The same should aply to lifestyle, goverment type and "democracy".

Yes, it is - from the sight of Islam.

In my country, the Church has a hand in almost everything.

Charity and goodwill are not a function of religion. Look at Asia and Africa: no charity and goodwill there, yet plenty of religion. And in the middle ages, there was no charity and goodwill in Europe.

Polls prove you wrong: religious and superstition people have a negative vision of their own lives and the world; atheists do not.

There would be far less excuses. People would be more informed and less available to exploitation.

GWB's or Bin Laden's authority comes from the people who are gullible enough to vote for them or support them.

Please, no names. Critise my argument, not me.

So perhaps you can answer the following question:

If the universe is so complex that it can only have been created by an intelligent designer, then the designer is more complex than the universe. Who then created the designer?

These discussions are not pointless. We make them pointless, due to our selfishness: we do not want to listen to the arguments of others, we simply state our beliefs.

There is only one truth, because there is one universe. Everyone may focus on a different part of the truth, but there is only one truth after all.

I couldn't agree more. Modern application of christianity has nothing to do with Jesus' message.

By the very nature of religion, or at least the one in question, believing in magic to some extent, that question answers itself. Although, it is not as if that question is answered sufficiently through logic by any other system of belief, nor can it be, and therefore, is entirely pointless. Whether you choose to believe that an intelligent designer created the universe or whether it was created by an explosion of a near infinitely dense particle, you still have the question of where that designer or particle came from. It is an unanswerable question, invoking no thought other than circular reasoning in an endless cycle and is therefore, pointless.

It is not that people chose not to listen, although for some this is the case, but rather that listening to such arguments leads nowhere. The arguments by their very nature must be incomplete, considering that the "one truth" you speak of cannot possibly be known to any individual. Actually, I think I shall take that back. Everyone knows this "one truth" and no one is wrong. Truth is nothing more than a mere perception of reality, perceive it however you wish, but you cannot expect others to do so in the same fashion.

The bottom line is, axilmar, that all are incapable of knowing anything at all for an unvarying fact without including in a multitude of assumptions. Of course, as time goes on, even more and more assumptions must be included to call anything at all fact.

Basically, you can build your beliefs about the origin of life and the universe off of evidence or you can build it off faith, but either way, your beliefs are unverifiable. Thus, no matter your side of the argument, you are arguing over fiction and "what-if" questions. It is because of this, and not because of self-imposed loss of hearing, that these arguments lead nowhere.

In any event, I now grow bored of typing, and a quite a bit earlier than usual with much smaller paragraphs. Feel free to dispute anything, but it will not lead you anywhere. You cannot even be certain of what you are seeing before your very eyes; claiming to be certain about what might have happened or what occurred an eternity before your eyes came to be is pure fallacy.

That sounds strange. Of all people I have met, I must say that atheists tend to have more negative visions.

And these discussions are not pointless. After a discussion like this, someone might change their point of view, in either direction. But the most important thing is to gain understanding of alternative ideas and people who believe in these ideas. I won't turn into an atheist because of these discussions, but I think it is important for me to read what atheists think. Well, for anyone who isn't interested in what people of other beliefs think, this is a pointless discussion. Whether they are Christians, atheists or Potrzebists.

[edit]
Me to God, if I ever meet him face to face: "Please show me how you divide with zero! PLEASE!"

Compassion Canada and Watoto, off the top of my head. I'm sure there are more; it's not like I live there.

For every poll you can provide that shows this, I can probably show you a poll that doesn't.

I doubt that highly. Tons of successful propoganda doesn't even come close to being religious and seems to work fine.

You don't make arguments. You preach truisms. Rather religiously, too. The hypocrisy gets tired.

No clue. Firstly, why do you assume this is a foundation of my faith at all, and second, how would my agreeing with the alternative be any less stupid? Another reason these discussions are pointless is because of purely academic questions like that one. If I were to agree or disagree with you, I would be equally illogical. So why waste my time?

PS: I don't see why a creator would have to be more complex. The scientific explanation for the start of the universe seemed to take a simple start and produce rather complex results.

100% agreed.

Also 100% agreed, which is why I laugh at the "God can't make a rock so big He can't lift it" crowd. Matthew also pointed out the usual example of something God can't do. Wow, God can't be omnipotent means God isn't omnipotent? I always thought God can't be omnipotent means God can't exist! The mind reels!

Part of being a leader is imposing your will( and beliefs) on those you control.

Can God microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it?

As for the OP, regardless of his religious preferences he is bound to screw up somehow. Presidents these days always seem to find ways to mess up in the public's opinion

Exactly. This was my point with that question.

Finaly I have some logical argument I can tell to a friend. We just have and interesting discussion over John Hume's teachings and I said what if our "god" (who holds our universe in "memory") is a creation in his own world which is dominated by some other "god". He kept telling me, that the "god" is "omnipotent" so it's not possible to be a part of another creation.

In other words I have remembered P.K.Dick...

I like the new "big rip" theory. Its really quite interesting. Though I'm not sure how the process is supposed to keep going, shouldn't it make increasingly smaller and smaller universes as it gets split into tiny pieces each time? I dunno.

It is a paradox.

Just an observtion:
You don't have to be omnipotent to invent an unsolvable problem.
Goldbach wasn't omnipotent but the Goldbach conjecture so far proved unsolvable.

I don't think this thread is far enough from the original post, so here goes:

So far, but mathematicians tend to solve these kind of things or prove they're unsolvable. Remember mr. Wiles? I'd rather present Goodsteins theorem as an example. It has been shown that it's unprovable in Peano arithmetic but can be proven true with some other methods.

Or maybe even simpler example: present a rational number that can't be expressed in the form p/q where p and q are primes.. Seems quite unsolvable to me.

Maybe you could generalize this statement to the form: "Please show me undefined." Remember to post the answer to a.cc!

Yep. I rememeber when I have discussion over this topic (omnipotency) with some people after playing some RPG game which resembled Sphere. They pointed this out. Also recommended me a book "Metamorphosis of prime intelect".

I also remember a discussion with a friend who is theist (I don't keep any prejudice here), he disagreed as well as some others. This friend didn't also get a note which ML posted above - that the God's "omnipotence" is limited by himself/his nature and therefore rejected the thought of "Trouble with a bubbles".