Religion Has Done More Bad Than Good

how did we know sight was available and how did we know it took an eye to see it? go back to the beginning of the development of an eye.. why start to develop something that was useless.. it took time for it to envolve into a working eye.

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I don't think I really covered this above. But once you read that this will make more sense.

The sun is our power generator. So we react to it, all animals do (even if in a negative way) so it makes sense that we would be sensitive to it.

So then that sensitivity in pigment changes was early form of the eye. The sun beating down on early life would mean that the mutations that allowed for them to withstand the sun would benefit them.

Over time mutations that allowed a fast response (like a wire to the brain) would mean that this early form (Flatworm) would be able to tell if they were near the surface of the water without being too close to be washed up on land and dry out and die. So that flatworm type would thrive.

Eventually mollusk develop the pin hole eye mutation that allows even more clear sight, this would allow them to be predators and hunt with being able to see the difference in light in the water meaning that something was close by. This would have helped them thrive.

Then you move on through time. Light is a spectrum, so it did not mean that the dna 'knew' that there was color. But one of hundreds of thousands of mutations (because remember most mutations are very detrimental to the animal) one developed that allowed more light sensitivity, that light sensitivity allowed them to see more of the spectrum of light, which is really what all the evolution to this point has done.

So here we are with a color sighted eye. And the eye is not perfect. There is a lot of things that make it not efficient (like veins ontop of the lenses) but it is very efficient for our sight.

You can look any other animal and follow the pattern to figure out their sight, good night vision, wide view, multiple eyes, eagles vision, on and on. It really is amazing when you can figure out where things came from. And through this understanding the betterment of human kind spawns from, if we can figure it out, who knows how we can help people out with things like blindness, or making new things to help people that lose eyes out. Without the understanding of where it came from science will stagnate.

And if science stagnates, we may as well right off the species (like the bible has done).

You may also ponder that while religion puts man at the very pinnacle of existence amongst other animals, AND religion creationists simply LOVE to talk about the EYE development, it's just interesting to point out that man does not have the best vision on the planet. Not by a wide margin. We have an eye which works for our species, just like the Scallop has an eye that works for it. There is no plan to perfection. Nature just mutates and mutates and what works works, and what doesn't, doesn't. No value of good, bad. Nature and creation are indifferent and neutral. If somehow the earth started to receive 50% sunlight and we managed to live through it..... gradually our eyes would change to fit that environment. No plan...no perfection. If we developed underground..... we'd all be blind and the religious would walk around telling everyone that not having eyesight proves there's a G*D. Look, we don't need eyes! Amen brotha....

Holey Moley.............

I think green tree pythons got pimp shit eyes that make our eyes weak. The patern of their grows into the eye and keeps flowing. And remember they are a few steps back on the evolution chain for you crazys that dont beleive in evolution witch happen to be the same crazys that beleive in a god.

So point is we are more advance geneticly then other animals yet they out advance us? Seems like we are at the end of the road where is jesus? Wheres our super cool eyes to keep us camo from the aliens? God doesnt want us to live then just green tree pythons because they can hide from alien invaders because of the super awsome camo eye action. They could see us to easy white shiny eyes all dumb mopin around like some monkey sheep....Yeah I can see it we are the chosen ones....................

This is timely and well worth a read. It shows two sides of the coin. Interesting....
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• SEPTEMBER 12, 2009, 2:08 P.M. ET

Essays

Man vs. God


Karen Armstrong says we need God to grasp the wonder of our existence

Richard Dawkins has been right all along, of course—at least in one important respect. Evolution has indeed dealt a blow to the idea of a benign creator, literally conceived. It tells us that there is no Intelligence controlling the cosmos, and that life itself is the result of a blind process of natural selection, in which innumerable species failed to survive. The fossil record reveals a natural history of pain, death and racial extinction, so if there was a divine plan, it was cruel, callously prodigal and wasteful. Human beings were not the pinnacle of a purposeful creation; like everything else, they evolved by trial and error and God had no direct hand in their making. No wonder so many fundamentalist Christians find their faith shaken to the core.
Nippon Television Network


