[X] My Assistant

[jellybean chi]

Ok what i noticed a lot on this forum is that a lot of people seem to think there's a huge black and white difference between a religious person and a "normal" person.
So...i hope to clarify some things.

No, not all Christians think that pokemon is evil or incorrect or whatever. I'm proof.
No, not all atheists are right because they believe in science. a lot of science has been proven false, especially when it comes to evolution (Haekel's embryos?)
No, not all Christians believe that evolution is retarded and totally false 'cuz it's "against God." I believe in evolution. Well microevolution anyway. (humans did not come from apes. that's just what the first impression is by a glance at darwin's "tree of life," but he didn't intend to say that humans are a "higher-up" than chimpanzees.)
Yes, there are many types of Christians and atheists. There are some Christians who may think that pokemon is evil or satanic, but there are some christians who believe music is satanic too. There are some atheists who believe all christians are stupid, but there are also some atheists who believe Jesus as a person never existed (come on, he's a recorded historical figure by many different rulers and nations, you can't really prove that as false without trying to claim a lot of other facts as false as well).
So, please stop overgeneralizing. I look through this and a lot of you talk about christians like we're all idiots. Sure, there are a lot of Christians that are in fact idiots, I know many and I am probably one myself. But I also know a lot of atheists that are idiots. Being atheological doesn't make the atheist an idiot. Being theological doesn't make the Christian an idiot.
I try to be as accepting as possible of everyone no matter how wrong I think they are, but since no one can actually know the truth, please just stop saying stuff like "ooh, those jesus freaks think pokemon is evil that's so stupid they're all so stupid let's make fun of them 'cuz they're all idiots and talk to their imaginary 'friend' and say that science is false 'cuz they're so stupid" because that, people, is, in fact, idiotic. (and on my part, that was meant to be an overgeneralization so please don't call me a hypocrite. I already know i am one.)

Anyway, please share your opinions. ^-^

[Vixenite]

You've said a lot of ignorant and wrong things here. Like saying you only believe in microevolution - you can't. There's not a difference between "micro" and "macro" evolution, it's made up by creationists who want to get a jail out of free card to claim they believe in science and creationism. To quote from this page (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Microevolution), "This is the evolutionary equivalent of saying that the mechanism you use to move from your bedroom to the kitchen (i.e., walking) is insufficient to get you from Boston to Los Angeles". No one who understands evolution even uses the words micro and macro evolution

Science has been proven wrong? Of course it has. Unlike the bible, science wants to be proven wrong, corrected, and added onto. It's the current best understanding we have of the way that things work. Just because certain facets have been proven incorrect does not mean you get to throw all of science out the window. It's certainly a better place to look than most religions. Science adjusts to new information and knowledge, religion does not.

You said humans do not come from apes. This is common misconception, and is apparently something that schools need to teach more. Humans and apes share a common ancestor. No scientist has ever claimed that humans evolved from apes. If you want an example of how this works - can you say that you came from your sibling? No, that's impossible. Both of you came from your parents, a common ancestor. You need to make your opinions about evolution based on more than just "my first impression", because you're showing a severe lack of knowledge on the subject.

On you saying that Jesus was historically proven to be a person - that's also incorrect. However, for the scare amount of evidence there is that Jesus existed, it certainly does not substantiate the radical and ridiculous claims of what he did in his life. If Jesus existed, which is under a great deal of historical debate, than he was most likely a normal man who had claims of his deeds greatly exaggerated. Most of the historical writings about Jesus come straight from the bible, which has not proven itself to be a reliable historical document .. in fact, it's done quite the opposite. The bible states many things that have been completely disproved by our modern knowledge of science and history.

Please see this article, http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_...of_Jesus_Christ, especially the part about non-biblical evidence. It's very telling on the likelihood of "Jesus" having been a real living human being.

