Here are some highlights of what people are saying over on the IMDB boards for the movie 10,000BC:
To my fellow Christians
I havent seen the movie yet and by reading your comments im having second thoughts. Should i see it? is it really that bad? on the ‘entertainment’ part i mean.
Okay, moving on to the other part…
I am Christian, and to my fellow believers (the real one’s, please) is it offensive in any way?
I mean, is the ‘timeline’ the only thing that’s in question? Did the movie scream out ‘God’s not real.’?
By the way, I do not find anything heretical about the evolution theory. If it is proven true, I’d take it as God’s artistic craftsmanship.
We are all entitled to our own beliefs. Please respect mine as much as i respect yours.
So I don’t hate atheists but…I don’t appreciate them trying to take God out of everything as if he is offending someone. I just don’t see how it would offend anyone if he or she didn’t believe in God. I think it’s dumb that people are saying that BCE and CE are more “politically correct” because it takes God out of something. Even if you don’t believe in God, you cannot deny that throughout history and even to this day many people do believe in God. Because of people’s strong beliefs they thought that the birth of Christ as a significant enough turn of events to call the dates BC and AD. Even if you change BC and AD to BCE and CE, you aren’t really completely taking God out of it because you are still measuring it according to BC and AD times with a different name. You are still measuring it from around the time Christ was born both before and after. So all those atheists who want to ruin the peace for everyone else, just get a life. I realize that not all atheists are like this and there are many who are pretty nice people but there are some who drive me crazy. If you don’t believe in God and you see him everywhere, there isn’t any reason to be offended, because when you think about it, if you don’t believe in God you most likely believe you’re going to die anyway and there won’t be anything to look forward to after life so there really isn’t any reason to be offended by anything is there?
The Earth is only 5,600 years old , so how is a movie set 12K years ago?
From Adam to Seth to Enosh to Kenan to Mahalelel to Jared to Enoch to Methuselah to Lamech to Noah to Shem to Arphaxad to Shelah to Eber to Peleg to Reu to Serug to Nahor to Terah to Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Levi to Kohath to Amram to Moses happened in the span of 2285 to 2300 years. If you accept that Moses and the Exodus happened in the reign of Ramsees II and date the 13rd century BCE to modern times, roughly 5,630 years have passed since Adam, when the timelines of Genesis and Exodus are incorporated into recorded times and you scale based on Moses being 80 at exodus and the reign of Ramses II.
This movie is set before God created heaven and earth and it’s an abomination to create man before god even thought of him.
If the producers of this film would have tried this blasephemous crap 5,300 years ago, Adam and Seth would have thrashed them with their pet Triceratops
BOYCOTT
This movie is another one that falls under my BANNED ACROSS AMERICA category. This movie suggests that people lived 12,000 years ago and interacted with mythical creatures that do not appear anywhere in the Bible. The bible proves that Adam and Eve were the first people to walk the Earth, not a bunch of cavemen fighting unicorns. This movie will corrupt our childrens minds with non christian values and needs to be removed from theaters IMMEDIATELY.
Comments
50 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.It isn’t that I didn’t go to see 10,000 BC because I thought it carried an anti-christian bias.
I didn’t go to see it because it looked like another big budget Hollywood crapfest. However, any movie taking this much heat from the X-tian Reich can’t be all that bad.
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This is quite possibly the most beautiful sentence in the English language ever constructed.
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Which is exactly why I’m thinking that a fellow non-believer is having a little fun on the IMDB boards….
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“We are all entitled to our own beliefs. Please respect mine as much as i respect yours.”
I had a tough time keeping a straight face when that came up.
It does emphasize the intellectual freedom one is exposed to when one stop believing. Not in god, but just stops believing. In things. Stops the act of believing and starts the act of thoughtful consideration.
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Does it have Raquel Welch in a skimpy outfit in it? OK then, I won’t be seeing it.
