experiment

just as an experiment, i would truly like to see if religion, god, creation vs. evolution, good/evil & the nature of the universe & life itself could be discussed without resorting to quotes from varius religiostexts, or pre-prescribed notions based on acceptable religios dogmas

i invite all responces which come from free thinking open minded people to openly discuss these issues relying simply on your own minds..

can religion be discussed without reffrence to so called sacred texts?

 

so...noone can discuss religion without quoting religios texts?
how many times have you said its impossible to deny the existance of god..but you cant rationalize gods existance without refferencing books written by relatively primative men?if god exists shouldnt our own minds know it & understand it fundamentaly?
shouldnt the truth be somewhat odvios & easy to explain?

come on guys..you have minds..lets have some thoughts here

 

They could, but you would have taken thier conclusions away from them. All religious theories concerning creation of the universe, or existance of gods are fatally flawed. This is because the answer exists before the evidence. Their book tells them the world was made in 7 days and god exists, etc...and now that they have the conclusion they search for evidence to support it. They work backwards. Unlike science, which finds evidence and draws conclusions from there. Real science is also flexible. The conclusions in science can and do change as more evidence is obtained, whereas the conclusions from religious texts are not so flexible.

That is why throughout history as science progresses many of the myths associated with religion fade. There are many creation stories, all kinds of gods, and traditions that were once belived and are now known for what they were: myths. But the days of religious diversity are ending. Only a small percentage of the religions throughout time are practiced today, and the ones that are exist in the strength they do mainly because they were inseperable from government for such a long time (and are still inseperable in some places).

 

sure people can, but most people aren't trained to think that way. those of us who have learned to think that way on our own (such as myself) probably can't do it too very well like some of the greater philosophers have.....

but what exactly do you wish to discuss?

 

you didnt really give any topics of discussion

 

i would truly like to see if religion, god, creation vs. evolution, good/evil & the nature of the universe & life itself can be discussed without refferencing religiods texts..thats the topic of discussion, but ok lets simplify it to wether god exists or not..& what is the nature of god then...based on rational thought

 

god or reality can be so many things i think its pretty much pointless to discuss what you think it is.

 

pointless? or impossible without the refferencesto religios texts?
remember this is an experiment..the point is to see if its even possible

 

it would depend on what you mean by "god." does god to you mean a personal deity or deities with supernatural powers? or does it mean a force or energy that perhaps sets things in motion, determines events, or binds creation together? or is god to you a steady stream of love and harmony? it's a very vague word with many connotations, really.

i think that it would seem to me to be very unlikely that anything would exist at all. obviously to some degree the highly complex world we perceive as being "real," with predictable restrictions and behaviors in which we conduct our daily lives, exists on some level. perhaps we actually have VERY limited understanding of our own existance and the nature of the universe, and perhaps our limitations prevent complete understanding. it's pretty much impossible to tell at this point in time....(and don't get me started on the notion of time itself!)

that said, i would say that logically, our environement seems highly structured and relatively consistent, and that if there is either the possibility of things existing or the possibitiy of nothing existing, complete void, then it would be far more likely for there to be nothing, a void, rather than for there to be existance, because nothing that i know of has ever been shown to simply pop into existence from out of nowhere. next most likely would be a chaotic form of existence, with few restrictions on behavior of matter and little chance of organisms existing in any "advanced" state such as we do. less likely still would be a highly structured, relatively non-chaotic existence in which life forms exist as sentient, thoughtful beings with large, multicellular bodies and linguistic principles. since the least likely of these scenarios is what appears to actually take place, it would raise the likelihood of outside interference (i.e. divine creation or intervention) being the cause of such a state of existence. it would seem to me that given the world we live in, it would seem far more likely that there IS some sort of god (though the nature of this "deity" cannot be known at this point to the living) than that there isn't. however, it cannot be completely certain.

that said, the idea of a god really doesn't clear things up very much, because then you have to go into questions which are even more difficult yet to come up with a conclusive answer to, such as: what is god? what can god do? what is the nature of god? does god have a personality? is there only one god? from what did god arise? and so on. the concept of time becomes increasingly copmlicated and problematic here.

thats the best i can answer, i'm sure someone else can answer better. it's simply my relatively uneducated point of view on the matter.

