Theism, Religion and Lack thereof

[Saith]

Is that your definition of karma, or a specific religions?

 

[Sage Noctowl]

To the point everyone is making about people not having a chance.
I think people will be given a chance after they die and at the end of time.
Also, there isn't much of a difference between good and bad people: people are justified for whatever they do, and are all equally evil. They are just judged 'good' because people can only see what they are famous for and their outside influence.

 

[Pwnemon]

Sage is right, all you people saying "but the evil Christians" should read this.

romans 3:23, "For ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."

We're ALL evil, nobody except Jesus is good.

Secondly, for all you who say Evolution and Natural Selection has to go together, that is completely false. All natural selection says is that animals can adapt to change to their environments (e.g. a rat developing a resistance to rat poison) whereas Evolution states that all animals evolved from the same organism.

 

[Minish]

Secondly, for all you who say Evolution and Natural Selection has to go together, that is completely false. All natural selection says is that animals can adapt to change to their environments (e.g. a rat developing a resistance to rat poison) whereas Evolution states that all animals evolved from the same organism.

What?
Where did you get these odd ideas from?

I have minimal understanding of things like natural selection and evolution - I dropped biology and science in general as quickly as I could in school and have never read up on more than the basics. But even I know that those really aren't what natural selection and evolution are at all, wtf?

Surely the very term 'natural selection' explains itself? It's where undesirable traits that don't work well in the environment eventually get phased out. Natural selection is evolution in practice, this is how we have evolved.

 

[Saith]

-Snip-

Bububut I'm not evil.
That means...
Holy shit, my mates were right! I'm fucken Jesus!

While I agree that evil is incredibly difficult to define, I don't buy into the whole Christian or the original sin thing. Hell, even if I did, I wouldn't be evil, 'cause Christians seem to forget that they believe that (ohmahgawwwwd) Jebus died for our sins! The ones we're gonna do, the ones we've done, and the ones we couldn't have possibly done, but because we were "seminally present" (read: in Adam's ball sacks), we're still guilty for. So, he died to erase Original Sin, foo'!
Original Sin is just a way to make sure they keep their followers. "Hey guys, so I see y'all being good people and stuff, but uh... Hey, you're all going to hell anyway, unless you confess and pay for pardons and shiiiit."

 

[1. Luftballon]

Secondly, for all you who say Evolution and Natural Selection has to go together, that is completely false. All natural selection says is that animals can adapt to change to their environments (e.g. a rat developing a resistance to rat poison) whereas Evolution states that all animals evolved from the same organism.

where do you get this stuff?

for one, that's not natural selection. nothing actually adapts, rather, the most "fit" tend to manage to have more children. if you then went and shot them all, no, they would not develop gunshot resistance.

evolution is the same damn thing.

I suggest you read up on your biology.

 

[Karkat Vantas]

We're ALL evil, nobody except Jesus is good.

And Jesus is good... why? Because he's God's son, and thus perfect?

So what you're saying is that the only way to be a good person is to be God's son?

 

[Pwnemon]

And Jesus is good... why? Because he's God's son, and thus perfect?

So what you're saying is that the only way to be a good person is to be God's son?

Actually, yeah, that's basically my point.

Which is why we need to believe Jesus died for our sins.

Also, sreservoir, take it up with my science teacher.

 

[Karkat Vantas]

What.

Just... what? So there's no point to being a good person, because since you're not God's son, you're automatically evil?

 

[Teh Ebil Snorlax]

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

3) It gives my life a meaning. I hope this doesn't sound condescending, but I feel so bad for people without a belief in God. Their lives are ultimately completely pointless, and I would hate to be alive like that. To have no greater purpose for life, just sounds so depressing.

Actually, I feel bad for you. You have to be given a meaning by someone else, whereas I get to create my own. There is no inherent meaning in life, only the meaning you give it. And if you can't give your life a meaning, if you don't have the intelligence and strength of character to create meaning for yourself, then, and only then, is your life meaningless.

 

[Michi]

Secondly, for all you who say Evolution and Natural Selection has to go together, that is completely false. All natural selection says is that animals can adapt to change to their environments (e.g. a rat developing a resistance to rat poison) whereas Evolution states that all animals evolved from the same organism.

What are you talking about? Natural selection is, as others have pointed out, the process by which evolution occurs. They don't just go together, they are essentially halves of the same idea. Okay, now to put both together, we use 2 tools called common sense and logic; If the original organism was born/created, it would obviously spread over the planet or at least over quite a few miles in the sea (as that is where it would have lived). Different members of the species would start to adapt to their environment according to what their needs are, called Natural Selection. Over a very long time, the organisms in different areas would not only be vastly different from each other, but also from the original organism, hence the term Evolution! Ad each of those would go through the process of natural selection and evolution in turn, eventually becoming as diverse as the spread of organisms we have today.
Do you see what we are saying now?

 

[Pwnemon]

I do see where you are going. I am familiar with the theory of evolution.

However, it's absolutely NOT impossible to believe that God created all the animals and they have adapted since then.

 

[Minish]

Secondly, for all you who say Evolution and Natural Selection has to go together, that is completely false. All natural selection says is that animals can adapt to change to their environments (e.g. a rat developing a resistance to rat poison) whereas Evolution states that all animals evolved from the same organism.

I do see where you are going. I am familiar with the theory of evolution.

The thing is, you're really not.

 

[1. Luftballon]

I do see where you are going. I am familiar with the theory of evolution.

