Hey RazielRedel, I just realized you're new to the site, so welcome aboard buddy, I hope you enjoy it here. Most of us don't go for the personal attack thing, if we respond to something, it's usually nothing personal, just simple debate to get different opinions and nothing is meant to be taken personally. Religion happens to be one of my favorite subjects. With that said, I'd like to respond to your post.
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Of course you can.
Because I believe there is more to this world than very intelligent meat.
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I also believe there's more to this world than intelligent meat, I'm in complete awe everytime I look into the sky and see how vast the universe is with my own two eyes, everytime I think about how simple atoms inside of stars became these very thoughts that I'm thinking now, and how the universe and everything in it is connected to everything else. Yes, I too believe there is far more to this world than we know, I just do not believe it has to be an intelligent being.
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Because I believe in both good and evil, and to me, without a god there is no purpose to either. They just become concepts to use to make people do what you want.
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I see the very opposite. With even the idea of the existence of a God, the men promoting that idea are the men with the power. If those men can make it against the societies law to oppose, reject or deny that God and that idea from being taught throughout the society, those men enherit power over the masses, all in the name of an idea that cannot be questioned. I believe you do not need a God to know what is right and wrong. There have been different scientific studies done to confirm that the 'morality gene' is common within the animal kingdom, yet homo-sapiens are the only ones with any sort of holy book, or God. Without God, you would still know what is right and wrong, figures also show that Christian/religious people commit just as many crimes as atheist's do, what book they happen to follow, or not at all has no correlation to their behavior within society.
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Because I want to show people that people like Jerry Falwell and Fred Phelps are fools who know nothing of what it means to be a Christian.
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But they would argue they are the ones who truly follow Christ's word, right? This is common among Christians particularly who have conflicting ideas within Christianity. Wouldn't it make sense that all the different denominations of Christianity would all agree with eachother, and so would their followers?
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Because I believe that humanity as a whole is evil. Not in the everyone is just as bad as Hitler sense, but I really see no hope for man outside of something supernatural.
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Do you feel this makes you give up on mankind on earth? That you will just worry about the next life and not put too much effort into this one to make it a better place?
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Because the idea that a single celled organism, something incredibly complex and requiring so many different abilities just to exist, came to life due to heat, lightning, and the proper parts happening to be there, is just as ridiculous as any other idea on how life originated.
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The origin of life is a very well thought out theory, A-biogenisis. You're correct, it's just a theory, but the evidence supporting it, the experiments performed in labs, the ongoing research discovering new things all the time all support the theory. Scientists are on the verge of creating synthetic life in laboratory conditions using the exact same elements they believe to be around during the formation of the first cells on earth. There are a ton of things that have to be exactly right in order for life to emerge from non-life, but it is not impossible. I thought up this example one day sitting outside, I heard Sam Harris say something I'll probably never forget; Astronomically improbable things happen every day. So one day, when I was sitting in my chair outside, I saw a leaf drop onto my knee, do you know the odds of me being in that exact spot to have that exact leaf fall and land on my knee at that very moment in time? The tree spent years growing, then went through who knows how many different seasons, growing an uncountable number of leaves...then grew that leaf, grew the entire spring, entire summer, then fell when I just happened to be sitting in that very spot. Astronomically improbably things happen every day my friend.
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Because no one ever agrees that evolution has quite a few very large holes in it.
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Evolution is just a theory, yes, but to say that it has quite a few very large holes in it is disingenuous. What holes? There is so much evidence to support the theory of evolution it is generally accepted as the furthest advance in biology we have to date, and the backbone of biology is formed on the theory of evolution. Medicine's are created to combat disease using the theory of evolution, knowing and showing exactly how mutations occur within cells. Even if the theory of evolution was proved wrong today, that doesn't mean any other theory (creationism) would be right.
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Because how the Earth and the universe came into existence doesn't matter one iota.
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It matters to the people asking the questions about our origins and our universes origins. It matters to a lot of people. Accepting the answer "God did it" is offensive to the human race. The origin of everything is the foundation of religion, without that question, there would be no religion.
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Because for most people there isn't a difference between putting your trust in a two thousand year old book and the man behind the podium, than there is in putting your trust in a textbook and and the man behind the desk.
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There are some fundamental differences between the two. Lets take the man behind the podium for instance, without you there, without anyone there sitting in church listening to him speak, would he be there, speaking? Probably not right? The man clearly has motivation to keep you in that seat listening to him speak. Now lets take the other man, sitting behind the desk asking important questions about the universe, what's his motivation? His motivation is to learn new things, to discover without any bias, to look upon everything the universe has to offer and figure out the workings behind it all for your benifit, for my benifit, for nothing else. Doesn't it seem slightly ignorant to accept a 2,000 year old book as the way you should live your life today, with todays standards of society? Back when it was written none of these discoveries were ever even thought of, so the authors of the bible had no knowlege of the cosmos or DNA or how cigarette smoke affects your lungs, nothing, so of course none of it would be present within it, and the explination given is that all that stuff isn't real science, and science is evil, or science has some sort of agenda to erase God and religion from the world. This leads many believers not to accept scientific findings as true or even helpful to humanity.
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Because there is at least one absolute in this universe.
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Where is the evidence?
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Because for me atheism logically leads to nihilism, and since I know that isn't true, I believe in a God. (I realize that not every atheist is a nihilist, I'm just stating that's how it works out for me.)
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I can only speak for myself here, but I believe a 100% atheistic society would be much better for humanity. Look at the levels of national happiness with the percentage of the population of believers, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Amsterdam, much of Europe infact is atheist, and they rank the highest on people within the population who are happy. It makes sense really, if all the people realize they only have this one life to live, a lot fewer of them will go out and commit murder or crimes against other people because the idea of heaven or hell enforces those people that, who know's, they might be able to just repent or ask for forgiveness and still get into heaven down the line, even after they may have committed something incredibly terrible and recieved 20 years in prison, sure they're youth is gone, but if they're truly sorry for what they did, they'll still get into heaven. I know not every believer thinks like this, but a significan percentage would probably tell you that if they committed a terrible crime and were truly sorry for it afterwards, their God would still allow them into heaven... I believe atheism would lead to a more intelligent population, which in turn would lead to less violence, more economic growth, more stability, more freedoms and rights, more happiness among all.
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Because Christianity is the only religion that teaches grace.
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Zen Buddhism teaches many things, much like all the other religions out there. I guarantee you could find plenty of people within any religion who would tell you that their religion is the only one that teaches grace. Again, conflicting ideas within religion itself, every single one of them saying they are the "ABSOLUTE TRUTH" and you must follow them or burn in hell, with so many different religions, if I could quote Sam Harris again "you should automatically assume you're going to hell, just by the sheer odds"...