Stop what you're doing and laugh at the U.S.

[Mangled*]

Well, if I read correct, your are indirectly implying that the universe we know is actually infinite. And that just isn't an answer either.
You either tell me how the universe came to be, or God IS the answer.

There you are with the absolute truth thing again. That is what's called an argument from ignorance. You're making the assertion that if argument A fails to explain something then argument B must be true.

That's like if someone said to you I "have a pet" and then you ask them "Does it have whiskers?" and they say "No" then you shout "Aha! It must be a dog because it has no whiskers!" completely disregarding any other possibilities.

Give up, you're seriously lacking in common sense.

Why can't the universe have always been here?

How about a little thing called entropy? You said that everything only changes, but that's not the full truth.  Each change reduces the energy of the universe.  We ARE travelling towards an end of some sort.  And if entropy is true, and energy only ever decreases, then the question becomes real again: Where did the original energy come from?

Also, you've conveniently ignored both of the points I brought up this morning.

Complete FAILURE in underderstanding what entropy is. This is just sad man. Read a science book or something.

Which points were those? I'm assuming I didn't answer them because they were as bad as your understanding of entropy.

[dnmr]

Well, if I read correct, your are indirectly implying that the universe we know is actually infinite. And that just isn't an answer either.
You either tell me how the universe came to be, or God IS the answer.

now you're just being silly. Considering you're an intelligent fellow, you should acknowledge that people always used to explain things they couldn't understand by assuming they're a product of some mystical being (a god of some sorts). The cavemen saw a lightning, went all "zomgwtf magics" and made up a god that apparently shoots lightnings out of his arse. But today we understand enough about these things and have the technology to explain such phenomena.
I just like to think that given enough time the humanity will figure it all out. Of course if you feel more comfortable filling a gap in your mind with somehting completely supernatural, it's your choice (:

How about a little thing called entropy? You said that everything only changes, but that's not the full truth.  Each change reduces the energy of the universe.  We ARE travelling towards an end of some sort.  And if entropy is true, and energy only ever decreases, then the question becomes real again: Where did the original energy come from?

hold on now, what?.. I thought that the energy stays constant, just the entropy is increasing. Could someone please redirect me to a good read about it?

[iDante]

How about a little thing called entropy? You said that everything only changes, but that's not the full truth.  Each change reduces the energy of the universe.  We ARE travelling towards an end of some sort.  And if entropy is true, and energy only ever decreases, then the question becomes real again: Where did the original energy come from?

AAAAAAAAH NOOOOOOOO!
Each little change increases the entropy of the universe, it does not decrease its energy. The general idea is that near the big bang the entropy of the universe was very small, and it is slowly increasing with time. More on that.

Well, if I read correct, your are indirectly implying that the universe we know is actually infinite. And that just isn't an answer either.
You either tell me how the universe came to be, or God IS the answer.

Wtf man how is that logical. Science will be the first to admit that it doesn't know nearly everything. God of the gaps just doesn't work logically. As scientific knowledge increases (often hampered by the religious), God's place in our uncertainty decreases.

For me, the fact that we have an innate set of morals is strongly indicative of a supreme being.  We hear about a fireman going into a burning building to save someone, then both of them dying as the building collapses, and you know what our response is? "Oh, he was so brave.  What a great person."  Why do we think sacrifice is good? It sure isn't utilitarian, and evolution is all about utilitarianism.

Why do we think humans have rights? Why do we think it's good to give homeless people money and bad to just kill them off for being a drain on society? Where do these values come from, and why does everyone have them?

The christian god would have us hating gays, keeping slaves, and marrying the women that we rape. Those great values you profess surely do not come from your religion.

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

Complete FAILURE in underderstanding what entropy is. This is just sad man. Read a science book or something.

Hey, you learn something new every day.  You're right, I was mistaken about the nature of entropy.  Interesting.

Which points were those? I'm assuming I didn't answer them because they were as bad as your understanding of entropy.

