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"Science .vs. Religion"

This is just my opinion on some stuff. Which side do you favor - scientific or religious route? Foreword: This, which I am about to type isn’t science-fiction nonsense. Much of what is written is based on scientifically proven fact, and the rest is my opinion. Using a combination of the two, a reasonably non-contradictory explanation can hopefully be created. Right.

In the beginning there was the big bang, the creation of OUR universe. There, at the same time, were also an infinite number of other big bangs elsewhere in the multiverse. The multiverse is a fluid medium in which our, and many other universes float. Our universe is likely to be donut-shaped, but as we have no scientific proof, and never will have, this can never be proved. The multiverse cannot be defined; it is a place where “god” exists. Here he/she/it created all the universes, possibly simultaneously. He DID create everything we know, but in a random manner. Each universe is similar to at least one other universe, but with one single tiny difference in the laws of physics. For every possible outcome that could arise, there is a universe for each possibility (hence parallel universe. But this is actually lies because if it was a parallel universe then everything would be the same and it’s not, there is one difference in each one). Our universe is almost infinitely large, and is expanding, at an almost infinite rate. (Again not 100% scientific fact but this is what is generally believed to be happening)

The universe is several billion years old, this IS scientific fact and flatly contradicts the Bible, which claims the earth is a mere 5000 years old, but the earth is also several billion years old. It could be ¼ the age of the universe or perhaps even less. But still, that is substantially more than 5000 years. If the bible is wrong on such a scale, such a massive fact then surely other, more minor facts must also be incorrect. The bible clearly has a lot of truth. And it also has many valid points, and thus should be followed. But, in my opinion, whether you follow it or not, has no effect on the “afterlife”, more on this later.

The earth was formed in space over millions or billions of years, due to the accumulation of dust and particles in space, formed by a destroyed star or the creation of the universe itself. The gravity of all the little bits pulled together to form a large planet. There was extreme heat here because of all the forces acting upon the planet, during its creation. Here it sat and boiled for a while, until it got smacked by a super-massive asteroid, and this caused bits of it to fly off. These bits went into orbit around the earth and formed the moon. Earth now is kind of cooling down, and sort of becoming habitable. Life will soon form, but there are two possible ways in which this could happen.

1. Bits of stuff, proteins etc congealed in a pool, by chance formed an organism and this organism then decided it was a plant. And thus life on earth arose due to its own volition.

2. There was already life elsewhere in the universe, which is highly likely due to the place’s age, 5 billion years+ is likely to form life (as stated in 1.), and a meteor or whatever struck this planet. Some bacteria or plant material was transported through space in/on the asteroid. It landed on our humble planet, escaped and started up here.

If either of these are true, which they could well be, does it not occur to you that life is just a big bunch of random proteins and stuff congealed together, by luck/chance, and evolution have culminated, on this planet at any rate, in humans. Look at really basic life: an amoeba. It clearly has no intelligence; it simply isn’t capable of it. Don’t say it does, because it simply cant think, it lives, breeds etc on genetic instinct built into it. It has no choice, it has no ethics, and it has no ‘spirit’. Eat or not eat. Divide or not divide. That’s about the limit of its choices. Then look at us: are we any different? NO. Our brains are just 2 lbs of gray mush that has been formed over millions of years of natural selection. The brain is really great. It’s quite smashing. It can do millions of things per second; it’s faster than ANY computer. It controls electrical signals generated in our brain, generally by external stimuli. Sight, smell etc. these electrical signals go to glands or whatever, send out hormones, and stuff.

Personality is just a bonus, a side effect of the brain. Look at dolphins, or sharks, or snakes, or mice. Not stupid animals, they have personalities, just like any one of us. But would you say they have a “spirit”? Do they have a god? In the literal sense, yes they do as god is (potentially) an omnipotent being who created the universes. But do they go to heaven when they die? Do the dolphins go to a massive sea in the sky with as many hoops, balls and fish as they want? To the mice go to cheese-land? No. How? Because there is no such place, there is no such thing as “spirits,” or “your soul”. There is the person inside oneself, but that is primarily defined at conception, then later, after birth, formed through external influences. It may sound heartless but it is, in my opinion, the truth.

So, what happens when we die? Where do we go, what happens to our consciousness? It simply stops. There is nothing there; you simply don’t exist (other then your dead body). Whatever thoughts, feelings or whatever you had on your dying day will be stored there still, in your deceased brain, until it degrades, the memory cells die and THEN, you are gone. So in a way you do exist after death, if only briefly. But of course you are dead, there is no heart action, thus no brain function, therefore it is the end.

If you disagree with any of my points, feel free to criticize.

Thanks for reading,
LF

nh wrote:
> Here's another one Ant
>
> Ch rch
>
> The only thing missing is u.

Heh, that's a good one. {:)

===SONICRAV---> wrote:
>
> There are 2 bits of the bible- old an new testimant.
>
> The Old Testimant has NOTHING to do with God. It was written by people
> before Christianity came about (Christ wasn't born), and is simply a
> collection of stories that people had told for generations. Likelyhood
> is that the references to God were added later by the church.

Aargghhhh - Nothing to do with God ??? I hate to disagree with you there Sonic but it has a lot to do with God.

The references to God were not added later as we put the canon together. The dead sea scrolls all have exactly the same stories and texts written generally word for word. The only book missing from them is Ruth.

So the Jewish people who base their faith on the Torah (The first five books) have no God ? I'm sure there are many learned scholars out there who could argue this point with you better than me but I can state that the Old Testament has a lot to do with God.

If you actually get down to studying the hebrew texts and how they were written there are all kinds of clues that the texts were inspired/directed by someone other than the actual authors. I'm not necessarily a believer of the bible codes and all the number sequences that are contained within the texts but some of the evidence that there was some kind of influence is very compelling. I personally believe that you have to use equal amounts of faith and common sense when trying to understand the meaning and truth behind the stories.

