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[Panda Bear]

i think the topic has been derailed...
i thought he was speaking of teaching creationism as a valid scientific theory along side evolution. which is obviously already been refuted and put down in the u.s . i don't care what people choose to believe in, send your kids to jesus camp, i couldn't care less but don't try to bring this into the realm of the study of science when it can't even hold up against such simple scrutiny.

Well yeah, but he actually said he didn't believe the bible is based upon fact, so he never said creationism should be taught as valid science. He was just trying to point out that evolution does not refute the idea of a God.

Oh and a thread about religion got derailed into a discussion about the merits of religion or God? Big surprise.

 

[Spider Silva]

Spot on.

Not really, I don't think I ever said they should be competing theories. I simply said why can't there be belief in a creator while believing things evolved? I don't get it. Never once said, "wow lets put creationism in classes and teach it, its jsut as valid."

Oh well, I'm about done here. Goes back to my point about how people will poke holes in anything you say to make it seem like you said something else.

 

[HolyStar]

And how exactly will the world be a better place with religion gone?

 

[soul creator]

Religion also inspired people to abolish slavery, introduce child labour laws, come up with the idea of free public education and invent benevolent institutions such as charities and hospitals. It isn't as black and white as you seem to present.

religion also inspired people to support slavery, and to keep people focused on culture war issues while they're being looted by elites (god will provide, so you don't need this government program in your life!). So at best, traditional religions are unreliable and incosistent and can be used to equally justify entirely contradictory positions, making common ground impossible (since the foundation is based on "faith")

If people stopped believing in God, they'd use something else, like political ideology, history, ethnicity or eugenics etc. to justify their actions. Cognitive dissonance allows people to spin notions that directly contravene their intent into justifications for the same, regardless of what their beliefs are.

No one thinks a removal of traditional organized religions/god belief will instantly bring world peace...but it can be argued that it would make a more peaceful world more likely. Sure, people could find other justifications for horrible things, but those other justifications would find a harder time to take hold since they wouldn't have the "all powerful invisible father who will punish you if you don't follow" mindset behind it. Finding a cure for AIDS would not prevent other diseases from killing you, but I think the net benefit would be desired.

I think people target religions because when religious institutions fail to deliver on their promises, they fail publicly and spectacularly, because their promises are proported to be divine. In short though, religions are an easier target for blame than fundamental human nature because it's easier to tear down an institution failing to live up to its own standards than to to fix problems inherent in the human condition. /tangent

sure, "fundamental human nature" is always going to exist, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we have to *encourage* the worst aspects of it. Which in some situations, takes something like religion to do. Religion isn't the sole source of evil obviously, but I don't think it's something where we should just say "meh, leave it alone". Especially since lots of religions actively encourage people to not "leave things alone" and make things worse

Or at the very least, "new religions" should be formed, and the old ones based on "big invisible powerful father in the sky" should die out since they tend to cause the most problems . Ironically a lot of "liberal" Christians gotten out of this mindset, but since they're still trying to anchor themselves to 2000 years of Christianity, their beliefs just end up contradicting themselves and sounding muddled. It's like Windows 7 and Vista not being all they can be because they don't want to break compatibility with XP and 98, lol.

 

[Panda Bear]

And how exactly will the world be a better place with religion gone?

:lol Just throw yourself to the wolves why don't you.

 

[StoOgE]

And how exactly will the world be a better place with religion gone?

I don't know. It's entirely possible something else would step in and fill the void left in it's wake and that would be used to justify horrible things instead. I don't however think those arguments would be as persuasive or their results at pervasive.

I already admitted religion may be a symptom of the problem of the human condition that can't be cured.

The cold can't be cured either, but I still prefer to treat it's symptoms.

 

[Chinner]

Why are you being like this? I just asked you to expound upon what you meant in that post. Why are you being so damn defensive?

I thought you were trolling brah, so my apologies for this inconvience. I'll expand and hopefully I'll be more clear: My post is basically talking about secularism. What I'm saying is that in a ideal society you want laws and moral code to be clear so that they can't be interpreted differently to avoid abusement.

