[TimmonaPortella]

(Original post by Safiyyah95)
. Which is why, I don't see why the idea of God and Science can't go together.

Well, this depends upon your definition of "science". Science is skeptical and dispassionate analysis of the universe through testing. Religion is to believe in a thing for no reason and to fit any new evidence into that belief system, however difficult or implausible or groundless is the means of reconciliation. The two are fundamentally opposed. Religion where it meets science corrupts it. Religion where it accepts science is still profoundly un-, and anti-, scientific.

[bordercollies10]

(Original post by Good bloke)
Are you unaware of the controversy among both Christians and Moslems about evolution, caused by scientifically unsubstantiated religious beliefs that a god created man? Or the unscientific belief by many religious people (Moslems and Christians alike) that Earth was created by a god several thousand years ago, contrary to all the credible scientific evidence?

Could you reference this scientific evidence? I can't help but being a bit scpetical when I speculate that this evidence won't directly contradict the being of God...

[Good bloke]

(Original post by bordercollies10)
Could you reference this scientific evidence? I can't help but being a bit scpetical when I speculate that this evidence won't directly contradict the being of God...

Can't you use google?

As a start, try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth

or

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html


This evidence says nothing about gods. Why would it?

[Hypocrism]

(Original post by bordercollies10)
Theism isn't logical?

Not in any way, ever.

Suppose there was a stick that was moved by the wind caused by the sea ad infinitum - eventually you are going to come to an unchanged mover (a causer of all things caused).

Illogical fallacious assumption, the primary cause could be a physical phenomenon.

From an a priori perspective, it could be argued that God can begat (give rise to) anything bar another God (because, by defintion, God is perfect).

God can't be perfect if there's something he cannot do. Also, everything he made is imperfect, so god ****ed up.

Good wouldn't be without evil and evil is really just the reduced concentration of goodness (by which complies with the moral parameters of God who has the standard of holliness)

Evil is not a lack of goodness, because a lack of goodness can be neutral.

- and that is a result of finitude (the opposite of light isn't dark and the opposite of heat is not cold).

The mistake you make is to view the lack of something as something else. No-it's just a way of describing a lack of something. A lack

Evolution suggests that you can put some watch parts into a bag, shake the bag for a few billion years and be able to pull out a fully working watch at the end of the process (given an infinite number of chances, yes it would happen)

Actually, given an infinite number of changes, it's guaranteed to happen.
In addition, this isn't how evolution works.

- but how can humans evolve from fish? Fish lay eggs and don't care for their young.

As we evolve, we change.

Plus why are there still monkeys? - this is for those who beleive in the verbatim teachings of Darwin....

We did not evolve from monkeys and it is not claimed we did.

By the very defintion of dualism of mind and matter (think Decartes!!) the cognition is attributed to the immortal, immaterial soul which has the ability to transcend this entity.

Evidence for soul?

[Safiyyah95]

(Original post by Good bloke)
Are you unaware of the controversy among both Christians and Moslems about evolution, caused by scientifically unsubstantiated religious beliefs that a god created man? Or the unscientific belief by many religious people (Moslems and Christians alike) that Earth was created by a god several thousand years ago, contrary to all the credible scientific evidence?

I believe, as a Muslim, that God created the world. But I don't see how that disproves science or how it's an unscientific belief. Science found out that the Universe was created from a Big Bang? Fine, I believe in that. Science found out that animals have evolved? Then I believe in that. All it means to me is, 'So that's how God created the world.' Which is why I believe that Science and God don't have to be conflicted. Because science does not disprove God. The Qur'an uses 'The Evolver' to describe God and it even says that the world is expanding, which is a recently discovered scientific theory. So how can I possibly disagree with Science. It's your choice whether you believe in God or not, but you can't prove He does'nt exist.

[bordercollies10]

(Original post by Good bloke)
Can't you use google?

As a start, try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth

or

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html


This evidence says nothing about gods. Why would it?

I can use Google, yes...

Does a thesis on electromagneticism have to say anything about God?


Check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument

According to that Wikipedia article:
1. Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
2. A causal loop cannot exist.
3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
4. Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.
Which supports what I was telling you just nicely ^.^

[py0alb]

(Original post by Safiyyah95)
It's your choice whether you believe in God or not.

Belief is not a choice. Even the evidence is sufficiently convincing or it is not.

[Hypocrism]

(Original post by bordercollies10)
I can use Google, yes...

