Religion is a good thing?

JOAOAA said:
........not all muslims are bad. take Bash107 for example, he hasn't bombed anyone yet

NebulaC3I said:
Why are so many people under the assumption that the Bible and science are inherently incompatible? Where in the Bible is science criticized?

KaniowskiKun101 said:
The only religion I can really respect is Buddhism because they're such peaceful people and never waged bloody crusades against others. I'm sure they may have done some bad things but not as much as the other religions.

Shadow55 said:


I wouldn't say the Bible and science are 100% incompatible, but science clashes with a lot of Christianity's core beliefs. (i.e. Who/what created the universe, how old the earth is, evolution, etc) There's a laundry list of discrepancies between science and Christianity and I don't have the time to list them all. The two can never correspond with each other, thus, mostly everybody chooses to just believe one or the other.

AzuStar said:


i don't really see the Big bang theory, Evolution, or earth's age clashing between the Bible and Science. don'tkillmeplz

NebulaC3I said:
Why are so many people under the assumption that the Bible and science are inherently incompatible? Where in the Bible is science criticized?

Psajdak said:
The only bad thing I see in religion in scaring people from their earliest age about existence of hell, and eternal torture that is infinetely more painful than the worst torture in this life, if you die without confession, or with unforgivable sin.

And once you hear that from when you are very young, it's hard to get rid of that fear.

It's simply disgusting; like life itself isn't already shitty enough for most people.

Other than that, let them believe whatever they want.

Shadow55 said:


This is an honest question, but why do you believe they don't interfere with each other?

AzuStar said:


well... each for different reasons

firstly, the Big Bag theory was created by the catholic priest. its thought that he suspected that the God was the source of the expanding matter. basically, you could assume that God simply set the matter in the universe and allowed a "rube goldberg" chain of events to happen, where the matter simply forms different planets, Stars and solar systems based the rules and laws he created.

Evolution at it core is basically saying "species evolve to fit the area". evolution is, from there, used to back up claims about which species evolved from which. Atm, Science leads to believe that we as humans came from a common ancestor to other primates. is ancestor is shrouded in some mystery, it could have been more human or more ape like. you wouldn't really be wrong (at-least scientifically) if you assumed either. for more explanation on how it ties into the bible, ill go into the earth's age.

basically there are two types of Christians here. one that takes the "7 days to create the world" in a very literal sense and then there are Christians that don't quite look at it that way. the ones that "don't look at it as literal" merely assume the God's "days" and our"days" are two different measurements of time, like how day pass by differently on different planets. i mean, do you really think that God would use a Sun that wasn't even created yet to judge how long a day is? (in the bible, the sun isn't there on the first day) the first 7 Days could have been millions or billions of years.

another question in the bible is how old people could get when the world was created. the farther back you go, the older people could get. if we tie this in with evolution, we could say that as people evolved and adapted more, their lifespans began to shorten.

(also, im not saying that bible or science is right/wrong, nor am i saying that everything in Science harmonizes with the bible i'm just saying that they aren't exactly exclusive)

i don't think i made enough sense as i should have, i was just locked out of my house(sry for the late reply btw) so i'm in a bit of a low melancholy...i dont fellike i presented this as well as i could have, sounds too wishy-washy. i also don't feel like continuing this on the open casual discussion so if you want, we can continue this by Page or PM.

Shadow55 said:

You make good explanations for mostly everything, but the only thing I don't understand from your post is how you can say people's lifespans have shortened as they have adapted/evolved more, since the average human expectancy has progressively gotten better over history.

Masked_Mantis said:
That's when I stopped reading it.

I think that's only the old testament, which pretty much every christian now takes only as a story (though there are a few crazies on youtube).

If it was literal then it could easily be dis proven.

Chill_ said:

Bible says that some people lived like 900 years...

But that can be explained like everything else in bible with "don't take anything literally" it solves everything /s.

AzuStar said:


well, the most recent span-increase in humans has less to do with our genes and more to do with our medical advances. with medicine, our life expectancy is growing more and more.

basically, adam lived for 900+ yrs. we could say that this is because not as many bacteria/illnesses were around in the beginning of bible

then as time when on and our body adapted more to places outside the garden of eden, more bacteria/illness came and shortened our life expectancy rate. you could even say that our bodies were wearing themselves out from having to adapt to all the sicknesses, shortening our life time.

then came medicine and vaccinations which started to increase our life expectancy again by helping us with all the illness.

i should also mention that in this explanation i'm attempting to keep it purely scientific sounding so if it sounds weird, i'm sry.

Chill_ said:

Problem is not bacteria/illmesses that prevents human getting as old as 900 year old. Problem is aging that makes it impossible that literally some human would have lived +900 years.

AzuStar said:

well, besides the illness and bacteria, there was another part of the explanation that would help explain. its just that i was trying to keep it purely to these so i wouldn't be disregarded.

besides that, i did mention that we could have evolved from Adam and eve, they were made for the garden of eden and everyone afterwards didn't come into that garden, meaning our genes would have evolved to to fit our new surroundings. (one part of the evolution could have needed a sacrifice of our years) as the bible goes on, lifespans do shorten as well.

no amount of medicine to battle bacteria and illness would be able to alter our genes i believe.

Chill_ said:

I'm sorry but it feels you don't know why we age. There is no way that Adam could have literally lived more than 900 years. Unless with "magic" or something that would go against physic rules.

AzuStar said:

im not aware of a specific scientific theory that is above all others for the reason, but i am aware that aging to the point of Death has to do with our cells failing to multiply correctly. im just saying, that could have happened much less frequently with Adam in the Garden.

Chill_ said:

Lets make assumption that human aging would be just dependant on genes (genes would increase/decrease cells falling to multiply) just to keep this simple.

