgle.

[kristus]

Mr. T said:

Well if you were going to arbitrarily choose three religions to teach that are a) global b) large and c) historical and most impotantly, relevant, it would be those three. Christianity and Islam are based on Judaism so to the best of my knowledge all three should be the same (Genesis: God made everything).

While the Christian bible starts with the Torah, or at least some version of it. (The old Testament) The Qur’an does not. I can't say what their genesis story is because I've not read it. But while it's possible it's the same, since they didn't really split before the story of Abraham to my knowledge. It's not the genesis accounts that make up the world view. It's the rest of the story. So lumping the three together would be a mistake since they got a lot of different focuses.

Christianity for instance, is the only religion that demands that you have faith. While the others allow you to work towards your salvation by simply following the steps.

The Jewish religion isn't too bothered by what comes after death, while Christianity talks about being with god etc, and Islam got a lot of graphic depictions of what hell is like. This is of course from my limited knowledge of them all.

I'll happily follow your example in lumping religions together though when I say it's something I think the world would be better without.

[phi108]

POTGIESSER said:

tl dr; Fuckin' Origins of The First Self Replicating Single Cell Organism, how do they work?

My bacteriology professor this last semester covered current hypotheses about the first self-replicating life (abiogenesis). Conditions needed, materials needed, what "sparked" it. He said he did have colleagues that take the step to beleive that there was something supernatural at work to get life started. That may just be because we don't know enough yet to conclude it was natural, and some people assume there was no natural possibility.

If true, it would be interesting to think that at only 2 points in the history of the universe, the Big Bang and abiogenesis, did a creator do something impossible by the laws of the universe. Then when people are praying to save their grades or marriage or race horse, he's sitting back saying "sorry, my work is done. Let me know when you want the armageddon."

[Mr. T]

I was talking about their stories of how man came to exist (ie the relevant parts in a discussion about evolution). Obviously the parts after the Old Testament are different otherwise they wouldn't be different religions...

[Mr. T]

phi108 said:

If true, it would be interesting to think that at only 2 points in the history of the universe, the Big Bang and abiogenesis, did a creator do something impossible by the laws of the universe. Then when people are praying to save their grades or marriage or race horse, he's sitting back saying "sorry, my work is done. Let me know when you want the armageddon."

Well, that's the book of Job in a nutshell.

Job: Why must you keep punishing me?!
God: Do you think I give a FUCK about you? I have a whole planet to run, you stupid asshole.
Job: SORRY

[phi108]

Dang people, stop jumping on Mr. T. He said IF ANYTHING, they should teach multiple creation theories. Meaning it would be preferrable to only teach science, but if religious alternatives were to be taught, it shoudn't just be the CHRISTIAN STUPID INTELLIGENT DESIGN. I would hate to see christian beleifs taught alongside science while potentially superior religions are left out. Just hypothetically, of course, I imagine I would think differently if it actually happened.

EDIT:

Mr. T said:

Well, that's the book of Job in a nutshell.

Job: Why must you keep punishing me?!
God: Do you think I give a FUCK about you? I have a whole planet to run, you stupid asshole.
Job: SORRY

Well, in my scenario, he's not even running the planet. Just letting it run itself, and maybe living his own busy life out in the multiverse/real world.

[DoomUK]

kristus said:

Of course, there are a majority of followers of religions that don't do horrible things. But many of them do slightly less horrible things like force their belief on others. Force their religion's moral restriction on others. (Same sex marriage, Abortion) Did you know for instance, that a lot of Christians in America don't think that Atheists should have the same liberties that they do? Such as freedom of speech and expression.

These people also give everyone else with simple faith a bad name. Without being able to accurately reel off statistics here, I would fervently hope they are in the minority. But it's not fair to pinpoint a nucleus of crazed zealots within a larger denomination and conclude that this is the behaviour that their religious convictions result in.

It's as disproportionate as saying that every Doom fan is prone to violently murdering a room full of people.

[geekmarine]

In my opinion, people are far too obsessed with having to explain everything. Why can't people just acknowledge we haven't figured everything out? What's so hard about that? It's not that I necessarily have a problem with the notion of God, though I am an atheist. It just pisses me off that anytime we can't come up for an explanation for something, we automatically assume that we've somehow miraculously reached the pinnacle of human knowledge, and so therefore if something can't be explained, it must have a supernatural origin.

How friggin' arrogant is that? We've only just begun to understand the universe. We haven't even really scratched the surface, in terms of potential knowledge. What's so wrong with saying, "Gee, I don't know?" Imagine if Einstein had taken that attitude about light - "Well gee, we've reached the limit of our knowledge regarding light, and we still can't fully explain it. I guess we'll just say it's magic." He never would've developed his theory of relativity.

