Religion

I think that when believing in evolution there is a gradual thing but not the Ape=Man or we all came around by accident

Tikva:

I personally don't believe that one can believe in both God, and evolution. Mankind has constantly been evolving, and will continue to do so.

I see where you're coming from, but I think it can kind of work together in a sense. Kinda like the Big Bang Theory. I go to a Christian school, and they like the teachers to be Christian. So, the science teachers teach us about evolution like it's on the syllabus, but we always ask what they think, because of their relgion. Their answer is always God created the Big Bang and is creating evolution.
I'm not sure what I personally think. I do agree that it's hard to believe in both, that it's pretty much one or the other. But for some people, I'm sure it would work.
K, I'm rambling now, lol. Just thought I'd mention that cos it always interested me

I am an atheist. Even though as a child, I went to christian groups and I have had my confirmation; I don't believe in any god or gods.
Never did, never will.
As far as I know, only two relatives of mine believes in god, but still my parents forced me into confirmation.

I am interested in religion, though.
I like the idea of Left Hand Paths, such as LaVey satanism and Buddhism, mostly because there's no worshipping of a god.
In LaVey satanism, you are your own god. No one is greater than yourself and you lead your own life. I really like that concept.

amyy.vengeance:

Tikva:

I personally don't believe that one can believe in both God, and evolution. Mankind has constantly been evolving, and will continue to do so.

I see where you're coming from, but I think it can kind of work together in a sense. Kinda like the Big Bang Theory. I go to a Christian school, and they like the teachers to be Christian. So, the science teachers teach us about evolution like it's on the syllabus, but we always ask what they think, because of their relgion. Their answer is always God created the Big Bang and is creating evolution.
I'm not sure what I personally think. I do agree that it's hard to believe in both, that it's pretty much one or the other. But for some people, I'm sure it would work.
K, I'm rambling now, lol. Just thought I'd mention that cos it always interested me

That post was an 'ooops'. First line should have read "I personally believe that one can believe in both God, and evolution."

My Demise:

I am an atheist. Even though as a child, I went to christian groups and I have had my confirmation; I don't believe in any god or gods.
Never did, never will.
As far as I know, only two relatives of mine believes in god, but still my parents forced me into confirmation.

I am interested in religion, though.
I like the idea of Left Hand Paths, such as LaVey satanism and Buddhism, mostly because there's no worshipping of a god.
In LaVey satanism, you are your own god. No one is greater than yourself and you lead your own life. I really like that concept.

i know how you feel. i was raised Catholic, and my parents still try to push thier religion on me. i just find it so false. i know people who are "devout christians" but then go home, get wasted, and beat the shit outta their kids.

i think im leaning heavily twords agnosticism, but have no idea how to tell/relay this information to my parents.

I'm a Christian myself, of a different kind of stripe -- Eastern Orthodoxy, which is the least changed form of Christianity. No major changes have been made since the 400s. It's a pretty interesting perspective, because although it is a very old, very much unchanged form of Christianity, in many ways, I've found it's more tolerant than a lot of the more "fundamentalist" Christian groups. (This is partly because of the church's attitude towards sin as less of a personal failing than a disease to be cured, or such is my understanding.) Also, many such groups -- most notably the Seventh-Day Adventists -- claim that Orthodoxy is "idolatrous" and sinful, et cetera, because of the use of icons. So it's an odd look at religion -- a very ancient tradition that has, recently, come to the attention of more recent branches of Christianity. But anyway...

I think religion can be a useful thing, in many different ways and to many different ends -- it can unite people for good (like organizing charities and helping people that way) and for ill (crusades, holy wars, et cetera). I definitely don't think the world would be a better place without it, as some people elsewhere have stated. Just keeping with Christianity, would the world be better without the religious poems of John Donne, the paintings of Caravaggio, the spiritual writings of Dostoevsky? I don't think so.

The problems in religion are those fundamental in any human institution. Which is to say, it's a human institution, and humans screw stuff up a lot -- about as often as they get things really right.

I often struggle with personal belief, though -- how real is God? Is the Christian conception of Him accurate? (Actually, I don't think ANY conception of God can be totally accurate, because any accurate definition automatically makes God something understandable to humans, which He by nature isn't.) How do heaven, hell et cetera actually exist -- as actual places, mere headspace, or what? You know... That kind of thing.

But I think the only universal sin, no matter what you believe -- the only sin against humanity, let alone anything else -- is to stop questioning. It's the sole commandment of the universe, in my opinion -- keep questioning the things you believe. Try to tear it all down. And if you can't, if again and again you come back and you can't tear it down, then you've hit on something good.

(Okay... essay. Sorry. Apologies for incoherence.)

amyy.vengeance:

I see where you're coming from, but I think it can kind of work together in a sense. Kinda like the Big Bang Theory. I go to a Christian school, and they like the teachers to be Christian. So, the science teachers teach us about evolution like it's on the syllabus, but we always ask what they think, because of their relgion. Their answer is always God created the Big Bang and is creating evolution.
I'm not sure what I personally think. I do agree that it's hard to believe in both, that it's pretty much one or the other. But for some people, I'm sure it would work.

