Messages

1

Kansas State Football / Re: OTHER GAME DISCUSSSION THREAD

« on: November 10, 2012, 05:52:06 PM »

this game is over, folks.  bama can't score two more times

Unless they have 2 cousins. 

2

Kansas State Football / Re: OTHER GAME DISCUSSSION THREAD

« on: November 10, 2012, 05:41:49 PM »

A&M pulling one from our playbook!!! 

3

Kansas State Football / Re: LHCBS front of espn.com

« on: October 29, 2011, 01:27:24 PM »

"He's a detail guy," Bielema said on the Oct. 11 ESPNU College Football podcast. "I remember, we were sitting in a staff meeting in my first year with him. We were going through the coaching manual, and he was teaching us how to shave. I'm like, 'This guy's got some detail to him.'"

No, really.

"He was going over office policy," Bielema said. "'You've got to wear a collared shirt. I want you to wear dress shoes. Of course, I want you to shave every day. But if you left in the morning and you haven't shaved, there are disposable razors for you to use in the locker room at the noon hour.' And he basically recommended using an upward stroke instead of a downward stroke because sometimes the razors weren't all that good. I love it, because that is vintage LHC Bill Snyder, a guy I love every day because of it."

holy crap

My basketball coach my traveling team liked to tell us how John Wooden would teach kids how to lace their shoes on the first day of practice.  All legendary coaches are super detail orientated. 

4

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Holy War

« on: April 22, 2011, 11:54:32 PM »

One of you atheists* really should break away from the normal, conforming life you live. You live 95% of your life like a Christian! Enough! Eating spaghetti for breakfast tomorrow would be a good way to get the ball rolling. After a while, you'll be ready to take a dook on a infant's face. See what that's like and then go from there. Who knows what you might do... It will be fun! Or horrible! Either way, it doesn't matter!

I would.

Oh boy, would I. If only I existed in a world where there were no actual attachments and no true emotions. I wouldn't be typing right now or reading your posts. Certainly not.

Or you could live your life and realize that you make most of your decisions without considering what God would want from you, but that you live as an atheist and that the only thing keeping you to some belief is a fear of the unknown and how people will judge you.  

eff, I have yet to admit to my parents that I am an atheist because they place such importance in the belief in god.  The only worse thing I could be would be gay.  

As an atheist I must be a bad person right?  What kind of atheist would go out of their way to work with and help people that are mentally ill?  Doesn't that go against the whole living for your self part?  

The fact of the matter is that I am a person.  I am a human with complex motives and emotions that are a result of my biology but that  willingly accept and think are great.  I love to help people, I love to listen to people.  It has nothing to do with a belief in God or some fear that one day I may end up in hell.  It's just who I am.  

What made me who I am is my genetics and my upbringing.  Change either of those and I'm a different person.    

Edit:  I probably do more on a day to day basis to help people and make the world a better place than most Christians in this thread.  So eff you. 

5

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: April 22, 2011, 11:43:25 PM »

Be 100% sure you shouldn't kill yourself, or everyone around you - have a reason, then let's continue this discussion.

Fair deal, all?

Because it would increase human suffering and misery and decrease well-being.

Of course, if they were all Christians I would be doing them a favor by sending them to heaven earlier and sparing from the suffering of being on this planet and seperated from God. 

But if we're just machines responding to stimuli, then suffering and misery is an illusion.

The experience of suffering an misery and of love and happiness do reside in our brain.  Our ability to have complex thoughts and to be aware of ourselves also reside in our brain.  Provable by all the effects that chemicals, brain damage, etc. have on our brains and our ability to think.  Mental illness (schizophrenia as a great example) is not a problem of the soul, it is a problem of the brain. 

If you want to think that that breaks down human experience to us just being simple machines then so be it, but the human brain is a wonderful machine and we experience the world in a unique way as a result. 

