Have you ever made someone question their beliefs via religious debate?

Originally posted by OpinionatedB
I agree with that, I think I am very rare in that I know the rational arguments and explainations of why I happen to be religious, whereas an atheist generally knows why he is such. Atheism in my opinion however, is very similar to religion because it is a belief system, you must have faith in order to be an atheist, the same as you must have faith in order to be religious, because there is not absolute proof for either one.

Atheism is similar to religion in a sense that religious people are 99.9% atheists (in general). They show disbelief towards all but one God. Atheism differs in the sense that it takes one more step with disbelief towards all Gods. Nonetheless, it's not like religion. For explanation to why, just see Russell's tea pot. Anyway, that is besides the point. Evolution is not strictly for atheists. One can believe in God(s) and still acknowledge the fact of evolution.

reply to post by Stormdancer777


I love spirituality, but i don't associate it with Religion or man made god, Spirituality existed BEFORE religion and god. thus im into Meditation and Yoga and the likes.. sadly its hard to do them.. busy lifestyle..

Originally posted by OpinionatedB

yet, it is based on faith (in science) that they lack faith (in a creator)

see the dilema?

Nope. "Faith" in observable and testable ideas and their results (verifiable facts) is nothing like blind faith to silly unsupported myths that are discredited by the former.

reply to post by rhinoceros


which I do... both (creation and evolution) are aknowledged equally in my belief, as they should be.

Originally posted by OpinionatedB
reply to post by rhinoceros

 

which I do... both (creation and evolution) are aknowledged equally in my belief, as they should be.

Mountain of evidence supporting evolution and contradicting creation vs. no evidence what so ever. How are these equal?

reply to post by rhinoceros


but the atheist does not have all the answers, the atheist thereby relies upon 'faith' that someday science will have the ability to provide all those yet unknown answers.

It is still faith in an unknown thing.

Originally posted by OpinionatedB
reply to post by rhinoceros

 

but the atheist does not have all the answers, the atheist thereby relies upon 'faith' that someday science will have the ability to provide all those yet unknown answers.

It is still faith in an unknown thing.

Is this about evolution vs. creation or the existence vs. nonexistence of deities? These are two different topics. The former was settled a long time ago. Evolution is a fact and creation is nonsense. The latter on the other hand will (I guess) remain open to debate until the end of times.

Originally posted by luciddream
reply to post by Stormdancer777

 

I love spirituality, but i don't associate it with Religion or man made god, Spirituality existed BEFORE religion and god. thus im into Meditation and Yoga and the likes.. sadly its hard to do them.. busy lifestyle..

I understand,
You are not to busy, if you consider every aspect of life is a spiritual journey, prayer and meditation become a constant, you live it.

I was raised a devout Christian and accept the beauty of certain scriptures as well as the beautiful teachings of other spiritual beliefs, timeless truths can be found in them,

One specifically would solve all the worlds woes.

It is something we claim to do everyday. It is something atheist do and believers do, if you do this, you are spiritual.

reply to post by rhinoceros


I am not arguing, to do so is stupid and pointless (see my first post in this thread)... you have fun with your religion (atheism) and I will enjoy mine (theism)...

good day

Originally posted by OpinionatedB
reply to post by rhinoceros

 

I am not arguing, to do so is stupid and pointless... have fun with your religion (atheism) and I will enjoy mine (theism)...

good day

I do not acknowledge your stance that atheism is a religion. You have not provided evidence to support it. Atheism is, "in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities." As I said before, look up Russell's tea pot if you're not familiar with it. I don't claim to know for a fact that Gods or Russell's tea pot don't exist. So maybe I'm more of an agnostic. However, to me it seems like the existence of deities would require the most complex explanation ever, and keeping in mind that there's no signs of such things, I lean towards their nonexistence.

Good day to you too. I don't care if people believe in Gods or not. However, I find it offensive when people refuse reality and deny facts like evolution without providing any supporting evidence for their stance. It's ok to question evolution (questioning things is central to scientific process), however, one should do so with evidence and reason. Instead, what we see here is people arguing from ignorance and copy&pasting age old already debunked creationist propaganda. That will not lead anywhere..

