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discussion on the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth


Dawood

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

Thus we can see that morality as a standard concept can not be ascribed to religion, but merely as a means to put forth a concept of morality.

 

I meant to delete this and write:

 

Thus we can again see that morality as a normative set of concepts can nnot be ascribed to religion. It seems to follow then that if religion is merely a means to dissiminate ethical standards, then religion follows morality, but the relationship is not transitive.

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

I personally think that if you could somehow make religion dissaper in a several generations people would be no different from animals.

 

Religion acts as a reward system. If you remove that reward system everything falls apart.

 

What reason do I have not to kill or rob someone? I mean he's got more money/food than me and I want it.

 

I know I'll get away with it so whats stops me if there is no concept of punishment or G-d?

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

meh, I doubt that... it's not religion that stops people from commiting crime. Actually, the purest analysis of crime prevention has been done by economist. I'm sure you can see why they would be interested in or concerened with crime and it's causes. Well, not so much the cause as prevention methods. Basically they determined, and I fully concur, that the ONLY effective crime preventer is the fear of being caught. People murder people every day but most don't do it while a cop is standing there. Burglary, if there's a cop there you're not gonna smash and grab but let that cop walk around the corner and suddenly is seems a lot safer to commit your crime. It all comes down to fear of being caught or the idea that you could get away with it.

 

This argument (theirs not mine) didn't start out to be, but ended up by virtue of the facts, an anti-death penalty deal. As they sifted through the facts they found it borne out that, as I said, fear of punishment is not a deterrent. This is why killing people who kill people doesn't work. Personally, I'm fer it because I'm looking to free up the beds and save the tax payer dollars... but there's the moral delimma concerning the drastic numbers of innocent men on death row. So... some other thread for that...

 

Basically I'm saying, people of all races and religions, and all levels of faith from lapsed to zealot, commit crime. Everyday. Whatever God they are or aren't worshipping matters very little it turns out. In fact, Mar, by your argument the prisons should be over flowing with athiests but let me tell you if you never been, Jesus is in every jail cell. Half of it is fear of the unknown (years in prison) and half is to do a little dance for the captors (because 'religious' parolees are somehow supposed to be better people).

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

I guess i wasnt clear. Basicly what im saying is what pervents crime is the fear of punishment and that the idea of whats right and wrong comes from religion.

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

Who was it who said 'Faith is the lack of proof' I don't recall nor did I read this entire thread....perhaps it was said already.

 

I am just here to say that if there is a god, let him strike me dead now.

 

....still here.

 

Can you type those words without a twinge of trepidation? See how strong the Fear of God is in us, even those raised without any religion? Is that the Nature of God? Is that a good thing? Does it lead to good things?

 

So yeah, I am an atheist .....and I don't care for ISMs like Atheism, either.

 

 

....still here

 

 

:heartbeat:

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

I guess i wasnt clear. Basicly what im saying is what pervents crime is the fear of punishment and that the idea of whats right and wrong comes from religion.

 

Yeah but does it? What's wrong with the golden rule? Pretty straight forward and nondenominational to boot.

 

 

*I thought that saying was more like:

"Faith is belief in the absence of proof"

 

I don't know who said it, or if that is, in fact, 'it'...

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

smart and mar-

 

as far as economic construals of morality are concerned I saw a very interesting presentation last year. It was having to do with game theory and altruism. Basically a friend of mine set up an experiment that allowed on person to decide how much money to give themselves and another person. They had the full ability to make it whatever split they want. But, If they gave themselves more, they were up for "review" If they gave themselves less than, they could immediately take the money. The review aspect was that for ever situation that was given where a person took more than, the decision was reviewed by another person, whom seeing only the decision to take more than decided whether to let it occur or to redistribute the wealth as they saw fit, among the initial two players and then themselves. All of this was blind of course.

 

 

What he ended up finding was that more often then naught the choice was that altruism is rewarded and in fact is predicated by another altruistic act. That is to say those that chose to take more than, were punished in so much as the people reviewing either took all their wealth away and gave it to the other person, or took most of it for themselves. Where as those that took less than, their situations were also reviewed, but in almost every case, the third entrant into the equation would either subtract the difference from the higher value and put that to himself as to make it "even." Thus we find that altruism is rewarded and acts as a sort of causal base towards another act of altruism.

 

 

So, what that says to me. Which is in slight contention with what Smart says, as this experiment is a derivation of the ones used in the economic studies he is discussing, is that it supports what I originally said about ethics as a means of protecting resources.

 

While fear of not having those resources does necessitate the developement of ethics, it does not govern them.

