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Post by Admin on Aug 4, 2023 9:58:55 GMT
The Ecology and Evolution class I took at West Virginia University, well the professor walked up to the podium and announced,
"There is no conflict between Evolution and Religion."
What he was getting at is that some people believe both occurred and can coexist. For example, if you believe in a higher power called God, then just perhaps he used Evolution as his mechanism or tool to create the various Species on Earth.
Likewise, perhaps God snapped his fingers, a quick spark occurred, and it exploded and set the Big Bang into Motion.
We will never truly know until we meet our end or meet our maker.
I can honestly say that you are betting against the odds if you choose to be a pure Atheist and not believe in a God, as you're hedging all your bets on no God. If there is a God then you'll go to Hell, if there isn't you're just dead. If there's not a God, nothing happens either way. It's a Scientific Paradox. Scientists would wage or bet on the best probability of something positive happening to us all in the end, and believing in God gives you better chances of making to the after life than purely not believing in him.
I've struggled with this/these concepts for years. Raised Baptist, my mind was "liberated" by Scientific Education and I was quite sure I was an Atheist. Then I became Agnostic. Now I place my bets on the best odds of what will happen to me in the end. One could say my thinking has certainly evolved over time!
Michael Piziak, B.S., M.A.
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Post by luftfluss on Aug 5, 2023 3:20:25 GMT
But if there is a God - an Abrahamic one - isn't a sincerely held belief in Him required in order to go to Heaven? In other words, if a person decides to believe in God simply to hedge their bets, isn't that just as bad as non-belief?
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Post by kingcong on Aug 5, 2023 11:48:04 GMT
I accept and respect folks' individual beliefs - so long as pursuing their faith doesn't harm others - but I'm not at all religious and believe everything has scientific basis, whether or not we understand the science fully at this point. When we die, that's it so far as I'm concerned... I don't believe we meet a maker / supreme being (or more than one of them), move on in a different physical or conscious form to some better (or worse) place, or return to this one as something else. I can see how these might be comforting or motivating concepts for some, and perhaps good incentives to lead decent lives and be responsible members of the community - but for me, they just don't compute. I consider myself an agnostic, but only by the slimmest of margins from atheism, whilst respecting the rights of others to believe whatever they wish. Merely professing a belief or going through the motions of worship as an insurance policy for a possible judgement and afterlife doesn't sit well with me. If I did that, I'd feel my actions were insincere and opportunistic at best, fraudulent at worst - and I'd worry that any supreme being(s) would see through my little ruse (I'm sure he / she / it / they would have had plenty of experience in spotting such things!). As it stands, I can only be true to my own beliefs and try to be a good citizen - and when my time comes, if there is a maker, they'll need to judge me on the available data and let the chips fall where they may Whether evolution and religion conflict depends, I would say, on someone's chosen faith, how they interpret the basis, beliefs and tenets of that faith, and how stringently they apply them to the world and universe as we understand them today. I suspect that most religious fundamentalists - whatever their religions - hold beliefs that conflict with science, but I'm not sure that matters so long as it doesn't hurt anyone or stand in the way of progress. That said, in Christianity the Bible claims that God created man, suggesting we humans didn't evolve but just suddenly appeared on Earth (which, incidentally, He created a mere four days prior to that, along with the sky). He created animals on the same day as man, but did fish and birds the day before (none of these evolved either, then). Again, none of that computes for me. Is any of it possible? According to scientific research and data, no - so in this matter at least, Darwinism and Christianity most certainly conflict.
I believe strongly in biological evolution, though I'm sure there are still aspects of it we either misunderstand or don't yet fully understand...
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Post by Admin on Sept 4, 2023 4:09:58 GMT
To luftluss, I have certainly found that different church members, from different churches, have told me different things. I ask them all this question, "If I was saved as a boy but have turned my back on God, will I go to heaven or hell?"
Some have answered that if you turn your back on him and deny him, even after being saved, that you just bought yourself a ticket to hell.
Others, including my mother, tell me that once you are saved then you are saved forever and will enter heaven.
Perhaps just hedging your bets one way is as bad as a non-belief.
Michael
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Post by Admin on Sept 4, 2023 4:21:12 GMT
To kingcong, My beliefs recently seem to change from one day to another. Some days I feel like an agnostic and other days I feel like an atheist. Your explanation of it just being a ruse if one hedges their bet, as I posted, is an interesting one, and actually is logical in that you say if there is a maker he'd see right through that kind of fraudulent probability betting. Such a maker, should he or she exist, surely sees through the ruse I posted if I end up meeting him/her. As far as man being created by "God," I have told people many times over the years that God didn't create man in his own image but man actually created God in his own image so that man would have a way of believing that he doesn't simply die and no longer exist at death. I've also told people many times over the years that when you die then it's just like before you were born - you simply didn't exist then or remember anything and you won't be alive after death either and won't experience anything. Experience after death will be just like it was before your birth. Today I feel more like an atheist. My view simply flip flops around from atheism to agnostic and back and forth a lot recently. Like I said, I've struggled with this many times over the years. As a child I was a believer (I believed in Santa then too). As a college student studying science and for for 15 plus years teaching it, I was purely an atheist. Today I feel like an atheist. Today I feel as if no invisible man lives in the sky - the hubble space telescope would have picked it up by now.
A quote that I'd like to add to this, that I've heard in the past but don't know from memory whom to attribute it to is that: "Biology is just a collection of facts without Evolution."
Michael
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