Evolution vs God. New viral vid has Atheists Pissed

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

This is why I am not an atheist. It requires WAY too much thought about something that does not exist.

[Peikko 1,575]

This is why I am not an atheist. It requires WAY too much thought about something that does not exist.

That makes no sense. An atheist is a person with an absence of belief, you are one by default if you do not believe in deities.

[Peikko 1,575]

Actually there are lots of Atheist organizations and a whole movement, if you would like to get "connected", let me know I will google them for you.

Atheists are like any other group, they like to even have church (like) services, we covered that subject here on VJ before, Atheist groups buying a church and having Sunday like gatherings complete with Music and sermon.

However if you are in need, I would invite you to seek out a religious organization as they seem to be the ones donating time, money and effort into meeting the physical and spiritual needs of people.

You would not believe the size of the disaster relief program the Baptist Mens groups has built up, from what I understand they were responding to Katrina before FEMA.... (but I guess thats not saying much.

Catholic Charities has a budget in the multiple BILLIONS, with well over 200,000 volunteers.

When one digs into the amount of money and the army of people.... serving other people in need it is truly amazing and a little humbling.

You are talking about humanists I guess. Humanists are atheists but atheists are not humanists. Atheists are people with an absence of belief that does not make them a homogenous group so you can't research who they are and what they do. As I have already said, mostly they do not advertise themselves they just don't believe in gods/deities but that does not mean you will not find them taking part in activities organised by people of faith. Not believing in deities does not make one morally corrupt or without compassion. Being a person with an absence of belief does not make one do or be anything other than a regular human being.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Being a person with an absence of belief does not make one do or be anything other than a regular human being.

Rubbish.

[Peikko 1,575]

You make some valid points in that following group-think has often been wrong, which is kinda what I am suggesting could be going on today with science in some respects. Part truth and part error can be very misleading, for instance, discovering perhaps a process God used to create the earth ... one in which Genesis spells out in steps does not discount a creator. It would seem daily discoveries are stumbled on which throw wrenches into former, long help theories on many areas of science, that people believe these theories with unquestioning faith is a marvel to me.

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As far as flawed members of the church, generally there are people at all levels of faith and commitment, very few are "out to get something" from my experience.

When it comes to churches, I generally don't expect more perfection than I can deliver myself.

Science and faith are not intertwined Danno. The progression of science is not blindly believing something and then blindingly believing something else. In fact, the whole point of science is quite definitely to keep questioning. questioning. questioning. Science is not an alternative to belief. Science is simply man questioning his world and trying to find explanations for how things are and how things work and because of the work of science we have made incredible technological advances. One can argue about the long term benefits of technological advances, clearly some people of belief find that baffling and wrong as well but in the end most humans most of the time want and use technology. As a person who believes that ever increasing numbers of people is a requirement for economic growth you of all people should be all in favour of scientific advance

Rubbish.

In what way is that rubbish? You said it, so please explain.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Science and faith are not intertwined Danno.

More rubbish.

Scottish thinker David Hume drove the point home by specifying that modern science is inherently illogical, because it relies in part on assumed theories that must reach beyond what we can ever observe.

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/opinion/wake-call-science/

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

No doubt. It is probably a lot like playing the lottery. I am not a practicing Catholic any more, although I was for a while when the wife first came to the US. The closer I get to dying, the more I feel I may want to hedge my bets. No atheists in foxholes and all that.

There is something out there, or there is something I have created in my subconscious, that seems to interact with the world around me and protects me, and will respond to me when it wants to. But it doesn't seem to require all that organized ritual stuff, and does seem to have a weird sense of humor, and likes to cheat at solitaire, for whatever that is worth.

Very nice

I was so hoping you were going to respond that somehow they could all somehow co-exist and not be wrong so I could then equate Christianity with VooDoo with the Incas doing thousands of human sacrifices, etc, etc.

I can't say there was no intelligence at work in creating the universe... I don't think any religion on Earth is remotely close to whatever the answer is and if there is an intelligence I would want to know where he/she/it came from.. I also don't beleive that if there was intelligence at work in the universe creation that they are bothering to watch us now unless we are some sort of computer simulation or experiment. Obviously I can't know that.

When I was a kid .. early 80's ... the Salt Lake Planetarium had a show about following human-kind until the end of the universe. Humans quickly shed there bodies and lived among the stars and eventually forgot where they had originated.. They built a computer the size of mars that became more and more intelligent over millions of years. The universe aged for countless eons until finally the last of the stars died and the last of what was humans was gone.. The compute at that point was all energy and stretched out for hundred of light years.. It sat for another million years before executing the program it had been creating all that time.. It then gave its final command: "Let there be light" followed by a big explosion and the start of a new universe.

Hmm.. that sparked a memory and did a quick lookup.. The planetarium show was based on a book called "The last Question" by Isaac Asimov

There is also a followup book "The last Answer" where an atheist dies and afterwards meets a being of "infinite" knowledge.. The plot summary looks interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Answer

Edited September 8, 2013 by OnMyWayID

[Penny Lane 8,159]

This is why I am not an atheist. It requires WAY too much thought about something that does not exist.

I must be a terrible atheist. I spend really no time thinking about God, or the lack thereof.