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

Yeah but does it? What's wrong with the golden rule? Pretty straight forward and nondenominational to boot.

 

 

*I thought that saying was more like:

"Faith is belief in the absence of proof"

 

I don't know who said it, or if that is, in fact, 'it'...

 

The golden rule is a jewish concept said by Rabbi Hillel. I was a consolidation of all the ideas in the torah.

 

The story recounted in the talmud is a man went to the house of Shami and asked him to teach him all the Torah on one foot, so he threw a brick at him. The man then went to Hillel and asked him the same thing. Hillel said "Don't do to others what you wouldnt want to be done to yourself."

 

But i repeat. I do not think you have to be religious to be moral, just that religion needs to exsist for morals to remain present.

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

erg i tried to edit.

 

the idea is writen in the torah:Ve’ahavta le’re’acha kamocha Ani YHVH [Love your friend as yourself, I am Hashem]” (Leviticus 19:18)

and is called the most important idea in the torah by Rebbi Akiva

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

i still think you are missing what smart and I are saying. morals are a natural reaction to the animalistic need to acquire and retain resources. be it out of fear or some other modal predecessor, it is not that morality needs religion to maintain itself. it would seem to me to be quite the contrary. remove morals from religion and what do you have?

 

also I dont think that the golden rule is specifically derived from that passage in the torah. I think if anything it shows it as a universally understood perception of humanity. That there are qualifying statements like that in most religions suggests that credit shouldnt be given to them, but unto humanity itself as the cause of morality.

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

i disagree. First off, most religions that would lay claim to such an idea come from Judaism.

 

Second, I think morals are not inherent. Look at what you do everyday. You eat, you sleep, you fuck, all those things are animal nature. No matter how you get them its still animalistic even if its on a higher level. Remove self control and restrant from your life and its no more important than a fishes.

 

But I need to know something important: What are morals? I get a feeling that our explainations are different.

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

morality and ethics as i see them, are the set of guidelines which determine social interaction, for morality has no meaning in a solitary sense. I only know that which is moral by virtue of my interaction with others.

 

And your absolutely right in your assesment of all those things being animal in nature. But i also contend that morality is but an offshoot of those instincts. Everything we do, is in regards to continue to eat, to continue to sleep, to continue to fuck. Soo, anything that would further that exploit, e.g. morals, are not particularly above animal instinct even if they are a reflection of the rationality of man.

 

I ask you what is self control? again, it is only in relation to other people. These are but guidelines intuited to assure a standard form of communication on a very very basic level. I'm not talking ten commandments. I mean i know in my head that if I attack you, you will retalliate. Thus as to prevent such an attack from you, I will not attack you, and expect on some instictive level that you will understand the same thing. This is what I meant when I say that morals and ethics are just intuited guidelines. And that they are intuited causes the subjectiveness from which we contemporarily discuss them. It fits with even your descriptive of their subjective nature (I refer you to your previous post of finding the concept of Criminality interesting). I think the reason you find this stuff fascinating is that perhaps you intuit there is something beyond the religious ascription your giving them. Morality if it is necessitated by religion, is pretty rediculous and arbitrary then.

 

Anywho... back to my paper.

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

Im going to break this down into ideas i want to discuss so if i take something out of context just let me know.

 

morality and ethics as i see them' date=' are the set of guidelines which determine social interaction, for morality has no meaning in a solitary sense. I only know that which is moral by virtue of my interaction with others.[/quote']

 

But what is moral? Can i walk around naked? Is that moral? When you remove religion morals become hazy.

 

And your absolutely right in your assesment of all those things being animal in nature. But i also contend that morality is but an offshoot of those instincts. Everything we do, is in regards to continue to eat, to continue to sleep, to continue to fuck. Soo, anything that would further that exploit, e.g. morals, are not particularly above animal instinct even if they are a reflection of the rationality of man.

 

But where is the line drawn between morals and instinct? What is the difference between man and animal?

 

I ask you what is self control? again, it is only in relation to other people.

 

I disagree. Self control can be something as basic as not eating too much. Getting fat has little impact on other people.

 

I think the reason you find this stuff fascinating is that perhaps you intuit there is something beyond the religious ascription your giving them. Morality if it is necessitated by religion, is pretty rediculous and arbitrary then.

 

Personally I find morals facinating because I they reinforce my belief in G-d and my religion.

 

 

Good luck on that paper. Dont let our converstation become to big of a distraction.