It's really not that hard to scroll up and look for a post with my name attached to it.  Or, just check the quote below.

For me, the fact that we have an innate set of morals is strongly indicative of a supreme being.  We hear about a fireman going into a burning building to save someone, then both of them dying as the building collapses, and you know what our response is? "Oh, he was so brave.  What a great person."  Why do we think sacrifice is good? It sure isn't utilitarian, and evolution is all about utilitarianism.

Why do we think humans have rights? Why do we think it's good to give homeless people money and bad to just kill them off for being a drain on society? Where do these values come from, and why does everyone have them?

The christian god would have us hating gays, keeping slaves, and marrying the women that we rape. Those great values you profess surely do not come from your religion.

I'll need to look up the slave thing, but I seem to remember the slaves that were "authorized" were quite a bit different from slaves as we think of them today.  They weren't mistreated or overworked or anything like that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_slavery#Working_conditions

As for the gay and the rape points, that's little more than the result of a very specific and restrictive view on sexuality.  Sex is between men and women, within marriage and nowhere else.  Heck, the Bible even condemns lustful thoughts, comparing it to adultery.  Marrying rape victims is grounded in the belief that sex is an irreversible, binding act.

My interpretation of this is that being gay is a corruption of God's plan for sex, so it's considered sinful.  Of course, so is having lustful thoughts, so I'm in absolutely no position to judge them.  My take is that yes, homosexuality is wrong, but so is a ton of stuff I do (intentionally or otherwise).  Who am I to say that what they do is worse than what I do?

That's why I'm opposed to homosexuality, but I'm also opposed to the "GOD HATES ***S" people.  "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," right?

[homerofgods]

I'm reading up on a book (Universe - Dorling Kindersley) It's really good and makes it easy to understand diffucult things.

Sites you really should have a look at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/SpaceRip
http://www.universetoday.com/ (site seams to be down just now)

[Mangled*]

Hey, you learn something new every day.  You're right, I was mistaken about the nature of entropy.  Interesting.

I have respect for people who can admit they were wrong about something. So that's good. I still wonder how you feel about the idea of the universe having been always there now with that all cleared up. Since matter can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only shift between states.

As for where morals come from, really I think they come from basic common sense and then manifest themselves in society through group understanding. Here's a good but long-winded example:

Imagine before society all you have is people who have no concept of morals but they understand consequenses of other people's actions. I don't want to be killed by anyone, because that would suck, and other people surely feel the same. So we all agree on a rule that none of us will kill eachother because none of us want that to happen, and to deter that from happening we make a rule that says if anyone kills anyone else they get punished. There, I just formed a simple society with a moral law against murder.

Morals come from things we understand to be positive and negative because of their impact on us. The same thing applies for theft, assault, rape etc... This is, along with trade and bartering, one of the most basic foundations of any society. As education and communication get more sophisticated so do ideas and concepts about what is right or wrong. The reason why we know today slavery is terrible but 500 years ago we didn't has nothing to do with religion or any progress by religion, it has to do with communication and understanding and the progression of those things.

[iDante]

Marrying rape victims is grounded in the belief that sex is an irreversible, binding act.

I'm a little bit terrified by this sentence. You may not have meant is as such, but it sounds like you support the forced marriage of raped women to their rapists because sex is an "irreversible, binding act."

That's why I'm opposed to homosexuality

I equate opposition to homosexuality with opposition to humans in general and thus am disgusted by anyone that can say this seriously. Some humans are gay, calling how they live their lives "sinful" is insulting to all other humans as well. Homosexuality is an aspect of humanity.

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

Imagine before society all you have is people who have no concept of morals but they understand consequenses of other people's actions. I don't want to be killed by anyone, because that would suck, and other people surely feel the same. So we all agree on a rule that none of us will kill eachother because none of us want that to happen, and to deter that from happening we make a rule that says if anyone kills anyone else they get punished. There, I just formed a simple society with a moral law against murder.

