i guess so. Religion is pointless.

I will let your ignorance stand as a testament to itself.

what i mean by the unknown world is exactly that. the 'known' world has expanded significantly through scientific growth, but generally speaking most of that growth has been in the very recent past. just because i recognize a spiritual aspect to my self doesn't mean i'll deny the accomplishments of science. the electron was not the best example but it was the simplest one i could think of at the moment.

it seems very limiting to me to only believe in what can be scientifically defined. it's a focus on the past, the only things that are 'real' are those that can be proven by our own means. are the individual human beings really the top of the pile of life? or are we simply components of the actual human being. does a cell truly understand the function of the organ?

basically if science explains everything we 'know' then i turn to spirituality to explain everything that remains 'unknown' to science. i'll keep turning to science and math to explain what has already happened, at the same time i'll continue turning to my spiritual side to explain what could occur, all the while i'll just be dealing with today for the brief moment it really is.

so if you don't actually know (anything) what provides you with the perspective to declare religion being only for the weak? seems to me you need a much stronger sense of self to be able to maintain an unpopular belief in the face of adversity and derision than it does to just deny your thoughts to fit in.

i think it takes a strong commitment and equally strong personality to adhere to any religious beliefs. it's easy to claim apathy and admonish religion; it takes a mature person to acknowledge that their convictions are clear and that they understand what that means for their own lives.

personally i find inconsistencies in monotheistic religion and modern scientific explanation. and there is nothing inherently 'wrong' about believing in either -- it's a personal decision and should remain such. what irks me is when people apply gross generalizations (and misunderstandings) to describe religious people when they haven't given a thought to their own convictions.

take for instance the fact that we don't actually know what space, time, matter or energy ARE. we know how the formulas that describe them will hold up in certain contexts, but when removed from that context they contradict each other and give us different 'understandings' of the thing they're dealing with. there's a hope that eventually science will resolve its internal contradictions, but that's really all that keeps it going. it can never tell us what is, only what appears.

that's the chief goal of modern physics. to figure out how they're all connected. we can keep discovering 'phenomena' for ages but without a proper understanding of what propels the universe (in the sense of its perpetual existence) we'll always be in the dark. it was Einstein's greatest failure and certainly one which will take much dumber men a helluva lot longer to solve.

yes! exactly! to the two of you :thumb:

I wouldn't say that science has to dismiss religion. There's plenty of religious scientists out there. The reason it's dismissed at the moment is because so far, there's no way of testing God scientifically. However, if there is a God, then it's science's job to prove that.

I don't believe in God because I don't think the universe requires one. It's like my example here :

Believing there's no God is pretty straightforward. It assumes that the universe could get by without one and from my limited life-experience here on earth, that seems to fit quite well. Believing there is a god only starts with the assumption that there's some kind of being or conscience which has amazing power and is possibly designing our universe etc etc and trickles down into all sorts of other assumptions like about who we are and where we come from .. It's a much more advanced explanation because then you have to accept science (unless you're a tit) and religion and I've never had a religious experience or upbringing to relate it with.

For many, I guess it's the exact opposite - science carries difficult assumptions with it .. So I guess that's an important part of why people find it hard to cross from one into the other. ;)

You dont have to be a christian to answer those question, all you have to do is actually read the bible.

1st, there is not one instance in the book of genesis that claims an "apple" fell from any tree. It merely said "fruit". Matter of fact, the word "apple" isnt even in the book of genesis ever.

2nd, the whole creation even is split in two. there are two events described with two different sets of details. All the races did not come from Adam and Eve, despite popular Christian belief. All the primary races were created in the first chapter. Emphasis was put on the Adamite bloodline because that was bloodline that would ultimately remain pure all the way from Adam to Abraham to David to Jesus Christ.

How many times did Ghandi beat his wifey?


Does a painting need an artist? No, because a completed work speaks for itself, it needs no more interference. But that doesn't erase the fact that at some point and artist thought out and painted the work upon a canvas, little by little.

Well, is the universe a painting?

Only to those who really believe. . . :finger:

http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.ya...len/santa2.jpg

Hmmmm. Tim Allen is in the bible?

