That's my exact point. There is no answer to that question so people use religion to put in answers where answers cant be found. Thats why I say God started the universe, because he is the only person that has lived for eternity. There is no point debating this specific subject for we will never get anywhere.

So you are saying because you cannot answer how the universe started or how "God" was created, you automatically choose religion. Why??? Guess we shall never see eye to eye on the subject.

Religion=God to me. Believing in God to me is part of your religion right there. I am just saying that when there is no other answer, like creating the universe, I turn to god to fill in the blank for there is nothing else that could possibly be possible.

Odd conversation. I really would like to believe in God for a reason other than "everyone else does." I don't know, I do believe, but not in the same way that everyone else does. God, in my eyes, is something unexplainable, and anyone that attempts to (christians, catholics) are wrong. I never liked the idea of "believe because you have 'faith'"...well if you have a faith, you have to be able to base it on something. Its stupid that if you are Christian, you just BELIEVE to believe...

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Originally posted by Nickel-Z:
I don't know, I do believe, but not in the same way that everyone else does. God, in my eyes, is something unexplainable, and anyone that attempts to (christians, catholics) are wrong.

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There you go again, Z, with your "My Opinion Is The Correct One" attitude, but I'm going to stay out of this one as to not start any ruckus.

Hold up E, don't be judgemental, our new friend Z isn't as bad as he sounds. Just trying to stir the pot a little. I think that his view on religion is valid and well put. But then again, I don't like religion.

Ah Haaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!

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Originally posted by Nickel-Z:
I never liked the idea of "believe because you have 'faith'"...well if you have a faith, you have to be able to base it on something. Its stupid that if you are Christian, you just BELIEVE to believe...

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I'm not sure whose comments you're replying to, N-Z, but there's a drastic difference between taking the "leap of faith" and merely believing because you're a part of a faith. I'm always critical of people who think something merely because they're told to and don't think critically about it. But the Kierkegaardian leap of faith is not that sort of belief...

The fact that you think God is somehow "unexplainable" and that trying to explain it fruitless isn't a new view...there have been people who have struggled with that view for centuries, beginning with the Gnostics.

Religion is a topic where you cant say other people´s beliefs are wrong and your´s are right. It would be better always to say I believe... instead of just saying it like that is how it is ect.

This may SOUND silly, but you don't have faith because "you believe to believe". You have faith because you've been hit like a ton of bricks by something outside the five senses, yet you know where it's coming from through prayer and meditation. It's not a "feeling" because that would involve the senses. It's something which is "speaking" to the "non-physical" part of you. See, I told you it'd SOUND silly.

I respect that Mark, but my main argument about that is as follows: do you "feel" these things because they are actually occuring, or because you want them to occur? I remember when I was "Saved" I felt very good during it, but is it because I felt I was doing something good in my life and because I finally making myself a better person, but nothing changed inside, I was still me. But instead of when I think something that isn't "sound" I had the privilage of blaming "Satan" rather than faults within myself. But as I said I respect your comments, because I was once there and still remember somewhat how I felt about life and "God." I think that much of religion is a sort of "Placebo effect" in which people have the ability to trick themselves into believing in an omnipresent being due to occurences within the body which may or may not actually be happening.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: St. Mike,

Mike, what you're describing may be your experience and that of others, but it has nothing to do with my life or "faith". I don't belong to an organized religious group, I've probably never been "saved", at least not in any ceremony, and I don't blame others (especially Satan) for anything. I don't believe in "blame". I believe in "responsibility", and it starts and ends with me, although I try to teach by example.

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and I don't blame others (especially Satan) for anything.

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Its funny that you say that, because this entire month I have been laughing at how many religious "self-help" books are being sold. I especially dislike a popular woman name Joyce Myers, she filled her book, The Battlefield of the Mind, blaming everything on "The Devil." I found it quite funny actually. Anyway, one of my coworkers brought in the book to read during his lunch break, and while sitting at my miserable desk waiting to answer the phone I decided to read what she had to say. According to her, things such as a wondering mind, doubt, guilt, and pretty much rationality are all tools of "The Devil," "Satan," or "Demons." Literally every page of the book mentioned something "Of the Devil" at least three times. After about a chapter I started hearing to voice of Mrs. Boucher on "The Waterboy."

