194 comments

• Comment Link Tuesday, 16 April 2013 08:14 posted by Sam

  Perhaps we might say science is the ongoing but fabulously incomplete search for causality which may someday discover evidence for the tenets of belief on a deity.
  
  Science is the accumulation of evidence that attempts to de- mystify what we do not yet understand. Belief shortcuts the process and provides comfort and structure without the pain of discovery.
  Neither refutes the other.

• Comment Link Monday, 15 April 2013 15:58 posted by Oriahna

  This was a very interesting debate. It is very refreshing to have people talk about opposing views without necessarily personally attacking each other. I do however feel that the topic of this debate is flawed. There should be a debate on whether scientific evidence can support the Creation theory. If you can determine that there is scientific evidence for Creation, then you can intellectually decide for your self if Science does or does not support the possibility of God. You can do this easily by having a section of time specifically used to talk about one type of science at a time. Examples being Biology, Genetics, Geology. Then each side produces their evidence for or against the proof of Creation and Intellectual Design.

• Comment Link Monday, 15 April 2013 13:16 posted by Shawn

  Here is the main problem I continually see. I am constantly reading about peoples opinions concerning weather a God/Creator exists. I find it hard to believe people denying a creator since science and medicine can not explain how you could be born with no parents and still be thought of as it being scientific and not magical.
  
  You don't need a magical God to have a creator. You don't have to believe He is magical. You do however have to know that when you look at a t.v. or a cellphone that someone someplace had the knowledge to do it and it wasn't done using magic.
  
  If you look at nature and the cycle of life two sexes are needed to create new life. Where did the cycle start? Where did life come from but life. Do you really think that it magically appeared as some scientists believe?
  
  I have read also some scientists refer to being able to recreate certain kinds of life in labs and use this as evidence for no need for a creator. Why did they need to do it if it didn't require a lab or scientist? Why not just say see life just appeared right in that bottle? The reason being is because it would not be science.
  
  I remember a story that I heard I won't go into it and just give a quick summary. It takes place in a bakery. The baker has a cake on the counter with a sign on it saying proof of evolution 10 million dollars. When asked about the cake the baker states that the cake has been there on that counter since his grandfather opened this store and no one has ever bought it. When asked why is it proof of evolution the man said "My grandfather opened this shop and the next day there was a cake on the counter that he didn't bake.
  
  To this day no one has tried to prove if the cake really did make itself. No one would believe him and he knows all about cakes.
  
  Why do people fall fools too fools?

• Comment Link Sunday, 14 April 2013 17:42 posted by PapaSmerf

  Evolution is real, although using it to disprove God is totally off the wall, as I feel it only shows us how the universe/God works....the same as scientists today, trial and error!
  
  This planet was the one that was capable for life to grow and sustain itself. For all we know those other planets could have once been like our own but due to some force ended up as frozen or too hot or filled with poisonous gases...we don't know and I doubt we ever will for many of thousands of years, if ever at all!
  
  If this planet is the sole unique one with complex lifeforms on it, was it by random chance and events or all part of some predetermined plan?
  
  Which if it's the latter then who came up wih the blueprint/designs?

• Comment Link Sunday, 14 April 2013 17:30 posted by PapaSmerf

  Firstly I must say I enjoy the show and embrace the need for intellectual debate, however I don't agree with declaring a winner in them. I understand that's how the show and debate works, although I'm more interested in just the imformative talk going on.
  
  Now pertaining specifically to this topic, I feel that neither side can completely prove or disprove the existence of God or a God/Creator/Almighty Being for that matter.
  
  In fact, personally I feel that there is no one thing or person who will ever be able to show us where the universe came from! While I accept the vast majority of claims that science provides us with, the one that would undoubtedly change my beliefs towards the possibility of there being a "higher being" would be proof of where matter originated. I feel that science has come a long ways from where it once was, hidden in secrecy because of religious persecutions. Yet, science can not explain or show how or what existed before the big bang happened. From what I understand which is limited I'll be honest with you, is that science agrees with the big bang theory and how that led to our known Universe that we still are trying to grasp and understand.
  
  What was there before? Its size is uncomprehensible that's for sure but what was it? Perhaps it was God himself? Regardless though, science can show us this matter seperated over billions/millions/however many years of time and space and led to our present.
  
  The old testament of the bible tries to explain this by saying how God created things and in the order in which he did so. However when I read it and came to that part the question that arose in myself was, "what or how long is a day to God?" Surely not the amount of time it takes for earth to rotate on its axis.
  
  Now the thing I find most interesting is the idea of morals and how suffering sort of parallels alongside them. Where or when these came about would be something interesting to find out. Why do we still base our laws off of morals and ideals? Apparently we must feel as if there could be something better than what we currently have in our "material" world.
  
  All I know is that one day I will die, as everything that is "alive" will eventually do, including things that are in "outer space" like stars. Science says that energy can't be lost or destroyed only transfered elsewhere, so where will my energy go? I obviously haven't the slightest of clue.
  
  I will admit that without the idea of a God or at least the morals instilled in my mind that its wrong to cause harm or suffering to other living things, that I would be inclined to acquire the marvelous achievement of science(a nuclear warhead) and blow this piece of rock to tiny pieces. Very possible if you drill and detonate deep underground btw!
  
  Like the one guy said who was for the motion, there is no purpose just randomness haha. If that were the case then you believe that everything that ever happened was all just random chance and result of the previous random events before it. But like I said already, what was there before the beginning of time/space/the known universe which is all we know? We know something was always there, some just choose to name it...God.....
  
  As you can see I believe in Intelligent design which means to me that everything has a purpose and nothing is "random"

• Comment Link Sunday, 14 April 2013 16:25 posted by Erick Tippett

  Science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of a 'God'
  which I feel to be more inclusive as a statement that should have
  in my opinion been considered as one of the options available to
  us in this debate voting. Otherwise people get herded into this
  'undecided' category revealing the glaring fault of either or
  thinking so prevalent in this society which imposes "you're not
  white you must be black, if you're not a Republican you must be
  a Democrat, and on and on it goes neurotically into infinity!
  
  Erick Dean Tippett
  Retired Musician/Teacher
  Chicago, Illinois

• Comment Link Thursday, 11 April 2013 00:16 posted by Jill Seldon

  The moderator started the debate by saying that Sir Isaac Newton, among others, was a believer. I understand that he only said he was a believer because that was a requirement for his position at Oxford.
  That could have been the case with many others at the time. Certainly in Pepys's time one was obliged to attend church and pretend belief.

• Comment Link Friday, 05 April 2013 12:11 posted by David E

  As a famous author once said:
  
  "Man created God in the image of MAN"
  
  God is merely a CREATION of the human MIND...

• Comment Link Friday, 05 April 2013 09:56 posted by ml

  what does a god, any god, need with a planet revolving around a sun floating in 'space', why are there other planets, why is there a galaxy, why are there billions of stars with hundreds of billions of planets in billions of galaxies, few of which are habitable by humans if at all.
  there is no need for any of this if a god can provide us with a perfect place to live.

• Comment Link Friday, 05 April 2013 03:31 posted by EMonk

  Gretchen: god is not love. Love is a psychosocial response to stimuli. God is a supernatural entity that supposedly created and guides the entire universe. Notice the difference there?
  
  That feeling you have, the deep-down feeling of being loved by the universe, is a symptom of the brainwashing that your religion has enacted on you. The same feeling can be achieved through many forms of manipulation, including meditation. It is no more evidentiary than a statement of belief.