False. Part of the evolutionary process for humans is recognizing the fact that working together is beneficial to survival. Part of working together is developing rules and guidelines for how we'll interact with each other.
Going back to our earlier discussion, I don't think there is a religious morality and a secular morality. We've decided on certain moral principles based on our overall experience as human beings. Some of it was influenced by religion to greater or lesser degrees and some was from secular...
When I said we, I meant all of us, religious and secular. I think you're making it more difficult than it is. Identifying uneccessary suffering usually isn't very difficult.
I disagree about most people having base motivations. I think most people are "good". I do agree that religion has...
Although my posts and questions may be provocative, they're entirely meant in the spirit of civil discussion and I want to say thanks for your questions and comments.
We can't hold animals to the same moral standards as ourselves and we don't get those moral standards from a single book, but rather from the collective human experience. Animals don't even have the capacity to understand morality as a concept. Yes, morals are always changing, even Christian...
Why does God allow demons to exist?
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" — 'the Epicurean paradox'
Thanks for the civil discussion as well. I think good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people and God has nothing to do with it. If I was religious, my views would be the same. From a religious stand point it seems much easier to explain success/suffering that way...
I don't have any problem with people discretely saying grace in a public restaurant, but when athletes credit God/Jesus for their success, I do roll my eyes. So arrogant and narcissistic.
But Christ was a man. The only source we have that claims he was more than a man, comes from other men. Not familiar with divine revelation. Is that when people hear voices in their head and claim its God talking to them?
I'll make it easier. Science cannot disprove the existence of God. It can, however, disprove the claims made by religious holy books and religious people.
Nonsense, science has disproven religion many times. Disease doesn't come from demons or evil spirits. The universe doesn't revolve around the earth, and God didn't create man in our present form. Just a few examples from an extremely long list.
Maybe, but when I first started to seriously think about religion/atheism, it was a religious debate thread on another board that got me started. I just lurked and read the arguments and I found it very helpful. Maybe there are other people like me who are undecided and will get value from...
Science and religion are definitely related. Historically, religion tried unsuccessfully to answer questions about our origins that are better handled by science. Religion didn't want to cede that territory to science, so there was and still is conflict.
I don't see what is confusing about this. The BBT is strongly supported by the evidence regardless of our ignorance about the origin of the energy/matter released. The big bang happened, how the energy got there is unknown.
Religion tries to answer every unknown with "God" regardless of lack...
I'm fine with that God, assuming that I don't have to believe/worship him to avoid eternal damnation. Problem is, there is no evidence that God exists ether. If he does exist who created him? If he has always existed, lets just use Occam's razor to cut him out and say the universe has always...