OB:

I’ve been quite busy over the past 9 months or so

Welcome back and sorry to hear about your offline tribulations.

I stumbled on this site while researching Chuck...It seems that you all are some religion or cult with yur faith in science, I think… It looks like you give each other emotionioal or faith support here…

I notice you try saying some sort of curse word to give yourself credence or identify yourself as part of the cult… Instead of some word of praise like other religions…

Hell, anyone looks like they could join. Oh, is that one of the accepted words? It denotes there is a God… I think part of your faith is that there is no God… Which is what your fellowship (brotherhood) revolves around…

It also appears that you stay happy and gay by constantly tauting someone named Darwin as your leader or prophet…

I have found that religious people are closed minded and they filter everything they hear regarding other religions through thier beief system…

For example, if I said that Darwin later rejected his theory and believed that all was designed… This would be blasphemy to this cult… Just like if I told a Budist that Budah was against worshiping at Budah statues…

Your closed minded religious filter would deny the idea of intelligent design automaticly as you are so deep in your faith…

For example, if I said to one of your cult members… science has already affirmed inteligent design thru the genetic code (a system to transmit a message)… Immediately it is thought,"BLASPHMEY, thank God Darwin is part of the eco system and cannot hear your foul speech"…

DO YOU BELIVE THAT DARWIN SPEAKS TO YOU THROUGH ANIMALS AND COMMUNICATES HIS WILL OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT???

Well, I hoped you have enjoyed my analysis… I hope I have not offended anyone and if I have I hope your religion is not one like the ones that murders people who disagree or speak against thier prophet…

Oh,well I gues I have to take that risk…

And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free...Jesus…

Please don’t feed the trolls. Especially stupid ones like the above who feel the need to insert their vapid comments into an entirely unrelated thread because they’re not happy with being so far down the totem poll in the appropriate thread.

Sigh.  Sorry, Les, this guy is uneducated, but not repellent, so I’ll tackle a few points.

Gestalt says:

For example, if I said that Darwin later rejected his theory and believed that all was designed… This would be blasphemy to this cult…

1.  “Blasphemy” is not the word you are looking for.  Try “undocumented and unlikely on the face of it”.  Darwin did have many doubts about particulars of his theory, but they were scientific doubts, not religious doubts.

2.  While Darwin is respected and even revered by many, he is not worshipped (as far as I know), and what he said is subject to the same sort of scrutiny and criticism as any scientific work.  It is not “blasphemy” to disagree with him- and Darwin would be the first one to welcome the corrections and augmentations made to his theory in the last hundred and fifty years.  Does God welcome disagreement with His Word?  Lots of stuff in the Bible is plain wrong.  That’s the difference between science and religion: in science, something is accepted as being a provisional truth because it fits with the real world, not because of who said it.  In religion, something is accepted as being an absolute truth, even if it doesn’t fit with the real world, because of who supposedly said it.

Your closed minded religious filter would deny the idea of intelligent design automaticly as you are so deep in your faith…

No filter necessary: intelligent design has no evidence for it, so there’s no reason to take it seriously.

DO YOU BELIVE THAT DARWIN SPEAKS TO YOU THROUGH ANIMALS AND COMMUNICATES HIS WILL OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT???

No.

Troll? Fundie? Or someone trying to be funny?

It says something about about the intellectual value of christianity when it’s difficult to tell parodies from the real thing.

I think that’s called ”Poe’s Law” (named either after Poe or another man of the same name) in which it is impossible to tell the difference between parody and actual fundamentalism.

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.” Einstein
I am sorry if you do not catch my humor or my meaning… Uneducated

“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.” Einstien
Who did yours or do you make your living from science and have nothing to report...Uneducated

“Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it.” Einstein
Nothing to report means did not make any income from being a so-called scientist...Uneducated

“Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.” Einstein
He who is blind must make up a religion so that he can say I SEE… Uneducated

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.” Einstein
Your are not the universe, and I admit most readily neither am I… Uneducated

“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”
Mind over realtity at all costs...Uneducated

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” (Sign hanging in Einstein’s office at Princeton)
“All that is Gold does not glitter” Tolkein
A mans crap can be the endless study of science… Uneducated

Please take the time to read between the lines even a fool should be able to do that...Gestalt the uneducated

“Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”

Einstein climbs to the top of Mt. Sinai to get close enough to talk to God.
Looking up, he asks the Lord… “God, what does a 60 billion years mean to you?”
The Lord replies, “ not even a minute”
“Einstein asks, “And what does a billion dollars mean to you?”
The Lord replies, “1 cent”
Einstein asks, “Can I have a penny?”
The Lord replies, “In a Second.”
For the Uneducated ( a second would be about a billion years)

Gestalt

I liked seing the clip…

G W carver created over 300 peanut base products including postage stamp glue… So a brilliant evolved monkey (scientist) should be able to create life from a jar of peanut butter…

Although, that would imply design…

Still, they should be able to overcome the time barrier and manipuate some code and use some uv or some particle blaster or something to get some life going there… Right???