Originally posted by OpinionatedB
reply to post by luciddream

 

yet, it is based on faith (in science) that they lack faith (in a creator)

see the dilema?

Yet those who are blinded faith are truly blind since they can not see the truth because they are blinded by religion or science.

reply to post by Julio

Well, for myself, I am a Wiccan, and have talked down plenty of bible thumpers in my day. I live well within the Bible Belt, so I have had a lot of practice in this. Along the way, I have had at least 12 people ask me all about Wicca, so they could learn, and even my brother left Christianity after doing a research project on his Bible.
As far as the Creation/Evolution debate goes, both exists, don't they? I mean something made this, and this then evolved to it's present state of existence.

Let me ask the atheist this,
Would you like to have a spiritual experience, I could give you one.

reply to post by rhinoceros


Its not a religion, it is simply a belief in an unknown thing that you are willing to spend every waking minute to attempt to convince all of mankind of, and convince them to follow this thing you believe so strongly....

it is certainly different than those religious nutcases who come to your door with pamplets trying to convince people of their faith in their unknown thing, because the atheist comes to your school and trys to indoctrinate the children there instead...

its belief in an unknown, it is a blatant attempt at indoctrination of the young, it is something believed so strongly that you will sit on the computer and get angry at anyone who does not agree with or subscribe to your point of veiw...

nope, not a religion at all

reply to post by Stormdancer777


OMG

I so cannot believe you said that!

Originally posted by jiggerj

Originally posted by Julio
This goes both ways;

In an evolution vs creation debate, have you managed to open the other person's mind?
Or have you ever converted (hate that word) someone?

Yes, and that person suddenly saw the ridiculousness in her religious beliefs. She then said something that, in my opinion, is how most religious people feel.

I said to her, "Do you honestly believe that there is an ALLL-knowing, ALLLL-powerful, inVISible being, who created the WHOLE universe, and who lives in another dimension called heavennnnn?"

Her eyes went wide, as though a band-aid had been suddenly ripped from her brain. She then said, "But I HAVE to believe." With that statement comes the unspoken words: "even though I know it isn't true."

edit on 6/13/2012 by jiggerj because: (no reason given)

Your religion of evolution is no different , your priests the scientists put forth the dogma of evolution and that all living matter spontaneously occurred from non living matter . There is absolutely zero evidence for this happening yet because we are here this is your proof . The deeper scientists delve into the enigma of life the more they see intelligent design . Conservative estimates of the mathematical odds of one type of DNA forming naturally is 1 in 10 to the 40,000 that's a ten with forty thousand zeroes after it .

Your religion takes way more faith than the belief in God who left s proof of his existence through his prophets , I believe if you do an honest investigation into these prophecies using both the bible and secular sources you can only come to one conclusion , God is real and his prophets have told us the truth . Satan is also real and has worked very very hard to distort the truth with multiple lies , 99% of the churches perpetuate the lies of Satan and distort the truth of Gds word .

It starts at the very second verse of the bible , we're the simple word "WAS ". Was mistranslated and it should have been became . The world became void and without form . Genesis is the story of recreation of the earth not its original creation which happened in verse one hundreds of millions of years ago . We all lived on this earth in spiritual bodies for millions of years . All the monolithic structures around he world were built by us and survived the destruction of verse two of Genesis . This is our second time on earth , the first earth age was destroyed because Satan rose up against God convincing 1/3 of gods people to follow him , this is why the first earth age was destroyed .

christiananswers.net...

TextChemicals + Energy: Could They Have Given Birth to the First Life? One chemist has calculated the immense odds against amino acids ever combining to form the necessary proteins by undirected means. He estimated the probability to be more than 10 to the 67th to 1 (1067:1) against even a small protein forming by time and chance, in an ideal mixture of chemicals, in an ideal atmosphere, and given up to 100 billion years (an age 10 to 20 times greater than the supposed age of the Earth). [129] Mathematicians generally agree that, statistically, any odds beyond 1 in 10 to the 50th (1:1050) have a zero probability of ever happening (“and even that gives it the benefit of the doubt!”). [130]

Originally posted by OpinionatedB
reply to post by Stormdancer777

 

OMG

I so cannot believe you said that!

LOL, what do you mean?

I guess people can take it different ways.

