[quote=Dooley]
The problem is that evolution is taught without mentioning even the possibility of a designer.
[\quote]

It does not need a designer , tje direct opposite
Can you figure out a " trial and error " super natural designer ?

The designer could be necessary at the very beginning for the devlopment of the initial primordial entity capable of evolving

Afterwards the process is automatic , except maybe , the creation of an immortal soul , changing the monkey into a man

Evolution by itself does not need a designer, the direct opposite
The ancient animals were ridicously ineficient
Can you figure out a " trial and error " super natural designer ?

The designer could have been necessary at the very beginning to create the primordial form of life capable of evolving and later on to create the immortal soul to change the monkey into human being

All the rest has been proven to be an automatic process

Tiles,
I never said I was against science. Science is good, and can be used for good purposes. However science can also be used for bad purposes. A scientist could use his knowledge to make horrible weapons, to kill people. Does this mean science is bad, or that the scientist is bad?

Religion is the same. Most religions have a very similar message as far as our life on earth is concerned. Most religions I've read about agree that there is a soul which lives beyond our life, and that if we believe and do good deeds, our souls will experience a better afterlife than those of us who choose to deny this and do bad deeds.

Religious people generally are those who look at the world and see it as a thing of beauty, and have a feeling that there is a very powerful force which must have created all this. When they read or hear about God, they connect this feeling with what they have read, and they believe in it.

Yes, there are bad people out there who claim to believe in God, and they do all sorts of bad things in order to force other people to accept their religion. This is a sad fact, and it is not the intent of most religions, but people do it anyway. Can you blame the religion for the actions of some people who clearly ignore it's teachings?

Let's assume you're right about Iran, that it is a place where people are forced into a particular religion. Are the actions of these people their own responsibility, or is it the religion's fault?

The Quran clearly states:
"There is no compulsion in religion. The right direction is henceforth distinct from error. And he who rejecteth false deities and believeth in Allah hath grasped a firm handhold which will never break. Allah is Hearer, Knower." (2:256)

No compulsion means no one should be forced to believe in anything. We can't be forced to believe in something, believing is a matter of the mind, not the body. Forcing someone would only make them hate that religion more, even if they choose to lie and say they believe.

Sadly, many religious authorities have not paid heed to this command. But as I mentioned before, it is not only religious authorities who do bad things to people. Hitler did bad things in the name of National Socialism, Stalin did bad things in the name of Communism, early Americans did bad things to the natives in the name of 'Manifest Destiny', the list goes on and on. It's a problem of humans getting greedy, not of religion.

The process is automatic, but where and how it came about is still unknown. While this did a lot of damage to the Christian doctrine of creationism, it does not contradict the Quran at all.

Also, there are scientists who claim that due to the complexity of the cell, it's so unlikely that life could have emerged by chance, that the idea of a designer is plausible. It is an idea, which like any scientific hypothesis, requires study and research. The Big Bang is an idea, we don't know for sure exactly how or what happened. We cannot yet prove that it happened, or how it happened, yet it is taught in science classes.

Stop bullshitting there are no serious scientists who support the idea of a designer and again who is making the claim that he already knows? You are the one who says he knows that god did it. Religious believe should not be treated with any respect just because you believe something it doesn't make it true. Which morally normal person would mutilate children genitals? Only religious lunatics would think of that to please god, what you do is cherry picking the parts you agree with, if it really would be the word of a supreme being you have the accept everything from genocide to mutilation.

I just hope that more rationalists stand up and fight that ultimate wickedness of all the religions because they are intellectual slave holders and the enemies of civilization.

Give me ONE proof for the existance of your god. Then let's talk again

Your god doesn't exist. There is no proof for it. But a ton of proofs speaks against it. Which means your god is disproven.



How comes that religious people always think of horrible weapons and killing when it comes to science? Violent people it seems

As told, either you accept science and what science finds out. Then you have to accept that the world is a bit older than a few thousand years and NOT made by a god.