[Danno 1,228]

Science and faith are not intertwined Danno. The progression of science is not blindly believing something and then blindingly believing something else. In fact, the whole point of science is quite definitely to keep questioning. questioning. questioning. Science is not an alternative to belief. Science is simply man questioning his world and trying to find explanations for how things are and how things work and because of the work of science we have made incredible technological advances. One can argue about the long term benefits of technological advances, clearly some people of belief find that baffling and wrong as well but in the end most humans most of the time want and use technology. As a person who believes that ever increasing numbers of people is a requirement for economic growth you of all people should be all in favour of scientific advance

My friend you seemed to believe that science and religion are always and naturally at odds which seems rather strange considering that for most of history nearly all scientist were educated and funded by the church. (even in this country until perhaps the last century)

I don't know that you could name many great thinker or leaders in science who don't owe at least in part their education and their ability to do research to the religious institutions.

Even on those oft repeated occasions where these scientist had conflict with a religious organization, you can't find many who believed as you do.

Anyway, I will welcome a list of names.

[Peikko 1,575]

My friend you seemed to believe that science and religion are always and naturally at odds which seems rather strange considering that for most of history nearly all scientist were educated and funded by the church. (even in this country until perhaps the last century)

I don't know that you could name many great thinker or leaders in science who don't owe at least in part their education and their ability to do research to the religious institutions.

Even on those oft repeated occasions where these scientist had conflict with a religious organization, you can't find many who believed as you do.

Anyway, I will welcome a list of names.

I don't see how it matters what I personally believe about religion and deities commonplace or not. Suffice to say, Science is not trying to prove or disprove anything about religion or deities. In the course of scientific research facts have been come to light that have upset religious communities, but that says more about the rigidity of those religious communities than how science progresses. Personally, I don't care if someone does or does not have faith in deities as regards scientific research because I know that this has no bearing on the work they will do in the scientific field. If it did, if they did for example cite the old testament as proof that the Earth is no more than 10,000 year old or some such nonsense, then clearly they would not be basing their conclusions on anything that can be described as scientific research.

[ready4ONE 5,400]

Someone burns there kids with cigarets and you blame God?

Sounds like you want God to create a heaven on earth?

I am asking you to explain how a 'perfect, all knowing, all seeing Creator' can create imperfection? The only answer is that such a Creator cannot do so. But let's hear your thoughts on the how and the why.

This is why I am not an atheist. It requires WAY too much thought about something that does not exist.

And here is where you and I can completely agree.

[Danno 1,228]

As I have already said, mostly they do not advertise themselves they just don't believe in gods/deities but that does not mean you will not find them taking part in activities organised by people of faith. Being a person with an absence of belief does not make one do or be anything other than a regular human being.

I see your point and I concede that it's entirely possible some Atheists are walking in and helping out at "Loaves and Fishes".

I never claimed there are no atheists who care for the needy or volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters, I simply relayed what research shows and that is,

when people are asked about their level of involvement in giving to charity or even involving themselves in such things as Adopt a hi-way programs or volunteering as a teachers aid, or shoveling their neighbors walk, they respond "yes" less often.

One of the findings that was especially juicy was-

-When asked "should government do more" the less religious a person tended to be, the more LIKELY one would say yes.

Think about that, the demographic which helps out the least.... expects Gov't to do more.

In a way it makes perfect sense.

In another way it highlights another area where LOSS OF FAITH in a society mandates more Govt.

Again we all know there are Godless people who care for others and do help out, and I am not saying you have to be obscenely rich to do so as Bill Gates and some other have done, it's just that research shows the on the whole, they care less.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I am asking you to explain how a 'perfect, all knowing, all seeing Creator' can create imperfection?

Perhaps it is only an "imperfection" in your mind. In computer programming, such "imperfections" are known as "undocumented design features",

[Peikko 1,575]

I see your point and I concede that it's entirely possible some Atheists are walking in and helping out at "Loaves and Fishes".

I never claimed there are no atheists who care for the needy or volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters, I simply relayed what research shows and that is,

when people are asked about their level of involvement in giving to charity or even involving themselves in such things as Adopt a hi-way programs or volunteering as a teachers aid, or shoveling their neighbors walk, they respond "yes" less often.

One of the findings that was especially juicy was-

-When asked "should government do more" the less religious a person tended to be, the more LIKELY one would say yes.

Think about that, the demographic which helps out the least.... expects Gov't to do more.

In a way it makes perfect sense.

In another way it highlights another area where LOSS OF FAITH in a society mandates more Govt.

Again we all know there are Godless people who care for others and do help out, and I am not saying you have to be obscenely rich to do so as Bill Gates and some other have done, it's just that research shows the on the whole, they care less.

Danno, did it ever occur to you that those people who would prefer government to do more to help those in need rather than respond to charitable drives are more concerned to prevent problems in the first place rather than try to clean up the mess afterwards? Probably not. I know your antipathy for government and the fact that the US government can be particularly useless and fail local communities on spectacular levels means that for you, government intervention is an evil that produces more poverty. At one level because of the failures I understand your point of view, but really, we as a community are the government, that's what the constitution set out to create and as such should always be working towards preventative soltions rather than trying to keep picking up the pieces. It is not the job of chairitis or religions to create the conditions to prevent poverty it is the job of governments.

Governments should be driving towards creating solutions to people problems not creating political elites and wealth for a few only. So loss of faith does not mandate more government but again I see why you believe that is true. It's like you look at every problem backwards as far as I can tell. Odd, but there you are.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Christianity's message to common folk, especially those at the bottom, has always been,"God cares about each and every one of you, because governments do not." I don't know about the former, but the latter seems to prove true still.