Will Religion Be Dead?

[Embarr]

I'm trying to get articles that both support or disprove the theory that religion will be dead in the future. I've heard before that some scientists believe that in the future science will conquer, so to speak, and religion will be dead. In other words, that logic will overcome the superstitions and unstable beliefs of religions. I decided I'd do a paper on this but I'm having difficulty finding books, papers, etc. that support either view-point. Please help if anyone has a suggestion, and anyones opinion on the matter would be great too.

So, yay or nay on religion dying?

[Virgil]

There is an interesting book length treatise that recently came out on the idea that atheism is on the decline called, The Twilight of Atheism by Alister McGrath. Published by Doubleday in 2004.

[optimisticnad]

I don't have any suggestions but...when have human beings ever been logical and reasonable? As long you have this species called humans I don't think religion will ever die. Maybe you could do some research on human nature, bring some psychology into it. As for science...far to dull and boring, and it can't explain everything can it? What wil happen to emotions like love if religion dies?

[Nightshade]

Nay ,
I haven't really thought about it ( ok thats a lie what I mean is Ive never really looked into it in depth but anyways as I was saying) I seem to have this idea that religion goes in cycles historically speaking. Actually maybe what I mean more is that general social mainstream attitudes to (uggh I cant think of the word Im looking for attitude to life the reason for being etc like we had the puritans with the holy attitude the romantics with the 'mystical' idea the age of reason etc etc)
If anyone is still following this bit of rambling I am aiming to get somewhere its just a bit of a crooked path I'm treading :rolleyes: :brow: . err where was I yes cycles of thought. Well the way I see it is we are sort of in between an age of reason and romantics we are in a religious lull. Having said that if you just look around you there is always someone arguing religion in some form or other. And people need to belive in something I think religion will always be there. But then again I have to belive that its part of my religion. :lol:
PS I LOVE my spell checker :D:D:D.:lol:

[Shield&Sword]

Religioun, which religioun will die? beliefs of old egyptions are died, beliefs of greeks are died, beliefs of old romans are died, and so on old beliefs.... do you know what is the common thing between these beliefs? they are beliefs of plural gods, stones and so on. One belief is still alive and will be always alive since thousands of years, its monothism, believing in one Almighty God that created every thing, and every thing is witness in his power and in his existence.
Since Abraham and untle nowadays "believing in one God" is still alive, by Moses, and Jesus and finally by prophet Muhammed pbu them all. it is a chain that will never be cut. Why Moses care about Abraham that he carried his thoughts, and why Muhammed after 500 of death of Jesus care about Jesus and care about his mother and showed that she is pure, and why they all carried one idea in all times and cared alot about it, and why the idea is still alive even after thousands of years and didnt die like other beliefs and spreaded so fast.
Science will never negate existence of God, even science is going into a specified direction, a direction made by the one who made all this, not the direction that we choose.
Discovering that the big bang doesnt deny the existence of God, its written in Holy Quran, discovering that world is expanding doesnt deny God, its written in Holy Quran, and so on facts that west is hiding them and working on bad reklama in order to spread thier negative thoughts. Beside the lies that are called science like Darwin theory cant ordinate people life, do you think that governments are happy that women are raped, men kill each other, babys abuse, behaviours of drunks, a woman is beaten in usa in every less than one mintue, women abuse, incest, prostitution, steeling. All this happen because people believe there is no good and bad, because they believe in "struggle to live". Knowing that g=9.8 m/sec^2 wont make the man stop beating his wife, but goverments dont want to admit this, because if they talk about good and bad, and talk about respect then they must agree with religioun thoughts.
Finally i say that there are beliefs that will vanish, not because of science but because they are fake, plural gods is fake, i believe there is one God, and i believe that there is one path to him, the path that my good nature will accept, not to steel, not to lie, not to make relaitions bafore and out of marraige, to help poor, and more of that to praise God as he deserve, only one religioun praise God as should and as the good accept.

[Embarr]

What about hinduism though? It's been around for a very long time and it may have a creator god (Brahma) but there are other gods. So, that kind of disproves the idea that multiple god religions have died out. True, there is Brahman who is like the God of hinduism but people still worship other gods.

Thanks for the book virgil! I'd really appreciate some stuff opposing that too. Anyone?

[James Wallace]

I don’t think religion will be dead in the future because man has conscience inside him and his conscience necessitates the idea of God's presence. The human being is reasonable one, or at least that's what he should be, he must realize he didn’t come into the world in vain; rather he was created according to God's unlimited wisdom. Religion –whatsoever religion, especially monotheistic ones and Islam in particular- is only thing that illustrates to us who created us, whose will rules us and how this universe is existent. Religion directs us to our benefit and sets the rules and the line we must follow according to God's orders to maintain mankind's life more pleasant and humane than in case of death of religion.

[Nightshade]

But thats not the question is it? sure certain beliefs die but religion as a whole dont. People always need to belive, and shield if you want to take that line of argument isn't it since before Abraham (as) its gone on forever since Adam I cant lay my hands on an English translation right now and am not in the state to translate surrat el baqurah ayah 37 "wa talaqya adam min rabhi kalimat fa taba alayhi inaho hoa el towab el raheem"
But I think I know what you mean you mean the continuous string don't you same surrah later on when it says something about bani Israel being favored and loved above all other people ( because they had an undying line of prophet/ messenger from Abraham to Jesus?)
Actually I dont belive those religions that fade necessarily fade because they are fake ( not that Im denying that I belive them to be wrong. What I mean is religion and probably more than one religion will always be around. They exist not only because they are true but because people belive them to be so. So if God is protecting a certain religion it doesn't meant that it will be the only one still standing come what may.

[Nightshade]

Thanks for the book virgil! I'd really appreciate some stuff opposing that too. Anyone?

have you tried google?
I just did a quick search and there were several demograpphic servays etc.
Actually Ive just had a thought I dont know if I can access the online referance library from home but if I can I pretty sure there is somthing similar on there.

Edit: No unfortunatly its an access through libraries only site. Its called Issues Online. great for a start point as itll link you to articles.

[Embarr]

what did you google? I'm apparently having difficulties with that part of the search, lol. I don't think I'll be able to access that Issues Online thing either.

And James Wallace, your supporting argument is too narrow. You focus on religion being true, but I'm looking at religion surviving as a part of human nature. Everyone, this is an academic approach to religion and society.

[holograph]

I am not religious, nor will I ever be religious. But human nature and religion are complementary, and as long as there are problems and inequities in the world, there will be religion. Probably until the end of time. Which is not far off, I predict. Religion is not dead, it is simly changes--it changes with time. For example, protestantism is becoming or is already a stronger force than catholicism, but it is christianity nevertheless. The same applies everywhere else.

[Embarr]

Here's another question: Should religion remain a substantial part of humanity? Does it benefit or hinder us as a society and why or why not? I'd appreciate an academic approach to these questions.

[miss tenderness]

Religion is substantial for humanity,otherwise pur exictence is meaningless.

[Embarr]

would you care to explain that a bit more? What is it about religion that makes life meaningful? Is it something that secularism cannot replace?

[bhekti]

..... What is it about religion that makes life meaningful? Is it something that secularism cannot replace?

Isn't Secularism a religion?

Hmm, perhaps you should first provide definition of terms ('religion', 'science', 'dead' ,...);)

[Embarr]

secularism is the belief that human activities and decisions should be based on evidence and fact, and not superstitious beliefs, however devoutly held, and that policy should be free from religious domination. (wikipedia definition) This isn't exactly makes religions as religion so it isn't one.

And before I can define those words I need to know what you mean by define. What exactly are you asking?

[bhekti]

...And before I can define those words I need to know what you mean by define. What exactly are you asking?

Well, as you see, I've just misinterpreted the term 'secularism' you are using. I thought secularism is a religion (founded on the belief that there is no God). Therefore, I need to learn first the working definiton of terms used in the present discussion so that I can follow it in the right corridor.

[Shield&Sword]

Perhaps you didnt got the idea. Yes Budhisti believe in stones, but are they not a continue to the greek belief and egyption belief and romans belief, all these beliefs were different, they worship stones on shape of people that lived long time ago and give them thier names, besied these beliefs are so limited geographic. While believing in one God religioun was always the same, i said its like a chain since Adam and Noah untle last prophet Muhammed peace be upon him, no one of them made his own idea about God, for all history this belief didnt die, only people die. To generalize the discussion about all religioun is wrong, satanism is a religioun and it deserve to be canceled, can we make it equal to other religioun that call to respect people and so on. Perhaps for you who were born christian or athiest religioun is something that call to cancel mind, but does all religiouns call to cancel mind? you know the religioun that it's followers gave the world the most important science, the religioun that encoureged it's followers to read and learn and for 1000 years they discovered alot of facts that didnt made them to suspect God's existence but to become more sure in God existence, because no fact you discover can negate God's existence, you can build a false theory and hide inside it in order to deny an idea you are afraid of but you must know that this theory is not fact and wont be fact. The west is doing that now, like Darwinism, only reklama and lies.

[James Wallace]

I see that religion is a part of the human character as a whole as man feels he is incompetent before this universe; we don’t know even one-tenth about its mysteries and we feel that we were not created just for nothing. Logic tells us that there must be an afterlife, reward and penalty, just as there is good and evil. Without religion there will be no values or ethics distinguishing us from lower animals. Religion creates a police officer inside the individual; this police officer is his conscience. Religion sets laws, imagine how life would be without law, conscience, values or belief. Religion is also beneficial to the society as much as law is. When everyone believes completely in afterlife, the penalty of evil and reward for good, when everyone becomes happy with what he has and doesn’t envy or make plots against anyone, when everybody feels that God is watching what he is doing, that would be the best constitution for human life. Otherwise, our life would be a mess.

[Nightshade]

what did you google? I'm apparently having difficulties with that part of the search, lol. I don't think I'll be able to access that Issues Online thing either.

Religious demographics throughout history :D



Perhaps for you who were born christian or athiest religioun is something that call to cancel mind, but does all religiouns call to cancel mind?

Now Im going to point it out before someone else jumps on it that is offensive Shield.It offends me and I was alhamdulllah born a muslim and God willing I will die one, but its just plain wrong to tell people thier religion calls for them to close their minds. Didnt Ibrahiem look to the sun first? then the moon and the stars and it was only then he looked for the creator of it all. But saying somthing like that is what gives us a bad name and people the idea we are intolerant of other religions. You could give people the wrong first impression and eventually be the reason someon doesnt look deeper into islam. arent we all supposed to be a good image and living advertisment to the beauty of our religion.


Here's another question: Should religion remain a substantial part of humanity? Does it benefit or hinder us as a society and why or why not? I'd appreciate an academic approach to these questions.
I think Ill expand on this

you know the religioun that it's followers gave the world the most important science, the religioun that encoureged it's followers to read and learn and for 1000 years they discovered alot of facts that didnt made them to suspect God's existence but to become more sure in God existence,
Religion has been a catalyst in alot of human civilization if you like. whether beacause they wantedto confirm or deny religion its often caused people to go looking for answers. Albgebra, geography, optics, I think the number zero was somehow linked to religion in india. The 'dead' religions egyptians, romans greeks etc gave us the basics of astronomy and while I cant think of anyone but Galileo Galilei at this exact moment Im sure there were plenty of other seriously devout christians and the Church it self had a hand in some kind of massive scientific breakthrough.
Im sure I read somwhere about someone who had discover somthing amazing when he set out delibratly to disprove the exsistance on God once and for all. The great thing about it is wehile everyone takes it whichever way they want knowledge is knowledge. And there are people who will say that learning is a type of worship in it self.

I see that religion is a part of the human character as a whole as man feels he is incompetent before this universe; we don’t know even one-tenth about its mysteries and we feel that we were not created just for nothing. Logic tells us that there must be an afterlife, reward and penalty, just as there is good and evil. Without religion there will be no values or ethics distinguishing us from lower animals. Religion creates a police officer inside the individual; this police officer is his conscience. Religion sets laws, imagine how life would be without law, conscience, values or belief. Religion is also beneficial to the society as much as law is. When everyone believes completely in afterlife, the penalty of evil and reward for good, when everyone becomes happy with what he has and doesn’t envy or make plots against anyone, when everybody feels that God is watching what he is doing, that would be the best constitution for human life. Otherwise, our life would be a mess.

I agree with that mostly beliveing we will be held accountable if not before we die then after is a pretty good deterant if some one really really belives it.