I've also never heard anyone say that all pokemon-haters are Christian. Ever. They probably said something along the lines of "most pokemon-are-of-the-devil people are Christian". The latter is very accurate. When is the last time you've heard an atheist go "Our kids can't play that, it's of the devil!"? It's a solely religious problem, but that doesn't mean the majority of religious people believe it.

[jellybean chi]

You've said a lot of ignorant and wrong things here. Like saying you only believe in microevolution - you can't. There's not a difference between "micro" and "macro" evolution, it's made up by creationists who want to get a jail out of free card to claim they believe in science and creationism. To quote from this page (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Microevolution), "This is the evolutionary equivalent of saying that the mechanism you use to move from your bedroom to the kitchen (i.e., walking) is insufficient to get you from Boston to Los Angeles". No one who understands evolution even uses the words micro and macro evolution

Science has been proven wrong? Of course it has. Unlike the bible, science wants to be proven wrong, corrected, and added onto. It's the current best understanding we have of the way that things work. Just because certain facets have been proven incorrect does not mean you get to throw all of science out the window. It's certainly a better place to look than most religions. Science adjusts to new information and knowledge, religion does not.

You said humans do not come from apes. This is common misconception, and is apparently something that schools need to teach more. Humans and apes share a common ancestor. No scientist has ever claimed that humans evolved from apes. If you want an example of how this works - can you say that you came from your sibling? No, that's impossible. Both of you came from your parents, a common ancestor. You need to make your opinions about evolution based on more than just "my first impression", because you're showing a severe lack of knowledge on the subject.

On you saying that Jesus was historically proven to be a person - that's also incorrect. However, for the scare amount of evidence there is that Jesus existed, it certainly does not substantiate the radical and ridiculous claims of what he did in his life. If Jesus existed, which is under a great deal of historical debate, than he was most likely a normal man who had claims of his deeds greatly exaggerated. Most of the historical writings about Jesus come straight from the bible, which has not proven itself to be a reliable historical document .. in fact, it's done quite the opposite. The bible states many things that have been completely disproved by our modern knowledge of science and history.

Please see this article, http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_...of_Jesus_Christ, especially the part about non-biblical evidence. It's very telling on the likelihood of "Jesus" having been a real living human being.

I've also never heard anyone say that all pokemon-haters are Christian. Ever. They probably said something along the lines of "most pokemon-are-of-the-devil people are Christian". The latter is very accurate. When is the last time you've heard an atheist go "Our kids can't play that, it's of the devil!"? It's a solely religious problem, but that doesn't mean the majority of religious people believe it.

