God is not welcomed in our school system.

[SeattleGriz]

Took me quite a while to understand atheists big objection to God, but am starting to realize that they want God to be more obvious.

Am I right?

My big objection to God is that the entire idea is quite silly, there is no reason to believe in a supernatural being and people that do are just kidding themselves.

Fair enough, thanks for the reply.

[Pwns]

My big objection to God is that the entire idea is quite silly, there is no reason to believe in a supernatural being and people that do are just kidding themselves.

My own religious beliefs are an extension of my belief in the metaphysical in general. I like to believe that in the metaphysical of our universe there is benevolent force that makes life less unfair than it would be without it.

I find it no sillier and a lot less cynical than believing the universe was once a singularity and somehow miraculously managed to explode without any energy being added and managed to expand without collapsing on itself. And I don't find it any sillier than believing that on this speck of dust we live on inorganic matter somehow miraculously formed biomolecules which then in turn somehow miraculously formed the first cells which then miraculously over time evolved into living beings whose reasoning abilities are beyond CREATED computers that can perform a million billions calculations per second (and probably always will be well beyond any machines that exist).

[Seahawks08]

I find it no sillier and a lot less cynical than believing the universe was once a singularity and somehow miraculously managed to explode without any energy being added and managed to expand without collapsing on itself. And I don't find it any sillier than believing that on this speck of dust we live on inorganic matter somehow miraculously formed biomolecules which then in turn somehow miraculously formed the first cells which then miraculously over time evolved into living beings whose reasoning abilities are beyond CREATED computers that can perform a million billions calculations per second (and probably always will be well beyond any machines that exist).

I could do a JSO post on why that line of thinking is most likely wrong. But to keep it simple, just because we haven't found concrete evidence does not make all of those thing miracles.

[SeattleGriz]

I find it no sillier and a lot less cynical than believing the universe was once a singularity and somehow miraculously managed to explode without any energy being added and managed to expand without collapsing on itself. And I don't find it any sillier than believing that on this speck of dust we live on inorganic matter somehow miraculously formed biomolecules which then in turn somehow miraculously formed the first cells which then miraculously over time evolved into living beings whose reasoning abilities are beyond CREATED computers that can perform a million billions calculations per second (and probably always will be well beyond any machines that exist).

I could do a JSO post on why that line of thinking is most likely wrong. But to keep it simple, just because we haven't found concrete evidence does not make all of those thing miracles.

Not trying to be a dick, but I doubt you could lay out a convincing post on the subject. Why? Because I have watched quite a few Christian vs Atheist debates and essentially, it comes down to a draw. Personally I think the Christians lay out a better case, but also know I am biased, so my opinion doesn't matter.

To each their own. While atheists don't like having religion crammed down their throat, believers get tired of the superiority complex associated with most atheists, when none is warranted.

On a separate note, posters like Death Dealer are very much appreciated in my opinion - and not to say you aren't, I just don't know your style. Keeping the discussion civil and trying to learn is key.

May I have a hug?

[Pwns]

I could do a JSO post on why that line of thinking is most likely wrong. But to keep it simple, just because we haven't found concrete evidence does not make all of those thing miracles.

And by the same token, just because phenomena that have a natural explanation were once ascribed to supernatural occurances does not mean that every observed phenomena will have scientific explanations.

There is no reason to expect that it may be possible to scientifically explain everything.

[SeattleGriz]

I could do a JSO post on why that line of thinking is most likely wrong. But to keep it simple, just because we haven't found concrete evidence does not make all of those thing miracles.

And by the same token, just because phenomena that have a natural explanation were once ascribed to supernatural occurances does not mean that every observed phenomena will have scientific explanations.

There is no reason to expect that it may be possible to scientifically explain everything.

Exactly. I often tell people that if we were able to put on special glasses that would allow us to see outside of our normal spectrum, we would shit our pants.

Our perception of reality is very limited. To think we know it all is very short sighted. No pun intended.

[houndawg]

I could do a JSO post on why that line of thinking is most likely wrong. But to keep it simple, just because we haven't found concrete evidence does not make all of those thing miracles.

Not trying to be a dick, but I doubt you could lay out a convincing post on the subject. Why? Because I have watched quite a few Christian vs Atheist debates and essentially, it comes down to a draw. Personally I think the Christians lay out a better case, but also know I am biased, so my opinion doesn't matter.