I don't think that at all.  I think we have a soul and God has granted us free will, thus we are not bound to simple cause and effect relationships.  We have choices, not just the illusion of them.

But if our soul is separate from our brain, then why do changes in our brain have such an effect on our conscious experience? 

6

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: April 22, 2011, 03:20:39 PM »

Be 100% sure you shouldn't kill yourself, or everyone around you - have a reason, then let's continue this discussion.

Fair deal, all?

Because it would increase human suffering and misery and decrease well-being.

Of course, if they were all Christians I would be doing them a favor by sending them to heaven earlier and sparing from the suffering of being on this planet and seperated from God. 

But if we're just machines responding to stimuli, then suffering and misery is an illusion.

The experience of suffering an misery and of love and happiness do reside in our brain.  Our ability to have complex thoughts and to be aware of ourselves also reside in our brain.  Provable by all the effects that chemicals, brain damage, etc. have on our brains and our ability to think.  Mental illness (schizophrenia as a great example) is not a problem of the soul, it is a problem of the brain. 

If you want to think that that breaks down human experience to us just being simple machines then so be it, but the human brain is a wonderful machine and we experience the world in a unique way as a result. 

7

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: April 22, 2011, 01:25:20 PM »

Be 100% sure you shouldn't kill yourself, or everyone around you - have a reason, then let's continue this discussion.

Fair deal, all?

Because it would increase human suffering and misery and decrease well-being.

Of course, if they were all Christians I would be doing them a favor by sending them to heaven earlier and sparing from the suffering of being on this planet and seperated from God. 

8

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: April 09, 2011, 02:57:52 PM »

Because instead of allowing for further thinking and exploration, it is just a way to end the conversation and I think it promotes ignorance.  Why shouldn't you try to resolve that conflict or find someone that has.

I think the problem that I was proposing as far as the bible goes is that the bible does make specific claims about how the world was created, and a lot of people reject what science has discovered about those processes because it does not fit their notions and because it creates a pretty significant amount of cognitive dissonance.  There are a lot of claims about how god intervenes in the world and creates miracles, yet, we can't truly ever study and verify that god intervenes in the world at all.  There is no strong evidence for it.  There are a lot of claims, there are a lot of "experiences", but there is no hard verifiable evidence.  I would love to see some, and if a god exists, a god that cares anything about humans, a god that intervenes in our life, then I would expect that that god would like us enough to reveal himself while we are alive to really give us an option of following him or not.   I shouldn't have to put my faith into a religious text that was written 2000 years ago and is not even consistent. 

But yes, the bible makes a lot of claims, many of which we can't verify and others that have been proven wrong. 

9

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: April 09, 2011, 01:52:37 AM »

Why would God decide to make it look like He had no hand in it at all. 

You're funny.

When you give me empirical evidence that amounts to more than just love, I'll accept it. 

And we love because love has helped us to survive as a species.  We also become aggressive because aggression has helped us to survive.  Is aggression something that God created in humans as well. 

Subjecting yourself to the depravity that is life as a human and being tortured then hung on a cross to show your love. I would consider that to be aggressive. Your empirical evidence is an empty grave.

I love it when people try to make God's love this pretty pink valentine's day thing. It's not. It's gritty and raw. Despite all the gross things we do, He still loves us.

I'm going to go ahead and revive this thread though I have left it alone for a bit.  First of all, how would god even become human?  God by all definitions resides outside of the bounds of nature and is not subject to it.   It really is a stretch that god would give up his own godness to be able to inhabit a human body.  It's a difficult issue to resolve well.