I read through the topic and picked out some things that sparked my interest. I’m just going to touch on a lot of points… and for those that wish to take any of them further, I’d love to continue the discussion. ;-)

Science does have faith; faith in that its processes and rules are concrete enough to base assumptions (blind faith) upon. Sure science can adequately explain consistent rules at microscopic and atomic levels, but what about the parts, that make up those parts, that make up THOSE parts, that make up… well, my point is pretty clear. Science gives us answers up to a certain point, but the questions are arguably infinite. The “belief”, if you will, in science is that there is no question that cannot be answered… and no answer that cannot be understood.

Religion has faith too… but I don’t feel right with expressing my views on that because I’m not a religious person in the typical, excepted sense. I don’t go to church and I don’t believe that a supreme being, intelligence, or something cognitive beyond our understanding has masterfully and intentionally put everything that is, was, and will be into motion. My brain can’t commit to that belief just yet in my life… thus why I don’t currently believe in God.

The thing that both interests me and confuses me is the fact that faith in God (a higher power) is something only “you” can feel, know, and understand… thus it may be a bit different for everybody (that’s why there are different religions, I suppose). As long as the religion is truly spiritual (I will not allow myself to accept Scientology as a real religion), I have to wonder if the specifics of a religion really even matter… do they really anti-matter? ;-) Is the goal to create a “connection” with that beyond this realm of existence? Are there different paths that lead to the same spiritual destination (whatever and wherever that is)?

Mark keeps referring to the “ton of bricks” that hit him. Mark, I know it’s a very personal question… but would you explain what this event entailed? I’m very interested in that because I do believe that there is more to this world than what our “five senses” tell us. I’ve been “hit hard” by other things in life (I’m talking about an almost physical sensation coupled with an emotional reaction that transcends all other responses to stimuli that you’ve ever encountered before, almost leaving you dumbfounded), but nothing has made be wake up in a spiritual sense and made me truly appreciate the importance (or existence) of a higher power. Though, I suppose because I’m not really looking… I’ll never truly find it. Is a part of spirituality… letting go? Do you have to take an emotional and psychological leap off the edge of physical and mental reason?

My job allows me to think to myself all day without coming into contact with many people. The arguments below are the result of today's thought processes, and are not meant to persuade anyone to any one religion. I just hope that everyone has an open mind.

One of the hottest issues involving religion these days is the creation vs. evolution debate in public schools. Is it unconstitutional to teach creation because it comes from a religious point of view?

What do you suppose constitutes a religion?

How I understand it, a religion is a person's set of beliefs dealing with the existence of the universe and all things within it. This belief, consequentially effects how we view our own lives and the choices we make. Religion is not synonymous with taking part in rituals, though that may be a part of many.

In that sense, I believe everyone has religious beliefs, even atheists. If you are an atheist, you believe in a godless universe and that everything here came to existence through chance. As a result, you will live your life by your own standards of what is acceptable behavior.

The fact is, not everything can be explained by science, especially in the area of the birth of the universe.

For example:

If life came about as a result of the "big bang," the very first living organism(s) would have to have come prepared with the ability to procreate. You would then have to have faith that the first living thing(s) had this ability and used it. Otherwise, life would have come to exist only to die immediately.

Suppose life makes it past this initial test and can sustain itself through asexual reproduction. How and why would sexual reproduction come to being? Who would develop first, male or female? If male develops first, how does that do him any good if there is no female to reproduce with (and vice versa)? Would he/she still maintain the ability in the meantime to reproduce asexually? Why bother developing this new way when you can already do it yourself and save yourself the trouble?