Obviously that wasn't the point of his post, but it just stood out for me. And to be clear, I'm not saying that religion has that kind of influence over society anymore and I'm not saying every theist is like that, because they're not. I'm just saying that when you have a society on your hands everything has to be clear. You don't want it to be based around biblical origins where there is alot of negative/primitive views expressed that can be interpreted differnetly so they can be abused to fit extreme views. Hopefully, that is abit more clear?

I should of just said secular in the first place, but the word did not come to my mind for for some reason!

 

[Spider Silva]

And how exactly will the world be a better place with religion gone?

I would argue the world would be a better place with humans gone. Then all the animals can throw a party. No more killing rain forests, ozone bullshit, urbanization, etc. Would be good times.

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

Question: why is it the theory of evolution? I know that it's not the kind of theory that most people think, but what is the definition of theory when applied to the theory of evolution.

In science, a theory is a set of ideas or principles that go towards explaining a phenomenon. For example, the theory of gravity has Newton's Universal Gravity Equation:

F = GMm/R²

where

F is the force of attraction between two objects
G is the universal gravitational constant; G = 6.67*10-11 N-m²/kg². The units of G can be stated as Newton meter-squared per kilogram-squared or Newton square meter per square kilogram.
M and m are the masses of the two objects
R is the distance between the objects, as measured from their centers
GMm/R² is G times M times m divided by R-squared

Which is one of the ideas that make up the theory, but aren't the whole of the theory. Another idea is Einstein's notion of gravity being equivalent to a bending or warping of space-time.

When you combine them together, you get a theory. The theory works 99.9% of the time, but doesn't completely explain how gravity works in all the details, for example, with black holes or on the quantum scale. We know, however, that it's pretty close to the truth and anyone doubting that Newton's universal gravity equation describes the force of gravity upon most objects in space is ill-informed.

 

[soul creator]

I would argue the world would be a better place with humans gone. Then all the animals can throw a party. No more killing rain forests, ozone bullshit, urbanization, etc. Would be good times.

http://www.vhemt.org/

 

[mikekennyb]

That's cool. Hugs?

 

[jett]

So this the montly Intelligent people vs. creationists thread.

 

[JordoftheDead]

And how exactly will the world be a better place with religion gone?

You can’t honestly look at the current state of world affairs like the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, Afghanistan and extreme, radical Fundamentalist Muslim terrorist groups, the Christian and Muslim conflicts in Cyprus, the Christian and Muslim conflicts in Timor, and conflicts in India involving, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and still honestly ask that question can you?

And that's only naming a few.
Countless parts of the world would no longer be involved in conflicts between religionists with conflicting and non-negotiable theological claims on ‘Holy Land’.

That’s without reaching to easy choices like the dangers of sexual repression, female genital mutilation, banning of condoms that would help control birth rates and slow the progression of sexually transmitted diseases, or the outlawing of vaccinations against preventable diseases in many parts of the world.

I could go on for days.

Still, Im not even going as far as saying 'The World would be better off without religion'.
I just think the world would be a much better place if religious belief remained personal belief.

 

[Atrus]

"Evolution is not a theory; it is a fact, every bit as much as the historical fact that William the Conqueror landed in 1066."

While I recognize that the layman suffers from some confusion between fact and theory in the parlance of scientific method, would we not reserve the term "fact" for a phenomenon we can directly observe and replicate?

I don't think it does us any favors to overstate.

Not true. Theories attain factual and non-factual status based on whether or not they can be verified. Evolution occurs. It may not be an observational fact, but it is still factually true scientifically. The term Evolution encompasses a group of facts, for which the theory attempts to reconcile the facts of evolution with prevailing and oftentimes competing hypotheses and principles.

 

[Atrus]

And how exactly will the world be a better place with religion gone?

A world of 1001 ailments that wakes with one less, reaps the gain of a slightly better day.

While I don't call for or expect the elimination of religion, the presence of religion and supernaturalism in general greatly hinders progress. The progress of humankind and that of life itself is stunted while people invest in the hereafter instead of the here and now.

This would not have been a problem if personal religions stayed within the confines of ones head than on the society they want to subjugate.

