"Well I tell a lie - when I was 16 I spent two weeks in Israel with my sister. But at that time things were pretty cool and relaxed over there as well… "
When were things ever pretty cool or relaxed in Israel in modern history?
[…EDIT…] …this was a while ago - and at that time things really were pretty cool, as far as I remember…[…]
Well, there are all kinds of palestinians. I think its pretty obvious which ones are better off.
[…EDIT…]
On second thoughts, let’s keep the Israel-Palestine question out of this…!
So from this discussion, I guess we conclude that God will use Google Glass to render Israel and Palestine obsolete.
On our forums you are welcome to wander off subject to your heart’s content. The only comments that are not accepted are vulgarity, blanket statements condemning groups of people, or nasty personal attacks. I am the judge of this since this is my salon, so to speak. Since I cannot edit comments, if I discover an offending comment I will ask the poster to remove it or edit it, and if that does not happen, we may have no recourse but to cancel that person’s account which we don’t do lightly.
So you may carry on.
@Colin
Well, I guess I’m off to go preorder a pair of Google Glasses.
@ColinJohnstone: Regarding the fact that I mentioned that matter cannot be created is that if we look at all the laws of physics that have appeared so far, none can explain if let’s say something appears from nowhere without any kind of motion from a location A to a location B so there must be a Supreme Being that created everything using powers which we will never comprehend .
Yes the ‘Supreme Being’ I was talking is God as you already mentioned . He has to be all powerful because only a Being who is perfect could’ve designed everything and sustain it without any flaw ( though He also created things which seem flawed to us but even those were thought in advance by Him) . And regarding to the ‘perfect order’,
this has to do with what the Scriptures say about He who gave an order which can never be something else from what He planned. It’s only reasonable if we linger on this subject a little bit that all which has come to be around us must have a Mastermind which had a clear objective in creating everything.
@Spatterson : I was joking around about the tooth fairy and Santa( I don’t believe in them).
I appreciate that you wrote for me a video link and named a couple of renowned atheists but I am certain that God exists and the best answer that I can give you is that after we die we will see who was right and who was wrong .
But until then I have some things to say.The fact that there are people who call themselves atheists is caused by the fact that in reality they have a feeling that God exists but they don’t know what religion to choose( or don’t want to) because of all the negative publicity or personal preconceptions that float around the 3 monotheistic religions . In a way I see atheists to be sincere because they are not like others who say that they belong to a certain religion but they don’t practice it whatsoever , but this doesn’t really help them at all .
It’s the easiest thing to say that there is no God and live a life without any moral constrains and do what ever you like without paying attention to your conscience . But at the same time I believe that it is wrong to foster negative thoughts towards those who don’t share your religious views and I strongly suggest that there must be respect between people no matter in what they believe and we should avoid to impose our own beliefs with force or hatred .
Oh and I almost forgot. I know people here believe that I love to get sidetracked but this time it’s Spatterson’s fault for saying that God doesn’t exist ( well actually he said 'god nonsense ') :)) .
Umm “It’s the easiest thing to say that there is no God and live a life without any moral constrains and do what ever you like without paying attention to your conscience”
Yeah. Because we can’t have moral without God.
I don’t have any “hatred” towards religious people (except those that want to kill me…). It’s your complete disregard for the work of neuroscience that really pisses me off. When people say things like “we’ll never figure out god’s marvelous creation ‘the brain’” that really angers me. This is the type of thinking that stops stem cell research… that spends money to protect Israel for religious reason… or people who bend public policy to suit their religion. Oh! Let’s not forget about those wackos that want to teach ‘intelligent design’ in the class alongside evolution… as if ‘intelligent design’ (aka creationism) has the same caliber of evidence behind it as evolution.