How do vital organs develop? Is something suddenly born with eyes that didn't have them before? How would you have semi-evolved eyes that are useless for seeing anything, and why would the process continue until they are useful? The same goes for everything that makes up what we are (heart, brain, nose, etc.) All of these things seem highly unlikely to suddenly appear without warning in their useful states.

Another issue to ponder:

Is there a beginning of time? According to "big bang" theory, everything that came to be our universe (gases, etc.) came together at a certain point hundreds of billions of years ago (or whatever, doesn't really matter). Was there anything before this? Were there billions of years before that happened? Was there ever a time when there truly was nothing and time itself didn't even exist? If so, how did time come to exist? If there wasn't a beginning of time, how did we get to the present time? Time would never get anywhere because it would be stuck eternally in the past (if that makes any sense).


These issues (and I'm sure there are more) have to be taken on faith regardless of whether you believe in a higher power or not. I personally believe that it is harder to explain the universe without a creator. I believe this creator has always dwelt in an eternal realm, but created an alternate "universe" with a concrete timeline. In my opinion, it takes more faith to be an atheist.

To me, it only seems fair that each faith-based theory (yes evolution is a theory) either both be taught as theories or not at all. If both are taught, creation shouldn't be taught as the Biblical explanation (Garden of Eden), since that would be teaching a specific religion (and there are numerous religious with a creator(s)), but rather as a general belief that this universe was designed by a higher power. To deny creationism altogether is to deny the student the right to make up his/her mind.

Actually a lot of scientists don't even attempt to refute the existence of God. However, it is not one of their many goals to prove it either. Science takes on a "Godless" stance wherein it does not necessarily posit that God doesn't exist, but rather God is not necessitated in the acquistion of knowledge. In the book A Brief History Of Time, Stephen Hawking said that if God does exist, he is certain that God created the universe in such a way that it obeys physical laws. For him, it is inconceivable that God created the universe to behave in a random, unpredictable manner. With this idea in mind, Stephen Hawking claims that these preset laws by which the universe behaves will enable Science to eventually understand the entire universe, whenever that will be.

On the issue of faith and the belief in the existence of God, I've thought of 4 possible conditions involving a hypothetical person, Joe:

First Condition: God does indeed exist. Joe believes in God. Joe is saved and is taken up to Heaven after his death.

Second Condition: God does not exist. Joe believes that there is a God. Nothing happens to Joe when he dies.

Third Condition: God does indeed exist. Joe does not believe in the existence of God. Joe dies and his soul suffered eternally in the flames of Hell.

Fourth Condition: God does not exist. Joe does not believe in any God. Nothing happens to Joe.

Just something to ponder on.

(Special Note: I personally believe in God and I have faith in His existence. However, I do not see my belief as an effect of the rationale of the four hypothetical conditions I presented above. My faith was brought about by a myriad of things: the way I was brought up, the family I was born to, my own personal values and my own deeper understanding of the world and the universe and its meaning, etc., and not by some logic-based hypothetical possibilites and conditions)

I respect people who believe because they simply have faith. But I personally need to be able to back it up with logical arguments. It is necessary if you are going to debate the issue with a non-believer who doesn't buy the faith argument.

Here's a Fifth Condition:

God exists. Joe believes in God. Joe doesn't love God with all of his heart, soul and mind. Joe is not saved. Joe dies and goes to Hell.

James 2:19:
"You believe there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that. And they tremble!"

If you believe the Bible word for word, the fifth condition applies. I'm not saying that I necessarily believe this, but merely pointing it out.

I'm no expert on the subject of universal origins and evolution, but I have read some on those topics and I think I can answer some of SDF's questions.

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How and why would sexual reproduction come to being? Who would develop first, male or female? If male develops first, how does that do him any good if there is no female to reproduce with (and vice versa)? Would he/she still maintain the ability in the meantime to reproduce asexually? Why bother developing this new way when you can already do it yourself and save yourself the trouble?

One theory of why sexual reproduction would come into being is that by mixing genes with another individual, you create something different from yourself, and that makes it harder for parasites and infectious organisms to adapt to a given species. Bacteria and the like reproduce in a matter of days, and it would not take them very long to evolve to exploit an asexual organism and get around its defenses. A sexual organism shuffles genes every generation and can thereby stay one step ahead of the microbes.