How is empirical evidence an empty grave? The very workings of the internet and computers are based on empirical evidence.  Both relativity and quantum mechanics are not mentioned in the bible, yet they are supported by empirical evidence.  Science and empirical evidence has advanced us as a species to the point where our average lifespan is way longer than it used to be.  Did religion come up with antibiotics or explain why some bacteria become resistant.  Did religion come up with the first vaccine?  Can the bible explain how a nuclear power plant works?  Or even why it works?   Empirical evidence is the basis for how we live.  If you don't agree with empiricism then maybe becoming Amish might suit you.   

to add: does the bible tell us how gravity works or the planets revolve around the sun.  It all comes down to people collecting data and trying to prove stuff right or wrong.  When claims made in the bible are disproven, then claims fall back and become more ambiguous. 

10

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: CNN show on mosque in Murfreesboro, TN

« on: March 28, 2011, 09:42:11 PM »

Well not all are. But there are a surprising number who are both bigoted and claim to be Christian.

Since you're keeping stereotypical score (like any good bigot would do), it's worth noting:  Muslims as a group are waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more bigoted than Christians.

This is irrelevant to the link, just pointing out another lib double standard.

I think all that libs want is for people to differentiate that there are many more decent muslims than there are terrorist muslims, and that muslims should be allowed to practice their faith as long as it doesn't interfere with US laws and the religious freedoms of others.  Is that too much to ask?  

I would support Christians if they were in the same position.  

Edit: I also ask that people quit thinking that the Muslims are some how going to institute sharia law in the US and that we have to be afraid of a whole group of people.  "OMG the muslims are going to take over the country.  The only way to stop them is to vote for us"

11

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: March 27, 2011, 03:36:27 AM »

Why would God decide to make it look like He had no hand in it at all. 

You're funny.

When you give me empirical evidence that amounts to more than just love, I'll accept it. 

And we love because love has helped us to survive as a species.  We also become aggressive because aggression has helped us to survive.  Is aggression something that God created in humans as well. 

12

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: March 27, 2011, 03:28:12 AM »

On that note, what happened before God? how did God come into being?   

Welcome to philosophy!

I would posit that a God capable of creating this universe would transcend time and space. Of course the question remains...did something create him outside the boundaries of the Universe? I don't know....

How can something that exists outside the bounds of space and time affect the universe?  Either God has to be involved in the stream of time as we experience it to actually influence our time or he is separate from it entirely, and therefore would be the Christian God.  In order for god to create time, god would have to experience time. 

In order for god to affect the universe, he would have to be part of the universe somehow.  The same problem.  Either God can be active in the universe and be the God of Christianity or god is separate from the universe and truly eternal and supernatural. 

13

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: March 26, 2011, 05:17:48 PM »

I absolutely love science.  love it.
trust me.  I would actually prefer it be able to fully explain everything. 

admittedly, I havent done much reading on this subject, however it just seems that everything that gets explained, now our eventually, will still leave the question "what about before that?", or, "and what initiated that?". 

if there was a side to root for, in my mind, it would be science, however I just donny t think it will ever eliminate those types of questions.

No,  it won't, but why does a god have to be the answer for what happened before everything.  I don't think science should ever give up looking, but it will get harder and harder to explain things as we reach the edge of what we can discover, but there is no indication that anything needed a supernatural force to come into being.  Why would God decide to make it look like He had no hand in it at all. 

On that note, what happened before God? how did God come into being?   

14

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: March 26, 2011, 01:25:18 PM »

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/07/01/what-happened-before-the-big-bang/

Woah, it looks like the actual science is advancing on this subject. See, that's the cool thing about science, they don't stop trying just because they reach a tough a spot.

The not yet complete theory proposed in this article just raises more questions. In, fact in raises questions about another universe.

 A particular problem is that of entropy. For the previous universe to have have collapsed, it's entropy would had to approach an absolute minimum. For our universe as we approach t=0 we approach infinite density and temperature at a finite point in time (yes, the article points this out). We have observed that our universe expanded from the infinite density and temperature to where we are today, and as the expansion continues entropy approaches a maximum limit. So basically entropy goes from 0 to positive infinity for our universe as we know it. If the proposed new theory is assuming that the previous universe is a somewhat backwards model of our universe, it still doesn't explain what happens at t=0 or t=infinity, it just shows that at that time the rules of the current model no longer apply.

