Religion Irreligion - the world's fastest growing 'religion'

What is your affliation?

  • Non-religious

    Votes: 146 73.4%
  • Christian

    Votes: 26 13.1%
  • Muslim

    Votes: 1 0.5%
  • Jewish

    Votes: 3 1.5%
  • Hindu

    Votes: 3 1.5%
  • Buddhist

    Votes: 3 1.5%
  • Other

    Votes: 17 8.5%

  • Total voters
    199

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skipper kelly

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There is a reason why i stopped posting in these threads, the 2 pages made it absolutely clear why i dont want to be associated with "creationists". Have fun ladies and gents. Just as bad as those militant atheists.
I reckon it's been quite good once it moved past the "religious are uneducated" rubbish. Both believe the Big Bang happened. One doesn't know what caused it to happen. One has faith that God made it happen.
 

Total Power

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I reckon it's been quite good once it moved past the "religious are uneducated" rubbish. Both believe the Big Bang happened. One doesn't know what caused it to happen. One has faith that God made it happen.
Agree, but asking questions which science doesn't attempt to answer is a strawman. His question is more philosophical in nature about the first cause than scientific. He is ranting about the scientific method without understanding what it is, Roy has explained this to him a million times already.
 

skipper kelly

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Agree, but asking questions which science doesn't attempt to answer is a strawman. His question is more philosophical in nature about the first cause than scientific. He is ranting about the scientific method without understand what it is, Roy has explained this to him a million times already.
My interpretation is that THS said the big bang can be discounted but meant the big bang can be discounted as the origin of the universe. It is quite obvious that he was talking about the origin of the universe and what caused the big bang. A discussion on the cause of the big bang is valid and worth reading IMO. I found THS's argument to be quite logical. I don't have to agree with him or believe the same thing to see his point.
 

Total Power

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My interpretation is that THS said the big bang can be discounted but meant the big bang can be discounted as the origin of the universe. It is quite obvious that he was talking about the origin of the universe and what caused the big bang. A discussion on the cause of the big bang is valid and worth reading IMO. I found THS's argument to be quite logical. I don't have to agree with him or believe the same thing to see his point.
Totally agree and i have had discussions on this subject several times with many militant atheists like Snakey in this thread. But my point was different.His initital argument was "big bang is just a theory" and not a fact, is just lack of understand of how science works. I am not knocking his argument about first cause but creationists do have a tendency to pile shit on other disciplines like science without understanding that science is a quest, science will change itself as per evidence. There is no need to heap **** on a discipline because you believe otherwise.

You wanna bet he is going to pile **** on the theory evolution as well? Just lack of understanding of science, that's it.
 

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Totally agree and i have had discussions on this subject several times with many militant atheists like Snakey in this thread. But my point was different.His initital argument was "big bang is just a theory" and not a fact, is just lack of understand of how science works. I am not knocking his argument about first cause but creationists do have a tendency to pile shit on other disciplines like science without understanding that science is a quest, science will change itself as per evidence. There is no need to heap **** on a discipline because you believe otherwise.

You wanna bet he is going to pile **** on the theory evolution as well? Just lack of understanding of science, that's it.
Fair enough. I tend (now) to keep reading the words posted (regardless of the poster) in good faith and if it turns to shit then stop reading. Usually I stop when the "religious are uneducated" rubbish gets posted, but for some reason kept reading this time. To me, a respectful discussion of what caused what is fascinating. I also found THS's posts to be thought provoking.

Cheers.
 

Total Power

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Fair enough. I tend (now) to keep reading the words posted (regardless of the poster) in good faith and if it turns to shit then stop reading. Usually I stop when the "religious are uneducated" rubbish gets posted, but for some reason kept reading this time. To me, a respectful discussion of what caused what is fascinating. I also found THS's posts to be thought provoking.

