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PracticalManiac
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PracticalManiac
295 posts
Peasant

I was just about to go to sleep so I was taking my nightly dump where I do a lot of reflecting.

I started a thread a couple days ago called about atheism and it started a debate. I myself am a die hard atheist but I was just wondering is religion even all that bad?

I mean maybe some people just need that cushion, maybe they cant accept their fates? I would like to hear from you why religion is so bad. Is it halting progression? Is it dumbing us down, what do you have to say?

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MageGrayWolf
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MageGrayWolf
9,462 posts
Farmer

This guy has a whole series of videos on the subject of circumcision.
http://www.youtube.com/user/freedom0speech#g/c/6452A07E792F610D

loloynage2
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loloynage2
4,206 posts
Peasant

It is wrong, but 5 000 years ago, they didn't know. They thought that the pig was impure and dirty

Yes, but not anymore, can't they change it? Just say something like:

"oh, we where just using the word god to persuade you guys. It seems cool kids did it back then, but now we can tell you that it was all BS"

I have to disagree, it appears it's done quite a good job at explaining not only the universe but what exists within it. At the very least far better then any religious text.

Oh but science is 100% accurate because science is reality. It's just that we haven't comprehend everything about science. Therefor science is reflected by our scientifical knowledge. But science is also stuff that we still don't understand. Science is everything
Kasic
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Kasic
5,552 posts
Jester

The main difference between science and religion is this.

Science is open to change, IF you can prove that what is already in place is wrong, or incomplete.

Religion, it's their way or you go to hell. No ifs ands or buts, question your loving god and he sends you to burn for eternity.

I tend to lean toward the first way of thinking, tyvm.

MageGrayWolf
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MageGrayWolf
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Farmer

Oh but science is 100% accurate because science is reality. It's just that we haven't comprehend everything about science. Therefor science is reflected by our scientifical knowledge. But science is also stuff that we still don't understand. Science is everything


Actually science is knowledge.
MageGrayWolf
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MageGrayWolf
9,462 posts
Farmer

Science will abandon an idea for a better one if the proof is there. Religion has to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future. In fact, the nonsense most Evangelicals spout are reminiscent of what the popes spouted in the 13th century.


I will have to agree that it's unwillingness to conform to new information is one of it's biggest flaws. Instead it tries to make the new information conform to the pre-established beliefs.
Strongbow
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Strongbow
324 posts
Nomad

Now now...let's go easy on the poor catholic church.

Remember that it only took the church a mere 400 years to admit that Galileo was actually pretty much spot on about that silly notion he came up with...you know, the one where he said that the earth rotated around the sun, instead of vice versa?

I mean, how can you blame the church for not believing that? It's not like he had a telescope or anything, right? Ok ok, even if he did have some fancy pants scientific thingamadooy that could see into space and actually monitor the heavens, the church had every reason to disbelieve it. Ahem, it's called the Bible...hello! I'm sure that somewhere in the Bible it says something about the sun rotating around the Earth, right? I mean, it's not like the Bible is vague or unrealistic or anything, right?

...right?
But anyway, enough of dwelling on the bad news. Here's the Happily Ever After that everyone's been waiting for. In 1992, the Vatican said that their denouncement of Galileo as a Heratic, his forced recant, humiliation and subsequent lifelong exile was merely a huge misunderstanding, based on "tragic mutual incomprehension." Whoopsy!

Vatican officials under Pope John Paul II even considered naming him the "Patron Saint of the Dialogue Between Faith and Reason." Super nice guys, huh? I wonder if Galileo will get a complimentary "I was falsly accused during the Inquisition, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt pullover, or perhaps a "Thumbs up for Astronomy" coffee mug? Oh, that's right... there's that whole dead since 1642 thing, yeah...

But hey, let's not worry about those unpleasant trivialities, ok? The moral of this story is that if you use science to contradict religion, although you may initially be called a blaspheming, devil-loving spawn of the ***** of Babylon, just keep your chin up, give it a few centuries and religion may eventually agree with you, after all.

Just ask good old died-in-his-home-old-broken-and-branded-a-heretic-for-400-years-by-the-church Galileo! What a team player

Wafflesquad
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Wafflesquad
170 posts
Peasant

To Strongbow...
The Catholic Church is/was somewhat stubborn, and Galileo was falsely accused. I'm Christian, and I agree that Galileo was falsely accused by people who were being total hypocrites. However, you cannot claim that because ONE scientist was falsely accused, that religion is automatically bad. I think that most of the people who have bad things to say about religion mostly are focusing on the hypocrites who have been the bad cases. They're using the people who don't act like Christians/were ignorant of their own religion and didn't care. It's just stereotyping that, for some reason, many people think are true.

Wafflesquad
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Wafflesquad
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Peasant

This is just about what science is, finding out the next step and the other and the other etc. But you have to start somewhere.

