The Religion thread

[Nekulor]

*edit*
Gah! Double post.

[Nekulor]

These people being....who, exactly?

Although I find it amusing that two out of your three 'bad things' are characteristic of quite a few American churches. Mainstream churches, at that. They, um, seem to be gaining strength, not losing it.

Incidentally, I'd be curious to know how it is you reconcile your support of torture and your Christianity.

For one, I don't consider groups like the chaos gnosticists and satanists exactly as mainstream, at least as religious groups. Their followings are nominal, at best, right now, with their numbers being around 1-2% of all religious people in the US, at most. I'll see if I can dig up the exact figures, because I was looking at it for a government debate a few weeks back for school. Now, I understand certain mainstream churches hold those views. I'm not a member of those churches, I tend to stick to more traditionalist values, but avoid churches like Fundamental Baptist, because their interpretation of everything in this world as negative is a major turn off. The fire and brimstone thing just makes me angry.

Now, how do I equate my faith with my belief that torture is a viable technique? I see it as a necessary evil in certain cases, that's how I see torture. The debate over whether it is effective or not can go on, because both sides have studies showing what they want to show, and both claim that their argument is right and the other side is in the wrong. Now, I know my religion generally frowns on the practice of torture, and I don't like the torture of people unless its necessary or their crimes are so heinous that it serves as a reciprocal punishment. For example, I would have condoned the torture of Hitler for his crimes, had he lived, because he had millions of people suffer and then be executed in the name of racism. That warrants a terrible, painful demise in my opinion, because of the physical suffering inflicted on all of those people.

So, to sum that up. Should I condone torture of any sort based on the teachings of Christ? No, I shouldn't. Do I? Yes, in certain cases. I'm not a perfect person, I know that. One of my traits is that I have a strong sense of reciprocal justice, an eye for an eye. If you kill someone in cold blood, then justice should hold the same for you. Its simple and effective. Should I hold more compassion for the criminal? Yes, Christ did, however, I am not him and though I try, I can't seem to hold much empathy for murderers, rapists, sadists and terrorists. I simply do not care about their well being. In my opinion, when they committed their crimes, they forfeited their human rights as they stole those of their victims. I believe I have now fully clarified my position on this.

Also mulu, as a scientist myself, I don't see how I can't be religious as well. I've been doing Molecular Biology work since about 2001. The professor I work under is Jewish, and attends services. Half the people in the lab attend some form of church from Orthodox to Methodist Christian churches. We're a highly respected ribosome research lab and get quite a measure accomplished, so you can't claim conflict of interests. I see the mechanics of molecular biology as a rather ingenious invention by god. I see many of the parables and descriptions in the start of the bible as metaphorical depictions of the creation of the universe. God did not take 7 literal days to create the universe, but crafted it over many billions of years. I'm more supportive of the theory of intelligent design. I acknowledge evolution, but the chance that everything evolved randomly from the first primordial atoms released from the singularity that started this universe seems very, very far fetched to me. Energy is never created or destroyed, and I believe that each organism retains a bit of that source energy from the start of the universe . That energy is the soul. That then returns to the source of all that energy. I've seen and heard too much in my lifetime to believe that there isn't an afterlife. You want to criticize me for my beliefs, fine. But to say anyone with a religion is essentially an irrational hick that knows nothing but violence and hatred and leads to nothing but damage and destruction, I think you are way, way out of line. Disagreeing with someone is one thing, but to personally attack them and their faith when you lack proof of god's nonexistence is irresponsible. I know I have no proof of His existence, but you have no proof alternatively, so get off the high horse you have situated your so obviously enlightened self upon and prove that what myself and many millions of others believe is "hocus pocus".

[Grand Fromage]

Disagreeing with someone is one thing, but to personally attack them and their faith when you lack proof of god's nonexistence is irresponsible. I know I have no proof of His existence, but you have no proof alternatively, so get off the high horse you have situated your so obviously enlightened self upon and prove that what myself and many millions of others believe is "hocus pocus".

Funny you should say this, since you claim to be a scientist and then demonstrate that you don't understand the burden of proof. It's something you should be well familiar with in that field, but your irrational belief seems to interfere.

Outside a legal context, "burden of proof" means that someone suggesting a new theory or stating a claim must provide evidence to support it: it is not sufficient to say "you can't disprove this." Specifically, when anyone is making a bold claim, it is not someone else's responsibility to disprove the claim, but is rather the responsibility of the person who is making the bold claim to prove it.

[Nekulor]

GF, he made the bold claim that god doesn't exist first. He has the burden of proof.

:shifty eyes:

I mean, seriously, how do I prove god exists? People have been working on that for thousands of years, and most of what we have are first hand accounts with near death experiences. I don't think I'm going to be the one to drag him from his busy schedule and get his metaphysical butt down here. I don't have to prove that god exists to you, I merely have to prove that I'm not totally off my rocker for believing god exists. Thus, taking the circumstances of Christ's birth, the acts he performed, and the lack of a body in his tomb after the third day of his death, coinciding with the prophecy, I'll take that as my evidence. Now, disprove it. James Cameron just unearthed his family tomb, they believe, and he claims that Christ's body isn't there, only a bit of fabric was in the area labeled for his body. No organic remains what so ever, even though there were remains in the other burial plots. It doesn't 100% prove Christianity, but it does prove Jesus did not end up buried. Whether he rose from the dead on the third day or his body was removed by someone else, that will be decided by archaeologists as work in that part of the world continues.