Or you don't accept science, tell the people the world is just a few thousand years old, there is a big uncle sitting at a cloud up there, playing nonsense with our souls.

In that case please never go to a doctor anymore. Because it is the same science, the same scientic methods. For both. Archaeology and medicine. And for all the rest of science.

You cannot accept the parts you like and discard the ones that you dislike. An apple will not fall upwards just because you claim to have a god that inverts the gravity.



Ah, and the rest is blind, right? I see

What makes YOU think that YOUR world sight is the better one? What gives YOU the right to decide what is beauty and what i am allowed to see? What gives you and your religious leaders the righ to tell me what i have tho think?

You don't have that right.



Feelings? You feel a powerful force? That is where science comes in handy. It can proof if your theory of a powerful force is right or wrong. And science did. It hasn't found any proof for your told force. There is none. Your feeling was imagination. They found other forces instead. And they found lots of stuff that disproofs big parts of the bible. Science has disproven your theory.

Religion claims to have the only truth. Religion relys at so called holy books. But these holy books are disproven. Which brings us into a dilemma: your only truth cannot be true when the book at which it relys is disproven.



You still haven't understood the concept of your own religion, have you? It is a tartar concept. It is an ancient concept. With a king at the top. Non-democratic. Violent. Pushy. Dangerous. Religion just exists to control people. They promise you a so called paradise when you do what they want. They tell you you will burn in a hell when you don't. And with that promise and with that fear in front of your eyes you dance for their melody. That's the concept: control.



See above. Religion just exists to control people. No big difference if the tartar is a muslimic leader or a christian priest. They both pray fear and perdition. It's just that in the western world the religious leaders have lost the control over law. Not longer the word of a god is equal the law in a country. Means they are not longer allowed to torture or to kill different-minded people. Well, at least not officially. But they found other methods meanwhile. Creationism and intelligent Design is one example.


No compulsion, eh? Please. What would you call "and when you don't do what we want you will end in a place called hell" then? And that is not the only terror.

When you don't believe whan we tell you we will cut off your balls, give it you to eat, slit your wrist and hang you up on your bowels. But please don't see it as compulsion. You have the choice ...

Religion makes unfree.



Now that is nice. Just because there are worse people than religious leaders means religion is good now? Err, that doesn't fit to your heaven/hell, your black/white concept. And doesn't fit anyways. Because we talk about religion at the moment, and not about Hitler.



No real scientist will ever say something like that. Very likely that you have read such things at one of the faked scientic looking creationism pages. There is nearly no chance to read an article from a real scientist nowadays, this much of this fake pages exists. Lies. A flood of lies.

That's the whole point. Everytime i have to do with religion i have to do with fake and lies. The whole concept is built on top of that lies. And i have to do with a special kind of slavery. But that is another story.

Allow me to respond:
If you define 'serious scientists' as those who do not support the idea of intelligent design, then I guess you're right :P

I never said I 'knew' that God created life (the universe), I said it is one option. I happen to 'believe' that it is the most likely option, so that lead me to search out a religion. It was not the other way around. I used to be agnostic, and believed that religions were bad.

I think you're mixing up Islam with Christianity and Judaism. In Islam, circumcision is allowed, but it is not a requirement. Also, certain forms of circumcision actually effect the function of the sexual organs, these are forbidden. These practices existed in the Middle East, Africa and Asia before Islam.

Regarding Genocide, the Quran allows Muslims to defends themselves against aggression, but is clearly forbids attacking people unprovoked. Even in a war, it demands that a distinction be made between soldiers and non-combatants.

So I don't have to accept bad practices which you claim are a part of my religion. Nor is this the place to discuss these things. We are discussing whether or not 'Creationism' should be taught in science class.

As I've said before, I don't think 'creationism' as it's taught in the Bible, should be taught in science class. However, I do think that the idea of a designer is a viable hypothesis which should not be left out.

