First off, I'm not looking to change your mind. However, I will ramble as long as you're interested. Who knows maybe I'll learn something. I don't buy into the supernatural. The brain is incredibly powerful and I think a lot of people underestimate it. Anyone that knows the basics of psychology knows every human has “confirmation biasâ€. In other words, people are very likely to interpret things/feelings/experiences in a way that confirms their beliefs or opinions. It's human nature. This is why science is so wonderful; it eliminates all biases, it's pure fact. Science teaches us to not trust our senses or even our common sense (as I mentioned earlier Lawrence Krauss, an astrophysicist, can prove that “something can, in fact, come from nothing†despite how ludicrous that sounds to our common sense; it's scientific fact). Is it possible that you misinterpreted these experiences? Also what's stopping you from believing in ghosts, leprechauns, phychics, mediums, or hell even the tooth fairy? I don't see a difference. They're all supernatural. Maybe you misinterpreted your experiences and they were actually ghost related and not god related. Do you see where I'm coming from? Just because you correlated those experiences with god, does not mean god was the cause. I think it's healthier to only believe things if there's evidence, that way you can't get suckered by anyone/anything, or by the physic medium lady. lol If there is a God or Flying Spaghetti Monster, I'm sure he'd find that thought process completely reasonable. Why would you not want to think this way and instead choose Christianity? Do you mind if I ask why you don't believe the Quran is the one true holy book? I will beg to differ on the cherry picking. You must cherry pick, because even though it's not Christianity main purpose, it directly conflicts with science. It actually does tell us how the earth was created and the holy book is blatantly wrong, so that part must be cherry picked out, to still be a credible source. It sounds like you misused the term atheist. Atheist just means you don't believe in god, it doesn't mean you're saying there is NO god. It's just saying ehhh I'm not sold on the idea of God. Most atheists are agnostic atheists, which means they don't claim to be 100% certain there is a god, and they don't claim to be 100% certain there isn't a god. Agnostic atheists think: there may or may not be God, I don't know. Also I don't know ANY atheist that would say that science disproves God. If someone said that, I'd agree with you, they're nuts. You can't prove god DOESN'T exist, just like you can't prove god Does exist…..just like you can't prove were not in the matrix, dreaming, sasquatch, etc. etc. Anyway, that's my ramble. Looking forward to you rambling back and/or answering some of those questions. Peace Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Richard Dawkins and some Christian nuns were volunteers in an experiment where each wore "The God Helmet". The God Helmet is an application of "Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation". Prior research has determine locations in the left parietal lobe that when stimulated via TMS, produces vivid experiences of God's presence. The interesting thing is, both Dawkins (an atheist) and the nuns (theists) had experience of the existence of God, yet neither changed their viewpoint. Dawkins said, if magnetic stimulation of a certain area of the brain can produce an experience of God's reality, then God and the religions are basically a product of the physical brain. Specifically, somewhere known to God Helmet designers - somewhere in the left parietal lobe. The nuns were elated by the experience - and encouraged in their beliefs by it, too. They said, this doesn't mean that God is manufactured in the brain!. It means that our ability to sense His presence is programmed into our dna. It's that programming produces the correct hardware wiring for us to experience His presence. That proves beyond a doubt that He exists. Why else would there be hard wired into our brains the ability to experience the presence of another being if that being doesn't exist? Neither changed their beliefs, even after experiencing the *stimulated) presence of God! lol. What's the point of my post?
Very interesting. I've never heard that one. It's a dry video but check it out: http://vimeo.com/54557808 I guess I was wrong, science IS trying to debunk religion. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
You're right. Absolutely not. That's why I think agnostic atheism is the best fit for me. I think it'd be foolish to conclude that something's true without any evidence. Religion has no evidence. Just like the question: is there other life in the universe besides us? We don't know if it's true or not. No evidence = no conclusion. God may or may not be true. There's no evidence, so no conclusion. Simple really. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Everything in the universe moves in such a way to show that long, long ago, all of the matter was once in one place. This singularity expanded (the big bang) to form the universe we can observe today. The big bang theory happens to be the theory that best matches the observable evidence. Some sort of god may have put things into motion. But how would we prove this? And which God might this have been? To support further claims of some sort of omniscient, omnipotent creator, we would need to find some observable evidence. As Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."