|
Simply put, standard jewish-christian religious culture believes we got only 1 shot to make outselves worthy of illumination, heaven, etc...
But what about autists, and other people who suffer from severe mental disabilities and can barely experience the world, why their 1 shot is a horrible experience at life, one where he couldnt even be properly held accountable by his actions, how could this kind of existance be reasonably justified in their system ? well im sure you all heard a few explanations.
But in my opinion, theres just a failure of concept there, if we are really working with a god that has infinite love, inteligence, and power, he would have a very specific reason for someone to be born in such a horrible contition, and in my mind that is punishment.
how difficult would it be for him, to program the universe with a system of kharma, so people can be born, make their mistakes, and then be born again, and pay for them in a way that allows them to keep evolving.
We think we know love, but big religious heads cant fathom how many chances god will really give us, just dont stay away from god to stay away from church, they are not the same,
With churches you either surrender to their house of faith or you are utterly lost and godless, and theres no middle ground, nowdays I feel theres less to gain visiting the church than simply maintaining a health work ethic, morally speaking.
Religion is cultural
Faith is universal
Reencarnation seems absurd at first, but if there is an almighty and powerfull god that wants us to experience material life to achieve illumation Ill take a leap of faith and say that, our daddy would give us some coins to continue playing.
 
|
So you can actually make yourself worthy of heaven?!
|
United States360 Posts
even if there was some sort of all-knowing all-powerful god who created us and watches over us (i don't see why anyone believes this), it is an even greater stretch to imagine that we could hope to comprehend this unimaginably complex being's motives or capabilities.
|
What? I can't even finishing reading your absurd reasoning of a post.
God promises eternal life in heaven for being a good [insert your religion], reincarnation is an idea mostly dominant in religions such as Taoism and Buddhism.
But to each their own, believe what you will. I know there are a very minority of Christian that believe in reincarnation, so I guess you have something in common.
|
On May 28 2011 12:29 IvanC wrote:
So you can actually make yourself worthy of heaven?!
I think we are all worthy, but in different degrees, and we will reencarnate until we are unworthy of stepping in such trivial trialing place
|
So many philosophical threads.
To help you understand judeo-christianity, the jews thought the same thing(God judges unfairly), but God corrected them. The God portrayed in the media and philosophy books is quite different than the one in the Bible. I highly recommend reading it to understand it. Read Genesis, Job, John, and Romans for the brunt of the Bible.
Isaiah 55:8
"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD.
|
Do you even understand the basics of Christianity?
|
On May 28 2011 12:31 darmousseh wrote:So many philosophical threads. To help you understand judeo-christianity, the jews thought the same thing(God judges unfairly), but God corrected them. The God portrayed in the media and philosophy books is quite different than the one in the Bible. I highly recommend reading it to understand it. Read Genesis, Job, John, and Romans for the brunt of the Bible. Show nested quote +Isaiah 55:8
"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD.
"No honest theologian therefore can deny that his acceptance of Jesus as Christ logically binds every Christian to a belief in reincarnation - in Elias case (who was later John the Baptist) at least." —Robert Graves
`But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.' Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist." —Jesus, (Matthew 17:12, 13)
|
On May 28 2011 12:30 D10 wrote:
I think we are all worthy, but in different degrees, and we will reencarnate until we are unworthy of stepping in such trivial trialing place
And we should take your word because you're the one in charge, right?
|
On May 28 2011 12:36 Essentia wrote:
Do you even understand the basics of Christianity?
What part specifically, the holy trinity, the belief in the sacrifice of christ, the original sin, the tons of pagan rituals added to christian ones to expand their influence over roman conquests, the parts of the bible who were mistranslated to illustrate a cultural point ?
Yes I do.
|
On May 28 2011 12:36 Essentia wrote:
Do you even understand the basics of Christianity?
Yeah I was going to ask this too.
I think your reasoning is very good and interesting, but the religion can't be "rewritten" so it's basically just a fancy way to disagree with Christianity and we have enough of that already.
|
On May 28 2011 12:37 IvanC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 12:30 D10 wrote:
I think we are all worthy, but in different degrees, and we will reencarnate until we are unworthy of stepping in such trivial trialing place And we should take your word because you're the one in charge, right?
No, always question others, a guy in a forum shouldnt change your life, dont be asinine
|
On May 28 2011 12:37 IvanC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 12:30 D10 wrote:
I think we are all worthy, but in different degrees, and we will reencarnate until we are unworthy of stepping in such trivial trialing place And we should take your word because you're the one in charge, right?
Overreaction much? Notice the "I think" specifying that it's his opinion.
|
On May 28 2011 12:39 D10 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 12:36 Essentia wrote:
Do you even understand the basics of Christianity? What part specifically, the holy trinity, the belief in the sacrifice of christ, the original sin, the tons of pagan rituals added to christian ones to expand their influence over roman conquests, the parts of the bible who were mistranslated to illustrate a cultural point ? Yes I do.
Do you have any more 'proof' than one verse which could more reasonably be interpreted in another way?
Btw, babysitting this thread makes you look like a troll.
|
Im a Spiritist, albeit a very light one, I believe in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritist_Codification , I dont expect anyone to take it seriously.
But its christianity with a ton of hindu and buddhist concepts, such as reencarnation, kharma, meditation, and etc...
suposedly this was revelaed to a french doctor who in his attempt to prove all these mediums were just a bunch of fakes, wrote letters to many of them all across france asking the same questions, and they were all answered exacly the same, signed by the same "entity" the spirit of truth.
go ahead, lol at me =P I dont care
PS: im only baby sitting this thread because im killing time until I can smoke a J
|
I believe that the simple act of living constructs the afterlife you go to. An atheist will just cease to exist, soulless like they said they were. A mentally retarded person could create an afterlife of their liking if they had an enjoyable time on this planet. And someone who believes in reincarnation will burn their last identity upon being reborn. This all makes logical sense to me and after writing this it seems spiritual belief is held to preserve our true self if we want this. I personally won't be told it's impossible to do such a thing.
