Good post, Maps.
(06-01-2014, 05:38 AM)FantasyFanMan Wrote: [ -> ]Just some things like I generally say I am a Christian yet I believe in evolution, big bang, and stuff like that.
I also believe the world would be a better place if governed with an athiests prospectuve but I myself am Christian.
Ouch... you've already some really big misconceptions in that post alone.
Most Christian denominations essentially defend evolution/Darwinism. The Catholic Church not only never opposed the theory (unlike heliocentrism), but considers it (and I quote) "virtually certain". Instead, it puts more importance on believing that all of "humanity" (in terms of conscience and not of biology) came from two beings ("Adam and Eve", but no one said you have to believe they were a man and woman).
As for the Big Bang, there is absolutely nothing anti-Christian about the theory.
Firstly, there is no unanimity within the scientific community regarding the creation of the universe at the moment. In fact, Stephen Hawking proposed an entirely different model on the grounds that the Big Bang starting with a singularity seems to strongly suggest the existence of a creator, and Hawking is one of those scientists I honestly question the credibility and respect of, as he practically abandoned the BBT solely on the grounds that God couldn't
possibly exist, as opposed to an intelligent, respectable reason. It's circular, fallacious reasoning.
So, basically, one of the most recognizable and well-known contemporary scientists disagrees with the most recognizable and well-known creation theory.
Secondly, the man who came up with the theory of the Big Bang (albeit not the name - that was Fred Hoyle, an atheist like Hawking who was mocking the theory at the time) was Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest and respected physicist, in the early 20th century.
People seriously need to stop seeing a conflict between science and religion/philosophy. There is a non-overlapping magesteria between those viewpoints (see Stephen Jay Gould, a respectable atheist who understood this and proposed the concept of non-overlapping magesteria), and when a scientist tries to verify something unfalsifiable with science (that is, a lot of them), I honestly wonder where the hell they got their degree from, as falsifiability is the very first thing you need to look at when applying the scientific method, which is
the single most basic and important thing to know as a scientist.
Regarding your last point - it depends what you mean. If you mean separation of church and state, I agree. If you mean that, ideally, society should be atheistic or governed by atheists, I strongly disagree. With the possible exception of Islamic theocracies, there have been far worse and destructive atheist regimes than there have been religious ones, by far, and most atheist regimes happened in the last century with Marxism.
I'm not at all against atheism or believe atheists cannot be good, but the grand majority of atheists I personally know (and I'm not talking apatheists) only serve to further push the stereotype that they are stupid and self-centered, as opposed to say, the Christians or Muslims I know who usually preach about love, tolerance and education. There
are atheists who know basic history, understand the consequences of atheism and are educated in religion and theology, but they seem to make up a very small fraction of all atheists I've come to know, apparently.
tl;dr - evolution and the Big Bang are not in conflict with religion, atheist regimes would suck more than religious ones, and most contemporary atheists give themselves and their belief a bad name (and atheism is a respectable and reasonable standpoint - it just has very few respectable defenders today).
On another note, the reason I left the Catholic Church is because I was open to ideas from other religions such as karma and reincarnation, and I seriously questioned the decisions of the Christian God, such as considering 99% of sexual relations evil, but making sex awesome to people. I, of course, got many answers with time, some more satisfying than others, but with every answer, I got 10 more questions to ask, which is why I remain agnostic. Catholicism, however, is a very solid and respectable religion, now that I've studied it a lot, but I could be biased in saying that considering my background.
hrug: