I haven't got much farther than Fried's first post, but I would like to point out that people don't have religions to get girls or be good at kart.

They have religions because they believe in living life with morality, doing what is right and following the creator or beliefs represented with the religion they follow.

I know this, and I have no true belief.

Until I decide otherwise, I am agnostic.

Jacob91x_2 wrote on 02/11/07 at 21:12:40:

So you think non-religious people don't have morals?
I agree that religion is partly build up to create morals, but just because you don't believe in god doesn't mean you can't do right things even though you don't believe in getting rewarded/punished (Heaven/hell)

I respect religion and all, but i am tired of hearing religious people say that atheists don't have morals.

(agreed.  didnt wanna make a new post, so i just edited this one.        -cooper)

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You didn't answer my questions.  If you don't feel comfortable answering them on the forum, then I'm still interested in hearing the answers on AIM, especially the answer to the question "Do you remember what god said to you?"

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Can you back this up?  Can you link us to any studies that show evidence of this?

Tim wrote on 02/12/07 at 07:39:05:
God favours some people more than others, obviously. He plays favourites. If you're not one of God's favourites, you're screwed to begin with. And unlike Myles, not all those people he visits were even very religious before he met them. They just all of a sudden had an epiphany and were convinced that being devout is the best way. What better reason than favouritism can you think of for God visiting others and not you?

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To quote an acquaintance of mine who made a valid observation (at least from where I'm standing), "atheists on average have more mature moral development than christians."
A simple example: do you know how many atheists are in the USA? About 10%. If you look the USA prison population [1], about 0.2% are atheist. It's not particularly conclusive, but it's something to ponder. Clearly, atheists must be really good at not getting caught, while religious folk who do bad things suddenly feel morally obliged to turn themselves in =D

Anyways, ethics and morals are (read: should be) derived from society: your social environment and society's well-being. Not from religion.

[1] http://holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm. I've seen similar figures in other online sources (~10% atheist in population, <0.5% in jail).

I don't do religion , i lead my life my own way not on what some stupid books tells me to do.

Myles is looking more crazy every post. That book is controlling his life. I did believe in GOD (kinda) , changed my mind now. After reading what Myles has said.  

If there is a GOD some people wouldn't have to go through so much shit , and the idiots get tret good?  

I believe there is no GOD. Myles talks in his posts like he thinks he is better then all of us   His friends says he is amazing at basketball? Play at another level , easy, and you don't like getting "easy" WR's or "effortless" , ok whatever....you can't spend an hour or two to get a WR?  

Ok guys... for all the non believers (including myself)

Why not believe in god while believing most of the shit people tell you? If you don't believe in god, what do you believe? physics and Mathematics (science)?? come on!! thats nice and cool to model the world. its just a model we create to understand the world and call them laws.
But we assume things that are real or look real to us. people did 50 years ago, 100 years ago and 1000 years ago and before. the word is flat, the world is a spere. newtonian laws, Gereral relativity, QM.
The world is centered universe, the sun is. our solar system is the centre of the universe.
infinit universe, Big Bang, expanding, flat universe, exapanding finite, expanding infinite.
fire, water are elemetary particles. atoms are. no it has a nucleas. and that exists from even smaller particles and so forth. We assume whats real to the model we currently know. But if you look back in history most assumptions were incomplete or not reality or just as too simple. Why can one think that our current model is realitity? I think one is simple minded if when you don't study the universe but just take for granted that all this is true while saying god is bullshit? why not explore? Of course for science god doens't play a role because one cannot proof or disproof it isn't real. but hey you're a fool if you say god is bullshit the because therefor it is called religion or a believe in god. We are stuck because we are part of this universe and we can't go out  therefor we have to do with this universe like a fish stays in water. Our understanding is also limited because we are humans. just like cats can't solve second order differention equations or write computer programs. many things can be envisioned like that if you want to reason about understanding of god and existence. You are truely a fool if you accept the world as it is, have no understanding about science or philosophy and still tell that the believers a full of bullshit.
you are simpleminded if you tell that the world follows a set of equitions while you have not yet found a Theory of Everything. and still then there might be place for a god. Maybe god is a programmer that created a model in a hierarchical way from elementary particles to high level dna to high level intelligence, to higher level sociall inteligence.  

believing in god is just what one personally experience. Someone that searches his way thourgh religion might find the answer while a Scientsit won't in a zilion years.. the difference is that science is about verifying observations and experiments and from that model a universer. Nothing more nothing less. while religion and philosophy is about inner insight. answers could be found in both worlds not nessecary in Science. maybe science fails because the basic axioms are not correct. Prob that inner insight can never be verified by Science at all even though we have understanding about Neural networks. we still can't find what the ghost is or what makes the feeling me there is no cortex in the brain that does that procesing!!! but where is it and what is it. We can't even follow what a simple Artificial Neural Network does how can we be so sure about so many things we tell in everyday life and tell people that believing in god is nonsense? how can? why blame god when there is a war? Why blame religion for it while people themselves create the war. It has nothing to do with religion.
I personally think that religous people are searching the answers not based on a rational way but on intuition, believe faith, love, and such things... and agree or not. you can't tell them that those things aren't real verified or not by science doens't even matter.

Another thing if you are trained in something you have understanding in that. your brains learn you how to do some tasks. but different people are trained by different things. the brains of us karters are trained to play die hard kart. and someone that is not trained in kart cannot believe his eyes when seeing the vids. this is the same that we cannot believe Myles have seen god or whatever. because our brains prob aren't trained for such tasks while other might have trained their brains to do extrordinary things. basically there is no difference at all between playing die hard kart of being able to see god. the brains are just trained different and neurons have other values. Ok and now I even tell this in a rational way but there are google many ways to consider a certain point of view.

On the other hand you are a fool (like me) if you make such a point about this all and not take the world for granted as it is because you are only studying the world while you mis whats happening there and miss things beautifull things god or this word has to offer. why bother with all this if you can enjoy a sandwich with cheese or playing a soccer match or snacking a girl. drinking beer. or just enjoy the blue sky.

I don't follow science blindly. When it is said as theories i take them as theories. I trust them more than religions, but i'm completely open minded for better ideas or newer discoveries. (And i don't make my life based on what science tells me)
This should count for science in general as it can and will evolve (as you also mentioned), which religion can't because gods words, is gods words and you can't just chance the bible unless another miracle (like a new jesus) happens.


Edit: As far wars, many of them has been casued indirectly by religion. It's the humans that makes the wars, but they have often used the religion to do it so religion most certainly has something to do with lots of wars. Ever heard of crusades?

Well as expected, I've gotten replies on both extremes of the spectrum...some people are really interested and some people are really offended, but that's what I get for making such an extreme topic.

I don't have much time now, but I should say that I also am not sure why God talked to me. I guess I won the spiritual experience lottery on that particular night.

I'll get around to the questions whenever I have the time in the next few days.

Myles

the difference between science and religion is that science answers questions about the world where as religion just poses more

Shran wrote on 02/15/07 at 09:18:11:


Maybe Myles is already dead and his ghost has been posting on the forum!

Shran wrote on 02/15/07 at 09:18:11:


Myles is just posting like he is some chosen one or something and he is better then us all. I dunno why people live there life from a book. Can't be any fun , you have to read it before you do certain things...  

Clarkwang wrote on 02/16/07 at 04:49:55:


Me too , i meant a book that looks like no fun