So the real question is: do you have a soul?
|
On May 28 2011 12:48 MiniRoman wrote:
I believe that the simple act of living constructs the afterlife you go to. An atheist will just cease to exist, soulless like they said they were. A mentally retarded person could create an afterlife of their liking if they had an enjoyable time on this planet. And someone who believes in reincarnation will burn their last identity upon being reborn. This all makes logical sense to me and after writing this it seems spiritual belief is held to preserve our true self if we want this. I personally won't be told it's impossible to do such a thing.
So the real question is: do you have a soul?
Well according to the spiritist doctrines, yes, and so does all living things.
In plants and crystals theres principles of sapience, upon millions of life cycles will hop to more complex forms, until the beast becomes a man, and the man becomes something more.
|
when you die, you die.
think diablo. hardcore mode.
that's life.
|
this is kind of off topic, but i was thinking about religion and my belief in god while i was bored in my class, and i came to realize that god isn't really "real". he is has no physical form. god didn't create us. we created god. god is just a representation of our faith and our will to believe.
|
On May 28 2011 12:22 D10 wrote:
Simply put, standard jewish-christian religious culture believes we got only 1 shot to make outselves worthy of illumination, heaven, etc....
I just want to point out that the Christians don't try to make themselves worthy of illumination (well some do, but they have a misunderstanding of the bible). One of my favorite bible verses sums up what the bible really says:
When Jesus's disciples ask what they must do to get to heaven, he replies "do the work of God." They ask what the work of God is...
Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." John 6:29 (NIV)
You see, salvation is not earned, it is a gift from God... all you need to do is accept it. People with autism and other disabilities are just as capable of accepting this gift as any other person. Now, granted, some people are so severely disabled that they can't even comprehend simple things, much less the concept of forgiveness and salvation. I have a few things to say about that:
First and foremost, I can't tell you if they are forgiven or not. The bible simply does not say. That being said, by understanding that God is perfectly just, it is likely that he will take into account extenuating circumstances such as disabilities. But I am not God, so I can't tell you if this is the case or not.
Secondly, I want to address your argument that "if God was perfectly understanding and kind etc. why does he have people born with disabilities?" This is really a great question, and can be further extended to "why does he allow anything bad or wrong to happen?" The answer is that at first, none of that stuff did happen, but then WE sinned. It is OUR fault that the world is not perfect. Now, if you still want God to eradicate things that are wrong, where do you draw the line? Unfair circumstances? Evil deeds? Evil thoughts? The truth is, that if God were to eliminate wrong things, then we, human beings, would be eliminated. It is his mercy that lets us live, even in our broken conditions (be them physically or mentally broken or both). Still, living broken isn't exactly a great life. Luckily it doesn't end there!
That's why God unleashed his wrath (wrath that was supposed to be aimed at us) at Jesus, so that we could one day live as unbroken beings, the way it was meant to be! So I don't see physical disabilities of humans any differently than I do spiritual disabilities (the fact that we sin). Luckily, the disabilities can be fixed by acknowledging them, and simply accepting the gift of salvation that God has offered.
One of the smartest comments in this thread
The God portrayed in the media and philosophy books is quite different than the one in the Bible. I highly recommend reading it to understand it. Read Genesis, Job, John, and Romans for the brunt of the Bible
|
On May 28 2011 12:56 firefistAce wrote:
this is kind of off topic, but i was thinking about religion and my belief in god while i was bored in my class, and i came to realize that god isn't really "real". he is has no physical form. god didn't create us. we created god. god is just a representation of our faith and our will to believe.
Man loves to think god is merely a creation of his desire to comprehend the universe, and doesnt realize, that by reducing something unfathomable to a mere (we all wish it was true and thats how all this started) hes doing exacly that, just projecting your need to understand god into a simple and shallow idea.
|
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy.
|
On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy.
Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God.
Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one.
|
On May 28 2011 12:58 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 12:22 D10 wrote:
Simply put, standard jewish-christian religious culture believes we got only 1 shot to make outselves worthy of illumination, heaven, etc.... I just want to point out that the Christians don't try to make themselves worthy of illumination (well some do, but they have a misunderstanding of the bible). One of my favorite bible verses sums up what the bible really says: When Jesus's disciples ask what they must do to get to heaven, he replies "do the work of God." They ask what the work of God is... Show nested quote +Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." John 6:29 (NIV) You see, salvation is not earned, it is a gift from God... all you need to do is accept it. People with autism and other disabilities are just as capable of accepting this gift as any other person. Now, granted, some people are so severely disabled that they can't even comprehend simple things, much less the concept of forgiveness and salvation. I have a few things to say about that: First and foremost, I can't tell you if they are forgiven or not. The bible simply does not say. That being said, by understanding that God is perfectly just, it is likely that he will take into account extenuating circumstances such as disabilities. But I am not God, so I can't tell you if this is the case or not. Secondly, I want to address your argument that "if God was perfectly understanding and kind etc. why does he have people born with disabilities?" This is really a great question, and can be further extended to "why does he allow anything bad or wrong to happen?" The answer is that at first, none of that stuff did happen, but then WE sinned. It is OUR fault that the world is not perfect. Now, if you still want God to eradicate things that are wrong, where do you draw the line? Unfair circumstances? Evil deeds? Evil thoughts? The truth is, that if God were to eliminate wrong things, then we, human beings, would be eliminated. It is his mercy that lets us live, even in our broken conditions (be them physically or mentally broken or both). Still, living broken isn't exactly a great life. Luckily it doesn't end there! That's why God unleashed his wrath (wrath that was supposed to be aimed at us) at Jesus, so that we could one day live as unbroken beings, the way it was meant to be! So I don't see physical disabilities of humans any differently than I do spiritual disabilities (the fact that we sin). Luckily, the disabilities can be fixed by acknowledging them, and simply accepting the gift of salvation that God has offered.
