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Pit Religious Demographics

Which do you most agree with?

  • I believe there is a God

    Votes: 72 51.4%

  • I believe there is some sort of spirit or life force

    Votes: 23 16.4%

  • I don't believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force

    Votes: 45 32.1%
  • Total voters
    140
RevDeac06 said:
If we're just going to make stuff up, it's tough to have a reasonable debate. I'm not trying to discredit you, but that's a rather big "what-if" assumption.
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It is most certainly an anthropocentric, hubristic argument.

Think of it as a thought experiment. What would you think about fine-tuning if that race of creatures actually existed?

Besides that aspect, the universe is decidedly not a very nice place to be for a human. We would freeze, combust or suffocate in 95% of our Solar system, let alone our whole galaxy or universe(I assume this reaches into the 99.9999999% range on those scales.) In 10 billion years, our Sun is going to expand into a red giant whose outer reaches will extend past Earth. This will turn our planet into an uninhabitable desert and in all likelihood, will consume our entire planet.

I'm not sure that is exactly fine-tuned for humanity.

In addition, recent advances in cosmology indicate that we most likely aren't the only universe. These proposed universes would pop into existence in the multiverse. Some with physical constants that closely match our own, some with physical constants which would make them collapse into a singularity immediately.

I think the fine-tuned argument was pretty nice sounding in the 19th century, now, I don't think it holds much weight.
 
We are only an asteroid away from complete annihilation. And it has happened before in extinction events on this planet.
 
ChrisL68 said:
It was never anything about the Church failing me. It was just when I got old enough to realize that the fables and myths in the bible are just like the fables and myths in every other religion that man has ever invented was when I came to the conclusion that the emperor wasn't wearing any clothes here.
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There are many reasons why I reached the point I'm at now in regards to not believing and I've mentioned them before. But this post stood out. For me there was a point where I remember reading about Greek myths and I thought "how are these any different than the stories I've been told on Sunday mornings?" The Greek myths had lessons just like those in the Bible, the only difference was I was allowed to to read about one set of myth in school but not the other. I came to the realization the only reason we read Greek myths in school was because no one still worshiped those gods and goddesses. Not making the claim that Christian myth will one day be a part of high school literature books.
 
ChrisL68 said:
We are only an asteroid away from complete annihilation. And it has happened before in extinction events on this planet.
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So what happenned after the extinction level event that resulted in us? Could most life on earth be destroyed and then evolution or whatever the hell happenned lead to humans showing up again?
 
palmab03 said:
oh and will you help donate to the cause?

The main thing that I have a problem with is the concept of heaven and hell. Everyone is taught, at a very young age that hell is this evil eternal place of suffering that non-believers end up in. An Eternal damnation. For everything that we know about the parent/child relationship, I can't imagine any parent thinking their child could do anything bad enough that you would punish them with eternal damnation. And our relationship with God is supposed to be the epitome of the parent child relationship.

That just doesn't jive with me.
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So giving money the girl in Zimbabwe (who is probably some dude in a coffee shop) doesn't do anything. Churches, even if we are 100% wrong on God, still do a lot of good, just like the Red Cross or other such organizations. Yes, some churches are terrible and don't deserve a penny that's given to them, but many are legit sources of social outreach, community involvement/building, and can lead to people "finding what they are looking for." I've heard many people remark that if churches ceased to exist tomorrow, most of the world would find itself in deep trouble because churches do so much of the grunt work around the world.

On the point about heaven-hell, see my previous post about my frustrations. I get it, and I agree with you. But that's poor theology, and I'm glad it doesn't jive with you. It shouldn't because it's bs and makes little sense. Most often the faith that is rejected isn't anything that approaches theologically sound religion.
 
RevDeac06 said:
So giving money the girl in Zimbabwe (who is probably some dude in a coffee shop) doesn't do anything. Churches, even if we are 100% wrong on God, still do a lot of good, just like the Red Cross or other such organizations. Yes, some churches are terrible and don't deserve a penny that's given to them, but many are legit sources of social outreach, community involvement/building, and can lead to people "finding what they are looking for." I've heard many people remark that if churches ceased to exist tomorrow, most of the world would find itself in deep trouble because churches do so much of the grunt work around the world.

On the point about heaven-hell, see my previous post about my frustrations. I get it, and I agree with you. But that's poor theology, and I'm glad it doesn't jive with you. It shouldn't because it's bs and makes little sense. Most often the faith that is rejected isn't anything that approaches theologically sound religion.
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I have to agree with this. In my job, I get to do a decent amount work with non-profits. One of my best ways of getting to the grassroots within a community is to go through the local churches.
 
TWDeac said:
I think the fine-tuned argument was pretty nice sounding in the 19th century, now, I don't think it holds much weight.
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That's fair. It is an antropocentric view. And a lot of good theology doesn't crumble when you introduce the concept of aliens. I do worry when physics tries to claim too much though. LaPlace made some grandiose claims about the universe which we can now fairly easily discredit due to uncertain principles and quantum physics (I'll admit, I'm getting out of my realm of expertise here). I think physics has gotten a bit overzealous of late in assuming too much about what it knows and how it knows it.
 
