Misc All Things Religious

[Downeastnc]

Oh it most definitely was not magic. It was done by a being that has trillions of times more brainpower than the cumulative total of every human ever born, including you

Dude if someone can create something out of nothing and be omnipresent and can literally wish things into existence then I definitely think its magic......religious people always say how far fetched life happening by chance is even though even if the odds are 1 in a 50 quadtrillion billion trillion gazillion that over hundreds of millions and billions of years that many cell divisions are going to happen...... just a human being will have 10 quadrillion cells divisions in their body in a lifetime now do that by all the people on earth at any given time and the number is unfathomable.....now imagine that over hundreds of millions of years....so yeah I totally believe that in that time that it happened by chance since it had a number of chances so high as to not even be calculated. This makes much more sense to me than some god just deciding to create us one day.

 

[Downeastnc]

A question I wonder about atheists. Do you believe in adultery or polygamy? I am asking to learn because adultery comes from the 10 commandments as do many other rules or laws whatever we shall call them. I often wonder without the 10 commandments where would be. Would murder be something acceptable and stealing. Like if no God then why is adultery wrong and murder? Why have rules if really no God. Everyone can believe what they believe is right. Such as someone might believe murder or stealing is right while another feels it’s wrong. Taking the 10 commandments out of the equation who says what is right and wrong.

Ummmm yeah those things exist and are real not sure what your asking me.......I dont think they are a sin, because there is no such thing as a sin but polygamy is illegal and well cheating is a ------ thing to do to someone. I however have cheated on girlfriends in the past even ones I was serious with, and I later felt remorse for a few of them but I dont feel like I committed a crime or sin......for the record however I have completely faithful to my wife from day 1 which was over 22 yrs ago.

Why do you need a god to tell you not to do bad things, really when you look at it what is or is not bad or good has changed over time...in the middle and dark ages you would have seen no issue with marrying and impregnating a 12-13 yr old girl and beating her for misbehaving was totally accepted by your church and god, in fact it was encouraged......you would have been totally within your christian right to kill pagens etc without fear of being held accountable by the authorities or god.

You want to know a group that is historically responsible for very little crime and one of the least criminally inclined groups out there.....thats right atheist.....

 

[Rain Cold]

A question I wonder about atheists. Do you believe in adultery or polygamy? I am asking to learn because adultery comes from the 10 commandments as do many other rules or laws whatever we shall call them. I often wonder without the 10 commandments where would be. Would murder be something acceptable and stealing. Like if no God then why is adultery wrong and murder? Why have rules if really no God. Everyone can believe what they believe is right. Such as someone might believe murder or stealing is right while another feels it’s wrong. Taking the 10 commandments out of the equation who says what is right and wrong.

The counter to your question is always that society as a whole sets the rules. Except the rules change as society changes. It's a floating system. But there are never any absolutes. And it creates a situation where it subsumes one group under another, who has no superseding authority. They just decided to make it so. So it was so. At least until they decide it is no longer so.

 

[Deleted member 527]

Ummmm yeah those things exist and are real not sure what your asking me.......I dont think they are a sin, because there is no such thing as a sin but polygamy is illegal and well cheating is a ------ thing to do to someone. I however have cheated on girlfriends in the past even ones I was serious with, and I later felt remorse for a few of them but I dont feel like I committed a crime or sin......for the record however I have completely faithful to my wife from day 1 which was over 22 yrs ago.

Why do you need a god to tell you not to do bad things, really when you look at it what is or is not bad or good has changed over time...in the middle and dark ages you would have seen no issue with marrying and impregnating a 12-13 yr old girl and beating her for misbehaving was totally accepted by your church and god, in fact it was encouraged......you would have been totally within your christian right to kill pagens etc without fear of being held accountable by the authorities or god.

You want to know a group that is historically responsible for very little crime and one of the least criminally inclined groups out there.....thats right atheist.....

I appreciate your input. I’m just wondering where did the word adultery come from. Like who decided being married and seeing other ladies also is cheating? I am not asking to sound like a jerk at all. I ask for all of us. If no God or rules who decided adultery is adultery. If take away the 10 commandments where it mentioned it then I think we never see adultery as cheating nor stealing as stealing. It would have never been taught it was wrong if it had never been mentioned in bible. Same with murder I believe. What made us believe certain things are bad or wrong? Polygamy is legal in some areas of world. To me it’s an interesting conversation. Thinking we go by rules or laws that are biblically based. If they are man made then should they not be voted on? Sounds crazy I know but what makes atheists believe adultery is wrong? I guess some atheists believe it’s not? I don’t know. If it’s proven one day God is not real will the world descend into chaos? Because you have to figure people will say those are man made laws and rules that were never voted on by all. Their argument could be why should a non existent God make rules. When their beliefs are there should be no rules because I don’t believe it’s wrong.

