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Original post by Pipes McGee Well, what I dismiss about evolution is the atheistic viewpoint - that God had nothing to do with it.

Just like all the other natural sciences.

Grew up in a protestant home but is now an open atheist.
I have pretty strong opinion on the evangelical flavor of christianity and other fundamentalists, but it serves no purpose for me to share them here.

I'm a Christian from no real denomination although my church is Charismatic (believes the kind of stuff from Acts is still around, accessible for all believers).

From past discussions, there are quite a few Christians on GD including some of the more prominent members, maybe a moderator or two as well IIRC. The majority probably fall into the agnostic or "don' care/nominal atheist" category, and of course there are quite a few 'real' atheists too, plus a smattering of 'evangelical atheists'.

I won't get into the discussion of why, what, how, since it doesn't seem to be what the OP is asking, and it's been done quite a lot before.

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Original post by SteveDeFactoPlease humor me and show me one strand of empirical evidence supporting your theory of a magic man in the sky who created the universe?

Please humor the rest of the site by not derailing any thread on peoples' beliefs into an argument about the logic of believing in a god. Start your own thread if you want to argue that point, you'll probably get more focused debate than having multiple discussions in this thread.

This is strictly a statement of my stance on religion, nothing more. In particular, it is not a challenge to anyone here who holds a different stance.

I'm an atheist and a secular humanist.

I value truth even when it is uncomfortable to me.

I am not afraid to admit my own ignorance and to recognize it as such.

I am strong enough to accept that when my father dies he will truly be dead and I will never see him again for all eternity.

I believe that once we are freed from the chains of dogma we humans are strong enough to develop a consistent moral system on our own.

I am proud of my conviction which has its uttermost origin in me and not a celestial theocracy to act in such a way as to bring happiness to others.

I do not know how the universe came into being but easily recognize that God is not an explanation as it just changes that which must be explained from the universe to God.

I reject all known theologies (among which the Bible is the foremost example) because they are internally inconsistent and exhibit countless logical fallacies. I have read the Bible in its entirety.

I reject the Abrahamic faiths in particular as both explanatory frameworks and moral guides and find that these faiths constitute some of the worst ethical theories mankind has ever devised.

Mathematical understanding permits me to more greatly appreciate the harmony of the cosmos than any ancient mythology.

I recognize the fundamental human delusion that the universe is centered around us is incorrect and dangerous.

I am wary of all tradition and contend that human thought should always be malleable and dynamic, capable of rearranging itself so as to permit an emerging self-consistent morality dependent on the developing structure of human society, similar to the categorical imperative espoused by Kant.

The other day my brother was talking about not believing in God. He was drunk and thus malleable.

We discussed seeing Hawking's new work in the local Internet news. I read the Yahoo story; I do not know where he read his. I said, "It seems like they dumbed it down," and they did. I said, "I'd like to see Hawking's unadulterated words before trying to understand what he supposedly wrote." I have not seen them yet.

My brother does not believe in god & he believes in free will.

I am not sure. I think some things are unknowable and the scientific method cannot explain all. If you grilled me with a gun to my head, I might say that god exists.

But, I think that if god exists, he is ambivalent to us. If we agree we are part of reality, then we are an example of reality perceiving itself. Our perceptions can be explained in a language of thoughts. What was the last thought you loved? How many thoughts have you had today? God does not love us. I think god would be the substrate of reality. We would be neutral in everything that is beautiful and thus beautiful.

Some things that make me think of god:

1. entangled photons. Spooky action at a distance. Bell's inequalities.
2. Frank Jackson. Qualia. Epiphenomenalism. Edit: oh yeah, the philosopher David Chalmers [check out his website via google; he is badass (his 1996 book, specifically) ].

"Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like ‘red’, ‘blue’, and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence ‘The sky is blue’. (…) What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism is false."

3. Bertrand Russel and I suppose Billy Pilgrim. Bert said things about the lack of logical requirement for causality & that an established causality cannot be logically proven to always persist into the future.