Richard Dawkins argues that evolution leaves God with nothing to do



But Darwin may have done religion—and God—a favor by revealing a flaw in modern Western faith. Despite our scientific and technological brilliance, our understanding of God is often remarkably undeveloped—even primitive. In the past, many of the most influential Jewish, Christian and Muslim thinkers understood that what we call "God" is merely a symbol that points beyond itself to an indescribable transcendence, whose existence cannot be proved but is only intuited by means of spiritual exercises and a compassionate lifestyle that enable us to cultivate new capacities of mind and heart.
But by the end of the 17th century, instead of looking through the symbol to "the God beyond God," Christians were transforming it into hard fact. Sir Isaac Newton had claimed that his cosmic system proved beyond doubt the existence of an intelligent, omniscient and omnipotent creator, who was obviously "very well skilled in Mechanicks and Geometry." Enthralled by the prospect of such cast-iron certainty, churchmen started to develop a scientifically-based theology that eventually made Newton's Mechanick and, later, William Paley's Intelligent Designer essential to Western Christianity.
But the Great Mechanick was little more than an idol, the kind of human projection that theology, at its best, was supposed to avoid. God had been essential to Newtonian physics but it was not long before other scientists were able to dispense with the God-hypothesis and, finally, Darwin showed that there could be no proof for God's existence. This would not have been a disaster had not Christians become so dependent upon their scientific religion that they had lost the older habits of thought and were left without other resource.
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Symbolism was essential to premodern religion, because it was only possible to speak about the ultimate reality—God, Tao, Brahman or Nirvana—analogically, since it lay beyond the reach of words. Jews and Christians both developed audaciously innovative and figurative methods of reading the Bible, and every statement of the Quran is called an ayah ("parable"). St Augustine (354-430), a major authority for both Catholics and Protestants, insisted that if a biblical text contradicted reputable science, it must be interpreted allegorically. This remained standard practice in the West until the 17th century, when in an effort to emulate the exact scientific method, Christians began to read scripture with a literalness that is without parallel in religious history.
Most cultures believed that there were two recognized ways of arriving at truth. The Greeks called them mythos and logos. Both were essential and neither was superior to the other; they were not in conflict but complementary, each with its own sphere of competence. Logos ("reason") was the pragmatic mode of thought that enabled us to function effectively in the world and had, therefore, to correspond accurately to external reality. But it could not assuage human grief or find ultimate meaning in life's struggle. For that people turned to mythos, stories that made no pretensions to historical accuracy but should rather be seen as an early form of psychology; if translated into ritual or ethical action, a good myth showed you how to cope with mortality, discover an inner source of strength, and endure pain and sorrow with serenity.
In the ancient world, a cosmology was not regarded as factual but was primarily therapeutic; it was recited when people needed an infusion of that mysterious power that had—somehow—brought something out of primal nothingness: at a sickbed, a coronation or during a political crisis. Some cosmologies taught people how to unlock their own creativity, others made them aware of the struggle required to maintain social and political order. The Genesis creation hymn, written during the Israelites' exile in Babylonia in the 6th century BC, was a gentle polemic against Babylonian religion. Its vision of an ordered universe where everything had its place was probably consoling to a displaced people, though—as we can see in the Bible—some of the exiles preferred a more aggressive cosmology.
There can never be a definitive version of a myth, because it refers to the more imponderable aspects of life. To remain effective, it must respond to contemporary circumstance. In the 16th century, when Jews were being expelled from one region of Europe after another, the mystic Isaac Luria constructed an entirely new creation myth that bore no resemblance to the Genesis story. But instead of being reviled for contradicting the Bible, it inspired a mass-movement among Jews, because it was such a telling description of the arbitrary world they now lived in; backed up with special rituals, it also helped them face up to their pain and discover a source of strength.
Religion was not supposed to provide explanations that lay within the competence of reason but to help us live creatively with realities for which there are no easy solutions and find an interior haven of peace; today, however, many have opted for unsustainable certainty instead. But can we respond religiously to evolutionary theory? Can we use it to recover a more authentic notion of God?
Darwin made it clear once again that—as Maimonides, Avicenna, Aquinas and Eckhart had already pointed out—we cannot regard God simply as a divine personality, who single-handedly created the world. This could direct our attention away from the idols of certainty and back to the "God beyond God." The best theology is a spiritual exercise, akin to poetry. Religion is not an exact science but a kind of art form that, like music or painting, introduces us to a mode of knowledge that is different from the purely rational and which cannot easily be put into words. At its best, it holds us in an attitude of wonder, which is, perhaps, not unlike the awe that Mr. Dawkins experiences—and has helped me to appreciate —when he contemplates the marvels of natural selection.
But what of the pain and waste that Darwin unveiled? All the major traditions insist that the faithful meditate on the ubiquitous suffering that is an inescapable part of life; because, if we do not acknowledge this uncomfortable fact, the compassion that lies at the heart of faith is impossible. The almost unbearable spectacle of the myriad species passing painfully into oblivion is not unlike some classic Buddhist meditations on the First Noble Truth ("Existence is suffering"), the indispensable prerequisite for the transcendent enlightenment that some call Nirvana—and others call God.
—Ms. Armstrong is the author of numerous books on theology and religious affairs. The latest, "The Case for God," will be published by Knopf later this month.Richard Dawkins argues that evolution leaves God with nothing to do