 

[Deleted member 527]

Ummmm yeah those things exist and are real not sure what your asking me.......I dont think they are a sin, because there is no such thing as a sin but polygamy is illegal and well cheating is a ------ thing to do to someone. I however have cheated on girlfriends in the past even ones I was serious with, and I later felt remorse for a few of them but I dont feel like I committed a crime or sin......for the record however I have completely faithful to my wife from day 1 which was over 22 yrs ago.

Why do you need a god to tell you not to do bad things, really when you look at it what is or is not bad or good has changed over time...in the middle and dark ages you would have seen no issue with marrying and impregnating a 12-13 yr old girl and beating her for misbehaving was totally accepted by your church and god, in fact it was encouraged......you would have been totally within your christian right to kill pagens etc without fear of being held accountable by the authorities or god.

You want to know a group that is historically responsible for very little crime and one of the least criminally inclined groups out there.....thats right atheist.....

Also I do agree. Christianity or believing in a higher power has been the reason for most wars. One group pushes their ways and beliefs onto another.

 

[Shaggy]

I was talking about this with a buddy at work one day and he said athiest scared him because we had no fear of punishment for what we do.

I asked him the bad things he had done and he listed off cheating, stealing as a teenager, and fighting people.......he immediately the said "but I've asked for forgiveness for all those things" as if that makes it any more right than if I had done them.

Morality has nothing to do with god or religion IMO. Morality is now social norms and can change and evolve.

 

[Downeastnc]

I appreciate your input. I’m just wondering where did the word adultery come from. Like who decided being married and seeing other ladies also is cheating? I am not asking to sound like a jerk at all. I ask for all of us. If no God or rules who decided adultery is adultery. If take away the 10 commandments where it mentioned it then I think we never see adultery as cheating nor stealing as stealing. It would have never been taught it was wrong if it had never been mentioned in bible. Same with murder I believe. What made us believe certain things are bad or wrong? Polygamy is legal in some areas of world. To me it’s an interesting conversation. Thinking we go by rules or laws that are biblically based. If they are man made then should they not be voted on? Sounds crazy I know but what makes atheists believe adultery is wrong? I guess some atheists believe it’s not? I don’t know. If it’s proven one day God is not real will the world descend into chaos? Because you have to figure people will say those are man made laws and rules that were never voted on by all. Their argument could be why should a non existent God make rules. When their beliefs are there should be no rules because I don’t believe it’s wrong.

Wrong in what sense though......its not illegal, or even immoral to many....

Society determines what rules we live by depending on many factors, even in some places in the world today adultery/polygamy are accepted practices.....

 

[Cad Wedge NC]

The irony here is astounding......its "absurdly impossible for cells to evolve over millions and billions of years" even though that is what actually happened yet I am a idiot to believe that, but its totally reasonable to believe it all happened because of magic.....

You still don't get it..... A cell is a living thing. Where did the first cell come from. You are confusing atoms and molecules with cells.

 

[Deleted member 527]

Wrong in what sense though......its not illegal, or even immoral to many....

Society determines what rules we live by depending on many factors, even in some places in the world today adultery/polygamy are accepted practices.....

I agree. As Shaggy said social norms change and evolve. I see it more an more everyday. Especially in Christianity and other religions. Just as dancing used to be wrong, then drinking, gambling, alternative lifestyles. It’s widely more accepted today. Just as I think we will move to a more lawless society. Reducing police and possibly guns will be the aim in the future. When the movie purge came out. I said that is crazy. Now looking at today’s times I could see in the future something like that happening. Society and social norms are evolving quickly. Thanks for both your input and answers. I agree with you both.

 

[Downeastnc]

You still don't get it..... A cell is a living thing. Where did the first cell come from. You are confusing atoms and molecules with cells.

I assure you am not confusing atoms and molecules with cells, the base amino acids needed to proteins etc formed in the primordial earth.....there would have been millions of years for endless chances of these amino's stringing up to build the basic parts of DNA....its not even that hard to do....then there would have been another few hundred million years for those single cells to divide essentially a infinite number of times allowing natural selection to evolve them into the person reading this post today.....

