Has it never occurred to you, that these braincenters say fascinating things about how the human brain works, and absolutely nothing about the truth value of religions?

The more I read on the brain the more it validates the spiritual.

Also the more I read on it it sounds like our spiritual function is an incomplete or interrupted function.

I don't see this contradicting the bible because there very well could have been a loss of this knowledge around the time of the Cain and Abel story and people then tried to explain things and the alternate accounts were garbled or poor imitations of the original Garden of Eden story.

Even the Mithras legend isn't that similar to Jesus' birth. People on this board constantly compare Jesus to Mithras which is a very poor comparison.

Mithras was born from a rock. Jesus Christ wasn't.

If you absolutely must have some struggles in your life, then make it a struggle between truth and falsehoods, not useless distinctions between the "spiritual" and the "scientific".

Its been said before and I will say it again, cause apparently it is needed again.

Common ancestry is a fact, with more supporting evidence than the theory of gravity.

Comparing something to something else is not saying they are identical. Say, have you heard about Tanya Grotter?
Ill leave it to you to figure out what I mean.

What if God formed a chimp from the dust then blew breath into it transforming it and giving it a soul and thereby making it a man?

Is that possible?

Just because there are more than one kind of primate doesn't mean this couldn't have happened does it?

There is more than one kind of primate isn't there?

With an all powerfull god everything is possible. That is not the point.

The point is that the deus ex machina is not needed to explain what happened. No agnostic/weak atheist is going to tell you that it CANNOT have been (a) god, just that there is no evidence for it, therefore no reason to believe it to be true.

But thats based on an evolutionary and/or cosmology perspective only, right?

First, look at those three posts again and answer me honestly if you understand what Im trying to say.

Then look at what (I presume) you did with the quoted post, you read what I said, denied it to be possibly true and wrote that, moving on immediately to a different topic, without confirming or denying what I wrote.

Was I right in this?

I've gotta run. I'll try to re-read it later.

Very well, have a good night/day and good luck in whatever you do (although we both know, being on a poker forum, that its not about luck).

How can this be true when 6 billion people confirm the theory of gravity multiple times a day?

Being one person, I have not witnessed the common ancestor of the chimpanzee and the **** sapien.

And while the evidence for common ancestory is strong, it is not yet a fact, considering the details are modified every few years based on new discovery.

lol Wrong.

Sir, you made the implication that this is not an intelligent argument. To do so, the burden is on you now to show what is illogical and wrong about it.

1. Order/complexity does imply design. You are simply pointing out the falsehoods in this statement: If orderly and complex, then design. Whereas I'm saying this: if intelligent designer, then orderly and complex.

To completely lol at this argument, one would have to point out an overwhelming ration of disorderly things to orderly things in world to make the latter statement false.

2. How can design not imply intelligent 'desginer' or god? What other designer can there be?

3. This is a cosmological arguement and it does not question the design of the designer of the designer etc.

You might say, if god is eternal and he created matter, why not just remove the superfulous step called god, and just say that matter is eternal?

It is more logical to believe that god is eternal than matter. For one, it is impossible for matter to be eternal. The 2nd law of thermodynamics states that all matter in the universe is headed for some sort of death. That the universe is slowly losing usable energy and never gaining. You can logically say that the universe had a single finite beginning.

Why it is more logical to assume that the concept of god is eternal is that it exists outside the time/space continum. Moreoever, if god designed the universe and its laws, god is master over them. An explanation for who or what created god is not needed because god by definition is eternal. At least moreso than the notion that matter and energy are eternal.

With all the murders, death and pain in the world I wouldn't ever want to go to the afterlife with this god. Too bad such non sense doesn't exist, but if so, sign me up for limbo.

Oh I'm sorry, is the "spiritual gene" something that has been discovered by science, if so can you please post scientific links to such a discovery? Otherwise stfu.

1. Yes, designer => complexity/order, so...? Teleological argument goes in the opposite direction, which as I pointed out is false.

2. Design does not imply omni-anything. Hope you understand now.

3. No, you mean YOU don't want to question the design of the designer. But if you accept teleological argument, you are necessitated to do so.

Universe is not losing energy, heat death doesn't mean matter disappears, universe doesn't have to have finite beginning (only the observable universe, which by definition is finite), finite doesn't mean there is stuff "outside", etc. You have way too many misconceptions about physics/cosmology, I'm afraid.

I've got 1/4 the way through this. Have to run and will finish it later - or maybe I could just get the summary of it in your own words??

http://www.metaresearch.org/cosmolog...ABeginning.asp

That stuff is mostly outdated and ignores recent observations. He's basically saying observational evidence (at the time that is) is not enough; he has decent explanations for some things though.

Just read the big bang stuff on wiki - you can get all info you want from there (and it is much more up to date). If you get any specific questions feel free to ask.

Meh, there are better sources than wiki, but I'll look into the contention that this is outdated information. Still, got to finish the report myself to see just how outdated it actually is.

Can't do it now, little drunk and my lady's waiting on me (lol at me posting on RGT when my girl is laying in the bed waiting for me)

given what I just said, I'll avoid the temptation to write a dissertation now, and post tomorrow.

Barring the elixir of life or aliens id give the religions we know today under 500 years. But until we prove or disprove God there will always be believers and non believers of some sort, and that could take a lot longer.

Newton's theory of gravity or Einstein's more precise approximation of it (General relativity) breaks down in black holes or at the moment of the big bang. When you have a theory that works in certain parts of the universe but not in others, that usually means your theory is wrong in some fundamental way.

There's also problems with gravity on the galactic scale. Look up the galaxy rotation problem. Essentially, our theory of gravity is giving different predictions for the velocity of the rotational curves of galaxies than what we observe. This is a big problem. When a theory's predictions don't match up with what we observe this again usually means our theory is wrong in some fundamental way. Scientists have postulated the existence of dark matter to perhaps solve this problem, but nobody really knows exactly what dark matter is and it has not been directly detected.

As you can see our theory of gravity is on very shaky ground while common descent is pretty much a lock. Assuming you know something about endogenous retroviruses, this video alone "proves" it. Keep in mind this evidence that shows humans and chimps share a common ancestor is just as strong as the DNA evidence we use to prosecute criminals.

nice video; don't quite agree on the stuff you say about gravity, but meh, I'll let it slide since the video was too good

Your point is still obscure.

If its an attempt to imply my faith is fantasy then I'd say that you perceive it that way because you've probably got a different way of handling the important questions in life than I do.

Faith is not synonymous with magic.

When one makes the two synonymous it is based on a faulty comparison. The goals of faith and magic aren't even identical. In faith the power reposes in God. In magic it is an illusion reposing in an individual. So the question then becomes was Jesus who he said he was or did he do something extraordinary. Equating Jesus Christ with Mindfreak Chris Angel will never cut it but you will confuse the hell of a lot of people into believing your point of view.

Let nothing slide. If I say something that is wrong/false go after me with the same intensity as if I were Splendour. What do you disagree with?