[Gez]

MajorRawne said:

Look at Pope Whatever when he launched the First Crusade. He needed manpower and he needed it A: in large quantities and B: now, so he said that anyone taking part would have all their sins absolved etc. Thousands upon thousands of people signed up, hell at some point they even started recruiting children, and these people went through some of the most horrendous fighting in the most inhospitable terrain, all because the Pope wanted to achieve something.

You're oversimplifying stuff quite a lot.

Medieval nobles were bored out of their mind. No Internet, no TV, not even a Sudoku Magazine. Actual work was prohibited to them (it would have caused them to lose their noble status immediately). The only things they were allowed to do were as such:
- Hunting
- Jousting
- Fighting

So basically, they spent their time in petty wars against each others, both for status (greater territory == greater status) and because it gave them something to do. In so doing, they pillaged and slaughtered not just other nobles, but mostly other nobles' serfs.

The Church at the time was busy trying to find out ways to pacify them. It invented stuff like the Lord's Peace (no warring on Sundays, that's bad!) but even that was not enough. If they asked too much, then what happened was that the nobles attacked a monastery instead, so compromises were difficult.

But then, thankfully, the heathens who controlled Jerusalem started causing troubles, like killing or enslaving more Christian pilgrims than in the years before. This was the perfect opportunity. The concept of a Holy War was born: send all these bellicose petty nobles to a distant country, so that they can be someone else's problem, pillage someone else's city and slaughter someone else's villeins. Perfect! Free the Holy Land from the heathens, carve a new domain for yourself, and let the commoners in Europe breathe a sigh of relief.

It was pretty much absolutely ideal. The aim of the Crusades wasn't so much to incite these guys to fight to reclaim Jerusalem, it was to incite these guys to go away.

By the way, the ill-fated Children's Crusade was not "sponsored" by the Church. It was a bunch of raving scammers who did the "recruitment", and in the end the kids who did not die of exhaustion along the way (way which never actually led to Jerusalem) were eventually sold in slavery.

geekmarine said:

In my opinion, people are far too obsessed with having to explain everything. Why can't people just acknowledge we haven't figured everything out? What's so hard about that?

Something not explained yet == instant PhD, glory and honor if you can figure out the explanation yourself.

What's so hard about that?

[kristus]

DoomUK said:

It's as disproportionate as saying that every Doom fan is prone to violently murdering a room full of people.

No it's not unless you can make the logical connection (IE, not make it up) that the person killing all those people did it BECAUSE they liked playing Doom.

EDIT: And yes, the people who do horrible things in the name of their religion, (like the pope) do cast a black mark on their entire religion. Because they do it as a result of that religion. That's not something that should be ignored or pretended that it doesn't exist.

[Mr. T]

phi108 said:

Dang people, stop jumping on Mr. T. He said IF ANYTHING, they should teach multiple creation theories. Meaning it would be preferrable to only teach science, but if religious alternatives were to be taught, it shoudn't just be the CHRISTIAN STUPID INTELLIGENT DESIGN. I would hate to see christian beleifs taught alongside science while potentially superior religions are left out. Just hypothetically, of course, I imagine I would think differently if it actually happened.

Thanks for actually reading my posts and not just repeating mantras...
I doubt I would support my own idea if it happened in anything less than a perfect world. Can you imagine the whining from all sides of the argument? lol

I agree with you that science and religion don't have to be mutually exclusive. Who's to say that God didn't just cause the big bang and create the first multiple-celled organism? It makes a lot more sense than some of the theories I've heard.

There are a lot of things that science can't explain, and considering our illustrious history of being, well, absolutely wrong in our assumptions about the world around us, it's safe to say that we know a lot less than we think we do.

/EDIT

kristus said:

No it's not unless you can make the logical connection (IE, not make it up) that the person killing all those people did it BECAUSE they liked playing Doom.

EDIT: And yes, the people who do horrible things in the name of their religion, (like the pope) do cast a black mark on their entire religion. Because they do it as a result of that religion. That's not something that should be ignored or pretended that it doesn't exist.

So the actions of the Columbine gunmen means we are all like that? ARGUMENT FAIL... although there is the truism that you can do 100 good things and one bad thing, and only be remembered for the latter.

Religions are complex beasts, not one monolithic entity. It's important to remember that the Catholic church has spent a lot more time oppressing other variants of christianity over the years than any crusade.

