Religion: If You Don't Believe In It Why Does It Bother You?

If there was pure nothingness, you would never know because there would be no way to identify it. Therefore you must have something. But if there was only "one" something versus nothing, how could you tell the two apart? Therefore "something" must constantly pursue unique identification in order to separate itself from proper nothingness and other somethings. But with all this unique "something" and a single nothingness, the nothingness must still portray itself as an entity different from "something." How can nothingness be different from "something"ness? If nothingness uses any properties of "something"ness, it can no longer be nothingness. This is the basis of the universe. That is in order for anything to exist, it must have the potential to not exist before it existed.

This is basically Einstein, Sartre, and Niche rolled up into one theory.

I do believe there is a Creator

I do NOT believe God has ANYTHING to do with the Bible or any religious text / experience mankind has had.

If mankind can think/grasp/write it, it's not God.

God is not a human level ego + omni-all-power that wants one thing and hates another.

God is not just ALL THINGS but also NO-THING.

The only things that require division to gain power is human level organizations that fortify themselves by alienating / dominating many others because they lack the divine ability to manifest some-thing from no-thing.

The danger of religion is it answers questions that practically no human in history is qualified to answer.

It tells you THIS is God

THIS is His Will

and by giving a answer ppl stop looking/seeking/feeling
and become cut off from the true and personal potential
to grow, even just by an iota, a little closer to the Divine.

Every answer is not an end.

Every realization is not a plateau.

The growth / ascension of spirit / consciousness is never ending.

At least until a soul chooses to stop the endless journey and return to no-thing.

@Trelan: Nah, wasn't accusing you of trolling, just that you were quoting Samuraiking who I'm pretty sure is.

@Liela & Tigerwoods: If you have a belief in god, you are a theists. If you don't, even if you just say "I don't know," you are, by definition, an atheist. There is no "atheism lite," guys, you're either a theist or you're not. I'm an agnostic too, but my lack of belief in god makes me an atheist one.
I know, I know, it's a dumb pet peeve, but I can't let it go.

Being ready to change your mind when presented with evidence is what science is all about. It's called improving. Religion is: thinking you know what happens after death without even needing facts, and knowing that you won't change your mind even if shown evidence of a different explanation... I ask you to question even what I say, not to accept it as fact without thinking. By the way, since when can religion change "whenever it wants" ? It dies too slowly.

If you're going to argue that science is providing disputable proofs and that because it's a work in progress, it's not as valuable as your 2000 years-old beliefs, I welcome you to dismiss science and live a true "bronze age" lifestyle. Back then, people had pretty much the same beliefs you have, yet they had no idea what a germ was and died while giving birth without knowing how to prevent it. They also thought that mentally ills were possessed by demons... Why? Because they didn't try hard enough, they preferred to attribute everything they weren't able to explain to supernatural causes; they were religious, like you. But yeah, according to you, science is worthless because it can change opinions.

Think for a minute about why do you not think mental illnesses are caused by demons. Did you know that in some very poor and and uneducated parts of Africa, people still think that today? They attach mentally ill people to trees and let them die, thinking it will appease God. But you don't think like your ancestors. Why? Because somehow, at some point, one of your ancestors realized that it couldn't possibly make sense. He realized that it COULD be explained scientifically.

He was one of the first scientists. Today, you are benefiting from his work because he fought AGAINST your religion to gather this information and spread it. By mocking scientific progress, you are acting the same way as the people who dismissed Galileo's idea, saying he was a foul to reject God. I bet you had never thought about it that way, huh? >.>


There are infinite possibilities (I could be an alien from Epsilon, prove I'm wrong!). A lack of evidence is what makes trillions of possibilities pointless to evaluate. The problem with religion, is that people are taking a possibility, claiming its a fact even if they know they don't know. They're creating religious-inspired laws to enslave masses, using religion as an excuse to gather general support for unjust wars, printing religion on money, making holidays that have no meaning to us whatsoever (I like not working, that's not the point), dismissing reason and worse of all, teaching it to their children as FACT! How are we supposed to evolve as a specie when religions have so much control over people's minds?

Non religious is also correct, and it's my preferred term. While you can say I'm "atheist",I won't disagree there, but in the same sense, you can't disagree w/ me saying that I'm non religious.

Preference in terminology.

Note how I never said I wasn't atheist.

Heh, well, I guess you have me there. Fair enough. :)

Who said quantum mechanics were nothingness? It has to be something... I guess I fail to make the connection that you are trying to convey. I am saying that God created it all not that it doesn't exist.

I never knew the term "atheist" until college. Before that I always just thought "I don't buy it." I remember even at around age 8 or so people would tell me about god, and I would just be like, I don't get, that doesn't make any sense. Especially once I caught on about Santa Clause, etc. I'm like god is definitely just made up like the rest of it.

lol, science just keeps pushing religious people further back and back. "We weren't from apes! Evolution never happened!" -> "Ok, it happened, but because God set the wheels in motion for it to happen." and now "Things can't pop from nothing!" -> "Ok, quantum mechanics say that things can pop from nothing.. but let's say God created nothing as well!"

It'll just keep being pushed back and back, and no one will ever accept there not being a God of some sort.

Actually, we weren't from apes, lol

Fixed.

Hence the crazy, religious person voice saying it.