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I realize that not all
atheistsChristians are like this and there are many who are pretty nice people but there are some who drive me crazy. If youdon’tbelieve in God and you don’t see him everywhere, there isn’t any reason to be offended, because when you think about it, if youdon’tbelieve in God you most likely don’t believe you’re going to die anyway and therewon’twill be anything to look forward to after life so there really isn’t any reason to be offended by anything is there?Like or Dislike:
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More truth in this movie than there was in the passion of christ… Actually there’s probably more truth in Max Mad than there was in the passion of christ.
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“The bible proves that Adam and Eve were the first people to walk the Earth…” lol
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the earth being 5,600 year old comment is a total troll.
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Wow. I would hate to be one of those people. That would stop me from watching half of all movies. All it would leave is romantic comedies and chick flicks which are never good nor funny. I hope they’re having fun.
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“All it would leave is romantic comedies and chick flicks…”
Are you kidding? With all the extra-marital sex and gay characters in chick flicks? They’re an abomination too.
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Actually, the Bible mentions dragons, behemoths, unicorns, and several other creatures this movie depicts. And there are ancient historical documents other than the Bible that support the theory that man lived alongside them.
So that part is fine. It’s just the timing that’s off.
My take on it is this: if you worry about things like that, you’ll never be able to see any Hollywood movies other than perhaps the Narnia series. I only boycott films which are blatantly anti-Christian, like “The Golden Compass”
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See, Dean, this is where the problem arises.
Because of people getting the idea that The Golden Compass was all about killing the christian god, all of a sudden the entire story was changed so that it wasn’t mentioned.
This meant that a perfectly good story (a truly excellent story, in fact) was ruined, and look what happened. The Golden Compass bombed in the Box Office because all of the people who wanted to see the actual story got screwed, and all of the religious members of society refused to see it.
All this proves is that you can’t please everyone all the time. I still blame religion for ruining the Golden Compass, though I have few other issues with people who believe in intelligent design.
[/rant]
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The Bible doesn’t prove anything, there is no proof, man wrote the Bible, not God. You “believers” deceive yourselves so heavily it is remarkable. Sabretooth tigers and mammoths have been found already, dead. So, they did exist, and scientist have carbon dated objects and bones more then 5600+. So please, open your mind, you Christians and Catholics are nothing but sheep, religion has caused more death and destruction that anything on this Earth.
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Stephen:
The author of the books that the Golden Compass is based on makes no bones about the fact that they were written to turn people away from Christianity:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp
Dima:
I would say the same thing to you; open your mind and stop swallowing all the crap you hear on TV. Have you ever bothered to read anything on how carbon dating works or how inconsistent it is? Samples taken from living things have been dated at thousands of years old. Two samples taken from the same item and sent to two different labs have come back with results thousands of years apart. So called “scientists” can’t even agree on how old the earth is. “History” books when I was a kid said the earth was “millions” of years old. Now they say it’s “billions”. Neither one is possible based on simple population growth rate calculations.
And stop for a minute and think about the following:
1. if Evolution is fact, why is it still called “the THEORY of evolution” 150 years later?
2. if man evolved from apes, why are there still apes?
3. if the “layers” of the earth are measures of it’s age, why have layers of chalk which only form under the sea been found on tops of mountains. (I’ll give you a hint: they settled there after the flood)
The fact of the mater is that both Creation and Evolution are theories, neither of which can be proved. The difference is the theory I believe is based on a 2,000 year old historical document. The one you believe is based on some non-sensical fairy-tale about how “nothing exploded for no reason, nothing turned into lizards, lizards turned into birds, birds turned into apes, apes turned into people, and now here we are”.
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Dean:
1. Scientists call most ideas ‘theories’, such as ‘theory of gravity’. We also can’t prove that evolution happened in the past, any more than we can prove that objects fell down in the past). We can show that evolution happens NOW (every time bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, for instance). It also isn’t fixed on its 150-year-old version – evolution gets refined every time a biochemist makes a new discovery about DNA and every time a paleontologist discovers a new fossil.