ok, first of all, i would like to apologize for not being clear in my topic post. i never intended to come across as saying anything like "all pokemon haters are christian." quoted, i said, "No, not all Christians think that Pokemon is evil or incorrect or whatever." How is that in any way suggesting that the majority of christians hate it? The whole point of the statement I made was that Im sick of overgeneralizations. Of course it 's not true that the majority of christians "hate pokemon." I was merely stating the fact that there are those who have this idea in their head that all christians must hate pokemon because it "talks about evolution." now don't you go tellin me im wrong, ive dealt with people who actually think like that. but i never said it was the majority. did i?
now, im only in high school. i haven't learned nearly as much anatomy and biology as i would have liked to so far. but i researched extensively in the past few years about the whole debate between "creation" and "evolution," because i personally think it's ridiculous. i'm blessed to be raised in a nondenominational christian family my whole life, so nothing about my "religion" says i need to take every word of the bible literally. in fact, i really believe it's full of mystery and potential discoveries, just like the earth we live on.
as far as ive studied, micro evolution and macro evolution can be taken in many different senses. i mean, they're separate theories. im not talking about "evolution in a microscopic sense," but just the theory of "microevolution." it's hard for me to explain in a very formal scientific way, cuz like i said im only a sophomore. so far. id like to devote my life to studying it though.
did i ever say anything that suggested i don't believe any science because some facts have been proven wrong? i think biblical history and science go hand in hand. which not a lot of denominational christians are willing to go for. (see, not ALL of them, but SOME of them.) i know very well that history and the nature of science are very different. the bible is history (to be taken in a word for word literal sense or not) and the laws of nature are still yet to be discovered and proven.
of course i said humans don't come from apes. i even pointed out that it was a misconception. not in that wording but anyway. i feel at this point you're just restating what i already proposed, which makes me want to apologize again for not getting my point across. for example, a lot of my fellow christians refuse to believe in any type of evolution of species simply because they don't want to think that "man came from apes." which was the point i was trying to get across.
oh, wait, i found an actual argument. ok. actually there are a lot of claims outside of the bible that lead to proof of the existence of jesus of nazareth. i once got into this really horrible debate with an atheist (honestly he talked like a five year old) and i realized the actual existence of many people in history that we take to be so real now could very well be lies. i know ive been taught a lot of lies in school, but i won't go into that now. anyway, there are a lot of outside claims (or whatever ya wanna call them its like midnight ok im sleepy) including pilates court, and other leaders from rome and other places that i cant remember right now. there's a lot of debate over whether or not he was actually crucified, but evidence from pilate's court supports that someone called jesus was crucified, whether or not it was THE jesus, no one can prove, but that's why we have faith. after all, christianity is solely based on faith. so basically, there is proof pointing to jesus's existence. there's proof of a lot of things, but that doesn't always make them true, yeah? i mean, i believe in this proof, and i believe in the evidence supporting the old and new testaments' historical accuracy (including miracles or not, however you interpret things), and therefore i personally believe that jesus was a historical figure, divine or not. (ugh i mean i believe he was divine, but i believe he existed anyway, but grahhhhh this doesn't even matter im sorry ok)
so, basically, im sorry for causing an unnecessary argument. i do love debating, but this seemed almost pointless, which was completely my fault for not getting my point against overgeneralization across. im sorry if i did seem ignorant. i hate when that happens.

oh--- in the future, try not to start out a reply on a post against overgeneralization with an overgeneralization. science is physical proof of something, i find it foolish to not at least take scientific claims into consideration. i always hold the nature of science and scripture together. as for my beliefs specifically, though, i won't look at one without the other. you can call that ignorant if you want, though, or naive, or whatever, 'cuz that's me personally and doesn't really have to do with overgeneralizations.

[Vixenite]

ok, first of all, i would like to apologize for not being clear in my topic post. i never intended to come across as saying anything like "all pokemon haters are christian." quoted, i said, "No, not all Christians think that Pokemon is evil or incorrect or whatever." How is that in any way suggesting that the majority of christians hate it? The whole point of the statement I made was that Im sick of overgeneralizations. Of course it 's not true that the majority of christians "hate pokemon." I was merely stating the fact that there are those who have this idea in their head that all christians must hate pokemon because it "talks about evolution." now don't you go tellin me im wrong, ive dealt with people who actually think like that. but i never said it was the majority. did i?

I .. think you're seriously misunderstanding what I'm saying. I said I doubt people think all Christians hate pokemon. I was wondering if you were mistaking people saying "most people who hate pokemon are religious" for "most religious people hate pokemon". They look similar at first glance, but they have very different meanings.

now, im only in high school. i haven't learned nearly as much anatomy and biology as i would have liked to so far. but i researched extensively in the past few years about the whole debate between "creation" and "evolution," because i personally think it's ridiculous. i'm blessed to be raised in a nondenominational christian family my whole life, so nothing about my "religion" says i need to take every word of the bible literally. in fact, i really believe it's full of mystery and potential discoveries, just like the earth we live on.
as far as ive studied, micro evolution and macro evolution can be taken in many different senses. i mean, they're separate theories. im not talking about "evolution in a microscopic sense," but just the theory of "microevolution." it's hard for me to explain in a very formal scientific way, cuz like i said im only a sophomore. so far. id like to devote my life to studying it though.