I *think* he means that it's chimpanzees not apes, but idk.

Also the reference I gave is not my specific belief, simply one that is out there that contridicts others that have been stated on this thread. Simply food for thought, not intended to be taken as the true, another side of the agruement. He makes alot of good points, however he is stretching on alot of his points also. I guess I should have stressed my reason for posting that. I don't have the answers. I try and be nice to absolutely everyone including people who are not nice to me. It may not always work out in my favor but I will not compromise myself or my beliefs because someone does not live by the same creed as I do. As I stated earlier whether you pray to God or to Fred Flintstone it doesn't matter so long as your prayers are being answered and you are a good person. I am happy to see this discussion is doing well without insults being hurled around. I have not read the entire 39 pages but what I have read has been civil and informative. I don't want you guys to think I am a Bible thumper or something. I just love a good discussion, with mature adults. Thank you everyone.

We didn't evolve from them either, nor monkeys, orangutans, ect.

Are you suggesting that I have to believe as they did 2000 years ago or even 20 years ago? That's kinda unfair. Also, I can't believe in God and evolution? I know evolution exist. I can see micro-evolution everyday; ie you lift weights your muscles get larger and stronger. I am an individual with my own beliefs, one of them happens to be I believe in a higher power. I am not a text book Christian if there is such a thing.

I've actually read more of the Quran than the bible. Only reason is because I was bored one time being in county jail for 2 weeks, lol! Still didn't convince me of anything though.

Curious what do you think we evolved from then?

We didn't evolve from monkeys, apes, ect. We evolved along side them. We have a common ancestor. The different conditions we had caused us to break off and evolve into the different primates we see today. Monkeys, apes, humans, orangutans, ect.

We're not directly from them, but we're along side them, with a common ancestor.

I can buy that. Just because um... what is 98.5% or 99.5% of our genes are equal to chimps, don't remember the number offhand, but yeah I can see the fact that we evolved along side them rather than from them. Although this is not the widely believed view, it's sensible.

When I try to have a serious discussion of this subject, I ask people to forget the idea of god, quantum mechanics, etc. Just try to picture absolute nothingness. I mean really try to picture the universe or w/e before the big bang or before god existed. Just picture absolute nothingness...

You can't. I only have a B.A. in philosophy, but I wrote a 20 page paper on this subject. You honestly can't imagine anything before existence and or god. The only thing I was marked down on was I refused to capitalize the word god, lol! Never did, never will.

I'd rather say that the scientific community is strongly pointing towards that possibility. It's difficult to observe evolution; since we can't recreate in a lab most of what we'd like to see, we can only base our statements on logic and reasoning. The reasons to think evolution, as we understand it, is very close to what happened, have recently become overwhelming. Still, we need to remain skeptical; otherwise, we're no better than a believer who dismisses doubt.

As Richard Dawkins, one of the most brilliant scientists alive today, pointed out to : We've used 19 different dating methods to evaluate the age of dinosaur fossils and those all pointed to the same dates. However, if only one of those tests had given a different result, we would have been forced to dismiss everything and start from scratch. These scientists can't afford to have blind faith in evolution. If they did, we couldn't trust the result of their experiments.

I understand, and I tried to refer my comments to the essay itself rather than you, I probably should have been a little better when splitting up my quotes of your post as I can see how it would come across as you saying them directly. I'm also glad that the conversation throughout has stayed civil and thought provoking excluding the usual trolling posts you'd expect to find. A healthy debate is just that, healthy, and whether your faith lies in science, religion, or a mixture of both, it's always good to keep an open ear and mind into the deeper aspects of both. And it's always good to hear a person say they don't have all of the answers, because if someone is telling you they do, they're full of it.

I'm glad when I see people come to this conclusion, especially when they're religious. To me, it means they've come a long way. From being indoctrinated as a child and then learning to question and develop the ability to doubt. I think once someone develops this way of thinking, they can free themselves from organized religions who claim to have all the answers. They can have beliefs if it makes them feel less sad about people dying and stuff like that, but they'll never take those too seriously because they recognize that they could be mistaken. Knowing this, they'll be very cautious about spreading beliefs, because they know they'll have to take responsibility for broadcasting misinformation if it turns out to be a mistake. They'll never kill for their beliefs, or die for their beliefs, because they know it could be a waste of precious lives. They'll never let others control their life by telling them how to behave, what to eat and when to breathe.

Knowledge without doubt is just a bunch of pretty lies.

Some clonings were succesful weren't they...?

Let's do some research. Oh... What do we have here ^^

"In 1952, the first animal, a tadpole, was cloned."

Let me ask you another question : Even though we've been unsuccessful at finding a cure for cancer, does it mean we're not going to succeed?

Here's the source, if you'd like to learn more about cloning:

What animals have been cloned?

Animals have been cloned plenty of times. I believe one of the more major problems, however, is with telomere degradation. Usually the telomeres on the ends of the DNA degrade at an increased rate, resulting in significantly shorter life for the animal.

Although, my biology professor did mention that scientists have made some headway in this problem. There's even a group working on genetically extending human telomeres, which would significantly extend our average lifespans.

Mabrook! Where you been bro? You must have missed my other questions and comments on page 35.

/point http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/?topic_id=8623&page=35