I would argue that there's more to it than "Gee if I can kill him, he can kill me."  The Declaration of Independence mentions peoples' inherent right to "life, liberty, and happiness," and it's right on the mark.  For some reason, there's a general consensus that people deserve life, and it goes deeper than "Let's ban murder because that'll protect my hide."  Think about it this way.  We have animal cruelty laws, right? It's not because we're afraid of animals being cruel to us otherwise; it's because we think it's wrong.  Why? Where does that feeling come from?

Homosexuality is an aspect of humanity.

So is greed, cruelty, deception, etc., etc.  I'm not putting homosexuality on par with any of those, of course (honestly I see it as mostly harmless), but just because something is human nature doesn't make it good.

[demoniac93]

Nah, I just asked you for the origin of the universe.
To me, seeing as you FAILED to explain one that is scientifically proven, I didn't ascertain that my opinion is the absolute truth, but simply that yours is absolute bulls**t. I already KNOW, that in my logic, which works like clockwork, God is true.

I despise trolls, and I'm no hypocrite, thank you very much.

[Mittsu]

lol demoniac must be trolling, this is just retarded

[Mangled*]

Nah, I just asked you for the origin of the universe.
To me, seeing as you FAILED to explain one that is scientifically proven, I didn't ascertain that my opinion is the absolute truth, but simply that yours is absolute bulls**t. I already KNOW, that in my logic, which works like clockwork, God is true.

I despise trolls, and I'm no hypocrite, thank you very much.

You genuinely fail to understand how science and logical reasoning works. Science is the process of discovering answers, not pretending to know them. There are scientific hypothesis and ideas about the origin of the universe, but we do not know if any of them are accurate or not yet. It is a progressive process, not an unchanging stance.

You amuse me, you state that you do not hold a position of absolute truth, and then not even two sentences later you go on to state a position of absolute truth that you hold. Your only reasoning is that "you KNOW" in "your logic" and that really you don't care if your reasoning or knowledge makes any sense or not.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to cease responding to you in this thread from this point onwards because you are genuinely bewildered and frightened by any kind of rational explanation that doesn't align itself with your ideology, your only answer to anything and everything is "God did it, and everything else is wrong" and you lack the ability to respond with any other counter-argument. You are the definition of closed-minded and ignorant because you are unable to take on any new information that doesn't fit with your preconceptions.

It was fun for a while though, good luck for the future, I hope maybe one day you are able to do some introspective and objective thinking about the world and all the things you value.

I would argue that there's more to it than "Gee if I can kill him, he can kill me."  The Declaration of Independence mentions peoples' inherent right to "life, liberty, and happiness," and it's right on the mark.  For some reason, there's a general consensus that people deserve life, and it goes deeper than "Let's ban murder because that'll protect my hide."  Think about it this way.  We have animal cruelty laws, right? It's not because we're afraid of animals being cruel to us otherwise; it's because we think it's wrong.  Why? Where does that feeling come from?

So is greed, cruelty, deception, etc., etc.  I'm not putting homosexuality on par with any of those, of course (honestly I see it as mostly harmless), but just because something is human nature doesn't make it good.

The example I gave to social development of morality is as basic as it gets. It goes further than mere self-righteousness if you expand on the concept. Why do we have animal cruelty laws? Because we have a heightened perception of the world through intelligence. We understand that all animals can potentially feel physical pain and trauma, because we can. So we can relate the position of an animal to our own. Explain to me why some animals are worshipped in other religions? Why are cows sacred to Hindus? Why were cats sacred to the Egyptians? These things have nothing to do with the judeo-christian God.

Religious beliefs do not change, yet morality does. Why did Germany, a predominantly Catholic country facilitate the rise and domination of Nationalist Socialism? Why do priests rape kids?

Morality changes with knowledge, communication and understanding. It has literally nothing to do with religion.

As for homosexuality, don't you think everyone should have the right to live how they like so long as they don't harm anyone else? Should gay people ignore their feelings and live their whole lives unhappy and unfulfilled? If God created everything then he created homosexuals.