Well, then we enter a new territory, is jesus the only prophet whose words are truths of god ?
As a spiritist, I believe theres many prophets out there who were truly in touch with the holy ghost, but they words never managed to create one global philosophy of good and understanding.
Guys like Allan Kardec tried bringing new light to old text, and show that there was not 1 supreme religion, theres salvation thro all of them, and if you are spreading the work of god (charity, mainly) you were working towards your personal salvation/enlightenment, they are one and the same, a guy far from it would die and spend centuries suffering in a bubble of his own nightmares until his energy hit a point of natural reincarnation.
Jesus wouldnt even be able to spread his religion to a bunch of post stone age fisherman from the desert if he didnt use such bland and generic allegories to illustrate his points, how could he possibly explain all the intricacies of cause and effect, when his listeners wouldnt understand half of it.
When enlightned and inspired man came later to complement what he said because new times require new answers, they just dont get the same volume, they no one will ever match the popularity of christ
ps: I do believe jesus is our lord and savior, hes the overseer of earth.
|
On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one.
Hardly. Especially if we're talking any kind of organized religion. Science actually has explanations for how it arrived at it's conclusions; religion is basically arbitrary with it's conclusions.
|
|
|
On May 28 2011 13:13 Oreo7 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. Hardly. Especially if we're talking any kind of organized religion. Science actually has explanations for how it arrived at it's conclusions; religion is basically arbitrary with it's conclusions.
Hence, faith.
Tho theres so many scientists with faith that I dont see why people separate them so much, as if one canceled the other.
If one day, science proves the afterlife is real, would that blow your mind ?
Why would it blow your mind ? because you thought it was impossible to prove, or because it didnt exist ?
|
On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one.
You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith".
Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself?
|
Somehow I don't think God needs to comply to our standards of "fair" ... it's all in His plan, or something like that~
|
On May 28 2011 13:22 synapse wrote:
Somehow I don't think God needs to comply to our standards of "fair" ... it's all in His plan, or something like that~
Thanks god
Otherwise we would screw up our one chance by smoking pot drinking beer and having unmarried sex
|
I disagree with faith being universal. One does not need to believe things based on faith; one can most certainly only accept things that have evidence for existing.
And are you really saying that if Christianity is correct, than reincarnation exists? o.O That's not how it works.
|
You obviously don't understand Christianity which is why you don't find it fair.
But in my opinion, theres just a failure of concept there, if we are really working with a god that has infinite love, inteligence, and power, he would have a very specific reason for someone to be born in such a horrible contition, and in my mind that is punishment.
You answered your own question there.
For more info John 9
|
Jesus wouldnt even be able to spread his religion to a bunch of post stone age fisherman from the desert if he didnt use such bland and generic allegories to illustrate his points, how could he possibly explain all the intricacies of cause and effect, when his listeners wouldnt understand half of it.
It's a bit of a pitfall to believe that just because it happened a long time ago, that the people were any stupider than you and I. In fact, I honestly believe that without all of the laziness and media brainwashing that goes on today, people back then were likely smarter. Jesus uses parables because, like you said, no finite being could understand the intricacies, including you or I.
And I do not believe in reincaration (separate from resurrection) because the bible does not say anything about it. It says you will either have life for eternity in heaven, or death for eternity.
Also, I do not believe that Jesus was the only prophet, but I do believe that any "prophet" outside of the one's in the bible are false. Firstly, I am cautious because the bible warns many times against false prophets. Secondly, I believe that the bible's creation as a book was guided by God, so there will be no omissions. I believe this because
1) The bible says it is God-breathed (which is technically circular logic, so that argument doesn't stand completely on its own) and
2) because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it.
So I believe the words of the bible, no more, no less. While I'm unfamiliar with Allan Kardec, I do not believe he could have been a prophet. Also, I do not believe in reincarnation as the bible clearly states that the only options are eternal life or eternal death.
|
On May 28 2011 13:26 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I disagree with faith being universal. One does not need to believe things based on faith; one can most certainly only accept things that have evidence for existing.
And are you really saying that if Christianity is correct, than reincarnation exists? o.O That's not how it works.
Well jesus himself droped the R bomb on top of a whole religious following, id like to see how you run from his statement about John the baptist being Elias
Regarding faith, you can have faith in yourself, in a project, in science, in someone else, in a way of living.
You might think you made a purely rational decision by only believing in what you can attest, but at the same time you could be one of those guys who was completely and utterly sure that the earth was flat and the sun orbited around it.
Faith is universal.
|
Eh, you're working off the axiom that God is a being, and also the more tired and rather baseless axiom that God is good in a moral sense. Then you subject God to a human and personal moral standard.
|
On May 28 2011 13:15 D10 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:13 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. Hardly. Especially if we're talking any kind of organized religion. Science actually has explanations for how it arrived at it's conclusions; religion is basically arbitrary with it's conclusions. Hence, faith. Tho theres so many scientists with faith that I dont see why people separate them so much, as if one canceled the other. If one day, science proves the afterlife is real, would that blow your mind ? Why would it blow your mind ? because you thought it was impossible to prove, or because it didnt exist ?
Science's conclusions are based on the scientific process, one of the key steps of which is observation. You can't observe god, nor can you trace any impacts in our world back to a god, therefore god does not scientifically exist, according to current evidence. Of course it's possible (anything is) it's just much more likely he doesn't.
