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[LegoLord]

If it's hoarded, the lack of circulation will cause problems until it is spent or inherited by someone who will spend it.

[Andir]

If it's hoarded, the lack of circulation will cause problems until it is spent or inherited by someone who will spend it.

But it will be spent.  Even if a majority of the people horde money, it will only increase the value of the money for those that don't.  Businesses will need to sell goods and lower prices allowing those that spend to use their money and possibly entice those hording to break the seal because of the good deals they are getting... the economy can balance itself out, if you let it.  The second you jump in and try to control it, people start hording in speculation of hard times.

[Pleeb]

What is this question?

I said "42" to be funny, assuming you would get the reference to the question.

I said the question is the only unchanging part of religion, but it's very broad and is more easily broken into:
Lets see...
Higher power[ s]?
What's after death?
Absolute morals?
There's more, but I assumed from you're all-knowing persona could easily derive them rather than "circle-jerking". You made NO effort to fill in the easy abstracts I left. I do believe you are "circle jerking" (someone say what's the official term) for the sake of it and will never be convinced to do otherwise and that you have no wholesome goals whatsoever in this thread. Or you just didn't know what I was referencing to.

"ultimate points" and "ultimate questions"

That is religion. The ultimate answers to the ultimate questions of all time. Though I never said "ultimate points" THE point was to answer the "ultimate" questions.

Science and Religion try to answer that is different ways.  From my point of view religion plays the placebo role

God damn (ha), you REALLY don't get what I was just going on about. You act like they conflict. Religion is the answer to specific questions, the answer is religion, it doesn't try to answer anything because it is an answer. Science tries to answer things. There are placebo answers, and you mistake these for "religion". Yes, you don't like many of the answers people have come up with. Then there are the impending scientific answers. When science answers those questions, the science IS religion. "Religion" doesn't answer a question, it IS the answer to the question. "Religion", looking right in my dictionary, is a set of particular beliefs concerning [the questions I already listed and related].

Ugh, less ranting version:
Science answers things, yes. "Religion" is whatever you give as an answer to this one specific category of topics and questions. There is no conflict.

The reason I posted all that was because of this:

Religion has, to some extent, retreated

Word choice.

There's an aura of misdirected hate about you. I could make this long, but I don't trust you enough so here's blunt:
You really only hate people with stupid answers. Please attack the retards that reject professional medical care over voodoo by all means but stay more directed.

[Armok]

This thread should be locked.

[Pleeb]

All religion threads should be locked because no-one will ever understand anyone because they never want to. I've sifted through a number of locked threads here and the religion ones have a few repeat offenders I note. While nothing ever really comes of these threads, well most, nothing good comes of the religion threads here, and at that matter ANYWHERE really.

[Enzo]

This thread should be locked.

This.

Honestly I think it was the OPs intention in the first place. lumin hasn't returned since page 2. So if it get's locked it'll probably have to be the Toadster. It lasted longer than I thought it would though. And we had a decent civilized discussion for at least a page or two in the middle there.

Before (if) it gets locked, I'd just like to add that not all religious people are mouth-foaming unreasonable lunatics and not all atheists are stubborn arrogant elitists with a stick up their ass, and if we stopped trying to convert each other we might be able to have a decent conversation about it.

Hows that for straddling the fence guys?

[Smitehappy]

Before (if) it gets locked, I'd just like to add that not all religious people are mouth-foaming unreasonable lunatics and not all atheists are stubborn arrogant elitists with a stick up their ass.

Problem is that those are the people that usually are the most vocal. 

[Leafsnail]

Well, it's not a direct attack on a single poster. It is an attack on every person with any sort of religious beliefs on this board, however. Call that what you will. As a staunch atheist there's very little I dislike more than when someone argues so poorly that I feel I must jump to religions defense.

Yeah, hence trolling.  To try and provoke someone else into flaming him.

You only have morals because you've grown up in a society that has them.  Now think:  Where did these morals come from, originally?

From human beings.  Most human beings (psychopaths being an obvious exception, but then they wouldn't care about God either) have a "moral compass".  How do we know?  Well, if we derived our morals from religion, we'd think it would be a terrible crime to not sacrifice a bird every time a woman has a period, and it would be another crime to be in the same room as her.  We'd think it morally abhorrant not to be circumsized, and so on.

How do we choose the laws to obey?  Using our own moral judgement.

The world is not full of logical people

So instead of perpetuating this by teaching them superstition, why don't we try and teach people logic?

I said "42" to be funny, assuming you would get the reference to the question.

Yes.  And in that particular series, the question turns out to be "What do you get if you times six by 9?" which didn't really help much.

Higher power[ s]?
What's after death?
Absolute morals?

And yet religion answers none of these questions - it just tells us what an ancient group of people though the answers were.

There's more, but I assumed from you're all-knowing persona could easily derive them rather than "circle-jerking".

Sorry, this is too offensive.  Perhaps I should report this for blatant homophobia.  I'm not sure what you're trying to say - are you saying that being an atheist automatically makes me gay as well?