Before 1859 it would have seemed natural to agree with the Reverend William Paley, in "Natural Theology," that the creation of life was God's greatest work. Especially (vanity might add) human life. Today we'd amend the statement: Evolution is the universe's greatest work. Evolution is the creator of life, and life is arguably the most surprising and most beautiful production that the laws of physics have ever generated. Evolution, to quote a T-shirt sent me by an anonymous well-wisher, is the greatest show on earth, the only game in town.
Indeed, evolution is probably the greatest show in the entire universe. Most scientists' hunch is that there are independently evolved life forms dotted around planetary islands throughout the universe—though sadly too thinly scattered to encounter one another. And if there is life elsewhere, it is something stronger than a hunch to say that it will turn out to be Darwinian life. The argument in favor of alien life's existing at all is weaker than the argument that—if it exists at all—it will be Darwinian life. But it is also possible that we really are alone in the universe, in which case Earth, with its greatest show, is the most remarkable planet in the universe.
Bettmann/CORBIS Charles Darwin



What is so special about life? It never violates the laws of physics. Nothing does (if anything did, physicists would just have to formulate new laws—it's happened often enough in the history of science). But although life never violates the laws of physics, it pushes them into unexpected avenues that stagger the imagination. If we didn't know about life we wouldn't believe it was possible—except, of course, that there'd then be nobody around to do the disbelieving!
The laws of physics, before Darwinian evolution bursts out from their midst, can make rocks and sand, gas clouds and stars, whirlpools and waves, whirlpool-shaped galaxies and light that travels as waves while behaving like particles. It is an interesting, fascinating and, in many ways, deeply mysterious universe. But now, enter life. Look, through the eyes of a physicist, at a bounding kangaroo, a swooping bat, a leaping dolphin, a soaring Coast Redwood. There never was a rock that bounded like a kangaroo, never a pebble that crawled like a beetle seeking a mate, never a sand grain that swam like a water flea. Not once do any of these creatures disobey one jot or tittle of the laws of physics. Far from violating the laws of thermodynamics (as is often ignorantly alleged) they are relentlessly driven by them. Far from violating the laws of motion, animals exploit them to their advantage as they walk, run, dodge and jink, leap and fly, pounce on prey or spring to safety.
Never once are the laws of physics violated, yet life emerges into uncharted territory. And how is the trick done? The answer is a process that, although variable in its wondrous detail, is sufficiently uniform to deserve one single name: Darwinian evolution, the nonrandom survival of randomly varying coded information. We know, as certainly as we know anything in science, that this is the process that has generated life on our own planet. And my bet, as I said, is that the same process is in operation wherever life may be found, anywhere in the universe.
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What if the greatest show on earth is not the greatest show in the universe? What if there are life forms on other planets that have evolved so far beyond our level of intelligence and creativity that we should regard them as gods, were we ever so fortunate (or unfortunate?) as to meet them? Would they indeed be gods? Wouldn't we be tempted to fall on our knees and worship them, as a medieval peasant might if suddenly confronted with such miracles as a Boeing 747, a mobile telephone or Google Earth? But, however god-like the aliens might seem, they would not be gods, and for one very important reason. They did not create the universe; it created them, just as it created us. Making the universe is the one thing no intelligence, however superhuman, could do, because an intelligence is complex—statistically improbable —and therefore had to emerge, by gradual degrees, from simpler beginnings: from a lifeless universe—the miracle-free zone that is physics.
