Argumentative subjecture

I was going over http://www.gamedev.net/ forums (incidentally looking up gravity for a personal project I'm currently doing) when I came across a "religion" thread. At first I rolled my eyes, and thought to myself, ok, here we go, knowing full well that after about 10 posts it would start becoming an all out flame war between christianity and the world (as these things do) ... seriously guys, get over yourselves, either debate without resorting to verbal violence or don't debate at all, and debate DOESN'T mean "you worded this wrong so I'm going to take it literally even though I know it's not what you meant just so in my next post I can make fun of you and ridicule your arguments..." lame, lame, lame! ... and if you didn't hear me, yes thats what I said... lame! Wow, any preschooler can do that.

Anyway... I actually stayed on it for a good couple of hours, reading through the various arguments and counter arguments, most of which were not backed up by any facts what so ever. They all varied from the downright hilarious posts written by the comedic posters (thanks guys, you're awesome :D) to the typical forum trolls only there to argue everything while contradicting themselves the whole time to the deeply insightful posts from BOTH sides of the fence.

I think a lot of it was moot points from people who just don't want to concede that they might be wrong... we all know the type, they run around in circles with their logic... for instant a topic gets well and truly covered so they move onto the next topic and and cover that, to the next and the next until finally the one with the ego comes back to the first topic because they weren't satisfied with the answer and tries to ridicule it again... Bah! So tiresome. (And not being satisfied doesn't mean the explanation wasn't correct. For instance, I can prove that Gutenburg printed the first Bible but if you think it was someone else, we can argue until the cows come home about the fact without getting anywhere because you're not satsified with the truth.)

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that no matter what religion we are (and we are all a religion, even aetheism which BELIEVES that there isn't a God... no unalterable proof either way), arguing "logic" (one guy even tried to claim that logic was based on HIS perception rather than absolute truth...I'm sorry dude, but logic is like maths...you put the same variables in the same equation, it'll always come out the same... if x actually equals 10.0, then just perceiving it as 9.53 doesn't make it the right answer) about it isn't going to shed any light because a.) people just don't want to admit that they might actually be wrong about their deeply ingrained belief in God or the lack thereof. b.) sooner or later you will come to the point where you actually ARE wrong about one particular thing based on your faulty non-perfect human ways of thinking (seriously, give me someone who knows 100% about eveything the CORRECT way about the Bible...oh wait, that would be the God in question, hmm ok) and c.) The way to get to someone isn't through argument (much as scientists tell you otherwise) it's through mutual respect and understanding...on which an online forum there seems to be none at all. You have to build up a relationship with people BFORE you start arguing them or, DUH! Of course they won't listen to what you have to say..

I dunno...just my two cents after a couple of hours of thinking and ruefully shaking my head.

BTW: Here's the link for anyone interested... it's rather large so I recommend not going there until you have a couple of hours free...

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=61013&PageSize=25&WhichPage=11

EDIT: As of May 2012, I retract my statement about atheism being a religion. Strong atheism is, as they do believe there is no God, but weak atheism simply holds to the position of not knowing either way. Although sadly I feel that many atheists will swap between the two positions depending on the environment and how it suits them in an argument, there it is. A better statement by me would have been 'I guess the point I'm trying to make is that no matter what framework we view the world from...' because we all view the world from a framework, atheist and theist, and we can all hold to our framework regardless of the facts presented to us.

In fact, these days I tend to be a lot more philosophical about the whole deal. I have learned that I will never know for certain 'the truth'. I will always have to trust someone, for my information, as I don't have the time or inclination to be a pioneer in every field to see the data and interpolate it myself. Thus, I've come to the conclusion that religion debates are another level of pointless altogether. As a christian, I trust God as he has always been there for me and that's that. I could have a much more productive time actively spending time with him and getting to know him and letting him change my life so that others can see him through me, than arguing with strangers about the finer points of occam's razor and speaking about and for a God I hardly know.