Theological Ramblings.

[Momo]

Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian
 
 
10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.
 
9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.
 
8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.
 
7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!
 
6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.
 
5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.
 
4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering.  And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."
 
3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.
 
2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers.  You consider that to be evidence that prayer works.  And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.
 
1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.

[harv]

Sounds about right lololol

[AVFCRoss]

I'll keep an open mind about a lot of things such as supernatural phenomena or life on other planets. Althouh extraterrestrial life is something I believe must be out there. with the vastness of space, although it has little more concrete proof at present than the existence of some omnipotent being.

As far as I'm concerned, extra-terrestrial life is about as legit as Bigfoot...In fact, I've often questionned what actually is beyond planet earth and whether or not it even exists to the extent to what people want you to believe.

For example, whose to say Pluto exists? What if it's something completely different all together and we've just totally missed the mark?

After all, we'll never find out...We don't have the time, money, resources or human willingness to truly find out what exists in the deeper echelons of space, so to print it all out in black and white in such a factual basis is ridiculous, imo.

If you believe what a science book tells you about our solar system, when the evidence is quite clearly severly lacking and seriously sketchy, then why would you not pick up the Bible and believe that Jesus/God existed? It all falls into the same realms of reality as far as I'm concerned.

People wouldn't give you the time of day to listen to you if you think Bigfoot is real, but they'll happily lap up a book on Astronomy and believe Pluto is exactly what scientists say it is, despite the fact we havent' even come remotely close to being able to effectively prove such a conclusion.

Just some late night food for thought for you.

[Dragontao]

I don't even know where to start with just how flawed that post is Ross.

[Momo]

I think cobblers is a good place to start Drags.

[davo]

I think that what he is saying is that he is an existentialist.

Personally, as I have a spare few minutes, my view on it all is:

• I believe that Man made God, not vice-versa.
• I don't care how or why the universe was made, but I do not believe that it was god.
• It is moronic to believe that, given the vastness of space, "life" does not exist on some of the trillions of other planets. Our planet is teeming with life in the coldest, hottest, deepest and most hostile places. It stands to reason that life will occur naturally and there is nothing special about the earth that makes it the only planet capable of supporting life.
• It is equally moronic to believe fat Americans who suggest that they have been probed by ETs.
• I am an atheist, but this does not mean that I do not have any beliefs. I believe that there is no god. I don't know it for certain, nobody ever will, but I'd say it's a pretty fair bet that all religion is primitive mumbo-jumbo.
• I have no issue with moderate religious people.
• I pity those who devote their life to religion, because they appear to be wasting their time on fairy stories.
• I think that wars started in the name of religion would have probably started anyhow, and the religion is just an excuse.
• It annoys me that people have to be sensitive to people's religions, yet you can say what you like about atheists. for instance: http://www.news.com.au/national-old/atheists-are-believers-who-hate-god-says-anglican-archbishop-peter-jensen/story-e6frfkvr-1225848927144.
• Basically, religion was invented to explain the inexplicable. The Catholic Church imprisoned Galileo because he said that the Earth orbited the sun. Pope Innocent VIII gave his tick of approval to the Spanish Inquisition because he said that crop failure was a result of witchcraft. If God's was real, and the Bible was not a book of fairy tales, if the pope was infallible, then how could the Catholics have got it so wrong all those years ago, but they are so right now?
• Christianity is the biggest religion and estimates are that about 30% of the world is Christian. I would suggest that this number is very generous to Christianity and covers a lot of people who have no real religion but just tick the "christian" box on the census as a default. But even so, even of all 30% were devout, I cannot understand how they are so sure that they are right and the other 70% are wrong.....this is the same for all though. Whilst I am in a smaller minority, I accept that I could be wrong - they "know" that they are right.
• Americans are nuts: http://www.opposingviews.com/i/religion/christianity/catholicism/survey-americans-prefer-muslim-president-atheist
• It's time to log out and go home......

[AVFCRoss]

I don't even know where to start with just how flawed that post is Ross.

How is it flawed? Is it completely unreasonable to believe that, given the shear lack of evidence supporting space, there are factual discrepancies about what actually does exist out there?

It is, and never will be, physically possible to find out what exists in the deeper echelons of space, so it's completely irrelevant to filter fact from fiction, because it can never be proven.

[Momo]

Never is a long time........................................

[ancelotti]

Not sure how you can be so certain, Ross.

To categorically say other life doesn't exist in our universe seems arrogant and naive to say the least. If life can exist in the conditions on Earth, I don't think it's outside the realms of possibility to say there might be another planet somewhere in the universe with similar conditions. We might not have the capabilities to travel very far right now... but human space travel is still in its infancy and science will continue to make strides. We've just discovered the Higgs boson which gives objects their mass and prevents them from ever reaching the speed of light. One day scientists might be able to use it to manipulate the mass of objects and make them travel at the speed of light or even faster...

As for the Pluto thing... Not sure I get what you mean. The Hubble telescope has taken many pictures of Pluto and scientists know its exact surface chemistry. We think it's a round block of rock and ice... is that wrong? There's even a NASA spacecraft on its way there that will arrive in 2015 that will provide even more information about it.

