my brilliant highschool math teacher (an aetheist in an all-girls catholilc school) said this of believing in god/heaven/hell:

if you believe in god and there isn't one, you haven't really lost out if you simply cease to exist upon dying.
however, if you don't believe in god and it turns out there is one, then you've condemned yourself to eternal hell.

i think he was willing to take the risk.

and, folks, don't be too picky with my semantics here. i see the many flaws in the statement. i think this was just his way of introducing a lesson in logic (anti-catholic) statements...

"i don't care if people disagree with me, i don't hate them for it.. nor do i call them names or want to burn them at a stake... "

no but you would like to see gays burned at the stake. as you've said, where is the love? >>

"morality is what separates us from the animals, don't ever forget that..
and when you do.. well.. then its time for slaughter."

pasha on morality and gays —

trigirl

nice logic, but i would rather believe that life or our moment to shine here on earth is much too precious or "sacred" to piss away on the mistaken belief that heaven awaits (as seems to be the case with any number of muslim fundamentalist today or the christian martyrs of yesteryear who tossed themselves to the roman lions.)

i'll take my chances with hell assuming i'm content with my life on earth. besides isn't hell where all the fun people end up? i'll probably even see you there ;)

hotsies: sigh.. listen darling.. this isn't about feelings.. and i am sorry that my posts make you feel angry, and i understand why you don't feel comfortable with that..

with one side of your mouth you say that you are accepting of different people, and witht the other side you say that you don't accept people who think differently than you.. which is it?
you know in greek plays they had actors with two different masks, to portray opposite things, they were called hypocrites..

be honest.. you don't believe in diversity.
you have your set of beliefs and principles that you get from your parents, your friends, tv, that make up your prizm with which you perceive the reality around you..
and that's normal.. but that prizm can distort the reality around you..

pasha - yeah baby an eye for an eye. burn the devout that ignore science as they did the scientists. how far back did they set humanity? they deserve to burn for their zealotry.
when did a rabbit give birth to a snake? what in the hell are you talking about? question theories all you want. evolution is not a theory. darwinism is a theory. question away.
hotsies - faith is a funny thing. if someone walked up to you today and said they were god you would be skeptical and demand some sort of proof. but the faithful are willing to believe god exists in the absence of proof. anecdotal evidence? even the first written records of christ were produced some 50 years after his alleged death. that leaves a lot of room for exaggeration and hyperbole - and flat out fabrication.
you are free to believe as you wish and i will defend that freedom. but that doesn't mean creationists should be allowed to teach fiction (until proved otherwise) as fact. it belongs in a theology class - not a science class.

trigirl,

on second thought, the two of us might already be there.

hotsies - pasha is correct - diversity means you have to put up with small-minded bigots. small-minded bigots like pasha.

yep, yep, puddles.
i don't need faith.
i've got daily proof that hell exists.

trigirl...
however, if you don't believe in god and it turns out there is one, then you've condemned yourself to eternal hell.
i love this argument. it essentially means that this god is so f'n trite that he will send you to hell simply because you don't believe in him - no matter what sort of life you've lived.

e: nazis believe that men were just "blood and dirt".. when you believe that, what difference does it make if you kill few million?
absolutely none..

ask a rape victim what a man can be like.. like a beast driven by lust and instinct.. actually i am insulting beasts here..
morality is what keeps us in check, allows us to live in harmony as a society.. when that goes, its time for slaughter.. men will slaughter each other..

norm- I can't give you proof. That's why I'm agnostic.

pasha- I'm with hotsies. I'm prejudiced against hateful people. I recognize this as a prejudice, and if that makes me a hypocrite, ok. I think it's one of the more minor hypocracies that exist in so many people. And nobody's saying that snakes came from rabbits, one's a reptile, the other's a mammal. No wonder you don't like evolution, as you seem to not understand the concept.

pasha - So if there is no god, there is no morality? You certainly don't have much faith in humanity.

as much as this makes me cringe, maybe religion/theology should be taught in public schools as a specific class. that way at least the kids would have an awareness of some of these debatable issues rather than being subject to an education that is holistically biased one way or the other. the conservatives want other theories to be considered, fine, but let's put them where they belong and add some non-western ideas to the canon. evolution is a basically a biological theory right? then let's put it in biology class. creationism can be part of the religous class, and intlligent design can be part of the intro arch curriculum (ok, maybe not that last one).

puddles- my World History class contained quite a lot of religion in it- emphasizing the facts such as when they began, where, because of what. I thought it was quite interesting, especially learning about Buddhism and Taoism and all those religions that don't get much play in the US.

norm: yes, for once you are right.. its ironic but the term "bigot" was used by the french to abuse Normans..

rationalist: that bid about the snake and the rabbit was to point to a hole in the theory of evolution where one type of animal produced another..
yes your story about husks is very interesting, but i can guarantee you that if the hunting stopped, elephants would regain their husks..
microevolution is one thing.. but macroevolution is science fiction..

so pasha - a rabbit produced a snake? where i come from we try to use FACTS to point holes in theories - not fairy tales. and again - evolution is a fact. not a theory. darwinism is a theory that attempts to explain the workings behind the fact. even if the theory is flawed - and darwinism is - it doesn't negate the fact. complicated - but not impossible to grasp.

a few points.

i never said i was for absolute diversity.. i for diversity, but i dont believe that means one needs to accept people who wish ill on others as "another point of view"..

secondly. just to help, trigirl, you math teacher was reciting a matrix put forth by Pascal, she didnt create that.

