Interesting, Einstein didn't consider himself an Atheist. He believed in a higher order and from what I have read he believed in Spinoza's God. “I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings”.

this is interesting, an intereview with Einstein for the Saturday Evening Post in 1929.

"To what extent are you influenced by Christianity?"

"As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene."

"Have you read Emil Ludwig's book on Jesus?"

"Emil Ludwig's Jesus is shallow. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot."

"You accept the historical Jesus?"

"Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life."

To answer the question... Its fake, fake fake fake fake fake

I can also find quotes.

The main point of my last post is that creationists often use such quotes in a misleading manner. If you're gonna quote Einstein, you might as well use the quote that said "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this".

When you remove a quote from it's context, it quickly becomes misleading. One of the most infamous examples is this :

This is a quote by Charles Darwin that's been printed in several creationist books and put up on various webpages .. yet the full quote goes this :

In other words, the full quote actually says the opposite of what creationists want you to believe.

Maybe scientists should stoop as low as the creationists. We could make up quotes from Jesus saying God doesn't really exist or support science by posting quotes from people who used to be creationists but now believe in evolution. Wait, that would be stupid.

The sad thing about tactics that rely on misinformation is that you're then competing with the truth .. and the truth stays true in the face of evidence while lies do not.

Tore I notice that you seem to associate all Christians with creationism.

No, I don't think so .. I've made sure to attack creationists in my above posts and not christians. I know people (even scientists) who are christian and are able to unite their faith with God with belief in science.

People also make the mistake thinking that science is anti-religious. It's not, it's just pro-truth. If the earth is scientifically proven to be older than 6000 years old, that might provoke some fundamentalist christians .. but the goal of science is not to fight religion, it's to discover the truth. There's an important difference. As I often say, if there really is a god, then science aims to prove that. For some reason that idea often comes as a surprise to people.

edit :

The reason I started attacking creationists in the first place is that whatisit's quote was taken from a creationist webpage who use those quotes in a misleading manner to support the idea of creationism. It was not meant as criticism against christian people in general.

I just don't understand how people can treat the book of genesis as if it were an Earth science textbook. What a waste of time!

This thread is so off subject half the freakin time.. Athiests dont care, ppl with faith do. How come we keep going into arguments that nobody can win... Great posts But 500 + posts later and nobody wins the battle.

I guess I have to say it again, you cannot prove faith wrong, with or without scientific data... Does it really matter anyhow? Think of it this way.. If there is a god, would he be so petty to damn us to hell if we didnt worship him every day? I think that ppl who are afraid of death find faith. I think ppl who look at death as part of living have come to the realization that the tooth fariy isnt real either. Me personally im not a bible thumper or a chruch going man, I have prayed before and i have lied before. I'm only human...

This is a blatant lie. You can't lump all atheists into one thinking category. Yes you can. If I had absolute faith that you had no genitals and you provided me with evidence of your genitals you would prove my faith wrong. If I accepted it or not is something else entirely.

..........I like to believe there is a god and life after death, because if I knew for sure there wasn't, I'd probably kill myself.
I had a dream last summer about a recently deceased person......they told me they were ok, safe, ect......but that was probably just a weird dream.....

I think about this stuff every single day of my life. I can't figure anything out it's killing me.

well put and very true. My fiancee mentioned the Einstein quote to me the other night while we were both discussing our spiritual journeys over the last 10 years. So I dug it up without really researching it and posted it here to see the responses I would get. I did a bit more research on it after you brought it to my attention how it was taken out of context and I find more comfort in how Einstein viewed religion and science over how I was taught it. I can't accept the world just exists because, it's too perfect and complex of a rejuvenating system to have just accidentally happened. I also can't accept humans are here to be tested and a better world is waiting for them only if they pass that test. So I'm somewhere in the middle I guess, a higher power... sure, a judging power... not likely. As far as where we go after we die, I tend to think about where we were before we were born... that's most likely where we will go.

Good post and I think your take on it is pretty commonplace. At least in Norway, those who are religious tend to fall somewhere in the middle. I hope you don't think that scientists believe the world with all it's living organisms is merely an accident though! It's generally thought to be the result of billions of years of cause and consequence.

What of theistic evolutionists? Those that believe that evolution is god's chosen mode of creation. Not that I believe in an anthropomorphic god, but I believe I fall into this category.

If I was a christian, that's something I could lean against. Even higher-ups in the vatican have defended evolution claiming it's compatible with christianity and for example see it as God's hand in nature.

Some sources :

The Vatican claims Darwin's theory of evolution is compatible with Christianity - Telegraph
FOXNews.com - Vatican Official Defends Evolution Against 'Useless' Creationism - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News

I don't really know of course, but it seems to me that the separation between science and religion might be stronger in America than it is in Europe.

