1. What is the role of free will to an atheist?

Comment #161273 by jpollard on April 15, 2008 at 5:04 am

What is 'Free Will'? That is a very 'relgious' term at best. A Will, that might be free? Excuse me????

2. What are your qualifications to question religion anyway? Just who are you?

Comment #161271 by jpollard on April 15, 2008 at 5:00 am

It is not unreasonable to ask such a question. Priests, etc. spend many years learning the 'basis of their faith' and the means by which it should be protected. Therefore I see no reason why their combatant should not be someone equally learned. Else it could become a 'fools errand'. Nothing is served by arguing from a basis of emotional belief - that is the religious position after all. Should not we argue from the basis of proveable investigative logic (science)?

3. Science and Religion BOTH make faith claims

Comment #161268 by jpollard on April 15, 2008 at 4:50 am

Faith is 'something' that you believe without having any personal experience of the 'thing'. Religion happily allows such a position - in fact it demands it. Science on the other hand precludes such a proposition - in fact it demands it.

4. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #161259 by jpollard on April 15, 2008 at 4:35 am

Dont know if this has been previously posted, but if ID is actually 'intelligent' how is it that the 'designer' sought such a complex solution when one would have imagined that an 'intelligent' being would have sought a much simpler solution. Even the poor human knows that it is best to keep things simple!

5. Hinduism and Buddhism offer much more sophisticated worldviews (or philosophies) and I see nothing wrong with these religions.

Comment #161251 by jpollard on April 15, 2008 at 4:27 am

1. Buddhists do not have a GOD.
2. Buddhists do not have a FAITH.
3. Buddhists do not have a RELIGION.

Having just read TGD and thinking a little about my upbringing as a C of E child in Australia - including a short period as an alter boy. I find that my 'movement towards Buddhism' somewhat insightful. I initially started out with Zen, which was a bit like a thought experiment exercise - could I reach satori on my own, could I even understand it on my own - I was 14 or so. I know it moved me far from GOD, because there is no GOD to consider - if fact ZEN precludes the existance of GOD by precluding the existance of SELF. Over the next 30 years I finally managed to meet and 'converse' with Tibetan Buddhists in Tibet, and while I would never claim to be a Tibetan Buddhist I marvel at their 'joy in life'. These people have no GOD, there is no omnipotent being, there is only 'on-going reincarnation'. But the over-riding fact clear to me is that it is a way of life one must be born into. It is not something one can become - of course we can understand the basis of the belief, but we would not swap our lives would we??? I know little of Hindi, other than it has GODs and to me it falls into the same chasm as any other GOD based religion.