(November 30, 2014 at 8:20 pm)Lek Wrote: The problem is we can't keep from doing bad things to other people.And religion does nothing to alleviate this. In fact, by claiming that we are imperfect and that our sins are forgiven by proxy and that we'll be as good as we need to be once we are dead, religion excuses such behavior today. Depending on the denomination, there are some who believe that once you take Christ into your heart you are saved no matter what you do. There are others who believe that any action taken in support of their faith is just, regardless of how harmful it is (which follows the example of the OT god, after all).
So not only does god never show up, his effects on our behavior amount to a net zero at best. It's almost as if he was never there at all!
"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