2. Humans did not evolve from apes. We share a common ancestor with apes. Most apes mature in less time than we do, so have put more generations between them and their common ancestor than we have. They’re better suited to their natural environment than we are. By asking this item you show yourself to be ignorant of high school biology.
3. There’s plenty of geological process which we’ve observed happening in the short term which, when extrapolated, explain how chalk gets up mountains. Take a walk along the San Andreas Fault and see how roads that were straight when built have become wrinkled in a mere hundred years.
Please educate yourself in the current state of biology and its implications before you call it a ‘non-sensical fairy-tale’ again.
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For some reason, I believe that Dean is kidding, trying to be blatantly satirical or something along those lines. If not, then one more tiny bit of my faith in humanity will die; there is so little left. It will only show how little logic is used, how ignorant people are, and will only depress me more.
But just in case, here goes.
“Scientists can’t agree on how old the Earth is!” Christians can’t agree on what the Bible means. But you still believe in it. Just because not everyone thinks the same thing regarding it, doesn’t mean that it is not true. Back in your day, people thought one thing. But due to evidence they have changed their minds. The Bible has never changed. You know why? Because you can’t prove or disprove any of it. The Bible relies on pure faith. Science relies only on evidence. Your “simple growth rate calculations” apparently fail to realize that humans have been the only dominant species that is able to kill any other by the use of tools. Back in the day, things were pretty even. So the “calculations” fail.
The fact is that Creation and Evolution are both theories. Except mine is based on 150 years of evidence while yours is based on a series of unbelievable stories that can not be proven in any way and that require faith to be believed. The evidence of Evolution is right there. You can see it right in front of your eyes. You can’t see God, or Jesus, or miracles or any evidence to support your Bible. That is why my “theory” beats yours.
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Whark:
I don’t know what science books you’re reading, it’s called the “LAW of gravity”, not the “theory of gravity”. It’s called that because all you have to do is pick something up and drop it to prove it’s true.
And your so-called evidence is anecdotal. And regardless of whether or not humans share a common ancestor with apes, or they evolved from apes, it still means one species had to change into another one (something which has never actually been observed or proven).
The example of of bacteria becoming resistant is an example of adaption, not macro-evolution (which is what we are talking about here). No one (not even Christians) deny the fact that both humans and animals adapt and change to their environment through time. That we can observe and prove.
Dido:
My “day” wasn’t that long ago (I’m 37). And in the last few years I’ve heard everything from the earth is 5 billion years old, to 30 billion years old. That’s a pretty big spread if you ask me.
I remember reading an article a while back in National Geographic about Darwin’s theory. In it the author stated, “some snakes have what appears to be extra bones where there legs used to be. This is evidence that they were once lizards.” And that’s the problem with scientists; they take an observation, come up with a theory as to why it is the way it is, and pass it off as fact. If you pick up the Bible, the very first chapter talks about why snakes don’t have legs anymore. Is it a crazy story? Sure it is. But it’s no more crazy than the Big Bang Theory that states that everything in the universe once existed in a space smaller than the size of a pinhead.
Atheism is a religion just like Christianity because it relies on faith. What you see as evidence for evolution, I see as evidence of God’s creation.
Thousands of witnesses saw Jesus perform miracles, and saw him walking and talking after he was put to death. No one saw the Big Bang, the Primordial soup, or any of those other things that are the foundations for Atheism.
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Theory of Gravitation. No such law exists.
The big bang only supports:
Scientific theory and christian (or religious) idealism.
Neither of which will be factual in the future.
Maybe taking short sighted religion or science for granted is a bad idea.
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“Thousands of witnesses saw Jesus perform miracles,” … no, just because your magical book says so doesn’t make it true.
Agreed, anything that can’t be proved should be investigated as possible bullshit. But anything that still can’t be proved after 2k years of research should be discarded as definate bullshit.
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Well, while we’re dismissing evolutionary theory let’s also throw away:
Cell theory – Say goodbye to all modern medicine without that one.
