Izzy

Yeah? He make starvation, murder, atomic bombs, suicide, drugs, and other stuff too?

Did you know there are waves besides sound waves?

I think there have actually been some petitions to get rid of it. Basically: The majority on Congress or anyone with the power to make the change (really, having "In God We Trust" on there is completely unconstitutional) are a bunch of Gawd-Lubbing morons. Cross it out.

Rofl. This is funny in two senses. The first, me not going back a page to realize you actually included a link, and thought he just couldn't connect the dots. The second, him really not being able to click on a hyperlink.

About 7% of scientists believe in a personal god. Maybe half of those are Christians. They've 'dealt with it' by either working in a field that won't interfere with their beliefs, or by attempting to use their 'knowledge' to prove god(s). Percentage of the latter scientists taken seriously: 0. Honestly, if you won't let religion influence your work, you have my regards. But because of how you'll be working with evolution on the hands-on, day-to-day level, I don't think being any sort of biologist would suit you. You still have time to grow up, though.

I think post count is helpful because it shows someone's level of seniority. People are banned for just randomly posting and off-topicness, so I don't think artificially increasing your post count will make that much of a difference. I'm a bit annoyed by the rankings, though. Rating someone one star because you disagree with their opinions, rather than the content of their post being crap, is fairly immature guys..

:lol: ..You sure though? And then there's always Deborah Draper, whose father has an entire army of God of his own.. There was a specific video I want to link to, but being at school I can't access it. Type 'Deborah, 13, Servant of God' into YouTube. Watch the entire thing, and if you cba to, watch the last thirtyish seconds of the last (sixth?) part where she's crying.

You honestly believe Christianity is that much different from Mormonism?

Religion with dogma? Merely a cult, however popular.

It didn't say "God made things which eventually evolved into man." God made man, in his own image, and it was good. So, men were, according to the Bible, DESIGNED BY GOD, not made to evolve by God. Besides, if we just evolved from stuff, why would we be any more important than any other creatures that came from the same origin? Evolution isn't aimed at us.

Do you believe in evolution or a 6000 year old earth?

If this sentence is true, then I am a flying monkey with a mohawk and magical healing powers. Apply same logic.

Convert and then leave. Hmm.. I wonder if Hedonism could become a religion. Where you are God and your purpose is to please yourself.

5. Religion stunts scientific growth, or at least the concepts science establishes. Especially with regards to evolution. Religion ignores things that it doesn't believe fits its book. Why don't fundies just quit school after the first few years? By this point, they should have all the intelligence they need to read their lovely scripture, and know enough basic math to be able to calculate money, tax, that sort of thing. I guess an introductory course to physics or something could help, but chemistry and that sort of thing would be pointless to them. History can be learned through books. All other time can be devoted to the lord.

Territorial disputes of the territories God 'entitled' them to. Manifest Destiny and the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict come to mind. Truancy, drugs, unhealthy amounts of Family Guy, junk food, and snogging teachers would make me happy. Needless to say, I don't do any of that stuff. Doing something because it makes you happy when it ultimately poses a problem isn't right. Being ignorant of the problem doesn't help either. Guilty. However, childhood indoctrination is a disadvantage, because although it's alright to educate your children, the decision of religion should primarily belong to the child, not the parent. That's why I like what RD says: There is no Christian/Muslim/Jewish/etc. child, just a child of Christian/Muslim/Jewish/etc. parents. I didn't mean interfere as barbarically zapping people. Kind of malevolent of an all-loving God, no? I mean, why let the worms in Africa it the eyes of children as they sleep? Why plague everyone with flus and diseases? People dying at birth? The death of innocent children? Omniscient God should still know who should go into what group. It does have to do with religion. "You will pray with us while I'm in this classroom." Maybe I pissed her off before it got to that point, but it all had to do with me being seen as a threat to her religious belief in the odd event my 'rebelliousness' would set some sort of bad example for my classmates. Even worse, I could have made people think for themselves! *gasp* Like, without religion (though I admit her veteran-ness definitely had something to do with the pledge bit), she wouldn't have cared. Yeah, you're proving one of my points. Religion = waaaaar. Arg, attack! Blah. I'll think of some more right now. Mom screaming for me to get offline..