[Shield&Sword]

I didnt intend to insult anyone, beside i was refairing to historical facts. The diffuse existing of atheism in europe more than any other place is relaited to the religioun that was before, if i am wrong tell me, i am talking about events that happened in history, perhaps the followers of that religioun used the religioun in other way in order to control people.
You cant compaire the science that islam brought with other science, nearlly all islamic scientists were putting entire holy quran in memory, and they translate the greek science into arabic and developed it in amazing way that didnt contraddict with islam teachings, and all facts they discovered are proven today. No discoverys were relaited to religioun in all history, but only in islam, and they relaited it to the Holy Quran that didnt contraddict with it. Beside the islamic scientists who gave world knowledge were encoureged by islam teachings, the first word was sent from God to prophet is the order READ, and the first thing God created is the pencil, and so on.... Alot of scientific words that used now adays universaly are arabic words, alot of discoveries were discovered by islamic scietists but the west hide them, even 1400 years ago islamic scholars agreed that earth is like a ball by explaining Holy Quran, did the west know that, no they relaite it to other scietists, and so on discoveries. Does such religioun will be canceled by science while this religioun call for science?
Yes egyption discovered and greek but in islam case not arabic or african discovered but MUSLIMS discovered.
Also the amount of knowledge that islam gave to us is large, we didnt contribute in science but we created science. Beside give me one religioun that untle now its going with all new facts, show me one religioun that make every few years a council were scientists come from all the world to show thier discoveries and to show how they agree with book of that relgioun, and some of them say shahadah, the book of that religioun for 1400 years still giving science, not only its followers discover, but the book give them inspiration and facts and science.
Dont feel sorry nightsh, look at news and see the biggest simbol of christianism said, i am against man not religioun, In oposite of them that they are against religioun but not people.

[Kurtz]

I see that religion is a part of the human character as a whole as man feels he is incompetent before this universe; we don’t know even one-tenth about its mysteries and we feel that we were not created just for nothing. Logic tells us that there must be an afterlife, reward and penalty, just as there is good and evil. Without religion there will be no values or ethics distinguishing us from lower animals. Religion creates a police officer inside the individual; this police officer is his conscience. Religion sets laws, imagine how life would be without law, conscience, values or belief. Religion is also beneficial to the society as much as law is. When everyone believes completely in afterlife, the penalty of evil and reward for good, when everyone becomes happy with what he has and doesn’t envy or make plots against anyone, when everybody feels that God is watching what he is doing, that would be the best constitution for human life. Otherwise, our life would be a mess.

I am sorry to say, but this is not a rational argument. Apart from the logical fallacies that it presents, it is also self contradictory. Don’t get me wrong, I feel strongly about the right to practice religion personally, but to conclude that it is religion that gives human morals is absolutely wrong. Example: I am an atheist and attempt to lead a moral and rational life. I do what I can to make my existence and the others I come in contact with better. I do this for no other reason than that it is moral and is conducive to the overall happiness of all (Don’t get me wrong, I too make bad decisions and inflict pain on others by my actions, but that is unavoidable). I tend to view morality and ethics from a “categorical imperative” position and often times do things that are right but do not have a positive effect on myself. I do this with no overlying code or divine intervention, and for no reason do I do it because someone says I should (i.e. God). In my mind there will be no reward for my actions after I die, and this makes me comfortable in the fact that I know morality is based on things much better than religion.

If I can, let me juxtapose my moral guidelines with that of a theist perspective. Many theist rationalize their morals by saying exactly the thing you used, (“Without religion there will be no values or ethics distinguishing us from lower animals. Religion creates a police officer inside the individual; this police officer is his conscience”). Now from this reasoning it is clear that when a theist acts morally it is directly caused by the laws that a supreme being has enacted. He is being moral because something is dictating it directly to him, and not to mention the reward he will receive upon practicing and following this set of moral rules. This is what Kant calls a “hypothetical imperative”, in order to be x, you must do y. This is not moral in the fact that the ethical is rooted along with a reward scenario. There is no reason to do the ethical other than that it is ethical. Don’t misinterpret my words to mean that one must act disinterested in all his actions, I think it is good to do things that benefit oneself. However, morality and ethics should not directly stem from that of an authority figure. Therefore reason should conclude that the individual who acts ethically despite no authoritative principles is acting in a more rational and ethical way than those who do so because of a vested interest.

Another problem with this response is the self contradiction within. You say “we don’t know even one-tenth about its mysteries and we feel that we were not created just for nothing.” But despite the utter ignorance we live in, which you yourself admit, I simply do not see how reason can give this type of negative information, and then rationalize itself by saying that it knows how EVERYTHING was brought into existence. This is what I call the oven method. If I take a person who has never seen an oven before, and place an already prepared cake mix inside, when it is done he will reason that the oven itself is the creator. He does not know the process and preparation it takes to create the cake, and he reasons that he knows how the cake was made. This is how I feel about religion and I think it is as far away from the truth as we can get. Not to mention the way religion stifles scientific research, World government policy, education, the judicial system, and etc...

On the whole, I think religion should be confined to the church and the home of the person or people who practice it. Once it makes its way into politics and schools ( which it has) we are doing nothing but thinking about the finished cake rather than all the processes that go into making it, therefore imposing a belief system that is not practiced by all and has proven causes of despair, torment, and hypocritical application.

[Nightshade]

Yes egyption discovered and greek but in islam case not arabic or african discovered but MUSLIMS discovered.

Sorry I fail to see how the fact that muslims discoverd it is of any more or less significance than any discovery made by people of any other religion my use of egyptians or greeks was an example because I am sadly ignorant of the correct name of their religions. Really the significance only matters to the people who feel they can take a kind of proprietary pride in discoveries of people like them.

and ok hows this if all religions faded and only one was left it would be islam because it cant be the only one left in the end because of Alamat el sa'a . The coming of the messiah el dajal ( anti-christ) The big war thats going to happen and lastly because of sodom and gomorrah( yagul and magool.)

[kilted exile]

Ok, this could be another of those occassions where I should "keep shtum" (as my granny would say ;) ) but I've never really been one for doing what I'm told......



The diffuse existing of atheism in europe more than any other place is relaited to the religioun that was before, if i am wrong tell me, i am talking about events that happened in history, perhaps the followers of that religioun used the religioun in other way in order to control people.

I am having difficulty following what you are trying to say here. From what I can gather your argument would seem to be either that:

a)Christianity leads to atheism

OR

b)Christianity attempts to control people more than other religions

Both of these sound like rather spurious arguments to me, could you please clarify what you are on about?




You cant compaire the science that islam brought with other science, nearlly all islamic scientists were putting entire holy quran in memory, and they translate the greek science into arabic and developed it in amazing way that didnt contraddict with islam teachings, and all facts they discovered are proven today. No discoverys were relaited to religioun in all history, but only in islam, and they relaited it to the Holy Quran that didnt contraddict with it. Beside the islamic scientists who gave world knowledge were encoureged by islam teachings, the first word was sent from God to prophet is the order READ, and the first thing God created is the pencil, and so on.... Alot of scientific words that used now adays universaly are arabic words, alot of discoveries were discovered by islamic scietists but the west hide them, even 1400 years ago islamic scholars agreed that earth is like a ball by explaining Holy Quran, did the west know that, no they relaite it to other scietists, and so on discoveries. Does such religioun will be canceled by science while this religioun call for science?

Firstly, this appears to be more of the my religion is better than your religion mumbo-jumbo that seems to pervade this part of the forum.

You can't surely be claiming that Islam is the only religion that encourages people to read and investigate and question? Or that atheists (such as myself) are not given to such leanings?

Finally, I dont care what religion the people who invented various things were/are it doesnt matter what language the terms originate from. However, I think you will likely agree that most scientific terms acually have their roots in Greek & Latin.

[bazarov]

I don't see why would religion die. To many uneducated people, religion is everything, and to those who are well educated, religion is only support when they are abandoned from science and society.



Well, as you see, I've just misinterpreted the term 'secularism' you are using. I thought secularism is a religion (founded on the belief that there is no God). Therefore, I need to learn first the working definiton of terms used in the present discussion so that I can follow it in the right corridor.

'Secularism' is tendency to throw religion out of any social life and exclude every effect of religion on society.

[Shield&Sword]

Kilted. I didnt talk about christianity, i talked about people who were relaited to it and how they used christianity in order to control people so dont put words in my mouth.
Now if a western famous atheist will say that christianism lead him to athiesm will you agree with him or you will ask him in same way you asked me? i didnt get words from my own pocket, and its not my opinion, scentences with same meaning were told by biggest atheists (that ,i think, you consider them biggest), Gotah and so on names. From your own tree i feed you. So i dont say christianity lead to atheism, i think atheists said that.
Secondly about the terms you didnt get it, as you know Latin is the origin of your language which you use today, and because now the west is the leader in science for sure they talk using thier language, but when you use in scientific language words of another 100% different language, and only in scientific, then it show how much the people of that language contributed in science, do you got the idea now?
Before 200 years latin language and greek wasnt language of science, here in italy my friend read a book in which written that first the one who want to know medicine must know Arabic, if you read all arabic books written by muslim scientists you will find pure arabic language, no latin or greek or any other language they got thier own identity, thier own knowledge that no other nation at that time got such wide knowledge and all were going to islamic nation in order to study and learn, even western writers who called thier selves "Mustashreq" this word was given to western scientists and writers who went to study the islamic sosciety and took science from it. Now after the negation of church and revolution in west, books started to be written in western languages, thats why latin was spreaded, but arabic language took it's place in these books without the existence of translations for them in latin and some words are titles to entire parts of science, and enough for me that one of biggest embryology scientists Keith Moore said that we can use words of Holy Quran to describe microscopic development of feto instead of the used language today, and it must be an inspiration by God because such describtion cant be made in time of prophet Muahmmed pbuh, from your same first tree i feed you. you west admit these things. I got videos of western sceintists and prphesors or univ. who admit inspiration of Holy Quran to prophet Muahmmed for the sceintific discoveries.
I didnt claim that islam is the only religioun that encourage learning, i claim that no religioun in whole world go in paralel line of all facts discovered today, Holy Quran and Hadeeths of prophet pbuh. Do you think that if scientists find one sure fact that contraddict with Holy Quran wont they spread it in order to show islam is false, but they cant, instead of that they dont show to you what Holy Quran said 1400 years ago about fact you discovered today, so they go to insult islam in general and try to show that its negative and put all religioun in same basket and call to deny them all.

Nightshade again i say, islam gave people alot of science not only the people who follow this religioun. Holy Quran agree with alot of facts discovered today, like origin of world, expanding of universe, even the lower point in earth is written in holy Quran as lower point in earth, muslims scholars described earth as ball by using Holy Quran and not by misures, hadeeths of prophet Muhammed and holy Quran describe evolution of feto in womb microscopicly. Did egyptions got thier science from thier religioun. Beside if the science of egyption remained untle these days, well thier religioun didnt, no religioun remained untle these days with it's followers discovories,only islam did, because religioun made them discover not that they believed in relgioun as spiritual part and made it far from material life, no matter what you write you cant compaire any religioun with islam and it's contibution to the science since it came by Muhammed pbuh and untle these days.
Yagoog and Magoog are not sodoom and amoorah you mixed things, in order to know them read Surat Alkahf the last 20 verses, and in Yagoog and Magoog case if you know Hadeeths you should know that after they die Muslims will go out leaded by Jesus pbuh and i think only they will remain and life will begin again and people will leave path again. I didnt say only islam will remain, i said only islam wont vanish and there is difference, other religiouns come and vanish but islam since Adam passing with Noah and Abraham and Moses and Jesus and Muahmmed peace be upon them all remain the same, one massege one belief one way one truth.

[AimusSage]

You know what I find sad Shield&Sword? That no matter what people say, you don't listen.

I find your faith in Islam commendable, but be careful with blind faith, never discard views that are different from yours, instead, broaden your horizon, and see the world through the eyes of a young child, eager to learn new things. Find the value in opposing views, and use it to strengthen your own beliefs. If you believe someone is wrong, don't say he is wrong, and refute what he says through faith, instead, acknowledge what he says as a potential truth, and see where it goes, you never know what you will find, but I assure you, what you'll find will be far more valuable than an accepted truth that has lasted for generations.

[subterranean]

Perhaps you didnt got the idea. Yes Budhisti believe in stones...


I’m sorry to say, your knowledge about Buddhism seems to be so narrow that you think Budhists believe in stones as in they considered these stones to have somekind of divine power.



