The micro vs macro evolution thing is bizarre.
Religion, what's the point?
- Thread starter TheRedFlag
- Start date
I hate talking about religion. I'm an atheist but I am past the point in my life where I have the urge to prove to the religious that they are wrong. No one changes their mind and people just repeat the same arguments and talk past each other before someone inevitably gets offended.
I have a finite amount of time on this earth and I would rather not spend any of it listening to people I normally respect talk about their magical sky friend. It's like meeting a nice girl and taking her out a couple of times before she casually reveals that she doesn't think the Holocaust actually happened.
I have a finite amount of time on this earth and I would rather not spend any of it listening to people I normally respect talk about their magical sky friend. It's like meeting a nice girl and taking her out a couple of times before she casually reveals that she doesn't think the Holocaust actually happened.
I suppose it would be too much to ask for everyone just to accept that others may believe differently and respect that. Imagine how much nicer the world would be then, the religious, the atheists, and everyone eles all not worrying about converting anyone and just accepting each others rights to believe.
Of course humans being humans I doubt I will ever see it come to that.
Of course humans being humans I doubt I will ever see it come to that.
Nice analogy Eboue, not offensive at all.
Apart from the tens of millions of atheists in the Western world who have rejected the religion of their childhood as a result of the modern-day discourse surrounding religion and rational thought, which has largely taken place on the internet.
The polite term is imaginary friend.
Apart from them what have the Romans ever done for us?
It says "Romans go home."
No it doesn't
What's this?
I'm guessing it's that they believe in the evolutionary process as a phenomenon, but they don't believe it's the whole story (e.g. it was "overseen by a higher power" or some ludicrous nonsense like that.)
I'll never be offended by someone saying they are an atheist and therefore they think I'm talking nonsense - I will always be offended by comparisons with Holocaust denial.
Well, the point is it's equally stupid and irrational - not that it's equally morally reprehensible.
I know what point he was trying to make - so perhaps saying something like 'the moon is made of cheese' would have been just as amusing to those who are also atheists, and would have avoided comparing religious belief with something as repugnant as Holocaust denial.
Blessed are the cheesemakers.
Just to point out that if you are a Christian.. you kinda believe that god wiped out all humans and all animals (well humans are animals but you get my point) except the few that were on Noah's ark.. Would you call that morally reprehensible?
Religion 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20202686
A couple arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of killing their 15-year-old daughter with acid say they carried out the attack because she looked at a boy.
The girl's father told the BBC that they feared she would bring dishonour on their family. Her mother said it was her "destiny" to die that way.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20202686
A couple arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of killing their 15-year-old daughter with acid say they carried out the attack because she looked at a boy.
The girl's father told the BBC that they feared she would bring dishonour on their family. Her mother said it was her "destiny" to die that way.
As evil as the Holocaust was, far more people have been and will be killed in the name of religion.
Religion
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20202686
A couple arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of killing their 15-year-old daughter with acid say they carried out the attack because she looked at a boy.
The girl's father told the BBC that they feared she would bring dishonour on their family. Her mother said it was her "destiny" to die that way.
What's the religion bit in the article you posted?
Didn't we have this discussion already, looking at the statistics which suggest otherwise etc?
Animals species can change/evolve but new species can't be created as God did that bit. Or some such silliness.
Mental gymnastics to remain true to your version of religion while accepting only a selected section of scientific understanding.
I think that's because the micro bit is kinda more observable and therefore more conceivable while the macro bit depends on some old dudes interpreting fossils and rock layers and wanting us to have their word for it.
Green Warbler says hello
Maybe so, but I'm speaking for the future, too.
You don't see the irony here, no?
I don't, actually.
Video on ring species made with creationists in mind.
Ah. More stupid than I'd anticipated, then.
So first it's not true that far more people have been killed in the name of religion (whatever this vague, worn out expression even means), and second, you have no way of knowing if this will ever be the case in the future. In other words your entire post is pointless?
It doesn't actually. We have living breathing examples of speciation. The only reason that you can believe that change can occur due to selection/evolution but that such change doesn't occur when it results in speciation is religious dogma trumping sense.
Think about it logically. A species can evolve a huge amount but not speciate if the population is large and freely intermingles. If however you took two handfuls of individuals from that population and dropped them on two different islands then speciation would occur with far less change.
Yes. Very silly indeed.
I'm pretty sure that whatever this thing I found earlier this year is, it's a heck of a lot more than 6000 years old.
I don't think a comparative approach is of any use at all. Religion causes a huge amount of unnecessary suffering and death and the world would be a much better place without this suffering and murder even if other suffering and murder remained.
It is like arguing that there is no point doing anything about human induced global warming because nature does some as well. As if one can't exists without the other or as if one isn't additive to the other.