How many people (besides myself) here in the SCIENCE part of the boards want to bash their own heads against the wall over religion??

I saw 'Oprah' today, for example, and all there was on it was 'god gave me this' and 'god did that' and 'I have a gift from god'. It made me want to puke. What - you have to thank 'god' if you want to be on the Oprah show?!?

Really, could the scientifically-minded ONLY please speak up?

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

yes, I have always noticed, especially in Tv when someone wins an award, usually say: "God helped me to win this" or "God helped me to be on this Tv scenario" and I say: "yeah, right, God was sooo worried about your problems..."

But most people need to believe there is somebody watching you and taking care of you, they need to believe in God or Angels. That feeling increases when they are passing through a desesperate state.

95% of the population here in my country is Catholic, so it's impossible not to have a religious influence.

I read on the BBC once, people believe in diferent kind of Gods:

-The compassionate God.
-The Repressive God: the one who will guide you to Hell for all your sins.

But I just believe in a simple God. A creator. Someone or "something" that left the seeds of life on a system already built and run away. It's so far away at this moment, that has no clue what is going on here and he just don't care.

Although I know this Earth and our life were created by the cosmic dust (garbage), I still have this God influence which doesn't stop me to pray once in a while, especially when I desesperately need it, although I know no one is listening to me. I just feel better about it. That's how our biological system was built....not perfect.

Regards,
Tiare R.-

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My photography world

How many people (besides myself) here in the SCIENCE part of the boards want to bash their own heads against the wall over religion??

I saw 'Oprah' today, for example, and all there was on it was 'god gave me this' and 'god did that' and 'I have a gift from god'. It made me want to puke. What - you have to thank 'god' if you want to be on the Oprah show?!?

Really, could the scientifically-minded ONLY please speak up?

Why do you concern yourself so much on what people believe? How is that person on opra effecting you?

So what so they believe its their right let it go man you stress way too much over this subject....As long as someone isn`t trying to preach to me I don`t care what they believe.

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In 1938 Superman debuted in Action Comics #1. He quickly rose to become America's superhero. He represented salvation from the things that plague people at that time. He protected inocent people from mob bosses (Al capone 20's, 30's). He often stepped in against the tommy gun toting bank robbers (Bonnie and Clyde early 30's).

Just like Superman, Jesus was created because he was needed to give people hope from their desperations. The old gods, such as Zues, no longer fit the bill. They were not giving people hope and this was why they were abandoned. Jesus created food from nothing to fight famine originating from drought and uneducated farming practices. He healed the sick which is a direct result peoples fears of plague and untreated illnesses and poor hygene of the day. Jesus was only the "superman" of his day. A fictitious hero to give people hope.

The earlier gods were created because of the lack of understanding natural eventes like lightening. Thus gods were assigned such as Zues for lightening or Poseiden for hurricanes.

Now that I've established the creation of gods/superheros as a necessity to alleviate man from some form of anxiety and desperation from current events, the point is relatable to the big bang. When you realize that your old theory was wrong, you need to reinvent it. The age of the big bust, I mean bang, was 2 billion years and it's placed at 14.3+ billion years now because they've realized that our solar system is 14.5 billion years ago. What happened to the old gods like Zeus? Zeus is much older than Jesus or god. What will the next "prophet" alleviate? Will he strike down dirty politicians? Will he save us from an alien invasion? Be sure to stop by the stand and pick of the latest issue of the block buster Marvel empire based on the life and times of our great savior: Groo the Barbarian.

When you think about it. The bible was written 70-150 after the fact. Anyone who has played the game telephone, knows how inaccurate it becomes after a few people. Now wait for anyoe who actually knew Jesus to die so no one can refute you and play the telephone game for 70-100 years through 3-4 generations and then write the bible. No possible way accurate historical accounts can be drawn.

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TEAM
LL

But the essence of the story can remain.

I'm not religious, just so you all know.

I do think Jesus was a real historical figure, but I don't consider he was anything more than a good talker, and this was how he managed to muster support, and this was why the Romans wanted him out of the way.

Of far more importance, to my mind, is the content of the First Testament. Again, impossible to take at face value, but it can be examined in the light of the vast changes and emblazonments it must have undergone, and in the light of modern technology. Take a look at the book of Ezekiel - in there he is eye-witness to some interesting oddities, which he tries hard to describe in an obviously scientific and matter-of-fact manner, but as the event he is witnessing is completely alien to him (Alien??) he is lost for a suitable way to describe it. 100 years ago it would indeed have been interprested as fantasy, but have another look with a modern eye and the picture looks different.

Personally, (and I don't care if I get ridiculed for this) I think alien life forms did visit earth thousands of years ago, and created a hybrid humanoid by splicing their DNA with that of the hominids walking the earth at that time. Us.

I think this is where the whole idea of man being created in God's inage comes from, and these 'Gods' probably provided a suitable habitat for the early offspring, hence the idea of god creating 'everything'.

That's it in brief, and fantastic as it sounds, the idea fits with history on several levels and explains the sudden arrival of homo sapiens sapiens on the scene.

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It would be nice if we could reconcile science with religion. Maybe when God said "I built heaven and earth in six days" He meant that the first day was l,000,000,000 years long.

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It would be nice if we could reconcile science with religion. Maybe when God said "I built heaven and earth in six days" He meant that the first day was l,000,000,000 years long.

I wonder why an all-powerful being has to rest after 6 days of work.

On a related note, if creating earth - or let's say the solar system - took 7 days (including 1 day of rest), then creating the milky way with its 100 billion stars would add up to about 2 billion years.

I won't even mention the other 100 billion galaxies in the known universe....



