[killadonuts]

Originally posted by CP5670
Well, the thing is that most of the pro-religion people here are saying that the whole concept of religion is not a totally human invention at all, but "insipired by an act of god" or something and therefore not susceptible to the same problems as other human knowledge. You can probably guess what I think of that whole idea.

You seem to be the only one who has not flamed me for saying this but I'll say it one last time.

Religion is simply a mental appendix that the human race no longer needs.  It was a primitive attempt to explain what we cannot and will never know.
I also believe (to much of the dismay of most everyone else here ) that the evolution of our race will eventually cause religion to be non-existant.
People with religion have an obsolete philosophy on life.

I find it hard to believe that there's an Invisable Man in the clouds who watches everything we say and do.
That's why I'm a sun worshiper.  At least you can SEE the sun.

[CP5670]

I haven't argued with you on that point because I wholeheartedly agree with you.

[Kazan]

word killa, word

[NotDefault]

Originally posted by Blitz_Lightning
If you want a good site that gives a summary of evidence, this is a pretty good site. There's probably lots more that are better, so you can probably search for some on google.

I refuse to believe any site that starts off with an argument that goes something like: "I don't understand how the eye could've evolved, therefore it was designed." Gag.

Originally posted by hotsnoj
Evidence?!  What evidence would you accept?! You obvisly won't accept our aguments telling you evolution is just a religion. Why should we give you more when you won't even pay attention to the stuff we have told you!

Evolution is not a religion.  It is the theory that currently best explains the origin of life on Earth.

Originally posted by CP5670
Also, you could just write |e|=mc².

Stop butchering math.  I cringe everytime you put out an equation, and that's annoying because generally I agree with what you have to say.

e²=m²c^4 is not the same as |e|=mc².

Neither does Blitz's equation adequately compensate for antimatter.  I believe the equation you're looking for is e=|m|c².

Originally posted by aldo_14
I don't think that you can possibly prove / disprove the existence of a supreme being with any method - to our perception, God does not exists - any supreme deity would be, by nature, beyond our senses.

This is somewhat true.  It depends how you define existence, though.  I would define existence as it must be able to be observed somehow, directly or indirectly.  A supreme being cannot be observed, so I would say it doesn't exist.

[CP5670]

Stop butchering math. I cringe everytime you put out an equation, and that's annoying because generally I agree with what you have to say.

e²=m²c^4 is not the same as |e|=mc².

Neither does Blitz's equation adequately compensate for antimatter. I believe the equation you're looking for is e=|m|c².

Whoops, you're right; my equation is somewhat incorrect, but yours is even worse. I believe antimatter yields a negative energy value, but the mass is still positive, thereby giving two energy values (one matter and one antimatter) for each mass value, so the equation would be my original |e|=mc² one. However, that is not quite right either, as it does not take negative and complex values of m into account - they may not mean anything in the physical world, but as a theory-oriented guy these values are just as important to me as the realistic ones. Assuming that Blitz's original equation is correct, the absolute values would need to be on both sides to take both negative and complex values into account; something like |e|=|m|c². (c would be predefined so we don't need to worry about that)

[Kazan]

I'm going to see my brother tommorow, and he doesn't quantum physics shizat... so im going to ask him about antimatter being plugged into the conversion equasion

[Bobboau]

If you want a good site that gives a summary of evidence, this is a pretty good site.

ok the site's main point's of evedence are

a) life is too complex to have just hapened
b) the Universe needed to have a cause for it to be created (ie God)
c) that humans have a value system

a) evolution
b) ok we don't have that good of an answere at this point, this is what I generaly consider the anti-creation argument's one and only weak point, becase it requires quantom mechanics ect..., and quantum mechanics is just illogical to me in many situations, this however does not effect evolution, if you're arguments for free will (in responce to why the world isn't absolutly perfict) are true than an eveolutionary system seems to fit right in with Gods mentality,
further I will let someone with a better knowlege of Quantom mechanics feild this
c) evolution

[CP5670]

Actually, regarding b, the looped-universe system makes perfect sense and works without any god. And if you do not agree here, you should not be accepting that god "always existed" either, so how was god made? Religion does not close up that question at all; it just drops in an extra stage into the universal history. As I said countless times before, "god" is simply the weak mind's way of explaining natural phenomena in a manner that is logically simple and emotionally appealing.

[Ace]

"According to it, God made us free to choose our path, whether to follow his best or not. Automata were not what he wanted to create; he wanted to create other free beings like he himself was free...."