You're no longer going to be allowed to post on here if you keep plagiarizing other people on the internet coryallen2, I'm serious.

all lies! il n'y a pas de hors-texte. a painting means nothing without its context, of course it needs an artist. however, separating the artist from the art is self-delusional. this is what 'god is dead' means. when god dies life is reborn.

That can also depend on your definition of art.

it is impossible to define art without referring to artists. but i welcome you to try.

Ah, it is impossible to define art without someone to gaze upon it, it has nothing to do with an artist. Art can be found in nature and in the twisted masqerades in our urban areas.

but if a person looks at something in the world and says "that is beautiful," that makes them an artist.

all an artist does is extract a piece of reality from its context.

Would that include more ridiculous or abstract thought structured upon feeling conveyed by the work or sight itself?

it's really up to you how you delineate the term, that's kind of the point

Indeed, getting back to the original point, the Universe is a construct with no purpose but to give the option of purpose or destruction. I don't see how that negates the idea of a sentient being of some sort creating it, only that this creator is no longer involved in its processes.

we'll have to agree to disagree but i'm pretty sure we can do that :beer:

i don't buy into the whole stereotypical view of 'god' as some old dude sitting in a throne of clouds or some omnipotent source of light, but rather as a further extension of my self. personally i'm a huge fan of the duality you describe in accepting both science AND spirituality. i chose spirituality over religion because i don't believe my spiritual beliefs need to be organized or recognized by anyone else but me.

then again one of the last teachers i had also described me as 'an artist trapped in a programmer's head'. i refined it to 'an undefined within an absolute'. both are necessary elements (and the best description of the perpetual dichotomy of my thoughts).

as far as the whole idea of a conscience with power over the people. i call it ego. i define it as the reflection of the conscious mind of the culture and society i exist within. it physically manifests itself through the industrial and commercial aspects of our world and reflects itself within all of us with desires for frivolous material goods that serve no purpose but to further it through the guise of bettering ourselves.

I often have to settle for disagreements, but the road there can still be fruitful :)

I've studied evolution and believe how we behave and what we are capable of is finely tuned to promote the survival of our genes. This goes for desires for frivolous material goods, jealousy, by far most of our fears and desires. What you call our ego is something I believe to come from within ourselves and it pushes our gene-survival agenda, although perhaps unconciously and unaware of it's true purpose. That competition that started out with the molecules in the primeaval soup is not over yet. Sometimes people don't think it makes sense, but they often forget the very basics - such as the need to see humans not so much in the light of civilization which evolution has no chance of keeping up with, but as the "cavemen" we were some tens of thousands of years ago.

One of the reasons I said science and religion is a difficult explanation is that the two often contradict eachother as you're aware, often leading the believer to have to accept that parts of religion or science is not true. When something is obviously not true, you might still have to accept that other parts are true, but how do you then know they are? It might get messy and I think a lot of people find it hard to unite such beliefs. If you can believe in science and spirituality (not religion) in a way that it doesn't become contradictionary or paradoxal, that solves this problem effectively.

you have to either pick one really to believe in science or religion because if you are towards religion you cant believe in evolution and the big bang theory and such but if your into science you really have nothing to believe in because how can you prove that there is a god because everything has to have a begining right? scientifically or you can choose to believe that he has always been there, faith.

this quote sums it all up pretty well... "For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not, none will suffice." You are no stronger than I for not believing in a religion. I can say you are weak for having no faith in something that isn't right in front of you. It takes strength to live a good life (not saying that I do) however that needs to be accomplished (with or without religion). Nobody in this thread is better or worse then anyone else for their beliefs. The weak mind is judgmental and critical of others, this is truth. The open mind that accepts all for who they are and what they believe is the stronger. If I allowed a person to change my beliefs based on their own opinions I would be weak but when I stand by my convictions I am strong, get it?

i get it

Aren't you being judgmental of the weak mind in your assessment of it? What you see as being judgmental and critical I see as rational analysis and critical think and what you see as open mindedness I see as the suspension of both those. Your logic in the last sentence is stupid too seeing as it takes strength to admit you were wrong - not to stubbornly stand by a point of view that's been beat down by an argument.

You can't argue faith sleepy. Some people have it and some don't. It just has to do with who you are as a person, what kind of commitment you want to make, and what environment you were raised in.