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

There is certainly quite a bit of crime in the presence of religion. Look at all these African continents where missionaries were supposedly trying to help by giving them Christ. Things have only gotten worse, genocide in the name of Christ. There is crime all over the world, especially in this country. If you took religion out, I don't think there would be a significant increase in crime. There would be a significant decrease in religious warfare (holy wars, crusades, etc). Look at Bosnia, where the Muslims were being killed by the tens of thousands simply because of their religion. Or the warring Muslim tribes in Iraq. Or England's colonial attacks on anything that wasn't Protestant: India, Ireland, etc. So much killing has been done in the name of religion.

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

no worries on the paper, just finished it. 13 pages of complete and udder bullshit on the verification of unobservable entities within experimentation.

 

back to morality. I guess this again comes down to our fundamental difference in perception of man. I dont see man as any different from animal except in our ability to reason. But, I do not think that differentiates us as the reason we are here or in so much as that ability to reason is just another sense organ.

 

As to your question of what then is moral. I felt that we had already established that any distinction of what it is to be moral is arbitrary and subjective. However, I do not think that the establishment of morality is contained within religion. I think the distinctions that we create for morality, at their very base are just guidelines for survival within social settings.

 

When I said self control as well as morality are only known via interaction, I mean that they are dialectic in nature. Control is only expressed over something. We have self control in so much as we have free will and can decide to do what we want, but self control as far as morality is only seen in so much as the decision (free will) to act according to those moral guidelines we have created. While I recognize that morality at this point is steeped within historical context, I feel one an extrapolate from that a general idea of Morality. Not so much the specific guidelines set down in each religion or whatever, but more to the concept of morals as a whole.

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

I think Crooked is right when he says you missed an important point, but not because it's not in your grasp... You said it yourself...

 

I do not think you have to be religious to be moral' date=' just that religion needs to exsist for morals to remain present.[/quote']

So, being that morals and religion are two distinct entities that can exist seperately as you suggest, why then must morals rely on religion to survive?

 

Seems a bit post hoc ergo propter hoc to me... To me, morals provide the frame work for religions to flourish, not the other way around. If you take the moral code away from religion, don't you just end up with a bunch of fantasy stories and floopy rituals?

 

Also, now that we're on page 25 I think it's important to remember there are 8 major religions in the world and pretty much around here you guys, in as much as I haven't really participated consistently, pretty much you guys are only discussing 3 and Atheism.

 

So, we're kinda mired down here in the relative merits of Judaism which begat Christianity which both begat Islam. Even if each claims distinctions they all basically sprang up as a reaction to one man from Sumeria. Sumeria, in turn is also the southern end of the place known as Persia. Judaism is not the only thing to come from Persia/Sumeria. Though certainly the oldest on record with about 1700 years before the rise of Christianity.

 

However, around the world about the 6th and 7th centuries BC (approximately 600 years before Christ, and another 600 before Mohammed) the Persian world saw the rise of Zoroastrianism which is basically the Goddess of Goodness and Light vs. the God of Evil and Darkness. Nearly destroyed by the Moslems sometime around 700AD they have moved to India.

 

Also in India we find Hinduism, pretty peaceful folks who worship cows, tolerance and inclusiveness.

 

Still moving East we consider Taoism and it's undeniable counterpart Confucianism. Confucianism is the part of it all that really explains the ethics and morals of daily human interaction, the 'morals', while Taoism is pretty much mysticism and unanswerable questions.

 

Then Bhuddism, founded by Siddhartha Guatama, son of an Indian prince. Basically it's a rejection of worldly pursuits in favor of attaining enlightenment.

 

Finally there's Shintoism and I really don't know much about it, Japanese and chock full-o-gods with a ton of rituals.

 

Is that all 8? I think so, but what I'm saying with all that is at least 3 of these have nothing to do with the 'traditional' single God theory. I know I could have said they are multitheistic but that's not entirely accurate in all cases. Confucianism doen't even have churches or priests, you just do it. There's some elemental worship in there and some of it is totaly devoid of supreme beings entirely.

 

So, now that we have at least a larger view of the major religions in general, let's not forget tribal religions like those of the American Indians. Sure, they have religions with creation stories and all that but they also tie in strongly with an oral history of the tribe itself. This is why the Souix worship differently than the Navajo who in turn worship differently than the Iriquoix.

 

Do any of us (perhaps excepting Dawood) actually think Hindus are immoral by virtue of their religious differences than ours/yours?

 

 

So steering this back towards morality, let's also consider the tribes of Africa. Are the naked natives so often seen on the pages of National Geographic immoral because they walk around naked?

 

Is nudity REALLY immoral? Isn't it a natural state? How then can that be a shameful thing? Of course it is for most of us because of the religious morals imprinted upon us from birth but is it REALLY immoral? REALLY?