Atomic Theory – goodbye chemistry (and with it medicine again) nuclear science, all electricity, cancer treatments, spectrometers, light bulbs, food quality testing…
Circuit Theory – bye bye electricity again, construction machinery, artificial limbs…
Signal Theory – no more analog radio, radar, EEGs, Ultrasounds, EKGs, and a ton of other lifesaving equipment you’ll find in a hospital.
System’s Theory – goodbye observations in almost all fields of physical science, sociology, and political science.
Plate Tectonics – yes, this is a theory! No volcanism, no earthquake prediction, no tsunami warnings, no mountain building or oceanic trench formations. (P.S. this theory explains why you will find chalk or sea creature fossils on mountain tops)
Theory of General Relativity – without which there can be no astrophysics, no explanation for Earth’s tides, no understanding of planetary orbits or predictions of threats from objects in space.
Social Theory – goodbye society. Without social theory there’s no hope for law.
Would you enjoy life without the above? Do you think mankind should live without the above? Maybe we should continue teaching them in schools, or should we depend on europe and asia to make all further advances in each field?
First, Newton’s law of gravity is the theory of gravitation.
Second, laws of science are not facts. When used in science they are considered true under a certain condition, but they can and have been changed when new evidence is brought forth. Newton’s gravity is true for observations of objects on Earth, but is not necesarily accurate under all conditions in the Universe. For precise accuracy you need to use the Theory of Relativity.
Third, being able to observe something does not make it a fact or a law. (Notice that’s “Plate Tectonic Theory” above and not “Plate Tectonic Law”) Watching an action produce a result only proves that the particular action produced one particular result one time under certain conditions.
Oh no, scientists understand what theory, law, and observation mean. They know what it means when they say “Cell theory shows us that…” or “Because of atomic theory we can see that…” It’s the layman who hears these terms and makes assumptions. What you see on TV and read on the internet are shorthand abbreviations of what science really knows. If you actually read scientific publications you’ll never see “snakes have vestigial bones because of evolution.” You’ll read something along those lines filled with scientific terminology that makes it clear that this is a conclusion based on the assumption that various well accpetion scientific theories are accurate. That kind of clause on the end of every statement in a 30 minute Discovery Channel special about the Alps doesn’t make for great television.
Also, it’s a shame that “theory” in the English language means just a hunch or a guess. This is a far cry from what scientific theory means. It must be based in volumes of evidence critical analysis.
All 3 of these questions have been answered by posters in this thread and could have been answered by yourself with a 6th grade science book. Try picking one up before you dismiss most of science again.
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http://xkcd.com/242/
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“Thousands of witnesses saw Jesus perform miracles, and saw him walking and talking after he was put to death.”
I was also shown in a story that thousands of people witnessed the destruction of a planet called Alderaan by the Death Star. Everyone on the Death Star (those who were near windows on the side facing the planet at least) saw it happen, and were likely convinced of its amazing power.
Research into the historical origins of ancient texts gives us a better idea of where many story ideas came from, and their original purpose. Sort of like how the Behind the Scenes extras on DVDs tell us how those myths were created.
Inconsistencies in these stories can be discussed when fans (or the faithful) feel that certain things don’t fit the accepted timeline, etc… and when they can’t agree, (or when the king or the owner of the material decides) entire chapters will be edited out or “reinterpreted” because they don’t fit with the currently accepted idea of how the story should go. Certain things that were once a part of the myth are altered to fit modern times (Did a particular character shoot first? Did a particular character have brothers and sisters?) or to mesh more effectively with other parts of the story. Someone’s ghost becoming the ghost of an entirely different person, for instance. Other things are just ignored as though they don’t exist; the Star Wars Christmas Special is the “slavery” and “it’s an abomination to eat shellfish” and “sometimes it’s okay to kill your children” part of the Star Wars universe. Devoted followers often struggle to reconcile their views in light of the things that are revealed in it.
