oh, and as a side not, “Murder” is a philisophical (and religious) argument. so we should allow murder? any social code is, in of itself going to contain at least some religious values and not other. what it says, is precisely what it says: congress shall not (read will not) make a law that respects the establishment of a religion (read cannot endorse a religion, or place itself and therefore its people, subject to the rules of that religion.)

it says nothing about passing laws that are consistent with religious beliefs, so long as those laws to not place a religious institution in authority over us. (and really, if you want to get into splitting hairs, lets look at gun laws, and the 2nd amendment.)

Never argue with idiots, they drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

You’re right, they’re wrong. Next topic.

Ah, I cba. :p

it was actually coined in a letter from abraham lincoln to the dansbury baptist church… the church was concerned that their rights would be restricted by the state, and that that’s where he told them that there was separation of church and state to keep the state from telling them what to believe…. he was not saying that the state should have nothing to do with any kind of any religion…

So, in your view, God created the universe and all intelligence in it because he existed before time and space and was a source of infinite energy. As you noted in your comment, you want fact and reason to govern the direction of this argument, and i will do my best to oblige.

First, I will say that in my belief, the existence of God before time and space (aka, the universe) seems to be irrational, because nothing can have existed before time and space, because that would just imply a further extension of time and space. That is not to say, however, that god does not exist, he just cannot exist in our plane of reality operating under this universe’s laws of physics, because his existence would seem to defy them. In our universe, he could exist in a metaphysical or spiritual sense.

So, with that under our belts, one must establish the origins of the universe under a rational context, not spiritual. According to the first law of thermodynamics, energy and matter cannot be created nor destroyed. Assuming that is true, we must reason that matter, as it is has always existed. Now, to break that down further, “always” still implies a unit of time. Existence, as we know it, is a function of time. You cannot have an operating universe with nothing existing in it, because even so-called “empty space” has dark or exotic matter within it. Matter needs a time frame for existence to be possible.

Now, I don’t know how much you know about the physics behind the theory (soon to be law) of relativity, so I’ll make this a quick lesson into a particular one of it’s branches. Matter has a certain effect on time that is a function of gravity, and that is the effect we would feel as time slowing down. As density increases, the rate at which time passes decreases, thus making density inversely proportional to time. The second Law of thermodynamics states that all of the matter and energy in the universe is a constant, and will only ever change form. Now, as matter is a function of time, the opposite is also true. Time must have matter to exist, because you cannot have matter just randomly floating around, free of any time restrictions, because our previous statement of matter being a function of time would rule it as impossible. So, if you combine all these things, you reach an interesting conclusion; if all matter and energy in the universe were compressed down into a single, infinitely dense form, time, and therefore our universe would be stuck in a single quantum moment, until that energy could not be contained. This would mean that NOTHING would have existed before it, because it would have no time frame to exist in.

Now you might ask “well, where did all that matter come from?” That statement, however, is loaded with the preconception that it had a place to exist in the first place, which we have clearly ruled out in the previous paragraph. So, I submit to you that matter has always existed, because that always is a lot shorter than we might think. There could not have existed a universe without time, and time could not have existed without some form of matter/energy, so they existed forever as an eternal absolute, each justifying the others existence. To sum up, this all really for making this point; the big bang happened because it had to. Physical law sets up a scenario where in the churning, bubbling mass that was the singularity of our early universe before the big bang, time was sort of “stuck.” The energy contained in this singularity was so great, however, that it could not be contained and was released in what we know as the big bang.

Now, in regards to your comment about atheism being a religion, you’re half right. It could be construed as a religion, but it doesn’t have a set of morals or HUMAN principles to live by. Also, I don’t want you to confuse Theism with religion with theism. All religions have the quality of being theist, or belief in the existence of a living, conscious higher power, whereas atheism is the exact opposite, hence Atheism, meaning not theist.

There you go. That is all.

(The text box didn’t show all of what I was typing.)

I think, for me, the expression “a way of looking at life” is more as an explanation towards religious people (and/or believers in other esoteric galimatias) who question how a life can be lead without the belief in a god. I seriously don’t walk outside in the morning and think “Oh, what wonderful world that no god has created for us to live in“. It’s a way of looking at life without the belief in supernatural things, not a way of looking at life with the non-belief in supernatural things…

Me, personally, find the line between reality and fantasy rather clear. It’s not thin, nor fuzzy, but that might just be the way I’m wired.

The thing is there is a HUGE difference between “no disproof of gods” and “no proof of gods”. The idea that there is a god is the idea that to date has no substantial proof whatsoever, therefore can be regarded as sensational, therefore has the burden of proof. Can you prove that I don’t have sock-eating gnomes in my wardrobe? If you can’t disprove it, and say (sanely) “you don’t have gnomes in your wardrobe” – is that a part of a belief system? Is it up to you to prove that I don’t, or else accept the possibility that there are in fact little creatures in my sock drawer, who may or may not speak some form of Irish, and steal socks now and then to break up my sock pairs? Is it a leap of faith to NOT believe in them?

The proper spelling of made-up, bologny words is SERIOUS BUSINESS.

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