Yes, the after life being proven real somehow through observation and experimentation that had consistent results would blow my mind and it would also be the happiest day of my life.
|
On May 28 2011 13:30 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +Jesus wouldnt even be able to spread his religion to a bunch of post stone age fisherman from the desert if he didnt use such bland and generic allegories to illustrate his points, how could he possibly explain all the intricacies of cause and effect, when his listeners wouldnt understand half of it. It's a bit of a pitfall to believe that just because it happened a long time ago, that the people were any stupider than you and I. In fact, I honestly believe that without all of the laziness and media brainwashing that goes on today, people back then were likely smarter. Jesus uses parables because, like you said, no finite being could understand the intricacies, including you or I. And I do not believe in reincaration (separate from resurrection) because the bible does not say anything about it. It says you will either have life for eternity in heaven, or death for eternity. Also, I do not believe that Jesus was the only prophet, but I do believe that any "prophet" outside of the one's in the bible are false. Firstly, I am cautious because the bible warns many times against false prophets. Secondly, I believe that the bible's creation as a book was guided by God, so there will be no omissions. I believe this because 1) The bible says it is God-breathed (which is technically circular logic, so that argument doesn't stand completely on its own) and 2) because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it. So I believe the words of the bible, no more, no less. While I'm unfamiliar with Allan Kardec, I do not believe he could have been a prophet. Also, I do not believe in reincarnation as the bible clearly states that the only options are eternal life or eternal death.
Allan Kardec was not a profet, he just sent letters to mediums across france, asking questions about life, death, god, the medium phenomenae and etc...
All the mediums from all over france that had never talked to each other, answered the exacly same letters, word by word, even the hand writing was the same.
All signed, the spirit of truth.
try reading the gospels according to spiritism, its an awesome book, full of wisdom
|
On May 28 2011 13:31 D10 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:26 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I disagree with faith being universal. One does not need to believe things based on faith; one can most certainly only accept things that have evidence for existing.
And are you really saying that if Christianity is correct, than reincarnation exists? o.O That's not how it works. Well jesus himself droped the R bomb on top of a whole religious following, id like to see how you run from his statement about John the baptist being Elias Regarding faith, you can have faith in yourself, in a project, in science, in someone else, in a way of living. You might think you made a purely rational decision by only believing in what you can attest, but at the same time you could be one of those guys who was completely and utterly sure that the earth was flat and the sun orbited around it. Faith is universal.
But the extent of faith differs between religion and science.
Religion asks you to take the jump from this guy named Jesus, he was great to he was the son of god and also god at the same time, while offering no real proof for that claim.
Science makes a claim, we can use evolution for example, that man shares ancestry with chimps, and then shows you the evidence and the logical observations that lead to that conclusion, which makes the leap of faith much, much smaller.
TL;DR: everything takes faith, but religion is an extraordinary claim with no extraordinary evidence.
|
On May 28 2011 13:33 koreasilver wrote:
Eh, you're working off the axiom that God is a being, and also the more tired and rather baseless axiom that God is good in a moral sense. Then you subject God to a human and personal moral standard.
Its more about the motivations behind the programation of the universe, it needs not be seen as a being because thats beyond us really.
his design is the obvious accomodation of infinite intelligence with infinite love
|
On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself?
Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal.
Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me...
|
On May 28 2011 13:31 D10 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:26 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I disagree with faith being universal. One does not need to believe things based on faith; one can most certainly only accept things that have evidence for existing.
And are you really saying that if Christianity is correct, than reincarnation exists? o.O That's not how it works. Well jesus himself droped the R bomb on top of a whole religious following, id like to see how you run from his statement about John the baptist being Elias Regarding faith, you can have faith in yourself, in a project, in science, in someone else, in a way of living.You might think you made a purely rational decision by only believing in what you can attest, but at the same time you could be one of those guys who was completely and utterly sure that the earth was flat and the sun orbited around it. Faith is universal.
Sorry, but having faith in science or a person is certainly not the same as having supernatural faith. You're equivocating two completely different definitions. To say that I have "faith" in science or math or my friends is based on empirical evidence and actual proof. To say that a religious person has "faith" that a snake actually talked in Genesis, or that a man named Adam actually lived to be 900 years old has absolutely no rationale behind it whatsoever. That's religious faith, as opposed to the other type, which are accepting conclusions that follow logically from empirical evidence and actual proof.
Faith is not universal; you can simply choose to not believe claims that don't yet have evidence defending them. It's really not that hard. If you hear a claim that sounds ridiculous, you ask for evidence. If there isn't any evidence, or the argument isn't convincing enough, then you don't accept the claim. Period.
|
On May 28 2011 13:35 D10 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:30 ClysmiC wrote:Jesus wouldnt even be able to spread his religion to a bunch of post stone age fisherman from the desert if he didnt use such bland and generic allegories to illustrate his points, how could he possibly explain all the intricacies of cause and effect, when his listeners wouldnt understand half of it. It's a bit of a pitfall to believe that just because it happened a long time ago, that the people were any stupider than you and I. In fact, I honestly believe that without all of the laziness and media brainwashing that goes on today, people back then were likely smarter. Jesus uses parables because, like you said, no finite being could understand the intricacies, including you or I. And I do not believe in reincaration (separate from resurrection) because the bible does not say anything about it. It says you will either have life for eternity in heaven, or death for eternity. Also, I do not believe that Jesus was the only prophet, but I do believe that any "prophet" outside of the one's in the bible are false. Firstly, I am cautious because the bible warns many times against false prophets. Secondly, I believe that the bible's creation as a book was guided by God, so there will be no omissions. I believe this because 1) The bible says it is God-breathed (which is technically circular logic, so that argument doesn't stand completely on its own) and 2) because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it. So I believe the words of the bible, no more, no less. While I'm unfamiliar with Allan Kardec, I do not believe he could have been a prophet. Also, I do not believe in reincarnation as the bible clearly states that the only options are eternal life or eternal death. Allan Kardec was not a profet, he just sent letters to mediums across france, asking questions about life, death, god, the medium phenomenae and etc... All the mediums from all over france that had never talked to each other, answered the exacly same letters, word by word, even the hand writing was the same. All signed, the spirit of truth. try reading the gospels according to spiritism, its an awesome book, full of wisdom
I'll look into Allan Kardec and spiritism. I'll admit that I don't know enough about it to carry this discussion much further. Also, I'm all for understanding other religions and philosophies, as I usually find that they only strengthen my faith in my own. And if I want other people to listen and consider my thoughts, it is only fair that I do the exact same to their thoughts.
|
On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me...
