What does the Catholic Church and Paris Hilton have in common?

[Mr Stabby]

Who's to say that the universe doesn't have a purpose, that everything just came together through astronomically low chances. What are the odds that carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, hydrogen, and oxygen all came together randomly to form self-replicating molecules? Everything that we have discovered so far can't fully explain the origins of the universe and the creation of life. The chances that everything came together through chance are so low that an intelligent being seems more logical. There is just so much that science cannot, or has not explained, that it seems silly to me not to be open to other ideas. The difference in belief stems more from what people accept as evidence.

The origin of atoms is well understood its from Nucleosynthesis. None of it is random nuclear fusion is caused by measurable forces interacting between particles. There are things we dont know like the origin of mass or why charge is quantized, one of the main goals of the LHC is to answer those questions.

 

[Higlac]

it's a miracle!!!!

damn I'd be really pissed at your family if I were the speech therapist who taught your brother how to speak, god got all the credit for doing absolutely nothing

fyi it's quite common for kids < 5 to have speech problems. my daughter has problems saying the letter "s" but she's getting better PROOF OF GOD RIGHT THERE



I call BS. science said he'd never speak again? what did he have? missing vocal chord syndrome? science couldnt cure him? but it did; he went to speech therapy ..but it wasnt science it WAS GOD

this is exactly why non religious people laugh at christians. everything is a miracle! look my french fry looks like jesus, it's a MIRACLE

FYI my brother isn't a normal kid, he has a severe mental retardation, autism, and was born with a cleft palate.

lololol u believe dat? u so silly

Here's one of those aggressive atheists I was talking about. Posting as many anti-religion stories as he can so he can break down anybody with any sort of faith by berating them with random insults and making them out to be an idiot.

A doctor cannot represent Science as a methodology.

The rational way to approach your reasoning is to say the Doctor misdiagnosed your brother. But he was wrong, and by going to other Scientists he was cured.

Any you're not in the realm of theory and philosophy. You're in the realm of huge, illogical and bizarre ideas with no evidence to support them.

Exactly why I said I cannot present it as evidence, and why I would like to keep the discussion within those bounds.

I lol'd. I just imagined a little kid miraculously speaking for the first time after years of being unable, and his brother going "Oh my god, shut the **** up already. Jesus!"

Almost, it's just been within the last couple years or so that he's started talking nonstop.

I'm sorry, but I simply do not think that is a viable reason to believe. There are so many things wrong with that conclusion.

1. Its not science that told you, its humans. Humans are notoriously unreliable when it comes to making conclusions and reading evidence.

2. It shows a clear lack of understanding about the basic ideas of probability. If someone is given a 5% chance of ever speaking again, that means 5 times out of 100 he will be able to speak again. Thats not a very unlikely scenario, and its certainly not a miraculous event when it does happen.

Not speak again, but speak at all. He was four before he even stood up for the first time.

3. Doctors are emotional people. A lot of times they simply prefer to err on the side of caution, and not give people what they believe is false hope. Your doctor may have exaggerated the odds in order to prevent you and your family from being emotionally wrought when you spend all this effort and still see no results. It may not be the right thing to do, but again, hes only human.

4. He went to speech therapy and that helped him be able to speak again. Speech therapy is based on science.

Doctors are emotional people, but when we went he only just started walking with braces and made little to no vocal noises.

So all those people that get cancer and pray really really hard but die anyway died because they didn't pray hard enough? What's so special about your brother?

It's just my personal experience. Does it really matter?


And here's another one.

 

[No Limit]

It's just my personal experience. Does it really matter?



And here's another one.

Yes, because with your personal experiance you jumped to the conclusion that it was God without even thinking about it. If you think about it what was so special about your brother? And that's a bit odd no, God gives your brother mental retardation but blesses him with the ability to speak? Did you not pray hard enough for his mental retardation to go away?

 

[CptStern]

FYI my brother isn't a normal kid, he has a severe mental retardation, autism, and was born with a cleft palate.

he's mentally retarded AND autistic? and cleft palate is very common in kids with autism. I worked with kids with autism for 7 years and my wife is a behavioural therapist for kids with autism; it's not uncommon for kids with autism to learn to speak after extensive therapy ...but you'd rather give the credit to god rather than the people who actually did something for your brother. I think this is kinda shitty of you ..no offense

Here's one of those aggressive atheists I was talking about. Posting as many anti-religion stories as he can so he can break down anybody with any sort of faith by berating them with random insults and making them out to be an idiot.

I couldnt care less what silly beliefs system you want to subscribe to. if anything it just proves how unwilling you are to have your ideas challenged. it's as if you're saying that religious beliefs should be immune to criticism but are all about criticising and questioning science


also nothing you describe is outside of the norm for people with autism

it's certainly no miracle but the work of a support network. I've seen plenty of kids with autism who couldnt speak or walk etc but more often than not that was a product of not having early intervention. had they had early enough intervention their quality of life would be dramatically different

 

[Higlac]

I didn't want to discuss my brother in the first place, can we move on?

