I'm an aethist....

Thanks Ma.

young_thinker, in response to your original post:

When I was around your age, I became an atheist. I was raised Catholic. Over the years, my views have mellowed. I do not classify myself as anything, because honestly, I am still exploring. I try to listen to myself, always. Questioning, rejecting, and ultimately integrating religion as a part of my own experience is what has worked to keep me growing. I think if there is a part of you that doubts any belief, idea, or thought, you should follow it through and explore it until you feel satisfied. Investigate all possibilites, talk to all sorts of folk, and honour your own journey.

I can see positive aspects to religion, and positive aspects to displacing it. I look forward to the day where we draw from all sources the things that work to keep humanity up, and disregard the rest. It will be a new system born of the old. (my opinions) Everyone is part of the world, everyone must be part of the learning experience.

Religion has carried the seeds of some of the great lessons of humanity. I am not saying it is perfect, or that it has not been perverted sometimes/often. I do strongly believe, however, that the important elements of religion can not simply be lifted out of context at whim. It grew organically, and so has to be worked out and up organically.

I look forward to seeing more of your posts, young

Back already?

Well, maybe you can explain how raw chemicals could have arranged themselves into already-functioning, complex, interdependent sub-cellular structures, which in turn located each other (after having survived without each other, even though their interdependence would suggest that this was unlikely) and enclosed themselves with a cell membrane.

These newly united structures were then instantly able to provide nutrition for the newly constituted cell, dispose of waste, provide protection for the organism and reproduce --- just for starters.

They did all of this organizing without instruction or information of any kind.

However, later a descendant of this first organism began to gather and encode information on just these sort of functions, which neither it nor its ancestors had possessed or needed since they were (supposedly) successfully doing all of these anyway, into DNA. Gathering and encoding this data likely would have taken longer than the organism's life span, but no matter it did it anyway and passed it on to future generations.

So tell us how it happened, since you apparently think you can provide a rational explanation for these (supposed) occurrences.

real life ,

You still confusing "not having all the answers" with "magic must have done it" ?

Remember, just because you can't see how the universe needs no magic, doesn't mean the rest of us are that thick.

if you were put in a situation, where you were about to die and you had absolutely noone to turn to for help, and you had absolutley no way of helping urself, who do you turn to? if ur an atheist then you turn to and beg for mercy from the person that is about to kill you (satan in my belief). but if you truly believe in god, (im not talking about god of the paganized christianity) if you believe in the true god in the one and only (not the trinity crap) with all of your heart and soul then you'll feel a spirit over you protecting you from danger, and you turn to that spirit. I experienced that feeling, you cant tell me theres nothing divine about that!

One can easily tell you that there is nothing divine about that. It is hilarious to see your fervent promotion of a deity, which you are unable to make without taking natsty swipes (paganized christianity, "not the trinity crap") at those who believe differently than you do.

Which, in the end, is what religion (as opposed to simple spirituality) is all about--exclusionary and hateful bigotry. Being about to die--turning to your imaginary friend is not going to alter things. You will still have to rely upon yourself to get out of the situation, or hope for someone else's intervention. That will be the same whether you're a theist or an atheist.

This is just a variant on the silly old, "there are no atheists in foxholes" claptrap.

real Life you are out of date !

If you read up on Prigogine and Capra you will find these questions have been answered. A "deity" is no longer "a requirement" for biological organization. Polkinghorne, the eminent theologian and particle physicist recognizes and embraces Prigogines work on dissipative structures which is a major impediment to the "prime mover" argument. Polkinghorne is obliged to maintain his position as a believer by adopting a "minimally interventionist God" who might perhaps "tweak" evolution in some way via the mechanisms of chaos theory.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/vic_stenger/polkrev.html

I am an "atheist" in the sense that I cannot understand (make sense of) the God of the theists' program. I DO, however, have a feeling--as ambiguous as it may be--that the ALL, the Cosmos, Ultimate Reality, the "ground of being", are synonyms for God. In fact I feel that All is God, indeed that there is ONLY God and that one of the goals of science is to study God. Here there is no conflict between my "God" that the mission of "Science".

