It has been said that unless humans beings find a way to live together, we will all die together.

There are places on this earth that are locked into fierce conflict that seems impossible to solve. For example "the Palestine problem" and various ethnic conflicts that has been going on for decades in Africa. It is a relative privilege to be situated in a peaceful part of the world, but he quarrelsome nature of the human being will surface somehow anway.

What is the fucking point in rehashing conflicts that will not get solved?

I for one am not particularly interested in "turning" people of belief... and there isn't a snowflake's chance in a supernova that they will "turn" me. So why debate along such lines? I get sucked into it every now and then in sheer irritation over what I perceive as retarded arguments, although they probably make perfect sense to the person who's harbouring such points of view.

The John Lennon in me wants to say give peace a chance. The more analytically oriented rationalist part wants to know how.

nuff said.

Argument for Atheism
P1: God is non-physical.
P2: God has a mind.
P3: Non-physical entities cannot include physical processes, or they would cease to be non-physical.
P4: Information processing requires physical processes, i.e. expenditure of energy.
P5: Mind requires information processing.
C1: Therefore, God cannot exist.


Are the premises self-evident, or do any require justification?

This is the parable by Friedrich Nietzsche. Friedrich Nietzsche was a great philosopher in the 19th century. His parents were missionaries and his grandparents were also missionaries, but he turned to atheism. He lived his short life from 1844-1900 and during that short time of life, he implied a pivotal impact to existentialism; he did not coin the phrase "God is Dead," he popularized it. Nietzsche spent the last 15 years of his life literately and mentally insane. He predicted show much in our time in the 20th century and was right. He predicted that God would not be able to handle the onslaught of philosophical and scientific reasoning and concept. He asked that how could anyone with a rational mind still believe in a supernatural being. He said that there would an utter cry in the 20th century of violence and chaos. And he was right. World War I, World War II, Vietnam War, Hitler, Stalin, 9/11 and so and so forth. The 20th century is by far the most violent century the world was ever seen, and is more violent than the previous 19 put together. Listen as he predicts this on the basis of the ramifications in positing a godless universe -

The universe. Where did it come from? Why do we exist? What happened? Let us start in the beginning. Let us start with one, big, bang!

I would like to hear thoughts (from anyone regardless of religious standing) over introducing children to religion, i was brought up not very strictly as a catholic, luckily i have relatively intellgent (now atheist) cousins and the fact that I have a brain helped me remove this curse. What do YOU think about teaching children to enter any  religion or whether to force them to become atheists.

Hi all,

Just thought I'd post something to address some misconceptions. We all have the freedom to choose who or what we believe in, but I think its important that we base our decisions on facts vs falsehood (even very entertaining falsehood). I'm a follower of Jesus Christ by the way, just so there are no misconceptions there.

1) God and the GOP: There are people who identify themselves as Christians in the Republican party. There are also people who call themselves Christian among the Democrats. Neither is the 'Christian' party, and the idea of some people that all Christians must be Republicans is deeply flawed. God may care deeply about life (the pro-life lobby) and sin (the anti-gay lobby... see next item), but he also cares deeply about the poor (Health Care reform) and all life (anti-war lobby). Limiting God or Christianity to a few issues to the exclusion of others is not Biblical, though it is very 'political'.

A useful story is that of Joshua outside of Jericho. Joshua saw 'a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, "Are you for us or for our enemies?"

"Neither," he replied, "but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come." '(Joshua 5:13-14)

This might be a bit long, and might not be the best spot to post it. Ho-hum.

I've been thinking about one of the problems which often comes up when discussing anything with theists (or practically anyone else), which is when discussion ends up at the worldview comparing stage. At that point people tend to completely fail to grasp the other persons point of view, people get upset because others can't see their point, and so on.

All these morality threads recently got me thinking about this. There's been a lot of theists (Paisley, I'm thinking of you in particular here) going on and on about 'Any worldview without god is bleak and meaningless' but don't seem to have understood what view the other side holds. I suspect we atheists do the same to the theists on occasion. One part of this problem is that as atheists/non-religious people generally we all have slightly different views, and we don't tend to take the time to describe them fully. I don't have a detailed knowledge of the views of most atheists I encounter never mind most theists.

So, my solution is to try and put down a summary of my worldview (not really trying to justify it here or say how I came to it, just describing it). If anyone else, theist, atheist or miscellaneous other, feels like doing the same I'd be very interested to read it.

In the Holy Bible, it took Yahweh six days to create everything.

If he was truly omnipotent, then he would have done it in an instant. Right?

(1) Rationality is perhaps the greatest tool for the survival of any species.  Why is it so unevenly proliferated throughout the animal kingdom? 

(2) What is the essence of "human"? 

(3) What kind of changes would I have to make to myself in order to be classified as a non-human?

(4) Why did we evolve to have evil in the world?  Why did we evolve to have so much corruption?

(5) What causes evolution?

(6) If I have one stone by my foot and continually add more stones one-by-one, at what point does it become a pile?  After 2 stones?  3 stones?

(7) If science is based on observation, testability, and repeatability, how can macro evolution be classified as science since nobody has ever observed it happening nor tested it?

( Does nature evolve?  If so, do laws of nature evolve?  If so, have the laws governing the physical events associated with evolution evolved?

(9) Are there possible worlds where evolution could be false?

(10) Is there any proof for evolution other than similarities between different species?