What's Your Religion?

[PaperLuigi]

No doubt, but at least I do not have to fear death. I do not have to fear being placed in a world of suffering for disobeying god.

[CrossEyed7]

Not necessarily. Beliefs don't determine reality, as any atheist would be glad to point out if you were still a Christian. If that was the way it worked, I'd believe in a god that could automatically forgive everyone in a way that didn't interfere with free will and also give me free sandwiches whenever I wanted them (PB&J with Sriracha sauce, oddly enough).

Anyway, I guess Allah will be George Foreman-grilling your stomach or whatever. I'd really rather not think about it. I hope I get to see you in heaven, but if that's not your choice, then I'll try to be happy with the time I've known you now. You're still the best internet friend I've ever had, and what's a little impending everlasting [darn]ation between friends, right? I wish I could jump in the road and push you out of the way of the truck you don't see, like everyone else who's unsaved, but unfortunately that won't work.

But enough of that kind of stuff, let's debate. What started the universe? Science is pretty sure now that the universe began, so what began it? What about that guy whose name I forgot who estimated that the odds of the Big Bang producing the right gravitational properties for it to work are 1 in 10^10^123? I mean, you can't even write that number. Seriously, there aren't even 10^123 particles in the universe, so it's physically impossible to write. It's a big number.

And if you want to go with the side that's killed fewer people, atheism probably isn't the best option. Russia killed something like 100 million people when it was officially atheist. Granted, Christians shouldn't have been killing anyone at all, let alone millions, but atheists still probably killed a bigger number of millions, if that matters.

As for the 2,000-year-old book thing... well, all books will eventually be 2,000 years old, right? One that actually lasts that long is probably one that deserves some attention. Not saying that proves it's right, of course. There's other evidence supporting that.

[PaperLuigi]

I wish I could jump in the road and push you out of the way of the truck you don't see, like everyone else who's unsaved, but unfortunately that won't work.

I wish I could jump in the road and push you out of the way of the truck you don't see, like everyone else who's blinded by faith, but unfortunately that won't work.

Science is pretty sure now that the universe began, so what began it? What about that guy whose name I forgot who estimated that the odds of the Big Bang producing the right gravitational properties for it to work are 1 in 10^10^123? I mean, you can't even write that number. Seriously, there aren't even 10^123 particles in the universe, so it's physically impossible to write. It's a big number.

Christians simply don't know and it's pompous of them to say they have a monopoly on the truth. Yes, those are pretty big numbers. May I ask where you got them? Furthermore, they don't necessarily point to a divine creator. With time, anything is possible. We simply do not know for sure, and a 2,000 year old book telling us that God did it (without any mathematical facts backing it up no less) is just silly.

And if you want to go with the side that's killed fewer people, atheism probably isn't the best option. Russia killed something like 100 million people when it was officially atheist. Granted, Christians shouldn't have been killing anyone at all, let alone millions, but atheists still probably killed a bigger number of millions, if that matters.

Correction. Stalin and his government killed millions of people, not atheism.

As for the 2,000-year-old book thing... well, all books will eventually be 2,000 years old, right? One that actually lasts that long is probably one that deserves some attention. Not saying that proves it's right, of course. There's other evidence supporting that.

So if a fairy tale survives 2,000 years, we should regard it as truth?

[Lizard Dude]

The odds of anything happening are astronomical if looked at from the right point of view. 5000 years ago, I had a 0% chance of existing. But something has to happen.

(I'm talking about the realms of human computation here. Of course with infinite processing power you could model every particle in the universe and extrapolate everything that ever has happened and ever will happen.)

On a simpler level, considering how little is known about "why" the universe exists, any "odds of the universe existing" are highly bogus.

[CrossEyed7]

I wish I could jump in the road and push you out of the way of the truck you don't see, like everyone else who's blinded by faith, but unfortunately that won't work.

You know, if I knew for sure that there was nothing after death, I'd probably kill myself. To me, that would be the truck. I think the idea that there might be a hell is a better motivator to live than the idea that this is all there is, because if the choice is between feeling pain or feeling nothing, there are many times when I'd probably choose to go with the latter. Of course, that doesn't prove I'm right or anything.

With time, anything is possible.

Except that before the universe began to exist, there kind of wasn't time.

Correction. Stalin and his government killed millions of people, not atheism.

Well, yeah. Ideas don't kill people, people who believe in ideas kill people.

So if a fairy tale survives 2,000 years, we should regard it as truth?

Fairy tales usually don't even claim to be true, let alone have corroborating evidence from other contemporary sources.

Yes, those are pretty big numbers. May I ask where you got them?

I can't find the original source, but they seem to be from Roger Penrose, the guy who apparently, along with Steven Hawking, basically invented the modern understanding of the Big Bang. William Lane Craig has a very long, complicated-sounding article that mentions the number over here. If you just want to see the number, scroll near the bottom of this page.