Pushing your beliefs down other people throat's is the worst you can do.

I didn't criticize him for having faith I criticized him for saying it made him a better person than me or anyone else on here who argues against religion in favor of a more skeptical approach.

I agree with you in that regard, but I think his point was too take a different look at the situation. Usually people with religious beliefs are called weak because they follow the Bible so they won't "rot in the ground" or be "smited by God" so I think he was looking at it from the other side, not putting non-believers down.

absolutely. i totally agree with the idea of genetic survival as well, it's far bigger than any individual person, but it's not what i call ego. the unconscious push towards the survival of our genetic being is the otherside, the voice that is never heard but always felt, i guess you could call it your gut instinct. to me that level of survival is primal and basic, and as a base level aspect of ourselves it's not something that i would expect to manifest itself on a higher level like material desires and (for the sake of simplicity) sin.

it's kind of like the belief in a conscious and sub-conscious mind. left to their own devices i believe that the conscious mind would simply reflect the greater ego of the human being onto the individual person (greed, gluttony, jealousy, etc.), while the subconscious mind would provide the necessary urges for survival (food, shelter, mating, etc.)

much in the same way you describe the challenge of considering both science and religion i think the biggest challenge facing every individual on the planet is to balance the three aspects of their minds without becoming schizophrenic. to be able to consider the wants of the conscious mind vs. the needs of the subconscious as controlled by the intellect of the individual. the less you want the easier it becomes to see all of everything and nothing.

Reversing the cliche positions and backing it up with illogical arguments doesn't make it remotely true though. His last statement was a polite way of promoting stubbornly clinging to beliefs regardless of rational argument and his bit about non-believers being weak because of their skeptical inquiry was just laughable.

Still, this "unknown" term seems fuzzy to me. If you do not know it exists then how can you state it exists? If science seems limiting to you, doesn't faith in god seem far too "unlimited'. If there are no boundaries and no limitations, that can often be more worrisome.
If you mean to say things that have not yet been explained by science then, I guess that's the fundamental difference between Christian and more science-inclined person. While a Christian might have faith in God a scientist has in faith that science will eventually explain it all. Its almost futile to try to persuade the other side since both have such strong faith in what they believe. Neither is right or wrong, its simply what you have faith in.

right, and for me once i overcame the fear of my self i was able to start believing in both, but that's just me. i do claim to be the universe after all... :p:

I think the concious mind is very much driven by the unconcious gene survival motives. For the caveman, greed and gluttony will come from a want to secure resources for himself and his closely related. Jealousy comes from the fact that if his partner has sex with someone else, he could end up raising a child which is not his own and considering how much resources it takes to raise a child, that's a very bad thing for the caveman - biologically speaking, he's helping the competition. The caveman could still want to be unfaithful to his own partner, males have very little investment in reproduction (the energy spent wooing the partner, then having sex and the loss of sperm) so a pregnant fling being left to raise his children on her own or with her close family might be a good trade-off. It's awful to say, but even rape might might make sense from a purely "scoring-bio-points" kind of way which is why I guess some people still do it, it has a genetic basis likely with environmentally conditioned behaviour on top.

This makes me sound very cynical, but I'm not. If there is an exploitation tactic that targets women (having sex and leaving), then women will of course evolve to try and counter that tactic so it won't necessarily be as popular as I hinted at. I also think people have great care and consideration for those they consider part of their group such as family and friends and possibly also members of their community. The best qualities in us comes from the fact that humans are social animals and our fitness and well-being depends on others. Working together is a brilliant tactic. It's when someone is not part of "us" but "them" (people you are not dependent on) that people on average become more cynical and careless.