The Old Testament does not have a great deal to do with Christ apart from the prophesying (sp) over his coming. There are many references in the Old Testament to the coming of Christ.

This is where I lose understanding of the Jewish faith, they seem to believe everything in there apart from any of those references and do not recognise the New Testament at all. I know they feel responsible for the death of Jesus of Nazareth but cannot understand the rejection of who he was. I suppose that comes down to faith..

Here's another one Ant

Ch rch

The only thing missing is u.

This sums it up even better

"Don't make me come down there" - God

Heh

*Ant decides to butt in, with no contextual knowledge whatsoever*

Went past a local church the other day, saw this on the notice-board.

"If God seems so far away, who moved?"

Sums it up perfectly, I think.

I never disagreed with the flood, my point was that a flood did NOT wipe out the entire world's population, which was then repopulated by just Noah and his family. If that had happened, the population today would be just a tad smaller than it should be

You don't seem to be getting my point, what I'm saying is yes, some of the stuff MAY be true, but that doesn't take away from the fact that the bible is ficticious. I, once again, go back to my point about WW2 films not being non-fiction. Do you see?

Oh, btw, I'm in the process of doing a topic about the historically factual bits of the Old testiment- so far I've done Genesis (and no, not the 6 days rubbish! The second half in which the people of Israel are enslaved and made to build pyramids for the Egyptions), and the beginning of Exodus- when the Israeli people return to the promissed land- another true event.

Sonic

Mojo, 2 points:

1) You have contradicted yourself in your last post. You say that "the old testament stuff is merely based on fact" and also "The bible is still a ficticious novel in my opinion". You have to differentiate between the old and new testiment- the old one has NOTHING TO DO with Jesus, or God. My theory is that all of these things were added in later by christians. Appart from that, the book is just a collection of old stories- many of which are based on real life events (however, this doesn't mean they are 100% accurate!). The new testiment, however, is a lot more dodgy, and your opinion of it being made up is one that I party agree with.

2) You see to have gone from saying "the bible is ficticious" to "a lot of the old testament is based on real events"... saying that you were arguing about the stuff about God being true... which is odd since I agree that all the stuff about God is false, and we haven't even been arguing about that! Initially you refused to believe the flood was real... we showed it was... then you disagree with it being "factual" in the bible... we show it's the most accurate account of any before christ event... now you say you were always arguing about whether God was real... something we agree on anyway!

Nice reversal...

Sonic

I went to church for over 14 years, so I do know a little something about Christianity. I've also studied relgion from a sociological viewpoint at A level, and that has given me a fresh view on a lot of things

So, fair enough, some people claim that a lot of the old testament is based on real events, and no doubt they are, but the point I was, and still am trying to make, is that all the stuff about God is a load of rubbish (in my opinion, and in the opinion millions of others) The bible is still a ficticious novel in my opinion, as all the Jesus stuff is, most likely, a load of old poop. And the old testament stuff is merely based on fact. There you go

When I said "The curch" I meant the Catholic church as this is the most followed of the Christian churches, and it's one of the few religions in the world that has a centralised HQ from which they decide their teachings.

Now, the bible.

There are 2 bits of the bible- old an new testimant.

The Old Testimant has NOTHING to do with God. It was written by people before Christianity came about (Christ wasn't born), and is simply a collection of stories that people had told for generations. Likelyhood is that the references to God were added later by the church.

Now, Mojo, would you say that the Bayeaux Tapestry is not an important piece of histroical documentation? Clearly it depicts a real life event, though the eyes of the Norman soldiers. It give historians important points about how the Normans fought and prepared for battle and even shows how Harrold died.

However, it is not 100% accurate- William is depicted as saintly in it, and it's clearly biased towards him. But that doesn't make it any less valuable as a piece of historical text. Oh, and you said:

"...does that mean that an exagerated version is true? No, it's not. Thereby, you yourself have admitted the bible is ficticious."

Well, the Tapestry is clearly an exagerated version of a real event. So it's not true. So it's ficticious (by your argument!). Hence all the thousands of historians who have used the tapestry as a historical record hae been wasting their time have they?

Now, the old testiment is exactly the same! It's just a collection of stories that people were telling over 2000 years ago. Clearly it is not 100% accurate- but this does not make it "rubbish" or not valuable! In fact, historians found out about the great flood when the cross referenced tales of floods in many cultures and books, like the bible, with geological facts.

It was only after cross referencing the historical documents of ancient egypt with Exodus (in the bible) that it was clear that the hebrew people DID cross the desert. Not only that, but it was they who made the pyramids when they were enslaved by the Egyptians! Moving on, the bible's story of how they escaped slavery is matched in Egyptian record, and coincides with the time that the pyramid building stopped! Finally, after fleeing Egypt, all the Hebrews wanderers were though to be Egyptians themselves. This is where we get the word "Gypsy" from- a group of traveling people, originally though to come from Egypt!

And hence the OLD TESTIMENT, like the Bayeaux Tapestry is actually an important resource for historians. It tells the story of the great flood that actually happened, an that of the movement of the entire Hebrew people. It shows us that it was them who built the pyramids, and tells us why the knowledge that allowed them to do this disappeared from egypt. It really is a great historical document, and was written well before the time of Christ.

The NEW TESTIMENT tells the tale of Christ. Now, I don't believe much of this section of the bible- most of it was written to promote christianity. However, cross referencing records, the stories in the book are supported to a degree. Personally I believe that Christ did exist- the books that tell of his life were written just after he died, and the evidence for his outweighs that against him. I do not, however, believe him to be the Son of God.

Sonic