To each their own. While atheists don't like having religion crammed down their throat, believers get tired of the superiority complex associated with most atheists, when none is warranted.

On a separate note, posters like Death Dealer are very much appreciated in my opinion - and not to say you aren't, I just don't know your style. Keeping the discussion civil and trying to learn is key.

May I have a hug?

Not trying to be a dick, but, "none is warranted"? Dude, if you don't want me to have a superior attitude then don't act so serious when you tell me that virgins have babies and dead people walk out of their tombs and fly away up in to the sky and the Earth is 6,000 years old. Good grief, man.

[biobengal]

Not trying to be a dick, but I doubt you could lay out a convincing post on the subject. Why? Because I have watched quite a few Christian vs Atheist debates and essentially, it comes down to a draw. Personally I think the Christians lay out a better case, but also know I am biased, so my opinion doesn't matter.

To each their own. While atheists don't like having religion crammed down their throat, believers get tired of the superiority complex associated with most atheists, when none is warranted.

On a separate note, posters like Death Dealer are very much appreciated in my opinion - and not to say you aren't, I just don't know your style. Keeping the discussion civil and trying to learn is key.

May I have a hug?

Not trying to be a dick, but, "none is warranted"? Dude, if you don't want me to have a superior attitude then don't act so serious when you tell me that virgins have babies and dead people walk out of their tombs and fly away up in to the sky and the Earth is 6,000 years old. Good grief, man.

houndawg just wrapped this one up as the thread has reached the only logical conclusion.

[Seahawks08]

Exactly. I often tell people that if we were able to put on special glasses that would allow us to see outside of our normal spectrum, we would **** our pants.

Our perception of reality is very limited. To think we know it all is very short sighted. No pun intended.

So that makes you believe in God and become a Christian? I get how people can be spiritual and maybe there is a God or many Gods. But to take that a step further and have organized religion just doesn't pass the rational test. There are many things we have yet to figure out, but I highly doubt those things will validate Christianity.

[JohnStOnge]

Religion should not be in our public schools. We are not a Christian nation. We were not founded as a Christian nation. We were never and are not a theocracy.

We also were not a nation founded with the idea of doing something like excluding religion from public schools. Not in the Constitution. Completely a fabrication of the unelected and unaccountable Judiciary.

[JohnStOnge]

My big objection to God is that the entire idea is quite silly, there is no reason to believe in a supernatural being and people that do are just kidding themselves.

There is plenty of reason for believing that there could some intelligence behind what we see around us. It's actually kind of ridiculous to say there is "no reason to believe in a supernatural being." It really is.

That's not to say the existence of a supernatural being or set of beings or whatever can be confirmed. But to say there's no reason for thinking it's the case? Ridiculous.

[houndawg]

Religion should not be in our public schools. We are not a Christian nation. We were not founded as a Christian nation. We were never and are not a theocracy.

We also were not a nation founded with the idea of doing something like excluding religion from public schools. Not in the Constitution. Completely a fabrication of the unelected and unaccountable Judiciary.

Now John, you're being disingenuous here.

Christians want to exclude religion from public schools too. Except for one.

[JohnStOnge]

Now John, you're being disingenuous here.

Christians want to exclude religion from public schools too. Except for one.

There is something to that but I don't think it contradicts what I wrote. I just wrote that there was no intent to at our origin to do things like exclude religion from public school. Those involved would never have said the Federal Government should step in and tell a local school system that there couldn't be prayer in a public school. There was no ban of association between government and religion. There was no ban on government doing things that might be construed as showing a preference for certain religions or groups of religion.

There was just a ban on the Congress of the United States making a law with respect to the establishment of religion.

And all you have to do to nuke arguments to the contrary is point out that very shortly after the First Amendment was ratified the Congress appropriated funds to pay a chaplain and started holding Christian church services in the House chamber. A practice the infamous "separation" letter author Thomas Jefferson approved of. In fact he attended the services. Case closed.

There's a lot more than that, of course. There is all sorts of historical context to show that there was no intent for the kind of "separation of church and state" in place today through Judiciary edict. But you need no more than that to tell you what a fraud it is.