Religion Debates and Discussions

Oh this is interesting I must say. What kind of a soul are we talking about?

 

Truthfully this is not my field of expertise, but what I do know is that we (Christians) believe that all people have a soul. Animals, on the other hand, have no soul, or at least a different variation compared to a human's soul, hence a reason why monkeys, apes, etc... Are very different when compared to a human being. I believe what Gehenna was saying is that while it might be possible for the body of a creature to be cloned the soul can not be cloned. Therefore if a human is cloned, and is a fully functioning human on all levels (creativity, logic, brain function, IQ) then it would disprove the existence of the soul.

 

What do we mean with cloning here? The type of cloning that has already been done with animals?

 

I believe that's the type of cloning we are talking about. If not then my post is void

I think by "cloning" we mean replicating with a mirror copy or something along those general lines.

 

If it works with humans I supose it isnt the type of cloning we are talking about? :V

Jk, so in other words, you may stop believing with heavy enough evidence/your belief isnt that strong?

 

Honestly, when it happens I will think about it. Right now I believe we are still decades away from cloning a human, and regarding if I would stop believing... I doubt I would stop believing unless something inexplicable happens with this clone; what that might be I have no idea. I personally think that if a clone of a human is created it will be a hollow shell, a vegetable really.

 

if humans are cloned the same way animals are, then what actually differentiates humans from animals?

 

What if the keyword here is if?

Enderdragon already said he would have to think twice if human cloning works. He did never imply that there would be a difference in case human cloning is possible.

 

Well... Christians believe that it is the soul that separates humans from animals. I think everyone here in this thread will have a different view on what the soul controls but from what I understand the soul is what allows a human to have free will while animals are controlled by their instincts alone. A person is made up of many things, thoughts, actions, emotions. However, when you peel or take away all that the soul remains. It is what provides the human with dignity and spiritual principles. Catholics also believe that the soul is what sin stains, however, I don't care to get into a debate about that this late

 

Give it time.

We've already cloned sheep.

 

I doubt the government will allow humans clone humans to be honest. But I still believe Religion will die as time goes on.

 

when humans are cloned, they will be cloned the same way sheep are, just with much more complex dna. if he says that there is no difference between how humans will clone and sheep do, then he is admitting that a humans soul doesnt exist, and therefore his religion should be questioned

 

I didn't mean die,I just meant slow down. And I agree with you, Islam is probably the strongest of all the religions because of their ideals and non-horrific legends, (like Abraham and his son).

wut? Honestly some animals are more humane than some humans to be honest... They don't say pets can sympathize without any proof, and sympathy is a very human like characteristic.

 

Yeah, there's certainly a moral conundrum there.

At any rate the God of the gaps will find that there's a lot less room for him as we learn more and more.

Mohammed slept with a 12 year old.

 

btw never used multi-quote and idk how it works, so for my ease I'm just gonna put what other people said in italics

Firstly, Proterozoic:

Oh boy am I going to enjoy this. Evolution is a scientific theory, and as such can never be fully proven, only disproven in it's current form or state. There is evidence to support the theory, but theories can never be proven. Science seeks to disprove the null than prove the hypothesis.

it's as proven as it's ever gonna get. if you want full proofs of everything in life, you're gonna be sorely disappointed


Says he's not accusing you of being brainwashed, then immediately states he thinks exactly that....

So right here you're clearly not understanding my point. I'm not ACCUSING anyone of being brainwashed because the word "accuse" implies they did something wrong. The blame lies not with the brainwashed, but with the brainwasher.

Nice flame, but completely subjective. You also can't disprove God's existence (nor for that matter prove God's existence either). The difference between believing in God or not is faith; faith that God exists without necessarily having the evidence to back it up. Many great scientific theories have been made by someone willing to test their beliefs. Gehenna can't comprehend that there is no God as much as you can't comprehend one could exist. You're coming from 2 opposite ends of the spectrum. Seems to me with those potentially insulting words your mind might be no more open in reality.