[demoniac93]

Ugh, stop running circles around my main question already: Does science have any idea what the origin of the universe is, and can science prove it?
There's a difference between saying that my opinion isn't absolute truth, and that my opinion is 100% true to MYSELF.
Stop trying to create gaps in my posts and answer the damned question.

[KYnetiK]

Thankyou, God


Hallelujah!

[Zamorak]

Haha Mangled you speak as if postmodernists aren't allowed to believe anything then!

First off, demoniac is you believe in any God, that is an absolute truth. You can say that God is real only for you, and not for Mangled. However, when do you that, you're not believing in the full idea of God. I'm not sure what your beliefs are but when you say God is real, to say he might not be real for someone else is denying the omnipotence of your God... But if you're okay with that then fine.

Furthermore, none of you seem to have any grasp on theology at all. You can't explain theology using a secular scope of understanding because it simply doesn't work. Especially if you don't understand the underlying issues. 

Also, I'll indulge you all on how Christianity works. I know that not many of you will understand or even accept these views but this is what the theology really is in application to all the things you've been saying about Christians etc...

First, marrying rapists/victims: I'm not really sure where you derived this from but its entirely untrue. Its as simple as that. No legitimate Church holds that to be an accepted doctrine.

Hating gays: While some christian people might hate gays, hate is a sin and they do not hate them because Christian belief demands it. In fact, the basis of Christianity is love. Hate is antithetical to Christianity's dogma.

Also, mangled, you make the assertion that since God created everything then he created gays..? Thats not how it works. The Christian position on this is that homosexuality is an indulgence of the left hand kingdom, and is therefore sinful. Also, Christianity does not hold the belief that homosexuals are created.

Also, disclaimer: everything I just said is what Christian's believe, and I'm not trying to say "this is how you should think because its the only right way", I'm just trying to explain things from a true doctrinal perspective. Thanks.


So pretty much everything y'all have said about christianity is wrong or not properly applied. I can go into more detail if you want, but I doubt y'all want to have a civilised discussion on the finer points of morality and theology.

[iDante]

First, marrying rapists/victims: I'm not really sure where you derived this from but its entirely untrue. Its as simple as that. No legitimate Church holds that to be an accepted doctrine.

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 says it quite clearly. I'm not saying we follow the morals put forth in the bible, that would be terrible. Rather, societies morals have grown out of their primitive roots. As it is in the bible however one could imagine probably correctly that at some point in the past this was the accepted dogma of the church.

About gays, I don't care if you don't think that they aren't born that way, science shows that they are. As a matter of fact most higher mammals on our planet have seemingly randomly born gay individuals, who mate for life with same-sex partners. Denying the science is plain ignorance.

[Mangled*]

Haha Mangled you speak as if postmodernists aren't allowed to believe anything then!

People are allowed to believe what they like. But if they can't justify their beliefs then I'll just engage them with intelligent questions and arguments and watch them squirm desperately. The stupidest of them believe themselves to be in a position of 'winning the argument'.

Personally I think people should only believe in what can be varified and substanciated to be true. Otherwise you could wind up believing any old fairytale. People shouldn't be scared of the truth.

Also, mangled, you make the assertion that since God created everything then he created gays..? Thats not how it works. The Christian position on this is that homosexuality is an indulgence of the left hand kingdom, and is therefore sinful. Also, Christianity does not hold the belief that homosexuals are created.

No I don't make that assertion since I don't believe that God. I make the point that if you believe that 'God created everything' then by definition he created homosexuality, that may or may not be indirectly, but if God is all-knowing then he would surely would have seen it coming. If you believe homosexuality is a sin and that God created everything then you must believe that God knowingly made 10% of the population sinners by default. Yes, that is the average percentage of homosexuals globally, deal with it.

[Zamorak]

No, you're trying to tell me what the correct way of thinking is. That is wrong, and that is not how Christian belief goes. Maybe that's your logic but thats not the theological logic. Don't say it is.

