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For the first part - Laws of nature in general remain the same for all.
If God hated those who don’t believe in him then perhaps God would not give them any off springs. There wouldn’t be any childbirths in the Atheist families.
The concept of religion in general is: we have a certain amount of time, resources and intelligence, and then we have our certain life and day to day event situations. We are supposed to try to live a peaceful and morally cautious life within the boundaries set by God’s guidance till the last bell rings and our time is up. And we stand in the court of God.
Fundamentalist and extremists do not represent the religious guidance which focuses to take the middle path in an effort to strike and fair balance between the do’s and don’ts.
For the second where you are on a high horse of believing that religion is a mental obstruction?
I'm not on any high horse, it's just what I have observed.
This thread is not about god but about religion, and all religions place mental constraints on what you are allowed to, or are capable of believing to be true.
Science presents us with provable facts, arrived at through systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through repeated observation, experiment and data collection.
Unfortunately, despite this - even given repeated and provable repeated observation and experiment, religion tells you that if the results do not fit your particular doctrine, then you shouldn't believe them.
There are many examples but some of the obvious ones are evolution, the age of the earth, the shape of the earth, the age of the universe. Climate change denial also seems to be something stemming from the religious right, for reasons I'm unsure of.
And then there is believing in things that do not exist that place mental constraints on your life. The belief in hell for example is based purely on fear: "Don't do this or you will go to hell". No, you wont go to hell, but be nice anyway.
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well, I would’ve believed you if you had died and then came back to life to tell us that you have seen it all and you know it all.
I do not, by any stretch of the imagination claim to know it all. The opposite in fact. I think we have an infinite amount to learn. But my mind is not bound by the constraints that would be placed on it if I was religious. I believe in observable, verifiable, provable truths and I am open minded about future discoveries, or indeed open to changing my mind about current ones, should more advanced scientific observations override them.
You don't have this with religion, particularly the old ones. There is no addendum or amendment you can add. You are stuck with what you have.
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You think you have a more “clear and rational thoughts”? How do you know there is no God?
My answer to this is always; "how do you know there is?". The answer is, you don't and neither do I. But we are not talking about god, we are talking about religion.
From my perspective, I do not see religion as a privilege, I see it as a mental constraint.
I'm not on any high horse, it's just what I have observed.
This thread is not about god but about religion, and all religions place mental constraints on what you are allowed to, or are capable of believing to be true.
Science presents us with provable facts, arrived at through systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through repeated observation, experiment and data collection.
Unfortunately, despite this - even given repeated and provable repeated observation and experiment, religion tells you that if the results do not fit your particular doctrine, then you shouldn't believe them.
There are many examples but some of the obvious ones are evolution, the age of the earth, the shape of the earth, the age of the universe. Climate change denial also seems to be something stemming from the religious right, for reasons I'm unsure of.
.
Science is an extremely powerful tool that we have, and IMO it should be used to benefit humanity. The purpose of science, if taken as, a tool to prove or disprove the existence of God, then it's something that IMO takes us away from effectively using the knowledge of science.
You seem to be a pro-science person who believes that believing in science automatically negates the existence of God, and yet your brain tells you to believe that evolution and many, many precisely controlled processes in nature and in the universe are all happening on their own.
The entire universe and everything in it came together all by itself.
There is no design in nature, there is no controlling force and intelligence that's running the show.
Science is an extremely powerful tool that we have, and IMO it should be used to benefit humanity. The purpose of science, if taken as, a tool to prove or disprove the existence of God, then it's something that IMO takes us away from effectively using the knowledge of science.
You seem to be a pro-science person who believes that believing in science automatically negates the existence of God, and yet your brain tells you to believe that evolution and many, many precisely controlled processes in nature and in the universe are all happening on their own.
The entire universe and everything in it came together all by itself.
There is no design in nature, there is no controlling force and intelligence that's running the show.
well, good for you.
Science is not out to do any such thing.
Science is not here to either prove or disprove the existence of god.
Science functions independent of any notions of god - god is not a factor.
Science is the study of nature and the pursuit of universal truths. If there were no religions and no belief in god, it wouldn't make a difference to science. It's religious people that take offense to provable truths that don't happen to fit the doctrine they have been trained to believe in. But science does not exist to fit what you want to believe, it does not factor in.
Quote:
You seem to be a pro-science person who believes that believing in science automatically negates the existence of God, and yet your brain tells you to believe that evolution and many, many precisely controlled processes in nature and in the universe are all happening on their own.
Evolution happens via natural selection, mutation, migration and genetic drift and is a completely logical and indeed inevitable process of nature.
I do wish people would think more carefully when crafting thread titles. The title of the thread does not say the same thing that the poll does, and I fear it will lead to a confusing conversation. We'll see.
Seeing that many people equate being religious with some sort of ultra status quo and I am wondering then if people really think being religiously-affiliated is a privilege
I'm not understanding, mainly cuz I don't know anyone like that...privileged how? I know may screwed up Christians and Jews.And many humble others...into the more Eastern stuff...or metaphysical, (that doesn't mean Wicca).
(Sorry i only had time for the first post...maybe you answered already,
I will have more time later to read the other posts.)
I'm not on any high horse, it's just what I have observed.
This thread is not about god but about religion, and all religions place mental constraints on what you are allowed to, or are capable of believing to be true.
Science presents us with provable facts, arrived at through systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through repeated observation, experiment and data collection.
