Rant on Theories, Laws & Misconceptions Options

[Supersprynt]

I hesitated creating a thread regarding this but this is really the best medium in which many people can talk openly about something w/o much consequence. Plus I'm big on freedom of speech and so here it goes.

Friday night I go and see Damon Wayans stand up. Second time I saw him, and he was pretty funny the first time. This time he wasn't nearly as funny. Mainly because he started attacking anything that wasn't Christian. Oh boy. So he goes on to say that evolution is the stupidest thing he's ever heard and goes about mocking how its ridiculous something just formed and one day hopped out of the water and another day got legs and another day jumped up into a tree and then finally said "I got to get a job" as a human.

Hilarious. Oh wait, its not. In fact I was flabberghasted and the level of sheer stupidity emanating from this mans mouth. Evolution is the stupidest thing he's heard? Did he think it happened in 6 days? He then continued to say that atheism is on the rise and its basically got to be stopped and how its horrible not to believe in anything.

By now your thinking, where is he going with this? My dilemma which is actually eating at me is how many of you think that evolution isn't real? How many people think that evolution happened overnight; and how many people are under the impression that evolution is just a hypothesis, nothing more than a guess; how many people think atheism is evil? Im genuinely curious.

If I dont get any responses to this I'll chalk it up to I wrote too much, you got tired, fell asleep and drooled on your keyboard. I also want to say that if you do decide to respond, you do it in an intelligent, RESPECTFUL manner. I'm not looking for this to get closed because religion is a very very touchy subject. This is primarily for those who have an open mind, and willing to engage in intelligent conversation.

Thanks.

[jgreening]

Having let this topic rest on my mind for a day, I came up with something I think might be useful to contribute.

A person who believes in God does so out of faith. If we could prove (in the scientific sense) that God exists, there would be no faith needed to believe. Thus, a person who belives in God will always be unable to convince the person using deductive logic of the proposition. If all you have in your arsenal for intelligent thought is logic, you will be unable to conceive of the possibility that absolute truths might be found through faith. Its simply not logical.

Why is this important? Because if you are searching for the answer about whether there is a God, you will NEVER be able to answer that question scientifically.

So, if not logic, what do you base your belief on? There are many answers for this question but none of them will satisfy the scientific skeptic.

Lets try a little different tact on this. Why is it important that something be "provable" to be believed? I just argued above that if its provable, it requires no belief. Notwithstanding that, lets take something more simple than the existence of God.

Do you believe that being exposed to art (music, theater, etc) can effect fundamental change in a person?
Do you believe that laughter gives a person peace?
Do you believe that people need other people to lead fulfilling lives?

The answers to these questions may be opinions, yes. But they can also form the basis of a deeply held beliefs. The answer to these questions will never be able to be proved scientifically. Does that make them any less "true"? - I know what your thinking: "theres no scientific truth to those things". Thats not my question. My question is does the fact that no one can prove that laughter gives a person peace mean that the person who believes must be incorrect? HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY BE SO FIRMLY CONVINCED THAT LAUGHTER GIVES A PERSON PEACE????? YOU CAN'T PROVE IT!!!!!!! And the implication is that because it can't be proved, the believer must be wasting his time on a blind guess.

This gets us back full circle to one of Erik's original statements. He said something like religion is based on feelings and blind faith. Lets just say he meant "faith" for purposes of our discussion here. My response to that, as I mention above, is that he is absolutely right. However, because I make room for the possibility that both conclusions reached through scientific thought and those reached through belief can be true, I don't consider the conclusion to be an indictment of religion like he does.