I was raised Roman Catholic. I started rebelling early. My parents forced me to attend church and make the confirmation, but that is all they required. Now neither of my parents are associated with any church. My father still apparently believes in the Roman Catholic version of god. My mother does not seem to. It appears she is now ambivalent to god.

I do not have any antagonism toward people who believe or disbelieve in god. My girl is a Hindu and her father tells me all the Hindu stories. This makes me think of religion thru the ages and all the other winderful things man invents.

I think mostly that when one dies one rots into dirt, into molecules. But reality may be addicted to knowing all that is real. In this case death is an impossibility.

So yeah it was awesome to read all the other GD.net people's opinions on religion/theology/philosophy/god/etc. It is nice to see smart people with a variety of opinions just giving a little blurb on their theological/philosophical upbringing. Any other place this would be a giant fu fu flamewar.

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I believe that once we are freed from the chains of dogma we humans are strong enough to develop a consistent moral system on our own.

--from nilkn

Have you read On the Genealogy of Morals by Nietzsche? Do you think that moral systems need be founded upon logical principles, if so, which principles?

@Pipes McGee: why/how did you choose the Roman Catholic denomination instead of, say, the Orthodox or Baptist ones? Do you believe that the differences between those denominations are fundamental (i.e. the Roman Catholic faith is the true one, while the rest are misguided in some way. For instance, can one call himself a Christian while denying papal infallibility)?

Regarding the topic of bibles, this one is probably the best. Doesn't matter if you are a Christian or not - take a look!

Officially, I am.

But I rather believe scientists who are actually using their brains and make logical conclusions based on what they observe, than believe what people wrote in a non-scientific way in a book 2000 years ago.

And I know that we don't know the how and why we're here yet. Again, I trust the scientists, who have no answer for that yet, more than some attempt at an answer from 2000 years ago.

I wish people would use common sense and not hinder logical observations. There will ALWAYS be things that science cannot answer. So you'll always have something mysterious to believe in. But once some part of the world is explained, please stop hindering that.

So far, things like the shape of the Earth, the way the Earth moves in the universe, and the fact that there is some evolution from animals and that humans are also just one of those animals have been pretty logically concluded.

But there's still so much mysterious things left to make a religion for, some of which might never be explained by science: how can consciousness work? Why are we here? Where does the root of all those physical laws come from?

Why don't religious people write and use a book about THAT, instead of things that have 99.999999999% chance of not being true?

P.S. I also don't like the narrow minded idea of there being a single conscious "father figure" somewhere. It cannot be unproven, but is unlikely. And if there can be one of something, there can be more.

[Edited by - Boops on September 13, 2010 6:41:00 AM]

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Original post by Boops Officially, I am...

Since Christianity teaches that to be a Christian is to have a personal relationship with God and believe in the divinity and resurrection of Jesus, you either are, or aren't. None of this "official" stuff - if your parents tell you you are but you don't believe it, then you are not. I think that some religions are much more cultural but Christianity is 100% about each individual's personal choice. Don't feel pressured to be one if you don't believe it - and on the other hand don't feel 'safe' because you were baptised and told you're a Christian, but don't believe it. Make up your own mind one way or the other. I hope that's one point the atheists will agree with me on?

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Original post by SteveDeFacto ...

I'm sorry, what direct evidence? Are you talking about the AdS/QCD findings from last year? Did I forget to mention that I am FOR string theory? No, I did not forget, so why are you being so defensive? :)

When you say "a formula", are you talking about Euler's Beta function? Either way, did you know that there is not a single set of equations / formulation (in your words) for string theory, like there is with QCD or general relativity? Obviously not. Do you know why there are extra compactified spatial dimensions in string theory? I do, and trust me when I say that it's purely theoretical. Right now we have no direct evidence of extra spatial dimensions, period. While the situation may change in the near future thanks to the LHC, it's not the same as holding evidence in your hands right now. Where on Earth are you getting your incorrect information from?

Your opinions on religion/psychiatry are even more full of shit than your opinion on physics, so I'm going to ignore them.

[Edited by - taby on September 13, 2010 10:26:45 AM]