If God wished to create equals with free will, then why punish them when they go against the deity's wishes? The only explanation would be the love of a parent, giving guidelines which must be followed. However by nature this states that the creations are not equals.

You need to seriously rethink your theology there since you have serious lapses :wink:

One point to ponder: By definition the universe is all knowing, all powerful, and sentient.

Now before someone tries to argue that, look at the definition of the word universe

[CP5670]

That is the second purpose of religion: the purpose of government. This includes a code of laws and a system of enforcement based on fear of punishment. (hell)

[NotDefault]

Originally posted by CP5670
Whoops, you're right; my equation is somewhat incorrect, but yours is even worse.

I'm not sure about that.  Actually, you're probably right.

I believe antimatter yields a negative energy value, but the mass is still positive, thereby giving two energy values (one matter and one antimatter) for each mass value, so the equation would be my original |e|=mc² one.

Maybe.  I wrote that in complete ignorance of the physics; I just assumed the mass was negative and that there's no such thing as anti-energy.

However, that is not quite right either, as it does not take negative and complex values of m into account - they may not mean anything in the physical world, but as a theory-oriented guy these values are just as important to me as the realistic ones. Assuming that Blitz's original equation is correct, the absolute values would need to be on both sides to take both negative and complex values into account; something like |e|=|m|c². (c would be predefined so we don't need to worry about that)

That would be the most accurate equation assuming that the mass can be negative or positive and the energy can be negative or positive, and whether the energy is negative or positive or the matter is negative or positive does not depend on the sign of the other (whew!).

The problem I would have is that logically if you added two energy values,

x+y=e

to get your energy value, these two groups of equations,

|e|=|m|c²

|x|=|m|c²
|y|=|m|c²

would yield different values for e.  |e|=|m|c² could yield two different values, while the second group could yield anything between -e and e.

It's quite possible energy isn't used that way, though.

We ought to team up on this; you seem to understand the physics, and I seem to understand the math, so I'm sure we could figure it out together.

[NotDefault]

Originally posted by CP5670
That is the second purpose of religion: the purpose of government. This includes a code of laws and a system of enforcement based on fear of punishment. (hell)

I believe this was the main purpose of Western religion (I'm not sure about Eastern religion).  I mean, just look at the Catholic church and what it controlled.  It has a much smaller effect these days, but before the seperation of church and state, it dominated...

[Blitz_Lightning]

the equations e=mc2 and e2=m2c4 differ only if negative energies and mass have any physical meaning. The reason why e2=m2c4 is the preferred version is that in e=mc2 a negative mass value implies negative energy (which can't exist, since it is scalar, not vector). Also, e2=m2c4 allows it to be solved using both matter and antimatter.

[Blitz_Lightning]

If you want a more precise answer, however, use
E = [(p2c2) + m2c4]1/2 where p is the object's momentum. This is called, if you really want to know, the momentum-energy-4-vector, which is used in special relativity. By the way, don't ask me too much about this, because I am not a physicist!

[Blitz_Lightning]

This is such garbage that I'm not going to even going to bother with it a whole lot. Since when does Christianity say that the universe can be rationally interpreted? In fact, just a few posts ago some people were talking about how god is beyond the understanding of humans. Also, the modern experimental method existed at least 600 years before Christianity was formed.

Christianity believes that the universe can be rationally interpreted because the universe was created by an intelligent, creative, and elegant God.
And actually, if you do a bit of research, the modern scientific method was invented by Galileo.

Again, you are trying to shift the blame off god. He gave us this freedom to choose. And the second bit is really nonsense for a god that is supposedly "all-powerful;" you are telling me that he has to send another human down to "atone for our sins?" Why does he not simply revoke the entire concept of sin? I also think that suffering is a necessary component of human advance, but at the same time I am told that nobody suffers in heaven.

It's like saying that it is not your fault for burning yourself because somebody invented the oven. It is your choice whether to burn yourself, so it is you to blame.

Well, even quantum physics has not been able to answer this question. All we know is that we as humans cannot determine certain properties about particles as long as we use other particles to measure these properties. That does not say much about whether the universe is inherently deterministic or probabilistic, which is why the scientific community is sort of divided on this issue today.

Well, what do you mean by inherently deterministic? if I use the the definition provided by dictionary.com,
1. Describes a system whose time evolution can be predicted exactly.
well, since we can't predict quantum phenomena, doen's this mean that the universe isn't deterministic?