Originally posted by OpinionatedB
Its not a religion, it is simply a belief in an unknown thing that you are willing to spend every waking minute to attempt to convince all of mankind of, and convince them to follow this thing you believe so strongly....

it is certainly different than those religious nutcases who come to your door with pamplets trying to convince people of their faith in their unknown thing, because the atheist comes to your school and trys to indoctrinate the children there instead...

its belief in an unknown, it is a blatant attempt at indoctrination of the young, it is something believed so strongly that you will sit on the computer and get angry at anyone who does not agree with or subscribe to your point of veiw...

nope, not a religion at all

I don't subscribe to your definition of my activities. Believe it or not, I actually find ATS entertaining. I'm not telling people what they should believe. I'm just pointing out blatant lies and misconceptions. How does one indoctrinate the young to atheism? There are no scary monsters or eternal suffering if they fail to disbelief.

I see the point of your post though. You can't argue against facts and thus go for strawmen and personal attacks. Good job, you showed where you stand

reply to post by Stormdancer777


yes I am sure there is more than one way to take that

I just took it the wrong way I am certain...LOL



----------------------------

To the OP, good thread, and I had a laugh and so will end my participation with that laugh... S&F for you

Originally posted by Azadok2day

Originally posted by jiggerj

Originally posted by Julio
This goes both ways;

In an evolution vs creation debate, have you managed to open the other person's mind?
Or have you ever converted (hate that word) someone?

Yes, and that person suddenly saw the ridiculousness in her religious beliefs. She then said something that, in my opinion, is how most religious people feel.

I said to her, "Do you honestly believe that there is an ALLL-knowing, ALLLL-powerful, inVISible being, who created the WHOLE universe, and who lives in another dimension called heavennnnn?"

Her eyes went wide, as though a band-aid had been suddenly ripped from her brain. She then said, "But I HAVE to believe." With that statement comes the unspoken words: "even though I know it isn't true."

edit on 6/13/2012 by jiggerj because: (no reason given)

Your religion of evolution is no different , your priests the scientists put forth the dogma of evolution and that all living matter spontaneously occurred from non living matter . There is absolutely zero evidence for this happening yet because we are here this is your proof . The deeper scientists delve into the enigma of life the more they see intelligent design . Conservative estimates of the mathematical odds of one type of DNA forming naturally is 1 in 10 to the 40,000 that's a ten with forty thousand zeroes after it .

Your religion takes way more faith than the belief in God who left s proof of his existence through his prophets , I believe if you do an honest investigation into these prophecies using both the bible and secular sources you can only come to one conclusion , God is real and his prophets have told us the truth . Satan is also real and has worked very very hard to distort the truth with multiple lies , 99% of the churches perpetuate the lies of Satan and distort the truth of Gds word .

It starts at the very second verse of the bible , we're the simple word "WAS ". Was mistranslated and it should have been became . The world became void and without form . Genesis is the story of recreation of the earth not its original creation which happened in verse one hundreds of millions of years ago . We all lived on this earth in spiritual bodies for millions of years . All the monolithic structures around he world were built by us and survived the destruction of verse two of Genesis . This is our second time on earth , the first earth age was destroyed because Satan rose up against God convincing 1/3 of gods people to follow him , this is why the first earth age was destroyed .

christiananswers.net...

TextChemicals + Energy: Could They Have Given Birth to the First Life? One chemist has calculated the immense odds against amino acids ever combining to form the necessary proteins by undirected means. He estimated the probability to be more than 10 to the 67th to 1 (1067:1) against even a small protein forming by time and chance, in an ideal mixture of chemicals, in an ideal atmosphere, and given up to 100 billion years (an age 10 to 20 times greater than the supposed age of the Earth). [129] Mathematicians generally agree that, statistically, any odds beyond 1 in 10 to the 50th (1:1050) have a zero probability of ever happening (“and even that gives it the benefit of the doubt!”). [130]

The famous moving goal post. We ignore the mountain of evidence in favor of evolution and move past subjects covered by the theory. Add some copypasta age old debunked creationist propaganda and embrace the ignorance. Why it's always like this? Why not just once a creationist could argue with facts and reason? Ah yeah.. because it's impossible as these support the very thing they deny.