God is dead

Thank you for debating me matt, this ought to be a good exchange. The big bang: Scientists, using mathematics, have determined down to within a few millionths of a second how the universe started. Are they correct? Well, they very will could be wrong, but they certainly have done more work on the subject than anyone else. Christians think they have it all figured out. Scientists might as well just lay down and quit, because the Christians already know exactly who created the universe and how it happened. I guess we'll just forget the fact that science has triumphed EVERY time it has clashed with Christianity. If Christians are indeed correct, then what is the point of learning about astronomy and cosmology? I personally find these fields absolutely fascinating, not to mention convincing. The fact that astronomers are making such dramatic progress in their field is pretty convincing evidence that it just might be worth actually studying space and using scientific rigor to find out the secrets of the universe, instead of just stubbornly sticking to some old fable created in a time when there was no such thing as the scientific method. Evolution: I don't have the space to argue the complete theory of evolution, but I'll certainly cite some evidence. Fruit flies, in the laboratory, absolutely demonstrate, time and time again, how evolution works. There is no question that species evolve due to random mutations; there are only 2 unresolved questions that are relevent here: 1) how did life start initially? 2) how did humans come about from apes? As to the first concern, I am at a loss. We can't reproduce life in the laboratory from mixing enzymes and amino acids together, and I don't see that we are going to be able to do so any time soon. Science continues to progress nonetheless, and perhaps someday we will be able to find that spark that started it all out. We will keep looking until we do find it, and I have faith that someday we will. As to the second concern, I believe the missing link still evades evolutionary scientists. Nonetheless, we do have detailed fossil records of many species that would lead apes on up to humans, like homo erectus for example. As to why they aren't around today, one need only look at how humans treat other people to see that. We can't even get along without killing people who don't share the same religion as us, never mind try to set aside land for a society of homo erectus to thrive in. Our ancestors, as they got more intelligent, no doubt killed off the less intelligent people quite quickly as they viewed them as inferior. Apes were probably just far enough back on the evolutionary scale to have survived the persecution from our ancestors, as they were "animal" enough not to interfere too much with our evolving cousins. Pope John Paul II embraced the big bang theory, because it left plenty of hypothetical room for God to have given his spark *just* before it; in other words, God set off the big bang and then the rules of science took over and that allows both Christians and scientists alike to coexist peacefully. Of course, if and when science progresses, your next pope will have to change his story... As to pascal's wager, I absolutely do not accept this as reasonable. You could use this on the Greek Gods, Allah, or any other deity or any other superstitious belief with the same utility. Does this mean I should believe in any and every idea of deity just to make sure that I'm not wrong and won't end up in hell? Oh, wait a minute, Only the Christian God is worth considering. There are lots of different sects of Christians who believe all other Christians are going to hell, and I for one cannot make any sense of it. You say that things are too well set up for these chance occurences that science talks about. Earth was a chance occurence, life was a chance occurence, and human life as well. Here is how I justify these chance occurences. There are an estimated two hundred billion known galaxies in the universe. Our mid-sized galaxy contains a hundred billion stars in it, and we are slowly discovering planets around many of the stars we see. So yes, it is unlikely that any one planet would harbor life, but when you consider the absolutely unimaginable size of the universe, you quickly realize that chance occurence is exactly what the doctor ordered. If I gave you a million billion billion tries to come up with some DNA, that would probably be enough for you to come up with something! Evolution is the same way. The earth is 4.6 Billion years old. That is a million years, multiplied 4600 times. As you can see, considering life has been around for most of earth's history, and given the exponential way in which we lifeforms reproduce, these chance mutations that we see every day in the laboratory have had a tremendous amount of time to work out. Now science can possibly be wrong, but if it is, that still doesn't mean that the church has everything worked out. I am troubled greatly by this pre-packaged set of beliefs the church offers, in which you don't get a chance to actually explore for yourself how things actually came about. What's the point of philosophy, science, and public policy if the Christians already have it all figured out already? Huckabee will be in my state tomorrow telling us that we need to amend the constitution to be in accordance with the bible (his interpretation of it anyway). He has a chance of winning this november, be it a small one, but the fact is that our government is full of Christians making policies that they think are the way God would like it. Non-Christian politicians have to hide their beliefs or else they won't get any votes from the Christian populace. So if I seem mean or hateful with my words, please don't assume that I am just trying to criticize you people for no reason. I am exercising my first amendment right (while I still have it) to speak out about what I see as public ignorance that indirectly affects me personally. Did that magazine article discuss the possibility that wars would occur if Christianity were not around? Or religion in general for that matter? When it comes down to it, you cannot prove God exists. Conversely, you cannot prove otherwise as well. For this reason, I am agnostic. There is no evidence one way or another for many things, including ghosts, aliens, free will, alternate universes, and lots of other things that the ignorant will claim to have an inside edge in. I think the humble argument, the wise argument, is to leave these questions unanswered and let the foolish quarrel amongst themselves over their stances on these issues.