[magicsofa]

I think it is kinda bullshit to complain about the teaching of creation theories. Obviously, they don't belong in science class. Furthermore, you can go to a university and study whatever the fuck you want. My school happens to only have a Judaic Studies major...but still, that's an entire department devoted (no pun intended) to Judaism. Other schools have more religious programs. So people might as well shut the fuck up because their religions are already being taught in schools, it's just not taught to young kids. Similarly young kids don't get to study a whole range of other stuff you find in college - how about Women's Studies? How about Film? How about Accounting? These subjects may be lightly touched upon in grade school but the real point is supposed to be a general learning structure whose real focus is basic problem solving, not delving deep into a specific topic.

Also, this may not be everyone's experience because my hometown is upper-middle class and we have a good school system, but back in like sixth grade our social studies class included going over several major religions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

So all in all, it's just retarded that anyone would try to sneak Christian beliefs into a science class.

Now, as far as creationism and all this junk, I personally hold a belief or faith where I have declared the universe itself as God. Then again, I'm not quite sure how it was created - I like the idea that nothing cannot exist so there logically had to be something. This something was probably a singularity which blew the fuck up, and viola her we are today! Whatever, it's not a well defined theory but I like the idea that I'm always interacting with God, every day, and I can know things about her and be a part of her and so on and so forth. Also, she is not benevolent whatever the fuck that means, she's more like a neutral oneness. Word.

[Belial]

Gez said:

The Church at the time was busy trying to find out ways to pacify them.

Furthering the concept that all power comes from god which made nobles answerable to the church was cheaper than maintaining your own army. It all started with this guy. Afterwards the Pope was just another political figure, so you can't really picture him as some benevolent force working for peace in Europe.

[DoomUK]

kristus said:

No it's not unless you can make the logical connection (IE, not make it up) that the person killing all those people did it BECAUSE they liked playing Doom.

EDIT: And yes, the people who do horrible things in the name of their religion, (like the pope) do cast a black mark on their entire religion. Because they do it as a result of that religion. That's not something that should be ignored or pretended that it doesn't exist.

You're defending one arbitrary connection while dismissing the other as illogical. Religious beliefs, though amounting to no more than a collection of fairy tales (as, IIRC, you have classified them as before now), are enough of an inspiration for people to do very bad things. But Doom, a rich and graphic fictional universe, isn't sufficient. Where is the line being drawn?

[kristus]

DoomUK said:

You're defending one arbitrary connection while dismissing the other as illogical.

When there are lots of obvious evidence and none in the other. The two are not comparable until evidence for the second is revealed.

It's not an arbitrary connection when people defend their actions by citing their holy texts or defending their opinion and actions by referring to their god.

While on the other hand, a troubled kid shoots up a high school, it's later found that he enjoys violent video games. Is that why he shot up that school? It's possibility. But unless you find some strong evidence for that theory it is entirely circumstantial.

[Mr. T]

kristus said:

When there are lots of obvious evidence and none in the other. The two are not comparable until evidence for the second is revealed.

It's not an arbitrary connection when people defend their actions by citing their holy texts or defending their opinion and actions by referring to their god.

While on the other hand, a troubled kid shoots up a high school, it's later found that he enjoys violent video games. Is that why he shot up that school? It's possibility. But unless you find some strong evidence for that theory it is entirely circumstantial.

How old are you?

Do you have any evidence of someone commiting a crime in a country that isn't completely backwards and then being exonerated because "God made them do it"?

[Gez]

Belial said:

Furthering the concept that all power comes from god which made nobles answerable to the church was cheaper than maintaining your own army. It all started with this guy. Afterwards the Pope was just another political figure, so you can't really picture him as some benevolent force working for peace in Europe.

I wouldn't qualify "sending troublesome people away to be someone else's problem" as really benevolent...

The medieval history of the Roman Catholic Church and that of the various European nobles and kings are intermingled. The Church had an ascendant phase in which is obtained both auctoritas (spiritual power) and potestas (temporal power), but it was relatively short-lived. The Western Schism (14th century) definitely broke the Church's prestige, and it has afterwards been a toy of whichever country could bully the Pope into submission. At times, you've had two or three different Popes simultaneously, each backed by a different country and ferociously excommunicating the others. Who do you think actually took the Church seriously after that? Nobody.

When Henry VIII wanted to annul his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, the Pope refused. Why? Why, because Catherine was the aunt of Charles V of Spain! Who just happened to be in military control of Italy, including Rome and the Vatican, at the time... The Pope's refusal was stubbornly maintained at the explicit insistence of Charles V. So what did Henry VIII end up doing? A big "fuck you, you don't actually matter anyway, I'm becoming my own Pope".


