Question about the LHC and Christianity

[Cerpin Taxt]

You do realize that there is absolutely nothing random about how we came about right?

Generally speaking, genetic mutations are considered random for the purposes of evolutionary theory. Natural selection, on the other hand, is not so random.

I realize that anyone can split hairs about the "true" meaning of "random," also. It remains that the primary "engines" of evolution are generally talked about as random mutation and natural selection.

 

[RESmonkey]

Lol religion

 

[dguy6789]

Indeed, it's true that the mutations that surface could be considered more or less random, what is not random, however, is the fact that a mutation that is beneficial will survive and be reproduced.(Natural selection as you mentioned)

I also want to briefly touch on the definition of Atheist, because many people have a misunderstanding of what it is.

Atheism is NOT a faith, it can't be compared to a faith in any way. Atheists do not claim to know anything about god. They don't claim to know that it doesn't exist. There is just no evidence to support the idea that it exists, so they don't believe it exists. Anyone who claims to know that god doesn't exist isn't an atheist, they are in fact just another type of religious person(Even if they say they are an atheist). An atheist is merely a person who looks at data, evidence, etc.. before forming an opinion, nothing more, nothing less. There is no baseless belief involved. Every single opinion they have is supported by hard evidence, there is nothing that is believed in for no reason.

 

[Modelworks]

Yeah, because clearly anyone who is pro-science supported the Nazi concentration camp experiments. Want to talk about flaws in thinking. Not to mention, they weren't killing them because the people disagreed with their scientific views.

I never said anyone supported the Nazi, you said scientist didn't kill like people using religious excuses and I provided an example of where they did.

Nazi were killing them because they believed under their scientific views that the people were less than human. They were using their experiments on those people to prove their justification for killing them. I doubt the people agreed with their view that Jews were inferior.

It is like during the medieval trials when they would tie a rock to someone and throw them off the bridge, if they drowned they were innocent, came up they were a witch. They use religion as the justification, but that doesn't mean that religion was at fault, man was at fault.

That is the point I'm making. Plenty have been killed trying to further science, plenty not willingly, but you're ridiculous if you claim that by supporting science someone supports that. When scientists disagree, they have a nerd fight. Religious people have a track record of escalating it to killing someone because they disagreed.

I'm sorry you think scientist are some special breed of human that doesn't get angry, doesn't kill other people for pointless reasons, and always thinks logical.

Religion does not have a track record of anything, humanity does.

I made no assumption about all religious people being the same.

Saying that religious people have a track record of killing is grouping them together , murderers and non murderers alike. I don't say scientist are killers, I say humans are killers

You said religious people don't get pissed off against people promoting science. I just cited an example where that clearly was not the case. In fact it is you assuming that I'm not fully aware that the average religious person is not this way.

From the way you got pissed off about how they don't listen and are like children it really didn't seem that way.

 

[Kadarin]

Yo way yo Hom Var Ray ...

Yo Way Rah Jerum Brunnen G

 

[Kadarin]

The fact that I can form a thought or exist at all is proof of an Intelligent Designer.

You believe in God, so therefore the above is proof enough for you. However, your belief in God requires a certain amount of faith on your part, and your "proof" is not enough to convince anyone who does not already believe in God.

 

[DrPizza]

Yeah you are overstating it's importance. Well at least for it's larger implications anyway. To physicist who have been working on this their whole life it IS that important. Basically to boil it down to it's essentials the Higgs Boson is the last missing piece of the Standard Model of particle physics. The standard model is the framework based on quantium mechanics that describe 3 of the 4 fundamental forces of nature and all the interactions between subatonic particles. The Standard Model + general realtivity basically describes almost everything. Now the Stanard Model has made some of the most accurate predictions in human history so most of it is very well grounded (though there are holes and other prblems that people are working on intensely). The Higgs particle is the last piece of this puzzle that has yet to be observed. The Higgs particle (actually the higgs mechanis) gives all the other subatomic particles their masses. For physicists it's like finding the last pieve of a puzzle you have been working on for 60+ years! So yeah it's exciting but it's tecnical and there is obsolutely nothing spiratural about it.

I don't think anyone can know how much or how little its importance is. Einstein's theory of relativity, with the famous E=mc² had few practical applications. Einstein himself said you'd never be able to get to that energy. Then along came the discovery of the neutron - the last piece of the puzzle in the atom - & everything changed.

