Quote from: Rassah on December 12, 2014, 09:47:33 AM

Quote from: BADecker on December 12, 2014, 09:11:46 AM

The universe, nature around us, and life show us that there is something fantastically great behind everything that exists. If there weren't, researchers would have developed life extension so that we could all live to 1000 years old, long ago.

Why do you say that? Is your claim that, because it took our monkey brains hundreds of years to develop understanding and tools to understand biology, that biology is too complex to be created by anything but a god?

Because the whole of entropy and the 2nd Law of Thermal Dynamics show us that the kind of development that goes from nothing to life, is destroyed by nature way faster than it can be propagated, even if it could be shown to be possible to exist and propagate that way, which it hasn't.

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Why does a system have to be simple for it to be natural?

It doesn't. And that's the whole point. Even the best of researchers can't change the technology that is in the universe enough to produce a method for folks to live healthy lives to even 200 years old.

Where does our technology come from? Observing and using what is in nature... nowhere else. The universe is packed full of technology. It is simply put together differently - better - than ours, and for a different purpose.

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And, let's say our society collapses, and we lose a lot of our knowledge. Does the fact that it would take centuries to rediscover how to make something as complex as a computer CPU mean that CPUs are made by god?

What do you think a brain is?

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Or better yet, what will you be claiming when, in 50 years or so, we DO figure out how to live to 1000? (We're actually very close, since we understand almost all mechanisms of aging at this point, and are now just working on ways to repair and modify them)

I'll be saying, prove it. And if anyone reaches 200 using the methods research provides, I'd say that they had a good start. I might partake just to see if they are right.

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Quote from: BADecker on December 12, 2014, 09:11:46 AM

As it is, research is still just finding out some of the basics of life. And we certainly don't have the ability to travel the universe. We can barely get off our own planet. Since we don't have much of a handle on anything - like we don't even know how to will ourselves to grow back a finger when we lose one - where does all this complex universe come from?

Why do you say it's complex? That's just your personal opinion, based on your lack of knowledge. Life and the universe are fairly straightforward to biologists, physicists, and engineers. You are arguing from ignorance here, basically claiming "I don't understand, so no one else does either."

If you really believe this, then you are missing a whole lot of scientific research. Creating simple life in the lab is something that is complicated enough that the things that we create can't be ascertained to really be life. Somebody doesn't do this in his garage in his spare time. There are hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment that go into the experiments, and still, there is no certainty that the thing that was created is life. Yet, nature does it all the time, automatically.

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Quote from: BADecker on December 12, 2014, 09:11:46 AM

We use religion basics in our everyday lives. We "religiously" do certain activities all the time - eating, sleeping, going to the job, breathing.

That's not religion, that's biomechanical processes and instincts Tongue

We do them because our body sends signals making us crave those things, and rewards us with physical evidence when we complete the tasks. You don't eat food because you have faith that you are hungry, and have faith that you will feel full after. Conversely, a person born in a society that doesn't believe in god or Jesus (such as in Islamic, Buddhist, Shinto, or atheist society) doesn't get cravings for Jesus.

The idea wasn't that our whole life is a religion. The idea is that we do many things in our lives in a religious way, like a religion.

People forget the morality that is built into them naturally. Without it, we would be savages. Even the animals have certain morality built into them by nature.

Formal religions are there for two reasons: 1) to remind us of the morality we forget; 2) to prepare us to enter into eternal life. The fact that there are bad people who use formal religious societies to do their wicked deeds simply shows us that not every person is morally minded... or headed for eternal life. However, if there were no formal religions to push morality, there would be way more chaos among the lives of people.

You can see that success in the lives of people, equates to the quality of the laws they religiously follow. All you need do is compare the religions of the various nations, and how well the people follow them.

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Quote from: BADecker on December 12, 2014, 09:11:46 AM

Think long and hard before you decide to bypass religion.

Every atheist in America has. You may assume that atheists started out that way, and just haven't considered the idea of god before, but in fact America is absolutely steeped in religion. 80% of it is Christian (which is why we laugh when they claim religious persecution, or claim they are courageous to say they love Jesus in public), and religion is mentioned everywhere almost daily. So atheists almost always start out christian here,believing what you believe, and then get educated, start questioning and thinking, and come to their senses, realizing that Christian stuff doesn't make sense.

Someone has deluded a whole bunch of folks into thinking that atheism is NOT a religion. Can we prove the existence of God? Can we prove that God does NOT exist? No, both ways. Atheism says that God does not exist, without proof, and even against the odds. Atheism is a religion. It is a religion of hate for God.

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Quote from: BADecker on December 12, 2014, 09:11:46 AM

Some of that religion is about God, the Guy Who holds your life and existence in the palm of His hand. To see it, simply look at nature around you, and see how your existence fits into everything that exists.

Fitting into things that exist is evolution, not god. You, as a species, would not exist in your environment if you didn't fit into it, because you would either starve due to lack of food you need, or get eaten due to being weak and stupid. So of course every living thing fits into everything that exists. Those who didn't went extinct long ago.

Except for one major thing. Evolution is an idea. It is even touted as only a theory among those who are attempting to prove it. This is because the researchers are just scratching the surface in their proof for evolution. They aren't even far enough along with their evidences to say that their evidence for a factual evolution, do NOT prove God in some other way at the same time. Evolution is nothing. It is fabrication.

Complex universe and life, combined with the wide-spread entropy that exists, combined with the cause and effect nature of everything that exists, suggests God so extremely much that He might as well have been proven. There is so little in the universe that suggests that God DOESN'T exist, that He is essentially proven, even though He technically has not been.

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These are words. Anybody can say that they mean nothing. And, of themselves, they mean extremely little. Yet, when the themes that these word express are examined in detail, the themes prove to be truth.