And no I’m not one of those atheist you talk about who really think god exists but choose not to acknowledge it publicly. I find it incredibly hard to believe many people fall into this category. I know there is no god – or at least that there is an exceptionally high probability that god does not exist – because there IS NO EVIDENCE
“It’s the easiest thing to say that there is no God and live a life without any moral constrains and do what ever you like without paying attention to your conscience . But at the same time I believe that it is wrong to foster negative thoughts towards those who don’t share your religious views and I strongly suggest that there must be respect between people no matter in what they believe”
In the first sentence, you say that I (as an atheist) have no moral constraints and don´t pay attention to my conscience. Do you even realize how insulting that is? You´re basically saying that you have to believe in a god (your god, I guess…) in order to be a complete human being.
In the second sentence, you´re basically saying that "we shouldn´t say bad things about people who don´t share our religious beliefs"which seems to contradict the first one. There might be a language barrier between us (English is neither my nor your native language), so…if you misunderstood one of these statements, feel free to clarify that. 
@ spatterson and Paule
It would be more constructive if people could say what they really think without worrying about other people getting pissed off or insulted.
@spatterson: “…When people say things like “we’ll never figure out god’s marvelous creation ‘the brain’” that really angers me. This is the type of thinking that stops stem cell research…”
I see. So if my elderly grandmother says “the brain is God’s marvellous creation” she is stopping stem cell research? Well, no wonder you are “angry” with her!
But everything you say is supported by evidence, right? So, just out of idle curiosity, what is the exact evidence linking stem cell research with people’s private religious beliefs…?
@ MADARA
“Regarding the fact that I mentioned that matter cannot be created is that if we look at all the laws of physics that have appeared so far, none can explain if let’s say something appears from nowhere without any kind of motion from a location A to a location B so there must be a Supreme Being that created everything using powers which we will never comprehend .”
This argument is the same as the one you gave in your last post. What do you think about the response to this argument that I posted?
“He has to be all powerful because only a Being who is perfect could’ve designed everything and sustain it without any flaw”
I don’t really see why you think there is no flaws in the universe. I am not sure what a ‘flaw’ is in this context, but there is nothing to indicate that the universe is in ‘perfect order’.
“( though we also created things which seem flawed to us but even those were thought in advance by Him) .”
I guess there is not really anything I can say in response to this. It pretty much kills any opportunity for discussion on this matter.
“The fact that there are people who call themselves atheists is caused by the fact that in reality they have a feeling that God exists but they don’t know what religion to choose”
I am sorry to disappoint. I have no such feelings about the existence of anything supernatural.
@ force_de_frappe
“what is the evidence linking stem cell research with people’s private religious beliefs…?”
I guess he is talking about the blocking of federal funding for stem cell research in the USA due to what are essentially religious reasons. I don’t know so much about this myself.
@Colin
Well, I said “I feel insulted, but maybe I just misunderstand you, please clarify”…
Where´s your problem?
@Colin: “…I guess he was talking about the blocking of federal funding for stem cell research in the USA…”
That’s my point, Colin. It’s all too easy to blame a whole group of people for a particular decision taken by politicians. There are problems with this at several levels: for starters one is assuming that all religious people have the exact same view. Then one is assuming that they all act together with a common goal, and have enough collective influence to sway the decision makers. And then one is also assuming that it is only religious people who have ethical issues with stem cell research.
Well, these are nice easy assumptions to slip into. But where is the hard evidence?
It’s dangerous and wrong to demonise a whole group of people en masse, IMO.
@ Paule
You wrote about MADARA’s comments on morality;
“Do you even realize how insulting that is?”
The bit about clarifying, you wrote as a response to what MADARA wrote about something else.
@ force_de_frappe
I don’t know what the assumptions or hard evidence are here. As I said, I know little about this issue.
@Colin
Well, I did say I wouldn’t get involved in this (inevitably ugly) discussion - I guess I should have stuck to that.
(If I post on this thread again, feel free to beam down a bunch of reptilian Elvis impersonators into my house to teach me the value of self-control…:-D)
@ force
I don’t think this thread is ugly. More emotions flying around than necessary maybe, but I don’t see why this is a reason to stop. You still have not told us what flavor of religious person you are, and why you think you are this way. Maybe we could even debate creationism if anybody here is a creationist (you know who you are).