Cheers.
That is 100% right, i have been belted from pillar to post by both atheists and theists alike, so i exactly know what you mean. I have clearly stated the most scientific and best ways to find answers to this question of consciousness is to use the most sophisticated machine known to man, your own body. But the moment i say that questions like "what evidence you have" etc etc comes in. Well i wish i can meditate for you, but since i can't you need to be your own scientist, there are hundreds and thousands out there who can validate what i am saying, you just won't find it in a lab (infact you can find extraordinary results of meditation in the famous harvard experiment which actually stunned scientists).
 
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That is 100% right, i have been belted from pillar to post by both atheists and theists alike, so i exactly know what you mean. I have clearly stated the most scientific and best ways to find answers to this question of consciousness is to use the most sophisticated machine known to man, your own body. But the moment i say that questions like "what evidence you have" etc etc comes in. Well i wish i can meditate for you, but since i can't you need to be your own scientist, there are hundreds and thousands out there who can validate what i am saying, you just won't find it in a lab (infact you can find extraordinary results of meditation in the famous harvard experiment which actually stunned scientists).
Cheers. I have read much of your stuff over the years.

The best way for me is to let go of things I cannot control. It works. Never been happier, never been more content with myself and my lot, and never been broker. Letting go of all the crap is pure freedom.
 

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Thanks Total Power , I thoroughly enjoy reading your posts on this and alike subjects, as I do TheHeatleyStand and Roylion , I find them thought provoking in the main. I have dropped off posting in this kind of thread as well other than being drawn back in by THS on this occasion, it will be a brief reappearance as I think I have gone as far as I can considering the no evidence standpoint THS is coming from.

On my uneducated comment which was twisted to dumb by THS, I did apologize for that and admit it was a poor choice of words and not meant in the derogatory manner in which it was taken.

I have posted this before a while ago but a couple I am very close friends with are devout followers and church attendees, I have been to church with them for a funeral and a couple of weddings, this sort of discussion has never come up with them or anyone else in the flesh and blood world other than my son(an atheist), x-wife(believer/agnostic) and my father(RIP, a believer in there being something else after physical death but in no way a religious style creator) + very recently my 80 year old mother. I leave my views to this forum as it's not an issue in the slightest in my everyday life.

Finally on atheism which I class myself as when it comes to a religious style creator although I'm open to other possibilities that TP has posted about over the years ie. meditative states. Atheism is a belief system like not collecting stamps is a hobby- not verbatim from the original quote but I prefer this version.

BTW Boston tiger the piss off comment to TP was uncalled for.
 

Total Power

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jason pm you are an example of how everyone should post here. You made a statement and you apologised for it. Watch BT apologise for abusing me? won't happenn. Too many people here abusing others cause their cults been questioned. Nothing should be beyond question, question everything. I have repeatedly said not to believe in what i am saying and try it yourself. People are so scared to say "i don't know".


God should have had an 11th commandment in the OT. "Thought shall not abuse".:straining:
 

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Total Power

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Boston tiger i said something about creationists, not directed at you in any way. More aimed at HS trying to "invent" his science as he goes, this is why i am not engaging with him. Believing in god doesnt mean you are against science. You haven't spoken against science, nor you have denied evolution, so why you think it was against you?

This us vs them and picking sides doesn't do anyone any favours, specially when i talk about god the first question most people ask "oh so you don't believe in evolution". This is mostly cause of creationists, some young earth, some evolution deniers, some big bang deniers etc etc. This is why i said i don't want to be associated with them, they are just as bad as militant atheists denying anything non-material CAN exist (i use existence in a loose sense, as it has a different meaning in the material world than in higher dimensions/planes). You do not fiit in that category cause you haven't argued against science.
 
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TheHeatleyStand

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jason pm you are an example of how everyone should post here. You made a statement and you apologised for it. Watch BT apologise for abusing me? won't happenn. Too many people here abusing others cause their cults been questioned. Nothing should be beyond question, question everything. I have repeatedly said not to believe in what i am saying and try it yourself. People are so scared to say "i don't know".