And if someone walked up to me on the street and said they were god, i wouldnt just believe them because of the words they spoke, just like if someone toldme "youre in love with me" i wouldnt believe i was in love with that person.. as for proof, sure, but all proof doesnt have to be somethign thats photographable, or able to be charted on a computer.

i believe in god. i believe in evolution. but at some point the universe, and the earth and stuff wasnt around. what existed before that? what wa in the space that the universe is expanding into?

these kind of things make my brain go crazy..i dont think anyones given a "science" answer to these things.. so to me. theres an enormous part of life thats still completely unexplainable by what we know.. and i believe in god.

hope that helps.

i can understand why you might not. and my believe is by no means me sayng with certainty that god exists.. im not sure. but i think it does.

quote: "we didnt have any empirical evidence that tectonic plate action was taking place until the past 200 years. and there wasnt any science proving atomic activity until the past 160 years either..that didnt mean those things didnt exist or werent occuring until they were discovered. just meant that we didnt have the toold of perception at the time."

and this is somehow relevant to saying that a network of stories and beliefs constructed by a people with strong faith and following may someday be found to be truth? i don't think so.

did you mean tusks? which they still grow and are in no way affected by poaching. unless you kill the elephant and remove the tusks. then it won't have any. but it's not evolutionarily stunted.

and if you want to examine nazi mentallity, i'd refer you to the infamous Stanford Prison Experiments of 1973 (or 71... i can't remember), and the Milgram Authority/Obedience study of 1965.

and by the way. even as an aetheist, i think religion should be taught in schools. but in a way which uses religion to bolster understanding. it's impossible to understand modern english literature without some knowledge of what the bible contains for example. religion fundamentally affects the way of thinking of many regions throughout the world. learning it futhers understanding. but it shouldn't be indoctrinated.

oh.

well, i guessmy mission to convert you failed, strawberry.

what do you believe in?

i believe in a God and evolution, both.

its a great point ants.

i think its foolish to teach "intelligent design" as an equal and alternate view of why people look like they do. but its equally silly not to teach christianity in schools. especially considering how much influence it has had on western history.

imagine how much more agreeable our would would be right now if islam was taught in schools. people wouldnt think it was such a radical crazy religion that they are scared of enough to justify killing a lot of "them" "over there"

in the UK (and i think europe in general) all kids study something called "Religious Studies"...

yep, everything thing from christianity to budhism is studied.

The intelligent design 'movement' is not a scientific one. It is a religious/political one, and it is a joke.

i would say far more political than "religious"

Ants: actually, poaching has caused elephants to evolve to have a shorter average tusk length, because the elephants with the biggest tusks were poached, often before they procreated. Because of this, elephants with shorter tusks were more likely to breed, and their decendents had shorter tusks as well, which over a great period of time did affect the average tusk size of the species as a whole. Trying to find the article that I read about this in as we speak... (can you tell yet, that I read way too much random stuff?0

here ya go Ants: Poaching making Chinese elephants evolve tuskless

but isn't that more breeding than evolutionary?

i love english bulldogs... but i wouldn't call their characteristics evolutionary...

ACFA - British Bulldogs have been selectively bred by humans for those characteristics. Evolution is evidenced and applied at the breeding process. Breeding is the action of evolution.

center,
i would argue that the evolutionary process exists whether through the actions of mankind or other natural occurances. we're just a catalyst (or accellerant).

in fact, aren't the results of breeding a good argument in favor of evolution?

diabase got in there before i hit submit.

I think it's evolution in the same way cheetas evolved to be fast because slow cheetas are eaten, and housecats are fast because slow housecats get run over by cars and removed from the gene pool... it's all the same if you accept humans as part of the 'circle of life' for lack of a better term. I think of breeding as a sort of forced evolution (and very sad, don't get me wrong on this point), and sometimes even a sort of devolution.

I read an interesting theory last week about ancient gigantism in plant and animal life. It has been proposed that dinosaurs, based on fossil and bone evidence, are actually too large to have existed - there is a correlation between the mass and muscle of animals, so that things cannot get any bigger due to gravity.

And the reason that dinosaurs did actually exist at that size? Gravity, as a force fluctuates, and at this time in biological history, gravity was 1/4 of the strength as it is today...

Spooky.

