RE: Why do Atheists spend so much time debatng the existence of God?
October 15, 2013 at 6:00 am
(October 15, 2013 at 5:41 am)Tortino Wrote: Well, we all have free will. Some people use religion for good, and unfortunately a lot use it for evil. That is why I shy away from the actions of people to determine if something is right or wrong. Rather, look at the doctrine.It makes you wonder how effective the doctrine is. Is it really having an effect on anyone's life if just as much good or evil is possible with and without it? Why isn't the word of the supreme creator and ultimate power in the universe able to effect change on a scale that would differentiate it from any other philosophy? I would expect to see a world where there was such a clear dividing line between those who profess faith and those who reject it, that there would be no doubt as to the validity of following a particular god and his/her teachings. Instead we get a world where people point to a Josef Stalin defensively, as if to say "well he was a bit worse." That might be the most depressing gap I've ever seen god squeezed into.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