I’ve never heard a good explanation for why the ancient “sacred” texts are more valid or truthful than more contemporary fantasy stories. Or for why we should think of them as having actually happened instead of assuming that they’re stories created for the same reason that we create stories today. It would be interesting to know how many people who claim to honestly believe every word of the ancient texts have actually read every word of the ancient texts. Compare that to how many people have seen all of the Star Wars movies. Why believe one and not the other? Why don’t we believe that the movies depict what actually happened in the same (but with modern technology) way that the ancient texts depict what actually happened? Is it only because one of them is so old, and at one point was translated (sort of) and rewritten in a language that sounds very authoritative and ancient while still being English?
I have witnessed lots of very substantial proof in a nearby comic shop that modern human beings love to write and read fantasy stories. Why wouldn’t our ancient ancestors be the same? We love to entertain ourselves and others with stories, and probably always have. Why would I choose one particular comic and make the leap to have total faith that every word and every panel in that specific book depicts the absolute truth? Because it’s the best-seller in my particular neighborhood where the X-Men are considered a sacred truth and Star Wars is considered a dangerous fiction? Because the owner of the store threatens to kick me out (or saw my head off) if I don’t believe it, or at least pretend to believe it, too?
It’s okay for a comic shop owner to believe the X-Men are real, but I’m not going to “respect” him for his beliefs. Especially if he decides that it’s important to hate or destroy all infidels who don’t share his X-Men faith.
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Burk said:
“I’ve never heard a good explanation for why the ancient sacred texts are more valid or truthful than more contemporary fantasy stories.”
Likewise, I’ve never heard a good explanation as to why the Bible is less valid as a history book than any other one.
How do you know the Battle of Thermopylae took place? How do you know Julius Caesar actually existed? Where you there? Do you know anyone who was there? No. We assume ancient historical events took place because people claim they saw them take place, and wrote about them in books (like the Bible). All of ancient history is here-say, and can’t be proven anymore than the Bible can.
And for the record Piri, I haven’t dismissed any of your above examples. Throwing out the theory that man evolved from some other species or that the theory that the universe was formed by the Big Bang does not automatically negate every other scientific or social theory.
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Alderaan is gone? Dammit, I left my keys there!
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Why are some books of this bible considered legitimate history and others not?
Are the books of the bible that are accepted correct translations from the original documents or was it all changed when it was translated?
If you look at paintings from the same era, they have people in the Middle East dressed in European clothing and armor, for cry-yi. That seems unlikely. What are the odds that painters got the Middle East culture so wrong, but the translators of the bible got it right?
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DaveS: Exactly! lol!
Dean: You seemed to take issue with the fact that after 150 years evolution is still “just” a theory. Some of the theories I’ve listed above are even older. You also said evolution requires faith. If by faith you mean the assumption that they are true then the same goes for all the other theories I listed above.
So if that’s not the real issue you have with the two theories in questions, what is your criteria for dismissing certain scientific theories? Are they only “non-sensical fairy-tales” if they conflict with the Bible?
Also, please be aware that big bang theory and evolution do not depend on eachother (one can still be accurate even if the other is disproven), and athiesm and scientific theory (specifically big bang theory and evolutionary theory) are not the same thing. Some things you said above give the impression that you’re lumping those items together.
Burk: Maybe a better example than Star Wars would be other creation stories from other cultures. I don’t know of any non-fiction stories that conflict with Jesus walking the Earth, but there are many creation stories in many holy books of which only one could be true.
A friend of mine once lamented to me how 500 years from now people may read the works of L. Ron Hubbard and accept them as truth simply because there are no living humans from his time left to discredit his craziness.
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Dean Said:
Nobody is proselytizing about Thermopylae. Nobody is killing anyone else over interpretations of the death of Julius Caesar. Nobody is pledging their heart and soul to Hercules.
It’s pretty silly to compare them.
The existence or non-existence of Jesus is important, do you agree? And when something is that important, it certainly should take more evidence than for the likes of Julius Caesar.
Remember, the New Testament was written by only a few authors. It *describes* hundreds of people witnessing Jesus, but the actual witnesses that wrote anything down, you can count those on one hand.