I told you people not to feed the troll, now you’ve wound the moron up like a watch. I may have to pull out the ban hammer now.

named either after Poe or another man of the same name

It wasn’t named after Poe, it was named after Poe (not Poe, but Poe)…

Who’s on first base?

Is it just me or are these dipshits actually getting dumber?

I don’t know’s on second.

KPG: Is it just me or are these dipshits actually getting dumber?

Short answer - It’s you

Long answer - Since memory is largely a reconstructive process, where expectation and intervening memories play a significant role in determining what we think occurred, you probably falsely recall these dipshits being smarter than they actually were.

Troll? Fundie? Or someone trying to be funny?

It says something about about the intellectual value of christianity when it’s difficult to tell parodies from the real thing.

The best way to tell a parody from the real thing when dealing with the fundy trolls is whether or not they use things like grammar, proper syntax and spell most of the words right (or at least phonetically).

Free thinkers huh?

Are you guys really so free? i mean if you consider that communism, consumerism and capitalism enslaves the masses, endoctrinates by the elitist way of thinking of those who hold the money and power on earth, who control the education, the health and the food industry, the mainstream media to keep you all sleeping and consuming those things you covet that your neighbor posesses?

Do you folks really think you are living in a democracy? Freedom of speech, well, just try to say a word against gay marriage or against abortion in the next few years, you’ll see what i mean! Or am i just another conspiracy theorist?

I’d rather hear you tell me that you don’t want us to tell you what to believe in than hear you say that you don’t believe at all, it would be demonstrating more honesty on your part guys, all of you have a consciousness and void to fill inside of each of you, if not filled by God Himself, it will be filled by other unsatisfying and meaningless means that leaves one empty or turning for the next kick until the next one...sad.

I am a Christian without “organized religion”, i will not preach here but i know one thing :Jesus revealed Himself to me personaly last year, i am now 42 , was raised as a roman catholic and got fed up early on with that religion made by man and went on my way in the secular world.

What i discovered last year, is that Jesus is not about religion, on the contrary, He came to earth to do away with the traditions of man, organized religion is one of those traditions that He despises for it puts God into a box so that they can make God in their own image, trying to understand Him from a human perspective which is dangerous to do when limiting God to our limitedcapacities of understanding of a Transcendant and Omniscient Being such as Him.

Jesus is more real than the gathering of atoms that we all are, He is the God of love and personal relationship that every human being is destined to know one way or another, believers and unbelievers alike, every eye will see Him one day, if not here soon because He might appear again in this lifetime, it will be in the after-life for our souls are eternal but to reject Him means “separation” for all eternity.

Man made religions have hurt a lot of you i readily concede but please don’t blame it on Him guys, blame it instead on religiosity or churchianity, not everyone who say they are christians truly are, He(Jesus) is not responsible for our wrong doings…

I dare you all to ask Him personaly to reveal Himself to you, He did for me and many millions through prayer, He will do the same for you if you sincerely let Him and that way, it will be between you and Him on a personal level, no need of human intercession, He loves all who come to Him as they are with what they have, He seeks to forgive, even unbelief…

A friend

Serge

I’d rather hear you tell me that you don’t want us to tell you what to believe in than hear you say that you don’t believe at all, it would be demonstrating more honesty on your part guys, all of you have a consciousness and void to fill inside of each of you, if not filled by God Himself, it will be filled by other unsatisfying and meaningless means that leaves one empty or turning for the next kick until the next one...sad.

Funny… I don’t feel empty or unsatisfied.  I don’t believe in God, but I couldn’t care less if you do.  It’s not about believing or accepting God/Jesus/FSM whatever.  It’s about ACCEPTING that other people have beliefs that you do not subscribe to and (and this is the important part) that it’s okay.

On the flip side, I can’t get all worked up about how much you think it’s sad that I don’t have Jesus in my life, but I DO expect you to let me believe what I want without putting any pressure on me (beyond trying to convince me you’re right) to change.  That means keeping your religious beliefs out of the public school system and out of science education.  It is not the purpose of either the education system or the scientific community to deal in beliefs, only observable facts, and if your beliefs contradict observable facts, then that is too bad.  This is why being in public school is not compulsory.  You can put your kid in a religious school or home-school him/her if your morals conflict with the state.  That’s up to you, as it should be.

The idea that this crap that Chuck Missler and his ilk are peddling is somehow more logical than current scientific theory or is somehow grounded in science is idiotic.  It has nothing to do with believing in God.  It has to do with the scientific method and how everything that you want to be considered science having to follow that method.  End of story.  We can argue from now until the End of Days how life began, but when you start to hold your conclusions up to the same standards that science demands, you can’t act surprised and declare that YOU are the victim when the scientific community rejects those conclusions because they don’t meet those standards.