I have a friend who I like to debate and discuss things with irl. He's a really smart fella, but one thing that irks me is he always uses the argument "that's subjective" like it means anything. Of course, everything is subjective, but I'm speaking from the standpoint of humanity. If humans weren't blinded by religion, Gehenna's a crackpot. He's a crackpot to most reasonable people, it's just that religion is so ingrained in our society that most people either a) won't call people out on their religious crazy BS or b) believe that it can't be that crazy, because otherwise so many people wouldn't believe.
And it's true, many great scientific theories have been made by people trying to test their beliefs, but most creationist don't want to test them. If they did, they'd have realised God wasn't real a long time ago. They're only interested in the conclusion (God's real and the Bible is fact), not the hypothesis or the method.

And next I believe you've done a MASSIVE logical fallacy in the creationism debate which is that you've equated believing in God with not believing in God and therefore you think that my staunchness of lack of belief makes me just as closed-minded as Gehenna? It's not a spectrum where both ends are equally reasonable and have some good points, they just can't understand another. It's not like left/right in politics (arguably, that is. I'm a lefty myself). I can't comprehend God existing just as I can't comprehend any number of infinite possible things existing, because I see no evidence of them existing. STOP equating belief and lack of belief when the belief relies on zero evidence. If there was some passing evidence for God existing but far from conclusive, then I'd accept the equivalence. In that case, it'd be reasonable to believe or not believe, because there could be a reasonable argument either way. That is not the case in reality. And if my words are insulting, I apologise but they are what I deeply believe and I do not muzzle myself on religion for the reason that so many others do. So many times religion and religious organisations and people get away with so much BS because people are afraid to say "hey that's BS". So if I debate a crazy religious person, I will not be afraid to call them such.

I personally don't like the idea of teaching religion from an early age because I like people to be able to make their own mind up. With that said, the very nature of some religions suggests that it is a good thing to start teaching kids to understand what they teach as soon as possible (to avoid Hell etc.). I do think however skewing the situation so that atheism is good and religion bad is silly. Someone might rightly say Religion can do a lot of good (such as instilling a good moral code) and so you could make the case religion is good. Atheism has also caused a great deal of evil (we could go more into that topic but some of it is fallacy). The opposite is also true for both, and so considering either option is good or bad seems inappropriate. I think it's personally better to show all of the options, and then let someone make their own mind up.

I agree, people should make their own minds up. By the way, the avoiding Hell thing is circular logic because it comes from the assumption that Hell is real. If it's the "very nature of religion" to start teaching it from an early age, then the nature of religion is bad and I don't think it should be done. Period.

I hear a lot about how religion instills a good moral code in kids but I personally think it's better for people and society overall if people think they should do good deeds simply because they're good, and not out of a fear of the eternal damnation of Hell. The main problem with using religion to teach kids morals to me, is that it's all based on lies. "Do this because Jesus said so". "Do this because God said so". But they didn't. If you wanna teach your kids the teachings of Christ simply because you agree with them, not because you believe the super-natural sht, then be my guest. People should be allowed to teach their kids values they deem appropriate. But when the values are based on lies, that's just fking with the kid and it's setting them up to live a life that's based on a lie.

What evil has atheism caused? I know you said some was fallacy, but I'm interested, what isn't?
And oh my god spare me the "show all the options" crap, it's another false assumption that belief and lack of belief are equal theories or ideas. Do they teach flat-earth theories at your school, as well as spherical-earth theories? No, because the flat earth theories are fking ridiculous. Same goes for religion. I read the Bible as a child because I liked the stories, but that's all they were. Stories. People who expect their kids to grow up and realize Santa isn't real but then teach them the Bible like it's fact are morons and bad parents.