 

but i agree that it's pointless to discuss it. sure, it's interesting, but it is merely a trivial philosophical distraction from more pressing matters such as how to get the most out of what we perceive to be life, how to live happily and peacefully, and how to maintain balance with our apparent environment to keep our world as stable and continuous as possible without destroying it. once we can establish a harmonious and generally fulfilling existence, THEN we can point our attention to more complex and unimportant matters...if it turns out to be a wise pursuit to begin with.

 

well thats certainly a very good & well thought out start to the discussion, & i would like to submit a thought i had recemtly, that what we attribute to god..giving all things in the universe structure..may possibly be simply an inteligence buily into the fabric of all things..the atom..after all atoms have combined to form extremely compleh structures like suns & plannets & living creatures & they did these things because its in theyre nature to combine in certain ways..is there an inteligence outside the atom that allws it to do all thse things? or is the atom designed intelegently by its own nature the concept of god after all is just an explanation for how all thes things happened is it not? so, taking that 1 step further, are not all things living dead, matter enrgy all that exists part of god? or god itself i always likeed the tem "all that is" when reffering to "god" cause the term god is useless since it reffers to a being which logicaly makes far less sence then a cosmic inteligence within all that is

 

pointless? or impossible without the refferencesto religios texts?
remember this is an experiment..the point is to see if its even possible

pointless period. Reality could be anything. god is just one theory. the universe could be one eye of a giant sorcerer hamster. it would be anything.

 

i love how you give everyone the time to respond...just because no one come on to hip-forums in one hour doesnt mean no one is going to do it...geez

ok fine, im not goign to discuss acctual topics, but i will give a few examples of some some arguments creationists use against evolution...

1. Entropy
2. The seemingly failure to create RNA/DNA and whatnot using conditions [atmosphere and "primordial soup"] that are hypothesised to have existed back in the day
3. They often say that carbon-dating is flawed [i disagree with this]
4. There is some evidence of a large scale flood around the world [however i again disagree that this would be noah's flood, or Gilgamesh's and all of those other guys]
5. I have heard some claims that there have been human and dinosaur fossils found together
6. The old Darwin Death-Bed-Repentance argument
7. ummm, ok...err...i thinkim runnign out but you get the picture...there have been many arguments made, some of which arent entirely flawed...

 

lol i agree with you there
so i guess we're back to looking only to science for answers since logicaly mystical beings make very little sence
perhaps i should have put this in cristianity forum or any of the others since i'm primrily interested in seeing if those who choose to beleive in 1 concept of god over another can justify those beleifswithout repeated refferences to these ancient & obsolete texts.. based on si,ple logic..i'd even entertain emotion as a possible justification if it can be proven to have thesource they claim

 

how is entropy used against evolution?

 

If one were a photon, blasted from it's atomic connections in a star, speeding through the vastness of space yet seemingly motionless because of the enormity of scale, immersed in darkness yet composed of light, would one feel lost, alone, frightened, or would one simply feel that they were on a journey, knowing where they came from, not knowing where they're going?
Some people judge the dark to be evil, to be avoided. Yet it surrounds all.
Some people judge light to be good (possibly based upon the belief that dark is evil), to be sought after. It fills dark space.
By nominating dark as evil, fear is lived. By nominating light as good, fear is countered.
By accepting the univese as a benign medium through which we live, there is nothing to fear and everything to enjoy.
Such is life.
Take the journey.
Trust.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second...s#Evolution.2C_creation.2C_and_the_second_law

i guess if i had said the second law of thermodynamics, it might have been a bit more clear, but entropy is the main part of the law that is used in the argument

 

MrRee & burdot ya both get a cookie for accepting my challenge

 

your right soaringeagle .....true magesty , as it were , or clean , unfettered magic .....is beyond any words written ......

 

but i bet you could invent a few descriptive yet unidentifyable words that might explain things once we spend a few days tryin to figure out theyre meaning