 

[Ventrue]

You can’t honestly look at the current state of world affairs like the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, Afghanistan and extreme, radical Fundamentalist Muslim terrorist groups, the Christian and Muslim conflicts in Cyprus, the Christian and Muslim conflicts in Timor, and conflicts in India involving, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and still honestly ask that question can you?

The violence in Ireland is also in great part due to the whole 'England raping Ireland for hundreds of years' deal. Part of the violence in Afghanistan is also due to the 'repelling a foreign invader' stuff. True, there is religious violence there, but IIRC not all the ethnic violence in Afghanistan's history has been along Sunni vs Shiite lines; sometimes it's been more directly ethnic. Islamic terror groups are arguably not only a religious movement but a reaction to the actions of the west and the way it exploits the rest of the world, not to mention the way both east and west manipulated the region during the Cold War much to the detriment of its people. Palestine and Israel is not only due to the Jew vs Muslim deal but the fact that the Israelis took over half of their land and drove them out and now impose strict security measures on the Palestinians.

I'm an atheist but frankly people will look for any reason to slaughter each other. If it weren't religion it'd be something else.

By the way, I'm no expert but off the top of my head the Rwandan genocide had no religious motivation. Neither did the atrocities committed in Cambodia by Paul Pot (in fact, the region has a history of violence caused by colonial disputes and the cold war). Many of the genocides and civil wars in Africa have had little religious motivation. Pinochet had no religious motivation. Saddam Hussein was by all accounts not very religious. Despite his actions against Jews, Hitler was not religious either and his actions were not motivated by any kind of religious fervor. Stalin too was an atheist. Mao as well, though some of the violence in China has been against religious groups ie the Bhuddists in Tibet.

 

[Shinz Kicker]

Reminds me of the following video of Richard Dawkins reading his hate mail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxdxZ47JouU :lol

This was hilarious.

On another note. some atheists, weak and strong, have a strange hateful attitude towards religious people. Hoping someone dies because of remark against another fellow is quite extreme.

 

[DevelopmentArrested]

This was hilarious.

On another note. some atheists, weak and strong, have a strange hateful attitude towards religious people.

Good thing it doesn't work both ways right?

So this the montly Intelligent people vs. creationists thread.

Pretty much.

 

[Thunder Monkey]

some are more irrational than others.

I put people that believe in the invisible man in the sky that tells you right and wrong just a half step above people that think space aliens anal probed them.

I have video proof of the aliens playing scavenger hunt with my rectum!

On another note. some atheists, weak and strong, have a strange hateful attitude towards religious people. Hoping someone dies because of remark against another fellow is quite extreme.

Crazies exist on both sides.

One set of crazies asks for proof, the other believes what they're told.

Each have made humanity what they are today.

 

[polyh3dron]

Pretty good comeback from Attenborough :lol


*hugs his BR copy of Planet Earth*

.

 

[ChoklitReign]

You need to stop using holy wars as an excuse to end religion. The last holy war was a thousand years ago. 95% of wars are caused by politics, period. The real problem with religion isn't irrationality (as JayDubya said, it's its inherent nature), it's when it's forced into public like the evangelists and missionaries do. No one should push either of their beliefs onto anyone else, they should decide for themselves.

 

[GaimeGuy]

Question: why is it the theory of evolution? I know that it's not the kind of theory that most people think, but what is the definition of theory when applied to the theory of evolution.

A scientific theory is basically a well-grounded explanation of a natural phenomenon, incorporation observations, experimental results, mathematical frameworks, and logical deductions to construct the explanation of the phenomenon.

Theories describe the coherent framework into which observable data fit, and must be subject to testing for falsification.


Think of a scientific theory as a framework or explanation (of phenomenon or data) that has been rigorously tested through experimentation and has survived attempts at falsification.

Note that all theories must be falsifiable in the sense that you can check their validity through experimentation. This is one of the reasons why Creationism is rejected as a viable scientific theory, as it is not testable or falsifiable.



in Einstein's theory of relativity, he proposed ways to test his theory for falsification. When we developed the technology to carry out these tests several decades later, the resulting data was consistent with his theory.

