Christianity vs Atheism Debate

Here's just a question I dreamed up when I stumbled across this topic with SO MUCH potential.

"If we were to map out the entire human genome and discover the GOD PARTICLE, would it be right to use it to perfect the human body?"

MY THEORY:

Yes. We should. With the perfection of humanity we will bring upon us an era of good times. A utopia SHOULD be created, and with this utopia we should be able to end HUGE AMOUNTS of problems not only with our physical but also our mental beings.

What's your opinion? Because I'm biased toward my own choice, the original description will without a doubt be biased as well, but don't let that change your opinion. My biased statement was intended only for topic briefing and discussion.

Disclaimer: I in no way am saying that your theory is not possible and I understand you simplified your theory so you wouldn't type an epic wall of text like I did ^ lol

I've skimmed through an article a long ime ago that mentioned something similar to a God particle. Apparently scientisits believe in the possibility of it's existence and are conducting experiments but no results yet to my knowledge. I skimmed it so unfortunately I never understood what a God particle is or why it was even conceived to exist.

Without that grasp of concept I can't conribte much to your theory, since I can't understand(not dismissing it I sand for the non existance of such a particle.

Now however, if it did exist, how could that create the perfect human? I guess that question is irrelevat because I do not understand the concept of god's particle, but lets say I did and we created perfect humans.

I assume perfect humans would have the perfect body, and as you mentioned perfect minds. So this erases human diseases and mental diseases, like schizophrenia, etc. But is greed and negativity(or evil if yu want) a disease? Wouldn't our individuality(free will if you want) be possible to allow some individuals to do bad in this world?

Also, I am all for a Utopia (not the one world government that go along he lines that conpiracy theorist fear) but an actualbpeaceful Utopia. However, that's huge. I think mankind is so deep in chaos tha we cankt unite ourselves in such away, as desirable as it maybe. Also I'm sure corporate greed would stunt this technology to be used for the good in the world, but the highes bidder. Like governments who want to make perfect soldiers.

That's just my unbiased opinion based on my limited knowledge on the subject. If we were to talk about God's BLUEPRINT rather than particle. I see it along the lines of what Sancarra(Vlace) said earlier. It's in the complexity of nature and the universe. From our bodies, animals, and flower pedals, we all have a distinct pattern that resemble geometrical shapes. For instance if you look at snowflakes, it contains perfect symetrical geometric shapes.

Want to know more, look up, 'Sacred geometry', 'golden ratio', and 'fibonacci sequence'.

I'm sorry, but this is something that needs to be adressed. Lei, you continue to be a hypocritical and abusive moderator. I honestly believe that the only reason you were promoted, is because the 'trash' as you put it, contained all the useful people, and you got the job by default because you acted like a brownosing lapdog.

Now you're deleting posts that you disagree with in a debate thread. Yes, debate, that means you will disagree with the other side. Not only that, but you abuse your power as an admin by banning people for things that you do yourself. Honestly, it's sad.

As an honest opinion. I think you are the single least qualified moderator that i've ever met. Definately the worst in overall performance of your job.

Back on topic for the thread. I'd like to adress this. Lei said

Quote :

But you can't bring 'science' into the picture when God was excluded from science, and science also proves how the universe was created.

How is God excluded from Science? And in what way can you prove your theories and beliefs? You say that you cannot believe in something without proof, and shoot down our ideas for that very reason. Yet you have no proof to support your beliefs. How then can you criticize ours with such blind zeal?

Lei, the God particle is a particle believed to be a cell that can edit the human fetus in any way necessary. Stem cells, part of a fetus, go to a set area and are programmed to form a heart, lung, etc. Now, in the umbilical cord, there are stem cells that are left over and have no real purpose. We can extract these and run tests on them to learn more about the layout of human genome (cell patterns that are distinctive to each and every living thing)

If we can map out the human genome, we will be able to draw stem cells from umbilical cord pieces and program them to do anything: whether we want to inject them into a human fetus and make it form extra things or eliminate unnecessary things to perfect the fetus's structure, making it a beautiful and fully functioning human.

Or, we can use the God particle to heal people's internal organs or other areas that can't be fixed (or fully fixed) by surgery.

/biasedwalloftext

Anyway, onto Taro's post:

God is excluded from Science because it is scientifically impossible for a deity to exist. This is my view, therefore it doesn't matter if Jesus or Mohammad existed. They were just very persuasive people.

In what way can I prove my theories and beliefs? Well, my theory as listed above can surely be proven by a full examination of the atmosphere: there is no heaven.