And not understanding those standards is no excuse to claim that you’re being unfairly shut out.  It’s not personal, or even anti-religious.  That methodology is what got us all the technology we now enjoy.  That technology is unquestioningly real, so the methodology works.  It’s that simple.  Deal with it.

There’s one thing for religion I guess - fundamentalists get better drugs than I ever have. It’s like they all take a pill that gives them an erection when their brain turns off.

Fucking outstanding.

I love how Serge says he’s not going to preach to us and then turns around and preaches to us.

Hypocrisy at its finest.

I love how Serge says he’s not going to preach to us and then turns around and preaches to us.

Don’t they always?

Hypocrisy at its finest.

There’s also a good dose of presumption.

The kicker, of course, is the clear miss on the very definition of freethinker—or did he think calling freethinkers “endoctrinated” was a great way to start a sermon?

r did he think calling freethinkers “endoctrinated” was a great way to start a sermon?

Wait, he meant “indoctrinated”? I thought “endocrinated” had something to do with steroids and he was calling us juice-junkies.  I just tuned out after reading that.

Let this be a lesson to all ye fundy trolls out there! If you want to deprive me of reading your first rate lunatic sermon, make sure and horribly misspell a common word that is very well associated with religion. 

BTW - A great way to avoid spelling errors here would be to install and use Firefox, it has built in spell check on these fancy schmancy text entry boxes, so all you have to do is look for the red-underlined words and Voila! Instant spelling error identification!

To Swordsbane,

thanks for the respectful reply mate, i agree with you on letting people live and believe what they want, i do understand how unbelievers can be annoyed by some of us, it might be interpreted like we force ourselves on individuals but as unbelievable as it will sound to you, it is not our intent, not mine anyways.

What is wrong with these Christians anyways, right? To tell you the truth, none of us Christians are perfect, it is rather the message that we are called to carry that bothers.

The hypocrisy denounced by Les is understandable when keeping in mind that there are thousands of religiosities out there operating for the sole purpose of getting money out of the pockets of naive people who attend these churches to hear what pleases their ear but for those like me who were touched by God Himself, it is a different story, we know for sure that there is a REAL God, that there is a REAL Heaven and a REAL hell and if preaching it is what it has to be called, then so be it but not by force, just proclaiming for ourselves what we know as being reliable Truth and facts, even in this day and age of relativistic truths.

I will be the first one to acknowledge that there are people here that are way more cognizant in science than me but i’ll say this first, maybe all of us were endoctrinated at one point or another in our lives, whether by pseudo-science, empty philosophies or by religions of man, the thing is and i can only speak for myself, there is a reality over our heads that is way beyond ours and if you need proofs from secular sources, just lemme know and i’ll be glad to share.. : )

Your bud

Serge

there is a reality over our heads that is way beyond ours and if you need proofs from secular sources, just lemme know and i’ll be glad to share.

It might surprise you to know that I don’t really care if God exists or not.  I have yet to see any real evidence for him/her/it.  Invariably, so-called ‘secular evidence’ for the existence of God ends up being something akin to the “wonder of life” argument, and the proponent is shocked that I don’t see “the obvious” that’s all around me.

But as I said, I don’t really care, and I don’t exactly know why anyone would care about the existence of God.  I understand that people find comfort in the belief in a deity, but in terms of what is really important.... the well being of each and every person on this planet should be quite a bit more important than my immortal soul, or yours, given that I have no real evidence that we even have souls.  If I do have a soul, then it will take care of itself.  If God can’t be satisfied with me trying to leave this world slightly better than I found it, living and letting live and believing that actions speak louder than words, then I suppose I’m not going to like what he calls Heaven.  I understand if he doesn’t want to pitch in and help, but if you’re excuse for helping people is that they don’t accept you, then I have to wonder about your reputation for compassion and love.  If you have the ability to help people and you refuse to give that help, that is YOUR problem, not mine.

And if you can’t promote an idea without resorting to “God said it should be so” then I’m not going to support it, even if God DID say it should be so.  If God can’t subject his ideas to the same fire of debate that we use for everything else we do, and not resort to “because I said so” or worse “because I’ll punish you if you don’t” then the only reason to go along with him is because you fear Hell, and we have a word for that: Tyranny.

This is why I think that religion doesn’t belong in politics.  I was raised to believe that one of the reasons we have the government we have is because strength should not govern which ideas are good and which are bad.  If that is true, how are we to accept the “Word of God” based solely on his word?  This world is for us, not for God.  Even the Bible says that.  The only way we get better at living in it is to figure out why some rules are good and some are bad.  We can’t do that while being told that we should just do what we’re told because so and so is wonderful and he says so.  We must demand explanations.