The odds of anything happening are astronomical if looked at from the right point of view.

Yeah, the odds of any specific thing happening are astronomical, but the odds of something happening at all are 1. However, as far as I can understand it, that 10¹⁰¹²³ thing is actually the odds of something happening at all -- in 10¹⁰¹²³-1 cases, nothing would have happened and there'd be no universe. And the "we wouldn't be here to know there wasn't a universe if there wasn't a universe" doesn't hold much weight without postulating infinite parallel universes or infinitely repeating Big Bangs, ideas which have less scientific basis and falsifiability than the existence of God.

Then again, it's 3:40 AM in my time zone, so I might be wrong (and I'm watching Red Eye right now).

[The Chef]

What started the universe? Answer is easy:

Dr. Manhattan

Think about it.

[Chupperson Weird]

Aw, I thought it was Tetsuo.

[Lizard Dude]

I thought about it for two seconds and realized that Dr. Manhattan was a normal man in the obviously already existing universe before getting powers so you're definitely wrong.

[CrossEyed7]

Maybe he ended up getting so powerful that he transcended time and went back and created himself. Doubtful, though.

[The Chef]

Precisely. He went back in time and started the universe from scratch. Remember how he said he wanted to go create some life? That's what he did. Hey, the earliest script for the Watchmen movie involved a time paradox at the end, so why the hell not?
 
However if you want to go and say that his universe is fictional and ours isn't, then he transcended space as well and created our universe instead. I remember reading that at one point in the original Watchment script, the cast winds up on our Earth somehow. Or maybe that was another movie....

On the other hand, if it wasn't Dr. Manhattan, then it was definitely...

[Turtlekid1]

No doubt, but at least I do not have to fear death. I do not have to fear being placed in a world of suffering for disobeying god.

If you had to fear it before, were you ever really a Christian?

[Nintendoobsessed]

If you had to fear it before, were you ever really a Christian?

Some of the rules in Christianity are so strict, that you could never be sure if you're going to hell.

For instance, if you're gay, you're going to hell. (According to Chrisitans.)

If Dante's Inferno can be trusted, some of the punishments are a little over board.

(If God loves us all, why does he send people to hell for simply believing in another 2000 year old book?)

[CrossEyed7]

For instance, if you're gay, you're going to hell. (According to Chrisitans.)

If you commit any sin at all in your life and never receive forgiveness, you can't go to heaven. Gays don't get any special treatment in either direction; their sins are no more and no less deserving of hell than any other sins. Fred Phelps is not the Protestant Pope. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

If Dante's Inferno can be trusted

It can't.

(If God loves us all, why does he send people to hell for simply believing in another 2000 year old book?)

If this really represents the extent of your knowledge of Christian doctrine, you better not ever criticize Turtlekid for not understanding evolution. Questions like this have had millions of pages and countless hours of extensive answers for centuries. Don't go into a debate armed only with a caricature.

The Cliff's Notes version: People don't go to hell for believing the wrong thing, they go to hell because their sins aren't forgiven (and if you only take one thing from this post, take this: No one, least of all me, is perfect). All sin is an offense against an infinitely perfect God. Any blemish is infinitely worse than absolute perfection -- 0.01 is smaller than 0.1, but both are infinitely more than 0, multiplicatively. That impossible debt was paid, "once for all," by the infinite sacrifice of Jesus (who is God). Why can't God just automatically forgive everyone? Free will. God's not going to rape you.

You can debate that if you want. You can hate it. You can dispute it. You can offer alternatives. You can accept it or reject it. You can study it deeper or you can leave it be. All I'm asking is that you understand it. Understand that everyone, even Christians, have thought through their beliefs, often quite extensively, and believe their own beliefs make sense, and we're not just making crap up to offend people because we want them to go to hell. We don't want people to go to hell; in fact, that's exactly why we talk about it.

[Glorb]

I just caught up on this topic, and while I think it's cool that PL is seeing things in a more reasonable light, I have to ask: is it for the right reason?

I'm not an atheist because it's cool or rebellious (I've seen people become atheists because it's apparently the philosphical equivalent of smoking), it's because I honestly see no reason for the belief system seen in almost all religions. I certainly respect the discipline it takes to mold your life around a certain ideal, no matter how much I disagree with it, and I've aways felt that, for all I know, there could actually be a being that single-handedly created the universe. I'm an atheist because I feel that it's not my business to concern myself in such matters. I don't want to obssess over what happens after I die and which actions arbitrarily lead to that outcome.

[PaperLuigi]

Like I said, I am an agnostic, not an atheist. The reason I turned agnostic is because I haven't seen enough evidence to prove God exists.