Are You Religious, Agnostic Or Athiest, What is your current belief ? Options

[gainpresence]

QUOTE (ocool19 @ Mar 19 2003, 04:24 PM)

and nobody has came back from heaven/hell and said hell yeah its for real or something like that.....

Would you believe them if they did?

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intresting topic and STOP Pasting that VERSES FROM BIBLE IT WONT HELP TO PROVE ANYTHING!!!

The guy says there is no mention of certain stuff in the Bible, how else should we prove him wrong?

[Fuzzy]

Does anyone actually believe god wrote the torah or anything. Until i have proof of moses or something like that i apologize if there is a god but i cant believe. We have already dissproved heavan in the clouds. Where the hell else could it be (no pun intended but we know hell isnt down there either)

[gainpresence]

QUOTE (Fuzzy @ Mar 19 2003, 04:32 PM)

Does anyone actually believe god wrote the torah or anything. Until i have proof of moses or something like that i apologize if there is a god but i cant believe. We have already dissproved heavan in the clouds. Where the hell else could it be (no pun intended but we know hell isnt down there either)

You apparently don't know much...

Everyone knows that Moses was real, so was Jesus...

No one thinks that heaven is in the clouds, God created the universe AFTER he created heaven.

[Fuzzy]

QUOTE (gainpresence @ Mar 19 2003, 06:33 PM)

QUOTE (Fuzzy @ Mar 19 2003, 04:32 PM) Does anyone actually believe god wrote the torah or anything. Until i have proof of moses or something like that i apologize if there is a god but i cant believe. We have already dissproved heavan in the clouds. Where the hell else could it be (no pun intended but we know hell isnt down there either) You apparently don't know much... Everyone knows that Moses was real, so was Jesus... No one thinks that heaven is in the clouds, God created the universe AFTER he created heaven.

sorry been outta hebrew school for a few years and i never was very religious (but i mean how do we know moses saw god, we dont! and how do we know jesus was resurrected, we DONT!)

[gainpresence]

QUOTE (Fuzzy @ Mar 19 2003, 04:36 PM)

sorry been outta hebrew school for a few years and i never was very religious (but i mean how do we know moses saw god, we dont! and how do we know jesus was resurrected, we DONT!)

I'm sure there are a lot of things you believe but don't know. Such as evolution (probably).

Anyway, it's through FAITH that we are saved.

[Lizard_King]

QUOTE (Rebel-Soul @ Mar 19 2003, 08:35 PM)

OMG you guys still got it wrong! Des Cartes did not believe in a god! he was an athiest so to speak. Cogito ergo sum. Please translate and tell me what you think.

Cogito ergo sum: I think, therefore I am.

Interestingly enough, that is part and parcel of one of Descartes' proofs of God. He not only wasn't an atheist, but based his entire epistemology (system of thought) around the belief that he had established the existence of God beyond a doubt using only reason rather than empirical arguments. He was a devout Christian and Catholic, and much of his work was based around the Papal bull saying that God's existence could be rationally proved...he was devoted to figuring out how.

The bulk of his seminal Meditations on First Philosophy is devoted to two massive proofs of God on a rational basis, of which "Cogito Ergo Sum" is a part. If you really want me to explain them I will...but for now suffice it to say that not only are you wrong about Descartes, you are doubly wrong for making a pretense of familiarity with his work.

In fact, the number of 17th century Enlightenment thinkers that were actual atheists were few in number...offhand, I can only think of Diderot...Keep in mind that before Darwin there were few reasonable grounds for being an atheist, although Diderot did a fascinating purely rational dissection remarkably close to what we know of modern physics and atomic structures. The rest were devout Christians, with the occasional Deist.

[Lizard_King]

QUOTE (praisegod @ Mar 19 2003, 08:58 PM)

have read your articles. In "The Mammoth lie" , if you assume that all the samples are different mammoths you may say, "ha the creationists are wrong". I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say they were wrong in this particlular instance. However, Carbon dating in general is flawed. Please read: In this quote , it does not use the articles that you dismiss(mammoth, volcano, and the one about the age of quotes). The CEM article above disproves carbon dating by other means. For the Volcano article I will assume the same as the Mammoth. That creationists may have been wrong in this particular instance. However for the last article, there is no creationist error. Just because the creationists' quotes are old doesn't mean they are wrong. Einstein's theory of relativity E=mc^2 was formulated in the early 1900's. That doesnt mean that ,"hey, since that theory is old , its wrong!" The last article of yours has little or no validity. If I appear to be hostile, I am sorry. I love you all and will let you come to your own convictions.