No discoverys were relaited to religioun in all history, but only in islam, and they relaited it to the Holy Quran that didnt contraddict with it.



http://www.gnmagazine.org/booklets/BT/houseofdavid.htm
The 'House of David' Verified in Inscriptions
For many years some critics have asserted that many biblical figures, including King David, are nothing more than myth. But in 1993 a dramatic find again forced Bible critics to retreat. A team of archaeologists digging in northern Galilee "found a remarkable inscription from the ninth century B.C.E. [before the common era] that refers both to the 'House of David' and to the 'King of Israel'" ("David" Found at Dan, Biblical Archaeology Review, March-April 1994, p. 26).

This discovery was sensational enough to make the front page of The New York Times. The inscription also shows that Israel and Judah were important kingdoms in the ninth century B.C., disproving the position of scholars who claimed Israel and Judah were never nations of significance and even disputed that there had ever been a united monarchy under David.

The science of modern archaeology and historical philology actually provides verification of the most ancient biblical texts. Whereas . . . throughout the nineteenth century and almost up to the Second World War, systematic criticism of the Old Testament texts tended to destroy their historicity, and to reduce the Pentateuch, in particular, to mere myth or tribal legend, the trend over the last half-century has been quite in the opposite direction. The Flood, for instance, has been restored to history. Archaeological discovery provides now a firm historical background to the patriarchal society described in the Book of Genesis" (Paul Johnson, The Quest for God, p. 12).


If you want to give comment about other religions, I suggest you read more about them. That way, other people will see that you have strong basis for your arguments and they are not just some comments given by a narrow-minded believer.

And Embarr, to answer your question, well I personally think that as long as there are those issues (e.g. death, spiritual experience/phenomenon) , in which science can't provide answers to, religion will remain to exist in this world. Afterall, that's why human created religions in the first place because we see that there are those gaps in human life, where science can not fill.

[byquist]

You might get value out of googling a guy named Joseph Campbell. He also was video taped in some of Bill Moyer's projects, out at George Lucas' ranch (Lucas has based some of his Star Wars on Campbell's ideas). Campbell is an instance of a very widely-read individual, bridging the assumed distance between "science" and "mythic" thinking.

[amanda_isabel]

it's hard to say if religion will die out in the future. yes, of course, everything has some tendency to die out, but i'm not too sure about religion. i guess eventually some will, but then be resurrected in some weird new forms.

as fictional as it is, try angels & demons by dan brown. it's got an pinion wirth reading, that is if CERN really has that sort of technology,.

[ShoutGrace]

You might get value out of googling a guy named Joseph Campbell. He also was video taped in some of Bill Moyer's projects, out at George Lucas' ranch (Lucas has based some of his Star Wars on Campbell's ideas). Campbell is an instance of a very widely-read individual, bridging the assumed distance between "science" and "mythic" thinking.


Was he the one who compiled all those Native American myths concerning the coyote? *too lazy to do the research* :D

[Nightshade]

Yagoog and Magoog are not sodoom and amoorah you mixed things, in order to know them read Surat Alkahf the last 20 verses, and in Yagoog and Magoog case if you know Hadeeths you should know that after they die Muslims will go out leaded by Jesus pbuh and i think only they will remain and life will begin again and people will leave path again

Well Im happy to admit I was wrong there somehow I got the idea that S&G ( they are really hard words to spell and it 7 in the morning not the time for brai excersies) were the english names for Yagul and magul. So sorry this is way off topic everyone but is S&G in the koran then? I wonder if there is a bilical equilant to yagul and magul?


will go out leaded by Jesus pbuh and i think only they will remain and life will begin again and people will leave path again
This is the thing with the worms isnt it? but I thought they die and thats it. End of the world. actually I thought it was jesus arrives defeats the da'jal unites the people , and then thats it. well with yagul and magul in there somwhere.

:S :)

[Madhuri]

Kilted. I didnt talk about christianity, i talked about people who were relaited to it and how they used christianity in order to control people so dont put words in my mouth.

Does that not mean Christians, how can one be related to a religion and not be called one, does that mean people who are related to Islam are not Muslims.

How is this different than saying, people who are related to Islam, that is, Muslims (such as you) are trying to control and argument and putting your words into their mouths. No one has stopped you from believing that Islam is Great, but that also does not give you the right to say to them that what they believe in, such as, Christianity, Buddhism, or anyother religion for that matter, is or was wrong/incompetent. Are you not a Muslim who is trying to control an argument, then how are you different than the people you are refering to? And you are also using your religion to do so.


Now if a western famous atheist will say that christianism lead him to athiesm will you agree with him or you will ask him in same way you asked me? i didnt get words from my own pocket, and its not my opinion, scentences with same meaning were told by biggest atheists (that ,i think, you consider them biggest), Gotah and so on names. From your own tree i feed you. So i dont say christianity lead to atheism, i think atheists said that.

It is certainly you opinion, Shield. I think you have just picked up only those points that you want to believe or dis-believe. Do you know all Muslims in the world? I think you are speaking on their behalf, and you are trying to put forward your views as views of the entire community in general. I know a lot of Muslims who are atheists now, will you say for them also that, Islam led them to atheism. I think these people have a broader perspective and know that all religions have to exist together, including their being atheist. Their approach is more experience based and practical.



Secondly about the terms you didnt get it, as you know Latin is the origin of your language which you use today, and because now the west is the leader in science for sure they talk using thier language, but when you use in scientific language words of another 100% different language, and only in scientific, then it show how much the people of that language contributed in science, do you got the idea now?
Before 200 years latin language and greek wasnt language of science, here in italy my friend read a book in which written that first the one who want to know medicine must know Arabic, if you read all arabic books written by muslim scientists you will find pure arabic language, no latin or greek or any other language they got thier own identity, thier own knowledge that no other nation at that time got such wide knowledge and all were going to islamic nation in order to study and learn, even western writers who called thier selves "Mustashreq" this word was given to western scientists and writers who went to study the islamic sosciety and took science from it. Now after the negation of church and revolution in west, books started to be written in western languages, thats why latin was spreaded, but arabic language took it's place in these books without the existence of translations for them in latin and some words are titles to entire parts of science, and enough for me that one of biggest embryology scientists Keith Moore said that we can use words of Holy Quran to describe microscopic development of feto instead of the used language today, and it must be an inspiration by God because such describtion cant be made in time of prophet Muahmmed pbuh, from your same first tree i feed you. you west admit these things. I got videos of western sceintists and prphesors or univ. who admit inspiration of Holy Quran to prophet Muahmmed for the sceintific discoveries.
I didnt claim that islam is the only religioun that encourage learning, i claim that no religioun in whole world go in paralel line of all facts discovered today, Holy Quran and Hadeeths of prophet pbuh. Do you think that if scientists find one sure fact that contraddict with Holy Quran wont they spread it in order to show islam is false, but they cant, instead of that they dont show to you what Holy Quran said 1400 years ago about fact you discovered today, so they go to insult islam in general and try to show that its negative and put all religioun in same basket and call to deny them all.

Nightshade again i say, islam gave people alot of science not only the people who follow this religioun. Holy Quran agree with alot of facts discovered today, like origin of world, expanding of universe, even the lower point in earth is written in holy Quran as lower point in earth, muslims scholars described earth as ball by using Holy Quran and not by misures, hadeeths of prophet Muhammed and holy Quran describe evolution of feto in womb microscopicly. Did egyptions got thier science from thier religioun. Beside if the science of egyption remained untle these days, well thier religioun didnt, no religioun remained untle these days with it's followers discovories,only islam did, because religioun made them discover not that they believed in relgioun as spiritual part and made it far from material life, no matter what you write you cant compaire any religioun with islam and it's contibution to the science since it came by Muhammed pbuh and untle these days.

On this point I definitely agree with Sub, when she says that you should first read other religions discoveries and their contribution to the society and then take this discussion further. Do some research, Shield, and try to go beyond the use of Arabic words in science.

Maybe you want to read this:

"I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any." -- Mahatma Gandhi

Shield, if you want to live in your cocoon, you can. But try to have a reasonable discussion, without despising what others have to say.

You can never prove that this religion is better than that, you can only allow youself (if you want) to be influenced by them (and may not disagree so much, and become more receptive), and you have to co-exist with other people having different beliefs. You may agree with this or argue endlessly. :)

[Shield&Sword]

I think we are a little bit off topic
I dont know alot about Budhism but the birth of this religioun is equal to the birth of old paganism faith like arabs before coming of prophet Muhammed pbuh, even arabs found spiritual beliefs in stones, and these stones werent only stones, they were stones of pure people who lived long time before, just like Budha and the building of stones after long time.

To argue is not wrong, i like to argue and to make things more clear and to understand things clear not behind sweet talk, in my whole posts before i didnt say to any one you are wrong, all i did is i tried to make my idea more and more clear. I read what others wrote and i didnt disagree with them, i think its my right to defend my idea, i believe as long as i didnt insult any one then the argument is going ok. Beside what i wrote about my religioun and its contribution in science is something i didnt invent and didnt write from my own mind, the argument is about science and religioun and i wrote about science and religioun and my point was is not to put all religioun in same basket.
About christianism i didnt write anything if you go back to my first post in this forum you will see that i wrote about people who are relaited to this religioun and not the religioun it self. I will give an example, we know what the church did for scientists long time ago, all christians now believe that thier religoiun wasnt against science but the people misused the religioun in order to control peeopl, and its fact not false, and here there is no insult.

I didnt try to control the argument, i dont know how you put arguing and responding in same level as using religioun in bad way to control people.
Beside Muslims who are atheist are not muslims, and if you go back to my posts you wont see that i wrote christian philosofers are atheist i wrote western, i wrote philosofers from a sosciety that was christian.
The atheist in the islamic sosciety are all holding the western philosoph, and i say all, and you will never find someone who say i became atheist because of islamic belief, you will see them carry thoughts of Marx and Netcha and so on philosofers, and will notice most of them are "comunist". When i wrote what philosofers said i wrote it because a user tried to put words in my mouth and tried to show that i say that christianity lead to atheism (and he is atheist i think), so i faced him with these fact about western philosofers and wanted to see if he will critisize them, in oher words to see if he honest in his critisizing to me or not, because i dont like to argue with poeple who are not stable in thier opinion thats it. You said despise, show me where i despised others, and where i wrote "no you are wrong and i am right", show me phrases so i know where i did it, if i didnt then please dont throw such words.

About the one who wrote narrow-minded again i say i didnt wrote about christianity i wrote about what people did using religioun in bad way. Read all what i posted and then judge on me. In my whole writes i will write from a muslim point of view, i am not here to attack other's religioun and in same time not to defend. If you want to write about contribution of bible in science go on, its your buisness. For me it will be so interesting to compare facts from bible and facts from Holy Quran, it wont be a narrow minded thing no?
About Science from Holy Quran and prophet Hadeeths i wrote how they after 1400 years still going with science and how it give us facts untle these days that is same facts that science give, and my point was that such religioun wont be vanish because of scientists discovories, because it self give science. Medicine, sosciety, Astronomy, nature.....
About insulting other religioun, you wont hear never and ever a muslim who insult others religioun, even in countries attacked by western countries you wont hear any one who insult christianity or Juudhaism or any other religioun while we see it always from west who insult begining from insulting our prophet untle insulting the normal muslim attacking his faith, we almost all hear what the biggest simbol of christianity said this week, well you must know we are not like him, we respect and talk in nice way but we dont hide and insult.

I think you all see me narrow minded because you all nearlly got the same idea while i dont, and when you saw me writing more trying to make my idea more clear, and there wasnt anything wrong, you saw me narrow minded, but if i agreed with you from the first time you will see me open minded and understand. Same thing will happen when an atheist come in a believer sosciety and all discuss him but he argue and make his idea to be more clear all will see him close minded.

Nightshade, Yagoog and Magoog i think they will come after Dajal, and no one will be able to face them so muslims will go to a hidden place with prophet Jesus peace be upon him, and after Yagoog and Magoog death they will go out and i think after a while Jesus pbuh will die and then people will leave faith and believers will die untle no one who believe will remain and Day of judgment begin on these unbelievers.

[kilted exile]

Ok, Just a couple more comments then I'll get myself back to more enjoyable things (ie Sport :) ) - and stop dragging this further off-topic.


Kilted. I didnt talk about christianity, i talked about people who were relaited to it and how they used christianity in order to control people so dont put words in my mouth.

So if I was to suggest given the regime in Iran attempt to control and censor the populus you would not take this as a comment on Islam?



Now if a western famous atheist will say that christianism lead him to athiesm will you agree with him or you will ask him in same way you asked me? i didnt get words from my own pocket, and its not my opinion, scentences with same meaning were told by biggest atheists (that ,i think, you consider them biggest), Gotah and so on names. From your own tree i feed you. So i dont say christianity lead to atheism, i think atheists said that.