Does a thesis on electromagneticism have to say anything about God?


Check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument

According to that Wikipedia article:
1. Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
2. A causal loop cannot exist.
3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
4. Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.
Which supports what I was telling you just nicely ^.^

Parts 1, 2, and 3 are all assumptions that you haven't backed up with any evidence, therefore 4 cannot be considered true.

[Christianlady]

(Original post by Sheep)
ITT: Say something about religion (theism) that is logical (actually makes sense), it can be any religion, it can be something in your holy book or just a general, logical reason as to why people should take up your religion

is easier than making a thread about all the things that just aren't logical (don't make sense)

Hello Sheep,

God's command for people to love others helps people, not hurts them.

Although sadly many people who say they believe in God don't love other people, it is true that both in the Tanakh and in the Christian Scriptures, God did command people to love others.

If people truly love each other, they do not steal from each other, murder, and so on. Rather, they live in mutual respect and peace.

Another logical belief in Theism is that people are stewards of the earth. We didn't make life on earth, but as stewards, it is our job to take care of the earth, of each other, and of the other species that live with us. However, sad to say, many people are selfish and only care about themselves, not about other species, not even about future generations of humans.

So, even though many people who believe in God don't tend to follow this, two very logical beliefs are the command to love others (which brings about peace and prosperity) and the understanding that one purpose to human life is to be stewards of the earth (meaning we need to help the earth, not hurt it).

Peace and God bless you

[Good bloke]

(Original post by bordercollies10)
I can use Google, yes...

Does a thesis on electromagneticism have to say anything about God?


Check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument

According to that Wikipedia article:
1. Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
2. A causal loop cannot exist.
3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
4. Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.
Which supports what I was telling you just nicely ^.^

That article also says

An objection against the theist implication of the proposition is that even if one accepts the argument as a proof of a First Cause, it does not identify that First Cause with God.

[Good bloke]

(Original post by Safiyyah95)
Science found out that animals have evolved? Then I believe in that.

The point is that many of your fellow-Moslems don't believe that as they interpret their scriptures differently. They commonly refuse to believe that man evolved. For them, their religion is incompatible with science.

[bordercollies10]

(Original post by Hypocrism)
Not in any way, ever.



Illogical fallacious assumption, the primary cause could be a physical phenomenon.



God can't be perfect if there's something he cannot do. Also, everything he made is imperfect, so god ****ed up.



Evil is not a lack of goodness, because a lack of goodness can be neutral.



The mistake you make is to view the lack of something as something else. No-it's just a way of describing a lack of something. A lack



Actually, given an infinite number of changes, it's guaranteed to happen.
In addition, this isn't how evolution works.



As we evolve, we change.



We did not evolve from monkeys and it is not claimed we did.



Evidence for soul?

A physical phenomenom? It could of been but I can't think of any variables that would of contributed a priori!!

God never screwed up. It's up to you to beleive and accept a doctrine of belief, but from my understanding Christ came to remove us from the reminants of imperfection.

Is there eveidnce for a soul? I do not know, but try to pinpoint a region of the brain that produces intellect. Oftentimes we can regard the brain as a computer, but what is a computer?
1) a computer parses input
2)a computer follows the algorithm to provide an outnput
3)an output is given

In short, lets turn to Searle's Chinese Room arguement whereby a person is locked in a room with no knowledge of the Chinese langauge. His role? To follow the algorithm that tells him how to accpt ANY input in English and translate that to Chinese...
...at the end of the process, all you will get is a verbatim, static translation which may not make much sense at all to even a Chinese speaker (for eample som words can have more than one defintion in english) but the point still remains valid. The solution is to use semantic nets whereby concepts can be referred to (as the surrounding lexical components can be taken into account) and a more dynamic translation can be had - but the computer will never learn anyhting new (can computers program themselves using AI? Even if they could, you still run the risk of data structure overflows, paradoxes/conditions that could cause the computer to crash etc...)...

[bordercollies10]

(Original post by Good bloke)
That article also says

So what do you attribute to that first cause if you do not attribute the term "God" to it?

[Safiyyah95]

(Original post by py0alb)
Belief is not a choice. Even the evidence is sufficiently convincing or it is not.

I believe that the evidence in the Qur'an is sufficently convincing. If I didn't, I wouldn't be a Muslim. But if you read it, you might not think that it's convincing. So, I guess choice was the wrong word to use. But what is a choice, is whether you choose to think about the idea of God or if you choose to just say no because you think it's illogical.