I think it's mainly reactionary. I'm making the assumption that there's a much stronger evangelical presence in America than in Europe. I think you see more of a defensive stance to the atheism in America; a product of being proselytised by dogmatic fundamentalism. Whereas in Europe its more or less a matter of an objective understanding of a particular belief structure being incompatible with what one knows about the physical nature of reality.

I like this thread you guys sound like lil geniuses while i mispell the very word cause I can't download that spellin **** due to some sort of defect in my computer. Or it may be my brain i don't know i don't care anymore but yeah ya'll keep on keeping on this is making me think. Stimulate me god knows I ****in need it

seriously, I feel compelled to turn in my Christianity card after reading through this thread. Thinking about how the world came to be and how all creatures have evolved is so huge. When I think of "higher power" I don't think "God", but literally whatever power was necessary to start it all in the first place.

Religion can really be a mind ****. Discussing religion with my fiancee, I asked her what keeps her faith so strong and her reply was simply "talking to God makes me feel better". I asked her what if it was some how proven that God or none of what you know God to be truly existed, would you feel deceived? and she said "no, I feel like the idea of God listening to me and being there when I was afraid, lonely or sad was helpful to me in my life and often necessary". So I took that as God really is whatever you need God to be within' your own life, without buying into the hype you can simply just take it as a means to find peace within' yourself.

I believe its real, i mean this thing exists doesn't it, but me believing it, not really

I can kinda' understand what Christans mean and how they are so determined to believe despite all the evidence against them cause I've felt something too inside. It sounds lame but it's true some things just have to be felt. And for about a month I felt somethin' and I thought about it day in and day out wondering what it was. It's hard to explain I'm not even going to bother but after a while it just went away and so now I'm stuck here wondering was it god or just some kind of mind trick I've fallen in? Ever since then my music style has changed and I've pretty much been a completely different person I don't look at anything the way I did before. It doesn't sound like much on a post in a thread but it's extremely strange and now I feel even emptier than before cause no matter how hard I struggle to feel what I felt those days I just can't. I don't have big words and all this knowledge but if there is a god I don't think he thinks the way we do. Meaning we could think all day about it and never figure it out it's something you gotta' to feel. Although it's impossible for me not to think about it constantly

I know what you mean. When I was younger and not so eager to figure it all out I would have my spiritual moments. I would go to Church on Sunday and feel good about myself, I would write different types of music that I felt good about. I still write music I feel good about but it's different, it's not as "magical" as it was. Perhaps it's just being young and going through a phase? perhaps it's dissecting the very thing that can't be dissected and not allowing that spiritual channel to flow through as it did when you didn't think about it at all? to be honest even if it's all a crock of **** there is something very moving and uplifting about faith, religion and the morals that go along with it. Sometimes I wish I was still that kid that believed without questioning, simpler times.

Although I personally don't know much about people like this..I'm confused on exactly how this works. Don't most Christians believe that God created the world in 7 days and the earth is only 4000 years old? If so how can Christianity possibly be compatible with evolution? Do you mean to say you're one of those people who only believe in microevolution but not macroevolution?

You could try not to interpret the bible so literally, yet still believe in God. I don't think that sounds so hard. As I wrote, it's pretty much the norm with christians in this country.

Then what is that supposed to interpreted as?

Just general wisdom and guidance. You know, like the fable about the lion and the mouse.

http://www.janekahan.com/folio/Image..._the_mouse.jpg

If you read it, you'll see it's possible to get some wisdom from it without having to seriously believe that the event took place and that lions and mice talk to eachother.

Why would god want to create us anyway? I don't get it. Why would he just throw us in this world and expect us to just accept he's real when we have nothing really to go on but the things around us which seem to point out that he ain't real anyways? And they say all you need is faith. I got all the faith in the world. But there is a fine line between faith and gambling. Who wants to waste their life worshipping somethin' that's not there. And half the people who believe only believe cause they are scared. That's not putting faith in god. That's losing faith in yourself. And the hipocrytical bastards I went to a Pentecoastal chuch and people would be acting like they're feeling god. They would speak in tongues and cry and supposedly have "a life changing event" right there. Then they'll go home and forget it ever happened. God forbid they tell any of that story in front of their friends. You would think if it was that life changing and if it proved there was definitely a god I mean jesus christ babbling different languages is a big deal...you would think it would be a little more important that how your friends felt about it. But its all a lie. Lies to impress other churchgoers. Anyways if god is "all knowing" and all that he would know. But it's the exact same for atheism. I don't know about yall but where I am atheism has almost become a trend. Now everyone's like oh it's so cool I don't believe in god. If I talk to someone round here who doesn't believe you best believe I'll hear about it within five sentences. But they don't know why they don't believe. They just know they don't want to blindly believe. But blindly not believing is the same damn thing to me. It's just got me confused as hell

There is no difference between the two. "Macroevolution" is just what happens when lots of "microevolution" happens.

