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I think what you're asking is where do I get my morals from? As B86 mentions, morals have been around far longer than the earliest writings of the Bible. Humans never would have survived to this point if murder, theft, etc. were acceptable behaviors. Humans are a social animal and it's in one's...

I think a lot of parents like indoctrinating their children with religion because God is like an invisible baby sitter - kind of like Santa Claus but with much greater consequences if you do something bad. :wink2:

You are dealing with different levels of required evidence here. Proving the existence of a specific historical figure (such as Socrates, Alexander the Great or even Christ as an actual person) has a required level of evidence far below a claim of someone being a demi-god or raising from the...

Your example of Christ rising from the dead is exactly what I mean by a theoretically testable religious claim. Unfortunately we can't go back in time and conduct any scientific studies. Do you believe that miracles are still occurring and if so, could you provide examples that could be tested...

Well technically theories evolve and not facts, but I think I understand your point and yes I agree that science doesn't always get it right the first time. But that's the beauty of science; it has a built-in self-correcting mechanism that allows theories to be tweaked as new evidence is found...

First of all, I didn't call Jesus a fairy tale in my response - I didn't even mention his name. While I don't think he was the Son of God, I don't know and don't really care if he really did exist. What I take away from the writings about Jesus are his teachings of morality and how people should...

It really depends on what we're talking about. Regarding what's inside the event horizon of Black Holes that BKB brought up earlier, I have a very low level certainty of what happens to matter after it enters a Black Hole. But getting back to the original subject of this thread, I have near 100%...

Yes, there are usually multiple natural explanations for phenomenon but through the scientific method we determine which is most plausible. Supernatural claims don't have any kind of method to test one claim vs. another to determine which is more plausible. These are two completely different...

Certainly it's a possibility which is why I consider myself 99% atheist and not 100%. And I think if there is a higher power it would be a Creator and not a personal God. I think it's human nature to feel that everything fits together too perfectly for it to all have happened by chance, but...

Well technically it's people that have knowledge and science is the method used to gain that knowledge, but by definition "supernatural" lies outside the realm of science (which only deals with the natural universe). If one were to accept a supernatural explanation, what is the specific method...

Theoretically I believe that everything has a natural explanation, but there are currently huge gaps in our knowledge about the universe. But I don't substitute ignorance with a divine explanation. It's acceptable to not know something in science - we don't know how the universe came to be or...

I was claiming that there are serious inconsistencies in the critical thinking skills of those who use the scientific method to accept certain truths about the universe, and then suspend that method when accepting matters related to God/the Bible/religion. I don't know what your personal beliefs...

I'm specifically referring to the scientific method - the technique for validating "truth" by gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence. There are serious inconsistencies in the critical thinking skills of someone who claims to following the scientific method to discern truths...

I agree that both can co-exist if one is a deist (belief in a creator, but not a personal god that interferes in our day-to-day lives and suspends the laws of nature), however if one is a theist (belief in a personal god) I don't see how the two can be compatible. Christians (and Jews and...

The validity of evolution rests on the evidence, not on the personal opinions of scientists. If any of these individuals have published studies or papers supporting Creationism in peer-reviewed scientific journals, please provide references as I would be interested in reading them.

I only linked a summary article so it didn't get too technical, but here's the whole study along with the abstract if you're interested: http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1001342 I'll be the first to admit that the analytics of the report are beyond my...

I came across this article on a recent DNA study regarding the evolutionary history of primates (including humans): http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110317172047.htm Earlier in this thread I had posted fossil evidence supporting the theory that humans evolved from an ape-like...

Well you'd have to get an answer from them directly, but I think their response would have something to do with acknowledging "micro evolution" (such as bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics) but not "macro evolution" (evolution of a new species). But what I'd like to know is how a...

Considering that each religion has its own stories of creation, I would argue that there are as many or more Theories of Creationism as there are religions. Even within Christianity there isn't a consensus on the details of Creation (is the universe 6,000 years old or billions?, did God create...

Well since there isn't one agreed upon Theory of Creationism, I would think that each Creationist has their own individual opinion of Natural Selection (which probably then leads to some discussion about micro vs. macro evolution).