British Red Cross Associatin has banned anything Jesus related...

[Weltall]

Originally posted by A Black Falcon
Religion greatly over-estimates the importance of humanity, and greatly under-estimates the impact of chance and the laws of the universe... we are not the center of the universe. The universe was not created for us. We are not the sole reason for existance. I know that you wish that we could still believe that the earth is the center of the universe, but it isn't... now religion says 'but it's so unlikely that things could have evolved the way they did on Earth, so it CAN'T be that!'. That just makes no sense. So it isn't likely. ... uh, so? The fact that life didn't survive in the rest of the solar system helps coroborate that, as does how we haven't detected any radio signals from outer space yet... so it was a complex and fragile set of circumstances that led life to evolve here. Why is that so hard to believe? Oh yeah, and just because we are smarter than the other species doesn't mean we are so much better... other species are intelligent too (some apes and monkeys are as smart as young children), you know... but no, WE are why everything exists. Or at least we are so special and amazing and great and unique that the whole universe was created just so we could exist.

Talk about pretendious.

As I said, science has answered lots of questions... and from looking at that we can see the likely answers to more. Religon just has to keep backing up -- well maybe the Earth wasn't created by God in seven days 5,324.754 years ago, but darnit he created it sometime! Well maybe he didn't create the Earth, but he created the universe! Well maybe he didn't create the universe, but he created the stuff that created the universe and guided it along just so we could exist!

That is just so incredibly absurd that I can't think of what to say.

No imagination at all.

For one thing, you assume the Bible should be taken word for word, when the thing is loaded with metaphors and subtlety.

For another, I appreciate random chance and coincidence. I, however, do not for a second believe that, considering everything science has discovered about the universe that:

1. There is infinity. There is some great infinity that just cannot end. That much is obvious.
2. Somewhere within this infinite space, somehow, some molecules were formed.
3. Somehow, enough of these molecules came together and caused a giant explosion.
4. Over billions of years, these molecules became incredibly complex, and formed an untold number of galaxies, and within, an even insanely higher number of constellations, nebulae, individual stars, and planets around them, more than we could hope to count in a thousand lifetimes.
5. There are literally endless variations on stars and planets. Thus, our star forms, along with what ends up being nine empty balls of rock orbiting it.
6. One of these balls of rock, the third, happens to be the exact distance necessary for some amazing stuff to start happening. Out of some of the most basic stuff of everything, this particular ball of rock, completely like none other we've ever seen, escapes the primeval existence and becomes something more. Over billions of years, this rock somehow escapes chance and forms the most basic life.
7. Against impossible odds, the conditions for this simple life form are such that it evolves. And evolves more. And more. This life takes on sentience, a completely new concept. Since the very beginning of everything, chemical reactions have always been happenstance and completely chaotic. Now, there are chemical reactions that can control themselves to an extent.
8. This life somehow ceases to be a mindless extension of the chaos that bore it, and acquires the ability to think and reason.
9. We now have, again, against impossible odds, an ecosystem. We have the one place in the known infinity that has a paradise for living things. Over aeons, species live and die, and acquire new abilites, basic emotions. Eventually, life forms are beings of incredible complexity. No longer tiny, simplistic beings, life has now achieved an art form, as it were. Creatures now possess complex forms, and have completely adapted to their environment. They are much like machines we make today.
10. One of these countless species evolves. This being is unremarkable in many ways, being weaker, smaller, and slighter of senses than many larger beasts. Yet, it survives, and even thrives. This being eventually creates generations of offspring that, over time, alter themselves slightly. One of these dozens of variations, the human, is born.
11. This human has a brain exponentially more advanced than that of any other creature. It goes far beyond basic instinct, and develops higher thinking. It survives against odds and eventually becomes a social animal. It creates coverings, shelters, skins, and eventually learns new secrets, like fire, weapons, and language.
12. Development continues. The human now moves beyond merely eating plants and other animals, and learns how to cleverly farm and harvest these things. Man forms complex languages and heirarchies. Man also thinks like no other. Man questions things, wonders at his own existence, and is aware of there being things unknown, and with that, a desire to discover them. Man thinks of gods, and God in particular. Man begins to form beliefs and rituals, and unlike anything before it, practices recreation, creating things that have no practical purpose. Man learns language, creates music, creates stories and sagas. And man spreads the world.
13. Man is so spread out from their once-nomadic lifestyle, yet all of them experience this evolution of thought, some faster than others. Man moves from the concept of villages to cities, and from cities to nations, from nations to empires, all under complex systems of government. Man forms armies to protect or to conquer.
14. Over thousands of years, Empires rise and fall. Suddenly, the Industrial revolution occurs, and with it, humanity begins to advance at a far more rapid rate. Of these empires, one of them becomes the master of them all, the British. And this empire gives birth to America, who wins its independence from Britain against heavy odds.
15. The 20th century begins, and the industrial revolution kicks into overdrive. Humans do things that they could never even dream of. We create a weapon that can kill millions in an instant. We can fly higher than birds and swim deeper than fish. We can harness primal elements and use them for our own purposes. We have the ability to leave our own world and travel beyond it. During this time, America, once a step-child colony of a great empire, becomes the greatest in history, dominating the world's economy and wielding enough power to annihilate the world many times over.
16. Somewhere out of this entire mix, I am born. I am lucky enough to live a good life, despite a few shaky years. And I now sit here at my computer, defending my beliefs.

And you're telling me that I am sitting here, at my computer typing on a message board, completely because of chance. And not simple chance, or even remotely likely chance. Essentially, I am here right now because of trillions of trillions of trillions of seperate occurances that are so incredibly unlikely, the odds of them happening so low there probably isn't a number big enough to display them, and that if a huge majority of them happened any differently, even within a single percent, nothing would be here at all, or it would be so radically different that it is beyond comprehension. You're telling me that the incredible design of existence is the completely random and nearly-impossible chaos that we are so far away from even beginning to understand that we almost certainly never will, and there is absolutely no meaning at all behind any of it.

And you tell me my belief in a higher being is preposterous.