 

[VirusType2]

Moving on: retards can't go into heaven, correct?

 

[Higlac]

No, you're thinking of people who talk in the movie theater.

 

[No Limit]

I didn't want to discuss my brother in the first place, can we move on?

Well that is your proof for God existing. So lets not put it in the cotext of your brother, lets put it in the cotext of someone else.

A guy has a sister that is retarded and looks like she won't be able to speak. He prays really really hard, and it turns out she can finally speak. What makes her so special? Why didn't God just fix the entire mental retardation? Why make the person retarded in the first place?

If you can't answer any of these questions yet you come to the conclusion that it was God that made her speak that's not a very logical conclusion for you to be making, is it?

Finally, did science really say that it would be impossible for them to ever speak? Or just that it was unlikely?

Finally, why do we never have stories of people being paralyzed for life not getting cured through the miracle of prayer?

Obviously these are very important questions that you need to have an answer to, if you don't then you are simply making an assumption that it was God because it makes you feel better about your belief, a belief you have absolutely no evidance for.

 

[Krynn72]

God ****ing damn it No Limit. Its evidence, not evidance. And its context, not cotext.

 

[No Limit]

God ****ing damn it No Limit. Its evidence, not evidance. And its context, not cotext.

I'm too lazy to proof read and no, IE doesn't have a spell checker. Sue me.

Though misspelling context twice like that is kind of funny.

 

[Krynn72]

PM me your personal info, and I will.

 

[Tyguy]

Until he acknowledges that good things can happen without the interference from miracles we aren't going to make progress.

 

[Azner]

<3 Religious threads.

Seriously.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Thats a long time.
also AJ what are you talkin about

I'm saying you're in denial.

 

[Willsmith.fan]

of what

 

[arch5]

Wait, so do you believe there is an afterlife, or do you just hope there is?

(Sorry for replying late) I believe there is some sort of life after death.

 

[The Monkey]

I believe there is an explanation for all of those things, none of which would fall outside the realm of natural science. I'm not familiar enough with any of those areas to make an argument, but I cannot think of any reason why those might require something supernatural in order to have happened.

Of course not, that's now why I'm saying. I just feel that the natural sciences are given such a big status that they are viewed to hold the answers to everything in life. There are many areas of knowledge that fall within the social sciences and the humanities.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

of what

Oh never ****ing mind...

 

[15357]

Of course not, that's now why I'm saying. I just feel that the natural sciences are given such a big status that they are viewed to hold the answers to everything in life. There are many areas of knowledge that fall within the social sciences and the humanities.

Yeah, I used to think that too, until I realized I was simply justifying myself for choosing a social science major instead of a technology major.

"Technology shall set Man free." -LG

"Technology is our future." -Carved into the steps of our Mechanical Engineering building

"Without technology, there is no humanity." -Motto of the Mechatronics division

Or you know, I just hate the humanities. Which is kinda like how my disdain for religion might be compensation for myself not acheiving inner peace. But who cares. Science for the mother****ing win.

I don't really care whether there is an afterlife or not. If I'm dead, that's it. It won't console me to know that I died for something worthwhile, because:

#1. There is an afterlife: I'm dead. I couldn't care less. I'm in hell/heaven, and I have to kill Satan/God to establish dominance.

#2. There is no afterlife: I do not exist anymore. Ergo, cannot think.

What matters to me is that I know I will die for something worthwhile, and that I do in life what really matters.

Which brings to me, I despise religion perhaps because of the very promise of heaven. Should people be good, or sacrifice themselves not because for the greater good and the future of all, but to get to heaven? Why does morality, ethical thinking, have to be compensated for? When you do the right thing, why should you be compensated with an entrance to heaven? If you're human, you should have done it anyway. "The pilot and weapons operator are in paradise now..." In religion you cannot be sure if they died for their beliefs because it is right, or because they wanted to go to paradise. I want to be sure that they did the human thing, because they were human beings.

Of course, as I say, I do respect and is admittedly fascinated at the idea of a crusade, holy war, or jihad. The idea of the will of GOD which drives men to fanatic loyalty and suicidal devotion to a cause. We have something to learn from that.

 

[flamingdts]

I kind of think of afterlife as a permanent dream.

In fact, I could be dead right now, and you're all figments of my imagination in my dream.

Wait... that means I could do whatever I WANT!

See you losers.

*races off to glory*

 

[VirusType2]

I think it's funny that "Man is imperfect and will sin, and therefore needs to be forgiven and plead."

If a sperm was like, "no after you, I insist", we would never make it. It's fierce competition from before conception, even. That's what life is all about. The strong and clever survive. If it takes cunning and deception to do so, then so be it. It's not who is right, but who is left.

With that said, we should still try to be moral since it benefits us all. You wouldn't want someone killing your children, stealing your things, and screwing your wife.