God should have had an 11th commandment in the OT. "Thought shall not abuse".:straining:
yeah he's a good bloke

I think I got on the attack because I felt my views were being ridiculous as primative
I dont think atheists understand the kind of attack people of faith face both in our society and around the world

it's courageous to stand your ground on something you believe in and not get sucked into the consensus narrative

I might face people here

but if you're a Christian in Asia, the middle east or Africa you're constantly tested .. in many cases with your life!

atheists need to be aware that religion is nothing to shame others on

and it's as logical a choice as anything else

we don't need to be shamed and I feel no shame

and I thought I would fight fire with fire..

sure I'm aggressive but I enjoy debate

and i also enjoy seeing what everybody else has in their armory outside of narratives
 

TheHeatleyStand

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I'm not inventing science by the way

science is about truth that must be proved

anything else is a scientific cult!


Boston tiger i said something about creationists, not directed at you in any way. More aimed at HS trying to "invent" his science as he goes, this is why i am not engaging with him. Believing in god doesnt mean you are against science. You haven't spoken against science, nor you have denied evolution, so why you think it was against you?

This us vs them and picking sides doesn't do anyone any favours, specially when i talk about god the first question most people ask "oh so you don't believe in evolution". This is mostly cause of creationists, some young earth, some evolution deniers, some big bang deniers etc etc. This is why i said i don't want to be associated with them, they are just as bad as militant atheists denying anything non-material CAN exist (i use existence in a loose sense, as it has a different meaning in the material world than in higher dimensions/planes). You do not fiit in that category cause you haven't argued against science.
 

TheHeatleyStand

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hmmmm yeah hard to debate when you think you know something and then turns out you don't!

not many people think they can lose a debate about creation with science

but the truth is science is also a religion with no foundations of truth in this debate

logic tips more towards religion when all the cards are on the table

but that's not the narrative!

and most people prefer to dwell in the consensus

I've explained consensus earlier
I would love to hear anybody dispell mi thoughts on how consensus is created

that's another debate I suppose but love to participate if a thread on it appears!

I've said it before.. but people need to get into philosophy once more.. so we can think more about the world instead of follow blindly

this is also why there's so many bandwagoners who hop on and off narratives and attitudes

because they follow what's in without thinking about the issues

look at the whole of the donut not the hole in the donut!
 
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but the truth is science is also a religion with no foundations of truth in this debate
Science is not a religion. Science is the systematic approach to acquiring knowledge about how the world works using the scientific method - that is, generating hypotheses and theories through continual observation and testing.

To argue that science is on the same level as religion is to ignore the fact that religious faith broadly does not admit that it could be wrong. Consequently, religions perform no experiments or observations to test its pre-supposed conclusuons

Religion is a broad topic of course, and there are myriad disparate theologies and philosophies. However, I am not aware of any religion that repeatedly tests its propositions - either in terms of small details, or the broad foundations - with experiments and observations. Certainly not the case with any Christian theology that I am aware of.

P.Z. Myers, an evolutionary biologist at Minnesota University wrote in 2007

"The tired and familiar claim that science has to be taken on faith, so it's just like religion. I don't have faith [in science]. I have expectations and hypotheses, but these are lesser presuppositions than what is implied by faith—and I'm also open to the possibility that any predictions I might make will fail."

Scott Atran an anthropologist stated (also in 2007)

"Scientific faith in universal law is not dogmatic. While a scientist must make presuppositions in order to get started, everything is revisable and discardable, even belief in the regular patterning of the universe."

Scientists do not have faith in a pre-determined set of suppositions when making conclusions from scientific data they have collected. In science everything is revisable and discardable at any point, upon the provision of new evidence. In other words any scientific theory or hypothesis is falsifiable. That means there is the capacity for some proposition, statement, theory or hypothesis to be proven wrong. That capacity is an essential component of the scientific method and hypothesis testing.

