Where did the Monsters we see in the Fossil Record Come from?

Is there evidence and scientific research supporting your statement, or is it a personal opinion?

Definitely a personal opinion. I am not a trained psychologist, by any means.

Did you ever practice a religion?

I have tried to resort to it during dire times in my life, particularly when I was young, but could never get past its internal and external contradictions. Recognition of the sheer number and variety of religions that have existed throughout history has played a central role in my inability to subscribe to the authenticity of any one of them. I have concluded religion is an obvious creation of human insecurity and culture, shaped not very subtly by the particular people and geography where each one happens to originate.

I hope you understand that this is a topic that is of tremendous interest to me, and look forward to discussing it with you. My intent is never conversion or to prove anyone wrong, only to understand. If I stumble onto something that is deeply personal, let me know so that we can move on because I never mean to be like that proverbial bull in the china shop.

People don’t wait until they are in their early twenties and in dire need of a job to begin their education. We don’t wait until we are starving and at death’s door to go to the grocery store for food. Is waiting for things to become dire before beginning a course of action advisable? Do you think the results would be optimal or even begin to meet short-term expectations?

What were your expectations during these dire times when you turned to religion?

In looking at the sheer number and variety of languages that have existed throughout history, is their trouble subscribing to the authenticity of any one of them? Is language an obvious creation of human insecurity and culture?

Absolutely, language is invaluable about communicating and discussing our troubles with another, but like religion it is also invaluable in communicating new ideas, joys, and love. Do we see our freeways and flight paths as crutches for those to insecure to travel without them, or do we see them as benefits to help us on our way?

Ever make sugar cookies at Christmas? The same dough produces stars, Santas, reindeer, and trees. Why should we expect spirituality to produce exact duplication across the planet and across the cultures? We don’t expect all people to look exactly alike, for the planet to produce only one variety of tree, or for all flowers to be the same color.

There is absolutely evidence that religious belief makes people feel more emotionally secure

Veering off topic is your fault for making an unsubstantiated claim

When some of the cookies are wheat dough, and others are gluten-free dough, it is illogical to assume all the cookies came from the same dough batch.

Her answer also seems to indicate all religion comes from the same place.

Yeah. I like talking to Meri. She’s kind of a deist.

Both her position and the one of Smyrna about God planting fossils seems to contradict this.

1 Corinthians 14: 33 or God is not a God of confusion, but of peace. As in all the assemblies of the saints

Yes, but can god make a rock so dumb that he can’t move it?

Matthew 4:26

Well…with the exception that I do not entirely reject supernatural revelation; it may seem I don’t rely heavily on it–and in some ways I don’t. On the other hand, I don’t have to rely on solely on faith. I do know God exists, which naturally circles back to deism.

By the way, I very much like our discussions, too.

We dont. Because it’s all in peoples heads, emotions, and not bound by anything other than brain chemicals and hormones. Vague platitudes about spirituality do not warrant an assertion about the validity of claims made by a religion. It seems this thread is becoming more and more new agey

You are exactly right. Religion is a cultural aesthetic and its “truths” span the realm of emotional “truths” in the context of those cultures, mixed in with personified delusions of “God” as an authority to assert those truths. Quite silly in 2018 to appease to 2000+ year old mythologies. Real philosophy + science is enough. You dont need children’s stories, fairy tales, and new age blabber to find your place in the world. And with some hard work studying math and the sciences you’ll probably find it even more fascinating than anything a religious book will ever write.

I think to be skeptical of something need not involve rejecting things out of hand or without proper scruitiny either.

The funny thing: I have never done any carbon dating myself, nor have I ever gone out to discover fossils that show an evolutionary pattern or measured any distances in light years. I have merely read of such things and accepted them as true. On the other hand, when it came to religion, I enthusiastically adopted, “Seek and you shall find”, went out seeking…and discovered God is.

What is the difference between accepting what scientists write as true and that people’s accounts of encounters with God are true?

Because one is realistic, verifiable, and objectively provable. I mean why dont we just accept that I was abducted by aliens last week and they told me Trump was an alien. What’s the diff yo?