The problem with stereotypical debaters is that they all think atheists have the same perception of the universe. "YOU GUYS THINK THE WORLD CAME FROM NOWHERE TROLOL" No.Would it be fair if I said Christians and Muslims and Buddhists all believed the same thing?

How do you mean scientifically impossible? Because the definition of 'scientifically impossible' is redifined on a near daily basis. Also, my post was aimed directly at Lei's responses. I wasn't saying that all athiests have the same views, in fact, i never adressed Athiests as a whole. My post was specifically tailored to Lei's attacks on a 'non-provable' as he put it, religion, when his theories were just as 'non-provable'.

Oh I see! That is interesting, it's like further harnessing the capabilities of stem cell research. I assume this would bypass the need to harvest organic material containing raw stem cells if we could just utilize the particle within all organisms period.

So with a better understanding now and on to your earlier question, I don't think it would be right...or rather...it would be right if the intentions were good, but my faith in humanity is weak and I believe "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

(Btw, if you were speaking to me, I'm Fujin not Lei lol, no worries though.)

Warning: Epic Wall of Text below!

Oh and if you don't mind me addressing your statement to Taro, I would like to say that I agree with the stereotypes people put amongst others in a debate, shouldn't be the case. For example, I believe in a God but not necessarily religion and I will go as far as to say you can include him in science. I gave a few examples in my horribly long walls of texts above lol.

You said:

Quote :

In what way can I prove my theories and beliefs? Well, my theory as listed above can surely be proven by a full examination of the atmosphere: there is no heaven.

We have not fully mapped out the entire universe as well as our own oceans. Something I learned in science class still sticks with me to this day. There is a difference between fact and probabilities. It's very much probable that I would say 99.9% there's no visible, physical 'heaven' in the universe. However, it's fallacious to say that as a fact. What do I believe? I believe if you searched every corner of the universe you won't find heaven....

To me, if heaven were to even exist, it would be in another frequency or dimension if you will. Also, even if there wasn't a heaven, that doesn't disprove God.

I don't envision God as being an old bearded man on a cloud, protecting some and punishing others. To me, I'm not so sure but I can see a source of energy, that's sentient and is alive, like a tree is alive. It may not have 'human emotions' but it's soul/energy is what our material is from. I even believe it can have a sense of duality, good/nurturing/feminine/passive/potential energy as well as bad/aggressive/masculine/action/kinetic energy (Remember there are shades of grey when it comes to good and evil.), in which all life stems from, it's life began with a thought of "What if" and willed itself into existence.

All these certain sides that we speak of, is the religious description of God and whats mentioned about him and of him. And if we somehow manage to disprove and refute the existence of a Christian God, then we would have to do it again to a Buddhist God.

I guess what I'm trying to say is... with science it's a lot easier to disprove God in a religious aspect and EVEN then, it's a bit difficult and even more if we remove religions restrictions.

No no, i was speaking to lei

And in fact, i seem to agree with most of what you are saying. I can't prove that the Christian God exists. But i believe that there is too much evidence of something beyond the 'commonly accepted' views of the so called scientific community.

Cool, and yeah my passion is science, that's why I like to be skeptical and unbiased on all fronts, I believe certain scientific communities, try to smooth certain rough edges by very highly probable theories and make it out as fact, and then when comes new discoveries that contradict scientific theories we accept as fact, it becomes a problem. That kind of thing happens amongst religion communities as well, kind of ironic.

Btw, I'm not saying I have the answers, if anything, I'm just provoking others to have more questions.

Oh and, I was speaking to Aguri, who I 'think' was speaking to me earlier, calling me Lei. @_@ (Edit:) that sentence sounded a little confusing..

Thanks for the clarification, I was unaware if Lei was your real name or a nickname. I was talking to you, Fujin.

Ahhh, okay, thanks for the clarification ^^

Ooh religion debate. I'm more for politics but here I go.

First of all, some of you say you're agnostic. One of you said: "Agnostic is someone who questions whether or not God exists and doesn't conform to religion." You see, I always thought agnosticism was when you didn't think we would ever find out which religion was "correct" or whether there was a god. Wikipedia will solve my dilema. It says: Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable. So I'm sort of correct. But there you go.

My religion/theory:

Science. I believe in what we can prove, and what we can prove is called fact. We can't prove religion. Religion is a theory. Actually I believe its a step downward because theories have fact to them. Religion is a hypothesis.