Life As We Know It Nearly Created in Lab

Scientists have created something in the lab that is tantalizingly close to what might have happened.

www.livescience.com

"One of life's greatest mysteries is how it began. Scientists have pinned it down to roughly this:

Some chemical reactions occurred about 4 billion years ago — perhaps in a primordial tidal soup or maybe with help of volcanoes or possibly at the bottom of the sea or between the mica sheets — to create biology.

Now scientists have created something in the lab that is tantalizingly close to what might have happened. It's not life, they stress, but it certainly gives the science community a whole new data set to chew on.

The researchers, at the Scripps Research Institute, created molecules that self-replicate and even evolve and compete to win or lose. If that sounds exactly like life, read on to learn the controversial and thin distinction.

Specifically, the researchers synthesized RNA enzymes that can replicate themselves without the help of any proteins or other cellular components, and the process proceeds indefinitely. "Immortalized" RNA, they call it, at least within the limited conditions of a laboratory.

More significantly, the scientists then mixed different RNA enzymes that had replicated, along with some of the raw material they were working with, and let them compete in what's sure to be the next big hit: "Survivor: Test Tube."

Remarkably, they bred.

And now and then, one of these survivors would screw up, binding with some other bit of raw material it hadn't been using. Hmm. That's exactly what life forms do ...

When these mutations occurred, "the resulting recombinant enzymes also were capable of sustained replication, with the most fit replicators growing in number to dominate the mixture," the scientists report.

The "creatures" — wait, we can't call them that! — evolved, with some "species" winning out."

 

[GaWx]

Just looking at this more simplistically and not even thinking about humans, the idea of even just a microbe being "alive" is miraculous by itself from my perspective. To me, consciousness is a miracle that can best be explained by a supreme creator of some sort. I just don't see how consciousness can randomly occur. The idea of consciousness is like magic to me.

 

[Deleted member 527]

It won’t stop at statues, food, books, and symbols. It will be the beliefs of people. This is about class warfare. Spreading the wealth and everyone believing the same. Having the same things. Disgusting yet no black leader is standing up and denouncing these actions. Where is Al Sharpton and Jessy Jackson? Do the blacks believe these are good men? Al Sharpton is a preacher. Surely he is against these actions.

 

[Deleted member 527]

Do these people have jobs? What is the purpose of doing this at a church?

 

[Tornadocane]

I appreciate your input. I’m just wondering where did the word adultery come from. Like who decided being married and seeing other ladies also is cheating? I am not asking to sound like a jerk at all. I ask for all of us. If no God or rules who decided adultery is adultery. If take away the 10 commandments where it mentioned it then I think we never see adultery as cheating nor stealing as stealing. It would have never been taught it was wrong if it had never been mentioned in bible. Same with murder I believe. What made us believe certain things are bad or wrong? Polygamy is legal in some areas of world. To me it’s an interesting conversation. Thinking we go by rules or laws that are biblically based. If they are man made then should they not be voted on? Sounds crazy I know but what makes atheists believe adultery is wrong? I guess some atheists believe it’s not? I don’t know. If it’s proven one day God is not real will the world descend into chaos? Because you have to figure people will say those are man made laws and rules that were never voted on by all. Their argument could be why should a non existent God make rules. When their beliefs are there should be no rules because I don’t believe it’s wrong.

The immorality of adultery seems to be a coincidence of every advanced civilization throughout history, and its reprehensibility even embeds itself in some of the most twisted societies where something like cannibalism is just regular Monday. Adultery even existed in some Native American tribes without European interpretations of theft. Virtually every society had adultery with varying interpretations, most interestingly, within cultures where marriage isn’t formally or legally present or significant. According to Google, adultery is broadly defined as extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal ground.

Who decided all the rules about adultery? Everyone. Like everyone thinks a husband cheating on a wife is bad. Why did we believe it was bad? Cause it’s bad to have an illegitimate child with someone that isn’t yourself, it’s unfair to cheat on your paramour, it’s has been showed by research to harm children, and it reflects poorly on ones character. These are all complicated issues that can be resolved privately and medically, but that doesn’t change the fact that adultery is wrong.