Whatever. Not every word traced back it its Latin roots is going to mean exactly what we want it to mean. Atheism is the belief that God doesn't exist. No matter how you try to twist that, it's going to mean that. Are we maybe going by the wrong way? *shrugs* Does it particularly matter? Well, no.

^ Yeah, exactly. I don't think it's worth worrying about, at least not at the moment. What happened to the bird flu? The west nile virus? Anthrax, even? Just because something has the potential to devastate, does not in any way mean it's going to. If masses of people start dying, I'd say that's when we start to worry. On an unrelated note, and I don't know who made this up, but 500 people get swine flu, everybody wears a facemask. 90 million people get AIDS, and nobody wears a condom.

Stepping away from what we were talking about before for a sec., let's go into the advantages/disadvantages of religion. This is a post I made in another thread, which was locked, so I'll just copy and paste it rather than putting it into quotes tags so it's easy to reply to, if anyone wants. Advantage*: Population control. More people have died in the name of God, whatever God, than anything else. I'm pretty intolerant of most religions, but what keeps me from wanting to destroy them all is the thought of them (different denominations) killing each other off while atheists have the chance to watch from the sidelines. Biggest threat to US atheists would be getting grouped with the damn Christians, but I'm sure since we're amazing, we can figure out a way out of it. Religion (at least back then) made the world a very 'survival of the fittest' one. I'm afraid it isn't exactly like that now, look at the obesity level and prediction levels in the US, but all in good time. *Disclaimer: What I'm saying isn't targeted at anyone. I feel the Holocaust will be mentioned. I believe IN NO WAY that the slaughter of 12 million people was justified. However, looking at these types of things in the .... sorta selfish, can be optimistic, will probably come off like an a**hole 'how does this benefit me/things related to me' way, yeah, population control. Disadvantages: 1. There is no reason to believe in a lie, regardless of whether it makes you happy or not. Every religion is some complete BS, made up either for money, or to spread completely illiberal beliefs, like ones where slavery is okay, women should be oppressed, and homosexuals should be stoned. 2. Childhood indoctrination, i.e. corrupting the mind of youths before they're given to tools to think things over logically, is evil and should be illegal. This can be compared to Santa Claus, a mostly harmless, fun, tradition. From an incredibly young age, children are made to believe in things that aren't real, be that Santa, the Easter Bunny, God, whatever. Fortunately, the children eventually develop some logical thinking skills, where they begin questioning Santa, and other like creations, because, given the lack of evidence for his existence ("I stayed up all night but he didn't eat my milk and cookies." "Daddy is in the costume." "How can Santa be at EVERY mall?" etc.), asserting he isn't there is no longer hard. Unfortunately, the same logic is rarely applied to God. Maybe that's because we're not meant to sense (with the physical senses) his presence. 3. What's the point of a God that doesn't interfere? And when the only time he does, it's with murder? According to some religions, AIDs isn't a serious disease, merely God's solution for homosexuals. According to some Muslims that made the news, swine flu isn't any scary epidemic (well, it isn't anyway, but yeah), it's Allah showing his fury and killing those who disobey him and eat pork. I'm sure it's even been argued that STDs are merely the punishment for premarital sex. 4. Religions are intolerant of other religions. This isn't just at the adult level, but helpless kidlets are actually being bullied in school for having beliefs off par the norm in their area. There was a kid who refused to pray with his class when prompted, and he never heard the end of it. I've refused to do the Pledge of Allegiance since I've understood it, sometime in second grade, and kids make such a big deal out of it. Thankfully, most people have gotten over that now, but yeah, that was like three years of elementary hell. I even remember this one time, this year, when we had some ex-military (female) fundie substitute. As usual, I would sit respectfully while everyone else did the pledge, and she came over and told me off. We got into a very debate style argument, which ended something like.. Me: I have the freedom to do or not do whatever I want, and the pledge, your moment of silence, and any other silly singalongs non class related are completely optional. If you don't believe me, go look it up in the school rules. If you refuse to look it up, ignorance of the rule is no justification for any complaint I decide to make, as you've now been well informed. Her: I don't care. You will stand and do the pledge and pray with the rest of us while I am in this classroom. Me: Um. No. No, I won't. Her: Go sit in the hallway. You can come back in in five minutes. Me: *leaves classroom and immediately walks to the administration building to complain* More to come when I feel like typing them out.