Micro and macro evolution are not separate theories .. they're not theories at all. Only evolution is. I'm aware of what people describe microevolution as (I'm not mistaking it for microscopic evolution), but microevolution is not a term used in any accepted scientific circles. Evolution is evolution. In order to believe in microevolution and only microevolution, you have to believe that for some bizarre reason evolution has a wall that it can hit and the species suddenly stops evolving. Otherwise, enough small changes can happen to an animal to eventually make it completely incompatible with others that it originated from. We have species we've observed evolving, actually. Such as this lizard: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...ive-birth-eggs/

did i ever say anything that suggested i don't believe any science because some facts have been proven wrong? i think biblical history and science go hand in hand. which not a lot of denominational christians are willing to go for. (see, not ALL of them, but SOME of them.) i know very well that history and the nature of science are very different. the bible is history (to be taken in a word for word literal sense or not) and the laws of nature are still yet to be discovered and proven.

The problem is you brought up science was wrong as a way to discredit atheists and the stock they put into science. It doesn't really matter if science is proven incorrect, though. It's the best knowledge we have of the world around us, and it makes more sense to believe in science than to believe in the bible or other religious texts.


(skipping over historical stuff, I linked to a webpage from people with more knowledge than me for a reason. I don't do a lot of research into history, I'm just pointing out there is indeed legitimate points the other side has.)

oh--- in the future, try not to start out a reply on a post against overgeneralization with an overgeneralization. science is physical proof of something, i find it foolish to not at least take scientific claims into consideration. i always hold the nature of science and scripture together. as for my beliefs specifically, though, i won't look at one without the other. you can call that ignorant if you want, though, or naive, or whatever, 'cuz that's me personally and doesn't really have to do with overgeneralizations.

Not quite sure where I ever over generalised.

[jellybean chi]

ok, first of all, i would like to apologize for not being clear in my topic post. i never intended to come across as saying anything like "all pokemon haters are christian." quoted, i said, "No, not all Christians think that Pokemon is evil or incorrect or whatever." How is that in any way suggesting that the majority of christians hate it? The whole point of the statement I made was that Im sick of overgeneralizations. Of course it 's not true that the majority of christians "hate pokemon." I was merely stating the fact that there are those who have this idea in their head that all christians must hate pokemon because it "talks about evolution." now don't you go tellin me im wrong, ive dealt with people who actually think like that. but i never said it was the majority. did i?

I .. think you're seriously misunderstanding what I'm saying. I said I doubt people think all Christians hate pokemon. I was wondering if you were mistaking people saying "most people who hate pokemon are religious" for "most religious people hate pokemon". They look similar at first glance, but they have very different meanings.

now, im only in high school. i haven't learned nearly as much anatomy and biology as i would have liked to so far. but i researched extensively in the past few years about the whole debate between "creation" and "evolution," because i personally think it's ridiculous. i'm blessed to be raised in a nondenominational christian family my whole life, so nothing about my "religion" says i need to take every word of the bible literally. in fact, i really believe it's full of mystery and potential discoveries, just like the earth we live on.
as far as ive studied, micro evolution and macro evolution can be taken in many different senses. i mean, they're separate theories. im not talking about "evolution in a microscopic sense," but just the theory of "microevolution." it's hard for me to explain in a very formal scientific way, cuz like i said im only a sophomore. so far. id like to devote my life to studying it though.

Micro and macro evolution are not separate theories .. they're not theories at all. Only evolution is. I'm aware of what people describe microevolution as (I'm not mistaking it for microscopic evolution), but microevolution is not a term used in any accepted scientific circles. Evolution is evolution. In order to believe in microevolution and only microevolution, you have to believe that for some bizarre reason evolution has a wall that it can hit and the species suddenly stops evolving. Otherwise, enough small changes can happen to an animal to eventually make it completely incompatible with others that it originated from. We have species we've observed evolving, actually. Such as this lizard: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...ive-birth-eggs/

did i ever say anything that suggested i don't believe any science because some facts have been proven wrong? i think biblical history and science go hand in hand. which not a lot of denominational christians are willing to go for. (see, not ALL of them, but SOME of them.) i know very well that history and the nature of science are very different. the bible is history (to be taken in a word for word literal sense or not) and the laws of nature are still yet to be discovered and proven.