Unfortunately, despite this - even given repeated and provable repeated observation and experiment, religion tells you that if the results do not fit your particular doctrine, then you shouldn't believe them.
There are many examples but some of the obvious ones are evolution, the age of the earth, the shape of the earth, the age of the universe. Climate change denial also seems to be something stemming from the religious right, for reasons I'm unsure of.
And then there is believing in things that do not exist that place mental constraints on your life. The belief in hell for example is based purely on fear: "Don't do this or you will go to hell". No, you wont go to hell, but be nice anyway.
I do not, by any stretch of the imagination claim to know it all. The opposite in fact. I think we have an infinite amount to learn. But my mind is not bound by the constraints that would be placed on it if I was religious. I believe in observable, verifiable, provable truths and I am open minded about future discoveries, or indeed open to changing my mind about current ones, should more advanced scientific observations override them.
You don't have this with religion, particularly the old ones. There is no addendum or amendment you can add. You are stuck with what you have.
My answer to this is always; "how do you know there is?". The answer is, you don't and neither do I. But we are not talking about god, we are talking about religion.
From my perspective, I do not see religion as a privilege, I see it as a mental constraint.
Evolution happens via natural selection, mutation, migration and genetic drift and is a completely logical and indeed inevitable process of nature.
"Natural Selection"
How?
who decides? And where does the intelligence to make the decision comes from?
And then who applies the precise force to make the expected outcome happen?
What you are telling me is that all this precise design and process in nature happens on it's own, and by mere chance. There is no planning, no design, no intelligence and no controlling force behind it.
Science is an extremely powerful tool that we have, and IMO it should be used to benefit humanity. The purpose of science, if taken as, a tool to prove or disprove the existence of God, then it's something that IMO takes us away from effectively using the knowledge of science.
You seem to be a pro-science person who believes that believing in science automatically negates the existence of God, and yet your brain tells you to believe that evolution and many, many precisely controlled processes in nature and in the universe are all happening on their own.
The entire universe and everything in it came together all by itself.
There is no design in nature, there is no controlling force and intelligence that's running the show.
well, good for you.
No. In my view you are misreading him.
Believing in science is accepting "what is" when the evidence clearly leads you there. If science, specifically archaeology, definitively proved various aspects of Jesus' life, then a person who trusted science would accept that. If some aspect of science proved there is a god, then a person who trusted science would accept that.
The beauty of science, when done correctly, is that it takes actual evidence to come to its conclusions. I spoke the other day about what happened in science classes when a dozen lab tables did a science experiment and one of the dozen lab groups would come up with a bad result. We would then look for what variable the errant group had changed, and we always found the error. Scientists make conclusions based on best actual evidence at hand. Religionists, however, make their conclusions based primarily on the popular culture of where they grew up. Christians are not one big happy family. A Baptist looks at his religion significantly different than a Jehovah Witness, than a Mormon, than a Catholic, than a Seventh Day Adventist, than a Quaker, than tens of thousands of sects...who, perhaps, once a year have a fake ecumenical get-together for show. And each of these thousands of sects take the bible or some version it and interpret it any way they want. It's intellectual bedlam. Right here on this forum within the past couple of days we have had a poster or two give us the peace and love version of christianity, and another poster give us the brimstone, fire, and hell version of christianity. So please don't give us that design in nature crapola when you can't even give us design in christianity.
It depends on your religion. If you belong to the same religion as the majority in the country, then yes, to an extent. Many things will be tailored to that set of beliefs (prayers at events, holidays off, even cultural holidays and references, etc.) and it will be assumed everyone belongs to that religion. If you belong to a different religion... not so easy.
How?
who decides? And where does the intelligence to make the decision comes from?
And then who applies the precise force to make the expected outcome happen?
What you are telling me is that all this precise design and process in nature happens on it's own, and by mere chance. There is no planning, no design, no intelligence and no controlling force behind it.
well, good for you again.
Nobody 'decides'. It's not a 'decision', there is no 'force', and it doesn't all happen by mere chance (though that can be one of the factors) - it's just an inevitable process of nature and environment.
Unfortunately what you are demonstrating here (and please, please do not take this the wrong way) is that you either haven't ever been exposed to a proper explanation of natural selection or you haven't tried to understand what it is.
I would really like you to try to understand here:
The best, perhaps most often used and simplest way to explain it is the example of the peppered moth.
The peppered moth is a moth that can have black/white speckled coloring (hence its name), or can range from mostly white or mostly dark coloring...
A very dark colored, almost fully black variety emerged as a direct result of the industrial revolution.
In 1848 in Industrial Manchester (UK) it was observed that these moths would settle on chimneys and trees colored black from the sooty factories. The darker moths would be camouflaged by the sooty surroundings while the lighter colored moths would be easily seen and get picked off by birds.
The dark moths inevitably became more prolific and by the end of the 19th century the dark colored moth in Manchester outnumbered the light ones by 98%.
Similarly, in cleaner surroundings away from the factories, the white colored moths flourished in the same way.
The observations were made possible due to the moths short life span where many generations of moth could be observed in a few short years.
This is one simple example of evolution in action. Most evolution does not occur with the speed of the peppered moth, since many animals life span is much longer, and environment and other factors, such as gene mutation also play a part in evolution, but it is a good illustration of part of the process.
It would be good if you would take the time to explore some of the other evolutionary processes yourself since I do not wish to derail the OP's thread by making this all about evolution.
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