Regards Hans

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It would be nice if we could reconcile science with religion. Maybe when God said "I built heaven and earth in six days" He meant that the first day was l,000,000,000 years long.

I wonder why an all-powerful being has to rest after 6 days of work.

On a related note, if creating earth - or let's say the solar system - took 7 days (including 1 day of rest), then creating the milky way with its 100 billion stars would add up to about 2 billion years.

I won't even mention the other 100 billion galaxies in the known universe....



Regards Hans

Obviously God was into paralell processing, perhaps God invented the 'Mother Of All BOINC projects' - all the constituents of the known universe were created at the same time, but it took 6 days... An example of an embarrassingly parallel problem?

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Join TeamACC

Sometimes I think we are alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we are not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.

Lots of good answers in here. But I have to ask: why would any given responder in here believe anything at all? If you're scientifically minded, you have to rest on proof. So why would anyone scientific 'believe' this or 'believe' that with no proof at all???

I suppose this is my soapbox simply because SETI is science. And I have a very hard time reconciling the fact that people doing pure science have a strong faith in religion.

In my day to day life, I don't go around crusading against religion. I speak out against it when it touches me, but otherwise, I don't waste my time.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

Lots of good answers in here. But I have to ask: why would any given responder in here believe anything at all? If you're scientifically minded, you have to rest on proof. So why would anyone scientific 'believe' this or 'believe' that with no proof at all??? .

The seti people and alot of other scientists believe that life exists somewhere else in the universe, and as of now we have no proof or even evidence.

The only thing we know is the ingredients for life are out there but we have nothing saying they have to form life.

So I think everyone believes in something even scientists, it`s just whether or not you look for the truth or you just sit around believing with no proof.

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Lots of good answers in here. But I have to ask: why would any given responder in here believe anything at all? If you're scientifically minded, you have to rest on proof. So why would anyone scientific 'believe' this or 'believe' that with no proof at all??? .

The seti people and alot of other scientists believe that life exists somewhere else in the universe, and as of now we have no proof or even evidence.

The only thing we know is the ingredients for life are out there but we have nothing saying they have to form life.

So I think everyone believes in something even scientists, it`s just whether or not you look for the truth or you just sit around believing with no proof.

Show me what the ingredients for god is.

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TEAM
LL

Sorry, but you're wrong. Scientists have very good reasons to ASSUME or if you like, guesstimate that there is life out there. We suspect the hypothesis, given some observations already made.


That is entirely different from believing.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

Sorry, but you're wrong. Scientists have very good reasons to ASSUME or if you like, guesstimate that there is life out there. We suspect the hypothesis, given some observations already made.


That is entirely different from believing.

Ben: Do you believe in extra-terrestrials?
Seth Shostak: "Well, Ben, if I didn't, I wouldn't continue to do this work. It would be very frustrating to think that we're looking for something that doesn't exist."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/spacechat/livechat/seth_shostak.shtml

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[/quote]Show me what the ingredients for god is.[/quote]


There is none I never said anything about believing or not in god I was saying that there are things that people believe in even scientists that we have no proof for.......

When people do not think there is life in the universe do they say I "assume" there is no life or do they say "I don`t believe" there is life out there?


Maybe people are choosing the wrong words then but I have heard scientists use the word believe.


I do agree that we have more things pointing to the existence of other life outside of earth then the existence of a god.

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"Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." —Albert Einstein

That's a very moderate view of science and religion. Religion basically promotes a moral/ethical code in society, while science promotes education and the overall advancement and modernization of society. I would not go hardcore on science or religion; I would just take the best of both worlds. ;-)

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That's a very moderate view of science and religion. Religion basically promotes a moral/ethical code in society, while science promotes education and the overall advancement and modernization of society. I would not go hardcore on science or religion; I would just take the best of both worlds. ;-)

I agree. Our western values, and our legal system, are based on christian ethics.
The basics to what is considered civilized behaviour can be found in the new testament.

It's people who take the old testament verbatim that cause the most grief nowadays.


Regards Hans

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That's a very moderate view of science and religion. Religion basically promotes a moral/ethical code in society, while science promotes education and the overall advancement and modernization of society. I would not go hardcore on science or religion; I would just take the best of both worlds. ;-)

I agree. Our western values, and our legal system, are based on christian ethics.
The basics to what is considered civilized behaviour can be found in the new testament.

It's people who take the old testament verbatim that cause the most grief nowadays.


Regards Hans

If they took the old testament seriously, they would slaughter goats at an alter they made to sacrifice goats to god and sprinkle the goat blood on their front porch so god would protect them. I'm glad they don't do that.

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TEAM
LL

This is a good topic Chuck. I agree with most of what has been said. But
there is another factor.

What if in a couple of years time we do discover life in another galaxy.
After some time comunicating with this other life they clame to be the
"GOD" that Jesus spoke about. Then the more we find out about them we
discover that the whole story fits and everything (give or take small details) is the same as Jesus described.

That would certinly turn the science comunity on its head... in a funny kind
of way.

Its unlikely but i think its an intresting thought.

I am a non believer myself. We came from dirt and will go back to the dirt
end of story. We are but a lucky link in a long chain.

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Seth's post made it clear he understood nothing that I said.
Scientists DON'T 'believe'. (Because then they wouldn't be practicing science.)

Einstien was religious, so I am not suprised he made a stupid and short-sighted statement. Clearly, not everything that comes out of the mouth of a genius is a brilliant statement.

Christianity doesn't own the ethics of 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. It's a simple logic statment of ethics for any group of people living together in proximity, and better stated as 'DON'T do unto others as you would NOT have them do unto you'. That's all our laws boil down to: fair play; live and let live.

Religion is not needed at all. People could be raised fine without it.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.