The problem is you brought up science was wrong as a way to discredit atheists and the stock they put into science. It doesn't really matter if science is proven incorrect, though. It's the best knowledge we have of the world around us, and it makes more sense to believe in science than to believe in the bible or other religious texts.


(skipping over historical stuff, I linked to a webpage from people with more knowledge than me for a reason. I don't do a lot of research into history, I'm just pointing out there is indeed legitimate points the other side has.)

oh--- in the future, try not to start out a reply on a post against overgeneralization with an overgeneralization. science is physical proof of something, i find it foolish to not at least take scientific claims into consideration. i always hold the nature of science and scripture together. as for my beliefs specifically, though, i won't look at one without the other. you can call that ignorant if you want, though, or naive, or whatever, 'cuz that's me personally and doesn't really have to do with overgeneralizations.

Not quite sure where I ever over generalised.

i think we both misunderstood each other in certain places. again, i do apologize for that. i don't think that most people think all religious people hate pokemon, but i do know a few people who do think that. i used to go to this school, it really was a lame place, where they wouldn't allow kids to bring pokemon cards or anything like that because it was strictly denominational, and they believed genesis 1 should not be studied into in a scientific way because it's holy. now i do agree it's holy, but i dont see any reason why we can't try to understand it for ourselves. there are tons of people in this world, and at least one of them, i know for a fact, thinks that pokemon is evil, and that right there may cause overgeneralization (and has, at least in my community) and that is what i was speaking against. i may not have been clear in my statements, but i do know the difference of those meanings.
as far as i've been educated, there are many different theories in the category of evolution. for example, the dragonfly has barely evolved since prehistory, so there are some who are trying to find a specific "path" or whatever of evolution that is consistent. but because it hasn't really been proven in one single consistent form, there are many different theories. like there are many different theories of creation, and theistic evolution. it's really fascinating to study and think about, but im pretty bad at science so i can't really speak for anything ^^"
i'm sorry if i came across as being negative or ignorant towards science. that wasn't my intention, but going back i can see how i have come across like that. the problem i realized is, and this is basically from people my own age, not necessarily educated adults, there are a lot of ignorant atheists (and christians, too, please don't think of me as judgemental!) who don't do research in scientific fields, who think that they are right because there's scientific proof of some things like the big bang and evolution (etc) and there's no physical evidence of god. mind you this is an extremely ignorant way of thinking and it was directed towards lesser educated people, and i definitely was not referring to all atheists. i didn't say atheists are all wrong because they believe in science. i think that i know how i came across as confusing and im trying desperately to change my wording, but im sorry i'm really not good with words...grahhhhh...um... ok, what i was trying to say is that just because an atheist "believes in science," doesn't mean he's (or she's) always right. because that is an overgeneralization. and in my own words i purposely phrased it as an overgeneralization. i think im making sense right now.

the thing about proof about jesus being a historical figure, is that it's become a very biased subject. simply by googling or whatever "proof of jesus existing" is that every other article it pops out with says something completely different. for example, the one you provided in your last reply said something different than a lot of other articles out there. i mean, as far as i know, the majority of modern scholars, skeptical or not, have accepted the fact that there was a man named jesus living in the first century jerusalem as a teacher (who claimed he was the son of God), who was the son of a man named joseph and the brother of a dude named james, which is statistically most likely the same jesus written into the gospels in the bible. so until someone figures out how to travel in time, i guess no one will ever agree whether or not jesus actually existed, since there's been evidence on both sides. =p