Let me just explain something about the biblical interpretations of adultery. During the first millennia, Christian philosophers and clergymen went completely off the rails with their narrow interpretations of adultery, or sex, as some evil that the Devil uses to tempt men, and women were designated as the instrument of sexual enticement. Basil of Caesarea, 4th Century; Mani, 3rd Century. In contrast, Jewish practices (case law) pertaining to the laws of marriage, infidelity and child support were so liberal, lenient, and ahead of its time, that rabbinical philosophers are cited in U.S. and European family law cases. Ancient Jews actually established child support laws, obligating husbands and unmarried men to provide payments to the wives who bore children out-of-wedlock. Also, adulterers and Homosexuals were not stoned for their transgressions, and the death penalty was used once in 70 years. In 70 CE, Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiba said, “If we had been in the Sanhedrin, no death sentence would ever have been passed” (referencing the period before Christ’s death). The Gospel of John (A Jew) 7:53-8:11 describes the story of Jesus pushing back against a group of his followers requesting to stone an adulterous woman by stating, “he who is without sin cast the first stone.” This is in line of with the practice of Judaism since Babylon, and a permutation of Deut. 17:7, requiring the hands of the witnesses shall be first to put someone to death.

Then there is the concept of Mercy. In Psalms 51:1, God grants David forgiveness after committing adultery. The Tanakh is full of instances where God provides mercy to those that are contrite. Rabbi Akibah’s stated: 1.) "How favored is man, for he was created after an image "for in an image, Elokim made man" (Gen. ix. 6)", 2.) "Everything is foreseen; but freedom [of will] is given to every man", 3.) "The world is governed by mercy... but the divine decision is made by the preponderance of the good or bad in one's actions".

 

[SD]

Hi everyone please see below:

All,

Over the past 6 months we have seen a large increase in activity in the non weather related threads. We recognize as the board grows we will slowly transition from just a weather board to a community. With this transition we will be gaining new members with new interests and differing view points. With current global events these differing views and interests become magnified across the community as members express their thoughts, stances, and ideas. This has led us as staff to recognize the need for written guidelines for the board as a whole and independent within threads to ensure the overall climate of the board remains constructive and welcoming. With that being said we want to outline the following general rules:

#1 racist, sexist posts will be immediately deleted and you will be banned from the community
#2 using derogatory terms in posts will be immediately deleted, you will be banned from said thread for 72 hours for the first offense, 120 for the second, permanently for the 3rd.
#3 when you post statistics or something as a fact please cite your source, baseless facts will be subject to deletion.
#4 using the term snowflake, karen, maga to describe someone or a grouping of posters will be subject to deletion. Continual use will subject you to the thread suspensions in point 2.
#5 Drive by 1 liners with the purpose of getting a reaction will subject you to suspensions in point #2
#6 consistently posting the same subject matter over and over or outlandish posts will be deleted. If this continues after deletion you will be subject to suspensions in point #2 will follow.
#7 posts that aren't directly related to the thread will be removed. Obviously there is a lot of crossover at this time between Corona, politics, sports. Please make sure that your placing your post in the correct thread.

Please let me know if you have questions or concerns around any of the outlined points. Our goal isn't to silence you as members it's to make sure that we keep the community as a place folks want to visit as well as keeping the weather side of the board free from carry over issues.

 

[MichaelJ]

Fine with me, but could you give us some definitions of what you consider racist, sexist comments?

 

[SD]

Fine with me, but could you give us some definitions of what you consider racist, sexist comments?

Use your best judgment. So far on this site I've only seen a small handful of posts that toed the line and just a couple that crossed it. Also, giving examples in today's world could easily be taken out of context and used against the site or me personally and I'd rather not go down that road

 

[Tornadocane]

Use your best judgment. So far on this site I've only seen a small handful of posts that toed the line and just a couple that crossed it. Also, giving examples in today's world could easily be taken out of context and used against the site or me personally and I'd rather not go down that road

I use to write community forum rules for new websites, so I codified one for this forum based on the past experience I had in the political thread, as well as a boilerplate rule I amended for social media sites. I don't particularly agree with the exact wording of the rule, but I think it expresses your intent based on past moderator disciplinary actions. Also added that bit about Nazi comparisons to keep it fair and civil. You can change around the wording about Terms of Services if the site is governed by Community Guidelines or any other functional equivalents.

