originally posted in:Secular Sevens
Religion is constantly changing it's outlook on things as we learn more, even if it is more slowly. The current pope is speaking up for homosexual relationships, and the last one was like "Condoms are the beez kneez ya'll!" As for war you have a point, but who's to say that in the future we won't have a science induced war. I put my faith in science to be correct. I'm studying Geology at the moment. Which is rocks and volcanoes. 20% of this "new science" is based around convection currents which is our best [b]presumption [/b] on what the -blam!- is going on down there. For the sake of everything I put my faith into this theory that only recently past it's 100th (this is probably not true) birthday and has been through a few major revisions since conception.
Have you ever messed up in a sudoku puzzle just to find out when you get to the end that you've made a mistake at the beginning. Then you have to go back and correct everything. Then you do it again and get it right. Well the way I see it the universe is a massive sudoku puzzle, and we are nowhere near knowing if we've solved it or not. I'm not saying science is wrong, it's just a strange thought that every theory that is liked by the majority of experts in the surround field is accepted as gold.
Religion makes up just as much stuff up as science. Noah's flood was a great theory to why we can find remains of sea creatures on top of mountains. How else would it have got there? Thing's like Noah's flood are taken too literally though. It suffers from the chinese whispers effect were over time the tale gets distorted to capture more people's attention and be more interesting.
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Pope Francis has describe same-sex marriage as work of the devil and a "destructive attack on gods plan". He also said that gay adoption is a discrimination against children. And Benedict never supported condoms- he said that it was the first step in aids prevention, however he did not advocate them for regular sexual intercourse. And as for science- in guessing you don't just make up theories as to what's down in a volcano. You see some things, and try to connect two and two together. If you're wrong, you just say "oh, ok, now I see. Ill change my view." Religion on the other hand, creates stories to explain our surroundings, and if challengers, religious people stay with the stories (Zeus for lightning, pretty much any gods used to explain nature.) once science is fully able to explain the world around us, religion will be useless.
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Religion brings people together. My best friend's family are catholics. My friend did the whole, become a man thing that they do. I made a good friend when I went to see it. We also had a bouncy castle after party. They often have nuns around and have cakes and biscuits. Last month they had some Colombians around. One of them was an ex-gangster, not sure what happened in between but he's now a Catholic rapper/artist. Met him because something happened and at the last minute Plan B had to cancel a meeting with him. His music was better/on par with lots of stuff in the charts. Not once did he mention religion we just joked and got hammered. He's changed his life (hopefully for the better) partly down to religion. In high school I was like you, or at least what you sound like to me currently. I used to hate on religion when I could. I know your probably just trying to separate science from religion. Since then I've been religious groups and people, most of them are normally people. some tried to force they beliefs upon others and I still stop them when they do. On a whole the seem to have less assholes in their ranks than atheists do. I also don't understand why you can't understand that a theory is just a story with more makeup on it.
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My family is Catholic. I told my mother I'm an atheist and now she says she has failed me as a mother. You think she'd say that if she wasn't religious? No. Religion can cause deep rifts. For example: 9/11, the crusades, Israel/Palestine issue, etc. I know many people who have been estranged from their families simply for having different beliefs-religion promotes intolerance. And I am sincerely hoping you don't mean a scientific theory when you say "theory".
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Honestly? That's just shoddy parenting. I also despise the catholic zealots, but that's another tangent. I'm in a total grey area of "is God real/fake", and question my parents' beliefs all the damn time and they have never once said "they have failed as a parent." I also have an abundance of religious friends alongside agnostic and atheist friends as well. The most that we do is debate on the aspects of science and religion, and never had anything close to a falling out. In fact, it's made us better friends because we aren't afraid to question, debate, discuss, etc... But, like all things, bad apples can ruin the whole bunch. I'm a firm believer of judging a person by their own merits. If you're an asshole Christian, then I -blam!-ing hate your guts. If you're an asshole atheist, I -blam!-ing hate your guts. Conceited as it may sound, I want people to judge others the way I do.
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Sorry man, that's harsh and unacceptable. Religion does teach intolerance if people chose to read in that way. Though most religions have a golden rule which reads something along the lines of "treat others in the way you hope to be treated". But you classed yourself as an Atheist. That is your religious belief, taking the place of christianity? And yes I do mean scientific theory.
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Okay so first off, I would like to clear up what you think about the scientific theory: the scientific theory is different from just a theory. A scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of knowledge that has been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experimentation". There's no guessing game-it's a repeatedly tested conclusion. So please don't say that. And secondly, no, atheism is not in any way a religious belief. Atheism is simply the opposite of that-lack of a religious belief in a god(s).