It’s pretty silly to claim all those mute witnesses as support for the existence of Jesus, when only one person is doing the talking.
Piri was replying to your “after 150 years it’s still only a theory” statement. If you dismiss it because it’s only a theory, then you logically have to dismiss many other things that are “merely theory”.
In other words, if you deny the 150 years of evidence and logic that makes the theory of evolution completely inescapable to thinking people, then you might as well deny all the others, as well.
Now, the Big Bang is a much weaker theory than Evolution, since it’s only supported by five or six (very reproducible) experimental results. Evolution completely blows that away in breadth and volume of reproducible results.
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The Osiris-Dionysus religions conflict pretty well. Even if not true, they conflict.
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For one, there’s the fact that history books have PHYSICAL EVIDENCE such as artifacts and bodies. The bible has a laughable amount of this type of evidence to support its stories, while modern history textbooks use large amounts of this combined with MULTIPLE records from SEPARATE PEOPLE describing the same events the same way. We obviously can never be 100% sure that history happened the way we have it recorded, but there is sure as hell a lot more evidence supporting our history that the history of the bible.
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Actually, Peter, most of our evidence for Thermopylae (man, is that a keyboard-full) come from one person, Herodotus, who wrote a history of the event in ~200BCE. We have his writing. And we have a couple monuments. I don’t believe we have other physical evidence or bodies. The nice thing about the fact that it may or may not have happened, though, is that the only people that really care are historians.
The problem with trying to look at Jesus from a historical perspective is that there’s been ~2000 years of fervent believers that would do anything to make it true, including concocting physical evidence and corroborations.
Tacitus, a Roman senator and historian, wrote of the persecution of early Christians around 100 AD, and in reference to that, the story of their recent martyr, but it’s questionable whether he was recounting Roman records or Christian followers’ stories.
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… le sigh. i’m neither polarity, but seeing such… well, it would be semi fun to ‘blaspheme’ at them, btu all in all i say its quite sad they are the representatives of the existence of spiritual validity for those who do not live by such a life style. … but then again, its kind of fun to read.
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I’m confused, and frustrated.
I really want to believe that Jesus lived, and that he loves me enough to die so that I never have to feel guilty again. I want to believe that after I die, my heart will never hurt again. I want to believe that people are inherently important. That sounds really nice.
And I know that I can live a good life and use it to help other people, and be loved, and that people are important, regardless of whether Jesus was real or not.
But… I want to know that HE loves me, and knows every thing I ever did and still loves me, even though I’m kind of stupid and he is brilliant.
I don’t know why I write on these kind of walls… it seems like a waste of time, and no one’s opinion will change. It’s so easy to tell other people to be open-minded, but when I do it myself… my world turns upside-down, sometimes in painful or scary ways.
I don’t know what I believe.
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I agree with the BCE comment. Whatever you believe about Jesus, *that is what the date symbolises*. Covering it up with the euphemistic term “Common Era” has always seemed petty to me. Even if someday children learn the terms BCE/CE before BC/AD their first question will be “what changed at 0″?
If you want to change the calendar in a real way, come up with a new pivotal event. Something to do with the fall of Rome would be a good one. On the other hand, we base our week, our holidays and a lot of our language and culture on Christian (and many other) mythologies, why not the date?
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So, if using BC(E) and AD makes historians Christian, does using numerals make mathematicians Islamic?
It’s just a convention. The mythical Jesus wasn’t born at year 1, as far as die-hard Christians historians can tell. So it’s just a convention.
Who cares what you call it, unless you’re a fundie that insists on insinuating Christianity into anything and everything, or conversely, an idiot who insists that mistakes of the past be carried on into the future.
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To you who are questioning your faith but are afraid of what it will mean for your world.
Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? (-D.Adams)
The world won´t stop turning, death and taxes will still be certain and people will still be nice if you don´t believe.
Does it change your identity? Maybe, but if your right… is there really a differance?