The reason I cited the mammoth article was to give you a specific example of the sort of methodology creationists use to actively deceive their followers. It is not, in fact, an honest mistake; it is done purposefully.

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here is an explanation from : http://www.creationevidence.org/scientific.../se_carbon.html Subject: Carbon Dating A less-common form of the carbon atom, carbon-14, is used today by scientists as a method to date once-living organisms. Many people believe that carbon dating disproves the Biblical time scale of history. However, because of the difficulties with current C14 dating techniques, the dates produced have been shown to be faulty. Cabon-14 is produced in the upper atmosphere by action of cosmic rays. One the C 14 has been formed, by converting nitrogen-14 into carbon-14, it behaves like ordinary carbon-12, combining with oxygen to give carbon dioxide, and freely cycling through the cells of all plants and animals. Carbon-14 is used for a dating material because once it has been formed, C14 begins to decay radioactively back to nitrogen-14, at a rate of change that can be measured. As soon as an organism dies, the C14 atoms which decay are no longer replaced by new ones through respiration. Consequently, the ratio of C14 to C12 in that once-living organism decreases as time goes on. The problem with the carbon dating method is—scientists can not be sure of what the C14/C12 ratio was when the organism died. Carbon dating assumes that the ratio has remained constant; however, events, such as the industrial revolution, are known to have raised C12 levels. Other possible factors, such as the presence of a water canopy, would have lowered the amount of C14 in the pre-Flood world. Because pre-Flood specimens had so little carbon-14 in them, some might appear to have been decaying for tens of thousands of years. Also, the decay of the earth’s magnetic field would have direct effects on C14 level, again, giving artificially old ages the farther you go back in time. Finally, carbon dating has been shown untrustworthy with some present day aquatic specimens that were concluded to be thousands of years old. For example, the shells of living snails’ were carbon dated and showed that the snails had died 27,000 years ago. Other specimens have been carbon dated more than once, each time producing a different date varying by thousands of years. In overview, we see that the radiocarbon dating method is certainly no embarrassment to the Biblical creationist who believes in a young earth. In fact, when all data, such as the decay of the magnetic field and the canopy, is taken into accord, carbon dating seems to support a young earth. CEM Staff

Not only are there no experimentational references, or even self-references, but also:
1. There is absolutely no evidence for the earth's magnetic field decaying at a constant rate. In fact, this wholly spurious claim that continues to be used by Creationists despite its obvious flaws has been extensively debunked.

2. I have no idea what "the canopy" means. Without citation it is meaningless.

3. This pretty much sums up how I feel about this quotes (fromhere):

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The creationist fascination with spitting out long lines of out-dated and out-of-context quotes is directly tied with their literalistic Biblical outlook. Since in their interminable arguments with each other over religious doctrines and Biblical interpretations, their usual method of argument is to quote Bible verses at each other, they apparently think that it is a valid scientific argument to quote this or that person as saying this or that, and therefore somehow in this manner invalidate the data and evidence in favor of the evolution of life. The whole strategy is one of "argument from authority"----"X must be true because Mr Y says it’s true". While this method might (or might not) make sense within the context of fundamentalist arguments over which particular interpretation of this or that Bible verse is authoritative, it has no use in science, which depends solely on data and evidence, not on the say-so of this or that prominent scientist. Thus scientists, quite apart from all the distortions and inaccuracies, reject all of the creationists’ "quotes" as irrelevant, no doubt leaving the fundamentalists completely baffled as to why nobody seems to be impressed by all their quotations from authorities.

I think it encapsulates nicely what I have been trying to get across for numerous posts: your argument is ideological and faith based, and has nothing to do with science. That is fine when it comes to questions no amount of scientific theories will ever likely be able to address due to their very nature, such as "*why* are we here" but is utterly useless when we are talking about *how* we got here.

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However for the last article, there is no creationist error. Just because the creationists' quotes are old doesn't mean they are wrong. Einstein's theory of relativity E=mc^2 was formulated in the early 1900's. That doesnt mean that ,"hey, since that theory is old , its wrong!" The last article of yours has little or no validity.

That is only half-true. Old scientific statements can be useful, if and ONLY if they have not since been disproved or modified by later findings. If you don't think it's significant that Creationists overwhelmingly use dated information that has since been replaced by accurate data that says something completely different from what they say, and do so on purpose (you have to go out of your way to find dated science if you are looking through scientific journals...you will usually be referred to the most recent work first), then you need to revise your understanding of scientific method.

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If I appear to be hostile, I am sorry. I love you all and will let you come to your own convictions.

You don't have to apologize, and you are a country mile from being rude. I am not trying to attack your system of beliefs, just trying to make clear that they have *nothing* to do with science.