 

[Aurora]

You need to stop using holy wars as an excuse to end religion. The last holy war was a thousand years ago. 95% of wars are caused by politics, period. The real problem with religion isn't irrationality (as JayDubya said, it's its inherent nature), it's when it's forced into public like the evangelists and missionaries do. No one should push either of their beliefs onto anyone else, they should decide for themselves.

What are you talking about? There are ongoing religious wars as we speak. Turn on your TV.

 

[Fusebox]

He was just trying to point out that evolution does not refute the idea of a God.

And he's mostly wrong.

Evolution refutes any God who has a book out that claims he made Man and doesn't bother to mention it was a 4 billion year process starting from single-cell replicators.

 

[hockeypuck]

Telling the magazine that he was asked why he did not give "credit" to God, Attenborough added: "They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onchocerciasis
The classic cause of "river blindness." I've heard that you can actually see the worm squirming around just underneath the surface of the eye.

 

[Panda Bear]

And he's mostly wrong.

Evolution refutes any God who has a book out that claims he made Man and doesn't bother to mention it was a 4 billion year process starting from single-cell replicators.

No one said we were talking about such a God. So he's not wrong.

 

[Aaron]

You need to stop using holy wars as an excuse to end religion. The last holy war was a thousand years ago. 95% of wars are caused by politics, period. The real problem with religion isn't irrationality (as JayDubya said, it's its inherent nature), it's when it's forced into public like the evangelists and missionaries do. No one should push either of their beliefs onto anyone else, they should decide for themselves.

I'd say the real problem with religion is it often discourages people from thinking for themselves, and absolves them of their own actions. Personal responsibility and critical thinking are the two main qualities we need to advance as a culture.

 

[Hazaro]

Pretty good comeback from Attenborough :lol


*hugs his BR copy of Planet Earth*

*hugs his BR copy of Planet Earth that was imported from Europe*

 

[Panda Bear]

I thought you were trolling brah, so my apologies for this inconvience. I'll expand and hopefully I'll be more clear: My post is basically talking about secularism. What I'm saying is that in a ideal society you want laws and moral code to be clear so that they can't be interpreted differently to avoid abusement.

Obviously that wasn't the point of his post, but it just stood out for me. And to be clear, I'm not saying that religion has that kind of influence over society anymore and I'm not saying every theist is like that, because they're not. I'm just saying that when you have a society on your hands everything has to be clear. You don't want it to be based around biblical origins where there is alot of negative/primitive views expressed that can be interpreted differnetly so they can be abused to fit extreme views. Hopefully, that is abit more clear?

I should of just said secular in the first place, but the word did not come to my mind for for some reason!

Okay thanks. Yeah I just didn't understand what you were trying to say in the post was all.

 

[Fusebox]

No one said we were talking about such a God. So he's not wrong.

Well that's because you didn't bother to specify what God you were talking about.

When I say "Evolution refutes any God who has a book out that claims he made Man and doesn't bother to mention it was a 4 billion year process starting from single-cell replicators." the emphasis is on "any God".

So that's Christ, Allah, Zeus and Xenu and all other modern popular Gods taken out of the equation.

Now, if you happen to believe in some other God that doesn't fit this description then you should just tell me which God that is so we can actually discuss him.

 

[Panda Bear]

Well that's because you didn't bother to specify what God you were talking about.

When I say "Evolution refutes any God who has a book out that claims he made Man and doesn't bother to mention it was a 4 billion year process starting from single-cell replicators." the emphasis is on "any God".

So that's Christ, Allah, Zeus and Xenu and all other modern popular Gods taken out of the equation.

Now, if you happen to believe in some other God that doesn't fit this description then you should just tell me which God that is so we can actually discuss him.

Well I don't really believe in any specific God. But if you define God simply as a being who created the universe and did nothing else that we know of, evolution is certainly compatible with that idea. Also I would argue that evolution does not disprove or dispute the idea of the Gods you listed but merely disproves or disputes the stories about them creating life and man.

 

[Fusebox]

If that's all he did, why are we calling him God?

And what do have to assess the existence of modern popular Gods other then their texts?

 

[Stoney Mason]

Creationism =/= anti-evolution in all cases. Sure, the majority of the time it means that people think that everything that exists today is a result of some static creation by God, but many others (like myself) believe that evolution can work in harmony with the belief in a Creator.

