it might stir some people up, but its what I think, and thats what the forum is for right?

Allow me to begin with a prolonged sigh, and I could really stop there too. It seems today that we, as a society, have made the decision to throw unity under God to the wind and fight. And fight. And fight. Its not so much the religions themselves anymore, of course when you have a big guy up there running everything that refuses tell us what the hell is going on there is going to be some conflict. No, the division that continues to seep through society is the question of whether that big guy really is running the show.
Science is a wonderful thing. Science added to the human lifespan, science put a man on the moon (depending on who you ask), science cured polio, and science gave us an understanding about the universe. But why is it that science and religion just can not seem to get along? Consider, for a moment, the rotation of the earth. As you read these words, surely there is some varied degree of natural light fairly close by. If this natural light is from the moon and the stars, then you’re reading this at night, and maybe someone on the other side of the world is reading it in the morning. If it’s hot outside, then you’re probably reading this in the summer, and someone in another hemisphere may be reading this in the winter. Our world is set up so that more often than not, things are counterbalanced. So wouldn’t it make sense that the two forces that govern every facet of our universe would counterbalance each other?
Look at religion and science not as two warring scriptures, but simply as the known and the unknown. Science, while mostly theoretical, is what we know. Its our way of explaining the things around us. God is the unknown, he manifests himself through miracles, occurrences that simply cannot be explained by science. In addition, we have no idea what God looks like. Supposedly we as humans are made in his image, but how specifically? We’ll never know during our earthly life, but maybe God is seven foot nine and has blue skin. Moses saw him, but if Moses is reading this then the internet really has gone beyond anything we can imagine.
Now that we have what we know and don’t know straight, shall we take a look at how our society reacts to the two? On one side you have the atheists. People that do not think God exists, and by the meaning of the word (a + theist) they are hell bitten determined to prove to you he doesn’t. Honestly, I have a problem with atheists. They think, and are not shy about saying, that all religious folks do is preach. So what the hell are they doing when they tell me that everyone who had a revelation was schizophrenic? Calling it anti-preaching gets the job done alright, but the term preaching atheism tends to get them all riled up, and that’s what I like to do. Riled up or not however, you can count on them to take the scientific stance on anything, and use that stance to “disprove” God’s existence.
On the other side of the spectrum we have the religious extremists. Since I try to keep a fair mind I don’t like them too much either. With all the conflicts in the middle east, nowadays the word “extremist” tends to call to mind an image of a dark-skinned man with some type of weapon attached to every single bodypart. While someone who fits this bill is hardly who I personally would like to deal with, such a person is not the focus here. The focus is not those who flip out when you use the word damn in polite company either, or the people who pray five times a day, they’re not guilty of anything but genuine faith. No the problem on the religious side comes with those who not only believe that members of other religions are hellbound, but also those who insist that science is a complete fraud. According to these people the earth is NOT billions of years old, evolution did NOT happen, and everything nature does for us is a miracle. Bad news people, the Virgin Mary’s appearance on a poor Mexican man’s cloak was a miracle, but the water cycle is pretty solidly scientific.
What neither side seems to be able to accept is that any break in their beliefs can be answered by the other side. Scientists: ever wondered why humans were the only species to develop high level intelligence? Religious people: ever look at all the evidence for evolution and the earth’s formation and feel a little weary? Well I have an answer for both of you: the scientists are right, the processes that shaped our world happened. And the religious people are right, God willed said processes to happen. God wouldn’t create a universe where he had to make every little raindrop, wave and earthquake happen himself. He made millions of small inventions, over millions of years, to make the universe completely autonomous. Then he made man. But he didn’t create a race with nothing to do but praise God. He created a race with the intelligence to figure out all of his inventions. And I honestly believe that every time a great scientific mystery is solved, God smiles to himself and says:

“Darnit, they got me again.”

But on a more serious note from a obviously insane man, that makes total sense. Well, at least the last little part. (Which was mostly what I read, I kinda just skimmed the rest.) It's actually very similar to what I've been thinking about lately, though I'm crazy, so who knows what.

Interesting.

That is my opinion too. I hate both ends of the religious spectrem. The super-atheists and crazy religious people (I'm looking at you Donahue, Osama, and Huckabee/Romney) should all be put in a room together to kill each other for the enjoyment and releif of every other carbon-based lifeform on this planet and any others.

thats the best idea I've ever heard, hands down

Valter '08. I'd vote for ya.



Seriously, even for a rational person like myself, there are still times when logic and reason aren't going to explain everything. And likewise, there is such a thing as coincedence.

At least ultra extremists have something to base their decisions on. Everyone has a different view of common sense so when you base your beliefs on something radical everything becomes clear. I'm not an extremist myself, but you have to give credit to those guys for trying.

props for that nightwalker, I have to admit I never thought of it that way

I still don't like extremists but its a really good point