[mxlm]

I'm not a member of those churches, I tend to stick to more traditionalist values

Define traditionalist values, if you don't mind.

[NickD]

Also mulu, as a scientist myself, I don't see how I can't be religious as well. I've been doing Molecular Biology work since about 2001.

I call bull[manure]. In one thread you live with your parents and go to band camp. In the real world, that would put you at no older than 14. But you're in America, so let's say 18. In the other thread you're a molecular biologist with 6 years of experience. That would put you mid to late twenties. Unless you were doing molecular biology work at 12...

most of what we have are first hand accounts with near death experiences

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=714AS39CQ_I

[Zakharra]

Also mulu, as a scientist myself, I don't see how I can't be religious as well. I've been doing Molecular Biology work since about 2001.

I call bull[manure]. In one thread you live with your parents and go to band camp. In the real world, that would put you at no older than 14. But you're in America, so let's say 18. In the other thread you're a molecular biologist with 6 years of experience. That would put you mid to late twenties. Unless you were doing molecular biology work at 12...

Unless they have band camp for adults too. *shrugs*

[NickD]

That would just be wrong.

[Nekulor]

Also mulu, as a scientist myself, I don't see how I can't be religious as well. I've been doing Molecular Biology work since about 2001.

I call bull[manure]. In one thread you live with your parents and go to band camp. In the real world, that would put you at no older than 14. But you're in America, so let's say 18. In the other thread you're a molecular biologist with 6 years of experience. That would put you mid to late twenties. Unless you were doing molecular biology work at 12...

most of what we have are first hand accounts with near death experiences

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=714AS39CQ_I

Nick, I started out at UMD at 12. If you want, I can link to my first paper, just released this week. I understand the field, I have 6 years experience, I just still need to graduate HS. I'm 17. I'm not doing too bad for a full time High School student. So, when I joined here I was 16.

I've been interested in the field since I was 5, and began actually studying the concepts around age 6-7. By 12, I understood many of the basic principles of molecular biology, and now I'm making viral constructs for ribosomal frame shifting assays.

[NickD]

Nick, I started out at UMD at 12. If you want, I can link to my first paper, just released this week. I understand the field, I have 6 years experience, I just still need to graduate HS. I'm 17. I'm not doing too bad for a full time High School student. So, when I joined here I was 16.

I've been interested in the field since I was 5, and began actually studying the concepts around age 6-7. By 12, I understood many of the basic principles of molecular biology, and now I'm making viral constructs for ribosomal frame shifting assays.

I don't particularily believe you.

[mxlm]

But...but...that kid in Jesus Camp was saved and born again at age five because he wanted more out of life. Why's Nek's story so unbelievable?

[NickD]

Because it sounds like a load of crap?

[Mulu]

Also mulu, as a scientist myself, I don't see how I can't be religious as well.

Many scientists are religious. Of course, they are loaded with cognitive dissonance, and have to constantly rationalize their conflicting beliefs.

I've been doing Molecular Biology work since about 2001. The professor I work under is Jewish, and attends services. Half the people in the lab attend some form of church from Orthodox to Methodist Christian churches.

You should ask them all what they think about torture.

We're a highly respected ribosome research lab and get quite a measure accomplished, so you can't claim conflict of interests.

Of course I can. Chemistry, even Biochemistry, is basically just a complex form of cooking. You don't need to understand or believe in evolution to do it, though it makes you a lesser scientist, or budding scientist as it were. I take it you have a parent or family friend that got you into Molecular Bio?

I see the mechanics of molecular biology as a rather ingenious invention by god.

Then you don't understand it very well. Look at all the errors that occur, the mutations, the backwards, overly complex, double inhibited methods that biochemical processes follow. Those are hints of randomness. And why do organisms have biochemistries that are very similar to some organisms and very different from others? Could it be an artifact of common ancestry?

Seriously, the whole equation of abiogenesis and evolution is contained in Biochemistry. If you can't see it there, you're hopeless. If you read one book in your lifetime, read "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins. The original argument for intelligent design was to compare a human eye to a watch. The intricate design of each supposedly points to an intelligent creator. Of course, in the human eye, the blood vessels are *in front of* the retina, not behind it like in birds, thus showing the randomness of evolution (or a rather retarded god). Anyway, read the book.

I see many of the parables and descriptions in the start of the bible as metaphorical depictions of the creation of the universe.

So witches are what then? And why can't we eat shellfish? I'm glad you understand it's okay to engage in slavery, so long as it's not of your neighbor.

You have to really engage in some creative reinterpretation to make the bible into a metaphor, and the guys who wrote it did *not* intend it to be a metaphor. It was literally true to them. Pretending the Bible is a metaphor is simply untrue. It's also another excellent example of cognitive dissonance. (You did read the link, right?)