Heres the thread.

it is evolution (the elefant case). traits pop up all the time through mutation or randomly, and if the new feature if benefitial, it tends to be passed on. its what survival of the fittest comes from.. in this case, the fitness of an elefant has to do with its undesirability towards poachers, so they are the mutations that survie, and can therefore breed more, and pass on its traits.

correct me if I'm wrong, but hotsies is a Christian that believes in evolution?

Why don't others? You can have both creationism (call it what it is, why the fishy new term?) and evolution. One is generally accepted as science. The other is a religious story.

i don't see anything wrong with being a christian and believing in evolution. i see it as worse to be a christian and just believe what you are told.
the real difference in my head (and i know this is dismissing some stuff) is time. Creationist's want to believe it all happened in a week, while science proves its closer to 3-4 billion years... a little bit of a disparity true, but why, if there is a god, couldn't he/she have let things evolve, instead making instant life? for dramatic effect? no one was around to watch, besides it would be more interesting to watch evolution anyway, though slower.

why is it there are as many discussions on this website about religion than about architecture?

you guys have some serious god-related issues...

ants-origin of species:
chapter one:variation under domestication
chapter two: variation under nature.

get your definition of theory here kids:

theory: a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena.

theory:a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or speculation.

dyske
I think everybody should question it's own relation to religion, since christianism is embedded so much in any cultural production of occidental society, and by extention in a contradictory way in any modern cultural production thanks to XIXth century colonialism. 'Form follows function' is essentially a moralist description of fundametal elements in architecture, and to me it relates clearly to a religious belief in a transcendental perfection that looks like a higher form of intelligence, that humanity can only represent in an architectural form for example, but never achieve for themselves in this world. (God, I whish I could write better English...)

On the other end, the US seem to be struggling more and more with religious fundamentalism in every form, which is probably why everybody here seems to be either obsessed by sex or by religion, or both, just like the rest of the country.

the US is struggling with the capability of critical thinking versus TV.

excellent observation, ej.

that's why, whether we talk about architecture, politics, relationships, or religion, sites like this are valuable: brain activity vs. passive consumption.

Indeed. I find very useful the confrontation with users that are not politically or morally in the same orientation as I am. It prooves that everybody ask themselves questions (or why would they confront their ideas to other's?). And I also need to practice more my English writing. Any topic is fine for that.

Awwww rats. I thought this might be a discussion of new design techniques, smart bldgs, or better materials/methods.

You got trapped just like me. You can't escape now.

I was sent here because of intelligent design....or was it "the devil made me do it"?

this ad was in our sunday albuquerque journal

"Personal Relations: I will talk to anyone for you about anything. Call 220-0325 bet. 4 & 6 p.m. Reverend Mark Savage, Church of Scientology, 8106 Menaul."

talk about getting trapped....

yup, the title picqued my interest as well, and now here i am in a thread that could go on for eternity...
so now that i'm here i may as well add my two cents...

the theory trigirl posted awhile ago is Pascal's wager...

i am all about cold, hard facts... its probably one of my less appealing traits to my friends and family, but i will look up and verify most of what people tell me, if i am at all skeptical... i need to see or read it for myself... here lies my issue with intelligent design... there is no concrete proof it ever occurred...
evolution, on the other hand has been observed in archaelogical findings, through the research of darwin, and by many others since him.
while on a road trip awhile back i actually called into an am radio station i was listening to (i think the topic was something about the catholic church shooting itself in the foot by holding onto the tradition of a paternal fiefdom), anyway, i brought up the fact that they (the catholic church) cast off evolution as nonsense, when there is cold, hard evidence supporting it, and its difficult for someone trained in the sciences, yet still a catholic to have unconditional faith in the church and its teachings. to which the host replies,
"what if adam and eve were monkeys?", implying that there could be truth in both theories...
only after i got off the phone did i think to myself, wasn't man created in the image of God? so if adam and eve really were monkeys, then that would make God a monkey as well... so since those monkeys evolved to be modern day humans, did God evolve as well to reflect their image, or did God evolve and homo sapiens followed suit to maintain their image of God? or did God not evolve at all and we are all waiting to meet King Kong in the sky?

like i said, i have issues believing the creationist shpeal... although i do believe in a higher power.... just not a regimented practice of adoration, repentence and condemnation and pity of those who have not found jesus.

one more thing...

i would suggest a class in morals and ethics to be taught in the place of intelligent design... just the basics, do not kill, do not steal, etc... make kids think about the consequences of their actions.... stuff that will actually help them in the real world...

do you really think that the church should change its doctrines just to appease men?
seriously, how does anyone seriously expect God to play by our rules?

as i read these discussions it becomes more and more apparent that
there is no one who seeks after Him, not even one..
we all have turned away, and have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.
our throats are open graves, and with our tongues we practice deceit. the poison of vipers is on our lips. our mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. our feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark our ways, and the way of peace we do not know.
there is no fear of God before our eyes.