>> If science doesn't deny the possibility of a creator, why are you insisting that there is no creator

I'm really not, I'm just saying there's no scientific evidence for it, and a lot of contradictory scientific evidence against it. In that situation it makes no logical sense to insist on believing something contrary (i.e. creationism) to all the well-researched evidence, especially when there's also no actual evidence that the thing itself (i.e. a creator) even exists.

>> And how are you so certain that, in contrast to every observation of science ever, that the universe had no initial cause?

Please quote your sources. As far as I am aware, there is not even one (credible) scientific observation, let alone your claimed "every observation ever", that shows that the universe must have had a creator.

"Initial cause" is a pretty vague statement. Firstly we have no proof of what caused the big bang, Some quantum or other effect could easily be an initial cause of the big bang, without any sense of a creator or other intelligence behind it.

>> Those hijackers did *NOT* represent Islam. They represented terrorists who dressed themselves in an Islamic mantle. ..yet if you ask them, they totally believe they represent Islam, and the others not waging religious war are not true muslims. You can't deny there are hadiths and edicts in the quran that direct muslims to kill unbelievers, and that the quran itself says to take all passages in the quran literally.

This is one of the most dangerous problems with religion, beleivers can do anything in the name of faith, no matter how barbaric, and feel justified and guilt-free because they believe they are doing the "right" thing by god.

>> If God does indeed exist, you don't get to pick what he expects of Humanity, if anything. You don't get to pick whether He is relevant or not.

I'm not picking what he expects. I said if one exists it's making itself irrelvant to humanity (by its own choice) as there's not even any actual evidence that he exists, let alone any clearly attributable actions.

>> You can't both say that "you don't know" if God exists, and that "religion is a fairy tale."
Sure you can. Religion and God are two entirely different things. Religion is created by humans, but god (assuming you believe in both god and creationism) literally couldn't have been, as if we created him that would mean he couldn't have created us. There are over 4000 different religions in the world, even assuming one is actually right, that means 3999 are fairy tales.
It's only religion that claims to have some link to god. I'm not seeing any evidence for god at all, let alone one directly claiming that any human religion happens to have got it right.

EV's might save the planet, but not in the way you think. If the civilized world was no longer forced defend the profits of oil companies with blood and treasure, we could put a fence around the Middle East and let a bunch of tribes that have been slaughtering each other for more than two millennia just have at it. This would indeed give the planet a better chance for a future.

You have to understand that it is not permitted in the United States to point out that Israel is committing genocide, using weapons and money provided by the United States, and getting away with it. Uncle Sam is Netanyahu's bitch, and he'd better get used to paying for the privilege and getting slapped around when he doesn't obey fast enough.

The problem is that a lot of solutions that work elsewhere in the world won't work in the United States. I won't go into the reasons, because on this site, saying anything other than "America is the best at everything all the time" is going to be modded into oblivion. Actually, this comment will be, too, but it might last a little longer. Just think in terms of "this is why we can't have nice things", if you want to understand why, for example, publicly owned driverless cars that show up when you call them and take you where you want to go would work in a lot of places, but never in the US.

What other nation on the planet can match the United States for technological wizardry!

Allow me to suggest a slightly different definition. The "Year of the Linux Desktop" isn't when it overtakes Windows, but when it starts eating a decent-sized share of Microsoft's lunch, or maybe overtakes MacOS to move into second place.

I agree with you 100% that from a practical standpoint, an average computer user could adapt to Linux right now, and it deserves a lot more love than it gets. I think the main driver at this point is the persistence of Windows in a lot of businesses, and the fact that it comes pre-installed on most computers. Apparently the figures for operating systems on PCs and laptops as of 2020 were: Windows 72% (misleading because this includes previous versions still running on older PCs without support), macOS 16%, Unknown 6.1% and Linux (excluding ChromeOS) 4%.