I acknowledge evolution, but the chance that everything evolved randomly from the first primordial atoms released from the singularity that started this universe seems very, very far fetched to me.

Compared to having an invisible friend do it all? One who likes to impregnate virgins, and smote cities, but leaves no trace of his actions?

Energy is never created or destroyed, and I believe that each organism retains a bit of that source energy from the start of the universe. That energy is the soul.

Cool, souls can be converted to gasoline, atomic bombs and toxic waste! It's not just a nuclear deterrent, it's a soul energy missle! Coming straight from God! Wow, cognitive dissonance indeed.

I've seen and heard too much in my lifetime to believe that there isn't an afterlife.

You're 17, you haven't seen anything yet. But it is a common line from movies.

You want to criticize me for my beliefs, fine. But to say anyone with a religion is essentially an irrational hick that knows nothing but violence and hatred and leads to nothing but damage and destruction, I think you are way, way out of line.

We call that a Straw man. Certainly those people exists, but they don't constitute the whole of religious people, nor did I claim that.

Disagreeing with someone is one thing, but to personally attack them and their faith when you lack proof of god's nonexistence is irresponsible. I know I have no proof of His existence, but you have no proof alternatively, so get off the high horse you have situated your so obviously enlightened self upon and prove that what myself and many millions of others believe is "hocus pocus".

Well, technically it's impossible to prove a negative. Prove there are no fairies. However, I do have an extremely persuasive argument.

Consider the source. Where does this idea of a creator god come from? Not from Jesus certainly, his religion is a plagiarism. Not from Judaism, they were a late comer. Ancient Egypt? Ancient Greece? No, the concept predates civilization according to paleoanthropologists. So, the idea of god comes from the Stone Age. What you are believing, without evidence or reason, is a concept invented by a guy who knocked rocks together for a living. Let's call him Joe Neolithic.

Now, Joe Neolithic didn't understand much. In fact, he understood so little that in order to feel like he had a grasp on the world, he needed to fabricate an explanation for everything. So lightning was angry spirits and disease was angry spirits and a good hunting season was happy spirits, etc. When the question came up of where did it all come from, well it was a creator spirit of course.

Humans love to communicate ideas to each other, and the idea of a creator spirit was a particularly sticky one, meaning that when people heard it, they kept it in their heads. Fast forward thousands of years, and you get organized religions with highly detailed accounts of this creator spirit and his (rarely her) exploits. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of different versions. It was all fictitious, of course, and even you don't believe in Zeus, but it's basically all the same original creator spirit story retold and reinvented. Then to make things even better humans decided to fight each other over which fictional creator spirit story was the correct one, and at that point you can fast foward to today where it is still happening.

I know god doesn't exist because I know from where the story originated: An ignorant human. Folk over the millenia have dressed the story up, and fabricated all sorts of "evidence" and "witnesses," but at the end of the day it's still the same stupid story. Some creator spirit did it.

Now, the spirit explanation for lightning and disease and good hunting has been abandoned by most people as their understandings increased. So, what happens when we figure out the process of abiogenesis and the Big Bang? Bye bye creator spirit. Belief in mythical beings is inversely proportional to knowledge of the cosmos.

[Nekulor]

Nick, I started out at UMD at 12. If you want, I can link to my first paper, just released this week. I understand the field, I have 6 years experience, I just still need to graduate HS. I'm 17. I'm not doing too bad for a full time High School student. So, when I joined here I was 16.

I've been interested in the field since I was 5, and began actually studying the concepts around age 6-7. By 12, I understood many of the basic principles of molecular biology, and now I'm making viral constructs for ribosomal frame shifting assays.

I don't particularily believe you.

You want to see my first paper? I have a link handy.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entre ... d_RVDocSum

There it is. JT Quesinberry.

[mxlm]

So, to sum that up. Should I condone torture of any sort based on the teachings of Christ? No, I shouldn't. Do I? Yes, in certain cases. I'm not a perfect person, I know that. One of my traits is that I have a strong sense of reciprocal justice, an eye for an eye. If you kill someone in cold blood, then justice should hold the same for you. Its simple and effective. Should I hold more compassion for the criminal? Yes, Christ did, however, I am not him and though I try, I can't seem to hold much empathy for murderers, rapists, sadists and terrorists. I simply do not care about their well being. In my opinion, when they committed their crimes, they forfeited their human rights as they stole those of their victims. I believe I have now fully clarified my position on this.

Here's my problem. Given all this, how can you claim to be a Christian?

Jesus blessed the peacemakers (Matthew 5:9), cursed the warriors (Matthew 26:52), said we should love our enemies (Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27,35), and said that it isn't acceptable to resist violence with violence (Matthew 5:39, Luke 6:29).

It's not that you're 'not a perfect person'. It's that your views seem to be totally divorced from anything resembling Christ's teachings. If you'll permit a blunt question, which of Christ's dictums do you adhere to?

It may seem like this post is a personal attack, and if so I apologize; it is not. It is merely an attempt to satisfy curiosity.