That's all good and well, and although I disagree with you on all those points, none of them even affirm your hypothesis of Christianity, just the need for something to always have been there, which I think is a perfectly reasonable claim. You just for some reason thinks that thing is named God and that he sent his son down to earth to die and then be turned into crackers or w/e, I think it was matter.
Also, given infinite time, you get infinite possibilities, and therefore eventually get DNA.
|
God's design is not an obvious accommodation of "infinite love" in the way that you're presenting it. The theology that rises from Judaism and Christianity is anything but the wishy washy good feeling happy ending for everyone new-age bullshit. There is nothing obvious about God in Judeo-Christianity. Even Christ, who you hold to such a high esteem, said so. To say that God is obvious when you quote from Judeo-Christianity is like expressing out loud that one doesn't get it.
Kierkegaard
Woe to him therefore, who preaches Christianity without the possibility of offense. Woe to the person who smoothly, flirtatiously, commendingly, convincingly preaches some soft, sweet something which is supposed to be Christianity!
... take away from Christianity the possibility of offense or take away from the forgiveness of sin the battle of an anguished conscience. Then lock the churches, the sooner the better, or turn them into places of amusement which stand open all day long!
Merde.
|
On May 28 2011 13:41 Oreo7 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... That's all good and well, and although I disagree with you on all those points, none of them even affirm your hypothesis of Christianity, just the need for something to always have been there, which I think is a perfectly reasonable claim. You just for some reason thinks that thing is named God and that he sent his son down to earth to die and then be turned into crackers or w/e, I think it was matter. Also, given infinite time, you get infinite possibilities, and therefore eventually get DNA.
Read my post on page 2 about why I believe in the historical and spiritual accuracy of the bible, and it will explain why I chose my set of beliefs. I did not arbitrarily choose God and Christianity over Mohammed and Islam. I did so by considering factual evidence.
|
On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me...
I like you =)
even einstein knew it
|
clysmic is going on a holy war against these nerds. To bad he is so dumb lol.
|
On May 28 2011 13:44 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:41 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... That's all good and well, and although I disagree with you on all those points, none of them even affirm your hypothesis of Christianity, just the need for something to always have been there, which I think is a perfectly reasonable claim. You just for some reason thinks that thing is named God and that he sent his son down to earth to die and then be turned into crackers or w/e, I think it was matter. Also, given infinite time, you get infinite possibilities, and therefore eventually get DNA. Read my post on page 2 about why I believe in the historical and spiritual accuracy of the bible, and it will explain why I chose my set of beliefs. I did not arbitrarily choose God and Christianity over Mohammed and Islam. I did so by considering factual evidence.
I'm afraid I don't see where. And also choosing Christianity over Islam isn't the same as explaining why Christianity is valid while NO other religion is.
My question: What fact proves the existence of Jesus and the Holy trinity but disproves the existence of Odin and the mountain giants? And also disproves any other god that I could possibly imagine up.
|
On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me...
With your education, surely you're aware that you're committing an argument from authority logical fallacy... on yourself.
Science reinforces the Bible? I'm fairly certain that Genesis conflicts with our current understanding of evolution and abiogenesis. With all of the allegory and supernatural parts of the Bible, it's pretty hard to make the case that the Bible is scientifically relevant in the slightest. It's an outdated book of morals. That's a little better.
And your explanation of how living things came to be shows your ignorance on the subject, so your marks in school are irrelevant. I had marks similar to yours, and I'm sure plenty of other people around here did too. It doesn't sound like you've studied biology in depth though.
|
On May 28 2011 13:47 jaybee wrote:
clysmic is going on a holy war against these nerds. To bad he is so dumb lol.
I'm simply stating my beliefs and reasoning, just like everyone else. Just because they are different than everyone else's, it doesn't give you reason to insult me. Feel free to argue, stating reasons and support. Saying "you're dumb" gives me the impression that you don't have any reasonable counterargument for your disagreement.
|
On May 28 2011 13:45 D10 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... I like you =) even einstein knew it
o.O Einstein wasn't a Christian. He wasn't even a theist. Argument from authority?
|
On May 28 2011 13:44 koreasilver wrote:God's design is not an obvious accommodation of "infinite love" in the way that you're presenting it. The theology that rises from Judaism and Christianity is anything but the wishy washy good feeling happy ending for everyone new-age bullshit. There is nothing obvious about God in Judeo-Christianity. Even Christ, who you hold to such a high esteem, said so. To say that God is obvious when you quote from Judeo-Christianity is like expressing out loud that one doesn't get it. Show nested quote +Kierkegaard
Woe to him therefore, who preaches Christianity without the possibility of offense. Woe to the person who smoothly, flirtatiously, commendingly, convincingly preaches some soft, sweet something which is supposed to be Christianity!
... take away from Christianity the possibility of offense or take away from the forgiveness of sin the battle of an anguished conscience. Then lock the churches, the sooner the better, or turn them into places of amusement which stand open all day long! Merde.
Sure by your texts and references, that view must probably be true.
I dont hold the canon is such a high regard, my view of god is more based on meditation, life changing spiritual experiences who made me get closer to god, and the gospel according to spiritism.
My view, should not be seen, as drawn from there.
|
On May 28 2011 13:51 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:47 jaybee wrote:
clysmic is going on a holy war against these nerds. To bad he is so dumb lol. I'm simply stating my beliefs and reasoning, just like everyone else. Just because they are different than everyone else's, it doesn't give you reason to insult me. Feel free to argue, stating reasons and support. Saying "you're dumb" gives me the impression that you don't have any reasonable counterargument for your disagreement.
