Evolution of Religion & Nuerotheology

[Peregrine]

My point was that in any religious debate the person defending a religious point of view will almost always eventually take the position that they believe in spirituality due to the fact that they "just believe it" as a matter of faith. Sure, if they are willing to argue on facts then it's a different story but that's rare. My point was that these sorts of arguments are rarely ever actual Debates.

Then that is a concession of the debate, even if they are too stubborn to admit it. Once they move from arguing facts to simply repeating beliefs, they have lost. What is so hard to understand about this? A debate isn't impossible just because one side usually loses.

 

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If there were proof that God existed than Christianity wouldn't be a religion. The whole point of faith is that you can believe something without proof. So, I guess I'm saying I agree (with Surian) and don't want to argue.

 

If you don't want to argue, why the hell do you post in a DEBATE thread? The whole point of a debate is to argue!

 

And faith is entirely irrelevant. You can believe in anything you want, for whatever reasons you want. But if you try to argue your case in a debate, you need facts. It's that simple. If you can't provide facts, don't debate.

[DreamOfTheRood]

I saw a miracle. That's why I believe in God.

In 1999, I went down to Reynosa, Mexico with my high school youth group of about 80 people. The plan was to build two churches on two different sites during the first three days; on the last seven days, we were going to put on Spanish-language festivals. The churches went up fast; with 80 people, you can put up two medium sized buildings fairly quickly.

However, on the first day of the festivals, you could tell that a disaster was quickly ensuing. It rained all night - hard. Walking around the next morning was a nightmare. The dirt streets had turned to mud overnight, so everyone got dirty. On top of that, it kept raining. Incredibly hard winds drove thick sheets of rain into the ground, and we nearly gave up. We sat at the festival site for over an hour while we waited for the rain to stop.

Finally, it let up. We rushed out of the vans and onto the sloppy, grassy field where we were going to put on this festival. Sure enough, once we had everything set up - the risers, the sound equipment, the mikes and the scenery - thick, black clouds started coalescing directly overhead. These clouds were raging, thundering and getting ready to pour again.

So, we gathered up into a circle, and it started sprinkling. The pastor, Dave, pretty much talked to God like this, "If you want this festival to go on, then you have to stop the rain. Let your will be done."

Just like that, the rain stopped. In fact, it didn't just stop. All the way up into the atmosphere, it was a clear blue sky. An entire storm front just disappeared ... like THAT, without even a whisper.

I think nine people were saved that day, and no sooner than when the festival concluded did the rain start pouring. It came down just like before, in sheets thick enough to be mistaken for Bill Cosby's pudding.

So, yeah. That's why I believe in Jesus. I mean, if you all want to go back and forth with your philosophies and apathies and whatnot, fine. As for me, I got 80 people that can back up my story, so I'm cool.

[Peregrine]

Ok, that was exactly what I mean by debating with evidence. Whether his position is right or wrong, that story can be discussed and replied to. Perhaps the whole thing is proved wrong, and doesn't prove there is a god after all. Perhaps no effective counter-argument can be made, and it's a strong argument for god. But no matter what happens with it, at least SOMETHING can be done with it. Therefore it is a valid form of debate post.

 

 

Unfortunately, it's also massively off-topic. The intent of this thread was a discussion of the posted article, not a general "does god exist?" debate. Therefore, please post such arguments elsewhere and stick to the original post's subject.

[surian]

Peregrene, the point is that no matter what you argue to him, you will be wrong in his eyes unless you admit it's was a miracle.

 

See what I mean? You can't argue with that? The people who most firmly believe in the existance of God believe it because they saw something, heard something, or felt something that they could not explain. I'm not saying it's NOT God but it could also have been a coincedence, there is always a scientific explaination. However, that doesn't change what the person FEELS when that event occured. No ammount of facts is going to disprove that to someone. This is coming from a guy who has had many many debates about religion with many different people and I have always ended up having to stop the debate because it boils down to... "you just have to have faith" at which point the argument ends.

 

EDIT: this is my last post on this matter, I don't want to distract from the topic any more, sorry for the inturruption **go back to the post**

[Peregrine]

Surain, I said absolutely nothing about the validity of his claims, other than that it belonged in another thread.

 

 

Just to prove my point at analysis... here's the facts in his post that you seem to be missing:

 

1) Did the events in question happen at all? Simple enough to answer... ask for statements from the witnesses, check newspapers for confirmation of major events/weather reports.

 

2) How quickly can weather conditions change? Again, easy enough to research.

 

3) Do the answers seem to defy reality? If so, it suggests divine intervention (or at least allows the possibility), if it doesn't, the story proves nothing and we move on to the next bit of evidence.

 

 

See how this works? It's not impossible to debate any subject, as long as you deal with facts.

[ImmortalSnafu]

Very interesting article PeterJ.

 

And DreamOfTheRood, if you can give us a date/location we can debate this following Peregrine's template.

[Peregrine]

And DreamOfTheRood, if you can give us a date/location we can debate this following Peregrine's template.

In another thread, maybe. The only reason I didn't split it was because I needed it as a counter-argument to surian's "all religion debates are doomed" point. If you think you can debate it without creating another general "is there a god?" debate, go right ahead and post a new thread for it.

[ImmortalSnafu]

That's why I'm tempted to just leave it be...all debates of religion go nowhere. But if you'd like to debate it with me DreamOfTheRood, I'll be happy to start a new thread.

[Icefiddell]

IMO this is a very interesting topic for numerous reasons. I like debate about religion, me being a strong Athiest myself (I used to believe in God but hey they drum that kinda stuff into all small school kids), doesn't mean i wont listen to the other side. :P

 

Anyway, this theory about religion almost 'evolving' in our minds is very interesting. One thing i have been thinking about recently is religion and ancient people. Think about it, almost if not all ancient people, civilzations, nations ect have believed in some kind of religion.

 

There have been so many religions, all of them argueing that theres is the greatest, the only reason we are not worshiping Zeus or Jupitor in Latin is because the Roman Emporer converted over night, and so did most of the empire. For gods sake thats why Britain and Western Europe is essentially Christian.

 

If all this had not happened would people still be worshiping the gods of ancient greece and rome, who knows.

 

What i dont understand is why so many people that are living and that have died had to believe that there was something larger than them, that we were created by a almighty being. IMO we have one life and i wont spend that life worshiping something that i wont get anything back from ntil the day i die. True many people say they have had religious experiances thats fine every man is entitled to their own belief, and fair enough.

[Darnoc]

I do like debates, but I never participated in any debate about religion which lead to something constructive or a result. Therefore I must stand with Surian on this matter: Debates on religion cannot be won or lost.

 

Why?

 

An Atheist will try to base his argument on facts, logic, reason. And there he is correct. A religious person will say that what he believes cannot be proven. So there are no facts, there is no logic and there is no reason. Therefore it is no longer debatable.

 

And when something is provable it is no longer faith. So in order to preserve faith, a religious person must always find a way to prove that something is not provable. So the debate will lead no where in the end. At least as long the religious persons will try to stay with faith. When of course a religious person would try to prove his religion with facts, that's another matter.

 

P.S.: Didn't Dark0ne forbid debates on religion?

 

P.P.S.: I would rather like a new debate (hopefully this time without a flame-war), since I have some new theories which I'd like to use as argument.

 

P.P.P.S: Just to prove you who stupid logic sometimes can be:

 

What is better: Bread without or bread with butter?

 

Answer: Well, since bread is better than nothing and nothing is better than bread with butter, it is the logical conclusion that bread without butter is better than bread with butter.