Several things about this:
- Not all christian parents teach their kids to be christian from a young age
- Not all christians go to church every week (some do, a lot don't)
- Not all christians were taught to be christian by their parents. They made their own decision
- Science and religion are not two mutually exclusive things
- Your circumstances might apply differently to different people with different values

Just because you came to the conclusion that Narnia, Harry Potter, the Greek myths and The bible were all fake, it doesn't mean that others didn't (and indeed a great many haven't). What's more is that not everyone takes the bible literally. The bible is sometimes taken literally (the fundamentalist approach) whilst others have taken a more liberal stance and use the stories in much the same way as Aesop's Fables - to teach a lesson

- OK
- OK
- nononononononononononono. SOMEONE taught them. May not have been their parents but someone did. 3 billion people in a vacuum do not all come up with the same idea of a God. It spreads and they teach it to each other.
- Not religion in a broad sense, but religion as most Christians and Muslims practice it and theory of creationism. These are pretty much mutually exclusive with science.
- I accept this

To those for whom the Bible are fables, I have no real problem with that aspect of their faith. But that's not a majority of Christians. Most Christians believe in most aspects of the Bible, specifically the big parts like the Ark, creation, and the miracles of Jesus.

Well, there are certain explanations for this age problem. If God created everything intelligently there's nothing to stop that from going down to isotopes within rocks. I believe the Apocrypha also states fossils were placed on earth by the devil to deceive humanity, but don't quote me on that because I don't read the scriptures.

Isn't that convenient.

Just because they teach it in schools doesn't mean it's instantly right! They taught the earth was flat in school! (originally) The greek philosophers taught a great many students the theory of catastrophism, which has been subsequently disproven. Evolution is NOT a scientific fact (see above). I don't need to prove it wrong because it was never proven right, that's what science is about (and if you want to argue about that, this forms part of my degree). If you need evolution explaining to you, by all means PM me, I'll be happy to explain the concept. If you want to be even more specific, a lot of Darwin's original theory of evolution turned out to be wrong in specifics. The basic concept is there, but the specifics were out. At this point I could give thousands more examples of places where science could be wrong, because ultimately everything in science is only a theory waiting to be disproven. That doesn't make religion any better either, because there's evidence with one, and not with the other (that can't be explained away due to other potential factors)

Yes, they taught many things in school that were wrong, before the age of modern science...

there is a 99.99% chance evolution is how we came to exist (we can quibble the specifics, but I mean the overall theory), why should we bother discussing the 0.01%? When I use the word fact, I don't mean an absolute absolute like 1+1=2, but I mean something that is so close to an absolute that there's no point for most people to think about it. If there were serious evidence that contradicted evolution, without coming from a religious standpoint, I'd think twice about calling it fact. But there isn't.



I love how venomous you are towards religion. I'm not even on the side of religion and even I can agree your mind is too closed to the possibility that you might be wrong. At this point I'm not sure you're any better than a religious fundamentalist (and that's saying something).

ANOTHER FALLACY. A lot of people were venomous towards the Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan, is it their fault for being venomous? Or is it the Nazis' and the Klan's fault for being completely abhorrent? By the way, as goes with most of this debate, I'm not talking about ALL religion. Just most of it. Don't build that strawman please (pre-emptive strike).

I bet your mind is closed to a lot of possibilities. You know why? Because there are infinite possibilities. Your logical fallacy AGAIN and AGAIN is giving the theory of creationism and the Bible any more thought than ANY other of the infinite possibilities in this universe. I am 99.999999999999999999% closed to the idea of God existing because there is no more proof of him existing than there is of anything else existing and there are infinite possible things that could exist, as I said.


See above for certain explanations for the whole dinosaur thing (although I do agree if dinosaurs did exist, we wouldn't have met them, that's my opinion). You have faith in people that could in fact serve their own interests. Scientists do it all the time. When they write books, they tend to only show the facts that suit their side of the debate. Academics are no better. Always take what they say with a pinch of salt, because there are always opposing views (and potential selfish motivation).

Yes, scientists can twist facts to serve their own interests. But for every scientist ever to be wrong would require some kind of mass-scale immense stupidity or conspiracy that I consider completely implausible.

Oh, and it's benevolent, not malevolent.

thx fam


You're stereotyping which instantly makes this largely invalid. You see yourself as the hero of the story, when in fact both are in a grey area. That's a narrow minded viewpoint. See above for the whole carbon dating thing.