I think that believing in both is kinda weird. If you believe in God and evolution you apparently don't believe what it says in the Bible.
Also, I've seen some posters that seems to believe evolution have anything to do with how life started, or the big bang, and that's wrong. Evolution is about how species change and evolve.

I think that there IS a higher power but I don't have a specific religion.

I'm Wiccan which is kind of a branch off from Paganism but I always respect others' beliefs and enjoy learning about other religions. In the end, I don't think there has to be one set religion that's right; it's whatever feels right and works for a certain individual and for me that just happened to be the path of Wicca. I was originally Christian but didn't feel happy and wasn't completely understanding what they were telling me in church so I stopped going and then about a year later we started a topic in RMPS about Wicca and I found that a lot of what it spoke of tied in with my beliefs so from then on I've practiced Wicca and have found that I have a better understanding of life.

lolwut:

I think that believing in both is kinda weird. If you believe in God and evolution you apparently don't believe what it says in the Bible.
Also, I've seen some posters that seems to believe evolution have anything to do with how life started, or the big bang, and that's wrong. Evolution is about how species change and evolve.

But then to me the idea of God goes hand in hand with the idea of evolution.
i mean what a lot of people don't know is that the bible isn't supposed to be read and taken word for word rather its open for interpretation .

i mean the whole seven days he created everything idea is a perfect example. it says that God created the world in seven days basically yeah ? but humanity defines a day as one revolution of the earth around the sun . and since he had just made the universe and since it says it took a whole day to create the planet on what timing was god working on ?
ts safe to assume that maybe a day for God might not be what we consider a day. maybe a day for him is ten years, or a million years.

but the point is the bibles open for interpretation.
you can have God and evolution at the same time .

I'm a firm believer that someone up there watches over me.
I was raised as a Roman Catholic and I study at a Catholic school.
I belive in Jesus, God, The Holy Trinity, The Holy Spirit and the bible with all my heart. In fact knowing that they exist is the main reason I don't give up, because I know that they will never let me down.

Altough I'm a devote Catholic, I don'r agree with some of their beliefs, like the way they discriminate homosexuals, with the reason that God only created man and woman. I don't agree with that, people can't choose who they really are, I always stand up for homosexuals in our Religion class, stating what I belive in, yet that does not make my Faith in Christianity less.

Tikva:

JadeTiger712:

I looked at the website from a camp I work at and found some interesting stuff that you guys might want to read.
Defending Christianity
Evolution v. Christianity

I found this stuff really interesting

Thanks for the links. I personally don't believe that one can believe in both God, and evolution. Mankind has constantly been evolving, and will continue to do so.

One point I would like to make though, is regarding the Calendar that most of the world uses today. It was a decision made by one or more people, a very long time ago, and therefore is not really relevant. I have no doubt that Jesus Christ existed, that he was a great man, and a good man, amongst other things. I just don't believe that he is one part of any trinity, and therefore, not divine.

I study in a Catholic school and they teach us both the evolution and the one stated in the book of Genesis.

Honestly, this thing confuses me a lot. I don;t know which one is real.
My Religion says one thing, my Biology teacher says another.
yeaah. so can you guys enlighten me on this?

^ Well, it's really a personal opinion. You're allowed to believe in both if you wish. It's completely up to you Talk to your Biology teacher about it. You mght find [especially at a Christian school] that your teacher believes in both. I know that my teacher is a Christian and believes that God created the Big Bang and that God has allowed and controlled evolution.
I believe in both too. So yeah, again, up to you, but just read about both, talk to your Bio teacher and take upon that information

^^
hmm, yeah..
in my own belief, maybe when God said let there be light,
the big bang theory happen and so on..

I'm personally a fan of the first method of proving God's existence. (Partly, I'll admit, because some of the other explanations that try to remove the necessity of God [such as those involving parent universes and things like that] are so complicated and require so much to pre-exist that it proves God's existence, in my mind, more than it disproves it.)

But it's my opinion that humanity can never, ever hope to conclusively "prove" God's existence or non-existence, nor can we ever hope to accurately define what God is or isn't, what He (I use the Christian terminology, number and preferred pronoun simply for their facility) wants or doesn't want from humanity and even if there's more than one God. (Look at gnosticism for an interesting variant on a "one God" theory.) The problem with defining God, in any way, even defining His existence, is that it automatically reduces God to something that can, through definition, be understood by humanity. Even apophatic reasoning (i.e. defining something by what it isn't, like "God is not purple" or "God is not the slice of ham in my sandwich this afternoon" ) doesn't work because, in many traditions, God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, so how can we state conclusively that God is not purple or a slice of ham? Similarly, proving whether or not God exists is impossible, because it is something we cannot scientifically test or look for -- it's not as if God left actual fingerprints on the dominoes of the universe when He first pushed them over, you know? We can find things that help God's existence seem more understandable or reasonable -- such as Aquinas's five ways of "proving" God exists -- but, in the end, they don't prove anything outside of a purely logical setting, in which, with proper construction of an argument, I could prove that you are actually my new shirt. Scientifically, they don't actually prove anything, because we cannot replicate any experiments to make sure that it works (and what kind of experiments would prove God exists anyway?) and we cannot find any tangible proof of God's existence.