I would bet if a significant percentage of American businesses, let's say 15%, moved to Linux, the end for Windows would come pretty quickly after that. Microsoft has generated a lot of ill will thanks to "customer relations", and a lot of them are just looking for an excuse to kick them to the curb.

>> When people initiate wars in the name of God, they are lying. It's that simple.

Good! glad you agree! That immediately invalidates at least all major religions then, as at some point in time all religions through their leaders have instigated or supported one or more wars.

I guess we need to decouple God from religion. I am quite happy to believe in the possibility that a God exists, however without actual evidence the question remains open. If one does exist at all then it's so remote/ineffective as to leave no actual evidence of itself, so is making itself effectively irrelevant.

Religion is man-made, there is no more proof that it's messages came from one or more gods than there is that it was all made up by someone wanting power and control. In fact there is a lot of historical evidence that aspects of at least Christianity, Islam and Judaism have been created for exactly that reason.

So there really is strong evidence for how evil religion at least can and has been, yet despite that, it's sheep-like adherents still turn a blind eye.

A lot of businesses still use Windows. So especially if your work/home separation isn't 100%, and a computer is a tool rather than something you like tinkering with or playing games on, you'll probably just leave Windows on your home machine too (because that's probably what it came with when you bought it).

Rather than asking why people still use Windows, you might ask instead why we're still waiting for the Year of the Linux Desktop, even though Microsoft's relationship with customers has steadily progressed from software vendor to something more like an abusive spouse.

> That logic relies on the concept that things don't happen by themselves. Ever.

Yes they do, all the time, at least at the quantum level.

> Therefor, a creator is required because things exist.
Things can and do exist without a sentient creator.

> That to me is more logical than to say that things exist because of...nothing.
I urge you to go read up on quantum physics.

You deceive yourself when you suggest that science doesn't require faith.
Science explicitly doesn't require faith. The dictionary definition of faith is a firm belief in something for which there is no proof. Science requires the exact opposite: evidence.

>> The faith part is when you say, in the name of science, that there is no creator.

Again, that isn't what science is actually saying.
It's saying there is no evidence for a creator. It's not denying the possibility, just like it is not denying the possibility of fairies.

> You are claiming that religion is destructive and evil, and that is also not true.

You have to be kidding right?
Just off the top of my head: 9/11, the crusades, nearly all the terrorism in the world, the recent massacres between Jews and Muslims, wars between Sunni and Shia, suppression of women, suppression of free speech, religiously-justified racism...

> You take at their word, anyone who does evil in the name of religion,

Do you really not see yourself doing exactly the same thing too? Do you really not see the evil behind even having a mechanism that allows someone to blame god for their own actions?

> You have *still* avoided conceding that the Salvation Army does good, and that they do it out of their sincere religious beliefs. They aren't the only ones.

Sorry I thought I already made it clear that I agreed that the Salvation army do good deeds. But then what about the many non-religious charities? Religion is clearly not a requirement to do good deeds, so claiming any credit of doing good deeds on having a religious belief is a falsehood. That said, I do agree that good deeds are done in the name of religion. I'm just not convinced that you can equate feeding and clothing a few druggies and bums to all the serious evil that's also been and is being done in the name of religion globally.

The only explanation science can offer, is that the cause was...nothing, nothing at all.

That's not accurate. What science says is that we don't know for sure, and may never know for sure. (many scientists currently think quantum effects are likely responsible, through research and discovery of experimentally repeatable effects, and because we've literally observed that particles do pop into and out of reality even in the hard vacuum of space).

This is a lot more rational and truthful statement that saying "a) We definitely know. b) It was god, further, it was necessarily the god of my chosen religion, not any of the different gods of 4000+ other religions on the planet".

>> The Big Bang theory, as commonly believed, is just as religious as any other theory,

No the difference between science and religion is that science doesn't require faith. it requires evidence, and the whole process is based on replacing hypotheses and theories for better ones when proven wrong.
Religion on the other hand starts out by saying it already has all the answers and explanations, and requires faith of its adherents to ignore the lack of evidence.