One of my best friends is a devout Christian. We have discussed that according to his believes I will spend eternity in Hell. Even though my morals are very close to his. I understand that must be very difficult for him. We talked about that. I can especially understand it if you a religious but your child isn’t. However I think it is very arrogant to try and change my opinion. Trying to make me belief shows that you do not think I can think for myself. I would never try and change my friends believe. He is happy this way so I shouldn’t interfere. We have many open minded discussions about our moral values and our believes and I really appreciate that, however I would get upset if he didn’t respect my beliefs. I especially dislike the Jehovah’s witnesses who come at my door. That may be true but it is hypocritical. All religions in general tell people to love you fellow man. So not killing them. In any religion you can also find examples of violence (old testament for example). I disagree that those hyper violent people would not be violent without religion. They will find something else as an excuse to become violent (for example soccer games). I think South park had a brilliant episode about this (IIRC go God go). Like I stated in another thread I think that both are correlated with Poverty. I do not think there is a strong correlation between Intelligence and religion. The problem here is generalization, saying somebody who is religious is stupid and atheist are smart. Like you said there are many stupid atheists and smart religious people. So basing your point of view on somebody’s intelligence purely on religious belief is wrong. Actually many of our morals are derived from self-preservation. Not killing, not stealing (since others can than steal from us). So religions shouldn’t be needed to explain these morals. We tend to disapprove of things we wouldn’t like it it happened to us. So therefore it is self-preservation.
That is exactly the reason why I seldom discuss religion with religious people. And I’m in general a relaxed person. I have one good friend with who I do discuss these topics. But for example I will never discuss religion with my in-laws
It's also the height of ironic hypocrisy. As if proclaiming that what you believe is perfectly correct and that anyone who thinks differently is going to hell is not smug. Please.
one "quantum" of planck time? Did you come up with that yourself? You think the unit of time is "quantum" ?
I've only skimmed the last few pages so am coming to this late. Yes time is quantum. If it wasn't then time would never pass as you would have an eternity between each moments. One of the early Greek philosophers had pointed out this paradox. I don't remember off hand which one but will post it. Also in regard to the discussion of the Big Bang. It has been known for awhile that at the quantum level energy can come from seeming nothingness as the vacuum is actually constantly bubbling with virtual particles that appear anhilate each other and disapear. In areas of extreme gravitation like a black hole though such particle pairs can be broken up and possibly detected. Also experiments in things like Zero Point Energy are meant to try to detect this type of vacuum energy.
This is not correct. Read the texts, you will find more calls for bloodshed than you might expect. And why would these people be violent if not for basically being brainwashed since birth that their violent actions are justified and will be rewarded? That makes no sense, unless you think these people are just plain psychotic. In which case, that would mean there's a LOT of psychotic people... especially when looking back through history. It is not a coincidence that Tibetan monks aren't blowing themselves up (despite the massive oppression they've endured) while others take up the sword for their religion. Look to the teachings and you will see motive. No reason to tip-toe around it.
I think having a logical debate on religion is self-defeating as you quickly get to the point where logic can't apply. What I think is more important is approaching such things with intellectual curiousity and basic respect. I may never be a Christian or a Muslim but that doesn't mean I don't want to understand Christianity or Islam. God creating the Universe in 6 days might make as much sense to me as the world on the back of a turtle doesn't meant that it isn't a sincere belief among many others and as a matter of basic respect its probably better that I don't mock them for it anymore than I would expect them to mock me for my beliefs. Also while we may never agree on things like religion we can still agree on a lot of other things and to put a twist on a Christian phrase, judge each other by our actions. For example I consider Rhester, a self-declared Jesus Freak, a friend and worked with him last year to repair houses damaged by hurricane Ike. I might never convince Rhester towards my way of thinking about the nature of Universe and the same for him but htat doesn't prevent us from finding may areas of common agreement and cooperating on things that we hold in common.
That's true and even some Buddhist stories justify violence to defend the faith. On the other hand though an atheistic viewpoint doesn't automatically lead to a non-violent viewpoint and can also cause a devaluing of human life. Consider that most of the blood shed in the 20th Century were by secular movements many of which were outrightly hostile to religion.
Wow. Mathloom never said that. You can’t respond with any substance to what he’s said so you trot out the ugliest stereotypes of his religion you can think of to try to smear him. I think this removes the veil from lot of your behaviours in recent months. You’re a bigot, and Islam isn’t the only target of your intolerance.
I know there is a lot of calls for bloodshed. However in general all religions also call for peace and loving your fellow man. Unfortunately I do believe that there are a lot of "psychotic" people. However I would not call them Psychotic. I think violence is just part of the human nature. For example all the terrible things that happened in WO2 had nothing to do with religion. But still many people died. I truly believe people have it in them to be very violent. Just put them in certain situations and almost all show this. IMHO People use religion as an excuse to use violence. Furthermore people tend to try and group people so they know who is in their group and who isn't. And by knowing who is in your group you know who you can trust, and who is the enemy (just look as religion, sport fans etc). And this trying to group people is one of the biggest problems humans have IMHO.
"One quantum of Planck time" is a valid phrase. It is smallest unit of time that has any physical meaning. http://www.physlink.com/Education/A...fced292fa-24BB5BCC-15C5-EE01-B929583200D1D6F3
This is incorrect. Painting totalitarian psychopaths as being driven by a secular, or atheist agenda is silly.
Thank you for your explanation of Planck time. Now explain how you can take a quantum of a unit of measurement. He could have said one quantum of time. or one Planck time, but when you put them together it is dumb.
You cannot deny though that their movements were specifically secular and atheistic. In fact the Killing Fields of Cambodia and the Cultural Revolution were specifically stated for destroying religion. Anyway as has been noted many of the massacres carried out by religious people those religions often preach peace. So don't you think claiming that psychopaths who use religion as a justification for bloodshed, when the religion actually doesn't, is just as silly?
Sure he could have and I will agree Otto's statement is somewhat redundant but there is nothing incorrect about it.
ok then how does the word quantum modify planck time? It is one part of a planck time? No. Sorry. He tried to put it in to make himself look smart.
Yep, it is silly. Which is why I never claimed that. All I keep pointing out are the religions which actually *do* call for bloodshed and teach violence are the specific cause for this.
And which religions are those? Christianity and Islam? As has been pointed out the New Testament calls for turning the other cheek and Islam also states to respect those of other religions and to protect the innocent. I think it is certainly up for debate about how much something like the Crusades were driving by Christianity but it is undeniable it was a religious movement just as it is undeniable the Cultural Revolution was a secular movement.
The Killing Fields, the Gulag, the Holocaust... etc... were not the result of societies that became too attached to critical thinking, or too demanding of evidence from religions. To lump them in with secularism or atheism is kind of silly, since there is no actual motivation to be drawn from them for those actions. Correlation does not equal causation. Same goes for religion.