With that realization, the question of whether God exists or not just doesn’t seem all that important to me.  I don’t think there is any solid evidence for the existence of God, but even if there was, it would not make me a believer in the religious sense.  I’m not going to ‘convert’ to Christianity and I’m not going to worship him in any manner.

But he’s welcome to stop by anytime he wants.  I got beer in the fridge and Doritos.

Well said Swordsbane.

Serge writes…

What is wrong with these Christians anyways, right? To tell you the truth, none of us Christians are perfect, it is rather the message that we are called to carry that bothers.

Trust me, I don’t think anyone here expects Christians to be perfect.

Does the message you carry bother others? Only in the way that hearing your crazy Uncle tell you the same story about his supposed career as a CIA Agent for the hundredth time is bothersome. He’s told that story so many times that he actually believes it’s The Truth in much the same way that you appear to believe your story about God is the truth.

For the most part we don’t have a problem with the peace and love aspect of the message. It’s the believe-or-you’re-all-gonna-BURN-BURN-BURN that tends to get old after the first couple of dozen of times. Here’s a tip: It’s hard to frighten people with the horrors of Hell if they don’t believe Hell exists to begin with.

..but for those like me who were touched by God Himself, it is a different story, we know for sure that there is a REAL God, that there is a REAL Heaven and a REAL hell and if preaching it is what it has to be called, then so be it but not by force, just proclaiming for ourselves what we know as being reliable Truth and facts, even in this day and age of relativistic truths.

I don’t doubt the sincerity of your claim to knowing the “Truth and facts”, but I do question whether your “Truth” is what you think it is.

I’m going to use an example that SEB regulars are already well familiar with. I used to know a guy who was convinced that invisible aliens had chosen him to prove that mankind was worthy or they were going to blow up the planet. His belief in the Truth of his version of reality was just as sincere sounding as yours and there was nothing anyone could say that would convince him that he was delusional.

I don’t believe you have The Truth any more than he did and for the same reasons.

Still, if you think you have something novel to offer then I’m open to listening. So far though you’re hitting most of the same notes as everyone else so you’ll pardon me if I remain skeptical.

To Swordsdane and Les,

Very good points that both of you brought:

Swordsdane, you wrote:

“But as I said, I don’t really care, and I don’t exactly know why anyone would care about the existence of God.  I understand that people find comfort in the belief in a deity, but in terms of what is really important.... the well being of each and every person on this planet should be quite a bit more important than my immortal soul, or yours, given that I have no real evidence that we even have souls”.

And we do too my friend, we care about every single human being, even muslims that believe in islam, i pray for them as well, the implications of having a Creator is quite simple actually, it means “accountability” to the One who created us.

Belief or faith is most certainly the way Christians come to know God and apparently the only way to please Him, i do hear you and i won’t force my faith on you nor anyone else here, as a matter of fact, i don’t believe that the Word of God should be taught in secular schools nor in politics, these are things that should be taught at home so in a sense, we are kind of agreeing on something here, maybe Christians should start their own schools teaching creation or Intelligent Design and let the masses of unbelievers be with their evolution theory but that would create a “two states in one” kind of unmanageable monster though.

Human life or the sanctity of it is quite important to us too, we are even against abortion which is infanticide, we just see the length thereof and destiny with different glasses and for the existence of the soul, well, if i were to steal something, my soul, since the age of accountability, tells me that it is a wrong thing to do, you probably see it as acquired knowledge which in turn i see as acquired from God’s law or commandments and being part of our Judeo-christian heritage ie the light inside the body that was given to each human being by God…

Hi Les,

Your right, maybe Christians are afraid for you guys, we sometimes have a fleshy way of sending the message out of concern for those that are deaf or rebelling against it, maybe is it too emotional on our part? I would certainly agree with that, the certainty of the existence of hell for us makes us want to convince others that it does exist and that the expression “hell on earth” is nothing compared to the hell described in the Bible, that way of sending the message ie “in the flesh” rather than “in the Spirit” is too often how some of us do it because we care for even those that insult or hate us.

Your questioning of the truth that i hold is very legitimate, in fact, i don’t, as a human being, posess the Truth, it is rather the Truth(Jesus) living in me that i hold up high as commanded by Him and out of certainty that He is alive right now and reveals Himself to those who sincerely call on His Name for He did reveal Himself to me and to many millions of people, believers and unbelievers alike and from all walks of life or background.

Tell me friend, do you believe that Caesar ever existed?

Here’s an interesting video for now:

http://video.google.ca/videosearch?q=When+all+other+tongues+are+silenced&hl=en&sitesearch;=#

Thanks to both of you guys for the respectful responses, i am enjoying our discussion.

Your bud

Serge