To midwife such emergence is the singular achievement of Darwinian evolution. It starts with primeval simplicity and fosters, by slow, explicable degrees, the emergence of complexity: seemingly limitless complexity—certainly up to our human level of complexity and very probably way beyond. There may be worlds on which superhuman life thrives, superhuman to a level that our imaginations cannot grasp. But superhuman does not mean supernatural. Darwinian evolution is the only process we know that is ultimately capable of generating anything as complicated as creative intelligences. Once it has done so, of course, those intelligences can create other complex things: works of art and music, advanced technology, computers, the Internet and who knows what in the future? Darwinian evolution may not be the only such generative process in the universe. There may be other "cranes" (Daniel Dennett's term, which he opposes to "skyhooks") that we have not yet discovered or imagined. But, however wonderful and however different from Darwinian evolution those putative cranes may be, they cannot be magic. They will share with Darwinian evolution the facility to raise up complexity, as an emergent property, out of simplicity, while never violating natural law.
Where does that leave God? The kindest thing to say is that it leaves him with nothing to do, and no achievements that might attract our praise, our worship or our fear. Evolution is God's redundancy notice, his pink slip. But we have to go further. A complex creative intelligence with nothing to do is not just redundant. A divine designer is all but ruled out by the consideration that he must at least as complex as the entities he was wheeled out to explain. God is not dead. He was never alive in the first place.
Now, there is a certain class of sophisticated modern theologian who will say something like this: "Good heavens, of course we are not so naive or simplistic as to care whether God exists. Existence is such a 19th-century preoccupation! It doesn't matter whether God exists in a scientific sense. What matters is whether he exists for you or for me. If God is real for you, who cares whether science has made him redundant? Such arrogance! Such elitism."
Well, if that's what floats your canoe, you'll be paddling it up a very lonely creek. The mainstream belief of the world's peoples is very clear. They believe in God, and that means they believe he exists in objective reality, just as surely as the Rock of Gibraltar exists. If sophisticated theologians or postmodern relativists think they are rescuing God from the redundancy scrap-heap by downplaying the importance of existence, they should think again. Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist. They'll be right.
—Mr. Dawkins is the author of "The Selfish Gene," "The Ancestor's Tale," "The God Delusion." His latest book, "The Greatest Show on Earth," will be published by Free Press on Sept. 22.

Stoney McFried said:

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used to have that on a shirt stoney....many Christans were not so Christan when i wore it

hanimmal said:

Anyway when you start from the info that we have, and real world examples, and math the timeline goes like this: Giant explosion that sent material out>> Material circles around the sun (large gravitational force that causes all debri to surround and rotate around it) >> material bumps into eachother and forms planets >>> planets collide and create moon and slow earths rotation allowing for plate techtonics and easier weather >>> weather mixed with several other factors shocked by lightning creates earliest particles of life >>> Life particles mix together and create earliest forms of life >>> Those mutate and combine to make newer more complex lifeforms >>> Lifeforms develop special advantages like light sensitive skin cells (seen today on some animals) >>> Those pigment cells develop further in lifeforms like flat worms that allows then to mutate into a more cave type depression to focus the light changes >>> Then more mutations form the pin hole eye >>> Eventually a skin is put over it (mussels) >>>> Turns into a lens (Octopus) >>> Evolution pushes water animals to develop into land life, where the eye is even more advantagous that in water so it further develops and speciallizes depending on the hunting paterns of the animal >>> Eventually humans evolve with color sight that allow them to see animals in the jungle.


And there you go, big bang to color sight.