 

So, how then do we define morality? Basically, very basically, it's how 'you' and those who surround you define the way things need to be in order for everyone around to be pretty much happy, regardless of religion. It seems like morality is more the product of a collective agreement (not always unanimous, surely) reached by a bunch of similar animals who live in close proximity?

 

Take it back to nudity, Jews didn't want everyone to walk around naked and said as much in the Torah. I'm not actually sure about this, in fact I'm guessing, but it seems reasonable to me. Later the Christians popped up and they lived among the Jews.

 

Now, if the Christians all showed up naked on the town square one day, declaring their faith to a group of people who had been wearing clothes by religious doctrine for 1700 years what do you think would have happened? How far would they get with the prostelization/conversion demanded by Christianity if they showed up at everyone's door nude?

 

I have only seen ONE Mormon who I would open the door for and it would have REALLY helped her cause if she had less clothes. After I talked with her for about 10 minutes and figured out that it wasn't going to happen I let her send me a Book of Mormon and wished her luck, if she happened to be naked though I doubt it would have changed her religious views and while I might be euphamistically 'thinking about god' I wouldn't be thinking so called 'pure' thoughts. By many religion's definitions I would have been thinking immoral thoughts merely by considering the entire world of living things' basest function.

 

Is reproduction divine or is that only when it occurs under the auspices of some predetermined set of religious circumstances?

 

As much as everyone claims to be able to define morality, it is apparent to me that it is a very ephermeral concept. Not so with religion. Religion has a very specific definition. I'm not gonna look it up but we all know it when we see it. I hope I've showed that morality is a bit more ambiguous.

 

So, then how is it that we find it easy to define one term because it is specific in nature and difficult to pin down another due to the sheer vastness of possibilities YET Mar would have us belive that the specific predated the general and further MUST be present for this ambiguity to continue to exist?

 

 

*10:29pm I do realize the absurdity inherent in the jews/xians/naked analogy, wearing clothes in that climate seems like common sense...

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

well, that was an assumption, like I said I didn't participate much but there's always an undercurrent in topics like this... it's nearly impossible to consider the idea of religion, your own or somebody elses without considering the ultimate couple of factual dichotomies... the first being whether or not ANY supreme diety exists, second whether you have chosen the correct diety, and third if it matters which diety you choose.

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

Or... do you mean historically? For some reason I thought you meant in this thread, man, writing that wore me the fuck out. Anyway, I guess my answer above covers it...

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

that's one of the points I was going to make. Historically, there have always been religions. Most religion comes from the same source and is just an offshoot or an abrogated form of the true and upright religion of submission to the will of the Almighty creator.

 

Over time , any Religion will get distorted by some or all of It's followers, But Morals, Ethics, Manners that we learn from religion will most likely be the last thing to go because it is practiced every day. If you do something everyday you are a lot less likely to ever forget it than something you only do on the weekends.

 

I personally beleive that people were following Islam since people existed and these morals that we're talking about was (since then) a part of their life. And, yes, to my knowledge , Mar, Athiesm is a new kid on the block. It has become very popular in todays self centered individualistic society were it's all about me and not all about we.

 

If you take God away from your equation , you will do whatever dispicable thing you want to do as long as you think you won't get caught. That's the truth. And most people nowadays will do dispicable things even if they do beleive in God because their faith is weak and these filthy things are so available. peoples morals are down the toilet these days.

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

well' date=' that was an assumption, like I said I didn't participate much but there's always an undercurrent in topics like this... it's nearly impossible to consider the idea of religion, your own or somebody elses without considering the ultimate couple of factual dichotomies... the first being whether or not ANY supreme diety exists, second whether you have chosen the correct diety, and third if it matters which diety you choose.[/quote']

 

If , indeed you canme to the conclusion that there was a God, then why would you choose any other diety except the one who created you ? Like for example , a human God or a rock God or a statue God . Why not the true God?

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

well' date=' that was an assumption, like I said I didn't participate much but there's always an undercurrent in topics like this... it's nearly impossible to consider the idea of religion, your own or somebody elses without considering the ultimate couple of factual dichotomies... the first being whether or not ANY supreme diety exists, second whether you have chosen the correct diety, and third if it matters which diety you choose.[/quote']

 

 

You must have mis-understood me .I wrote the above in response to what you wrote here...

what I am saying is why would a person worship a man or a rock or a statue (and they do all the time) (if they came to the conclusion that there is a God) Why would they worship other than that God?

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

^haha. Dawood, dude, I respect your position in here and from time been one of the few trying to support your position, but I think smart is right.