Let your curiosity guide you and you will realise that all the stuff you depend on your religion for, ethics and love, exist anyway.
=)
*Offers a blue pill*
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… yeah…
I dunno. It seems… I mean. I really want something like Heaven. And a lot of people throughout history have wanted something like Heaven. So it seems like this common factor. At least, we don’t want to die, usually… but neither do plants or animals, I guess.
It just seems that, when many different people living in different places find they want the same thing… I mean, where did we get the notion that those things exist at all? Like, everyone wants dinner. There is such a thing. Everyone (most everyone) wants sex, and there is such a thing as that, too. Everyone wants beauty, and even though it may or may not be attainable, it exists. You know?
Then again, people want to eat as much chocolate and drink as much alcohol as they can and never exercise and still be healthy and slender. I don’t think that is a realistic possibility. Maybe if there is a Heaven it will be sort of like that.
I’m really struggling here, between what I want, and what I don’t know. I don’t know enough about history, or archeology, or biology to present a particularly convincing argument for the existence of God. But, I mean… if I could, wouldn’t that sort of take away the whole point?
On the other hand, it IS pretty ridiculous for Christians to go around trying to persuade people of something they can’t prove.
If anyone has the answers to all this, I would really appreciate it.
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“Sabretooth tigers and mammoths have been found already, dead. So, they did exist, and scientist have carbon dated objects and bones more then 5600+.”
Within the last month, I actually had a christian (who is a long-time friend of mine) tell me that god put those fossils on the earth just to trick us. No lie. I think it was probably the first time I was completely speechless while debating a christian.
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This thread is EPIC!
btw your all wrong Odin and his 2 brother’s created earth out of Ymers body and shaped mankind out of drift timber!!!
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i second john on the BCE comment. i’m all about cultural preservation and such, so its not the politically correctness of it that irks me (though i do hate it a bit) but the fact that it seems as though people are trying to cover up the fact that christianity ran rampant throughout the cultures of the people conquering everything. and i guess to keep it around for that reason is semi symbolic or even a reminder, but still, it feels wrong to remove it because the reasons for removing it are probably connected to the fact that not everybody’s christian, but like dave said, using numbers doesn’t make you islamic. its just that this is connected to spirituality so everyone becomes super sensitive. arg! with the people -_-
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If the idea of heaven or god or such is nice isn´t the point.
I mean I like the idea of Santa Claus…
alot of other people like Santa Claus…
I get present just like Santa Claus promises…
there was a historical figure that matches Santa Claus…
Ive seen him on the TV… hell Ive seen him in real life!
So believing in him would make sense?
and anyone disturbing this belief should be banned?
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“If the idea of Heaven or God or such is nice isn’t the point.”
Actually… it kind of IS. I mean, not exactly, but… this is what I was trying to get at in my last post. The fact that some things are “nice” – or, more accurately, wanted or needed – seem to indicate that we are made to want them, and that they exist and can be fulfilled. Like dinner or sex or sleep or friendship.
I don’t know if that’s really exactly correct, but it makes sense to me, at least for now.
Your comment about Santa Claus is good, but what if we found out that aliens believed in him too? I mean, if aliens were found on a different planet, and it was discovered that they believed that once or maybe twice a year, a very larch pink alien with a penchant for sweets flew around their planet and left gifts for all the young aliens, wouldn’t we kind of wonder?
I’m being flippant, but seriously. I think (I might be wrong) that most civilizations over the centuries have believed in some sort of higher being, and sometimes these civilizations have been entirely isolated. This doesn’t prove Christianity to be true, or even negate athiesm, but… it indicates that, if nothing else, people in general WANT God, or something like Him, to exist.
And now I’m back at the beginning of the circle, because obviously wanting something doesn’t make it true; we’ve established that.
Sigh.
I have to go to class.
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Oh, also – no one should be banned, or shunned, or disrespected based on their belief or nonbelief. I’m not endorsing that at all.