I'm not arguing the Church was good and benevolent, I'm just arguing it was far from having as much power as is often thought. It climbed quite high, but then the nobility pushed back. The Church's decline started in the 13th century and never stopped. It continues to this day.

[MajorRawne]

Mr. T said:

Do you have any evidence of someone commiting a crime in a country that isn't completely backwards and then being exonerated because "God made them do it"?

9/11. 7/7. Basically any other Islamic terror bombing. The Western world seems to take a lot of the blame when some religious extremist crashes a bomb-laden car into a load of children.

[kristus]

Mr. T said:

How old are you?

I don't see how this is relevant.

Mr. T said:

Do you have any evidence of someone commiting a crime in a country that isn't completely backwards and then being exonerated because "God made them do it"?

Again, what does this have to do with the discussion? What is completely backwards in your mind though? I could show how Islamic dogma in any Islamic nation is considered the law. But you'd just retort with that it being a "completely backward" country. Which makes your question rather suspicious. You know there are examples of basic human rights being denied, but that denial is accepted by the nation because of their religion. But you're not interested in those, because that would be going against what you're arguing for. So basically, you're asking for an example from a secular nation. Which I can not give. Except it's possible I could dig something up from the UK. As as far as I know they do acknowledge sharia law depending on if both parties agrees to it.

Now it doesn't take a genius to realize that if one of the parties is a female, she may very well be forced to agreeing on it simply because of the patriarchal culture where women have no real rights of any kind.

[DoomUK]

kristus said:

When there are lots of obvious evidence and none in the other. The two are not comparable until evidence for the second is revealed.

It's not an arbitrary connection when people defend their actions by citing their holy texts or defending their opinion and actions by referring to their god.

While on the other hand, a troubled kid shoots up a high school, it's later found that he enjoys violent video games. Is that why he shot up that school? It's possibility. But unless you find some strong evidence for that theory it is entirely circumstantial.

Not every Muslim feels compelled to commit an atrocity like the 9/11 or 7/7 bombings. Yet, to my admittedly sketchy knowledge, both rational and irrational Muslim reads the same texts. What this suggests, to me, is that the interpretation of the Qur'an is what is to blame, not it's prose, poetry or imagery.

Religion has no more of an immediate, non-negotiable effect on people's actions than a video game does. You are, in summary, looking for something to blame rather than accepting that the human spirit (in the casual sense of the term) is susceptible to fallibility and bad influence, given specific sets of circumstances which in themselves are the tragedy.

[Mr. T]

MajorRawne said:

9/11. 7/7. Basically any other Islamic terror bombing. The Western world seems to take a lot of the blame when some religious extremist crashes a bomb-laden car into a load of children.

Yep, that sure worked out great for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, how many times did they waterboard him again? Lol

@Kristus
The reason I asked is because backwarda countries like Pakistan sucking ass is more of a reflection of that country's shitty culture than any problem with their religion of choice.

Again, Islam isn't this huge monolithic entity. The kind of Islam with Sharia law the follow in Saudi Arabia is a world apart from the Islam practised by people, for example, in the US.

[kristus]

DoomUK said:

Not every Muslim feels compelled to commit an atrocity like the 9/11 or 7/7 bombings. Yet, to my admittedly sketchy knowledge, both rational and irrational Muslim reads the same texts. What this suggests, to me, is that the interpretation of the Qur'an is what is to blame, not it's prose, poetry or imagery.

Please read this to get a better idea of what is actually IN the Qu'ran.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/Quran-Hate.htm

Mr. T said:

The reason I asked is because backwarda countries like Pakistan sucking ass is more of a reflection of that country's shitty culture than any problem with their religion of choice.

Again, Islam isn't this huge monolithic entity. The kind of Islam with Sharia law the follow in Saudi Arabia is a world apart from the Islam practised by people, for example, in the US.

Unlike you I am not going to pretend to know what the Sharia in the UK are allowed to act as jury on but I'll say this. In Islamic countries, their Religion IS their culture. It's not as easy as saying that it's their religion of choice. There's no choice there. The Qu'ran clearly states that the penalty for apostasy is death.

[Belial]

Mr. T said:

The reason I asked is because backwarda countries like Pakistan sucking ass is more of a reflection of that country's shitty culture than any problem with their religion of choice.

Paging Maes to this thread.

Edit: This is also in the Quran. Coupled with the quotes from the site kristus linked to it leads me to believe that it's just a really inconsistent book where anyone can find something that suits their ideology.