I won't go into all the nitty gritty, but I believe in God and I'm a big fan of science and scientific pursuits. So...meh.

Creationism is fine if somebody wants to take it back and say science is the domain of all knowledge we can accrue about the order of the universe and god is a personal belief of a thing that set it in motion. Doesn't make it any less of an irrational leap imo but I'm cool with it. That's fine as long as its the domain of an individual. We should never base scientific policy on it, teach it in school, or really let it have any impact on anything we do outside of a personal individual level. (Which is the proper role and place of religion imo anyway) The problem is of course that the majority of people pushing creationism at every turn won't accept those limitations.

 

[Panda Bear]

If that's all he did, why are we calling him God?

Because that definition has him creating all things in the known universe. What else would you call him?

And what do have to assess the existence of modern popular Gods other then their texts?

Nothing. I'm not disagreeing with you that those Gods don't exist. I'm simply saying that just because you disprove one of those texts, does not mean the other texts are wrong or that the thing which those texts are about does not exist.

For instance if I gather ten people and tell them to write about trees, and one person is proved to have written something about trees that is false, does it automatically mean the writings of the other nine are false? Of course not.

 

[Fusebox]

Because that definition has him creating all things in the known universe. What else would you call him?

.

Well hang on, you said...

But if you define God simply as a being who created the universe and did nothing else that we know of, evolution is certainly compatible with that idea.

Your last definition is not the same as creating the universe and buggering off leaving it to its own devices and eventually leading to evolution, your last definition has him creating all things in the known universe.

Did he create ALL THINGS in the known universe? When? Considering that 99.9% of all animal species that have existed are now extinct, he did a pretty shoddy freaking job you'd have to admit.

Is he our God? A God of man? Does he care if we eat meat on fridays or if we fuck before marriage?

Nothing. I'm not disagreeing with you that many of those Gods don't exist. I'm simply saying that just because you disprove one of those texts, does not mean the other texts are wrong or that the thing which those texts are about does not exist.

Okay, so what if we can disprove everything in those texts that is possible to disprove - how unintelligent would you have to be to still believe in them?

For instance if I gather ten people and tell them to write about trees, and one person is proved to have written something about trees that is false, does it automatically mean the writings of the other nine are false? Of course not.

Depends, seems like a fairly important text they're working on, did they bother to mention their surnames? :lol

 

[ViperVisor]

He has said that line many times.

 

[SapientWolf]

Creationism isn't falsifiable, therefore it isn't science. So it shouldn't be taught in school no matter what people think of evolution. That's just a strawman and besides the point.

 

[Panda Bear]

Well hang on, that's not the same as creating the universe and buggering off leaving it to its own devices and eventually leading to evolution.

Did he create ALL THINGS in the known universe? When? Considering that 99.9% of all animal species that have existed are now extinct, he did a pretty shoddy freaking job you'd have to admit.

Well hold on, I'm not arguing that that God does exist. I simply put it forth as an example of a God that does not have texts written as his word or detailing his traits.

Okay, so what if we can disprove everything in those texts that is possible to disprove - how unintelligent would you have to be to still believe in them?

Not necessarily unintelligent, but irrational, illogical yes. The discussion however is not about how logical or intelligent religious people are. The discussion is about whether or not evolution is compatible with the idea of a God.

 

[Fusebox]

Okay then, I concede that if you follow an undefinable God, not of any modern popular religion, then it can be compatible with evolution.

 

[ProfessorLobo]

And how exactly will the world be a better place with religion gone?

There will be less hate mail from Creationists to David Attenborough.

 

[Buttchin]

"Evolution is not a theory; it is a fact, every bit as much as the historical fact that William the Conqueror landed in 1066."

While I recognize that the layman suffers from some confusion between fact and theory in the parlance of scientific method, would we not reserve the term "fact" for a phenomenon we can directly observe and replicate?

I don't think it does us any favors to overstate.

Evolution has a specific meaning and the fact form of evolution is changing in allele frequencies. Has been observed and is in deed a fact.

The theory of evolution explains all the ramifications of the fact of evolution such as how it can lead to speciation, adaptation etc.