You made NO effort to fill in the easy abstracts I left. I do believe you are "circle jerking" (someone say what's the official term) for the sake of it and will never be convinced to do otherwise and that you have no wholesome goals whatsoever in this thread. Or you just didn't know what I was referencing to.

I'm not sure why you're saying this.  You repeatedly said I "missed the point" without ever saying what the point was.  I can't form an argument against something which isn't specified.  Not all religious people have the same "point" and accusing me of participating in a homosexual sex act doesn't change that.

Basically, I'm not saying anything bad about religious people.  All my points have related to the difficulties of a theory which is unsupported by evidence.

You also seem to be saying that I think I know everything.  I don't.  It's just that a theory with no evidence is not worth believing in.  That doesn't mean it's definately false, but it also means it's vanishingly unlikely.  I really should specify that the only goal I've had is to show that just because a theory can't be disproved doesn't mean that it's equal to all other theories.  I have tried to avoid offending people while doing this, and haven't repeatedly patronised people or made homophobic slurs.

[LegoLord]

There's more, but I assumed from you're all-knowing persona could easily derive them rather than "circle-jerking".

Sorry, this is too offensive.  Perhaps I should report this for blatant homophobia.  I'm not sure what you're trying to say - are you saying that being an atheist automatically makes me gay as well?

The term does not always refer to homosexuality.  It can also be used to refer to a situation such as that on that one Fall Out fan forum (Mutant Enemy, something like that?) in which there is a group of people with the same opinions that praise each other's opinions whilst teaming up to strike down any other opinions, regardless of how well thought out or logical they are and removing any possibility of intelligent discussion.  Which is what you are taking part in with the other "stubborn arrogant elitists with a stick up their ass" atheist that make everyone else, theist and atheist alike, want this thread locked.  I'm going to be bad and name names here.  Those repeat offenders mentioned earlier?  You're one of them, Leafsnail.  You should know by now that there is no point in you doing this, but you stubbornly and stupidly continue this, preventing any real intelligent conversation.  You know those "mouth-foaming unreasonable lunatic" theists?  You are the kind of atheist that makes more of those people.

[Leafsnail]

I haven't insulted anyone.  As far as I can tell, you're on a knee jerk response to an atheist who is trying to say  that the evidence for God is minimal.  Seriously, I am not claiming to be all knowing.  I have not called anyone a lunatic.  I certainly have not talked about "stubborn arrogant elitists with a stick up their ass".  Is that how it works?  I can't talk about evidence, but you're allowed to personally attack me?  Does being an atheist mean I have no feelings?

Legolord, I would call that a flame.  I am trying to remain calm and not insult anyone, but pettily trying to taunt me into a rude response is not helpful.

[LegoLord]

Sorry, but what you've said has just seemed repetitive.  I apologize.  It just gets my suspicions up, the fact that you always seem say the same thing whenever a religious thread pops up.  However, your posts did sound generically insulting towards theism.

[Leafsnail]

Sorry, but what you've said has just seemed repetitive.  I apologize.  It just gets my suspicions up, the fact that you always seem say the same thing whenever a religious thread pops up.  However, your posts did sound generically insulting towards theism.

I also apologize if I offended anyone.  If you give me specific quotations of insulting parts of my posts, I will edit them out.

The reason is because I'm the same person, and I have a relatively similar point of view.  If I remember, there are three religion threads I've posted on, including this one - I was over confrontational on the first, but I haven't talked about the whole lack of evidence thing on any other thread.

Even if I am a "stubborn arrogant elitists with a stick up my ass" it shouldn't make my arguments any less valid.  Therefore I kindly ask that you respond to my arguments and not make ad hominim attacks.

[LegoLord]

or made homophobic slurs.

This might be part of it.  You didn't really wait for clarification on "circle-jerking" and just rolled on ahead.  The parts about logic could come across that way as well.

[Leafsnail]

Well, I hadn't heard it before, so I googled it.  What did I get?

When a group of males sit in a circle, jerking each other off.

In addition to other similar definitions, and of course a gay porn site.  At that point I decided it was just one of those insults you throw at people that implies they're gay.

[Andir]

I'm just trying to understand why people cling to something that can't answer any questions definitively.  Religion being the answer to a question as a "cop out" or a "simple answer" with no hard evidence backing it.  That's why I called religion a placebo.  It just candy coats the the question as if it were a sugar pill to make it feel better even though it doesn't fix the "problem" (or the question.)

Placebo: An inactive substance resembling a medication, given for psychological effect or as a control in evaluating a medicine believed to be active. It is usually a tablet, capsule or injection that contains a harmless substance but appears to be the same as the medicine being tested.

Now, the way I look at it, someone asks the question, "Why are we here?" and a scientist begins to study the possibilities where a religious person takes the "sugar pill" and accepts that it's the right "drug" or the right answer on faith.

I suppose the virulence in this thread could have come from that?

And you're right:  I don't understand Religion because it doesn't make sense to me... So I try to figure out why people cling to it.