I think the "highest" level of ourselves is the expression of the self like through arts or even just the way we portray ourselves here on musicbanter. However, I believe that most of the time, the gene tactics are often part of the final expression then as well.

no, women and men evolved on the same scale and timeline as each other. we wouldn't evolve to give advantageous traits to one sex and not the other, that would be counter-evolutionary. i do agree that other traits -- jealousy, for instance, are evolutionary in design (because it works best for both sexes). but an intrinsic desire to rape certainly doesn't have evolutionary merit; it creates a need for a protective characteristic (which again wouldn't serve any evolutionary purpose since it doesn't facilitate mating).

there are other female-male traits that have evolved over time, such as the tendency for humans to grow larger penises (in the absence of a penile bone) than other primates due to our erect postures. in addition, the human vagina has developed a more anterior orientation to facilitate mating. it's always interesting to notice why our genitalia look like they do. :D

Say, who's the one with a degree in biology here? ;)

I don't think you've read much evolutionary theory. Evolution within populations against exploitation tactics is a common thing and happens all the time. Think of how vampire bats may share blood which is a valuable resource to them. It would be easy to only take blood and never give any back, so a defence against that exploitation evolves.

Many males are promiscous because of what I wrote above. The parental investment is usually potentially very small. Hypothetically speaking, a mammalian male of a species can make perhaps make 100 females pregnant. Let's say out of these 100 single parents only 2 are able to raise their children to full maturity. That could still be a better payoff for the father than mating with 1 and spending a lot of time and effort fathering those children. Indeed, in many species, mothers are left to parent the children on their own.

However, if you're one of the 98 women whose children died because the father left, leaving you on your own, your genes are not gonna make it either. In other words, having sex with people who are gonna run off might not be a good idea, especially not for humans whose babies require considerable care. Their genes will do worse in a competition with those who have a counter strategy. The counter strategy here is trying to evaluate who you're gonna have sex with. You wanna know that your partner won't run off and if those who possess the counter strategy more often have sex with with fathers who are loyal and stay with the mother, that will ensure the survival and evolution of both the mothers counter strategy and the the fathers loyalty.

However, it's likely still a good strategy to be a little exploitative considering how little resources it might take to do so. "Strategies" like rape wouldn't make sense if everyone did it, but it might make sense when there's only a few doing it. That might be enough to keep such a strategy in a population, though at a low level.

Several species of fish are sexdimorphic meaning the males and females look different (different morphology). The bright coloured male of a specie might have a harem of women and protect it against other predators/male competitors, but there could also be a "sneaky ****er" in his harem, a male who also looks like a female and secretly sneaky-****s his harem girls. The "dimorphic" males who do best in the population are those that are able to sniff out these sneaky ****ers and chase them away so this ability evolves .. at the same time, the sneaky ****ers who survive and mate the most are the ones who are able to trick the other males into thinking they're female, so they are developing their exploitation strategy.

See? That's an example of evolution of exploitation strategy and counter strategy even within one sex. ;)

You really should consider picking up Richard Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene". It explores these topics far better than I can in a simple post and it's easy to read too.

edit :

By the way, it might also be worth mentioning that any counter strategy is also likely to come at a cost. If there's no exploitation strategy, then there's no selection to uphold a strategy against it and losing or degrading the strategy might even be selected for if it comes at a net cost to the individuals posessing it.

ah, i see. it's just difficult to imagine that males of the same species would evolve differently.

I never said I was living a good life, I was just flipping it and letting it be known that it takes great strength to have faith in a world that is "logical". I was passing judgment at the person who called religious people weak... again, I'm not classifying myself as a person who is full of faith. I have doubts and criticisms just the same but I appreciate and respect anybody who is willing and able to believe in something strongly despite proof or evidence of its existence. Call me/it stupid but I see the beauty in it.

pretty much, I see where Sleepy is coming from. There is no middle ground when it comes to faith, either you have it or you don't. I've tried doing the middle thing but it just doesn't work.

I never said I was a better person, if you go back and read what I wrote you will see I said I am not living the good life I am mentioning, again I was just countering the point of view that believers are weak minded.

Thank you.

well you are now politely turning the phrase "people who are religious are weak" into "skeptical inquiry". Wow, how much nicer that sounds. There's judgments flying from both ends. My arguments aren't illogical, I am basing my views off of people I have crossed paths with that are true believers in faith. They are good, loving, strong, passionate people who have flaws like everyone else but are truly better people because of their faith. I am not saying a non believer can't hold these qualities, what I was saying (in my first post) was that it doesn't matter either way how you get there as long as you get there. I was not calling nonbelievers weak, I was calling those who pass judgment of good/strong people as weak because they understand something that a nonbeliever doesn't.