thaibeachlovers

Matters to whom? Makes no difference to me what sort of intelligence invented such monstrosities as the hydrogen bomb- it's just evil.

As an intelligent species we should all be capable of subtracting 30 from 100 and coming up with the correct answer.

and created a civilization on a single planet at this time. Only religion claims that God created humans specifically. Is it not more likely that God created the universe, gave it rules to function by ( gravity etc ) and left it to get on with it? IMO we are just one of untold millions of intelligent species to be found in the universe, spawned by evolution. Religion has nothing to do with my life, but I believe in a higher power that is unprovable by science because our science is too primitive to do so. If our science can't cure cancer or stop people killing each other it just ain't that special, is it?

Call it what you will, I never saw teenagers ( when I was one ) walking along a public pavement looking at a screen instead of where they were going. Also, we could all subtract 30 from 100 to work out what change we should be given if buying something, without needing a machine to tell us. Fluid intelligence, whatever that may be, is meaningless if there is no common sense to go with it.

I'm not convinced of that as I assume an AI will do a terminator on us as soon as possible. After all, we are an awful species, with our hatreds and murders in the millions. What intelligent machine could love us? However, in the time left before the killbots exterminate us, I'm enjoying the AI version of the female form, and they are easily discerned as no real woman could look so perfect. I look forward to the day they replace the real thing in movies, so perhaps things are looking up for the future.

Moaning is actually a good thing, as bottling it up leads to an explosion, sooner or later, and sometimes it even leads to people dying as in postal workers and guns. I know a guy that never moans, but he's not very pleasant to be around these days as he is so full of unspoken anger that the vibe is not good. Perhaps the OP can just join in and moan about the country he left to go and live in LOS, and she will understand that most have problems with their home country. I certainly do.

To explain that would require some understanding of psychology, and I doubt there are many psychologists on this forum. However, if you think about why millions of people became fanatic followers of monsters like Stalin, Mao and Hitler and you may have some explanation as to why people, in general, need something to believe in.

It amuses me greatly that in an age when many reject religion, they have chosen alternatives to believe in such as the "man made climate change theory", or social media, to which they are just as fanatic as any inquisitor.

LOL. When I look at teenagers today I don't see any smarter than we were at that age, and as for Bill Gates, IMO he has reduced millions to walking zombies with their heads in a screen, and no common sense. IMO we'd be better off had Gates never existed. We even landed on the moon when they used slide rules, so do we really need to be able to see pornography or social media as easily as we do? Apparently porn is the most watched thing on the internet, and we all know how destructive social media is.

You write as if you had a choice. Either God exists, created the universe and cares about every living thing in it, in which case every living thing in it answers ( eventually ) to God, or God created the universe and left it to get on with it till the last sun dies, or there is no God and the universe just happened all by itself, from nothing, by magic. I opt for the second version, and God is nature. You do realise that nature doesn't care an iota about humanity, don't you? To nature ( or Gaia ) ants are as important as humans, and if we are bad guests nature will remove us, and we have been very bad guests on planet Earth.

Again, a claim not backed up evidence, please give an example. No evidence I give you would be accepted, so I'm not going to try. I had my Damascus moment and that's good enough for me. I'm not actually bothered if anyone believes or not as it doesn't make any difference to me Secular democracies get changed though voting if they don't deliver what the populous wants, Seriously? Forming coalition governments means an unpopular party gets to rule the roost. I'm well acquainted with that situation.

I'll take your word on that. I think I never went back after about that time. I wasn't up to getting a takeaway as I like to see what I'm getting and it was pretty dark in there ( same as that other well known pick up joint ). Good for a meal and watching the goings on though.

I may not have to believe in organised religion these days, but without it I doubt humanity would have emerged from the cave. IMO no other organisation could have united warring tribes or provided a safe space for learning.

You sure got that right.

x a million

I spent many an interesting evening in there. It was enough just looking and I never had a takeaway from that place.

No.

To all those that claim there is no God, explain how the universe came to exist. There is a lot of matter in the universe, so where did it come from? How did atoms occur? How did the laws of nature by which all things abide come to exist? Are you claiming that they just happened out of nothing?

Still digging then!

Given he served in WW1, I would be surprised if he believed in religion after. No need to die to experience hell after being in that.

IMO you are confusing religious values with religion. Religious values are moral values and religion is something some people use to control the masses. Many of us have moral values, but are not religious.

LOL. I guess one can live one's entire life without seeing that God is all around us. Seems more than a few have a plank in their eye.

If it needed evidence it wouldn't be faith.

Agree. IMO had it mot been for Muslim scholars keeping learning alive during the dark ages, we'd still be in them.

I'm agog to know which secular government you consider to be "not bad". I will only agree that IMO some governments are less bad than others.