 

 

 

Umm I have a couple responses. First to Smart. I think you misrepresented a couple of the asian philosophies. Not by purpose but just general misconception

 

Specifically, Taoism is a very hard thing to understand when translated into english. One of the unfortunate by products of having a non ideographic language is that we are force to the reduction of concepts into specific parts and terms such as subject/predicate form. However languages which express entire concepts with a given context and connotation in the form of a single character are much better suited to express the concepts contained within their respective philosophies. As such things like Taoism are treated with a general apathy for the content contained within their texts are usualy misinterpreted by the person not reading it in its original form. However the basic structure of Taoism is much like the diest ethical position maintained by that of Spinoza. The way, or Tao, is expressed in the seminal text Tao Te Ching as a set of statements of which seem completely ludicrous upon first examination. But when compared to the thought puzzles called Koans within Buddhism, a sneaking similarity is noticed. The comparitive expressions of what the Tao is and is not is formulated to instil and intuited interpretation of the tao. For one of the main tenets of Taoism is that one can not know the way by consideration of it, but by allowing the Tao to act through them. The reason I related it to Spinoza is that human action within Taoism is governed by allowing oneself to not full assess the conditions one is in within their life and to act without human consideration. This is reminiscent of Spinoza in that as our lives are the continual and ephemeral acting out of God's infinite essense, so is the action of allowing the way to work through you. Thus one arrives at mostly the same moral standard between them, act as you will in so much as you are not governed in that desicion by the human limitations posed to your perception.

 

Next you spoke of confucianism. Confucianism was a reaction to Taoism in so much as many people felt there were certain obligations one is expected to fulfill in ones life. Where as Taoism obviously leaves room to act as one may without giving credence to anyone else. Confucianism is much more an explication of what it is to be a citizen. Speaking of Morals, the ideal man within confucianism is expected to reflect all that is righteous in the world through his fulfillment of the obligations layed down with its doctrine. Namely that of the importance of family, and then civic duty. I would venture to say that Confucianism is not a religion but a theological exploration into the ethics of Taoism.

 

Next is Bhuddism. Now your ascription of Bhuddism is only one form of such. Many schools of bhuddism do not believe that the attainment of enlightenment is possible. While the original doctrine of bhuddism is geared towards the removal of ones self from samsara (the process of rebirth), contemporary and practiced buddhism has been transformed more towards its philosophical perspective on the world rather than its religious ascriptions to the many dieties that existed within its Indian incarnation. I personally think that the best version of Buddhism within which to find its main ideas is Zen Buddhism. The focus on all that is within oneself to the dedication of a single act is rather elegant in its translation of its indian predecessor. Also, I would argue that the main tenet within contemporary buddhism is that of impermanence. While this was traditionally reflected in what you described as the rejection of worldly things, asceticism has long since been seen as an outdated means to enlightenment. Many felt that by starving themselves to death and by rejection of all that there was but sitting was a direct path to "enlightenment."

 

 

You hit shintoism on the head though.

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

ok bruce, you think up all the smart guy theories on what God's motivation is. While you're at it, why don't you produce a book like the quran, and call all of your peoples to bear witness that what YOU say is nothing but the truth for 1500 years and still going until the last day.

 

so you go think up way to make billions and billions of faithful individuals say your thought is the right way of thinking.

 

I didn't think so.

 

Its called reality, science, common sense and not thinking like a pre historic fucking idiot.

 

There are already millions of us.

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

Its called reality, science, common sense and not thinking like a pre historic fucking idiot.

 

There are already millions of us

 

Science tends to be as imperfect as religion sometimes. take evolution for example*. Its improvable, in fact there have been scientists that have proved the opposite. Or the big bang, where did it come from? Who made it? What does our universe expand into?

 

You have to make leaps of "faith" in science the same as religion because science is filled with theoreticals.

 

Alot of very famous and learned scientists believe in G-d, Einstien is a perfect example.

 

*I do not feel science is false I'm just pointing out its imperfections.

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Re: the nature of the creator of the heavens and earth

 

that's completely false.

 

evolution can be proven using mitochondrial DNA

get educated

 

i was just posting in another thread about the rigors of testing in science

theories aren't accepted until they have been proven using observable data, and then reinforced and bolstered by further, parallel, and more in-depth experimentation

then another test within the scientific community, as an experiment must be repeatable by other experimenters, or else it's BULLSHIT

 

thing is, god and science don't have to be mutually exclusive

religious fanatics want people to believe science is based on faith and that it counters religion

 

religious theoreticals are based on unobservable, unprovable phenomena and personal experience

 

scientific theoreticals are based on observable, provable events and data that can be analyzed and tabulated, and REPEATED BY OTHERS

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