Wow, this is a pretty sad debate to read back on. It's painful to watch trolls flame each other and call it "debating". Good to see though that the latter pages start to become more reasonable. I suppose I should warn you that this post will not be short, so I'll highlight my main points.

To start, let me introduce myself as a Physics Major (senior year working on BS). I'm also what most people would probably label a charismatic Christian, which means I believe Jesus died, rose from the dead, and works miracles in the world today. Now you know where I'm coming from, let me put a couple things forward for you to consider.

First off, it is miserably false to say that "religion" has no evidence or factual grounding. Most every commonly accepted religion today has a firm grounding in scientifically verifiable historical events. For example, Archaeologists are pretty certain that there WAS a great, cataclysmic flood in the middle eastern region hundreds or thousands of years BC. As someone else here said, this has been confirmed and documented by ancient texts of many different cultures.

Another example of factual validity is the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, who was called Christ. Look it up if you don't believe me, but the Romans were METICULOUS in documenting all of their official functions and much of their work was VERY well preserved. There is NO question in the scientific community (specifically the archaeological and historical fields) that there existed a man named Jesus of Nazareth and that he was crucified by the Romans on behalf of the Israelites.

Now, it is completely true that none of this "confirms" the bible's validity or "proves" Jesus is divine. The "theory" that Jesus was the "Christ" aka the Savior of the World, is a theory which has simply never been disproven. All the tests science can make appears to confirm it, though science is too limited to be able to check all the possible ways in which the theory could be false, so all we know is that it hasn't been disproven yet. Perhaps one day it will be. After all, Newton had a very good system and theory and it was proven completely wrong, though it was a good approximation for the size of things humans deal with on a daily basis.

Now take Quantum Mechanics. Quantum Mechanics is a theory about physical science which has ONLY been proven by the virtue of the fact that it works. We use it and it has never been proven to fail for any test we can make for it. Therefore, the only reasonable course of action is to assume that it is correct until we have reason to suspect that it is not.

There is no more evidence to disprove the theory of Jesus' Divinity than there is for Quantum Mechanics. The only difference is that Jesus has to compete with an untold number of other theories about God which are all equally untenable by science whereas Quantum Mechanics is the ONLY theory we have that works for every situation we have been able to imagine thus far.

My point is that the inability of Science to adequately discuss the existence and nature of God (who or whatever that may be) does not in any way suggest that such a being could not or even should not exist. If anything, it only demonstrates how very limited Science is and how inadequate it is for the given subject.

That's right, Science is the reason science can't prove or disprove God. Science is the limiting factor. It's a tool not designed to equipped to handle a subject like God. But that actually doesn't mean Science can't tell us ANYTHING about God. God isn't excluded from Science. He created the universe and it's His power that holds all of the laws of the physical universe together. You want proof? Well, He told me so, not that that's worth any more to you than Liao's pronouncement meant to me, but that's all the proof I need to believe Him.

At the end of the day, Science is only our own ability to perceive the universe and the orderly nature it possesses. Since God is in the universe, we can see him in science (except everyone who looks at the universe through the lens of science sees a different picture than the next person, making God hard to identify). Since God is simultaneously outside the universe, Science cannot capture all of God. It's like a blind man trying to measure an elephant with a single hand. He's just too big to fit in our little box of things we understand.

That's where faith comes in. Some people think derisively of faith, passing it off as a crutch to help people feel better about being wrong or believing things they know are wrong. Actually, true faith is more about believing in things you know are right. Every time you sit down in a chair, you have faith it's not going to fall to pieces or move out from underneath you. Normally you have very good reason to believe this and have faith in the chair. Why do you have faith in the chair? Sometimes it's a chair you know you've never even seen before, much less sat in. But in your past, chairs have proven themselves universally faithful with fairly negligible exceptions.

God once told me that, instead of blind faith, he wanted me to have faith like a blind man. Blind faith accepts without reason or careful thought and everyone knows it's a very dangerous thing to wield. A blind person doesn't act in blind faith. They stumble around carefully, arms forward because they know if they don't, they'll run into something. But a blind person has faith in their friends and family to help them by guiding them and handing them things. This is true faith. You trust a person because of the relationship you have built with them. Real faith has to be built on reputation and on a relationship. When you sit in a chair, you don't sit in blind faith. You sit with confidence in the reputation of chairs and your experiences with them.To have faith in God, you have to have a relationship with him or at least a respect for his reputation.

That's why, when God says he made the universe and holds it together, I can just believe Him. I have a relationship with Jesus and I know I can trust him to never let me down.