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“it indicates that, if nothing else, people in general WANT God, or something like Him, to exist.”
That’s exactly what it indicates. It was once common sense that the world was flat. People believed it all over the world even in isolated cultures. It’s a common sense issue. Common sense is a set of prejudices about the way we think the universe should work. If nature/the universe/god/whatever you want to call it doesn’t work the way you think it should, is that it’s fault or yours? Apparently one of the common sense things programmed into us, along with that flat earth idea, is the idea of a higher being. I could hypothesize on it being programmed into us because it’s useful in uniting people as a group. Primitive humans who believe in a god can unite and work together under that idea, and have a higher probability of success than primitive humans who don’t believe in a god. Evolution has further reaches than you may realize, including laying down our instinctive or ‘common sense’ ideas.
You’re right, it’s not about what we want to be true. We evaluate ideas using the best evidence presented to us, and hopefully come to conclusions that aren’t guided by our preconceptions.
Not believing in god does not mean you have to leave love, beauty, and joy behind. Those things are still there either way. Personally, I found a great deal more of those things when I moved to atheism, ‘god’ for me now means the elegance and intricacies of the universe, and the interconnectedness and brotherhood, not just of all humans but of all living things, to the extent that science can reveal it. Did you know that when you walk, your mass increases, your aging slows down, and you get shorter in the direction of travel? Or that particles are constantly popping into and out of existence? Or that, when you wake up in the morning, there is a small possibility that your car, all by itself, will have materialized in your living room? Who says there’s no wonder and mysticism in science!
Your mileage may vary.
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@Dean, even though I seriously doubt that he will ever read this:
Yes, the author of the books that the golden compass was bastardized from are indeed anti-religious.
This, however was not my point. My point stems from the fact that Christians seem to get the idea that whenever people attack God, they are themselves being attacked. This may seem shocking, but God exists outside of Christianity and as such, people should not assume that they are the ones being attacked.
All in all, I’m perfectly happy to live in a society in which people can believe in whatever they wish. This doesn’t happen though, because apparently mocking religion is now a crime punishable by death. Had the Golden Compass been faithful to the original book, I’m sure that the author would have been dragged from his bed and stoned! This isn’t rational at all! I’m willing to let you believe in whatever you want, so why can’t you do the same?
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To follow up from that because reading over it I realise I said one or two unintelligent things..
I suppose the point about this is that I think that just as you feel the need to convert people to religious beliefs, people who feel a different way should also be able to argue.. this doesn’t happen though..
My apologies about my total lack of thought.
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To Dima #14. I’m no longer an active Catholic, but the last pope (JPII) ackowledged evolution a while ago. As much as i find the thought of Earth’s creation at 5.6k BC offensive I hate when people look at Catholics as right wing when catholics are pretty far from most (not all) other Christian groups. In case you think I’m a raving religious nut, think again. I view evolution as the main driving force of biologicial life on Earth and beyond. This is just another reason why mathematics is simply the only universal language in the universse and that anyone without rational thought is an idiot
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“Atheism is a religion just like Christianity because it relies on faith”
Saying atheism is a religion is like saying bald is a hair colour. Atheism is the lack of a religion. The lack of a belief in higher powers, afterlife and general supernatural. I believe in what can be proved, or what is logical. Despite it having the least proof to back it up, I currently believe in the big bang theory, because it makes sense. But do you know how this belief differs from that of someone religious? If it is disproven, or shown to be completely illogical, then I will reassess it and believe in whatever makes more sense. Religion is blind faith, atheists rely on fact and logic.
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the reason people believe in a god/gods and a form of afterlife is because the majority of people don’t like the thought of being insignificant in the grand scheme of things and that all there nanosecond in the entire history of the universe will amount to will be to rot in a box under the surface of a giant rock that will be blown up in a couple billion years anyway. *inhales deeply*
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the bible says DO NOT JUDGE you Hippocrates if you open your mind have a look at Horus Attis Krishna Dionysus Mithra Buddha & jesus all have a lot in common ???
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