Our current universe model will eventually become too cool to sustain life because it expands forever. So this gives us only a few options. 1) something we have no idea about happens at t=infinity in order to to reverse the process back toward the minimum of entropy. 2) the previous universe has completely different constraints (volume? mass? energy? limits of entropy?). 3) our current model is farther off then what we think. Either way this new theory just raises more questions ,could be good, could be bad.

The reason it could be bad is that our model may become skewed because we don't have enough info. And, we may never have enough info. For the theory of relativity to work light must travel at a finite rate. This means the light from things that have already happened an extremely long time ago may never reach us. Inflationary theory attempts to resolve this but by assuming that the bounds of the observable universe expand faster than the universe itself. We have not been able to verify this, and if inflationary theory is correct, it still means there is a limited range of the universe we can see.

It will be interesting to see how small or big of a step this proposed new theory actually is.

Yeah, we may never pin it down to exactly what happened, but there are possible scientific explanations that don't require a god to exist. 

15

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: March 26, 2011, 01:19:55 PM »

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/07/01/what-happened-before-the-big-bang/

Woah, it looks like the actual science is advancing on this subject. See, that's the cool thing about science, they don't stop trying just because they reach a tough a spot.

Just out of curiosity, do you like to use Philosophy to look into this God discussion or are you strictly a science guy?  

I do enjoy philosophy, but I would say that my own reasons for disbelief come from a scientific background, and I'm less familiar with all of the current philosophical arguments.  Maybe that is something I need to remedy.  

Edit: and I guess there is the philosophical aspect of how do we know things to be true, but yeah, I haven't really thought much about the philosophical arguments and looked into them as much.  But then again, philosophy tends to just go round and round. 

16

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: March 26, 2011, 09:52:43 AM »

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/07/01/what-happened-before-the-big-bang/

Woah, it looks like the actual science is advancing on this subject. See, that's the cool thing about science, they don't stop trying just because they reach a tough a spot.

17

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: March 26, 2011, 12:09:02 AM »

I grew up as one as well....hate the crap out of the Catholic Church. It's too reliant on tradition for traditions sake and boring as hell.

What do you identify as now, just for curiosity

edit:  I asked for proof of god's existence earlier in this thread and have yet to receive any.  Why should I believe in something without proof? 

Or let's put it into more scientific terms.  H0:  There is no god.  - disprove that

There being a God make much more scientific sense than the big bang occurring with no catalyst.

How so?

18

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: March 25, 2011, 11:39:25 PM »

I grew up as one as well....hate the crap out of the Catholic Church. It's too reliant on tradition for traditions sake and boring as hell.

What do you identify as now, just for curiosity

edit:  I asked for proof of god's existence earlier in this thread and have yet to receive any.  Why should I believe in something without proof? 

Or let's put it into more scientific terms.  H0:  There is no god.  - disprove that

19

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: March 25, 2011, 10:12:52 PM »

To be honest, Catholicism is awful. The only reason I support their existence is they have exorcists and I may need one some day.

To be honest, Catholicism isn't much worse than most religions.  The main problems with them being no contraception, no abortion, hating on gays, and last and not least, not handling mumped up priests.  I guess it's hard for me to hate on them too much having grown up as one, which is the opposite of how it usually happens.  Of course I think the fundamentalists are way worse, but different perspectives. 

Of course I think they are all full of crap, so in the end its all a comparison of which is the biggest turd. 

20

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: March 25, 2011, 10:04:29 PM »

God is an bad person.  What kind of effing bad person.. etc.

Sounds a little resentful to me, but I get a better sense of where you are coming from and you seem pretty level headed.  It was just my initial impression.  Sounds like you became frustrated.  At first, this is very common.  