Evolution = fact and no one can dispute it. Theory of evolution is what creationists bitch and moan about but again has so much evidence supporting it if this was a trial it would;ve been a landslide (oh wait that occured once already, see dover trial)

 

[mAcOdIn]

Why does the Bible have to be the Christian benchmark anyways? Any reasonable person who has done any research on the origins of his or her religion would know how the Bible came about, they'd know it was all a collection of stories written generations apart thrown together. So why does the entirety of the Bible have to be forfeit because of certain excerpts?

Within the Christian community there are people who know it's history and you'd find a good deal of people who don't believe everything in the Bible is 100% factual. Modern Christianity is all about the New Testament anyways, if it weren't for all the die hard fire and brimstone motherfuckers they could probably have stripped the Old Testament out already and be left with something a hell of a lot more acceptable to the rest of the world.

But I think people of faith place some value in the Old Testament because they feel that for them to have been selected in the first place there must have been some value there that warranted their study, not necessarily literal.

Further, I do think that many myths and stories passed down from old have a sliver in truth in them. I think because several parts of the Bible are clearly incorrect should not negate the entire Bible of historical merit. In addition, I fail to see why the whole religion requires the Bible to be literally true to pass muster when the Bible didn't come about until well after Jesus' death and was by no means a part in any way of that religions formation.

Ehh, it's late and I can't form arguments, but basically what I'm trying to say is to many people faith and science can mix, and a belief in a religion doesn't make anyone an idiot.

That said, I do take offense to teaching Creationism alongside Evolution as if the two are equal, clearly they are not. I do think Christianity should be taught in school alongside most major religions, but not out of any scientific reasoning but purely from a get to know the world type shit.

I don't think taking religion out of the world however will make it a better place, because in many instances I think it's the only thing that will allow us as a species to maintain what it means to be human, flaws and all. But this is more an argument about what it is to be human, should man carve out his own evolution or the environment, yada yada. Pure unbridled science and rational are just as dangerous as religion in my opinion and I wish the world had, not necessarily more religion, but maybe a little more spirituality if that made sense.

Sucks that this guy got hate mail from a bunch of idiots however.

 

[Feint331]

Not necessarily unintelligent, but irrational, illogical yes. The discussion however is not about how logical or intelligent religious people are. The discussion is about whether or not evolution is compatible with the idea of a God.

in short, no it isn't. hence the need for creationist to fall back on intelligent design as form of proxy to subvert evolution.

god, existentialism and similar philosophic musings belong to the realm of the metaphysical. you can sit around all day and debate god till your balls turn blue. the most important function biology and indeed evolution, more important than stroking the ego's of self satisfied atheist is to teach people about science, how the world works, so that we as a species can continue to prosper and better ourselves. since god is not a requirement in order to build an understanding in any science you can say it is not required. and so it should remain separate (when discussed in a academic context), yes you can discuss it and carry your own beliefs but when speaking in a strictly academic sense than you must make distinctions between science and personal belief.

 

[BudokaiMR2]

This kind of article just reminds me that I really want to meet Attenborough sometime. Seems like a really amazing guy.

 

[Yagharek]

"Evolution is not a theory; it is a fact, every bit as much as the historical fact that William the Conqueror landed in 1066."

While I recognize that the layman suffers from some confusion between fact and theory in the parlance of scientific method, would we not reserve the term "fact" for a phenomenon we can directly observe and replicate?

I don't think it does us any favors to overstate.

You can observe and replicate it readily in any decently equipped microbiology lab. Or a hospital, airport, shopping centre etc. The rapid lives and short timescales of bacterial lifespans mean we can see new, resistant and more dangerous (to humans) strains in relatively quick time.

If you want to 'observe' evolution: take measurements of an uncontrolled environment such as bacteria and their resistance to antibiotics in a public space. To 'replicate' (simulate?) it, you could deliberately conceive an experiment where you controlled the bacteria, doses of antibitoics and so on in order to produce expected changes in the next generation of a strain.

If dogs or lizards had lifespans measured in less than a day then we would witness their evolution in our lifetimes. As it stands, they live longer, breed slower, mutate slower and thus evolution is not observable (directly) to a human who on average only lives about 5-10 dog generations.