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I see what your doing.. you are mixing alittle bit of truth with a bunch of lies.

You see all that and think wow evolution must be true.. I see all that and think wow god is awsome

fish601 said:

I see what your doing.. you are mixing alittle bit of truth with a bunch of lies.

You see all that and think wow evolution must be true.. I see all that and think wow god is awsome

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ok that was my initial reaction

i have never looked into it but what is the mathematical probability not just for a single mutation a series of mutations.. say 3 mutations in a row...And how many mutations would it take to form a eye or lung?
while we are on mathematical problems how many more times is it likley for a negative mutation vs a positive mutation?
seems like we would be not evolving in a good way but being tore down.

ok Next
For a mutation to occure that you are talking about a gene had to be there in the first place.. wouldnt that point to creation?

Fish, you are a very closed minded person. You are not willing to be open to any idea that goes against you religouse beliefs. Time and time again you are given evidence and reasoning as to how things could have come about, I say could because I can admit there is a chance we could be wrong. No-one has all the answers but the scientific world has many many many more credible answers than any religion. When your faced with evidence you just say its lies. When you say you have proof you have nothing to back it up, nothing credible anyway.

Get over it, Religions were created by man to control man.

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!!! Because Pinkus says so ?????????

SandMonkey… knows it all… because he has been told Conspiracy theories are just conspiracy theories and that’s it (quote by Bush). MMMM interesting. Conspiracy theories can not be proven…. Why…. Because the law, media and anybody else who can officially say that a conspiracy is true or not is either involved one way or another, whether they know it or not. Just because it’s official it does not mean it’s TRUE. Like the Bible…. Just because there is a book and many people believe in it does not make it true.

Does anyone remember when the bcc reported the tower 7 went down 23 minutes before it actually did and behind the reporter was the tower still standing? She described the building falling exactly how it did fall 23 minutes later. It was cut off air and was never shown again. You can still find a copy on the internet but most links have been closed for some reason. Mmmm wonder why. The BCC eventually gave a response due to constant pressure…. There response was laughable. Does anyone think it’s odd that no media talks about this????? Does anyone think it’s odd that the reporter never wanted to talk about this???? Or do you think like George Bush says it’s a conspiracy and that’s it.

LOL George Bush made me laugh… God is on our side when we go to war…. And he talks about conspiracy…. Unbelievable … but he gets away with it because so many people believe him, because he is president?????????

Quote by SandMonkey: (Behind the curtain) In short, this "documentary" is for people new to conspiracy theories; who think that by watching this crap they've now gotten such secret knowledge and know the whole truth.

Do you believe that SandMonkey knows why this documentary was made? His answer is odd… An answer which a brainwashed individual would think or answer from a person with a lot of hate towards other people would have. The documentary was giving us an insight on things and telling us to get on with each other and love ourselves, be in control of our self’s, think for our selves etc… not go believing in fairy tales or saying we are the chosen ones or we will be going to bad places or money etc etc etc. Because this doc was not OFICCIALY factual then there will always be people like SandMonkey telling us what he has been told. I watched this doc for the first time today and quite accurate to what I believe and know already and many millions of people do so as well. I wrote similar things on page 34 before watching the doc… please see.

The Internet is a great tool at the moment…. People like us can find out things without anyone saying if it’s okay to publish before so (i.e. like many books). We can listen to the press and compare there stories to those who are actually been involved i.e. war zones etc…. its amazing how much bull our press tell us or not tell us. So anyone coming across this doc will learn something new, something which they may of not ever known if it was not for the internet. Slowly it’s changing unfortunately because the powers are using terrorism laws to prevent freedom of speech on the internet. Before anyone jumps on the band wagon I am not saying that everything on the internet is accurate…. but hey guys we all should be able to think for ourselves and see the motives behind what we read. We all need to remember whether you like it or not we are all brothers and sisters sharing this one world. We should all be working together to making it a better place for us all… not just for the minority.

It’s more important to be than have a goal. Peace to you all.