People said Galilieo's theory was impossible, and that Darwin's theory was impossible. Hell, people even said Peter Higgs's theory was impossible. You've gotta keep an open mind with science! It's continually making new discoveries. Religion, on the other hand, claims to know everything already... and it's being gradually etched away at by science.

[Dragontao]

Have you ever studied astrophysics (not astronomy) at any level Ross? Studied the methods used to determine the size, composition and many other factors of different planets? As science evolves corrections are made and planets may be re-classified but much of the current science is based on what is possible and what is known from current techniques.

As for this:

After all, we'll never find out...We don't have the time, money, resources or human willingness to truly find out what exists in the deeper echelons of space, so to print it all out in black and white in such a factual basis is ridiculous, imo.

Really?

So no countries at the moment have huge budgets for space research? NASA must be a figment of my imagination. Russia have no interest in Space (yeah, okay, right). China aren't working on it either (okay, if you say so) and Europe as a whole is completely ignoring it (ho hum).

There is a huge investment in the investigation of space.

Ever heard of the hundred year star ship project/project icarus? A group of not for profit scientists who are looking into the requirements for deep space travel and looking to make it a reality?

http://100yss.org/initiative

http://www.icarusinterstellar.org/about/

My cousin just happens to be one of the directors of Project Icarus, he also worked for NASA as an Interstellar Communications Engineer. There's a lot more going on at NASA than just sending the odd shuttle to the moon, launching a few satellites and manning the odd space station.

But of course there is no interest in this whatsoever.

[harv]

I'm quite confident that we're not too far away from deep space travel, 40 or 50 years perhaps. I remember a few years ago reading about a theory involving using a giant electromagnet to hop dimensions. It would mean that you could power a ship to travel to Mars in a few days if I remember correctly.

Wouldn't surprise me if in the next hundred years or so we have teleportation sorted too.

In terms of technology we've made some great leaps during the last 100 years and if you think for a second that we won't be able to travel outside this solar system during the next 100 years then you're seriously deluded. They reckon we may be only a decade away from a man landing on Mars.

[davo]

Whilst I believe that the science regarding pluto is sound, I kind of understand what Ross is getting at. Pluto is an average of a 22 year round trip away when travelling at voyager 1 speeds. Without dramatically increasing our capabilities, we are unlikely to go and, to be honest, other than natural human curiosity - there is no real reason to go.
 
 So all we have for the forseeable future is a few graphically enhanced images of pluto. If he chooses to not accept that this is adequate proof of the dwarf planet then it is not unreasonable. Scientists tell me that humans are creating climate change through the production of CO2 and that, in my opinion, is utter rubbish.
 
 Mocking Ross for not accepting the science would, to me, be like a christian mocking someone for not believing in god.
 
 I think he is completely wrong but I respect his right to not consider the science to be conclusive proof.

[davo]

.... if you think for a second that we won't be able to travel outside this solar system during the next 100 years then you're seriously deluded.

That's a big call. With conventional travel, even if it were possible to travel at the speed of light, it would take 4 years to reach the next closest solar system. Given that the speed of light is 17,500x faster than our current fastest travel speed - we still have a way to go.

The theoretical physics of travelling through "worm holes" all sounds a bit dodgy to me.

[harv]

A hundred years ago nobody in their right mind would have thought that a man walking on the moon was possible, aircraft travelling faster than the speed of sound, computers the size that they are these days, organ transplants, microwave ovens, television, video, DVDs and Blu-Rays, nuclear fission and fusion. The list goes on and on.

I'm very confident that as long as we don't all blow each other to pieces during the next 100 years that we'll be able to travel outside this solar system and colonise other planets.

[AVFCRoss]

Whilst I believe that the science regarding pluto is sound, I kind of understand what Ross is getting at. Pluto is an average of a 22 year round trip away when travelling at voyager 1 speeds. Without dramatically increasing our capabilities, we are unlikely to go and, to be honest, other than natural human curiosity - there is no real reason to go.
 
 So all we have for the forseeable future is a few graphically enhanced images of pluto. If he chooses to not accept that this is adequate proof of the dwarf planet then it is not unreasonable. Scientists tell me that humans are creating climate change through the production of CO2 and that, in my opinion, is utter rubbish.
 
 Mocking Ross for not accepting the science would, to me, be like a christian mocking someone for not believing in god.
 
 I think he is completely wrong but I respect his right to not consider the science to be conclusive proof.

*thumbs up*

It's not as if I'm completely in denial about it...I'm willing to believe anything that can be adequately proven to a good enough standard, but there's still alot of gospel surrounding space and what exactly is there.

I mean, haven't scientists only recently de-classified Pluto because they might now think it's alot smaller than they anticipated previously?

Science is based off hypothesis and predictions...It isn't completely outlandish to disbelieve them, because a hypothesis is merely a guess, and in no way tied to fact.

Like I said, I'm willing to believe anything if a sufficient amount of evidence can be put forward to back up the claims of whatever it is people are claiming, but I just think the reality of space leaves alot to be desired at the moment in time.