You are missing one important part here, everyone has different reasons for becoming an atheist, also there is no hierachal structure to atheism - no one is a "bigger" atheist.
Just as a side point, I became an atheist because I could not reconcile the idea of a supreme being allowing the pain and suffering that happens in the world on a daily basis - it would make no difference to me whether it was a being or beings,he, she or even it my own value system denies it and therefore I do.

[Shield&Sword]

Here you got the idea finally, i talked about people not religioun, there are muslim people who do bad things using religioun same as church did when scientists discovered new things, thats what i was talking about. And if you go back to my first post you will see i talked about people not religioun.

I intend big atheist to say big philosofer, a person who's opinions influence people, i always see atheists use philosofers scentences, scentences of atheist philosofers that use them as inspiration to them, so i wanted to see what you would say to the closest persons to you before you run so far to me and critisize thing "i didnt say".

[James Wallace]

I am an atheist and attempt to lead a moral and rational life. I do what I can to make my existence and the others I come in contact with better. I do this for no other reason than that it is moral and is conducive to the overall happiness of all (Don’t get me wrong, I too make bad decisions and inflict pain on others by my actions, but that is unavoidable). I tend to view morality and ethics from a “categorical imperative” position and often times do things that are right but do not have a positive effect on myself. I do this with no overlying code or divine intervention, and for no reason do I do it because someone says I should (i.e. God). In my mind there will be no reward for my actions after I die, and this makes me comfortable in the fact that I know morality is based on things much better than religion.
If I can, let me juxtapose my moral guidelines with that of a theist perspective. Many theist rationalize their morals by saying exactly the thing you used, (“Without religion there will be no values or ethics distinguishing us from lower animals. Religion creates a police officer inside the individual; this police officer is his conscience”). Now from this reasoning it is clear that when a theist acts morally it is directly caused by the laws that a supreme being has enacted. He is being moral because something is dictating it directly to him, and not to mention the reward he will receive upon practicing and following this set of moral rules. This is what Kant calls a “hypothetical imperative”, in order to be x, you must do y. This is not moral in the fact that the ethical is rooted along with a reward scenario. There is no reason to do the ethical other than that it is ethical. Don’t misinterpret my words to mean that one must act disinterested in all his actions, I think it is good to do things that benefit oneself. However, morality and ethics should not directly stem from that of an authority figure. Therefore reason should conclude that the individual who acts ethically despite no authoritative principles is acting in a more rational and ethical way than those who do so because of a vested interest.
This could be true for you but this is not the general condition for all human beings. Without religion, the good and evil standards are left to be determined by the people's customs and traditions and that’s why what is considered bad in a nation is not so in another one. Traditions and people's opinions are not better than religion. And if it's right that you do the good thing secularly regardless of its reward in the afterlife that you don’t believe in, it is not for the rest of the people. It's like the condition in a society without laws, so few guys will do the right thing just for itself and the most will do the wrong thing if there's no penalty. That’s how religion organizes life because morals and ethics without religion come from people's minds and opinions which are surely relative and able to change because human mind is not to realize everything correctly, but religion doesn't change. It sets the rules for all times and all places and that’s how it is a defender and –at the same time- a founder of morality.


This is what I call the oven method. If I take a person who has never seen an oven before, and place an already prepared cake mix inside, when it is done he will reason that the oven itself is the creator. He does not know the process and preparation it takes to create the cake, and he reasons that he knows how the cake was made. This is how I feel about religion and I think it is as far away from the truth as we can get.
Even in your example there's someone more intelligent and powerful than you, which is the guy that made the cake in this oven theory and so the cake was made in a way you cannot realize. That’s the case for the universe, coincidence or evolution did not create it, it is God by some way we don’t know.


Not to mention the way religion stifles scientific research, World government policy, education, the judicial system, and etc...
On the whole, I think religion should be confined to the church and the home of the person or people who practice it. Once it makes its way into politics and schools ( which it has) we are doing nothing but thinking about the finished cake rather than all the processes that go into making it, therefore imposing a belief system that is not practiced by all and has proven causes of despair, torment, and hypocritical application
Religion doesn’t stifle scientific research, World government policy, education, the judicial system and so. It just sets rules to maintain the good of humanity because freedom is never absolute. All the mentioned items need legalization to make the best use of them and that legalization is best found in religion because it is constant, holy and divine. It doesn’t change according to anyone's desire. We can't consider that ethics or laws stifle these things. Religion –esecially Islam- is a constitution for the whole human life.

[ShoutGrace]

Even in your example there's someone more intelligent and powerful than you, which is the guy that made the cake in this oven theory and so the cake was made in a way you cannot realize. That’s the case for the universe, coincidence or evolution did not create it, it is God by some way we don’t know.

Is it not possible that the cake is simply an amalgamation of elements subjected to random events and processes?


That’s the case for the universe, coincidence or evolution did not create it, it is God by some way we don’t know.

Very convincing declarative statement.

[James Wallace]

Is it not possible that the cake is simply an amalgamation of elements subjected to random events and processes?

Can you imagine that we put stones and mud into the oven and then we open it after 1000 years to find an apple pie or something? Random events and process? Do you really believe that? I don’t think that this universe is random, just one atom of hydrogen cannot give all other elements and then they coalesce into compounds, organic and inorganic ones and then give a living cell and this cell gives all living creatures from bacteria to humans, from Protozoa into Primates. Just calculate how many years it takes randomly –without a creating Power- to give one molecule of protein. Did humans manufacture the protoplasm artificially till now? Did they find a drug for AIDS? Can they even prevent or delay their own death? Is it logic that the good and the bad, the saint and the sinner will all be equal when they are buried after death?
The answer is "NO".

[AimusSage]

There is nothing random about the universe, nor is there anything godly about it. It might seem random, and it might seem Godly, but is neither.

[holograph]

There is nothing random about the universe, nor is there anything godly about it. It might seem random, and it might seem Godly, but is neither.

I cannot agree more.

[ShoutGrace]

Can you imagine that we put stones and mud into the oven and then we open it after 1000 years to find an apple pie or something?

Ah, no. Interesting, though, that we are both massively misrepresenting the Universe and the incredibly complex elements and processes involved in it. It both amuses and saddens me that we are discussing the Universe in terms of “pie” “stones” and “mud”, in an oven.




Random events and process? Do you really believe that?

What I believe is, at the present moment, irrelevant.


Just calculate how many years it takes randomly –without a creating Power- to give one molecule of protein.

Well, I’ve already looked into that, actually. The probability of a protein arising out of sheer chance has been estimated to be roughly 10 to the 191st power. That means that you could take every atom in the universe, allow it to complete one trillion atomic interactions a second for 30 billion years and you still wouldn’t get a protein (in theory).

I question both how these estimates were arrived at and whether they can be trusted, due to the convenient fact that they cannot be tested.


Did humans manufacture the protoplasm artificially till now? Did they find a drug for AIDS? Can they even prevent or delay their own death?

What do these three questions have to do with either the origins of the Universe or the origins of life on this planet?


Is it logic that the good and the bad, the saint and the sinner will all be equal when they are buried after death? The answer is "NO".

I will not even begin to entertain ideas about how you went off onto this fancy. What does the above question and your supplied rejoinder have to do with the origins of the Universe or the origins of life on this planet?


There is nothing random about the universe, nor is there anything godly about it. It might seem random, and it might seem Godly, but is neither.

Please do expound on this, AimusSage, if only for my benefit.

[Kurtz]

"Even in your example there's someone more intelligent and powerful than you, which is the guy that made the cake in this oven theory and so the cake was made in a way you cannot realize. That’s the case for the universe, coincidence or evolution did not create it, it is God by some way we don’t know."

Surely you are aware of the logical fallacies that are present in your response. Furthermore, you clearly do not understand my argument, for I can see no other reason for your flawed and naive thinking. The idea of the oven method was to show you how ignorant people act and reason when there is no way that they could know the answer, also I think it is important for you to realize that in my example everything is known about the process and can clearly be empirically predicted and tested. The only thing that can not be predicted is the reasoning of the “naive observer”. Perhaps it was a bad example. I only meant to make the point that when crucial information is not clear, the mind has its own way of reasoning and drawing conclusions. I also think we can agree that baking a cake is highly inferior to more important questions.

"That’s the case for the universe, coincidence or evolution did not create it, it is God by some way we don’t know."


Hah! The old “god of the gaps” argument. Yes, clearly if we do not now have all the answers, reason will conclude that it was created by an omnipotent being. You better come up with something original if you wish to sound credible. I hope you can see that your reasoning is exactly the same as the “naive observer” in the cake example.

More importantly, your idea of the theory of evolution must be weak if you think that evolution tries to explain how life began. This is not true and should be abolished from the minds of people. Evolution never will or is not supposed to explain how things came into existence but rather how they change and “EVOLVE” over time. I also love your last statement. All I can say is that the burden of proof is on you. If you wish to persuade people that religion is not dead, we need to see some type of logical explanations that do not require faith and skewed reason. The problem is not with my argument but rather the way in which you remove the context of my words.

[jon1jt]

I'm on the sidelines watching this one guys and girls. This one is getting tense...just a little. :)

[cuppajoe_9]

This could be true for you but this is not the general condition for all human beings.I flatly refuse to accept this statement until I see any evidence at all to suggest that atheists in general are morally bankrupt. Experience tells me the opposite.

[AimusSage]

Please do expound on this, AimusSage, if only for my benefit.
If the universe were random, we would get random interactions between matter. We would indeed see mud become a cup of tea in the microwave, but the next time mud would become gold. There are rules that govern the universe, and there are patterns. Complex and sometimes seemingly random, but still very much not random.

As for it being godly that explaination is for the people that do not understand, but still need to have everything explained in some way, thus they say what they do not understand, must be the work of a higher being. It's an easy explaination. a few thousand years ago lightning was the work of a god, but nowadays nobody beliefs Zeus is responsible for the lightning, or at least very few people. :)

[ShoutGrace]

I flatly refuse to accept this statement until I see any evidence at all to suggest that atheists in general are morally bankrupt. Experience tells me the opposite.

Isn't the argument not that atheists become morally bankrupt simply by virtue of their atheism, but rather that their morals then have no anchored, objective validity (not that religion can prove that morals have such a validity, but rather, that it again claims it)? Must not atheists acknowledge that morals are indeterminate, unfixed (regardless of the implications)? That topic is elsewhere in the Philosophical section now.

I thought the very first sentence after the one you quote, cuppajoe_9, began to address that aspect (with the customs and traditions).

After that, I'm afraid all I got from James Wallace was static.


If the universe were random, we would get random interactions between matter. We would indeed see mud become a cup of tea in the microwave, but the next time mud would become gold. There are rules that govern the universe, and there are patterns. Complex and sometimes seemingly random, but still very much not random.

Okay, I'm definitely with you so far.


As for it being godly that explaination is for the people that do not understand, but still need to have everything explained in some way, thus they say what they do not understand, must be the work of a higher being.

This I have some questions about. What about the people who understand the Universe, it's laws and it's fundamentals (in so much as humans can comprehend them), and do believe that it is the work of a Supreme Being?


It's an easy explaination. a few thousand years ago lightning was the work of a god, but nowadays nobody beliefs Zeus is responsible for the lightning, or at least very few people. :)

Now I am a slightly saddened, because taken one way, it can here be interpreted that you have relegated theists who believe that the Universe if of divine origin and ascribes to divinely inspired laws are limited (perhaps in understanding, or emotional ability).

[holograph]

religion will not die. in fact, it will probably strengthen and bring destruction in the near future. unfortunately. but i think life without religion is even more dangerous than life with it. think about what would happen if all political institutions collapsed. the same would result if all religion would die.

heh, i only wish I believed in something other than the bleak insignificance of existence.

[AimusSage]

This I have some questions about. What about the people who understand the Universe, it's laws and it's fundamentals (in so much as humans can comprehend them), and do believe that it is the work of a Supreme Being?
...
Now I am a slightly saddened, because taken one way, it can here be interpreted that you have relegated theists who believe that the Universe if of divine origin and ascribes to divinely inspired laws are limited (perhaps in understanding, or emotional ability).
Let me clarify for you, because this is not what I was trying to say when I said it is for people that do not understand. I meant to say that it is for people that do not understand, don't want to try to understand, and accept God as their only answer, without even taking a second look at other possibilities. And yes, I do think people that do this limit themselves.

