Why?

[Samoht]

Originally Posted by Pokesan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

the power of prayer?

i'm sorry, the power of what?

often times, the success of prayer can be easily explained by four categories: coincidence, deceit, or failure. for instance, if you've ever prayed for someone that was terminally ill, they either got better because they were going to get better anyway, were never sick to begin with, or died despite your prayer.

it's honestly just a placebo.

[Samoht]

*three categories, oops

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

Originally Posted by Pokesan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

explain psychics?

Here is the long list of psychics who've won the lottery:

[Bazia]

Originally Posted by fadetree [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yeah, but that cuts both ways. Lack of evidence for is not evidence against. And by evidence I mean 'scientific evidence', not emotionalism or faith or just deciding you don't like something.

no it doesnt cut both ways, if u want something to be considered acceptable u have to have to some kind of proof or facts

[Pokesan]

Shakespeare said it first - "There are more things in heaven and earth than exist in your philosophy. Science is just how we're trained to look at reality - it doesn't explain love or spirituality"

You're so sure of your position but you're just closed minded. I think you'll find that your faith in science and tests is just as blind as the faith of any fundamentalist.

[Patriam1066]

Originally Posted by Sidelle [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Atheists and religious people are often so similar to each other in these threads. Both sides have excellent skills at being self-righteous pricks when they're shoving their beliefs or non-beliefs down the throats of people around them.

Yeah I know, I didn't answer your question -- sorry. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] I was just making a general observation based on my experiences of reading the metric shit-ton of religious discussion posts that blow up threads like this every time...

Carry on.

I agree with this completely. Unfortunately, though I am tolerant in my personal life, I'm also the most opinionated person probably in the history of Earth. Because of this, I'd argue with a fence post. I'm pretty sure this self analysis applies to about 95% of the people who post in the religion threads.

As for religion, people just need more education. If you are taught science, math, history, sociology... etc etc, even if you are devout like I am, you still don't want to kill people or persecute them. The problem is certainty. If you are 100% certain that your position is correct, historically, you have been very willing to bring about radical change (often in a violent way) to see your one sided worldview brought into fruition. This could be said of the Lord's Resistance Army (Christians in Uganda), any Communist party (you could claim militant atheism, or simply a militant political belief, that despite lacking any actual evidence, thought itself to be the solution to humanity's problems), to the numerous Islamic extremist groups. Hell, the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka were technically secular, but they had a nationalistic / Hindu extremist sentiment. Killing people or persecuting them is wrong 100% of the time. Teach that in schools and all of us, regardless of belief system, will be able to get along.

For that matter, give children everywhere ANY type of schooling that isn't religiously based and I think you'll see this problem subside. But yeah, there is definitely a fuckton of self-righteousness in these religion threads. I'm so glad we have two more of them now on the front page of RnF. I will do my best not to post in them, but damn do I love arguing.

[Clark]

You could always log into AOL instant message chatrooms and talk about weird shit. I sure don't wanna read this crap here though!

[Troubled]

Originally Posted by Pokesan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think you'll find that your faith in science and tests is just as blind as the faith of any fundamentalist.

Read that shit on a postcard?

[paulgiamatti]

Originally Posted by Pokesan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You can't know anything.

Fundamentally and scientifically, this is true. I mean, I highly suspect that this is true, as have many other philosophers, intellectuals, and scientists. No scientific study that answers important questions about the universe is 100% conclusive, but we still go ahead and say that something is a fact or that something is true.

Originally Posted by Pokesan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Knowledge is merely opinion.

And the reason we do this is because it would be really frustrating to have to say, "The likelihood of x being true falls within the percentile of 99.9-repeating." Just as it would be really frustrating to have to say, "I highly suspect that Uzbekistan is a real place. I've never been there, and I don't know anyone who's been there, but I think it is very likely that this place exists." We don't say that for a good reason - we just say Uzbekistan is a real place and that this is a fact. It is a part of human knowledge. It has transcended opinion and graduated to truth.

Originally Posted by Pokesan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Shakespeare said it first - "There are more things in heaven and earth than exist in your philosophy. Science is just how we're trained to look at reality - it doesn't explain love or spirituality"

First of all, Shakespeare never said this. This is a quote from a character in Tim Minchin's beat poem Storm who references Shakespeare. The original quote from Hamlet is as follows:

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Shakespeare was right about philosophy, certainly. As Arthur Eddington said, "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."

Originally Posted by Pokesan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The human body is a mystery, science just falls in a hole when it tries to explain the nature of the soul. Science is just how we're trained to look at reality. How does science explain psychics, auras, the power of prayer?

Things like love, spirituality, and the idea of a soul become more explainable at the level of the brain every single day. These things are being explained by neuroscience at this very moment while we sit here and play ForumQuest. Just because science doesn't have every single answer to everything in the universe yet doesn't have anything to say about how successful it's been in explaining reality to us so far. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for science. We owe everything to it, which is why it's our best indicator of truth. We can never know truth, but we can and must chase after it, and science simply provides us with the best compass for doing so. It is our true north, regardless of whether or not you or anyone else likes it.

[Mandalore93]

The biggest destruction that religion could face would come as the result of three things.

1. Teaching children basic logic and rational skills.

2. Comparison of world religions in primary education. Hard to believe in one thing exclusively when they all seem to be copying off each other.

3. Taxing religion. For whatever reason people's faith has never seemed to coincide with their pocket book. It's how the Muslims took the Christian heartland and turned it into Muslim strong holds within a century or two. For the most part they were very easy rulers...as long as the money was paid. Convert or pay.