And yet, and yet... There is something instead of nothing, and you and I are sitting here, on this green and gorgeous and fertile planet, having this discussion. So either Descartes is right and our essences, minds and thoughts have been made prisoners of an "evil demon" that has fabricated this world to fool our senses, which cannot be trusted because they only work through the fallible mind... Or something has set the world in motion, and until whatever something is large enough to stop the world decides to do so (since an object in motion, on a flat, frictionless plane, will remain in motion indefinitely), we should be okay.

However, I've found that my favorite argument in favor of believing in God (not something that claims to prove His existence) is Pascal's Wager, which boils down to: A betting man will believe in God, because if there is no God, at worst, he's wasted a bit of time, and if there is a God, then he's hopefully in His good books.

I don't know. It works for me.

(Was this what you were looking for? )

perfect : )
someone who reads and talks.

personally im all for the existance of god although i do beleive there is no scientific way or like any logical way to proove that hes there but being a catholic its just inbuilt in me to beleive he his .

i was just wondering why there was a whole bunch of people who didnt beleive in god is all . they seem to bee all massed up on this site

figures.

^ I am a witch so i don't believe in "God" persay as to say i don't believe in the god that the bible has BUT i do believe that there is some higher power out there who gives us nudges from time to time - take the evolution debate - you could go on forever debating it but it's like the chicken and the egg. There was a big bang with matter and energy colliding and boom here's the universe - but what's to say that "God" or a force greater than anything we've ever known pushed those particles together because "it/he/she" knew that it would create the universe, i mean if "god" created the universe then he created science which is a means for us to study what "it" created and the theories of evolution etc.Take the missing link in evolution to me that seems like one hell of a nudge in the right direction - what do you think?

So although my belief varies very differently to the 'mainstream' religions and the bible i'm kinda a fencesitter because you could argue that the proof of god is all around us, but you could also argue that it's science and fact and there is no valid proof that 'god' exists.....

^See, that's something I've believed firmly for a long time -- that God does want us to question, He (again, I use this pronoun/name/number purely for facility's sake) does want us to explore and try to understand the world around us, its origins, its make-up... Everything. Because would He have given us this miraculous power of reasoning and these inquisitive, curious minds if He didn't want us to use them?

I have never felt that the study science and religion/belief in God(s) are contradictory. Some sorts are less literally applicable now than they would have been, say, when religion first appeared -- for example, we now know that it is the level of moisture in the atmosphere that determines whether or not it will rain, not some deity who could easily stroll out from behind the bush -- but that doesn't make that belief any less valid.

Let me try to make sense, here, since it's after midnight and usually, at this point, I'm only good for fiction. What I mean to say is: Just because we know the scientific reasons that some things happen, doesn't mean that belief in one or many God(s) is inappropriate or stupid. We may know the prosaic why of something, but that doesn't stop us from honoring it.

For example, I know that when I think, it is electrical impulses firing in my brain and nothing more. Nothing magical is happening there... But here I am, typing out another essay on a forum so we can continue to think about this. The mere fact of existence, regardless of who/what brought it about, is astonishing. I think that the honoring of a Deity/deities is a way of expressing that -- I exist, and because I exist, I am able to conceive of beings wiser and better and more powerful that me or any other human.

I don't claim to know whether or not God as a specific entity exists, for reasons I've already stated. I have never been offended by people who say that the Bible is mythology, because in a sense, this is true -- it is a collection of stories and writings that are sacred to a faith, some largely historical, some largely philosophical. And I am open to the idea that God is a human construct, created through the millenia by many different people bending their wonderous powers of thought and reason and imagination to the creation of a deity who is more powerful, wiser, better, stronger...

Something being created does not make it less true or less real. The idea of God being, well, an idea, does not hurt His power or majesty. Although this strays into the realms of Platonic philosophy, perhaps what we view as something being "created" is more like something being discovered. As humans, we must always try to discover new ideas and weigh them carefully amongst the ideas we have already found, cleaned, and placed in the collection of the vast and wonderfully ever-expanding museum of human thought. So the discovery of this idea, of something more beautiful, more perfect -- no, entirely perfect -- really says wonderful things about humanity. The fact that this idea can be discovered and considered and not found ridiculous is, to me, heart-wrenchingly beautiful.

This is another reason that I believe in God -- the very fact that humans can dimly conceive of such a being is wonderful to me. And that we should be able, by the working of this being that both made us and was discovered by us, to think and reason and argue and love and believe and understand and know and learn... This is astonishing. Nothing short of astonishing.

(And now I must beg both God's, and the board's, forgiveness, for yet again, I write an essay. I must also pray to this ever-changing, yet eternal, deity for forgiveness, should this prove entirely incoherent. )