NONONONONONONO. STOP EQUATING RELIGION AND SCIENCE. It's not a "grey area", they're not opposing theories, both of which have their merits. One is right and one is wrong. The only reason that reasonable people can deny this is that religion is so deeply entrenched into their society. A logically minded scientist might know for sure that God is a lie and evolution is real, but would be hesitant to deny the "grey area" argument because their loved ones believe in God and they can't accept that their loved ones are morons.


No, they're not. Wanna know why? We've gone into space and we've seen the earth is in fact a sphere. We've zoomed in to the molecular level to see DNA. We know they exist. They have become scientific fact. We have NOT observed evolution as a full theory occurring in all species. We have seen it in some bacteria, but certainly not at the scale suggested by Darwin and since. That automatically classifies it as a theory, NOT a fact.

Once again, I've rounded 99.99% up to 100%. Must we quibble over the tiny differences? I could claim that everyone who went into space was part of some round-earth conspiracy and they were all lying. Does that mean that a round earth is no longer scientific fact? I mean, you've never seen the shape of the Earth for yourself.


1 and 2 I've explained possible counters already. The third one, just because it "makes sense" doesn't mean it's true. Look up chaos theory and you'll understand why.

perhaps it would help if I explained what I meant with 3) before you jump on it. but i've already written wayyyy too much lol. another time maybe.


No, I would have never guessed. You hate them so much you've become blind to the opposing viewpoint.

I hate a lot of things so much that I've become blind to the opposing viewpoint. Nazis, for example. I'm a Jew and I don't feel the need or the desire to listen to the Nazi viewpoint whatsoever. The key thing here is that I didn't START by hating religion. I examined all the evidence and my experiences and I decided that religion was something worth hating. It's not like religion, where people start with conclusions then look for evidence. And in fact, I only recently became a more "radical" atheist, as I've spent more time debating religious people online. I used to buy into this myth that religion was dumb overall but most religious people were reasonable. Not anymore, unless Gehenna_Beam and others are weird outliers.

Science and religion are not mutually exclusive, and I can go into examples as for why. They're not polar opposites, but not strong linked either. You can't explain all religion with science, and vice versa. You trying to explain religion on a scientific level is a waste of time. Unless you listen to and understand the opposing viewpoint, you'll always consider religion to be evil (as you seem to currently)

As I've said, religion overall is not mutually exclusive with science. But large tenets of the Christian and Islamic (I'm pretty sure, I know admittedly less about Islam) faiths are.


Tell me when you're ready to listen to the possibility that you may be wrong, and then people would hear you out more.

I'm like a LITTLE bit open to the idea of evolution being somewhat wrong, since as you said, it's not a 100%. But that little bit is only if there can be some kind of new evidence or reasoning that could possibly show it to be false. With the evidence we have today, I'm pretty absolutely sure that evolution is fact.

But I'm as closed to the idea of God existing as I am to anything else that we've never observed and there is no evidence of. PLEASE STOP ACTING LIKE GOD IS A LEGITIMATE THEORY.

Are you legitimately open to the idea of Thor being real? Or Zeus? Or Horus? Or Tengri? If you seriously consider the idea of every deity ever, then you must live a confusing life. Me, I like to believe in things that can be proven, or as close as you can get to proof.

I'm not here to debate about the earth's shape. It's spherical, we've seen the thing from space. End of conversation.

This is golden. You JUST complained about how I wasn't open-minded enough then say "end of conversation" about the Earth's shape, as if it's an absolute. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a flat-earther, but if you're gonna ask me to be open to completely ridiculous theories then you've got to be open to all the completely ridiculous theories I want you to be open to. That's how this works, right?

Evolution isn't happening except in bacteria and virus'. We have similar DNA to other creatures because that's how God made us. Prove that wrong. The only way you're going to be able to is if you can visibly prove evolution has happened. Good luck finding a time machine to prove your point. Do I believe the evolutionary theory? Yes. Ultimately however IT IS A THEORY, NOT A FACT.

