Kona,

Even if you believe that the differences between catholics and protestants are so great that the decision of the pope is not meaningful, there are clear cut cases of *many* protestant clergy (some of whom I know personally) who have no problem with the science of evolution. They recongnize that there is nothing about the existence (or veneration) of God that precludes the idea of evolution (or anything else discovered by science, as well).

I think the improtant thing is to keep a God like image in mind, as the goal of evolution, and to be able to recognise parts of that mental image in each other as we travel the evolutionary path

Quite simple IP: Marriage is defined AS A UNION BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN, and in God's eyes it is written that homosexuality is wrong.

Kona, you didn't understand my point. Try to follow the logic bellow.

1. The Christian religion doesn't recognize civil marriage. If two people get married in a couthouse not in a church, they are not considered married in the eyes of the Church.

2. The government legalizes homosexual CIVIL marriages.

3. The Church is outraged and says what you said, that Marriage is defined AS A UNION BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN.

Where's the logic? Is a civil marriage considered a valid marriage for the Church or not?  If a civil marriage is not valid in the first place, therefore the new homosexual marriages are not valid anyway.  So why should the Church care?

this is really getting interesting

Without God, we're meaningless molecules that just so happened to come together and be intelligent.

Sounds good to me...

Without religion, where is your basis for morality?

Many other creatures on this planet have rudimentary morals, and generally know the difference between right and wrong in issues that their brains are equipped to understand. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've never seen a group of dogs going to church to pray, and yet they will generally fight to the death to protect their owners. For that matter, I've never seen dolphins building an underwater church...

You have to have intelligence to be this stupid

Fuzzy

It's just that without God, morals are subjective; they're no more important than the type of music you listen to. Without God, we can't criticize others for being immoral; we can't criticize Hitler, Saddam Hussein, or Jack the Ripper. Without God, life is as meaningless as the action figures children play with. Without God, we're meaningless molecules that just so happened to come together and be intelligent

You know I was thinking about that last night whilst I was sleeping.

I wondered to myself... if it is just a happenstance that we are here why be moral? Not saying people who don't have no way to be moral...

I actually came to a conclusion but I don't remember what it was.

Why is life meaningless without God? It really comes down to an individual's perception of a good life, and what they do to benefit others in the time they have. You don't have to accept the concept of a God to have meaning in your life, it's just that without God you have more choice over what form that meaning takes. You're not restricted to the 'To Do' list of some unknown entity.

I also don't understand why we're not allowed to criticize the immorality of others if we don't believe in God. Surely the very fact that such a person can differentiate between right and wrong, moral and immoral, disproves the entire theory anyway. If, as has been suggested, a person who refuses to accept God into their life has no concept of morals, then surely they would just be a wild, uncontrolled force who did whatever they felt like doing when the whim took them.

I think there's a great deal of arrogance amongst Christians, and followers of other faiths, that those who do not follow their beliefs are somehow inferior to them. That in itself goes a long way to prove which side has the better morals.

Well, i'm sure to somebody who believes in God, that life is unimaginable and would appear meaningless without God. I can see that.

Just thinking about life without computers personnally makes me freak out.

@ paxx

grayhaze,

As a believer, I am in complete agreement with you.

I think that part of the problem comes about because of real differences in believing that God exists and the interpretations of the religious dogmas created to address and/or understand that belief.

My belief in God is pretty much the *only* matter of faith in my life (I have reasons for that faith that are too involved to detail here), but I'm a scientist and sceptic where just about everything else is concerned.

I am especially a sceptic when it comes to someone else telling me what God wants, or in what manner I'm supposed to honor/obey/revere Him. No one really *knows* what it is that God wants of us (if anything). People *believe* in various interpretations, and that's fine (far be it from me to tell someone what they should believe). The thing is that all of these interpretations have been written by, handled by, edited by, and interpreted by human beings (even if the original was divinely inspired or driven, the subsequent changes by others can only water down the original meaning). The only point where I have some dissonance about following such interpretations is in the cases where some people appear to hold them even over God Himself.

As valuable as some of these texts may be as a guide, ultimately, God is more important than all of these texts.

As for morals, good basic moral values can be instilled by those of pretty much any belief system (I exclude for the sake of argument those that are psychotic). Alternatively, those of any belief system can choose to subvert those values for various reasons (usually power or personal gain)
[Message Edited]

No one really *knows* what it is that God wants of us (if anything).

that's an amusing assertion.

the subsequent changes by others can only water down the original meaning

you're telling us that if a highly qualified group of scholars looks at any translated document ( and its peers and antecedents), they can only muddy it up - that it is impossible that they would render it better translated and more concise no matter what their qualifications were.

that is another humorous assertion.

This is one of those questions that will be with mankind for all time. Personally, I believe in a higher being, call it God, Yahwah, Allah, whatever. I can not look out at the sky at night, drive through the mountains, gaze upon the plains, and not feel humbled that all this was not created for a purpose. What that purpose is, I do not know. What I believe is that something that I can not comprehend, that religions of the worlds try to answer in a human way, created all. Some survived, some did not, but all at some time in the scheme of things had a starting point. The rest, I believe, (call it Gods will), was left up to us. To evolve, to survive, or to perish.

Here's an interesting read Bangkokboy... or should I say amusing?

http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article7068.asp