I have noticed Evolution is considered to be the 'scientific' explanation for life and Creationism is not. Is it simply because Evolution can be studied scientifically and Creationism cannot?

Personally i have always considered Creationism to be the more likely reason for life.... it is just too much of a leap of faith for me to believe we all 'grew' from mud!! And when i look closely at Evolution, there is almost no evidence to support it... in the sense that when Evolution is explained through all the fossil evidence, it is all purely human 'assumption', there is nothing 'real' in it.

So i guess the moral of the story is - when you make up a story why life exists, make up stories connecting fossils, not stories about parting the oceans!

I dismissed your entire post when you said we come from mud.

Well if you put it that way, you can make a story about some omnipotent dude in the clouds or you can make a story about how we "came from mud" - they are both assumptions right? :)

"I don't know...so...god!" The good ol' god of the gaps lol

I would speculate that religion has been as much an hindrance as help to social evolution.

In a more primitive society, it helps keep the masses in line, but it also keeps people's critical thinking in a childlike state and prevents them from evolving, much like a paternalistic dictatorship would. That stalls society's evolution quite a bit.

Close to a millennium ago, Arab countries were quite evolved for their time until Islam fundamentalism dragged them down.

Christian fundamentalism is dragging down the U.S quite a bit right now.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that religion is the social enemy no 1 like some other atheists do, but religious thought pushed too far will screw you over every single time.

Moderate religious thought (ie, the religious thought that operates within the confines of empirical evidence and adapts to it) is the only type of religious thought that can exist in an advanced society.

Among other things, it means be prepared to either not take your religious texts very seriously (the way moderate Christians operate right now) or be prepared to re-write them every so often.

Thats interesting I also find it offensive where the abrahamic religions condemn nearly any other form of worship as Pagan. And this is coming from an atheist (Personally I am the type of athiest thats keeps his thoughts and beliefs to himself and not enforce it on people)

Woah, that is a new one.

Nope, it's belief. Knowledge means something different.

I cant actually call myself "real" atheist, but wouldnt exactly say i believe the cloud-dude theory either. Always interesting topic though !

You would be a deist if you believe in some sort of god but not the type of any religion. Or agnostic which I call atheists who don't know it yet.

People with similar interests can be found through shared hobbies if you look hard enough.

But yes, we live in such a specialized society that unfortunately, even if you are very smart, you must learn quite a bit to make a meaningful contribution to non-artistic fields, though a few lucky souls were born with the touch in their given field and can contribute at a greatly accelerated pace, though that doesn't always translate in extremely high overall intelligence.

Then again, quantifying intelligence is an inexact science at best anyhow and not really worth the bother unless you're in HR or trying to create an AI.

Tempting, but not enough to join that elitist group.

Savings on less than 1% of your annual expenditures simply becomes a smaller fraction of 1% of your annual expenditures.

I could be bribbed if they paid for lodging, groceries or GOG games :P.

Lets say i am still learning and discovering stuff about life things in general :)

If i "had" to pick something, it would be somewhere in the buddhist/zen -direction. maybe. But i am mostly concentrating on real life rather than theories really. Anyways, its always interesting to read about peoples beliefs and opinions. Might be philosophy is more accurate for me than religion.

You're welcome to those, but I don't believe them either. :P

Well, the most oldest barebone buddhisms and zen's dont really have much "religion" in them really. Suppose calling it experience might be better.

I suppose its the same as if Jesus was alive today he would not be christian - same way Buddha would not be buddhist even if he were alive.

Most religions tend to accumulate alot of "fluff". The older the religion, the worse they get.

Going by the golden rule is enough for me. :P