Yes but scientific theory is equivalent to the layman's fact. We keep going over this. When a network calls a state in the presidential election, they often do so before barely any votes have been counted. Yet everyone acts as if Trump winning Alabama is fact, before they've counted a single ballot. Why? Because practically every measure we have points towards Trump winning Alabama and while it's not a pure fact, it's as close as one can reasonably get.

If you want me to take back my use of "fact", I will, but the problem with using "theory" is that creationists tend to see that word and assume that it's perfectly logical to just not believe in it, without providing any reasoning or evidence. It nurtures this idea that evolution and creationism are equally plausible "theories".


^Evolution in bacteria and virus'. There is DNA linking to suggest that evolution has occurred. Have we SEEN that evolution? Absolutely not. Is it logical to some? Yes, Logical to others? absolutely not. Not everyone agrees with you, you're just going to have to learn to accept that.

You haven't seen the shape of the Earth with your own eyes, and it's illogical to some people that the world could be round. So why are you so closed-minded to the idea of a flat Earth?

and oh my god how i hate how you say "not everyone agrees with you, you're just gonna have to learn to accept that". This is not an opinion thing. Evolution is real, it's not a matter of agreement.


You have faith evolution is a fact, I don't see much of a difference.

Because my belief is based on evidence. And if you can't see the difference, you're an idiot. If new evidence arises that evolution is a lie then 90%+ of scientists and reasonably minded people will begin to at least seriously doubt the theory. I will be among them. It is mostly religious people who say that they will never give up beliefs, no matter what happens.

1. i can't dispute this, this a personal thing

2. "you're never going to convince me my faith is false"

THIS IS THE POINT I'M TRYING TO MAKE TO THE FIRST GUY. Only religious people have this kind of conviction. Sure, I'm certain of evolution right now, but I'm always open to new evidence. I just think that new evidence seriously contradicting evolution is very very unlikely.

 

to expand on this, i believe we can reasonable consider something a "fact" when all evidence collected has indicated a certain trend that can be used to predict the future. why should we ignore the evidence collected and instead believe something that NONE of the evidence points to. yes, theoretically god could be real, but at the same time literally anything imaginable could be possible. it isnt a question of "can we believe in god" (we obviously can as there will always be a chance, no matter how small, of god being real), but "should we believe in god" (based on the evidence humans have gathered over hundreds of years).

 

did you just try to expand on me

you li'l sht

1v1 rn

 

I don't know how else to explain to you other than, evolution is NOT scientific fact as of yet. Is there a decent amount of evidence to suggest it works like that for all forms of life? Absolutely. We have the proof that bacteria evolve. We have considered a evolutionary line that could be real. We have not however seen it occur in all life and therefore until we do it remains a theory. Does that mean people shouldn't believe it? Absolutely not. In fact, it's a very widely accepted theory. The only difference is, it's not yet fact, and it's not too late for us to be proved wrong.

In response to the whole "flat earth" argument you made there against my point, it must be one large conspiracy theory then. Space projects and companies worldwide use satellites projecting these facts, as do all academics for their research geographically.

As for:
Because my belief is based on evidence. And if you can't see the difference, you're an idiot. If new evidence arises that evolution is a lie then 90%+ of scientists and reasonably minded people will begin to at least seriously doubt the theory. I will be among them. It is mostly religious people who say that they will never give up beliefs, no matter what happen

Let's break that down a little. Firstly, yes, it has evidence, but it still hasn't been fully proven. This creates a divide, but equally you are still ultimately believing in what is a theory, one having more evidence than the other. If somehow evidence came out disproving God, I daresay the same would happen to those that follow a religion. The difference is, it's much much harder to do so given the nature of the theory. As for whether or not they will never give up their beliefs, well that again comes down to whether or not you're actually able to disprove their theory. Finally, you're still using toxic language, which is never going to get you anywhere closer to reasoning with the opposing views either.

Let's throw in another potential. Is it possible that God created life with evolution inbuilt? I don't think the text has anything against this possibility, although of course not explicitly mentioned.