To be fair and honest, I'm in the same boat with all of you. I believe in God, not in religion. Christianity didn't save me. Christianity didn't create the universe or hold everything together. Christianity didn't die on a cross for my sin and shame. Jesus did.

My only problem with the original thesis is that it makes a distinction between the "fantasy" Christian deity and a supposed "real" one.


Additionally, I don't buy that the world is held together miraculously by some mysterious force, and even if that was true, I don't think that you should "by definition" label that "God."


I'd also like to add that I agree with the points made by the point that precedes mine in regards to religion, science, history, and universality. However, I personally do not believe that there is a God.

I guess you could call me a deist. I believe something, call it God if you want, started it all, but he doesn't interfere. He just lets it run like a clock, rarely needing to fix anything about it. I never really think about it too much, I rarely want to. Most of the religious people I know around me come off as too fervent, judgmental, and forceful. I live in Utah, so everyone is also the pretty much the same religion (Mormon) and that doesn't help either. Expressing any belief that contradicts Mormonism will tend to start a debate against a wall of stubborn people. Then again, I'm sure it's like that in the Bible Belt too, especially since my friend moved to Arkansas and has since become a religious tyrant. I feel that if there is an afterlife and a God, it doesn't matter what religion you are or what God you believe in as long as you were a good person. I don't mind faith, but I do mind when people say you must have faith in order to go to heaven. There are too many people who haven't had the chance to have that faith, and it's absolutely unfair for that to be the way. My cousin and aunt are Muslim, and religious persecution is a crazy thing, religion should be a private, individualistic thing, and shouldn't be forced onto others. I don't mind talking about your beliefs, but shoving them down people's throats bugs me. Especially calling the other person a terrorist and telling them they must come unto Jesus in order to be given a reward for how they lived. That's my opinion on religion in a nutshell.

ooh. a fellow Utahn.

Anyhoo, to stay on topic with the debate, I would be somewhat inclined to call myself Mormon. But, my reasonings for this are different than most.

I'm a creature of metaphors and analogies, and so I'm going to make one here. Mormons say that the Book of Mormon is "the most correct book of any book ever written" [or something like that.] Or, in other words, not that it is absolute (some of the writers admitted that there were errors, all of which were human error, not error of God), but that it's the most correct.

That's my stance on religion. I don't believe any set of beliefs to be absolute. But out of everything I've tried, questioned, researched, and taken part in, I've gone full circle back to Mormonism, by virtue that I believe it is the most correct religion (or set of beliefs) out there. There are some things they do that I don't agree with, but I follow most of them because I believe that they are right. God is like a forum admin. He created us, so he gets to call the shots. If he wants us to become like Him, then He gets to make those rules.

I am against judgment and condemnation, however. No one has a right to say who is going where when they die, except the man upstairs.

science and religion both have truths, and both have falsehoods. however, I believe, contrary to popular opinion, that the two can coexist. I believe that True Science is True Religion, and vice-versa, yaddey yaddey yaddey.

those are the basics of my beliefs. Yes, I believe Mormonism has some legitimacy to it. any religion that can convert ~250,000 people a year with ~55,000 19-20-year-olds, has to have some serious amounts of truth in there for kids that age to pull such convincing arguments. That, Chase, might be why Mormons are so stubborn. I don't blame them.

And before anyone asks, no I have not lived in Utah all my life. I've had permanent residences in 9 places in 6 states, and had temporary residences in 5 other places in 3 other states.
That's just the tip of the iceberg though. I'll spare the rant for now.

This thread is very old, but the topic is very interesting. Allow me to do the honors in necro'ing this thread and expanding it.

First of all, I am not Christian, so the Bible isn't my ultimate authority, however that being said, the debate is centered more upon the notion of believing in God vs not believing in God. I myself believe that God exists to monitor the world, but will not act because he gave us free will to do whatever we want. Our actions are compiled and we are judged in the end, depending on what we did Good or Bad, we will be placed in heaven or hell.

Back on track:

I do believe god exists, because there is no way Science can explain the spontaneity in Earth's existence and how our multifaceted society thrives. Even if everyone on Earth was fooled into believing that God exists, we cannot deny that in every story, event, mystery, that there IS some GRAIN of truth. Furthermore something must have happened during the centuries of our existence that points to impeccable conclusion that SOME FORM of a HIGHER being exists! To deny it's existence, you'd have to go against alot of people, and I don't think that over a billion people would have been fooled into believing.

^ What he said.

I'm agnostic in that I don't think anyone can actually prove anything. I think we can just wait and see. Religion is a good guideline for others to follow, and I'm glad people have it but none of them can be proven correct. Atheism can't be proven either.