Ideas get argued. Foaming at the mouth gets 'insulted'. You give Scientifically literate Christians a bad name. I just hope your a good troll.
|
On May 28 2011 13:45 D10 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... I like you =) even einstein knew it
I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. (Albert Einstein, 1954)
The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/10/word-god-is-product-of-human-weakness.html
^_^
|
On May 28 2011 13:49 Oreo7 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:44 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:41 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... That's all good and well, and although I disagree with you on all those points, none of them even affirm your hypothesis of Christianity, just the need for something to always have been there, which I think is a perfectly reasonable claim. You just for some reason thinks that thing is named God and that he sent his son down to earth to die and then be turned into crackers or w/e, I think it was matter. Also, given infinite time, you get infinite possibilities, and therefore eventually get DNA. Read my post on page 2 about why I believe in the historical and spiritual accuracy of the bible, and it will explain why I chose my set of beliefs. I did not arbitrarily choose God and Christianity over Mohammed and Islam. I did so by considering factual evidence. I'm afraid I don't see where. And also choosing Christianity over Islam isn't the same as explaining why Christianity is valid while NO other religion is. My question: What fact proves the existence of Jesus and the Holy trinity but disproves the existence of Odin and the mountain giants? And also disproves any other god that I could possibly imagine up.
+ Show Spoiler +because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it.
Plasmaball, I never said that current scientific theories coincide with biblical explanations. I said that scientific facts support biblical explanations better than they support scientific theories.
|
On May 28 2011 13:54 jaybee wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:51 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:47 jaybee wrote:
clysmic is going on a holy war against these nerds. To bad he is so dumb lol. I'm simply stating my beliefs and reasoning, just like everyone else. Just because they are different than everyone else's, it doesn't give you reason to insult me. Feel free to argue, stating reasons and support. Saying "you're dumb" gives me the impression that you don't have any reasonable counterargument for your disagreement. Ideas get argued. Foaming at the mouth gets 'insulted'. You give Scientifically literate Christians a bad name. I just hope your a good troll.
Coherent sentences please? D:
|
On May 28 2011 12:22 D10 wrote:
Simply put, standard jewish-christian religious culture believes we got only 1 shot to make outselves worthy of illumination, heaven, etc...
But what about autists, and other people who suffer from severe mental disabilities and can barely experience the world, why their 1 shot is a horrible experience at life, one where he couldnt even be properly held accountable by his actions, how could this kind of existance be reasonably justified in their system ? well im sure you all heard a few explanations.
But in my opinion, theres just a failure of concept there, if we are really working with a god that has infinite love, inteligence, and power, he would have a very specific reason for someone to be born in such a horrible contition, and in my mind that is punishment.
how difficult would it be for him, to program the universe with a system of kharma, so people can be born, make their mistakes, and then be born again, and pay for them in a way that allows them to keep evolving.
We think we know love, but big religious heads cant fathom how many chances god will really give us, just dont stay away from god to stay away from church, they are not the same,
With churches you either surrender to their house of faith or you are utterly lost and godless, and theres no middle ground, nowdays I feel theres less to gain visiting the church than simply maintaining a health work ethic, morally speaking.
Religion is cultural
Faith is universal
Reencarnation seems absurd at first, but if there is an almighty and powerfull god that wants us to experience material life to achieve illumation Ill take a leap of faith and say that, our daddy would give us some coins to continue playing.
No, your logic is missing some scenarios.
First of all, our idea of fairness may be incorrect in the eyes of god.
But imo, a more interesting idea is that we all are in fact fairly/equally designed to achieve divinity/illumination. Meaning that it's something that's independent of all of our physical, intellectual and emotional qualities in which we are all different. Since we are all completely different the only thing that obviously pops out as something we can all do equally is be ourselves, so in the end it just boils down to doing what you think is the right thing to do in light of who you are.
Become the person you want to be you know? That type of stuff.
|
On May 28 2011 13:51 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:45 D10 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... I like you =) even einstein knew it o.O Einstein wasn't a Christian. He wasn't even a theist. Argument from authority?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Political_and_religious_views
To say that he wasant even a theist is pushing it too far.
|
On May 28 2011 13:54 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:49 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:44 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:41 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... That's all good and well, and although I disagree with you on all those points, none of them even affirm your hypothesis of Christianity, just the need for something to always have been there, which I think is a perfectly reasonable claim. You just for some reason thinks that thing is named God and that he sent his son down to earth to die and then be turned into crackers or w/e, I think it was matter. Also, given infinite time, you get infinite possibilities, and therefore eventually get DNA. Read my post on page 2 about why I believe in the historical and spiritual accuracy of the bible, and it will explain why I chose my set of beliefs. I did not arbitrarily choose God and Christianity over Mohammed and Islam. I did so by considering factual evidence. I'm afraid I don't see where. And also choosing Christianity over Islam isn't the same as explaining why Christianity is valid while NO other religion is. My question: What fact proves the existence of Jesus and the Holy trinity but disproves the existence of Odin and the mountain giants? And also disproves any other god that I could possibly imagine up. + Show Spoiler +because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it. Plasmaball, I never said that current scientific theories coincide with biblical explanations. I said that scientific facts support biblical explanations better than they support scientific theories.
Whoa, whoa, WHOA. You're arguing the Bible is true on the basis of its consistency?!
First of all, it's not consistent. It's actually very inconsistent.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/inconsistencies.html <- yes a biased source, but all KJV bible quotes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_consistency_of_the_Bible <- wiki page on the differences in translations etc.