People that 'understand' the universe, at least according to the latest theory, and also belief in a supreme being might wish to prove the existence of God through science, or otherwise explain it. They might even be inspired by the complexity of the universe and as such ascribe it to the work of a higher being. These people at least explore other views apart from the easy religious explaination, which to me just discourages people to figure things out. If it is the first case where they set out to prove the existence of God, I think they will fail, because it is impossible to prove the existence of god through science, if they are of the second type, which are in awe of the universe, they might find a way to bridge their gap in understanding, a way to cope with their own lack off understanding.

I don't understand either. I accept that I will likely never understand how the universe works. I don't need anything to have my gap of knowledge explained. Some people do, and that bridge for them becomes God, and as such the universe is also ascribed to god. Thus, put crudly, god is their lack of understanding deified.

[Shield&Sword]

I dont know what does it mean to proove God's existence by science. When we talk about God we dont talk only about few laws, who decided that this law must exist and this one must not, who started all from the begining, why the material doesnt vanish and doesnt begin from 0, all the world work toghether in specified rules that some one decided and nothing go out of these rules. We dont deny science and i talked how religioun (my religioun) encoureged people to learn, and believeing that this world was created by God is not a limited thought, but watching the world in way you watch is a superficial look. With your science you will never deny God existence because you will never be able to respond who put these rules and who started all? if you answer i dont know then you admit God exist, if you respond no one then your view is superficial view, and using science you wont be able to cancel God, because you are even going under these laws that you cants break or go out of them, ALL YOU CAN DO IS DISCOVER WHAT THE SUPREME BEING DID and what you will discover after 100 years is not because God does not exist but because God created what you are going to discover. If you know how ightning work does this mean God does not exist? if you answer yes, then you must add to the definition of "supreme Being" the one who decided these laws and the one who control all these rules.
Proove that these laws came alone, my claim is that these rules exist then someone put them (as logic say, logic that atheist use alot) because if such rules come alone then they must be able to be changed, modified or vanished and new rules come (but they wont, do you know why? because the one who put them want so, and you or any other thing that go under these laws wont change them, in other words you are going under specified rules, nothing to do but to surrend).

[AimusSage]

If I created an (admittedly simple) universe of my own on my computer and run it for a while, would I be a god to every AI inside the universe? Would they worship me as their supreme being?

And if I delete the program, did I bring forth the end of times?

[Shield&Sword]

Aimus. I thought the thing was about God's existence and the relation with science,but your example is about the meaning of this life. Your opinion from the begining was that if we know more of how things work then it cancel the idea of God existence, but you couldnt answer who made these things from the first and who decided them and who wanted to work in such way, and you will never be able to answer this question because you didnt ask this question from the first, (scuse me for this scentence) you limited your thoughts on how things work and you didnt want to look more deep and prefaired to be take a superficial look on things. Your case is like someone who live on shore and he find every day a new fruit on shore, he tasted these fruits and studied them and felt so proud, but he was always afraid to ask the question "from where these fruits arrive", but in his deep inside there is something telling him always "from where these fruits come", a question that his logic and mind always ask, and finally after refusing to asnwer this question these words will remain inside him "admit or not, these fruits come from a place".
About the example you gave, it depend on you, you made this program and you order it to do as you want, because finally they work according rules you put and nothing in this program will go out of rules you decided. This example wont help you to understand why God created you and what he want from you, because in this program nothing have free will and this program will be exactly as every thing God created, the whole galaxy that going without having free will, the only creature that we cant make anology between him and the program is YOU, the human being, its up to you to choose and to worship God, because you are the only creature who can choose-and no example can make you understand, only your own mind can use the logic and admit and surrend and worship "the supreme being" that gave you all what you got but you refused and felt proud of your self.

[ShoutGrace]

Your opinion from the begining was that if we know more of how things work then it cancel the idea of God existence,

Who's opinion?

[AimusSage]

Aimus. I thought the thing was about God's existence and the relation with science,but your example is about the meaning of this life. Your opinion from the begining was that if we know more of how things work then it cancel the idea of God existence, but you couldnt answer who made these things from the first and who decided them and who wanted to work in such way, and you will never be able to answer this question because you didnt ask this question from the first, (scuse me for this scentence) you limited your thoughts on how things work and you didnt want to look more deep and prefaired to be take a superficial look on things. Your case is like someone who live on shore and he find every day a new fruit on shore, he tasted these fruits and studied them and felt so proud, but he was always afraid to ask the question "from where these fruits arrive", but in his deep inside there is something telling him always "from where these fruits come", a question that his logic and mind always ask, and finally after refusing to asnwer this question these words will remain inside him "admit or not, these fruits come from a place".
About the example you gave, it depend on you, you made this program and you order it to do as you want, because finally they work according rules you put and nothing in this program will go out of rules you decided. This example wont help you to understand why God created you and what he want from you, because in this program nothing have free will and this program will be exactly as every thing God created, the whole galaxy that going without having free will, the only creature that we cant make anology between him and the program is YOU, the human being, its up to you to choose and to worship God, because you are the only creature who can choose-and no example can make you understand, only your own mind can use the logic and admit and surrend and worship "the supreme being" that gave you all what you got but you refused and felt proud of your self.
First of all, please don't assume as much as you do about me.

Secondly, your zeal is tiresome, and I don't care enough to bother with it any longer, so I will refrain from commenting any further.

[subterranean]

I think we are a little bit off topic
I dont know alot about Budhism but the birth of this religioun is equal to the birth of old paganism faith like arabs before coming of prophet Muhammed pbuh, even arabs found spiritual beliefs in stones, and these stones werent only stones, they were stones of pure people who lived long time before, just like Budha and the building of stones after long time.

Please kindly explain how is the birth of Buddhism equal with the birth of paganism in the Arab world?


About the one who wrote narrow-minded again i say i didnt wrote about christianity i wrote about what people did using religioun in bad way. Read all what i posted and then judge on me. In my whole writes i will write from a muslim point of view, i am not here to attack other's religioun and in same time not to defend. If you want to write about contribution of bible in science go on, its your buisness. For me it will be so interesting to compare facts from bible and facts from Holy Quran, it wont be a narrow minded thing no?

To avoid any unnecessary misunderstanding, please be informed that I'm not referring to any particular person in my post. It's merely a personal opinion, in which I think that when we want to give any comments about any religions or beliefs, we might want to suffice ourselves with certain principle information about those religions. You can not give any statement about Buddhists worshiping stones if you're lacking the information about what exactly the meaning of these stones for the Buddhist? Did you ever try to ask a Buddhist why he/she seems to be doing something which you consider as an act of stone worshiping? Or does this opinion (Buddhist worship stones) purely come from you? And that is just an example.


I think you all see me narrow minded because you all nearlly got the same idea while i dont, and when you saw me writing more trying to make my idea more clear, and there wasnt anything wrong, you saw me narrow minded, but if i agreed with you from the first time you will see me open minded and understand. Same thing will happen when an atheist come in a believer sosciety and all discuss him but he argue and make his idea to be more clear all will see him close minded.

Please, do not think that you're being under attack here. It's just that I personally think you need to state your answers clearer. To be honest, your answers/comments are somewhat all over the place and don't really deal with what have been asked/previously posted.

[subterranean]

Secondly, your zeal is tiresome, and I don't care enough to bother with it any longer, so I will refrain from commenting any further.

I'll hold on for one more post :)

[cuppajoe_9]

Isn't the argument not that atheists become morally bankrupt simply by virtue of their atheism, but rather that their morals then have no anchored, objective validity (not that religion can prove that morals have such a validity, but rather, that it again claims it)? Must not atheists acknowledge that morals are indeterminate, unfixed (regardless of the implications)?An atheist must indeed come to terms with moral subjectivity, but the result is not, as James Wallace's statement would imply, anarchy, chaos, destruction, rape, pillaging, murder, cats and dogs living together, etc. One could argue (and I do, frequently) that morality is subjective even with a god figure. If there is a god and he does have somthing to say about morality then his opinion is just another subjective one. It does no more to make morality objective then arbitrarily declaring you the supreme arbiter of morality for the entire human race. In fact, declaring you arbiter would do more for objective morality because if I had a question about whether a particular action is moral or not I could ask you and you would tell me. God falls somewhat short in the customer service department.
Without religion, the good and evil standards are left to be determined by the people's customs and traditions and that’s why what is considered bad in a nation is not so in another one.I am not sure what Jimmy is driving at here, because it seems to me that this is the case anyway. Religion is a set of customs and traditions.

[James Wallace]

The questions I gave such as "calculate how many years it takes randomly –without a creating Power- to give one molecule of protein. Did humans manufacture the protoplasm artificially till now? Did they find a drug for AIDS? Can they even prevent or delay their own death? Is it logic that the good and the bad, the saint and the sinner will all be equal when they are buried after death?" were meant to prove the universe could not have come by coincidence and "random processes". It is created by an intelligent, omnipotent and omniscient being, which is God. It is not about "God of the gaps" argument because when we discover a scientific reason for any natural phenomenon, that doesn’t exclude the phenomenon from the creation of God. The people thought before the lightning was an act of Zeus as aimussage said, but when we discovered how it occurs, why don’t we believe it is an act of God –not Zeus as we are against polytheism- that created lightning by the mechanism it happens with. We knew the lightning is about electrical charges, but did they just come randomly or create themselves? The gaps in our knowledge doesn't shrink to disappear in the end and then we dispense of religion, that’s because even with all our sciences –when we think that all the universe came by the big bang theory and the elements came all by fusion of hydrogen atoms- there is still a massive gap. That is who was there and created dense and hot state before the big bang and who created hydrogen. This gap cannot be filled with any other idea but the existence of God and that’s not irrational at all. That’s the causality Aristotle talked about, the "First Cause" argument. Kant also says that we cannot meaningfully conceive of an object that exists outside of time and has no spatial components and isn't structured in accordance with the categories of the understanding, such as substance and causality. Although we cannot conceive of such an object, Kant argues, there is no way of showing that such an object does not exist.
So, God is existent and religion is not, and will not be, dead. It is not a "set of customs and traditions", compare religion –e.g., Islam- in the seventh century to religion in the twenty-first and compare religion in Morocco to religion in Indonesia and do so with traditions, traditions differ from time to time and from somewhere to another, but religion does not. It is the best organize of the individual's spiritual and material life. The constancy of religion maintains ethics and thus they emerge from it. Check out cuppajoe_9's signature, "There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do", that’s how religion keeps morality. It is not against science, it is not against thinking and I remember now a statement form Abbas Al-Akkad's –an Egyptian philosopher- 'Thinking is an Islamic Duty', "thinking necessitates Islam and Islam necessitates thinking".

[Scheherazade]

This thread aims to discuss whether religion has a place in today's societies/ in 'modern' life. Please do not turn it into another 'whose religion is superior?' debate.

[Pendragon]

This thread aims to discuss whether religion has a place in today's societies/ in 'modern' life. And with this in mind, I agree with what Sub said a page or so back. As long as there are things that cannot be easily explained if at all, religion will always have a place in society. Man is by nature an explorer. We want to know everything, and why it works. But we cannot explain everything, and some attempts to explain the unknown begin to sound lame, to show that we are unsure of where we stand. Religion fills the gap for most people, nothing is impossible for a Supreme Being called God. Others still search, unable to accept the notion of a Supreme Being. We are only human! :) :nod:

[Shield&Sword]

When Darwin wrote his book he was thinking that the cell is only a spot, and he thought that it doesnt contain any thing inside it, he was influenced by thoughts of Lamark, Lamark the french scientist who said that if we cut hands of persons from same family for generations then we will get at the end persons without hands, he thought that Jerafe (the animal with long neck) is a gazzella who was trying to eat tree leafs. Darwin went more far with his strange thoughts (for us in these days) and said that whale is a bear who was trying to fish, they didnt know something called DNA, they didnt know that cell is so complex and it was so easy for them to give the strange theory of evolution that with passing of time and with new discoverys scientists admit that this world didnt come by chance, and such a complex structure cant be made by chance. After Dawrin came Luis Pastuer, you know him, the big scientist, he studied cell and bacteria and he saw the complex structure of cell and he said we cant say that cell came by chance, why we cant say? because its so complicated to be built by chance. Crick and his friend, the 2 scientists who dscovered the sturcture of DNA and concluted "l'elica forma del DNA", they were atheists but they said that DNA didnt come by chance, such scientists are not loyal for thier atheism, they are loyal for their knowledge and science, they respect their own mind and they didnt hide their feelings towards what they discovered.
For Darwin it was easy to claim his theory, because he looked from eyes that saw this world so simple, so easy to be built and doesnt need a supreme being to build it (even if he didnt ask the q from where all this come), thats why in all his writes you wont find molecular biology, you will find only things he saw while he was traveling, exactly as the old nations clamed by using thier normal eye about the lightning and Zeus thing, they thought that every structure is different from other and didnt know all things are formed from same thing from same Atome so they went far with polytheism.
My point is that every time we discover something we admit that this world is complicated, that this world is not simple but a world who are going according suffisticated rules, a world that when we understand it more we remain with opened mouth, and after 100 or 200 or 300 years we wont cancel the idea of existence of a Supreme being, because things will seem so complicated and wonderfull in same time that it wont be allowed to use the word "CHANCE" at least by scientists who respect thier knowledge.
God said in Surah 41 verse 53: "Soon will We show them Our Signs in the (furthest) regions (of the earth), and in their own souls, until it becomes manifest to them that this is the Truth. Is it not enough that thy Lord doth witness all things?"
And we are seeing.