Actually, theism is the belief in the existence of god(s). A-theism would then meaning not believing in god(s).

Meh, no worse than the regular flu.

Advantage*: Population control. More people have died in the name of God, whatever God, than anything else. I'm pretty intolerant of most religions, but what keeps me from wanting to destroy them all is the thought of them (different denominations) killing each other off while atheists have the chance to watch from the sidelines. Biggest threat to US atheists would be getting grouped with the damn Christians, but I'm sure since we're amazing, we can figure out a way out of it. Religion (at least back then) made the world a very 'survival of the fittest' one. I'm afraid it isn't exactly like that now, look at the obesity level and prediction levels in the US, but all in good time. *Disclaimer: What I'm saying isn't targeted at anyone. I feel the Holocaust will be mentioned. I believe IN NO WAY that the slaughter of 12 million people was justified. However, looking at these types of things in the .... sorta selfish, can be optimistic, will probably come off like an a**hole 'how does this benefit me/things related to me' way, yeah, population control. Disadvantages: 1. There is no reason to believe in a lie, regardless of whether it makes you happy or not. Every religion is some complete BS, made up either for money, or to spread completely illiberal beliefs, like ones where slavery is okay, women should be oppressed, and homosexuals should be stoned. 2. Childhood indoctrination, i.e. corrupting the mind of youths before they're given to tools to think things over logically, is evil and should be illegal. This can be compared to Santa Claus, a mostly harmless, fun, tradition. From an incredibly young age, children are made to believe in things that aren't real, be that Santa, the Easter Bunny, God, whatever. Fortunately, the children eventually develop some logical thinking skills, where they begin questioning Santa, and other like creations, because, given the lack of evidence for his existence ("I stayed up all night but he didn't eat my milk and cookies." "Daddy is in the costume." "How can Santa be at EVERY mall?" etc.), asserting he isn't there is no longer hard. Unfortunately, the same logic is rarely applied to God. Maybe that's because we're not meant to sense (with the physical senses) his presence. 3. What's the point of a God that doesn't interfere? And when the only time he does, it's with murder? According to some religions, AIDs isn't a serious disease, merely God's solution for homosexuals. According to some Muslims that made the news, swine flu isn't any scary epidemic (well, it isn't anyway, but yeah), it's Allah showing his fury and killing those who disobey him and eat pork. I'm sure it's even been argued that STDs are merely the punishment for premarital sex. 4. Religions are intolerant of other religions. This isn't just at the adult level, but helpless kidlets are actually being bullied in school for having beliefs off par the norm in their area. There was a kid who refused to pray with his class when prompted, and he never heard the end of it. I've refused to do the Pledge of Allegiance since I've understood it, sometime in second grade, and kids make such a big deal out of it. Thankfully, most people have gotten over that now, but yeah, that was like three years of elementary hell. I even remember this one time, this year, when we had some ex-military (female) fundie substitute. As usual, I would sit respectfully while everyone else did the pledge, and she came over and told me off. We got into a very debate style argument, which ended something like.. Me: I have the freedom to do or not do whatever I want, and the pledge, your moment of silence, and any other silly singalongs non class related are completely optional. If you don't believe me, go look it up in the school rules. If you refuse to look it up, ignorance of the rule is no justification for any complaint I decide to make, as you've now been well informed. Her: I don't care. You will stand and do the pledge and pray with the rest of us while I am in this classroom. Me: Um. No. No, I won't. Her: Go sit in the hallway. You can come back in in five minutes. Me: *leaves classroom and immediately walks to the administration building to complain* More to come when I feel like typing them out.

Awws. *tacklehugs* 'Bout fecking time. *edit* I <3 you. And am proud of 'ya.

Unreality, I remember reading (possibly?) something about matter becoming completely distorted as it approaches the speed of light, and once it travels at the speed of it, is infinite? *shrugs* My basic understand of this is that time travel isn't possible (evil physicists tell me so), beyond the science, because of the paradoxes it would pose. In reality (my understanding) fourth-dimensional space-time doesn't share the same multi-directional freedom as the first directions do. Like, mathematically, you can go backwards or forwards in the first three dimensions, but it doesn't work with the fourth*. I suppose you can make a time machine that takes you to the future, but *shrugs* I need to find this one post where a guy explained it fairly well.. >_> *I don't actually know the math for this.