What's your Religion?

My match is wet. Can I get another one?

 

I think he's just proving to himself what an awsome group he has here

 

In Bob we trust!

 

I'm trying to avoid a huge point/counterpoint post here. Unlike some others, I see some sliding 'civility' here. Caricatures of a religion are easy to poke fun at, but they say nothing substantive about the underlying religion itself.

I have an MS degree in physics (only a dissertation short of a PhD) and am a Christian. They are not incompatible. As a matter of fact, when I was visiting churches in grad school to find one that's a good fit, I met a number of my physics professors. I have problems with Young Earth Creationists too, both for their method of reading the Bible, as well as their understanding of science. Not all Christians are mouth-breathing anti-science zealots (the majority are not). However, as with any extreme view, they're the ones you hear the most press about.

To the atheists who say they don't have faith in anything, I ask: Do you believe in quantum mechanics? If so, please explain what experiments you've performed to satisfy your need for proof? I suspect the answer will be along the lines of putting trust (faith?) in professional scientists to have done their due diligence. As a followup, I'd ask whether this is substantively different than someone putting trust in the authors of the Bible to have done their due diligence?

I'm happy to have a true dialog on these subjects, but I've been in enough Internet "debates" full of people just trying to score "points" not to have a taste for it any more.

 

For me, it's not really a matter of "believing" in quantum mechanics per say. I don't have a clue how they work or the math involved. I do read about various experiments via Popular Science and websites so I have any about some of the theories, but that can obviously change as the theories mature or more experiments are performed. It's not a belief system that sends my life into a tail spin if it changes or ends up being wrong.

I suppose you could say there's some faith in the people behind the theories with more math skills than me. Then again, that's essentially the same faith I put in normal people to not run me off the road driving home from work. At the same time, I don't flat out believe new claims about things that can be done now (teleportation, quantom computer, faster than light travel, etc) with the new theories or understandings of QM. I wait until there is a functional model of the system.

As for faith in the original bible writer(s).... Maybe. But then again, maybe I have faith that the original person writing the installation instructions for my furniture got it right, but the 3 translations it took to get it to English screwed it up!

 

Actually, you could if the initial genetic mix was right:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-377839/Black-white-twins.html

 

Right.... But that's because both mother and father of the twins had mixed race parents (white mothers, black fathers). What would Adam and Eve have to have for parents to produce black, white, asian and islander (brown) children?

 

Then that "maybe" is where you should start!

You can't read Old English? Well, guess what, neither can most! If we limit our study of the Bible to Old English translations like the 1611 King James Version, then almost everyone will end up frustrated and give up without understanding the first thing about the books they hold in their hands.

That's a rather common objection to the Bible, that somehow those who translated it from the original languages "screwed it up." There are religious systems that make such claims a central tenant of their teachings, and on that basis offer totally extra-Biblical texts to their followers - for example the "Book of Mormon".

The truth is that some of these objections are valid, for people have in fact massaged the Biblical message as they worked with it according to their own individual likes and whims in certain cases. However with the abundance of textual evidence available today, modern translators have source material to work from that's recognized as accurate and authentic. Modern translations such as the New American Standard Bible (NASB), the New King James Version (NKJV), and the New International Version (NIV) offer highly readable and accurately rendered English translations of these source documents.

Do some still try to bend and manipulate Bible text to say what they want it to say? Of course. However for the most part such distortions these days consist of "in house" efforts on the part of certain religious groups to buttress their own teachings in the eyes of their followers. As such they are widely recognized for what they are, and not taken at all seriously.

One who helped translate the NIV and the NKJV says the following: “It is necessary to continue making new translations and revising old ones if people are to read the Word of God in their contemporary languages. With the passage of time, words change in meanings. For instance, in King James’ day the word ‘prevent’ could mean ‘come before’ but not necessarily in a hindering way. So the translators in that day rendered 1 Thes. 4:15, ‘For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.’ But today the word ‘prevent’ has lost that earlier meaning (come before), so it must be translated differently to convey the proper meaning: ‘According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not ‘precede’ those who have fallen asleep’ (NIV). ...To keep the translation of God’s Word living it must be kept in the living language the people are using.”

While new translations are generally a welcome contribution to the comprehension of scripture, they have also received mixed reactions across the Christian world.

A story is told of a pastor who tried to introduce a modern translation of the Bible to his rigidly conservative congregation. “So what’s wrong with the King James Bible?” one woman asked. “In my opinion, if it was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for us!”

Well, Jesus obviously did not speak Old English, and neither was the Bible originally recorded in King James' English! Despite the sacred tradition and revere attached to King James Bible, it is simply an English language translation of the inspired text, and by no means the initial source.

Look into a couple of the well rendered present day English translations and prepare to be amazed as you begin to grasp the depth and breadth of the revelation of God through his inspired Word. And don't let the state of the world around us deter you, for the Bible provides God's plan for mankind from the beginning to the end. What we see around us today was accurately foretold and recorded in ages past, as a reliable guide, so we won't stumble and fall during this journey of life.

 

I agree with you....even though you are a cop....

I would recite the pledge of allegiance in school, and at Boyscout functions, bow my head at church and funerals, and sit through my mother in law saying grace at dinner. I don't believe in God, and those examples are not forcing it on me IMO so I can tolerate them. It's not obnoxious or in my face so I can be tolerant.

I'm not going to sue the school for making my kids say the pledge because of the "Under God" part like that guy in California. It also doesn't bother me that our money says "In God We Trust" on it, so don't lump me in with that jackass on the west coast suing the school and all that crap.

 

What I'm saying is that given the right genetic mix two people could produce all the variation we see in color. If we assumed that Adam and Eve were created with mixed genes like the couple in the article, over time and subsequent generations, with genetic mutation and depending on who they took for a mate, you'd have a wide spectrum of colors and features. It can further be affected by their environment.

 

I was raised Lutheran. I am agnostic now. I think the thing that really turned me away from being affiliated with any one religion was seeing people judging others in church and seeing them say that someone else was wrong for not believing in what they did. I feel that if you live a good life it doesn't matter what your religious affiliation is.

 

I live in the South near a Baptist Church. 90% of the people in my area are super Southern Baptists, I get Jesus shoved down my throat all the time.

I still believe in God, I just hate the brainwashed idiots who believe everything the Bible/Priest/Youth Group/Whatever tells them. I have my doubts about God, I'm sane.

 

It's great to have you chime in Sawdust! So many are surprised when they see those in mathematics and the hard sciences profess real faith in Christ, so your input is welcome and important.

That's obviously the truth. Rigid young earth proponents are those who the non-Christian world points to as they seek to build their straw man case against Christianity and the Bible. On the other hand Christians who do not espouse young earth dogma, but who believe the work of God is manifest in the laws and processes we see in play around us in the universe as well as on earth and throughout our solar system, are left largely unmentioned.

There are many such questions that an honest truth seeking atheist must ask.

I believe, at least to this point, that what we have going here is not so much a "debate" as it is an open and honest discussion in which everyone is welcome to participate. So far the basic understanding is that no one is out to score points or hammer anyone else, but simply to express themselves on the subject of religion and allow others the right and space to do the same.

What discussion there has been has been friendly dialog among fellow travelers on the road of life, and one neat thing is that we're all traveling that road together and doing so in our favorite truck!

 

There is a actually a book that came out that worked religion and physics together. It was a pretty good book, by Dan Brown same guy who wrote The Da Vinci Code. It's called Angels & Demons.

 

Well put, gentlemen.