In an academic setting, which I am very familiar with, students who begin in Religious Studies have their faiths shaken pretty regularly as they become exposed to the overwhelming amount of belief systems and worldviews contrary to their own.  

To them, reconciling their sometimes narrow viewpoint on Truth is like trying to take a drink of water from a fire hydrant. Too much comes at them.  Too many questions they can't answer.  Too many doubts.  They get overwhelmed as concepts they have received through their theological and religious socialization come crashing down to the reality of the Big World we live in.  Sometimes this leads to an emphatic insistence on atheism, as they feel betrayed in a sense or feel like they have had the wool pulled over their eyes by the religion they grew up with. Almost as if, "I can't believe in anything anymore because I came to find out that my childhood religion just can't be true..." This is a quite common occurrence.

I will still be praying for you though dohminator.  We all have different paths, and different pre and post-natal karma to work out.  May God guide you in whatever system of faith or no faith you choose in this life.

As far as religion being a product of brain chemistry etc.  This says more about the person, than it says about the existence of God. Here is christian apologist Gregory Koukl speaking on the topic.



Listen to all five minutes, cause it takes him a bit to "get there."

Anyways, you described yourself as "passionate."  The source of you passion is coming from somewhere.  Seek the Source.  Maybe it is just the cold, robotic, physiological mechanisms of your brain chemistry afterall.  Or an ability to reason and scientifically negotiate reality. But maybe its not...

Finally, a way complicated answer made simple: Eternity is not of our space-time domain. Eternity is not linear, it is timeless, spaceless, and permeated with Bliss.  Although you might dismiss it or deny it, You can probably hear Eternity whispering to you at times. Still your mind, open your heart, and Listen.

Have a good weekend, and may God Bless everyone who has posted on this thread.

The god is an bad person stuff really isn't out of resentment.  It was just an interesting thought that I had one day and I think it rings true in a lot of ways.  Either God exists and is just messing with us, or he doesn't exist and it doesn't matter.  

And my passion is more a function of my personality.  I have always been interested in the big questions and I love to talk about them and debate them.  So I look for truth and an understanding of the world and the universe.  I just think that science can give us such a great understanding of all of these huge questions and help us to discover more and more about the world and ourselves.  Whereas I think religion kind of stops some of that.  It says, ok, we've discovered all that we can, everything after this is god's doing and his mystery, yet as we find out more, we find less need for it.  I've definitely had a lot of fun posting like crazy in this thread and hopefully some of it might cause some people to question and to think and to grow a little.  

Hey doh, you could have stopped at "I was raised Catholic."  Nuff said.  Thanks.

Well, I had to try to preempt the  "*groan* raised catholic, now I understand.  You just need to go to a better church" responses

21

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: March 25, 2011, 02:10:27 PM »

How do you scientifically prove what happens to your soul when you die?

You can't.  That's the problem with believing in one or the afterlife.  There is no possible way to know if we have a soul or not.  There is no way to test for it, and even if someone tried to do a test, when they found a negative result they would just back away from it and give an excuse.  There is no way to prove that we do not have a soul.  Which means that we can never prove that there is one either.

Science requires that hypothesis be able to be proven wrong, it's what allows us to get a yes or no answer to questions and to learn more about the world.  When something is proven wrong, people go back to the drawing board and see if they can find a better explanation, which leads to more knowledge. 

This question always kinda messed with my mind when I was in undergrad, and I'm curious to see what answers the more religious people here have to it because I never was able to come to a satisfying conclusion.  We know that changes in our brain affect changes in our thinking.  Consciousness is very tied to our brain.  When someone experiences a brain injury it can affect not only their ability to carry out basic functions, but also their personality and beliefs about the world. 