Of course there are plenty of other species of animals that have essentially just differentiated from each other (speciation). Pretty sure that it is defined as when two animals with a recent common ancestor cannot produce viable offspring. Case in point: horses and donkeys. Offspring being a mule, which is infertile. The differentiation or speciation between horses and donkeys would thus have occurred relatively recently. Maybe in th elast 10 or so thousands years, maybe a bit more.

 

[Mgoblue201]

And how exactly will the world be a better place with religion gone?

To the majority of people who believe it, religion is divisive. As the OP attests to, there are those who simply will not cooperate, love, listen, or work with non-believers. Even the kindest ones carry around sacrosanct attitude, that they are the sole bearers of truth (to the point of near condescension) and a penchant for soul saving all because of an irrational faith. I'm aware of all the usual arguments that the religion make (either by reducing Darwinism to a religion itself or by making individual arguments about the world related to God), and while they are sophisticated, none of them terribly impress me.

However, religion itself is like any other divisive property. It can be used like nationalism or class to create zealous followers of its tenet. And this is okay to the religious because they really think they are set apart (even though it's obvious that sociological factors are almost the number one drivers of religion). But if there is no true religion, and I think it's safe to assume that no one has devised a religion yet that makes sense in a 21st century world, then we should not be divisive, we should not think we're set apart because of beliefs, and we should live in peace. Religion is a road block to that in many ways, though its elimination guarantees nothing. It would still be contingent on us to stop acting like assholes, and unfortunately I think that will take a reversal of sociological factors too.

 

[Yagharek]

This came up in the Islamic clerc thread, but religion being removed from human society would not be a cure-all for our problems. We would no doubt find many other absurdities to fight and kill over, such as nationalism, socialism, democracy, anarchy, synarchy D bonus points for getting this reference), racism, ethnic divides, etc etc.

Humans are exceedingly capable of taking irrational behaviour, attaching extra significance to it, and killing other people in that name. It is a particularly strong trait we seem to posess.

Incidentally, this does not mean I disagree with criticisms of religion. I think many criticisms are valid. But these problems are not unique to religion.

 

[Nocebo]

Well I don't really believe in any specific God. But if you define God simply as a being who created the universe and did nothing else that we know of, evolution is certainly compatible with that idea. Also I would argue that evolution does not disprove or dispute the idea of the Gods you listed but merely disproves or disputes the stories about them creating life and man.

Basically you're just cherry picking things you've heard about instead of doing any actual reading about how the facts are represented. You take the idea of a God and say what's written about him might not be true but there could still be something out there? Your fault is taking an idea from a questionable source and then running with it. "I don't like what you guys are saying about it but I like the idea so I'll make up my own crazy story about what it could be like". Like someone who doesn't do any critical thinking but just says that anything could be possible which is just as bad as believing in a God as described by religion. Oh hey maybe there's a flying spaghetti monster somewhere out there. If God was compatible with evolution then why are religious folk all up in arms against it?

 

[ghst]

he seems like a totally unremarkable* example of placid british secularism. atheism is largely a default over here and generally understated, exhibiting little sense of urgency or idealogical motivation. just a quiet, undemanding acceptance. makes the fire and brimstone of any kind of fundamentalism seem that much more off target.

*in regards to his religious stance.

 

[Youta Mottenai]

If people are seriously going to put forward the idea that fossils and all the evidence for evolution and a massive age for the earth were all put there by god to "trick/test us", then they need to follow it to the logical conclusion.

If the earth is only 6000 years old and just made to look older, then how do we know it isn't actually just 1000 years old and things like the bible were just created by god? If he can hide fossils inside mountains and make it look like humans existed for 200k years, then creating a book is going to be pretty easy. In fact, how do we know the earth wasn't created yesterday and we were all implanted with memories of the past and the entire world around us was created in an instant? Maybe it was created 5 seconds ago.

You can play this game all day. Pick any moment in time and you could argue that god created the earth right then and there, and that any evidence contradicting the claim is but an "illusion" to test people.

The Origin of the Universe - Justnowism