On another note, anyone who believes in something by definition has justified it to themselves. Just because their justification isn't enough for you does not mean that their reality is not truth. A more accurate wording of "But if they can't justify their beliefs then I'll just engage....." should read ""But if I deem their justification unworth then I'll just engage....." right?

It comes off as if you're trying to promote your philosophy above others, that if something isn't in line with what you think then they must be inherently wrong or stupid.


So here is my question to you: If someone is completely happy with a philosophy of living that is opposite to your own, then what is the problem?

What is the truth that people are scared of? Do you claim that we as humans can judge between what is the truth or not?

iDante: Yes, deut says that. But before you judge that passage by todays culture keep several things in mind:
1. (extremely simplified) theologically Jesus had not come to bear the burden of sin, so punishment was harder.
2. Women were not treated with %100 equality to men in the day. That was culture.
Most of deut is extreme, yes. The passage you mentioned like I said is not held to be "standard procedure", especially because deut was written to Israel after/during the exodus.

Secondly, the question about whether gays are born or not is an extension of the nature vs. nurture debate.

[homerofgods]

Mangled, I just have to say you failed that one. They believe that God created sin, and man has a free will to do right or wrong. Not that anything about christianity is logical, but your reasoning was bad at that one.
I think keeping it simple and see the bigger picture is a better way to discuss if there's a God or not, religious discussions always get stuck at some small point.

[Mangled*]

No, you're trying to tell me what the correct way of thinking is. That is wrong, and that is not how Christian belief goes. Maybe that's your logic but thats not the theological logic. Don't say it is. (1)

On another note, anyone who believes in something by definition has justified it to themselves. Just because their justification isn't enough for you does not mean that their reality is not truth. A more accurate wording of "But if they can't justify their beliefs then I'll just engage....." should read ""But if I deem their justification unworth then I'll just engage....." right? (2)

It comes off as if you're trying to promote your philosophy above others, that if something isn't in line with what you think then they must be inherently wrong or stupid. (3)

So here is my question to you: If someone is completely happy with a philosophy of living that is opposite to your own, then what is the problem? (4)

What is the truth that people are scared of? Do you claim that we as humans can judge between what is the truth or not? (5)

For simplicity and time saving I will respond to your points and questions by number.

1 - There is such thing as a correct way of thinking, it is one that is rooted in reality and how we determine what is real, it is the foundation of all progress we see around us that is forwarded by science. It is a way of thinking that observes and studies before it reaches a conclusion, and that conclusion is subject to change if and when new information arises.

2 - No this is not what justification is, there are standards to justification. Simply believing something does not justify it. By scientific standards (the context I am using), justification takes the form of evidence. To justify your belief in God you would have to provide indesputable evidence that God exists.

3 - My philosophy is I believe what is most likely to be true based off evidence. So do most scientists, philosophers and intellectuals. It is the same principal by which we determine that the Earth revolves around the Sun. I don't need to promote it because it's staring everyone in the face, but apparently some people really are that stupid enough to ignore them so I ask questions and evoke discussions about it.

4 - There is no problem with anyone believing whatever they want, except for the fact that that results in people believing in things that aren't true. This can be as benign as "I believe there's a man in the sky who loves me", or it can be as malignant as "if I blow myself up in a crowd of people I will go to paradise for eternity".

5 - The truth people are scared of is the one that they disregard if it conflicts with their beliefs. There IS such thing as fact and fiction, and there is a way of determining the difference. There is no evidence that conflicts with my beliefs because I believe in the value of evidence and therefore reality.

Mangled, I just have to say you failed that one. They believe that God created sin, and man has a free will to do right or wrong. Not that anything about christianity is logical, but your reasoning was bad at that one.

Ah, you're right, I'm sorry everyone. I do actually feel silly now, I slipped for a second and tried to actually make sense of Christianity.

[jettlarue]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2005/mar/08/highereducation.research
Ducks are really gay. This thread is spilling into that realm of- necrophiliac gay intellect rape.
Stop what your doing and laugh at us.