So let's take a hypothetical situation, that has occurred at least a few times.  There is a terrible person.  A mean, uncaring, and disbelieving.  He has an accident that causes him to forget who he is and his entire past.  In this process he also has a change in his personality where he becomes much kinder and gentler, no longer an evil son of a bitch.  Someone preaches to him, and he is "saved".   In effect this person is now to seperate people.  There is no knowledge of the person before who was mean and would beat up this newer kinder person.  At the same time that old person has never paid for any of his sins.  What happens when he goes to heaven?  Is he reunited with his old self, which personality wins, does he get to go to heaven just because of that brain injury?  Did his soul change? 

What about the opposite situation.  A very nice lady has an industrial accident that disables her ability to control her impulses.  She now has sex like a fiend, is mean and roudy and hates on people.  She does goes away from religion because everyone shuns her for her wild behavior.  Is she condemned to hell because of the accident or does the nice person that was her before get to go on to heaven? 

What about schizophrenics who are not in control of their own mind.  Are they held responsible even though it is their mind that may have led them to not live a Christian life?  What about people with multiple personalities.  Does god judge them all differently? 

What about the karsakoff's syndrome people that have lost their ability to remember anything and the ability to even form new memories?

Obviously the consciousness does not reside in the soul or brain injury would never be able to cause people to change in such drastic ways except for lessened bodily function.  I just was never able to quite figure out the weird cases where people change. 

22

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: March 25, 2011, 01:50:16 PM »

So "religious experiences" are a means to test for God, and those "experiences" cannot be trusted because emotions are a chemical function of our brains. Or more simply, human observations about something non-human as interpreted by the human brain.

  No, religious experiences are not a means for testing for God because they can't be independently verified.  We all have lots of feelings about things that can be very untrue.  If someone you know doesn't acknowledge you as they pass by, you might have the feeling that they hate you or that they are an bad person.  This doesn't make it true, because you don't know if that person just found out that they have cancer and are walking shell shocked back to their car to drive home and tell their family.  Until you can verify it, your feeling is just a feeling.  I know that we can't always verify things like that and it would be huge burden to do so.  That's why our brains use all kinds of shortcuts that get us into trouble from time to time and lead to irrational thinking and behavior. 

Science is based on the observation (by humans) of the natural world. These observations are interpreted by the human brain. The interpretations are refined (testing) until they match the observed behavior of the natural world.

So our brains are to be fully trusted in one instance and not at all in another? This is especially interesting in light of things such as the use of Newtonian physics is many applications when Einstein's theories are much more accurate. Seriously, we use to think the earth was flat. But, human brains have yet to cure cancer or explain with absolute certainty how the world came to be. In fact, we believe that we can't even use the full capacity of our own brains. 99.99999999992% is not 100%. Science throughout history has been "close enough" until we figure just how off we really are (for example see Kepler, Newton & Bohr).

  It would be impossible for the brain to function at "100%"  The brain is finely tuned and delicate.  And the ability to turn parts of the brain off is every bit as important as being able to fire them off.  Culling unused connections in our brain is important to maintaining function.  Schizophrenia may actually be caused by our brain holding on to too many connections in the brain and not pruning enough to make it function correctly.  Also, science will never be finished, that's a feature, not a flaw. 

Let's face it, people's interpretation of science and religion are governed more by their world view than anything else. People completely accepting of Darwin's generally have an agenda not science related (see world view). And, people that completely reject all of Darwin's observations also have an agenda (again, see world view).

My point to all of this is that we are flawed and our world is flawed. Neither is perfect, and to dismiss belief in God due to science is ignorant; as is dismissing science due to a belief in God.

Thank you for the south park conclusion Stan

23

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: March 25, 2011, 01:38:16 PM »

Science!?

Please tell me why I love?!

http://www.youramazingbrain.org.uk/lovesex/sciencelove.htm

Here is a short article that overviews some of the changes that occur in our body and brain that produce the feeling of romantic love. 