By calling it "God" you are giving credence to the old man with a white beard (in my own not so humble estimation). Not purposely, perhaps, but I don't see a more rational explanation.

I dunno, ed. I'm inclined to be in agreement with JL. The problem is that too many people think of "the old man with a white beard" when they declare themselves atheists. It's a matter of semantics. I don't consider myself an atheist but I certainly don't believe any of the crap that the churches feed us, except perhaps as poetic allegory. To me, organized religion has nothing whatever to do with God. In fact, I never feel so far away from God as I do in a traditional church. Go to the woods, go to the seashore, go up into the mountains or out into the desert if you want to feel the presence of God.

I use the word 'God' when I refer to a higher power which, obviously (to me), keeps this crazy contraption called the universe up and running, because it is such a simple, short word. I have absolutely no idea what God is. And I have a feeling that neither do the priests and ministers and rabbis and imams etc. etc. They just talk a good fight out of their own ignorance by relying on scriptural authority, rather than the evidence of their senses and their own powers to reason. And even Jesus is quoted as having said, "God is not of the flesh but of the Spirit."

I see no conflict whatever between a religious orientation and a scientific search for the physical facts of life and the universe in which we live.

I have no quarrel with one for simply being religious, but I define the word God to be anthropomorphic, no matter how intellectualized.

Respectfully disagree with you, edgar. That is not how I define God. There is nothing even remotely anthropomorphic about the God of my understanding.

if the young man starting the thread might still check in:

You'll notice that the only one putting down others here are the non-theists. I always find that rather fascinating.

Does it really prove anything to promote the big boss theory--that the master Designer creates everything as we see it now?

Or is the big bang theory the way to go? Some cosmic explosion resulted in all that we see and know?

Or do you hold with the vacuum cleaner theory? If you put all the loose parts of a vacuum clean inside a sack and shoot it, given unmeasurable time at some point all those piece would come together in the form of a working vacuum cleaner until they were shaken apart again. We might think of ourselves at the working vacuum cleaner stage.

But.....if the big boss theory is the right one, he wouldn't be much of a God if we could understand or describe or prove him would he?

Or if the big bang is the correct response, is it illogical to think that something lit the fuse?

Or if the vacuum cleaner theory, something still had to shake the sack.

I really recommend the final proof: with no restrictions of time or how or in what form, ask God to reveal Himself to you. He always will, and it usually isn't anything you were expecting. But once you've experienced Him, then you know.

Best wishes for a long and happy life young thinker. And to us all.

For me, the Big Bang demonstrates that a pinpoint of pure energy, existing in nothingness decided to become all that we see and know. (I have to be careful of that word 'decided' but I can't think of any better word.)

Anthropomorphism.

Yeah, I was afraid you might pick up on that, edgar. That's why I said I hate using the word 'decided'. I don't mean that in the sense that you or I decide whether to vote for Candidate A or Candidate B, whether to have a ham sandwich or a Ceasar salad. There just isn't any other word in any human language that I'm familiar with. In fact, I'm so anti-anthropomorphic, I don't think that a human being can even understand the process that constituted the Big Bang and that that's why we have now word for it. Nor can we have a word for it if we don't -- no, can't -- understand what it is. Semantics again. You're objecting to the word 'decide.'

How does one decide if some decider decided?

I have absolutely no idea. Told you I hate the word 'decide.' I have no idea how God works or, if I did have an idea, how to articulate it in human terms.

Addendum: I think that when it comes to anything more complex than molecular theory of differential calculus, human language is our enemy, not our friend. There are things in this world that simply cannot be articulated without distorting them. When it comes to a subject such as this, language is not our friend. I think the Budhists are probably closer to the truth than any other religious group. "Those who know, do not say. Those who say, do not know."

Describe to me the scent of a rose.

In the universe, life may be but a side effect, much like bubbling water or a sailing in meteor. No evidence we are important at all.