I feel bad that I have to tell you this. It's as if you haven't read anything I've written.

I've said it before, but I will explain again. I don't think you can prove God's existence. However, I think there are things in the universe which point to a God, or designer being there. One of them is the complexity of life, one of them is the order and harmony in nature, like cycles of day and night, the exact timing of the sun and moon, the way water evaporates from the sea, and falls as rain on the land. These are not 'proof' of God, but they indicate His existence to me (and many other people).



Please provide one proof that God does not exist...




I agree. The Bible is full of nonsense which is disproven. That's why I'm not a Christian.




Your right. Science teaches us facts about the world. I don't reject any of them. So far I have not found anything in the Quran which contradicts science.

If you're talking about miracles, that's a different story. There is more than one way to understand miracles. One is that since God created the laws of the universe, He is also able to suspend them whenever He wills. Another is that the miracles which are mentioned, are actually events which occurred within the regular laws of physics. The miraculous part is that they happened exactly when they were needed, i.e. God arranged these events to happen in advance.

Let me give you an example:
In the Quran, there's a story of the prophet Jonah, who is washed up on an island after his unfortunate encounter with the whale. The Quran mentions that God caused a tree to grow over him. Many Muslims view this as a miracle, i.e. a tree just suddenly grew very quickly over the prophet. However, another way to look at it is that God just made sure a seed would land in that spot, 20 years earlier, so that a tree would be there to protect the unconscious prophet from the elements.



No I don't, nor did I ever say that I do. Why must you insist on accusing me of things which I never did? I am not the Pope!



Two things: The Bible, I agree is disproven, at least it isn't 'ALL' true. I do believe that parts of it are true, but that much of it is just written by humans.

As for feelings, what are they for? Don't tell me you never acted on a feeling. You eat food, right? Do you go to the lab and have x-rays done on your stomach, to make sure you're really hungry before you eat?

The point is that feelings can tell us things that are just as important as science. Can you prove that your friend actually likes you? Did you make him take a lie detector test? How can you know for sure that your friend is not secretly your enemy, and he's just waiting for the right moment to cheat you?



You have not read anything about Islamic government. First of all, the Quran does not specify what type of government Muslims should have, but it does make it clear that decisions should be made by mutual consultation, in Arabic 'shura'. This is similar to an election or vote, but keeps the final decision with the leader. The point is, the leader is supposed o be listening and understanding the people, it's not just a one way street.

The very early Islamic leaders were chosen by the people closest to the Prophet Muhammad. He also laid out some guidelines as to how leaders should behave. A person in a position of leadership will be in chains on the Day of Judgment. This means that they are responsible for the actions of the government, and they would be punished more harshly by God if they abuse their power.

He told us that obedience (to government) is only required in virtuous things. Also, that the best person is the one who stands up against a tyrant (evil king).

For several generations, Muslims followed these basic rules of government, leaders were elected or appointed based on good character, rather than family lineage or wealth. However it wasn't long before greed took over, and a monarchy was set up, where the leadership was passed to the previous leaders heirs.

However, you can't blame the religion for this, it's going against the religion.



Everyone has the right to accept or reject this. I can't treat you badly, just because you don't believe in God.



I think you have me confused with the Pope again. Things like the Spanish Inquisition did not happen in the Muslim world. The Quran itself commands that there be no compulsion.




You missed the point. I am not arguing that religion is good 'because' some non-religious people are bad. I am arguing against your statement that religion makes people do bad things. I think some people do bad things, whether for religion or nationalism or whatever excuse they make. It's not the religion that's the cause, it's the people.

Even if you wiped out all religions from the world, and nobody could even remember anything about them, you will still have some people getting greedy and killing people in the name of some other concept... maybe science



There are 'creationists' who claim to be scientists. I understand that. They are trying to skew science to fit the Bible. This is wrong. However, there are also 'scientists' who reject creationism, but accept the idea of a designer, at least as one possible explanation.