Rule 26: Racism, Anti-semitism and Hateful Comments

A) Racism, Anti-semitism, and Hateful Comments: Includes expressions that create a hostile environment contrary to the purposes of civil discourse and a welcoming forum environment. Do not use the forums to spread hate, incite violence, and suggest that innocents should die or that an innocent deserved to die, or otherwise fill our welcoming forums with hatred and malice.

B) Specific Disallowed Comments. This platform will not be used to spread their message of hate towards others. politicians and members of this forum to Nazis is not permitted. Nazi references and comparisons are only allowed in strict historical discussions and usage. Additionally, linking or quoting from manifestos of deranged murderers with the intent of spreading hate is not permitted, unless to provide context to the discussion.

C) Conduct Towards Moderators and Disciplinary Actions. The Moderator Staff on this forum work hard [as volunteers] to provide an enjoyable place for members and to enforce the Terms of Service. Moderators may use any of the disciplinary actions, punishments or sanctions provided in these Terms of Services, as well as any other rules or community guidelines provided by this forum. Deliberately and aggressively attacking a Moderator for performing his/her duties or intentionally and/or willfully ignoring a ruling or request from a Moderator who is carrying out Moderator duties is considered Contempt of Moderator. Contempt of moderator shall be punishable by a temporary ban, and repeated Contempts may result in a permanent ban. Disagreements with moderators should be conducted in private, and the forum should not be used to continuously air grievances. For example, a couple of posts in disagreement with a moderator decision such as "the moderator made a bad decisions" may not arise to the level of contempt, but continuous posts or messages towards moderators that are abusive and vicious may result in a ban. Use your best judgment.

D) Trolling. A troll is an individual that offers nothing valuable or substantial to the forum, and has no intention of taking part in civil discussions, aside from attempting to ruin them for others. Any posts that are not conducive to debate, seek to derail a thread with trolling comments or off-topic discussion are subject to being edited or deleted with or without further sanctions at the discretion of the moderators.

 

[Cad Wedge NC]

I assure you am not confusing atoms and molecules with cells, the base amino acids needed to proteins etc formed in the primordial earth.....there would have been millions of years for endless chances of these amino's stringing up to build the basic parts of DNA....its not even that hard to do....then there would have been another few hundred million years for those single cells to divide essentially a infinite number of times allowing natural selection to evolve them into the person reading this post today.....

Life As We Know It Nearly Created in Lab

Scientists have created something in the lab that is tantalizingly close to what might have happened.

www.livescience.com

"One of life's greatest mysteries is how it began. Scientists have pinned it down to roughly this:

Some chemical reactions occurred about 4 billion years ago — perhaps in a primordial tidal soup or maybe with help of volcanoes or possibly at the bottom of the sea or between the mica sheets — to create biology.

Now scientists have created something in the lab that is tantalizingly close to what might have happened. It's not life, they stress, but it certainly gives the science community a whole new data set to chew on.

The researchers, at the Scripps Research Institute, created molecules that self-replicate and even evolve and compete to win or lose. If that sounds exactly like life, read on to learn the controversial and thin distinction.

Specifically, the researchers synthesized RNA enzymes that can replicate themselves without the help of any proteins or other cellular components, and the process proceeds indefinitely. "Immortalized" RNA, they call it, at least within the limited conditions of a laboratory.

More significantly, the scientists then mixed different RNA enzymes that had replicated, along with some of the raw material they were working with, and let them compete in what's sure to be the next big hit: "Survivor: Test Tube."

Remarkably, they bred.

And now and then, one of these survivors would screw up, binding with some other bit of raw material it hadn't been using. Hmm. That's exactly what life forms do ...

When these mutations occurred, "the resulting recombinant enzymes also were capable of sustained replication, with the most fit replicators growing in number to dominate the mixture," the scientists report.

The "creatures" — wait, we can't call them that! — evolved, with some "species" winning out."

Sorry, but that is such a stretch to think that molecules, just by chance, by themselves, became living cells that could breed and reproduce? Wow, and you say that believing in God is ridiculous? ..........Just remember it is still only a theory. Not a fact.

 

[GaWx]

i just came in from an evening sitting outside relaxing, observing the birds flying near and just after sunset, and listening to the sounds of summer near the peaceful salt marsh (including popping sounds of shellfish, crickets, frogs, and katydids) with a few towering cumulus near the horizon amongst other clouds amidst a gentle breeze. I feel that the chances of there being no supreme creator are lower than the chance I'll run for President. This cannot all be random.