Secondly, something being consistent with something else doesn't prove both facts. Star Wars can be seen as "consistent" with Harry Potter because it took place a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. That doesn't mean we have to be worried about Voldemort.
|
O contending peoples and kindreds of the earth! Set your faces towards unity, and let the radiance of its light shine upon you. Gather ye together, and for the sake of God resolve to root out whatever is the source of contention amongst you. Then will the effulgence of the world’s great Luminary envelop the whole earth, and its inhabitants become the citizens of one city, and the occupants of one and the same throne. This wronged One hath, ever since the early days of His life, cherished none other desire but this, and will continue to entertain no wish except this wish. There can be no doubt whatever that the peoples of the world, of whatever race or religion, derive their inspiration from one heavenly Source, and are the subjects of one God. The difference between the ordinances under which they abide should be attributed to the varying requirements and exigencies of the age in which they were revealed. All of them, except a few which are the outcome of human perversity, were ordained of God, and are a reflection of His Will and Purpose. Arise and, armed with the power of faith, shatter to pieces the gods of your vain imaginings, the sowers of dissension amongst you. Cleave unto that which draweth you together and uniteth you. This, verily, is the most exalted Word which the Mother Book hath sent down and revealed unto you. To this beareth witness the Tongue of Grandeur from His habitation of glory.
|
On May 28 2011 13:54 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:49 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:44 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:41 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... That's all good and well, and although I disagree with you on all those points, none of them even affirm your hypothesis of Christianity, just the need for something to always have been there, which I think is a perfectly reasonable claim. You just for some reason thinks that thing is named God and that he sent his son down to earth to die and then be turned into crackers or w/e, I think it was matter. Also, given infinite time, you get infinite possibilities, and therefore eventually get DNA. Read my post on page 2 about why I believe in the historical and spiritual accuracy of the bible, and it will explain why I chose my set of beliefs. I did not arbitrarily choose God and Christianity over Mohammed and Islam. I did so by considering factual evidence. I'm afraid I don't see where. And also choosing Christianity over Islam isn't the same as explaining why Christianity is valid while NO other religion is. My question: What fact proves the existence of Jesus and the Holy trinity but disproves the existence of Odin and the mountain giants? And also disproves any other god that I could possibly imagine up. + Show Spoiler +because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it. Plasmaball, I never said that current scientific theories coincide with biblical explanations. I said that scientific facts support biblical explanations better than they support scientific theories.
Seeing as how scientific theories are overarching explanations for a multitude of related scientific facts, your statement is necessarily false.
Furthermore, scientific facts also disprove Biblical explanations many times over. Genesis is flat-out falsified (Creation myth, Destruction myth, etc.). Granted, most scholars understand that these are supposed to be taken as allegory now, but how many Biblical stories have to be falsified and then backpedalled *to be meant as allegory* to be overlooked? Science says people can't rise from the dead too. Whoops, sorry Jesus. Science disproves the notions of 900 year old people. It's a scientific fact that Adam and Noah never existed. It's also a scientific fact that snakes don't have a voice box. Sorry devil snake. Science disproves the global flood myth. Science disproves any Young Earth Creationist claims. Now, for every Biblical claim made that's falsified by science, you can dismiss it with "Well that wasn't supposed to be taken seriously!" but then you're just cherry-picking your Bible verses, which makes the whole argument irrelevant.
|
Einstein Quote:
I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a god who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind
From this quote it appears Einstein was a deist, which is a form of theism.
Kinda irrelevant though D:
|
On May 28 2011 13:57 D10 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:51 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 28 2011 13:45 D10 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... I like you =) even einstein knew it o.O Einstein wasn't a Christian. He wasn't even a theist. Argument from authority? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Political_and_religious_viewsTo say that he wasant even a theist is pushing it too far.
No it's not, read the quotes I provided, he consistently denounced religion. He was at best a deist and at worst (for your pov at least) a man who consistently denounced faith as something cowards run to when they get scared of death.
And for the love of god don't link that bullshit chain email.
|
On May 28 2011 13:57 D10 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:51 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 28 2011 13:45 D10 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... I like you =) even einstein knew it o.O Einstein wasn't a Christian. He wasn't even a theist. Argument from authority? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Political_and_religious_viewsTo say that he wasant even a theist is pushing it too far.
Not at all. He was a pantheist/ deist for the better part of his life.
|
On May 28 2011 13:53 D10 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:44 koreasilver wrote:God's design is not an obvious accommodation of "infinite love" in the way that you're presenting it. The theology that rises from Judaism and Christianity is anything but the wishy washy good feeling happy ending for everyone new-age bullshit. There is nothing obvious about God in Judeo-Christianity. Even Christ, who you hold to such a high esteem, said so. To say that God is obvious when you quote from Judeo-Christianity is like expressing out loud that one doesn't get it. Kierkegaard
Woe to him therefore, who preaches Christianity without the possibility of offense. Woe to the person who smoothly, flirtatiously, commendingly, convincingly preaches some soft, sweet something which is supposed to be Christianity!
... take away from Christianity the possibility of offense or take away from the forgiveness of sin the battle of an anguished conscience. Then lock the churches, the sooner the better, or turn them into places of amusement which stand open all day long! Merde. Sure by your texts and references, that view must probably be true. I dont hold the canon is such a high regard, my view of god is more based on meditation, life changing spiritual experiences who made me get closer to god, and the gospel according to spiritism. My view, should not be seen, as drawn from there.
This is such a horrible cop-out. If you're going to quote someone saying that one must believe in reincarnation if one believes in Christ as the savior (which is extremely arguable), then you're going to have to factor in the context of the statement. You can't just cherry pick parts you like and when encountered with an opposition that tells you that you're taking things wildly out of context, reply with a "oh, well, that part doesn't matter to me". It is inconsistent and leads to a jumbled mash that makes little sense. Then upon this jumbled bullshit you confuse faith with truisms and faith loses its quality as faith.
|
On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me...
From someone who once stood where you did, I've come to find that it's problematic to depend heavily on science to undergird faith. Science is too fickle, really - and far too easy for amateurs to misinterpret in favor of their preferred point. Refer, for example, to the new-agey/mystical interpretations of quantum mechanics...
Besides, you then effectively allow science to dictate the playing field (under an implicit assumption that all which is true must come through its methods). That's not a concession you wish to make - science has severe limitations in scope of application.