There is no reason that the development of love requires a god.  Love has to do with our kinship bonds.  Those individuals and groups that experienced greater bonding with one another were better able to survive and pass along their genes.  But yes, the qualitative experience of love is complex and different and involves discussions of cognition and philosophy that I just honestly haven't investigated fully enough to give a detailed response to the question.  But if you are a curious person, I would encourage you to do some research.  Read about the psychology of love and philosophical discussions of love.  Report back some of what you learned. 

24

The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: March 25, 2011, 01:22:02 PM »

Very well put ArchE...

Dohminator obviously has some resentment and bitterness towards religion and/or God. I will be praying for you.

I would say that I am very not resentful or bitter toward religion or god, and most atheists aren't.  To give you a better understanding of where I am coming from I'll give you guys a little bit of my history.  I was born and raised Catholic.  During my youth I spent probably more time than any kid usually would thinking about religion and I would spend times where I prayed a lot and was very strong in my faith to other times when I was much less strong, but still a believer throughout.  In my senior year of high school, I went through a period of questioning about my beliefs and recognized that there is no way to know for sure whether my religion was the correct one.  I acknowledged a level of agnosticism, just knowing that I couldn't be sure on anything, which led me to explore and learn about a wide variety of the religions that exist in this world and also to learn more about Catholic beliefs.  Once this period was over, I become much stronger in my Catholic faith, and to be honest, there are many beautiful things about the Catholic church and about the ritual of mass.  When I went to college I went to church weekly, and was very invested in my faith.  During my sophomore year, I was going to mass during the week several times a week.  To me, I definitely did get a lot out of it at the time, and I spent time considering whether I wanted to be a priest or even a monk.  However, I came to start having greater and greater doubts as some of the things that I learned about the world, how our brains work, how our psychology works began to really plant serious doubts in my head about the existence of God.  Many of those doubts being the ones that I have shared and will share.  As those doubts increased, I found it harder and harder to believe and even though I really wanted to, I just couldn't bring myself to do it anymore.  I went through a period of mourning the loss of my faith and spending a lot of time at night contemplating the fact that I was going to die some day and that would be it.  However, I have come to terms with this over time, and the more I learn the less reason I see for the existence of a god.  I spent a lot of time considering myself agnostic, until one day I just realized that I was pretty much an atheist and went through the day without any belief that there was a god out there watching everything I did.    

In the end, I don't hold any ill will to the Catholic church, and would probably still be a Catholic if I actually believed in God.  But having a belief in God is a pretty central tenet to hold in order to be a Catholic.  

I am very passionate, and probably the reason that I am posting so much in this thread is that I rarely get into these discussions in real life because a lot of people would have a hard time having this discussion in a positive way.  Most of the time if people ask, I'll just state that I'm an atheist and they'll make some comment like "there are no atheists in foxholes" and I'll just nod my head and move on with my life.  

And for a weird question, has anybody else in this thread really sat down and thought about what eternity really means and been very weirded out by it?   Or is that just me?

Edit:  To add the the discussion there are good things about religion and there are bad things.  Studies show that religious people that attend services have a higher sense of well-being, which comes from the communal aspect of attending church.  Also religious people tend to volunteer more and donate more.  These are very good things.  However, religion does have it's dark side.  It can convince people that they have the only hold to the truth which makes them self-righteous.  It can cause people to want to enforce their views on everyone else and to enact laws restricting the freedoms of others when those views do not match up with their own.  And it can cause people to justify their killing of other people in God's name. It can stop people from exploring the world around them and encourage ignorance about our world and other people. All pretty crappy.  Religion is definitely a mixed bag.  

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The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Re: Religion,Bible,Church, Etc. Thread

« on: March 25, 2011, 08:54:35 AM »

The reason that we know of Darwin so well is that he pushed a theory that has yet to be disproven despite all the best attempts to do so.   

The reason people still believe in God is that the bible has yet to be disproven despite all the best attempts to do so.

*I believe in evolution, by the way.

How do you suppose that we test the veracity of the bible scientifically? 

And certain aspects of the bible have definitely been disproven.