 

[rudeguy]

You believe in God, so therefore the above is proof enough for you. However, your belief in God requires a certain amount of faith on your part, and your "proof" is not enough to convince anyone who does not already believe in God.

And again...its not my calling to try to sway others. I don't have enough faith in scientists to believe that we came out of a mud puddle that got struck by lightning a couple million years ago. I don't have enough faith to believe that the universe came out of nothing. I believe that space, time and matter were created by something outside of those things.

 

[DrPizza]

"Faith": the reason people use for believing in something that they have no other good reason to believe in.

Also, "I'm not even close to beginning to understand something incredibly complex, therefore I'm convinced God did it. That way, I can rest at night believing that I know the answer." aka the post before this.

 

[Nik]

And again...its not my calling to try to sway others. I don't have enough faith in scientists to believe that we came out of a mud puddle that got struck by lightning a couple million years ago. I don't have enough faith to believe that the universe came out of nothing. I believe that space, time and matter were created by something outside of those things.

Right, but why do you believe so? What evidence do you have to base your belief on?

I'm not sure why you're avoiding the question.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I never said anyone supported the Nazi, you said scientist didn't kill like people using religious excuses and I provided an example of where they did.

Nazi were killing them because they believed under their scientific views that the people were less than human. They were using their experiments on those people to prove their justification for killing them. I doubt the people agreed with their view that Jews were inferior.

It is like during the medieval trials when they would tie a rock to someone and throw them off the bridge, if they drowned they were innocent, came up they were a witch. They use religion as the justification, but that doesn't mean that religion was at fault, man was at fault.




I'm sorry you think scientist are some special breed of human that doesn't get angry, doesn't kill other people for pointless reasons, and always thinks logical.

Religion does not have a track record of anything, humanity does.





Saying that religious people have a track record of killing is grouping them together , murderers and non murderers alike. I don't say scientist are killers, I say humans are killers



From the way you got pissed off about how they don't listen and are like children it really didn't seem that way.

No, I did not say that, I said scientists did not kill because someone had differing opinions on science, which is completely different than the situation you brought up. In fact, the Nazis prove my point as much, if not more than yours. They killed millions of people specifically due to them being a different religion.

I would agree with your point, however when it is widespread and specifically due to them disagreeing due to their religion, then yes, religion is to blame because those ideals were actually practiced/taught/accepted by that religion. Yes, its because the people are stupid, but without a cause to do harm, stupid people wouldn't do that. Too many times that cause has been religion and religion alone. Certainly, pretty much all mass killing has been due to xenophobia, but religion has played a huge part in creating and furthering it.

You're not even understanding what I'm saying. While I'm certain at some point a scientist did get pissed off enough at another scientist due to them having a differing viewpoint that they killed the other, its so uncommon that its pretty much unheard of. The overwhelming actual evidence is that religious people do get angry, solely about religion related things, enough to do harm to other people. You're welcome to try and bring in real data showing scientists are every bit as likely to kill due to a differing view of science, but I'd recommend not wasting your time as the data is not going to be in your favor.

 

[Nik]

Nazis were idealists, not scientists. They didn't murder jews and everyone else because they could scientifically prove they were superior, they simply believed it.

You know, blind faith.

 

[HannibalX]

I can't wait for replicators.

Earl grey. Hot.

 

[evident]

wtf, no

 

[Matthiasa]

Atheism is NOT a faith, it can't be compared to a faith in any way. Atheists do not claim to know anything about god. They don't claim to know that it doesn't exist. There is just no evidence to support the idea that it exists, so they don't believe it exists. Anyone who claims to know that god doesn't exist isn't an atheist, they are in fact just another type of religious person(Even if they say they are an atheist). An atheist is merely a person who looks at data, evidence, etc.. before forming an opinion, nothing more, nothing less. There is no baseless belief involved. Every single opinion they have is supported by hard evidence, there is nothing that is believed in for no reason.

That would be Agnosticism not Atheism.
Atheism says god doesn't exist.

 

[ric1287]

I do believe in God. I do believe that God created the universe and everything in it. I don't claim to understand how it all works though.

Sorry, but that's just stupid logic. "I/we haven't figured it out, so it must just be god. Heh, good enough answer for me". That's the scary line of reasoning that leads people to be content with shit.

And to say you hate religion and believe "God" created everything is nonsense.

 

[Nik]

That would be Agnosticism not Atheism.
Atheism says god doesn't exist.

Correct. It takes just as much faith to believe he does exist as it does to believe that he does not.