Does anyone remember when the bcc reported the tower 7 went down 23 minutes before it actually did and behind the reporter was the tower still standing? She described the building falling exactly how it did fall 23 minutes later. It was cut off air and was never shown again. You can still find a copy on the internet but most links have been closed for some reason. Mmmm wonder why. The BCC eventually gave a response due to constant pressure…. There response was laughable. Does anyone think it’s odd that no media talks about this????? Does anyone think it’s odd that the reporter never wanted to talk about this???? Or do you think like George Bush says it’s a conspiracy and that’s it.

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Nonsense.... so the reporter is in on it too huh??.... Now this reporter would be receiving the PULITZER prize if she broke the conspiracy story. So she just goes along?

How about maybe the possibility that a tech glitch was made and that's why it was pulled... if indeed that report EVER EXISTED in the first place. IF, and I say BIG IF it ever aired....EVERYONE would have seized upon it. But...............

I watched this doc for the first time today and quite accurate to what I believe and know already and many millions of people do so as well. I wrote similar things on page 34 before watching the doc… please see.

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Quite accurate to what U believe..... Now see, that wasn't so hard was it? You found the gaping hole in ur logic all by urself.... Some PPl see what they want to see. Others investigate with objectivity FIRST.

The Internet is a great tool at the moment…. People like us can find out things without anyone saying if it’s okay to publish before so (i.e. like many books). We can listen to the press and compare there stories to those who are actually been involved i.e. war zones etc…. its amazing how much bull our press tell us or not tell us. So anyone coming across this doc will learn something new, something which they may of not ever known if it was not for the internet.

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The internet is just like a gun. No any better or worse than the user. It has tons of info and tons of DISinformation. The skill is in mining the CORRECT data. The 9/11 Truthers show that indeed ppl can be easily fooled as long as the "conspiracy" fits their world view already in place. It's a common trap and works all too well.

Without a foundation of core values and an education to put new facts into the correct context, the internet is the easiest place to get lost and confused in.

I give U the Truthers as evidence. In reality the 'truthers" haven't a clue.

fish601 said:

I see what your doing.. you are mixing alittle bit of truth with a bunch of lies.

You see all that and think wow evolution must be true.. I see all that and think wow god is awsome

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Evolution is true most people that breed animals understand this logic because you are breeding certain traits out or breeding for them. Same goes for pot plants when we breed them we are doing evolution.

We look for the strongest traits then breed those plants or animals. they will either show the trait of the parents witch means its a gentic trait that can be line bred to be stronger or more potent or colorful or it doesnt show its trait and its a weak link on the evolution scale.

Animals do the same thing breed one trait to the other you get a mix of of the two plus some that are normal of the parents. A retard is a genetic trait witch both the parents carried they where both hetrozygous(spelling) for retard hence every child this couple has will have a 50% chance of being retarded 25% chance to show moms traits 25% chance to chow fathers traits. If boths traits sow up you got special ed make sence?

No god was involved its genetics its the circle of life. The weakest traits get weeded out would you have sex with special ed? prolly not witch insures our species wont keep having special ed children. But people do have sex and children with special ed people and with the normal offspring of special eds kids witch is why we stil have special ed classes. Wheres god when you need him?

No, a lot of Christians aren't.

pinkus said:

used to have that on a shirt stoney....many Christans were not so Christan when i wore it