[Good bloke]

(Original post by bordercollies10)
So what do you attribute to that first cause if you do not attribute the term "God" to it?

God (with a capital G) is not a term; it is the name of an entity which you claim exists, despite having no scientific evidence in support of that belief. The existence of many other competitng gods has been claimed in a simliar way so why you should believe only in that one is unclear. I don't necessarily even believe there is a "first cause".

I don't accept the argument you linked to as being sensible; it makes three unsupported assumptions and then attempts to draw a flawed conclusion. This isn't a sensible thing to base one's beliefs on.

[bordercollies10]

(Original post by Hypocrism)
Parts 1, 2, and 3 are all assumptions that you haven't backed up with any evidence, therefore 4 cannot be considered true.

1. Everything has a reason, even if it is just a reaction to an extrnal stimulus!
2. Loops imply infinite - there's always going to be something that will stop the loop in its tracks (in computer science, it could be the size of the data structure holding the value of the increment...)
3. A casual chain can only be of infinite length if you can accept that time is infinite (which I can't, because it would contradict my beliefs)...

[TurboCretin]

(Original post by bordercollies10)
Randomly? There's always going to be a variable that will influence the outcome of a process...

However something I think people have to remember is that "chance" is not a force - it is a term used to ascribe variables in relation to all of the possibilities and/or outcomes that are possible (i.e. what are the chances of x occuring if z=a+b?). Theologically, God has been reported - in scripture (think Esther and Mordecai in the OT if you're a Christian - Mordcai said "such a time as this" which implied a sense of providence) - to have inspired those who have succesfully harnessed an object of communication to do x because y would happen if x were to occur (and from an utiltairian perspective, y would probably bring the greatest joy to those who beleieve - which would tie in nicely with most of the theories about the ethical implications of monothistic doctrine). I'm not trying to inflict my religion onto anybody here (I believe I was justified in my reference to the aforementioned bible parable) however I am advocating that things just do not happen ad lib in this world.

Note: I said 'appears to happen randomly'. And I don't understand why you're bringing Utilitarianism into this. You seem to be talking past what I'm saying rather than actually responding to my posts. If your point is merely 'nothing happens randomly, ergo there is a God' then it'd be simpler if you said that, as it's a completely separate issue from what we were talking about.

[bordercollies10]

(Original post by Good bloke)
God (with a capital G) is not a term; it is the name of an entity which you claim exists, despite having no scientific evidence in support of that belief. The existence of many other competitng gods has been claimed in a simliar way so why you should believe only in that one is unclear. I don't necessarily even believe there is a "first cause".

I don't accept the argument you linked to as being sensible; it makes three unsupported assumptions and then attempts to draw a flawed conclusion. This isn't a sensible thing to base one's beliefs on.

At the end of the day, the main role of science is to improve lives (through its various branches such as biology, meteorology, geology etc...) and I don't see why science and religion cannot co-exist (which would pertain to the very valid point made by Safiyyah95 earlier on)...
...anyway, can you contradict the first-mover arguement?

[Safiyyah95]

(Original post by Good bloke)
The point is that many of your fellow-Moslems don't believe that as they interpret their scriptures differently. They commonly refuse to believe that man evolved. For them, their religion is incompatible with science.

I agree, the way some people view their religion is incompatible with some aspects of science. But I think people need to stop basing their opinion of religions, purely based on what some followers of the religion say or do. Because as you can see, people interpret things differently, and wrongly in a lot of cases. So I guess what I'm saying is people can't just put all religion in one box and say religion can never agree with science, until they actually know and have done enough research on that religion (ie read the scriptures) to come up with that conclusion.

[bordercollies10]

(Original post by TurboCretin)
Note: I said 'appears to happen randomly'. And I don't understand why you're bringing Utilitarianism into this. You seem to be talking past what I'm saying rather than actually responding to my posts. If your point is merely 'nothing happens randomly, ergo there is a God' then it'd be simpler if you said that, as it's a completely separate issue from what we were talking about.

I broought Utilitarianism into the arguement for I beleived that was the result of the actions of the human agents that I mentioned (happiness in the greatest number for the believers). Well, in an indirect way it can be used to argue the existence of God (sure, by chance the people could have been deluded but I fail to accept that because all through history - from cultures all over - people have reported to have been in contact with a deity of some kind - and monotheism seems to have very similar roots all over, especially Christianity and Judism...)