It's been a while since I read about how the sexes developed in the first place, but I know that it involves the relative investment that each parent gives. By definition, females invest more than males in offspring. If there is just a small initial difference in parental investment, it could rapidly expand until there is a big difference in parental investment, and hence in the structure of the different sexes. I was gonna give an example of how this could happen, but I don't remember enough to tell it clearly.

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How do vital organs develop? Is something suddenly born with eyes that didn't have them before? How would you have semi-evolved eyes that are useless for seeing anything, and why would the process continue until they are useful? The same goes for everything that makes up what we are (heart, brain, nose, etc.) All of these things seem highly unlikely to suddenly appear without warning in their useful states.

Organs don't all of a sudden disappear. They evolve gradually, without any "plan." Each mutation must help an organism immediately. Semi-evolved eyes are not useless. All it takes is a group of light-sensitive cells that helps an organism to leave more offspring than a similar organism without those cells. Computer simulations based on these assumptions bear this out.

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Is there a beginning of time? According to "big bang" theory, everything that came to be our universe (gases, etc.) came together at a certain point hundreds of billions of years ago (or whatever, doesn't really matter). Was there anything before this? Were there billions of years before that happened? Was there ever a time when there truly was nothing and time itself didn't even exist

Science can't answer questions about whether there was anything before the Big Bang. It simply states that there is no evidence for anything before the Big Bang. But neither can religion answer these questions. The questions are just different. Was there anything before God? What made God? Etc. This leads to the basic philosophical reason why positing a God explains nothing: If you think you need God to create the universe, then don't you need something to create that God? And if not, why not? Why would you need a God to create the universe and not need another God to create a God capable of creating a universe and then need another God, etc, etc? It all explains nothing.

Sure there are things that science can't currently explain. If there weren't nobody would be doing science. We'd know it all. But religions to me seem to explain nothing at all. There are thousands of religions. Can anyone explain to me why any one religion is any better than another? I've never heard a good theological argument in favor of one religion over another, and I think I know why.

I really think you guys are mangling the meaning of the word faith. Faith means believing in something despite the absence of concrete, sensory evidence of that thing. Faith has no place in good science. As far as your statement about the constituents of matter, Cody, science only answers what it is capable of gathering evidence for. It goes no further. It does pretend that anything is true that there is no evidence for.

Scientists make hypotheses on what they think might be true and then they do experiments to see if those hypotheses are true. That is not faith. Religious leaders state that something is true, with no physical, verifiable evidence. They do not do experiments. In fact, they are usually downright hostile towards any efforts to verify the truth of sacred beliefs (see Galileo, Darwin).

Some quotes I found about this...

"Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits."
~Dan Barker

"Athiests don't believe in God nor an afterlife. But Believers do believe in God and an afterlife. And what's interesting to think about is that if Athiests are right, then they'll never know it. If they are wrong, then they will regret it. Believers will never know if they are wrong, but, if they are right, then they will be happy."
~Alex Sager

"Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear and punishment and hope of reward after death. It is therefore easy to see why the Churches have always fought science and persecuted its devotees."
~Einstein

"People whose history and future were threatened each day by extinction considered that it was only by divine intervention that they were able to live at all. I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standards and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at a commensurate speed."
~Maya Angelou

Just some stuff to think about.

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This may SOUND silly, but you don't have faith because "you believe to believe".

Mark is dead-on on this one. I don't see how anyone could "choose" to believe anything. The evidence presents itself to you, and if the balance of the evidence seems to point in one direction, how could you "choose" to believe in the other direction? I suppose you could start out saying that you believe in a God and then determinedly avoid any evidence to the contrary, but by by the very act of avoiding contradictory evidence you betray a lack of faith in God. If you really believed there was a God you wouldn't avoid exposure to any evidence for there not being one. Therefore, I see no possible way of choosing to believe one way or the other.