Tiles, I'm not trying to force you or anyone to believe what I do. I'm sorry you've had such a bad experience with religious people. I hope I am not one of the people who turned you away from religion.

I'm just trying to explain this topic the way I see it. If you believe in democracy, like you said, it should not hurt to hear someones opinion.

Same here



I mean SCIENTISTS, not fakers and liers

Google for Darwin. And you will find 10000 creationistic pages first. Full with out of context quoted text. Full with twisted facts. Full with lies. That's what i meant.

A serious scientist would provide the facts. And would provide the solution he has found, based onto the facts. A serious scientist would never quote other sources out of context. Or cheat, betray and lie. Because that would damage what he wants to tell. Because other scientists could disprove it easily when he would tell a lie. See the system? There is no space for lies. It is a system where everybody can proof every step. Science relys at facts. Science is proven knowledge. And it is proven again and again. Because every student is forced to try to disproof the theories. It is a system which does everything that just the truth survives.

Religion is the opposite. It is not interested in truth. Religious leaders tries to catch as much people as possible. With all tricks. Their weapon is lie and cheating. Their goal to control people. And that counts for all religions. Religion is lie. Now tell me what is good at a lie?

It's these lies that convinced me to keep my hands away from religions by the way. I started to think by myself. And found all those inconsistencies in even the very first moments ...



And i say it again, it is YOU who needs to proof the existance, not me to prove the NON-existance.

Besides that. Your told points are still no proof. I just see some fairy tales around things that can easily be explained when you have a closer look at it. Lies. Again. This just shows how easy you can be influenced when the right people tells you the right lies

Congrats to those ratters at that point. They always find the right ones that listens ...



The proof is: there is NO PROOF FOR the existance of your imaginary god. Plus a ton of inconsistencies and disproven points connected to that. Which means this theory is disproven.

It is Innocent until proven guilty. Not vice versa.

It is not everything imaginary exists until somebody disproofs the posibility of its existance. It is those imaginary things does NOT exists until somebody proves its existance. Else we would have a big problem. Because i have a very strong imagination. I can think of myriads of fairy beings. And my gods would've killed your god in an eyeblink anyways ...

Your god doesn't exist as long as you cannot provide a proof for its existance. And that proof has to come from you, not from me.

Christian faith, and also muslim faith builds onto a book. This book tells that there is a god. But this book is disproven in its very first sentences. There was no water everywhere. There was also not just up and down because the earth is round. There ...

Genesis IS disproven. Your almighty god didn't even know how he has made its own universe it seems. Means your book lies at that points. What makes you think that it says the truth at even the parts that are never provable at all? When it tells you that there is a higher being called god? It lies even more at that point.

For the rest, i think we have discussed those points again and again now. Quoting out of a book and telling this quote is the proof is no valid argument for me. Not as long as it cannot be proven outside of the book. Even more because big parts of your book is even already disproven as lies.

And we are back at that point: Please provide one proof that your God DOES exist. Then let's talk again

Okay, I think we're getting somewhere. I think we have come to agree on some things:

1. Since you didn't mention it in your last post, I assume you agree that bad things which religious people do, does not disprove the religion - IF - the religion does not actually tell them to do those bad things.

2. I agree with you that if a religion is based upon lies, then it is a bad thing.

"Verily those who invent a lie concerning Allah will not succeed." (Quran 10:69)

The Quran actually forbids telling lies, especially about God. However, would you agree that if a prophet was telling the truth, then the religion would be good? I mean, assume there is a God, just for the sake of argument, and that He did actually communicate with a person. Would the message still be bad in your eyes, or would it be good?

To take it further, if a prophet came to you, and showed you a miracle, and you saw it with your own eyes, would you then believe it?

If we can agree on this, then I think we can proceed to discuss the proof for God's existence.