[bhekti]

Mmmm....look, people are slauthering each other....So perhaps religion will not die as long as religiosity is dead...like right now, look....

[cuppajoe_9]

James, my signature is a criticism of religion. The full line is : "There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do. It's all part of the same thing. And some of the things folks do is nice, and some ain't so nice, but that's as far as any man got a right to say." In context, the speaker is saying that Christianity's condemnation of sex before marriage is unfounded. It's taken fron John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

The First Cause argument (which I believe has its origins in St. Thomas Aquinas) is riddled with logical falicy. Italics are paraphrases taken from TA's The Five Ways

(1) Some things are in motion. Alternate theories exist, but I'm with him so far.
(2) Everything that moves is moved by somthing else. False. Plenty of things move of their own accord. People, for example.
(Here Aquinas defines his terms a little further. For my purposes we can ignore these few points.)
(8) But we cannot proceed to infinity this way, because in that cause there would be no first mover, and in consequence, neither would there be any other mover. In other words, there cannot be an infinite string of movers backwards, because then my entire argument falls apart. This point is and the next are, by the way, direct quotes.
(9) Therefore it is necessary to stop at some first mover which is moved by nothing else. And this is what we all understand God to be. A leap of logic so massive it causes one to wonder how this guy got cannonized in the first place. Even if we do agree that there is a First Cause (I do not know whether a first cause or an infinite string is more likely) there is absolutely nothing to suggest that it is any kind of a god, much less the Abrahimic one. What's to say that Zeus isn't the first cause? What's to say that it isn't Krishna? Furthermore, what's to say that the first cause doesn't have its origins in a parallel universe, for example? First Cause is not an argument for the existance of God.

To tie back in to the actual topic of this thread : religion will eventually die because it is a blatant attempt to accumulate power through baseless guilt (baseless because there is no sin) and because it is based on logical fallicy.

[cuppajoe_9]

When Darwin wrote his book he was thinking that the cell is only a spot, and he thought that it doesnt contain any thing inside it, he was influenced by thoughts of Lamark, Lamark the french scientist who said that if we cut hands of persons from same family for generations then we will get at the end persons without hands, he thought that Jerafe (the animal with long neck) is a gazzella who was trying to eat tree leafs. Darwin went more far with his strange thoughts (for us in these days) and said that whale is a bear who was trying to fish.Just because you completely misunderstand Darwin's theory, it doesn't mean it's wrong.
they didnt know something called DNA, they didnt know that cell is so complex and it was so easy for them to give the strange theory of evolution that with passing of time and with new discoverys scientists admit that this world didnt come by chance, and such a complex structure cant be made by chance. After Dawrin came Luis Pastuer, you know him, the big scientist, he studied cell and bacteria and he saw the complex structure of cell and he said we cant say that cell came by chance, why we cant say? because its so complicated to be built by chance. Crick and his friend, the 2 scientists who dscovered the sturcture of DNA and concluted "l'elica forma del DNA", they were atheists but they said that DNA didnt come by chance, such scientists are not loyal for thier atheism, they are loyal for their knowledge and science, they respect their own mind and they didnt hide their feelings towards what they discovered.Complexity is not evidence of design and 'not by chance' does not mean 'by intent'. A well developed theory of the origins of DNA and cell structure does exist, but is too complicated for me to quote in its entirety on a message board. I recomend reading Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene (to everybody, not just Shield). Please understand that I am not offering this as evidence that God does not exist, I am simply stating that the complexity of life is not evidence that he does.

[ShoutGrace]

An atheist must indeed come to terms with moral subjectivity, but the result is not, as James Wallace's statement would imply, anarchy, chaos, destruction, rape, pillaging, murder, cats and dogs living together, etc.

I am now picking up on the subtle workings and negative aspects of trying to argue another’s point in their stead.

I do not agree that the general result you’ve provided above would necessarily occur (whether it originated in James Wallace’s reply or not).

I am interested in following this thread of hypothetical inquiry for a moment longer, however (if you care to indulge me). What are your theories concerning the reasons why “anarchy, chaos . . .” etc. do not come about?


If there is a god and he does have somthing to say about morality then his opinion is just another subjective one.

Okay, I’ll refrain from putting forth the obvious rejoinders at this time.


It does no more to make morality objective then arbitrarily declaring you the supreme arbiter of morality for the entire human race.

Allright, with a straight face now: Are there any differences between myself and this theoretical Supreme Being (who supposedly wields the attributes of omni–benevolence and omniscience)? Would the fact that this Supreme Being is (allegedly) the cause, designer, implementer and encompasser of literally all things have any effect on his legitimacy as arbiter?

Also, is there any way we can keep our discussion Philosophical, as opposed to Theological? Otherwise we'll probably get messy.


The questions I gave such as . . . . were meant to prove the universe could not have come by coincidence and "random processes".

Well, no offense (or personal malice) intended, but you absolutely failed in that regard. Good try though (I obviously would have been overwhelmingly happy if you had proved that).


It is created by an intelligent, omnipotent and omniscient being, which is God.

I repeat . . . . That is a very convincing declarative statement. I should have thought of that technique, it seems so straightforward.


This gap cannot be filled with any other idea but the existence of God and that’s not irrational at all.

Please, examine your words. If this statement, or rather the ideas contained therein (I’m not sure what is being sought after exactly) is not at all irrational, the implications are enormous.


That’s the causality Aristotle talked about, the "First Cause" argument. Kant also says that we cannot meaningfully conceive of an object that exists outside of time and has no spatial components and isn't structured in accordance with the categories of the understanding, such as substance and causality. Although we cannot conceive of such an object, Kant argues, there is no way of showing that such an object does not exist.So, God is existent and religion is not, and will not be, dead.

This logic is bulletproof. Thanks for finally cementing this point.



Mmmm....look, people are slauthering each other....So perhaps religion will not die as long as religiosity is dead...like right now, look....

I can't quite be sure what you are trying to say here, bhekti (as was obviously part of your purpose), but as you are one whose ideas I respect, I hope you'll elaborate.

I hope I'm not proving anybody's point here.

[cuppajoe_9]

I am interested in following this thread of hypothetical inquiry for a moment longer, however (if you care to indulge me). What are your theories concerning the reasons why “anarchy, chaos . . .” etc. do not come about?Quite simply becuase the reason people generally do not run around causing wanton destruction is not because they are prevented from doing so by fear of god or the state. It is because they don't want to. People generally like people at least enough to refrain from assaulting or robbing them.
Allright, with a straight face now: Are there any differences between myself and this theoretical Supreme Being (who supposedly wields the attributes of omni–benevolence and omniscience)? Would the fact that this Supreme Being is (allegedly) the cause, designer, implementer and encompasser of literally all things have any effect on his legitimacy as arbiter?The issue is not whether you would be a legitimate arbiter, or even a good one (although I'm sure you would be). The point is that even an omnibenevolent and omniscient creator-god, in fact, especially an OOCG, would have a vested interest and personal opinion in moral affiars and would thus what he considers moral would be subjective.

Morality is not a force like gravity. To test for gravity all you have to do is drop a pen. If it falls on the ground there is gravity regardless of anybody's opinion. The only test for morality is to look at whether the results of an action are good or bad, but you can say that whatever outcome you like is 'good' or 'bad'. There isn't an objective standard, as opposed to my example with gravity (it would be excedingly difficult to argue that a pen that is lying on the ground is actually floating). Morality is based on what a person values and, since everybody values different things, God included, objectivity is not possible in morality. Wow, we're off-topic. Shall I try to tie this back in? How about : and therefore it is likely that religion will eventually become unpopular, because striving for objective morality amounts to telling people what they consider good and bad, and people generally do not accept assaults on their values?

[bhekti]

....I can't quite be sure what you are trying to say here, bhekti (as was obviously part of your purpose), but as you are one whose ideas I respect, I hope you'll elaborate.

Forgive me for being unclear, ShoutGrace. My faculty of clarity was overcome by emotion.

I said, "look, people are slauthering each other....So perhaps religion will not die as long as religiosity is dead...like right now, look...."

I was pointing to facts happening here on our earth that signifies the dead of religion[s]. Call it hypocrisy: religious people cease to do the commands of their own religions (the dead of religiosity).

So, as long as people's religiosity is dead, religion will always stay alive/significant/on function. And, when people's religiosity is alive, religion loses its function, dies, which is good.

"faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead" - James

[subterranean]

Forgive me for being unclear, ShoutGrace. My faculty of clarity was overcome by emotion.

I said, "look, people are slauthering each other....So perhaps religion will not die as long as religiosity is dead...like right now, look...."

I was pointing to facts happening here on our earth that signifies the dead of religion[s]. Call it hypocrisy: religious people cease to do the commands of their own religions (the dead of religiosity).

So, as long as people's religiosity is dead, religion will always stay alive/significant/on function. And, when people's religiosity is alive, religion loses its function, dies, which is good.

"faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead" - James


IMHO, there were/are other hidden agendas behind these wars than just religious issues. Just little example, we're both Indonesians and we have seen many conflicts in our country where religions were made as tools to conceal the real interests.

[Shield&Sword]

I dont want to enter in Darwin theory, but his thoughts were based on "superstition", my point here that his superficial view and his "ligh" knowledge of the Molecular biology drived him to claim such claims.
There is nothing called a proof that God doesnt exist, because the most complicated theory that a human can put in order to explain this world trying to banish God, wont be able to find an answer to the origin of this world and to answer who decided these rules.
My point was when i mentioned Darwin is that when we dont have enough knowledge we come with simple ideas, coincidence is a word that you were able to use it perhaps 50 years ago because the world wasnt known microscopicly as its known now, now after the science advanced people who were saying "cuincedence" are not using this word now (thats reminded me when Russia, when comunism was so strong, they put tons of seeds of plants ,that cant grow in cold weather, in cold water for a time in order to make the grow in Syberia and scientist who believe in Mendil laws were putten in jail, for sure the process failed because the theory of Darwin was simple wasnt explaining the life infact,it was so far from turth and still so far from truth. Now after laws of Mendil became facts the evolution scientists decided that natural selection is not for evolution and the choosed mutation also to explain evolution, but now they are infront new problem, they cant find even one mutation that can lead to promotion, in other words a good mutation), with word "cuincedence" its easy to say all came alone, but with word complicated it become difficult to use the word random, why the world if its going alone didnt go to most simple way of formation, why it choosed the complicated way? when something simple happen we can say it happened alone when something complicated we cant say it all happened alone, because all things that happen alone choose the most simple way (inflewenced by nature for sure).
Molecular biology is my favouite subject, if you enter in this world you stay with open mouth infront of its beuty, in some process in cell there are several ways to produce the final product of this process, the exciting thing is that there are so simple way and there are a complicated way, the simple way is alternative and the complicated way is the main one, its better to the cell to use the simple way it doesnt cost more easy more short, but no it choose the complicated one and in same time it didnt cancel the simple and it cant and there is no clue of changing of the cell from using the simple one to use the main one always or vice versa, both exist and both are important, why in these millions years didnt use the cell the simple one, why it use the so complicated one, alot of another strange wonderfull things you find in this world. Explaining these compliacted structures and how they came is only theory and a theory that cant be proven, because even the cell and how its working cant be known for sure, you see alot of times several models to describe the production of one product, nothing is sure, so little and complicated to be known, so how you will explain the origin of such sturcture and how it changed with time when you even dont know how it work and even you dont know the structure. Thats the funny thing with evolution scientists, they run to name the embryo without knowing if he is male or female. (Thats what i dont like with evolution scientists, they use a previuos ideas not based on science they got to conclude theorys, and they dont begin from what they discovered but they force the facts to go with thier own ideas).
Another point is that, what ever way they explain such a so complicated structure it wont change any thing. This world work in 2 ways, alone or managed by someone, alone mean: by chance, cuincedence, random, such ways of formation dont produce the complicated organized structures we know today, even scientists dont use these words any more, they cant, random doenst form DNA and then cell and then tissue and then man with so organised form begining from macroscopical and finishing with microscopical structure, a man who by "complicated organised" structure became a being who think and build and feel and invent, random is "once upon time" story in science. Remain the other way, managed by someone: more complicated and organised the structure more its done by intention by some one, random is more difficult to use it. Perhaps 100 years random was so easy to use it, because the structure was so simple (as they thought), if you watch the words of scientists now (like Pastuer and Crick and so on scientists) they refused random at once after they knew the complicated and organised structure. If you want to deny God then you must use Random, because its the only word that you can use to describe the nature working alone, such word is deing, no matter what theorys you use to explain formation, the question will be does it came alone (randomly) or managed by someone (not randomly)?

