Lately, I've been doing a lot of thinking and research that really helped give me better insight on the world and the universe. As many of you may have noticed, a lot of my recent Journal Entries revolve around the same topics: Evolution vs Creationism, Religion, Atheism, etc. This flash presentation is of a similar nature, but more serious in tone. The reason why I made it was so that I could help enlighten people by showing them very thought-provoking statements. It consists of quotes from famous historical figures, scientists, and celebrities.
It starts out with a few quotes that are meant to warm your minds up and the rest of the quotes focus primarily on the subject of Religion and Atheism. This presentation is in no way meant to be hate-speech towards religion, but rather a criticism on it. I do not condone hate-speech and I do not wish to offend anyone with this presentation, but I do urge those who view it to read through the whole thing. I plan on making more presentations like this, but on different subjects, each one just as thought-provoking.
The song in this piece is "The Inner Light Theme" from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
My main fear was the being "B&" part. I was afraid you were actually going to send a message to one of the higher-ups and get me banned. I use Sheezy more than I do my DA account, and it would be devastating for me if I were banned from here.
Thank you very much. There are so many more quotes out there, but it would be more satisfying if people went out and did the research themselves. Sam Harris has a lot of great quotes.
I prefer using my own when it comes to discussions on subjects like these, but it's nice to have such well thought out arguments to back your own idea up.
I read through every little bit of this, and I must say that I agreed with everything except the quote from Psalms 14:1, which really shows how corrupt religion (especially Christianity) really is, and you did a swell job contradicting the statement. Riveting flash.
The next one I plan on making will focus more on the contradiction of verses like that from both The Bible and the Quar'an. No need to do it with Hindu, since their teachings and scriptures don't claim that their rules are absolute and infallible.
It was a good, thought-provoking Flash, but at the same time, while pointing out the hypocrisy in that Bible quote, you also point out the hypocrisy in the atheism quotes as well.
By the quote "All thinking men are atheists", he's saying that Dr. Martin Luther King was not a thinking man, which is simply true.
Neither side is completely innocent. People have burnt down churches with people inside of them, killing those people. At the same time, wars have been waged all in the name of Christianity. However, not all wars have. The war in Iraq is waged for oil, which God has nothing to do with.
Many people in prison have turned to Christianity during their time spent there, and they turn a new leaf, yet pastors have molested their altar servers.
Both sides have their great thinkers, and those who do horrible things. Neither side is right or wrong. It's all a matter of belief.
You make good points, but Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an Atheist. He was an Atheist towards Zeus, Thor, Allah, Saturn, Shiva, and many of the other Gods humanity has prayed to. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a very brilliant man, yes, and there have been several brilliant people in history who subscribed to religion. Issac Newton was a very religious man, but he came from a time when Darwin's theory of Evolution didn't exist, so we can't be certain if he'd stay religious if he were exposed to it. Mohandas Gandhi was a very wise man who subscribed to religious faith, as well as the Dalai Lama.
You are very correct.
As for the Psalms verse, the Bible was translated from God to man, and man is flawed and biased, so chances are that it wasn't exactly translated as God had said so. Nowadays, it's a Christian belief that as long as you are a good person, it doesn't matter if you are atheist or not, you will still go to Heaven (you know... if it exists). At least, that's what I hope we believe by now.
As for evolution, it is, in my opinion, very possible that evolution could have happened, and still have a God.
The reason why?
Noah's ark.
I mean, all animals have different species and whatnot, which is caused by evolution. But, is it possible that Noah didn't get every species, but just, say, frogs or fish or giraffes and whatnot, and not worry about species? Because, then, after they got of land, the animals would have to mate with each other to repopulate Earth. Evolution occurred from mutations in DNA, and inbreeding causes these mutations very often. Maybe this is how these species came about, thus being the evolution Charles Darwin was talking about.
It's very possible, in my opinion.
I don't want to be disorganized in this response, so I'll just break it into points.
1. The Bible went though several translations before it made its way to the King James version. In the original text, the word used for God was "Elohim," which is a plural word. That means original versions of the Old Testament, "God" was "Gods," meaning it was polytheistic. It was only through constant translation and prestidigitation that we end up with the monotheistic faith we see today.
2. It is more likely that The Bible was written by men, inspired by Egyptian, Samaritan, and many other religions that were around at the time of its conception. An example of this is Noah's Ark. In Egypt, there would be a festival that celebrated the annual flooding of the Nile. This flood was the source of deaths for many people and animals, but it also turned barren desert into very fertile farmland. The name of this festival was the "Argha-Noa" the (Ark-a-Noah). The word "Amen" comes from the name of the Egyptian sun god "Amen-Ra," who was considered to be the Great Shepard and the Lamb of God, just like Jesus was. There are many more examples like this that I plan on addressing in future submission.
3. Noah's Ark is pure fantasy, without question. There is no way a 600 year-old man could build a giant boat big enough to house the million of species of animals, manage to care for them with seven other people for 40 days, and then let the loose to repopulate the world. This event supposedly happened around 4000 years ago, which is nowhere near enough time for animals to evolve to what we have today, so all of the animals would've had to be in their present forms. Also, take into consideration that some animals have a special diet and require specific climates in order to survive. Where would Noah have gotten the fresh Eucalyptus Leaves for the Koala Bears? How could they have had refrigeration technology to keep the Polar Bears cool and Penguins? Some animals only eat meat, so how could he have fed the meat eaters? There was only one window on the entire boat, which was at the top. How could one window be enough to ventilate all the methane gas from the animal droppings of over 50 million species? Also, why would Noah's boat be the only boat that worked? Did something happened to all the other boats in the world? And if Noah and his family were the only ones left to repopulate the world, where do Black people and Asian people come from? I'm Asian, so if Noah's Ark were true, I wouldn't exist.
3. Yes, it is possible for a God to have been involved during the process of Evolution, but if that was true, there certainly isn't any signs of it. A British Clergyman said it best when he explained why you can be both religious and believe in all the sciences which contradict religions. He said "God made the universe make itself." This kind of outlook on a God is similar to what a Deist, like Thomas Jefferson, believed.
1. That is interesting to bring up about the "Gods". I never knew that.
2. That I never knew as well, and is also very interesting.
3. I always figured that Noah's ark was a story (like the parables Jesus told), and was throwing out that evolution idea. The only question I can answer, though ,is why noone else built a boat. According to the Noah's ark story, after Noah had build the boat, he gave people 7 or so weeks/days/somethings to join him, but noone believed him about the flood, thus being why only he and some of his family survived.
4. That's something similar to what I believe.
The issue I brought up was not that no one else built boats for the flood, but that there was no other family out there, a family that owned a large boat, who could've just hopped in it and survived the flood when it happened. Noah couldn't possibly have had the only working boat. Many of the Noblemen must've had large barges stocked with supplies, and yet The Bible tells the story as if no other boat existed.
Being a Christian. I can fullheartily agree with some of the things stated in this flash.
But it feels as if you are putting us on the spot. Like we aren't doing our job to make your life better.
That is what I see in most of your flash. You feel this way about a certain group of individuals that's fine, you really don't need my opinion or beliefs to stop you. But let me instil this into your mind.
I'm a Christian. Throughout. I have atheist friends, whom I love and will bite a bullet for. You're flash, is a masterpiece. And the men that were talked about in your flash, are not by any means evil, or no good. They helped the earth. If you are going to quote something from Psalms, though, you should probably read the whole Psalm. out of context, everything seems worse.
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No, I would never do that. I know how that feels.
