Atheism and Christianity debate

[V-G]

It's not just prayer that is ineffective. Not even a hopeful attitude helps. According to this article:

A positive attitude does not improve the chances of surviving cancer and doctors who encourage patients to keep up hope may be burdening them, according to the results of research released Monday.

Fraud

Now here is the problem. We all know that people who believe in superstitions like rabbits' feet and broken mirrors are daft. And we know that the man with the horseshoe asking for money is a complete fraud. These facts are obvious to everyone with intelligence.

It should now be obvious that the believer's faith in prayer is just as daft, and the minister asking for donations is just as fraudulent.

This is the problem with religon. We allow daft and fradulent people to run freely in our society, spreading their superstitions and collecting their money, rather than pointing out the superstition and the fraud:

* For a person to say "God answered my prayers today!" is just as silly as a person saying, "My lucky horseshoe granted me my wishes today!" or, "The planet Jupiter answered my prayers today!"

* For a person to say, "God wants you to tithe 10% of your income to the church, and if you do, God will answer your prayers and let you into heaven when you die," is completely fraudulent.

The time has come for intelligent people to stop accepting or "tolerating" superstition and fraud and, instead, to call it what it is. It is time to state clearly that God is imaginary. Religion is pure superstition, nothing more -- It has been proven time and time again with dozens of scientific experiments. It is time for us to begin eliminating the superstition and fraud from public discourse, for the simple reason that superstition and fraud are detrimental to society.

[bm-21Lemko]

Volodya,

So if someone is dieing you would not give them hope that they might live.

Volodya if you were diagnosed with a rare disease would you not want hope to live on, even if it was a superstition.

What about near death experiences, do you disregard them?

If religion is just a superstition why does it continue to exist?

Why have for centuries people believed in it?

Almost every society has developed a religion, can you explain why they have not given up?

I'm sorry but no matter what you say I will believe in this superstitution you call religion.

[stepanstas]

V-G,

It's fair that you do not believe in God. You are the second person I know. I can understand you. One that does believe in God may always have thoughts whether he is real. If he is, how? How does heaven really exist? etc.

I think it will get harder as technology progresses. Because more and more we get away from the idea with technology. I don't know what to say.

[StormAU]

Very interesting. Sorry Guys but Volodya is shooting you down in flames and he is doing it so well to. Don't try to explain Christianity using science it wont work cause as soon as you do you end up being "proved" wrong.

Noah's ark will never be found, why? well because it would have rotted away about 4 thousand years ago, so the people who are still looking are just being foolish.

Science cannot explain much at all with regards to how the universe and all that is in it came to be, Volodya has himself admitted that so why are you coming back and feeding him with lines like "Science Proves alot". Go and study archaeology for a couple of years and tell me the first dating method you learn about and what its called, then explain to me what happens with this dating method. Forget it, I'll tell you instead. Its called Carbon 14 (C14 for short). Everything on Earth is Carbon based, everything. Carbon 14 dating measures the amount of carbon left in the artefact being tested, when you get to about 5750 years old (some scientist make it about 6000 years so they cant even agree on that) problems with dates start to creep in, now why is that? could it be that there is only about 6000 years of Carbon build up on the planet?

Next, yes the earth can heal itself, or so Anthropology would lead us to believe. It would take 10000 years for all the damage created by mankind to disappear if we all died today and that's not taking into account nuclear damage.

Ice ages, so science tells us, have been increasing in occurrence and lasting for shorter periods. The last one was about, so science tells us, 10000 years ago at the end of the Pliestocene epoch (we are now in the Holocene epoch). The sea levels were on average 200 metres lower than they are now, the land mass of the planet was much larger but alot of it was under Glacial Ice. Now I don't know myself, and neither does science btw why a 1 degree on average lower temperature range can cause an Ice Age yet a 1 degree higher temp doesn't seem to get people to believe in Global Warming, hmmmmm.

Go tell the people on the Pacific Islands who are slowly losing there homes that the sea isn't rising and see what reception you'll get, Go tell the tribesmen living around Mt Kilimanjaro that the Ice is still really there on the top of the mountain (Ice that until about 5 years ago had never before disappeared), go tell the Inuit of Greenland and Canada and the Aluet of Canada and North and Eastern Russia that the pack ice and permafrost that is receding and in some cases has disappeared (never done that before and Science will even tell you that) that the planet isn't getting warmer and see what reception you'll get. I'll ask you if you do realise they are actually seeing measurable differences already!

I believe science can give us some answers, actually I believe science is a useful tool for measuring things that are verifiable, like how far the ocean is rising and how much the permafrost is receding, but there is no way science will explain things like the origin of the universe etc cause it cannot be repeated and science relies on repeatability.

[bm-21Lemko]

Yes Storm,

I already said that the Ark would have desinigrated due to age.


Volodya,

You say that you are lucky to have go a scholarship to the UK.

How can you prove that their is an existance of luck.

I can't see it, and there is no physical evidence other than you word.

If I am wrong please tell me, if it was not luck.

[V-G]

I got to leave for work in 5 minutes so this one will be short

1. Darn, Michael is back, I knew my reign of fire at will wouldn't last long... Just kidding, his posts are always a great read - I actually learn things that way.
2. Lemko, about me being "lucky" to get a scholarship. There is a certain virtue in humbleness and when receiving large rewards one shouldn't go around bragging. We tend to mask it with words like "luck". I don't believe in luck. In Ukraine, I won numerous competitions in different subject areas (English, Law, Math), I was always an A student (with only occasional B), I was on a swim team and competed in our province a few times. I spoke better English than my teacher at school (my father paid for private lessons from the best teacher he could find)... add my personality and I think I deserved that scholarship as a well rounded individual who was better capable to represent Ukraine abroad than most other candidates.

[bm-21Lemko]

ok, we can continue later. I have to fill out a job application, anyways.

But my point still stands, you can't prove humbleness or virtues exist unless you believe they exist.

There is no physical evidence. If a man has never experienced humblness how does he know it exists?

see you later Volodya.