Ok, I'll bite If we take groups of babies to 3 different isolated islands, assume that they won't be killed and actually grow up, I guarantee that a few hundred years later each island group will have its own concept of god. Not only will each group have its own concept of god, but it will be completely sure of him and whole heartedly believe that anyone who believes otherwise will go to hell (they will also have their own version of hell/heaven). I also guarantee that eventually, within each island, there will be a divergeance among the islanders about who the real god is, and they will proceed to kill each other over it. Finally, once these islanders develop transportation, I guarantee they will make their way over to the other islands and forcefully convert or kill the foreign islanders who won't worship their god/s. The above story is a simplified version of what I believe to be the history of religion on Earth. Until transportation was invented, different religions were COMPLETELY geographically isolated. For those of you who are religious, that's an amazing coincidence, no? I mean, if there were an all powerful God, don't you think he would have distributed his message to more than one place? For an all powerful God to expect that one group tell the world about him, one person at a time, is so inefficient it's laughably ridiculous, not to mention that an all powerful god must realize such a method of spreading info will result in misinformation, much like the telephone game. Back to the baby island experiment: The divergeance within the same island is seen in Catholic vs. Protestant, Sunni vs. Shiite, etc. The part about the islanders developing boats and forcing their religions on everyone else is paralled by Europeans forcing Christianity on the whole friggin world and Muslims attempting to do the same. To me the biggest proof that all presently known gods are frauds is the geographic isolation of religion. This obvious argument against religion is forgotten today because of transportation being invented thousands of years ago. So, if the island example is too abstract for you, simply study the remaining isloated tribes who live in the rain forest. They are, in effect, present day real versions of the island baby experiment. They all have their own unique versions of god. So if someone can produce two geographically/informationally/transportationally isolated places that came up with the same concept of god and same dogma, I will believe that god exists. Until then, you're just different groups of islanders who grew up with your concept of god or you/your anscestors were forced into it by other islanders.
i would really like to know... (although i already do know ) ...how can anyone with a sane mind reject evolution?! p.s. how do you think you can get away with saying evolution is an unproven theory? there is plenty of evidence to back it up. you might say, "well why is it still a theory then?" the answer is because this stuff doesn't get accepted by the masses overnight. the non-religious, scientific, logical people already know it's a fact. we're just centuries ahead of our time... also, many of the people who don't buy evolution don't even understand the concept correctly. plus, they're blinded by their religion anyway....so of course they won't accept it--no matter how much sense it makes, or how much evidence there is to back it up. btw, when i speak of evolution, i am not necessarily speaking of abiogenesis (how the first life started). that's a little too complicated for even me.
Since someone suggest we play the imagination game..... Imagine an isolated village in the darkest depths of the Arkansas Ozark Mountains. This tribe has live untouched by technology for 200 years. One day, one of the children wanders out, and he finds a brand new 2003 Mercedes Benz 600S Sedan. He runs back and tells the entire village, and they come to look at the car. The tribe consists of the descendents of a highly evolved group of scientists, who sent their children to live in total isolation over 200 years ago. So, while uneducated, the children possessed tremendous intellectual capacity, and through the normal course of reproduction, their offspring obtained genius level. A tribe of formally uneducated geniuses. They examine the car, and soon discover how to take it apart. They devote their entire life to completely understanding every aspect of that car. This process continues for several thousand years, until such time that they have obtained total mastery over the technology of the automobile. They know it inside and out. They are able to reproduce their own cars, based on the knowledge of this car. They have attained the same level of expertise as those designers of the original car, obtained the mechanical expertise of the builders of the original car, in essence, they have plumbed the depth of all available science down to the sub-atomic structure of that car. However, not one among any of the descendents of that car could: 1. Tell anyone where the car originally came from. 2. Drive the car. 3. Explain the purpose of the car. 4. Explain what the designers were thinking when they built the original car. 4. Explain how it was that they had the innate ability to discover everything there was to know objectively about the car. 5. Know where to puchase gasoline. Science has its limits.
GG, This Buds for you. How can a person say that the Darwinian theory of evolution has not been scientifically proven? Very simply because it hasn't, no matter how many people BELIEVE it to be a fact. (Thus the "new religion" reference) All mechanistic theories of evolution can be reduced to a simple theory, and that is, the sentient is a product of the non-sentient. Therefore, to prove these speculative theories would be very simple, create a sentient being from gross matter. I thought all atheists wanted more than just "it sounds" logical to me" as proof for a theory. BTW, there are many non-religious scientists that do not believe in the theory of evolution. Many of them are too busy making $$ to give a sh*t or simply have other interests.