Well, then answer the question: Where did it come from? We don't know? If science is finding out the next step, then why aren't we trying? And the picture you posted shows a frog with a heart. How did a cell with a membrane grow a brain/heart/lungs/gills? If evolution happened by the mutation of DNA, then how did they avoid incorrect mutations that would cripple the species? How did they know which mate would carry good genes?
HahiHa
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HahiHa
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Regent

Galileo was only one example, probably the most prominent one, of thousands of people that felt the consequences resulting in contradicting any religion. Of course this was a more accute problem back when religion had more power and influence. It doesn't mean that religion is bad; it means that it can be bad, and is sometimes.

loloynage2
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loloynage2
4,206 posts
Peasant

However, you cannot claim that because ONE scientist was falsely accused, that religion is automatically bad.

Right, ONE man was falsely accused. Just ONE.

. It's just stereotyping that, for some reason, many people think are true.

That's because according to the bible is true. If all Christians would of actually behave like a real Christian then i assure you that you would of stoned someone by now.

If science is finding out the next step, then why aren't we trying?

Your not trying, your making up excuses, thus religion.

And the picture you posted shows a frog with a heart. How did a cell with a membrane grow a brain/heart/lungs/gills?

With time. It multiplies.

If evolution happened by the mutation of DNA, then how did they avoid incorrect mutations that would cripple the species?

They evolved because they NEEDED to evolve. Evolution happens when a specie needs something.

How did they know which mate would carry good genes?

I'm pretty sure there where failures.
communist09
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communist09
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Nomad

If evolution happened by the mutation of DNA, then how did they avoid incorrect mutations that would cripple the species?


They don't, it just kinda happens. If an animal caught a mutation that would leave him at a disadvantage, then the animal would die and would be unable to reproduce.
Kevin4762
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Kevin4762
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Nomad

Yes, but not anymore, can't they change it? Just say something like:

"oh, we where just using the word god to persuade you guys. It seems cool kids did it back then, but now we can tell you that it was all BS"


That's the reason I think they said God commanded you to. Actually, most Jews a reform Jews and follow the Bible very loosely.
HahiHa
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HahiHa
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Regent

If evolution happened by the mutation of DNA, then how did they avoid incorrect mutations that would cripple the species?

Most mutations are lethal for the cell if not repaired. They, whoever you mean by they, didn't, couldn't avoid it. Only occasionally a mutation that makes sense/gives an advantage occurs, and if it isn't outselected by natural selection, it can establish in the population.

How did they know which mate would carry good genes?

I really wonder who that ominous 'they' is.. but anyway; some mechanisms that mostly females use to recognize whether males have good genetical predispositions, is to look if a male is strong, or can produce a lot of colour pigment (which needs ressources; an animal that gets more ressources can allow itself to produce more things that aren't absolutely necessary for survival, but that attract more females). Of course the females don't know why they are more attracted by those males, it is not happening consciously. It just happened so that children of such matings were more successful and so those children tend to act like their parents.
MageGrayWolf
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MageGrayWolf
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Farmer

If science is finding out the next step, then why aren't we trying?


We are trying.


How did a cell with a membrane grow a brain/heart/lungs/gills?


A cell didn't. single celled organisms first became multicellular organisms. Those organisms then developed becoming more and more complex until over time the various organs and eventually even a brain developed.

If evolution happened by the mutation of DNA, then how did they avoid incorrect mutations that would cripple the species?


That's the result of natural selection, with is the mechanism that drives evolution. Those who didn't avoid the incorrect mutations didn't make it. But those who did avoid them were able to go on passing those genes on to the next generations increasing that useful mutation within the population.

Also keep in mind that most mutations have no effect. I'm sure if you've ever gotten your info on evolution from a creationist site it's said how most or all mutations are bad. This of course is not correct and is likely just a flat out lie.
What is useful or not is dependent on the environment. For example white fur in a forest would put an animal at a disadvantage, thus would be a bad mutation and that animal would likely be killed off before having to chance to pass that mutation on in any significant way to the rest of his population. Put that same mutation in an arctic environment and now that white fur allows the animal to blend in more easily thus making it a good mutation now, allowing the animal to likely live and spread that mutation in a significant way to the rest of his population.
This keeps going until white fur is dominant in the arctic animals and say brown fur is dominant in the forest animals. They can continue to change until the two groups can't interbreed with each other. That's called speciation.

How did they know which mate would carry good genes?


Out of these two girls can you tell me who you think is carrying the healthier genetic traits?
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y163/MageGrayWolf/Alyson-Hannigan-003.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y163/MageGrayWolf/ugly-1.jpg

Works the same way for other animals as well. If certain traits work in favor of that species getting to chance to mate then those are likely to be the ones to pass those genes on to the next generation.
MageGrayWolf
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MageGrayWolf
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Farmer

BTW, this seems to be another example of the WERPs Reductio ad Darwinium. All religious topics on the WERP eventually lead to mentioning evolution.

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