So there just suddenly were genetic changes that would take like millions of years to happen in just under 2000 years that shortened humans life span to 1/10 what it was before?

AzuStar said:


no, its a bit longer than 2000 years and the lifespan of 250 is not 1/10 adams. i do think i may have phrased something wrong, as adam's lifespan had more to do with him being in the garden of eden. since it was the perfect haven, it would of course have no bacteria and illness attacking your immune system, upon other factors like climate. this, of course, is on top of his long lifespan.

furthermore, the speed of evolution is not exactly set in stone, nor has the cause of evolution (at-least human evolution) been found in science to my knowledge, only speculation.

(again, not trying to say one way to think is better than the other, just trying to explain how the Bible and those 3 scientific properties could work together)

AzuStar said:

hmm... interesting, please elaborate.

AzuStar said:

basically, adam lived for 900+ yrs. we could say that this is because not as many bacteria/illnesses were around in the beginning of bible

Chill_ said:

Garden of eden goes against science at least as perfect place.

It is just that all of your explanations of how these things would work together include stuff that is not sciently possible like no diseases before humans were living etc.

If science is basically saying that humans have evolved from small cells and you are basically trying to show that it is scientifically possible that person who's name was Adam lived +900 years because he lived in perfect place but wait didn't science say that we evolved from small cells and Adam who ever was not first human who lived in perfect place? It just confusing how you are trying to put science and religion together. You use something that is scientifically not possible to prove something scientifically possible.

Citizeninsane said:


Eh. That proposition alone would call for the conception of Adam to be essentially a different species.

Citizeninsane said:

One of the longest living animals are the tortoises that live that long probably due to their inactivity and lack of movement.

Citizeninsane said:

Furthermore, it effects at what age they have children etc. It has absolutely nothing to do with what we have been exposed to in terms of bacteria and illness.

Citizeninsane said:

Moreover, if anything, bacteria actually allows us to function in different ways that may not be so deleterious as to what you think. You know how much bacteria is in you right now? Functioning in ways that aren't necessarily negatively impacting you? Look up probiotics.

Citizeninsane said:

So the human species would essentially have to be something akin to a tortotise in terms of inactivity and have children at the ages of 100+.

Citizeninsane said:

Also, if it is the case that we all as a species stemmed from Adam and Eve as two singular ancestors, then it would follow that we could transfer any bodily organ from the human being to another human being. E.g. Take the cheetah that bottle-necked several thousand years ago to a very drastically low number in the population, but still considerably higher than two.

Citizeninsane said:

They have a high infant mortality rate due to the lack of genetic variance, but the transfer of blood and organs is much more accepted within the species. However, look at the human being, do you think we can just transfer any organ to another with ease and fluidity? If that were the case, medicine would be completely different, and the increase in genetic defects would most likely be increased, along with high infant mortality rates. Maintaining a literal interpretation of the Adam and Eve =/ cannot be reconciled with the modern day theory of evolution via means of natural selection.

Citizeninsane said:
if it is the case that we all as a species stemmed from Adam and Eve as two singular ancestors, then it would follow that we could transfer any bodily organ from the human being to another human being.

Citizeninsane said:
AzuStar, please, if you could, read the following article. From the your posts I gleam that your trying to be honest regarding this reconciliation, and I don't mean any ill-will, but if you don't understand something, you shouldn't just flat-out disagree with something but rather come to understand and then disagree. Here is the article regarding my example of the Cheetah, if the Human being followed in the same fashion, well, we would exhibit similar properties, but the problem is that we do not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_diversity

Section regarding coping with poor genetic diversity

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/070701_cheetah

AzuStar said:


im sorry if i sounded a bit hardheaded, i was just somewhat confused on what you were saying to i made an assumption. in retrospect i should have asked for more of an elaboration firstly. thank you for the info, ill read over it.

Shiratori99 said:
Wait, are you seriously trying to argue that it's scientifically possible that humans lived for 900 years 10000 years ago?

Citizeninsane said:

If we descended from one gene pool, we would ALL be compatible, but because we have a wide array of genetic diversity, it indicates that we have and originated from a large genetic pool.

Citizeninsane said:

Also, I said inactivity with the birth rate being at a much older age, sure the Sloths may be inactive, but they also most likely have children at very young ages, thus in terms of their genetic "purpose", they fulfilled their purpose to breed for the species.

Citizeninsane said:

But if you have a species of e.g. clams or the example I gave, tortoises, these branches of animals tend to favor waiting long periods before having children which along with the fact that they stay inactive, increases their life span since they are still fertile after several centuries.

Citizeninsane said:

At this point if you want to say Eve had children at 100+ years, I really have no reply, at this point that is just pure ad hoc speculation and nothing more can be said regarding that sort of assertion. The point is that the human being can start having children at such young ages that the likely-hood of our originating ancestors being somehow long-lived individuals, seems dubious and unlikely.

Shiratori99 said:
Wait, are you seriously trying to argue that it's scientifically possible that humans lived for 900 years 10000 years ago?

BeyondNero said:

The world is improving, slowly, but improving.
Science has created vaccines, sent us into space, found DNA, made operations possible, the discovery of atoms, the invention of human flight, the internet, the computer, and countless other wonders we humans have created with the collected knowledge of our race.

Even "The Old Testament" has been studied, and it has been found out that the current christian god "Yahweh", was simply a god of war to the early Israelites.
They were a polytheistic religion once, three gods, two was outlawed when the followers of Yahweh became a huge majority, and then the stories were rewritten. Shows the truth behind religion don't it?

Shadow55 said:
(i.e. Who/what created the universe, how old the earth is, evolution, etc)

YoukaiNoYama said:


Science is clear: No human lived for more than 122 years and 164 days.
So I guess he shouldn't try to use science as argument next time. XD