However, it's absolutely NOT impossible to believe that God created all the animals and they have adapted since then.

you just missed the entire point of the thread.

 

[Butterfree]

Sage is right, all you people saying "but the evil Christians" should read this.

romans 3:23, "For ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."

We're ALL evil, nobody except Jesus is good.

[...]

Which is why we need to believe Jesus died for our sins.

You're dodging the question. What if there is a truly evil person who also truly believes Jesus died for his/her sins? Does that person go to Heaven? Does a person who never knew about Jesus go to Hell?

Now. My personal answer to Pascal's Wager is this: I will lead my life in a way that I believe is good and just. If there is a god and he would send me to Hell anyway simply because I am an atheist, I do not want to worship this god. I'd rather go to Hell than worship a god who would send good people to Hell for not believing in him.

And now you say, "But I just said nobody is truly a good person! We can only be saved from our inherent sinfulness through Jesus!" But unfortunately, I don't buy that. I think relatively good people, on my scale of goodness, do not deserve to be thrown into a lake of fire, and no god or prospect of actually ending up in that lake of fire can intimidate me into actually, personally finding it just for them to be. I would hate to be in Heaven if I knew that other, good people were burning in Hell at the same time just because they didn't believe in some old book in an age of science and reason.

Thus, I have nothing to gain by converting to Christianity. It would, very literally, be selling my soul: it would be abandoning my moral principles in order to have a nice, fluffy afterlife.

And I can't help but think that the one who sticks by their principles is the better person than the one who gives in and sucks up to an unfair God.

 

[Aisling]

Slowpoke response! but

Debates between atheists and religious believers are impossible to resolve for the same reason you can't win a game of chess if you're playing against someone who doesn't know the rules, and is instead fervently hammering on the bars of a marimba with a crosier.

I know that is true most of the time, but the reason I keep trying is that I was gotten through to. You remember what I like when I was 12, don't you? Vixie was sniffing around the old old forums and showed me one of my old posts, asking if it was me. I was disgusting. That's the main reason I changed my username this time around. I think I've matured in many ways since then, my way of thinking being one of them. I think eventually these people will encounter a point, either due to what it is or how it's worded, that will make them sit down and reconsider their beliefs radically. That's probably why the other side keeps trying, too, because they've seen some unstable person in need of help (like a drug addict or prisoner) cling to the first person who happened to provide them with an answer (a Christian) and convert, which is the story I usually hear and isn't really comparable, but yeah. Both sides have seen what they consider success and that's why they keep trying.

 

[Espeon]

However, it's absolutely NOT impossible to believe that God created all the animals and they have adapted since then.

And this is where phylogeny, the study of evolutionary history, trips this arguement up.
It's not unfair to say that, if there is a God, they did not put the very first organisms on the Earth. However, as the first few pages of the Old Testament do state, God did put most organisms on the Earth in their present state and condition.

Phylogeny shows that if you trace any species' ancestry back far enough, there will be points of convergence with other species, right the way back to what is assumed to be the first organism. It has been shown by following similarities in DNA of prehistoric creatures, preserved in substances such as amber and, by common physical traits.

To put it simply, phylogeny is essentially looking at the evidence and making a giant "family tree" of every living species today.

So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.

The point I'm trying to make here is that birds just simply didn't exist when the earth was created! It says that every winged bird was created "according to its kind".

Ergo, there should be no fossil records linking birds back to the dinosaurs, before birds even existed. However, birds bear some of the closest resemblances to the dinosaurs next to reptiles themselves.

And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so.

Cattle did not exist on the earth before humans. Humans were supposedly created the next day. Humans domesticated animals which then went on to become the cattle which we know today!

From this, it's highly unlikely that God created animals and that they have since than adapted.

 

[opaltiger]

Secondly, for all you who say Evolution and Natural Selection has to go together, that is completely false. All natural selection says is that animals can adapt to change to their environments (e.g. a rat developing a resistance to rat poison) whereas Evolution states that all animals evolved from the same organism.

You're wrong. Either your science teacher is wrong or you misunderstood him/her because this simply isn't true.

Evolution refers to one of two things: the fact that all animals evolved from a common ancestor - and it is a fact, supported by overwhelming evidence from any number of disciplines - or the theory which explains this fact. In short, evolution is the change, over time, of the characteristics of a population of organisms.

Natural selection is one mechanism by which evolution happens. It is not the only one - sexual selection, genetic drift, and others are also responsible - but it is probably the most important. And the basic premise of natural selection is that, within a population, the individuals most capable of reproducing will pass on their genes, thus changing the population to be more like them. In other words, natural selection says that the characteristics of populations change in ways that reflect the evolutionary pressures working on them.

So: evolution is the change in characteristics of a population. Natural selection is one way in which this happens. What you are saying is that you believe organisms changed over time, but you don't believe organisms changed over time. So: obviously there is something you don't understand,

From the way you worded your post, it's possible you believe natural selection acts on individuals. I'm not sure if this is what you meant, but if it is, that's the cause of your confusion. Natural selection - all evolutionary processes, in fact - act on populations.

 

[J.T.]

Sage is right, all you people saying "but the evil Christians" should read this.

romans 3:23, "For ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."

We're ALL evil, nobody except Jesus is good.

You dodged the question completely.

 

[Music Dragon]

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

But in a debate where the purpose is to get a higher understanding of the subject

Where are you seeing this?