Is it a pizza before you put it into the oven?

A lot of christians sort of accept that some evolution occurs - that gene (or allele) frequencies change from generation to generation and so on or that bacterias can pick up new genes in a test tube. It's very easily scientifically proven and basically done every day .. yet they refuse to accept that species morphology can change radically over evolutionary time.

I don't know how they manage to do it, but some still do .. I guess it takes a special kind of stubbornness.

Ok I'm gonna throw things into a different direction.

Much of the battle between science and religion has dealt with mainly god in the outer physical realm (creation, evolution, etc.). What about the cognitive aspect of it?

Some questions:
Is god essentially the higher self that lies beyond our ego?
Does something on a metaphysical level occur when we pray?
Is having a "relationship" with "God", perceived or real healthy?
Is there such a thing as spiritual health? (like mental health but on a spiritual level)
How does one explain a religous experience,(of which I've had a few), on a psychological or metaphysical level?

No disrespect and I hope I don't offend you, but I believe a lot of religious experiences are basically caused by suggestion, placebo effects and the like.

Imagine if you had a lot of people on a plane and suddenly, someone there had contagious meningitis which potentially puts everyone on the plane in mortal danger. It's not sure how many are contaminated and everyone has to be put in quarantine and thoroughly checked before they are let out of the plane.

In that situation, it's easy to imagine that many people who are not sick would not feel so well and perhaps have imaginary meningitis symptoms. It could be caused by mass hysteria, sugggestion (you look kinda pale) or even a kind of placebo-effect - you feel sick because you think you are sick.

People are affected by other people, we're good at sniffing up on eachothers vibes and I think when people collectively feel God's presence in a church, I think it's basically working by the same psychological mechanisms. For some reason, speaking in tongues is a lot more common when you have gatherings.


Religious experiences being caused by something in the mind of people themselves rather than something external also helps explain why long term sufferers of drug addiction are often more likely to have religious experiences than the average joe from the same society. You could explain that Jesus or God takes care of those who need it the most, but then you also have to ask yourself "doesn't God care if those who have it alright believe in him? Isn't he willing to make the same effort and appear for them like he does for the less fortunate?" You can probably come up with more questions and many will likely be hard to answer from a theological perspective, but yet quite simple from a purely psychological perspective.

you can't expect God to come to you... 'seek and ye shall find'

I've searched long enough.
Damageplan: "My search for answers only left to more questions"

As far as it being healthy, well that all depends on how you look at it. In a way it's healthy. people feel safe and find comfort in the fact that they know someone is always there for them. Everything that goes right and everything that goes wrong, it doesn't seem to matter as much cause they feel god has it all planned out. All these reasons, for a Christian, is healthy. For an atheist it's blind and false hope. Then again for those like me who just don't know what is goin' on; it's a double edge sword. it's easy to feel wrong for all the things you've done and you have all these mixed emotions on the subject.

that forces the assumption that there actually is an answer to everything as opposed to life being a constant learning process.

it's a whole hell of a lot simpler to swallow once people stop giving a crap about being 'right'. as if their emotional reaction channeled through their personal perspective on a situation or stimulation is somehow truer than anyone else's.

I'm sure situations like what you described occur in churches and other group oriented situations, however I must say that most of my experiences weren't contingent in any external influences as I was alone.
I understand your train of logic, but I was more gearing toward an understanding of how our subconscious mind, collective or individual, effect our perception on a seemingly spiritual level.

it's all very simple really...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/9/8...8e0d8342da.png

i am so hard right now.

that's godel's symbolic logic version of anselm's ontological argument, in case anyone actually cares

i think thats a negatory

I don't understand what it says which makes caring kind of hard.

I don't mean to sound stupid but I don't really understand that. Everything requires some sort of answer doesn't it? I know life is a constant learning process and there are several approaches to every situation and all this and maybe no one has it figured out at all. Maybe it's just so complex that it just can't be imagined. I don't know but whatever it is there has to be some sort of answer?

it seems to me the need to be right has been the backbone of our progression as humans. Science, theory, etc... are all dismissed until somebody is persistent enough to prove it right. I know what you're saying though, some people are just stubborn even when the writing is on the wall to how wrong they truly are. I guess the kind of people who make a difference with persistence are intelligent ones.

on a different note, my fiancee and I are both Catholic but we were both brought up differently in that I was raised more with the fear of God as she was raised with the love of God. You can certainly tell the difference between the two of us, I act more out of guilt and she acts more out of kindness. I struggled with the idea of raising my kids catholic because of my own experiences but I must say being with somebody that has a healthier take on religion has made me reconsider this. We have discussed it a lot and I told her I will never raise my kids to believe the stories in the bible are fact, I will just allow them to grasp the morals and meaning within' the stories. When they are of age to make up their own minds I will do nothing to persuade them either way, I will just support whatever way they decide to go.