So to continue the analogy, a small minority of villagers acknowledge they have no idea where the car came from, and continue to try to understand it, while the majority of theist villagers fight over which god created the Benz. They proceed to kill each other over it. They work out an elaborate system of dogma based on the car god. They tell everyone who doesn't believe them that they are going to hell. They write down their holy beliefs in the Vivle Meanwhile in another isolated, yet identical village that a seperate group of genius scientists created, the villagers also walk out and find a Benz placed their by their scientist relatives. This group finds itself in a similar situation. They come up with their own group of gods who they think created the car. They've got red men in hell with pitch forks, and winged men who fly around in paradise. They also tell everyone that doesn't believe them that they are going to hell. They write down their holy beliefs in the Uran. Eventually the two villages leave their isolation, meet each other, then fight over their imaginary friends, much like Christians and Muslims are doing today. Now, I'm not saying that the universe wasn't created by something higher than ourselves, but what I am saying is that man's many concepts of God are most likely complete crap!
I cannot deny that the likelihood that "most" of man's concepts are wrong, or that 90% would interpret the correct concept incorrectly. For the sake of argument, let's assume that 90% are incorrect, but the 10% who do have the correct concept and worship accordingly, they find God. That would mean that 1 out of 10 who practice religion find God. 90% failure, or 10% success rate? Hmmmm. Sounds like the similar percentage of success rates for those who try to day trade for a living and find that they are able to do it successfully. Is it just luck that one finds the "correct" understanding in both Religion and day trading? Or does the proper practice of faith in the course laid out by the Masters, the right mentoring and training given to the disciple by one who has achieved Master status, and unwavering dedication by the disciple determine the outcome? Is a trader born, "elected" to the profession? Or could anyone who is intelligent enough, willing to follow the leadership of those who had already paved the way, who had found the truth, and who had seen the light of successful trading, and are willing to surrender and do whatever it is required to reach their goal, could anyone reach the intended goal? In theory anyone has the potential, in practice most fall short.....
here's some proof. say i turn my backyard into a large enclosed area. to keep it simple, say in this area only mice and snakes are the only living creatures. let's also say there are different colored mice as there are different colored dogs today. i'm sure you'll grant me that we're not all alike. we may have different color eyes, or our height may be different, etc. variations exist; fact. now let's say the snakes vision does not allow them to see white mice as well as the other colored mice. over time the other colored mice will get eaten more than the white ones. this will allow the white ones to reproduce more and continue the species. it's also possible the that colors the snakes easily see might eventually dwindle down to the point where they get wiped out. obviously this is survival of the fittest, but just as variations in color can exists, so can other variations. as some people have longer legs than others, maybe some of the white mice might have larger legs than most of the other mice. maybe when the snakes come after them, the longer legs let them jump away from the snakes more easily. those that live will reproduce. if this keeps happening, maybe over millions of years the mice will be more like rabbits and can hop away from the snakes. whenever i argue evolution with anyone, my #1 point is always that the time scale needs to be understood. these changes can take millions of years to happen. as humans, we can't even comprehend the timeframe involved. how about you tell me why what i just said is NOT proof? it's obviously logical. what problem do you have with the concept?
yes, yes! there MAY (i don't know) be a god/higher powers than us, but one thing is just about 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999% sure (yes, see, even i am open-minded enough to not eliminate your (777's) beliefs with certainty)--no man made explanation is how it really is! ESPECIALLY, any explanations with humanoids being the creators. yeah, i know a lot of you religious ones won't accept evolution, but for those that do..we know that through circumstance, the way we humans appear today is by slim chance. a long chain of events had to happen for us to be here in the form we are. any single link that might have been different could have had drastic consequences. so you're going to tell me that a humanoid creature existed and created us BEFORE HUMANS EXISTED and we also look the same?!?! haha fat chance!!!!!!!!!!! i just laugh at that!!!!!!!!
You might have a point...if you weren't pulling that 10% figure out of your ass!!! What do you mean by finding "God"? Are you referring to some Unitarian deistic concept of God? Or are you referring to the Lord Gawd and Savior Jesus Christ? If you are referring to the former, than you've just thrown all organized religion out the window, in which case you've validated Jessie Ventura's statement about organized religion being a crutch. What's the point of having organized religion if you can individually find God through your own unguided spiritual journey? If you mean the latter, and are specifically referring to Jesus Christ, then I'd say you suffer from some serious egocentric/ethnocentric thinking-- I believe there are 22 major world religions now and hundreds that have come before them. So let's say that over the course of human history there have been 100 major religions at one time or another, that's a 1 in 100 chance you'd find God. But that's assuming all who practice succeed. Let's use your 10% figure. So now it's 10% of 1%, which is 0.1% of all those who practice religion find God. The odds aren't looking so good...they're looking so bad, in fact, that i'd rather not participate in the salvation lottery.