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We're not saying that there might not be a god, fish.We're willing to accept the possibility we may be wrong.Are you?
Speaking for myself, all I'm saying is this:evolution does occur.We know that for a fact.Species adapt and change to the climate and their local habitat.Did we get here from nothing?No, I don't personally believe we did...but humans perceive time in a linear fashion.For us, it's beginning, middle, end.So it may be hard to conceive there was a beginning when there was nothing there to build with.I personally think it's a bit more complicated than that.Think of a ring.There is no obvious beginning or end to it.Now, you could take that ring and make a mark on it and call that mark the "beginning".You could also call that mark "end",since you would start and stop on that mark to traverse the ring completely.But it's a matter of perception...there really is no clear beginning or end to the ring, it's an unbroken circle,you can run around it forever and never actually run out of ring.This is my little hypothesis on the universe....perhaps it didn't "come from nothing"....because that would imply the universe is a straight line, with a clear beginning, middle, and end.It would have to follow a set course,the material would all be used up,once consumed, it would be gone,right?But we can see, even by looking at the stars, this is not the case.When a star "dies",its elements are flung out across a vast distance.So to a person looking at it from a fairly nearby position, the material may appear to be diffuse,or even consumed complety....this person would call this "the end".But it's not.All of that material is being reused...google orion nebula...from the deaths of many old stars, even more new stars are forming...an endless cycle of death and rebirth...a ring.When one thing "ends",another begins.We see this.This is an observable thing.But we humans are only here for a short time,compared to the rest of the matter that comprises the universe.We didn't even know the world was round until relatively recently on our timescale.As we walk the earth, it appears to be relatively "flat" to us...we can't perceive the curve of it until we observe it from greater distances.I propose that time is like this as well.Since we only see a tiny portion of it,we think of it in a linear way...because that's how it is for US.We cannot step back from the time stream and observe the whole of it.So we try to understand it in our limited terms.We like to make sense of things.We don't want to admit there are things we can't begin to imagine.All I'm saying is...why does there have to be a beginning,middle, and end as we know it?What if the universe is a ring,with no visible beginning, or end?As it expands,like any explosion, it exapands to a point....and then collapses back into itself....and just like a supernova,when the matter becomes so tightly packed,basically(in simplified terms)the enormous pressure causes heat, and an explosion occurs...and that explosion expands to a point, and collapses.Like any explosion.Now, for the planets that may have been surrounding the star...it's an end.But if we step back and view the situation from farther away,with the passage of time, we see it was also a beginning.Because young stars begin to form from the ejected material of the old star.Is this a perfect model of what happens?No, because I can only perceive so much.
Is there a god?I don't know...but if he's anything at all like the one in the Bible,or any other religion thus far for that matter,I've no use for him.And since nobody has really ever heard from him (anyone that can be actually certified as telling the truth),maybe he has no use for us, either.Maybe he doesn't even know about us.Perhaps he's an enormous creature of such immense proptortions that we would be like dust mites to him....it's all in how you perceive it.Think about all we didn't know before the microscope was invented.
And being human,with our limited time,we've really only got time to try to understand what we can observe.We can observe how nature works.We can observe what's around us.We get clues.We test a hypothesis.If it doesn't hold up,we discard it.That's what I've done with religion.Because it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.But since I cannot see absolutely everything, I'm willing to admit, I could be wrong. Religion cannot do that.Because it isn't about knowledge, it's about control.If you deny a person knowledge, you deny them power.Power to make informed decisions.That's the reason I like science.It isn't the easy way out.

fish601 said:

I see what your doing.. you are mixing alittle bit of truth with a bunch of lies.

You see all that and think wow evolution must be true.. I see all that and think wow god is awsome

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A growing number of Christians no longer view the Bible as the word of G*D. Fish is in the minority within his own belief system.

(Waves) That was probably a little too long for him to read, anyway....

CrackerJax said:

A growing number of Christians no longer view the Bible as the word of G*D. Fish is in the minority within his own belief system.

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oh... I never did say the reporter was in with it.... This is the point you dont understand. I believe and many others do that she only read a script handed down to her, she had no clue, eventually she disapeard for awhile and held no interviews... I believe she was not aloud to talk about it.

Yes it was a mistake but not the one you think it was, they just read the script to early and somone screwed up there part or DID THEY.

Maybe hes new to god. His name is fish. FISH! FISH! FISH! FISH! I love that movie!

Atrilius said:

oh... I never did say the reporter was in with it.... This is the point you dont understand. I believe and many others do that she only read a script handed down to her, she had no clue, eventually she disapeard for awhile and held no interviews... I believe she was not aloud to talk about it.

Yes it was a mistake but not the one you think it was, they just read the script to early and somone screwed up there part or DID THEY.

Click to expand...

Ever notice that all of your logic is based on assumptions not in evidence? That's a clear tip ur off the mark......


Hey Stoney ... (waves)

Man, that beautiful post, lost in the shuffle...so are we talking about conspiracy theories now?