RevDeac06 said:
That's fair. It is an antropocentric view. And a lot of good theology doesn't crumble when you introduce the concept of aliens. I do worry when physics tries to claim too much though. LaPlace made some grandiose claims about the universe which we can now fairly easily discredit due to uncertain principles and quantum physics (I'll admit, I'm getting out of my realm of expertise here). I think physics has gotten a bit overzealous of late in assuming too much about what it knows and how it knows it.
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What are some examples of these topics?
 
How does physics get "overzealous"? Science is people just trying to figure out how things work based on the evidence of actual existence. The whole basis of the discipline is for other people to poke holes in your theories. How is that overzealous?
 
ChrisL68 said:
How does physics get "overzealous"? Science is people just trying to figure out how things work based on the evidence of actual existence. The whole basis of the discipline is for other people to poke holes in your theories. How is that overzealous?
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I can understand what he is saying. Some of the cutting edge theoretical physics is out there, but as always with science, there are those who support it, and those who don't and support another means to an explanation.
 
I'm thinking of some of the arguments where people truly do believe that science (through physics) will one day explain everything and make it perfectly clear. Chris and TW, you two don't appear to be guilty of this. But it seems that some have forgotten that science, as Chris notes, is about theories. There is a certain level of uncertainty built into science. For example, if I told you that I was going to throw an apple into the air and I wanted to know what would happen, science can only predict based on experience and models what would happen. You can't prove that the apple will fall. There is an inherent "mystery" in science, and some seem to have forgotten that and have turned it into absolute. You might say this mirrors the religious right who have taken elements of the faith and radicalized it and made it more absolute than it ever intended to be. I worry though when people, either scientists or theologians, forget the basic foundation on which they build their theories.

ETA- And I'm now going to get to mowing the lawn, bathing the dogs, and running errands on my day off. So I'll be out of this conversation for a bit.
 
The concept of hell is inconsistent if your belief system is God is Love and is omniscient. If God is omniscient and loving why would he allow His/Her children be created knowing they would go to hell?

It becomes less reasonable if your faith has tenets that one must come to your religious positions or you can't go to heaven. If this is something your religion teaches. it penalizes peoples' souls who can never possibly know of either your God or your faith. This becomes God isn't Love. He/She is arrogance and mean-spirited.
 
Agree with the anthopocentric view (albeit late to the party). We're a group of critters inhabiting a suitable rock in space during the time in which it's reasonable. Life existed before us under different conditions and will persist after us unless we can make the jump to colonization of other planets/space. Back when the world religions were being formed, people had no concept of the cosmos or any reason to believe we weren't very special beings. Just seems, by now, we should accept that we aren't.
 
RJKarl said:
The concept of hell is inconsistent if your belief system is God is Love and is omniscient. If God is omniscient and loving why would he allow His/Her children be created knowing they would go to hell?

It becomes less reasonable if your faith has tenets that one must come to your religious positions or you can't go to heaven. If this is something your religion teaches. it penalizes peoples' souls who can never possibly know of either your God or your faith. This becomes God isn't Love. He/She is arrogance and mean-spirited.
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How does omniscience come into play here?
 
He would know they are going to hell before they are born. If these are his children, why would he allow them to be doomed before birth. Don't they come into the world innocent?
 
I always found it odd that, in almost every organized religion, god has been assigned a gender. Why is that?
 
PhilliesDeacs said:
I always found it odd that, in almost every organized religion, god has been assigned a gender. Why is that?
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Because languages (Hebrew/Greek/Aramaic/Arabic) are gendered languages. The Old Testament actually uses several feminine descriptions of YHWH (God).
 
RevDeac06 said:
I'm thinking of some of the arguments where people truly do believe that science (through physics) will one day explain everything and make it perfectly clear. Chris and TW, you two don't appear to be guilty of this. But it seems that some have forgotten that science, as Chris notes, is about theories. There is a certain level of uncertainty built into science. For example, if I told you that I was going to throw an apple into the air and I wanted to know what would happen, science can only predict based on experience and models what would happen. You can't prove that the apple will fall. There is an inherent "mystery" in science, and some seem to have forgotten that and have turned it into absolute. You might say this mirrors the religious right who have taken elements of the faith and radicalized it and made it more absolute than it ever intended to be. I worry though when people, either scientists or theologians, forget the basic foundation on which they build their theories.

ETA- And I'm now going to get to mowing the lawn, bathing the dogs, and running errands on my day off. So I'll be out of this conversation for a bit.
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I firmly believe that, given enough time, we will unravel a majority of the secrets of the universe. Think of how far we have come in only 200 years. Sure, there are things that are inherently unknowable, but the other items are fair game.

I go back to the Kardashev scale I posted earlier. The technology and knowledge a race must possess to harness the power of its own star, or even the full power of the their home planet? Almost unimaginable.
 
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