President Barack Obama

[Sarien]

Man I come back like once every six months or once a year.

I really need another hit of that HeavenSent brand crazy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxS9tn7ahv8

I wanted to find the one where he calls Winston Churchill a house Negro, but that'll do I guess.

[Pearl Jam]

this never gets old

your* an idiot

[Squeezer]

Legislation limiting lobbyists

Obama aide says lobbyists will not be allowed to work in the field they've lobbied for in the the last year. Step one to cutting out lobbyists :greedy:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27665871

I guess I don't think lobbyists are that bad, I just don't like the amount of control over govt. they now have. Politicians should represent their constituents, not the guy's throwing their party.

[Jerome Scuggs]

i love religious debates because it shows how subjective reality really is

+how stupid some people are

[genocidal]

I love when Metal Headz gets on these forums once every few weeks to show us what he has learned in his 1000 level philosophy classes. Right on brother! Religion=not proof!

[Kid Kaos]

Your all a bunch of fucking idiots in my book.

[Vykromond]

so what created matter then genius? Since you know everything maybe you can explain this to me. Its so ridiculous to believe in a god yet you know why we're here I guess? I'm asking this as someone who used to think the same thing but realized over time that I will never know the answer to this question. I cant call people ridiculous that believe, especially seeing as how some of the atheist scientists who have gone out to prove the lack of existence of a god have converted to some sort of belief citing how improbable it would be for Earth to be here naturally...and I'm pretty sure those guys are smarter than all of us here. So, if they find it reasonable to believe....

Was this supposed to be directed at me? None of this has anything whatsoever to do with my post, and I don't care at all whether you're religious or not.

[MetalHeadz]

so what created matter then genius?

Einsteins Theory of General Relativity infers that all matter came from the same point, at the same time: aka The Big Bang. The Big Bang has been scientifically proven to have occured with the scientific revelations of galactical 'red shifts' and cosmic microwave radiation.

Before the Big Bang, we can only speculate: nobody knows for sure. Nobody can know for sure. However, the elegance and logical coherency of multiversalism or singularity theory is far more appealing to a thinker than 'we can't explain that, therefore my god must have done it'. In any case, the philosophical argument of a deistical 'fine tuner', a position well argued by the likes of Pascale and Spinoza, does not lend any credence to the ideas or stories of religion. A Christian cannot 'know' that Jesus was born of a virgin, yet he claims to know it. There is a huge disparity between evidence and belief. In other words, whilst I cannot be sure that I am right, I know for certain that you are wrong.

Current estimations of our universe's age are around 13.5-14 billion years, as opposed to the religious approximation of 6 thousand years. Religion clearly gets things severely wrong on it's assumptions about the age of our universe.

Since you know everything maybe you can explain this to me. Its so ridiculous to believe in a god yet you know why we're here I guess? I'm asking this as someone who used to think the same thing but realized over time that I will never know the answer to this question. I cant call people ridiculous that believe, especially seeing as how some of the atheist scientists who have gone out to prove the lack of existence of a god have converted to some sort of belief citing how improbable it would be for Earth to be here naturally...and I'm pretty sure those guys are smarter than all of us here. So, if they find it reasonable to believe....

If you think that a handful of converted scientists is evidence of the strength of religious claims then surely the fact that the vast majority of scientists are unconverted is stronger evidence against them. This is a complete non-argument though. The Big Bang and evolution happened irrespective of whether everybody on this planet suddenly believed otherwise. They are truths, not theories.

[Money]

too many nerds for it not to turn into a religious thing

[MetalHeadz]

Congratulations America, you picked the best guy by a longshot.

EDIT: Lol, I see this topic turned into another science vs. religion debate!! Classic.

[Kolar]

so what created matter then genius?

Matter and energy can not be created or destroyed. I have no problem with people who want to fill in the gaps with religion for their own personal belief system. But those people who try to fill in the gaps of science with faith and belief; trying to reduce and examine the existence of supernatural causation are ultimately on the wrong track. Just the same an "atheist scientist" would never go down the path of proving the non-existence of any supernatural being. Science is exclusive to the natural, reducible, testable world. All of these matters are best left to philosophy and theology.

[HateTheFake]

so what created matter then genius? Since you know everything maybe you can explain this to me. Its so ridiculous to believe in a god yet you know why we're here I guess? I'm asking this as someone who used to think the same thing but realized over time that I will never know the answer to this question. I cant call people ridiculous that believe, especially seeing as how some of the atheist scientists who have gone out to prove the lack of existence of a god have converted to some sort of belief citing how improbable it would be for Earth to be here naturally...and I'm pretty sure those guys are smarter than all of us here. So, if they find it reasonable to believe....

lol izor no use in trying to reason with them.

[Izor]

so what created matter then genius? Since you know everything maybe you can explain this to me. Its so ridiculous to believe in a god yet you know why we're here I guess? I'm asking this as someone who used to think the same thing but realized over time that I will never know the answer to this question. I cant call people ridiculous that believe, especially seeing as how some of the atheist scientists who have gone out to prove the lack of existence of a god have converted to some sort of belief citing how improbable it would be for Earth to be here naturally...and I'm pretty sure those guys are smarter than all of us here. So, if they find it reasonable to believe....

[Vykromond]

It should have a bias. The whole point is that religion is nonsensical because the things it purports to explain are eventually explained by science. The idea is to point at an inductive "proof" of the falseness of religious belief. Not making a statement about the validity of the argument, but if you think most religious believers frame their belief explicitly in terms of the "god of the gaps" argument you're wrong.

[DankNuggets]

"God caused the big bang. Everything that came afterwards can be explained using science."

That's pretty much all that should be said about intelligent design.

Historically speaking, mankind has always associated that which cannot be explained to God (or gods) until finding logical, scientific explanations to natural events and phenomena.

Ex.
1. God makes it so people can walk on earth without floating around.
2a. No that's gravity.
2b. Oh, then god causes gravity.
3a. No, gravity is caused by the mass of the earth.
3b. Oh. Well then god created the earth.
4a. No, the earth was created by natural astronomical events after our solar system's sun was created.
4b. Oh. Well god created the sun.
5a. No, the sun was created by millions of particles in the universe compressed into a single mass over billions of year.
5b. Oh. Well then god created the universe.
6a. No, the universe is theorized to be created by the big bang at some indeterminate time that spontaneously created everything.
6b. Oh. Well then god caused the big bang.

And since we don't know what caused the big bang, God would be our default answer until Newtonius Einstein von Copernicus III discovers what caused the big bang some hundreds of years in the future.

This is called the "god of the gaps" fyi. You might know that already, just pointing it out

This is perfectly acceptable in my mind, idk why you have to call it "god of gaps" just to undermine it. Not that you in particular came up with that name, but it definitely has a good bit of bias to it. I'd note that most people I've talked to who follow that sort of ideology (god set the world into motion) would probably be offended by the term "god of gaps". It fits i guess, but it's no more biased than calling christianity mythology.

so it's called the "god of gaps" by skeptics who write it off

it's called religion or faith by people who believe it =/