Loki wrote:

I'm agnostic in that I don't think anyone can actually prove anything. I think we can just wait and see. Religion is a good guideline for others to follow, and I'm glad people have it but none of them can be proven correct. Atheism can't be proven either.

I respect your belief completely, but isn't it hard to ignore the fact that, this world no matter how much biology, chemistry, and physics you smash together, had to be made by something that we can't comprehend?

As far as religion goes, I think its just a way for like minded individuals to rally under a similar "banner" of belief. I completely agree with you however that none of these religions and their beliefs can be proven correct, we just don't know. But the main question still is, is there a God or are we the product of...Science?

Well if we follow that logic, the thing that made everything had to be made by something which had to be made by something...etc. Similarly, if we follow science, we have to question how the dense mass that started the Big Bang came about. In other words, I don't think I'm going to follow anything with certainty.

I am, for all intents and purposes, my own (amazing) religion. I believe that not only is there a God, but there multiple Gods, as well as demons. However, I DON'T believe God (capital G) is all powerful. I also don't believe that he foresight, the knowledge, or the power to just *poof* life into existence, nor does science support this. The bible claims that man and the Earth are a mere 6,000 something years old. We KNOW that he earth is several billion, and man is only 10,000. I am far more inclined to believe in scientifically viable facts than faith, and book that cannot be proven was written by God. For all we know, the Bible could have originally been written as a bedtime story, then just worshiped by early Man as the Work of God.

My personal belief is that the gods SET IN MOTION THE LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE! Meaning, they existed in the non-existence before the Big Bang. When they set the Big Bang in motion, they sculpted the laws of the universe - Law of Gravity, Laws of Physics, etc. - and then retreated to their various heavens. However, I DON'T believe that any of the god's care for us in more than matter of entertainment. We were a side-effect of creating the universe. Why would omniscient, omnipotent beings care for short-sighted, short-lived mortals? It is merely the arrogance of man that says that they would. Also, I don't believe in the typical aspect of Hell. If anything, I'm more inclined to believe in the Greek aspect of Hell.

I do not think that praying to Gods will help anything. I am a firm believer in taking life by in your own hands, not sitting back and letting some immortal being do it for, least of all one who is more likely to laugh at your arrogance than help you. If you existed for all of eternity, had immense power, but accidently created a race of conceited beings who can hardly rise above killing off half the population ever other century, would you really help them? I know for a fact I wouldn't. I would sit by and watch them get killed, MAYBE interfering here or there for my own amusement. Regardless, if they did kill them off, I'd be like "Oh, well. They had a good run. Let's try it again." I believe that the only way the human race is going to survive is by quit worshiping any kind of god, and instead, start making the world a better place.

Religion is an interesting and often touchy subject for a bunch of people, myself included. I'm not one to get easily offended, but it's a good way to make me tick.

whatever the case, my views on religion are a bit vague and broad.
For starters, I believe that right and wrong are simply delusions of the human mind. What's right for one person is wrong for the next. Who do you think you are to tell me "join or die" or "you're stupid for believing in/worshipping god"?

Owing to the lack of right and wrong, however, some people might ask me why I still worship a God? I believe that God created the world and all that, and since he's the one who set everything up, He gets to make the rules. I don't necessarily agree with them, but I (try to) follow most of them because it's kinda like parents at home. you may not agree with everything they say and order, but you do it because they're in charge.

I loosely connect with Mormonism because I believe it's as close to the truth as I'll get. I don't mind hearing about other peope's religions (or lack thereof) but if they try to "threaten" me and warn that I'm on my way to hell, or that I'm an idiot for not being "rational" [a word that Atheists use in heinous excess. just sayin'...], then you can take that opinion and shove it where the sun don't shine.

I'm more or less my own person in this scenario. I have little interest in trying to force my beliefs down other people's throats, and so I'm often very quick to ridicule and degrade anyone who tries to do the same to me. Thus, I am not really one for religion jokes unless they're done in good taste, (which is kinda like art--you can't really describe it, but you know it when you see it).

that said, those are my views.

I'm starting to get a feel for peoples views on the subject, some obviously don't believe in a higher authority (perfectly okay), and others do. Let me ask this question to the rest who haven't added on to the current discussion.

This is pointed towards people who do believe in God or a Supreme Authority:

Is there any evidence or proof of existence that verifies the existence of a being that is greater? If so, couldn't Biology, Chemistry, and Physics explain this phenomenon?