How do you know that humans do not live in multiple time dimensions? In fact, I think it may well be possible, as it would perfectly account for all of the strange effects seen at the particle level, and I am thinking of doing some work later on with this.

Well, what I mean about multiple time dimensions is knowing the future. Us humans don't know the future.

So now he is indeed responsible for everything; he can be considered a sinner himself for creating the concept of sin in the first place. And I already said that hell is no punishment; it is equally as good as heaven, because you get to learn and experience what the people in heaven do not.

Why is a being a sinner for creating the concept of sin? Please explain to me how this works. So if I invented the concept of a computer, am I a computer? No. If you think that hell is no punishment, go ahead. Are you sure you would prefer to go to hell?

See what I said earlier about indirect questioning. You may say that this god is omnipresent, but everything attributed to him in the Bible and the way he works with things (he has his own will, from what you said) shows that he is most certainly not any better than a human.

Mmm... really? If all-knowing, being able to create the universe isn't any better than being a human, I don't know what is.

Well, if the human is made in the image of god, then the god will probably share some of the flaws with the human. Motives are one of those things that we all know well but which is somewhat hard to define mathematically; once you reach a certain point of logical complexity in a given system, it can be thought of as having a motive, but this point has not been explicitly defined yet. Also, how can we take the word of god if he has this free will? As long as he has a will, it is possible that he may lie, just like humans.

Well, of course, why would God need to lie? He could easily make anything he says into a truth. Why would he lie if he could make it in truth?

[HotSnoJ]

For those of you who believe in a theory (Evolution).
Why do you believe in evolution? It says you are an animal and you have no soul. So you no chance at living forever, spirit wise. Why go though life thinkin' you are not important? Wouldn't you want to think even when no human loved you God and Jesus do?

[Pera]

Originally posted by hotsnoj
For those of you who believe in a theory (Evolution).
Why do you believe in evolution? It says you are an animal and you have no soul. So you no chance at living forever, spirit wise. Why go though life thinkin' you are not important? Wouldn't you want to think even when no human loved you God and Jesus do?

Do _you_ believe in your religion because of that? Is the only reason you believe in god, that you have a chance of "living forever"?

Let me tell you something, your chances of living forever are pretty grim, you see, there are no noubt hundreds of religions in the world, each offering some kind of view to what happens after death. And then there is the most likely alternative, when you die, you die, that's it.

Now, as none of these can be proven right or wrong in any way, every single one of them have an equal chance of being right. So, even if I was a christian, it would be highly unlikely that I would end up "living forever". That's definitely not worth wasting your limited lifetime on pointless superstition, don't you think?

And oh, why should it be Jesus and god who loved me. I could just as well make up two imaginary friends named Bill and Ted, that's excatly the same.

[HotSnoJ]

Originally posted by Pera


1. Do _you_ believe in your religion because of that? Is the only reason you believe in god, that you have a chance of "living forever"?

2. Let me tell you something, your chances of living forever are pretty grim, you see, there are no noubt hundreds of religions in the world, each offering some kind of view to what happens after death. And then there is the most likely alternative, when you die, you die, that's it.

Now, as none of these can be proven right or wrong in any way, every single one of them have an equal chance of being right. So, even if I was a christian, it would be highly unlikely that I would end up "living forever". That's definitely not worth wasting your limited lifetime on pointless superstition, don't you think?

And oh, why should it be Jesus and god who loved me. I could just as well make up two imaginary friends named Bill and Ted, that's excatly the same.

1. I most certianly do!
2. Christianity differs from others because it says, "By faith you are saved, not by works so no one can boast." It's somewhere, can't remember where, but it's there. Others say you can get to heavan by doing good works (deeds). Musilums even if they do good things thier whole life Allah can still send them to Hell. So they have no garenete of where they are going.

[Pera]

Originally posted by hotsnoj
2. Christianity differs from others because it says, "By faith you are saved, not by works so no one can boast." It's somewhere, can't remember where, but it's there. Others say you can get to heavan by doing good works (deeds). Musilums even if they do good things thier whole life Allah can still send them to Hell. So they have no garenete of where they are going.

What the flying fudge has that got to do with my post? Of course it differs from others, every single religion differs from others, but it doesn't make them any more true.

And remember, originally, christians did get to heaven only by doing good deeds, you are apparently a protestant, and your religion broke off from catholic church in the sixteenth century. How can you tell you are more right that every other christian church?

[Kazan]

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