A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation and/or model of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world. For example the "theory of evolution" refers to a particular model of evolution, not that evolution could possibly not happen.

In contrast religion is a cultural system of behaviours and practices. Religions acknowledge revelation, faith and sacredness, while also acknowledging philosophical and metaphysical explanations with regard to the study and 'meaning' of the universe. What happened before the 'Big Bang' is not known by science. Many religions attribute what happened before or what caused the 'Big Bang' to 'God' or some other supernatural deity/deities.
 
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TheHeatleyStand

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science is a religion if you believe in stuff that isn't proven

lol

you can show me any definition you want

but that's not what science is!

it's how we excuse scientific theories as truth

consensus isn't truth

for instance

your whole big bang theory and creation

you can't begin somewhere after the beginning to explain creation

it's not even logical

and I don't want to go round and round with you about fake science!

either it's proven science or it isn't

otherwise we don't need to use proven methodologies to research and create into real science

we can do whatever we want and don't need to prove it.. create a consensus and call it science!

I don't want to listen to that kind of hocus pocus!

show me real science that's proven and I'll follow you!

if you can't.. don't bother me with voodoo science!

leave it alone man!

believe what you want.. but don't try to prove something you can't prove

and I'll respect you for following scientific cultism..

no problem!

lol

take a chill pill
 

TheHeatleyStand

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you're basically telling me that anything can be believed no matter the holes because some people think science doesn't need to be proven

!


I find that funny.. and that's where so much that's passed off as science is myth and isn't scrutinised as it should be!


but to believe that science doesn't need to be proven as truth means we might as well be living in the movie 'apocalypto' !

because that's where things go

everything that is scientific and narrated and taught should be truth

or at least say.
we don't know but some people believe

that's ok

if scientists don't know the answer they don't need to pretend it's the truth and fact even though it's not!

scientists are like the rest of us
they work on something.
might be a narrative

but they want to not be criticized!

science can't be fiction

and if you're not careful it is fictitious passed off as truth!


so yeah scientists can say whatever they want but it doesn't mean it's truth unless it's proven

you're not getting this because you're not getting it.
or because you want to pretend it doesn't make sense

not because it doesn't make sense!
 
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science is a religion if you believe in stuff that isn't proven
I don't "believe" in "stuff that isn't proven". I lean towards what the available empirical evidence, as idenitifed and interpreted by the experts, says about the likelihood and nature of the Big Bang and indeed evolution. There's no evidence that falsifies either "theory" at the moment, so in the absence of a a more compelling and supported hypothesis/theory they're the ones we go with at the moment.

I see no reason to prefer any other explanation for the development of the universe or the development of life in Earth.

And certainly in the case of evolution, milllons of pieces of empirical (observable, testable) repaeated evidence merely confirm the scientific fact of evolution. The actual model is still being worked on. That's why when scientists refer to the "theory" of evolution they are referring to the model not the scientific fact that evolution does in fact exist.

but that's not what science is!
It's exactly what science is. A statement such as that merely demonstrates your ignorance of the basic tenets of science.

your whole big bang theory and creation

you can't begin somewhere after the beginning to explain creation
Do we really have to recycle the same conversation? You're not reading or understanding what I have previously said.

Yet again

"The "Big Bang" summarises the most widely-accepted scientific theory of how the known universe developed into its present state. Note that the Big-Bang theory does NOT attempt to describe the initial conditions or first cause of the universe. The theory merely addresses the development of the universe from its extremely dense and hot early stages into its present form."........

Science doesn't know what was before or what caused the 'big bang'. If you want to use pure faith to believe that God did it, feel free.
 

TheHeatleyStand

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so science is theory that doesn't need to be proved

that's what you're saying?




ok assuming I believe you lol

what theory does science use to hypothesize about the big bang theory?

we're talking about creation

so what created the big bang that created the universe?
 
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