Agnostics are folks like me that don't believe either way. I'm open to the idea, but until I see evidence there's no reason to believe either way.

 

[Jeff7]

I can't wait for replicators.

Earl grey. Hot.

You need to watch some Stargate, if you haven't already. (SG-1, seasons 1-8 mainly. Seasons 9 and 10 were kind of like a new series.)

Anyway, watch that, and "replicators" will mean something quite different - and they generally don't bring tea.

Correct. It takes just as much faith to believe he does exist as it does to believe that he does not.

Agnostics are folks like me that don't believe either way. I'm open to the idea, but until I see evidence there's no reason to believe either way.

Well there's the matter of probability. Might there be a higher life form out there than us? Maybe. Probably, in fact. If this is the best the Universe has done, that's kind of sad.
But the deities that we've come up with throughout the years? No, only in our imaginations.

Now, is it technically possible that they all exist, or that some exist? Sure. It's also technically (well, theoretically-technically) possible for all particles in Earth to undergo radioactive decay at the same time. Granted, the proposed half-life of a proton is much much MUCH greater than the age of the Universe thus far, regardless of whether you live in 13.6 billion-year science-land, or 6k year magic land, but even so, half life is about probability.

But, the chances of Earth spontaneously decaying anytime soon is damn remotely slim, put mildly. But I'd say it's much more likely than it would be for Zeus and Yahweh to pop out of my toilet wearing licorice lingerie, because to do that, they'd have to exist first.

So I think I can be pretty safe to say I'm an atheist. Is it possible that I'm wrong? Sure.
Realistically, practically possible? I'll keep an eye on my toilet and let you know.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

That would be Agnosticism not Atheism.
Atheism says god doesn't exist.

You're wrong. Explaining it is time consuming, though, and I've grown weary of doing it, so please examine this graph and educate yourself:

 

[El Guaraguao]

First off...I hate religion. Its just another form of man trying to control man.

I'm not going against science at all...am I? I don't claim to understand anything in this world fully. Anyone that does make that claim is either lying or a fool. I do a lot of research on this kind of thing. I love learning and don't preclude anything.

I do believe in God. I do believe that God created the universe and everything in it. I don't claim to understand how it all works though.

Hey guys, sorry im late to the party. Whats up, NSFW? How you been? That line i put in bold, I think there is something wrong with it. I once knew this chick who would say the same exact thing. except it went like this; "I hate religion. Christianity is not a religion, its a personal relationship with jesus" To me, when people say that, its like they're trying to sugarcoat the whole Christianity RELIGION. Just thought Id throw that out there. We still cool, NSFW?

 

[Jeff7]

Hey guys, sorry im late to the party. Whats up, NSFW? How you been? That line i put in bold, I think there is something wrong with it. I once knew this chick who would say the same exact thing. except it went like this; "I hate religion. Christianity is not a religion, its a personal relationship with jesus" To me, when people say that, its like they're trying to sugarcoat the whole Christianity RELIGION. Just thought Id throw that out there. We still cool, NSFW?

Now see, in a sane world, someone who says, "I have a personal relationship with a dead person who then came back to life" would be considered quite outside the bounds of sanity, on multiple counts.
But where we are now, it's considered perfectly normal.
*sigh*
Oh Elvis, you've never let me down. I know your precious love cannot be erased.



Funny thing too, the concepts of the god Yahweh, and Jesus, came from a religion. How does one go about believing in either of them without accepting the religion they're associated with? Those two are fine, but that which effectively brought them into the collective consciousness is not? How does that work?

 

[Locut0s]

I always liked this argument. I won't post the image as it's too long:

http://friendlyatheist.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/gods-we-dont-believe-in.jpg

 

[El Guaraguao]

Now see, in a sane world, someone who says, "I have a personal relationship with a dead person who then came back to life" would be considered quite outside the bounds of sanity, on multiple counts.
But where we are now, it's considered perfectly normal.
*sigh*
Oh Elvis, you've never let me down. I know your precious love cannot be erased.



Funny thing too, the concepts of the god Yahweh, and Jesus, came from a religion. How does one go about believing in either of them without accepting the religion they're associated with? Those two are fine, but that which effectively brought them into the collective consciousness is not? How does that work?

Very easy. You become an expert cherry picker

 

[Jeff7]

I always liked this argument. I won't post the image as it's too long:

http://friendlyatheist.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/gods-we-dont-believe-in.jpg

Here's my PNG'd version - smaller filesize, and no JPEG artifacts.

 

[Born2bwire]