[Pendragon]

May I ask why Darwin is being used to determin if religion is dead? As there is no way to prove that God does not exist, and even evolutionists agree that there had to be a starting point, though much debate about what happened is there, why would Darwin's "survival of the fittest" change belief in God? Cannot we see that things have certainly changed over time? When I was a kid, the nine-banded armadillo was confined to the deep Southwest US. Now, they are as common as possums on the highways of Arkansas and up into Missouri. The coyote was a Western animal. Now there is a bounty on them in Virginia. Things change and animals and people change with them. Doesn't change my belief in God.

[Embarr]

However, morality and ethics should not directly stem from that of an authority figure. Therefore reason should conclude that the individual who acts ethically despite no authoritative principles is acting in a more rational and ethical way than those who do so because of a vested interest.

You're thinking of authority figures as merely "higher beings". We all learned our ethics and morals from someone, or multiple people. It's whether you connect these lessons in life to a person teaching from a gods lessons or to a person who learned from a person that matters.

Thank you for posting your view-point. I was beginning to worry that all I'd have was the pro-religion views. It doesn't make for a very good research paper if you only have one side's opinions.

[Embarr]

Perhaps you didnt got the idea. Yes Budhisti believe in stones, but are they not a continue to the greek belief and egyption belief and romans belief, all these beliefs were different, they worship stones on shape of people that lived long time ago and give them thier names, besied these beliefs are so limited geographic. While believing in one God religioun was always the same, i said its like a chain since Adam and Noah untle last prophet Muhammed peace be upon him, no one of them made his own idea about God, for all history this belief didnt die, only people die.


I mentioned hinduism, not buddhism (that's what that word is right?). Those are two different religions. I'm having difficulty understanding what you are trying to explain here. Are you saying that hinduism is a continuation of greek and egyptian beliefs? Hinduism is considered a world religion now, since it is so wide spread, so I wouldn't say it is limited geographically. And the belief is that those "stones" as you refer to them as are merely a representation of the gods. They worship their gods through the "stones".

[Shield&Sword]

I think you are wrong, hinduism is so limited, but people who believe it are so many, geograficly its so limited if we compaire it to Islam and christianity, even we cant compaire it with these 2.
About stones thing, thats what i meant when i said that the origin of stones for arabs is same for others, but it remain paganism (and thats what mean paganism, for budhism and all others who worship stones) I am not saying that hinduism is a continuation for greek and egyption believing.

[cuppajoe_9]

Shield : I am in complete agreement with your statement that proof of the non-existance of God is impossible. I would, however, venture to set you straight on one or two points, if I may :

First off : nobody of note, including evolutionary biologists, is trying to disprove the existance of God. Regradless of their personal beliefs, biologists, being scientists, understand that it is impossible to prove a negative, and therefore don't try. Darwin, by the way, was not an atheist. He was a devout christian, and just about wound up in the priesthood.

Secondly : Stalin and his toadies were Lamarkians, not Darwinists. Teaching Darwin's laws in 1950s Soviet Russia was punishable by exile to Siberia. Stalin was attracted to Lamarks ideas because it made eugenics less complicated. He made a conscious decision to reject Darwin, who had shown more or less conclusively that Lamark was wrong, because evolutionary theory didn't fit in with his plans.

Third : Conventional Buddhism has no deities whatsoever. According to no less of an authority than the Dali Lama : "The idea of a creator god is antithetical to Buddhism. In Buddhism, one must be one's own creator." (Please excuse the paraphrase.)

[Embarr]

If I created an (admittedly simple) universe of my own on my computer and run it for a while, would I be a god to every AI inside the universe? Would they worship me as their supreme being?

And if I delete the program, did I bring forth the end of times?


I've never thought about that. Hmmmm, Embarr, goddess of cyberworld...

I suppose that would be very much like a supreme being creating the "world". Truth be told, you would be god to every AI inside that universe. Whether or not you gave those artificial intelligences enough intelligence (or free will, as some might put it) to determine their own choices, determines whether they follow you, another god of their own creation, or decide you don't exist all together.

[Embarr]

I think you are wrong, hinduism is so limited, but people who believe it are so many, geograficly its so limited if we compaire it to Islam and christianity, even we cant compaire it with these 2.
About stones thing, thats what i meant when i said that the origin of stones for arabs is same for others, but it remain paganism (and thats what mean paganism, for budhism and all others who worship stones) I am not saying that hinduism is a continuation for greek and egyption believing.

What are we comparing? I'm not really seeing a limitation geographically.

[ShoutGrace]

Quite simply becuase the reason people generally do not run around causing wanton destruction is not because they are prevented from doing so by fear of god or the state. It is because they don't want to. People generally like people at least enough to refrain from assaulting or robbing them.

Right, I fully agree, but why is this? Even something simple, i.e. we live in a society which has been inundated by ‘morality’ for a very long time. Perhaps it has become instinctual, to a degree?

People don’t kill others because they have morals. Why do they have them? Is the idea really something as simple as ‘I’d rather not’?


The point is that even an omnibenevolent and omniscient creator-god, in fact, especially an OOCG, would have a vested interest and personal opinion in moral affiars and would thus what he considers moral would be subjective.

I think maybe we are speaking of different things in reference to ‘objective morality’ (or, rather, I am communicating on a less technical level). This is why I mentioned ‘all things’ above. Sure (theoretically), this OOCG would have created morality. I thought objective morality (if existent) was a kind of abstraction entirely dependent on the OOCG’s predetermined value system. Therefore, yes, it is subjective to the OOCG’s will and interest.

However, wouldn’t these morals be entirely objective to us? We have only reality. We would have all of what this OOCG has put forth, including morals, chromosomes, isosceles triangles, hemoglobin and mathematical truths.

So perhaps morals would be subjective in a larger sense (or, rather, the largest possible sense), but they would be objective for humans, within our framework.


Morality is based on what a person values and, since everybody values different things, God included, objectivity is not possible in morality.

And what I’m thinking is that God indeed has these values (theoretically), he created our ability to apprehend them and observe them, he created everything physical and abstract, and therefore as far as we are concerned, the values are objective regarding our existence.

[Kurtz]

You're thinking of authority figures as merely "higher beings". We all learned our ethics and morals from someone, or multiple people. It's whether you connect these lessons in life to a person teaching from a gods lessons or to a person who learned from a person that matters.

Thank you for posting your view-point. I was beginning to worry that all I'd have was the pro-religion views. It doesn't make for a very good research paper if you only have one side's opinions.


No, you missed my point. I am talking about the issue of morality. In my opinion the true ethics come about in a purely detached situation. One in which we could have never been taught by any particular authority figure. I am not interested in morality that takes place in a cultural or “in-society” situation. While this is important, I think it is clear what the debate looks like when cultural, religious and societal morals are challenged. These discussions are important, and highly interesting, but you have to admit, they end up being slightly skewed by intense personal feeling. It seems to me that issues of morality, when placed into an “hypothetical imperative” system, are flawed because they are subject to arbitrary interpretation, and can look equally wrong or right from each perspective. While I agree that we learn much of our ethical knowledge from multiple people, I think it is important to say what I did. Especially, when directly dealing with morality that is thought to have been outlined and dictated by a higher being ( specifically god). What I am saying, is that I think that there is a morality that is rooted outside of a particular system, and in this “outside” morality, choices are purely subjective, and do not immediately mirror the common “in-societal” interpretations of what is ethical and interpreted as right (I am not talking about an afterlife, or anything outside of the world in which we are in). If you can follow me, what I mean is that there is no true morality, and that what we have is a system of codes, in which morality is interpreted by the rules of society, religion, judges, congregations, and individual authority figures such as: your wife, parents, grandparents, boss, friends and all the other people you interact with. This is not universal and varies from each numeral to the next. If you want to get moral laws that have a universal theory, and can be applied to whole sections, the field of logic and game theory should not be overlooked.

Now I realize I have not answered your question: Will religion be dead? Hypothesis: No not for a long shot. Opinion on if this is a bad thing: It is the worst thing. Explanation: Well I can’t go into this, for it would force me to talk about current politics and situations, and we all know how this is morally interpreted and frowned upon by superior authority figures.

“Moraltiy is only true when no emotional prospects are attached”

[Embarr]

No, you missed my point. I am talking about the issue of morality. In my opinion the true ethics come about in a purely detached situation. One in which we could have never been taught by any particular authority figure. I am not interested in morality that takes place in a cultural or “in-society” situation. While this is important, I think it is clear what the debate looks like when cultural, religious and societal morals are challenged. These discussions are important, and highly interesting, but you have to admit, they end up being slightly skewed by intense personal feeling. It seems to me that issues of morality, when placed into an “hypothetical imperative” system, are flawed because they are subject to arbitrary interpretation, and can look equally wrong or right from each perspective. While I agree that we learn much of our ethical knowledge from multiple people, I think it is important to say what I did. Especially, when directly dealing with morality that is thought to have been outlined and dictated by a higher being ( specifically god). What I am saying, is that I think that there is a morality that is rooted outside of a particular system, and in this “outside” morality, choices are purely subjective, and do no immediately mirror the common “in-societal” interpretations of what is ethical and interpreted as right (I am not talking about an afterlife, or anything outside of the world in which we are in). If you can follow me, what I mean is that there is no true morality, and that what we have is a system of codes, in which morality is interpreted by the rules of society, religion, judges, congregations, and individual authority figures such as: your wife, parents, grandparents, boss, friends and all the other people you interact with. This is not universal and varies from each numeral to the next. If you want to get moral laws that have a universal theory, and can be applied to whole sections, the field of logic and game theory should not be overlooked.

Now I realize I have not answered your question: Will religion be dead? Hypothesis: No not for a long shot. Opinion on if this is a bad thing: It is the worst thing. Explanation: Well I can’t go into this, for it would force me to talk about current politics and situations, and we all know how this is morally interpreted and frowned upon by superior authority figures.

“Moraltiy is only true when no emotional prospects are attached”

Yes, but what I was saying is that you get most of what you know or believe from external sources. The rest is from something inside of all of us, religion calls it the soul or spirit, others define it as conscience. You call it logic as do many others. Either way, they are all the same thing and who is to say which word is right? Let's throw away the ideas that "I am right, you are wrong" and look at it academically. The universal morals are something practically built into the human psych. These morals can be damaged though or changed by external influence, or those outside voices of opinion could highten those morals and add more to them. Sometimes it can be changed due to mental illnesses too. What our morals end up as, are not merely an internal influence. Remember, no man is an island.

And I'd have to disagree that true morality is only when emotional prospects are attached. Emotion has everything to do with morals.

[Kurtz]

Yes, but what I was saying is that you get most of what you know or believe from external sources. The rest is from something inside of all of us, religion calls it the soul or spirit, others define it as conscience. You call it logic as do many others. Either way, they are all the same thing and who is to say which word is right? Let's throw away the ideas that "I am right, you are wrong" and look at it academically. The universal morals are something practically built into the human psych. These morals can be damaged though or changed by external influence, or those outside voices of opinion could highten those morals and add more to them. Sometimes it can be changed due to mental illnesses too. What our morals end up as, are not merely an internal influence. Remember, no man is an island.

And I'd have to disagree that true morality is only when emotional prospects are attached. Emotion has everything to do with morals.

