Religion proves things??
Not as clearly??
well anyway, Science is ever changing, daily, requiring hard work.
Unless I'm mistaken, religion has been working out of the same books for say, a couple thousand years. Nothing really new, unless there is a BibleV2.0 that I'm unaware of.

I believe God created a mature earth. For example when the trees were created they had to of allready been grown even though they had only just been created. There are stars in the sky that we can see but have been extict since before creationists believe the Earth was created, because they are light years away and even the light traveling at the speed of light takes a long time to get here. I think the evolution of species is just like the trees and the stars where they were created to be mature. It's kind of hard to explain so I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.

Well thats why the Bible is SO amazing, its so reliable, also Religion changes with the times, the Catechism is fairly new and that talks about present isuues.
Also, Religion is forced to "change" because society "changes".
i.e 200 million years ago abortion wasnt a problem, but the Church had to make a stance on that. And Religion IS hardwork!

I may be defective as a human, but I neither require nor desire answers to everything, in this I see the folly of BOTH religion AND science. My wife's parents both die of cancer, they died, its natural, it happens. My son was born at 4lbs 2ounces, and his heart dropped below 30 bpm during delivery 5 times, and now he is completely fine, that HAPPENS. WHY? It doesn't keep me up at night. Debating the exsistence or non-exisistence of a Creator is fruitless, as neither side will every be convinced of the other's 'proof', and if each side has their eyes open even THEY will never be satisfied with their proof. I believe in love, I believe in death. I believe that if there is a God he/she doesn't want us killing each other for any reason, and especially doesn't want us killing with him/her as justification. I know morals can exsist independantly of religion, and religion can not justify cruelty, malice, or destruction.

Discussions like this are pushing me closer to the flying spaghetti monster everyday!

Close, but not quite. Think of it like this: you throw a handful of quarters in the air and they land in whatever random position they land in. The chances of them landing in that exact position were one out of nearly infinite. But they still did. Is this somehow amazing? No, not really. It's just one result among infinite amount of other possible results.
That's where the hard work comes in play in religion. You can take any book and with enough explanation and interpretation, you can make it just as "reliable". Spin a story enough and it fits whatever you want it to fit.

That's why we have million different interpretations of the bible, all claiming to be the correct one and most completely incompatible with each other.

We have Christians who believe that the world was created in a week, we have Christians who believe the world was created over billions of years, we have Christians who believe creation was just a metaphor and God just kickstarted things and left them to run on their own. We have Christians who believe homosexuality is a sin and we have Christians who believe Jesus had homosexual relationships with his disciples. We have Christians who believe taking someone's life is always wrong, and we have Christians who believe that mass murdering others is ok if they subscribe to slightly different flavour of the same religion.

Raises hand

In everyone's scramble to air their own opinions, we're losing sight of why this post is so inflammatory - if a presidential candidate does not believe in evolution, there's a good chance he is going to run the country according to fundamentalist views which tend not to be very good for individual human rights (making gays and women second class citizens by denying them certain rights and choices, continuing a holy war against muslim countries, etc).

Just because he does or doesnt believe in something doesnt mean hes going to go crazy and run the country based off of "NO EVOLUTION NO HUMAN RIGHTS"!

Where did your god come from?

It is rather hard to fathome, but He was there, just there

That is why there are denominations to foster different beliefs.


SORRY... for the two in a row post it was an accident

The problem with the "It's too much up to chance" theory is that, in a universe with billions of stars and possibly even more planets, the odds don't matter. With numbers that high, it had to happen somewhere. Wherever it did happen, there would be sentient beings. Those sentient beings happen to be us. The odds came together on this planet. With a different planet where the odds didn't come together quite right, there wouldn't be life. So, if those odds didn't come together quite right on Earth, there wouldn't be life; but they did.

Then why couldn't that super-compressed little ball of matter at the beginning of the Universe just be there?

My point exactly. The Bible is vague enough so people can use it to justify anything. That alone doesn't make it in any way amazing piece of literature - writing vaguely isn't exactly an achievement.

It also means that you can use it to be a "proof" of anything. But if something is vague enough to be "proof" of opposite views, doesn't that make it worthless as a proof?

But pick the wrong one and your going to hell right? Or believe that Jesus travelled to India during those missing years, and learned from Buddhists monks, and you'll recieve a special damnation. Let alone NOT being a Christian, and following some other religion.

What?

No, thats not true, you are judged on your morals and values and how you lived your life. Not denominations. Denominations foster beliefs.

~(I was trying to say Religion changes with the times)

Not sure if Jax would consider this "Advertising", but this would be a little easier in the chat-room.

Then I assume I'm golden, without ever believing in God, you are the kinda Christian I can get down with. :P