I agree that we should not talk about what is right or wrong, I think that it can never be resolved in right or wrong terms. Like I said, it is all subjective and pertains to the direct system in which it is under. And as far as humans having universal moral guidelines built in a priori, this I can not agree with. I agree with the idea of morality and information being derived from external sources, but remember, I am not concerned with information that is taken from a system and therefore expected to apply in said system. I am interested in “detached” morality that is taken out of specific systems. I keep cringing when I see the term “universal” attached to morality. This might be applied to structured morality, but even here, there are many exceptions. I tell you what: I don’t think you are wrong, simply because I feel like we are talking about different types of morality. I just do not agree that morality is a priori and universal. It might be rooted in evolutionary terms and therefore be considered a priori, but I am afraid that morality explained by aggressive nature would not fly very well in a systematic application of moral rules and virtues.



Are you telling me that given the chance to save a person you loved from dying, or instead saving a person who has the ability to save other people by means of “x” discovery, that saving an inferior person simply by rooted emotion morals would not be unethical and irrational?

[Shield&Sword]

I think Stalin was prepairing to become a priest untle he read an abrivation book of Origin of species. Also ideas of Darwin werent far from ideas of Lamark, because at that time for Darwin was only "the natural selection" the only meccanism of evolution, and Darwin was inflenuenced by thoughts of Lamark, i dont know in what opinions Darwin didnt agree with Lamark, but as i know that the "natural selection" for Darwin was "macroscopic" like saying whale is a bear who was trying to fish, not so far from Lamark opinions. for them Mendel's laws werent considered true untle they were tested again in the begining of 1900's and became fact, so evolution scientists were "forced" to add mutation as meccanism of evolution, even if they cant find even one mutation that lead to improving of the species, and all mutation are "bad" and negative for the body structure. And as i know that at time of Stalin the people who saw Mendel's laws as facts were treated bad and thats what i wrote, yes they could be evolutionary scientists but not as Darwin thought, the scientists who were used by Stalin were holding Lamark thoughts but also we can call them "scientists who hold Darwin thoughts as should", so in other words Stalin honored evolutionary scientists (100% Darwin thoughts), because at that time Mendel's laws werent spreaded enough and "cuincidence meccanism" was still the strong one, now with passing of time we know that "cuincidence meccanism" leaded by Darwin thoughts are "primitive" and the microscopic age began so and the intellegent organization of this universe, the non "cuincedence" universe. So as you see they changed names of protagonist: the real evolutionary scientists leaded by Darwin were called Lamark scientists, and the new age of evolutionary scientists who modified Dawrin thoughts were called Darwin scientists, so they can hide the fact that Darwin thoughts (primitive) faught against the true science that became fact nowadys, and they changed the primitive evolution with name Lamark and gave evolutionary scientists to the scientists who modified the main evolution theory, so the evolution theory wont be cut and will remain always since it was written (even if its not the same, and got it's dark period against the theorys that became fact) and remain to fight the idea of supreme being.
Any one agree that "natural selection" cant lead to development of species, natural selection talk about the need of something in order to stay and to survive, like killing or formation of organ in order to be able to do something that help to survive (now considered myth, all goverened by molecular structure of cell not the out side ambience), so they now use mutation as "last chance" but the stucture where mutation accur is so complicated and organized that no mutation can alter such structure, and the most important is that the "cuincidence" doesnt have a place, "mutaion" and "cuincidence" doesnt lead to the formation of complicated and organised structure that lead to formation such beings like human trees animals insects and so on well done structure.

[Madhuri]

hinduism is so limited, but people who believe it are so many, geograficly its so limited if we compaire it to Islam and christianity, even we cant compaire it with these 2.

Are you saying: People who follow Hinduism are less? And because they are less it should be projected as a religion that should not be followed or should be dead or has principles not worthy enough to be followed?

How will this interpretation make Hindus start believing less in their religion? And think that it will be dead.

Shield, you are supposed to answer: Will religion be dead? The question DOES NOT SAY: compare between the religions, and decide which one will survive?

[Shield&Sword]

I didnt say less, i said limited geographicly, exactly like the chinese language, alot of people talk it but its so limited geographicly. And i didnt mean any thing, i was responding Embarr who said the hinduism is spreaded in world, i didnt mean any thing by that, only information i gave. Sorry if it seemed that i was compairing religioun, but really i didnt intend anything only was responding another user nothing more, i thought he gave wrong info and i gave him the right one. Again i say so so so sorry.

[Embarr]

I didnt say less, i said limited geographicly, exactly like the chinese language, alot of people talk it but its so limited geographicly. And i didnt mean any thing, i was responding Embarr who said the hinduism is spreaded in world, i didnt mean any thing by that, only information i gave. Sorry if it seemed that i was compairing religioun, but really i didnt intend anything only was responding another user nothing more, i thought he gave wrong info and i gave him the right one. Again i say so so so sorry.


It's she first of all. Sheesh, you name yourself after a horse and everyone assumes you're a guy...

Secondly, limitation geographically has nothing to do with whether or not a religion survives. Hinduism is a strong religion because it appeals to a diverse group. It is an accepting religion and believes there is more than one path to take to get to the "right destination". This is why it will survive. And still, what are we comparing. The area these religions originated from, or where they are most widely practiced? Is this one of those, "my horse is bigger than your horse" things 'cause that's not a very good attitude.

[subterranean]

I didnt say less, i said limited geographicly, exactly like the chinese language, alot of people talk it but its so limited geographicly. And i didnt mean any thing, i was responding Embarr who said the hinduism is spreaded in world, i didnt mean any thing by that, only information i gave...

What is your intention in giving that information? What are you trying to prove?

[Shield&Sword]

Now you admit its limited geographicly. I dont care if its limited or not limited geographicly, but i care how talk go, you cant say about limited thing its not limited and vice versa. Scuse me but i watch every word of the post and i dont like to miss things here and there, i am used on looking at most little things to check them and know more or check if its right or wrong even if its not important, scuse me if it will bother you, any way nothing happened.
Sub. i didnt mean any thing really only it was wrong claim by Embarr. Not big deal.

[Embarr]

Now you admit its limited geographicly. I dont care if its limited or not limited geographicly, but i care how talk go, you cant say about limited thing its not limited and vice versa. Scuse me but i watch every word of the post and i dont like to miss things here and there, i am used on looking at most little things to check them and know more or check if its right or wrong even if its not important, scuse me if it will bother you, any way nothing happened.
Sub. i didnt mean any thing really only it was wrong claim by Embarr. Not big deal.


I didn't say that and you haven't answered my question. Nevermind. You keep repeating the same arguement and I can't take it anymore. I won't be talking to you anymore.

[cuppajoe_9]

Right, I fully agree, but why is this? Even something simple, i.e. we live in a society which has been inundated by ‘morality’ for a very long time. Perhaps it has become instinctual, to a degree?

People don’t kill others because they have morals. Why do they have them? Is the idea really something as simple as ‘I’d rather not’?I would argue that the instinct against killing other people was present before society solidified it. If I may bring evolutionary biology into this discussion again (and I will probably regret it), there is generally no benefit to killing members of your own species who have a chance of passing on their genes (which are largely identical to the ones in your body). I am making an absolute mockery of selfish gene theory with this sort of argument, and I think I'm going to drop it. Point is : abhoration for killing ones fellow human beings may go even deeper than societal convention.
However, wouldn’t these morals be entirely objective to us? We have only reality. We would have all of what this OOCG has put forth, including morals, chromosomes, isosceles triangles, hemoglobin and mathematical truths.Yes, of course they would be objective to us, but they would still be subjective at some level, the same way that morality would be objective to everybody else if we declared you supreme ombudsman. You understand, of course, that I am not advocating the situation, I am simply trying to show that while practical objective morality is quite possible, acutall objective morality is not.
Also ideas of Darwin werent far from ideas of Lamark, because at that time for Darwin was only "the natural selection" the only meccanism of evolution, and Darwin was inflenuenced by thoughts of Lamark, i dont know in what opinions Darwin didnt agree with Lamark, but as i know that the "natural selection" for Darwin was "macroscopic" like saying whale is a bear who was trying to fish, not so far from Lamark opinions.I really should leave this one alone, but poor Darwin must be wearing himself out from rotating in his grave so much. Lamark believed that if an organism was forced to stretch its neck to eat leaves, its children would inherit a longer neck. Stalin (who was indeed studying to become a priest, but either did not read Origin of Species or regected its arguments) was attracted to this hypothesis because it would allow him to build a race of people who were strong at birth simply by making everybody exercise. Darwin, on the other hand, stated that inherited traits were set by something (and was proven right by Mendel's work, which he never read). So if an animal eats the leaves off of small trees, the trees which are genetically programmed to grow taller will be more successful. If the trees get taller, the animals which have longer necks will be more successful. If the animals get longer necks, the trees will become even taller, and after a few thousand years of this we get very tall trees and very strange looking animals.
so evolution scientists were "forced" to add mutation as meccanism of evolution, even if they cant find even one mutation that lead to improving of the species, and all mutation are "bad" and negative for the body structure.No. Wrong. False. There are myraid documented examples of beneficial mutations, mostly among bacteria, as they work on a much shorter time scale than most organisms. In adition : mutation is not the only mechanism of evolution. In fact, it is a fairly rare one. Most new traits enter the gene pool through the process of 'crossing-over' which occurs in all organisms that reproduce sexually.
And as i know that at time of Stalin the people who saw Mendel's laws as facts were treated bad and thats what i wrote, yes they could be evolutionary scientists but not as Darwin thought, the scientists who were used by Stalin were holding Lamark thoughts but also we can call them "scientists who hold Darwin thoughts as should", so in other words Stalin honored evolutionary scientists (100% Darwin thoughts), because at that time Mendel's laws werent spreaded enough and "cuincidence meccanism" was still the strong one, now with passing of time we know that "cuincidence meccanism" leaded by Darwin thoughts are "primitive" and the microscopic age began so and the intellegent organization of this universe, the non "cuincedence" universe.Again, you are quite wrong. Stalin banned Darwin as well as Mendel. Yes, Darwin's theories were not complete explanations, and that's why evolutionary theory has itself evolved as new evidence comes to the fore. Arguing that because Darwin was wrong because he didn't have a good enough microscope is like saying that the world is flat because Colombus never got to India.
So as you see they changed names of protagonist: the real evolutionary scientists leaded by Darwin were called Lamark scientists, and the new age of evolutionary scientists who modified Dawrin thoughts were called Darwin scientists, so they can hide the fact that Darwin thoughts (primitive) faught against the true science that became fact nowadys, and they changed the primitive evolution with name Lamark and gave evolutionary scientists to the scientists who modified the main evolution theory, so the evolution theory wont be cut and will remain always since it was written (even if its not the same, and got it's dark period against the theorys that became fact) and remain to fight the idea of supreme being.That is one of the most bizzare strings of words I have ever read. Nobody is trying to prove that there isn't a supreme being, especially Darwin. Origin of Species credits God with the initial creation of life on this planet. Your criticisms of evolutionary theory are a bunch of straw men.

[Chrysalisyah]

There is a possible chance human will never relinquish the ideas of religion; the belief in the existence of god or gods that they created the universe, a particular system of faith or worship based on religious belief, a controlling influence in one's life; a thing one feels v strongly about. I say, nay.

[bhekti]

Point is : abhoration for killing ones fellow human beings may go even deeper than societal convention..

I really believe that there really is such an instinct, abhoration for killing ones human beings. But I also believe that instincts can be supressed for some reason (just as religious instinct), and reason is one famous factor of tragedy (I remember the Greeks and Shakespeare). what about will for power (i.e. politics)? Perhaps that too go deeper than the abhoration for killing, even deeper that any abhoration does not work anymore.

[cuppajoe_9]

I really believe that there really is such an instinct, abhoration for killing ones human beings. But I also believe that instincts can be supressed for some reason (just as religious instinct), and reason is one famous factor of tragedy (I remember the Greeks and Shakespeare). what about will for power (i.e. politics)? Perhaps that too go deeper than the abhoration for killing, even deeper that any abhoration does not work anymore.

Human beings are unique in that we can defy our genetic instincts, either for good or ill. We prove it every time we use contraceptives, to pick one example.

[bhekti]

Human beings are unique in that we can defy our genetic instincts, either for good or ill. We prove it every time we use contraceptives, to pick one example.

Exactly. And, I think I've given another example.

[blazeofglory]

I'm trying to get articles that both support or disprove the theory that religion will be dead in the future. I've heard before that some scientists believe that in the future science will conquer, so to speak, and religion will be dead. In other words, that logic will overcome the superstitions and unstable beliefs of religions. I decided I'd do a paper on this but I'm having difficulty finding books, papers, etc. that support either view-point. Please help if anyone has a suggestion, and anyones opinion on the matter would be great too.

So, yay or nay on religion dying?

It is dying now.