Sure, it would be an easier life if one could simply rest comfortably on an 'airtight' set of arguments to support their faith. But life is not so simple - there's always another argument, some nuance you haven't thought of, etc. Look at Descartes' 'proof' of the existence of God which has since been shredded by the successive generations of philosophers.
I hold instead that personal testimony of visible, unmistakable change in character evidenced by love is a much stronger basis.
I may not check this thread again, so pm if you feel like arguing or discussing such things.
|
On May 28 2011 13:57 D10 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:51 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 28 2011 13:45 D10 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... I like you =) even einstein knew it o.O Einstein wasn't a Christian. He wasn't even a theist. Argument from authority? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Political_and_religious_viewsTo say that he wasant even a theist is pushing it too far.
Ugh you can spread your ignorance about yourselves but leave heroes on science out of this. He wasn't a theist or deist. Learn to get good sources. He used nature itself as a metaphor, claiming that we should treat it with the same reverence as God. And to further his point, Men aren't right only Nature is. Even if a certain person was whatever belief doesn't prove anything.
One more time for the record he was agnostic
source: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/quotes_einstein.html
|
On May 28 2011 14:01 ClysmiC wrote:Einstein Quote: Show nested quote +I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a god who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind From this quote it appears Einstein was a deist, which is a form of theism. Kinda irrelevant though D:
No, it's not. Deism is not a form of theism.
|
On May 28 2011 14:01 ClysmiC wrote:Einstein Quote: Show nested quote +I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a god who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind From this quote it appears Einstein was a deist, which is a form of theism. Kinda irrelevant though D:
Eh, that quote can be interpreted both ways, as deism and as an atheist who is in love with nature and awe inspired by physics. Spinoza's god existed only philosophically, so it can be seen he just views nature and the laws of physics as his "god" when in reality he just means the driving force of the world and his life.
|
I'm going to give a rather unique prospectice on this. A Baha'i perspective. I am a Baha'i and my beliefs might make more sense to some than to others. I don't want to debate my faith though, I don't want to debate whether my faith is true of false. My belief is my own and your faith is yours, redgardless of who or what you believe, pastafarians included.
+ Show Spoiler +According to Bahá'í teachings, human nature is fundamentally spiritual. Although human beings exist on earth in physical bodies, the essential identity of each person is defined by an invisible, rational, and everlasting soul. The soul animates the body and distinguishes human beings from animals. It grows and develops through the individual's relationship with God, as mediated by His Messengers.
The gardens surrounding the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh.Cultivation of one's spiritual side has several benefits. First, the individual increasingly develops those innate qualities that lie at the foundation of human happiness and social progress. Such qualities include faith, courage, love, compassion, trustworthiness, and humility. As these qualities develop, society as a whole advances.
Another effect of spiritual development is alignment with God's will. This growing closer to God prepares the individual for the afterlife. The soul lives on after the body's death, embarking on a spiritual journey towards God through many "worlds," or planes, of existence. Progress on this journey, in traditional terms, is likened to "heaven." If the soul fails to develop, one remains distant from God. This condition of remoteness from God can in some sense be understood as "hell." Thus, heaven and hell are regarded not as literal places but descriptions of one's spiritual progress toward the light of God.
The Shrine containing the remains of the Bab, situated on Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel.The soul does not die; it endures everlastingly. When the human body dies, the soul is freed from ties with the physical body and the surrounding physical world and begins its progress through the spiritual world. Bahá'ís understand the spiritual world to be a timeless and placeless extension of our own universe--not some physically remote or removed place.
Entry into the next life has the potential to bring great joy. Bahá'u'lláh likened death to the process of birth. He explains: "The world beyond is as different from this world as this world is different from that of the child while still in the womb of its mother."
The analogy to the womb in many ways summarizes the Bahá'í view of earthly existence. Just as the womb constitutes an important place for a person's initial physical development, the physical world provides the matrix for the development of the individual soul. Accordingly, Bahá'ís view life as a sort of workshop, where one can develop and perfect those qualities which will be needed in the next life.
"Know thou, of a truth, that if the soul of man hath walked in the ways of God, it will, assuredly return and be gathered to the glory of the Beloved," Bahá'u'lláh wrote. "By the righteousness of God! It shall attain a station such as no pen can depict, or tongue can describe."
Beyond this, the exact nature of the afterlife remains a mystery. "The nature of the soul after death can never be described," Bahá'u'lláh writes.
This was taken from an article written by the Baha'i community from canada and quotes the founder of the Baha'i faith, Baha'u'llah. I would have written something myself, but this is presented better than I could have thought
|
On May 28 2011 14:01 ClysmiC wrote:Einstein Quote: Show nested quote +I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a god who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind From this quote it appears Einstein was a deist, which is a form of theism. Kinda irrelevant though D:
Yes, and if you know anything about Spinoza, then you would know that Spinoza held various criticisms for Judeo-Christianity.
|
On May 28 2011 14:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:54 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:49 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:44 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:41 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... That's all good and well, and although I disagree with you on all those points, none of them even affirm your hypothesis of Christianity, just the need for something to always have been there, which I think is a perfectly reasonable claim. You just for some reason thinks that thing is named God and that he sent his son down to earth to die and then be turned into crackers or w/e, I think it was matter. Also, given infinite time, you get infinite possibilities, and therefore eventually get DNA. Read my post on page 2 about why I believe in the historical and spiritual accuracy of the bible, and it will explain why I chose my set of beliefs. I did not arbitrarily choose God and Christianity over Mohammed and Islam. I did so by considering factual evidence. I'm afraid I don't see where. And also choosing Christianity over Islam isn't the same as explaining why Christianity is valid while NO other religion is. My question: What fact proves the existence of Jesus and the Holy trinity but disproves the existence of Odin and the mountain giants? And also disproves any other god that I could possibly imagine up. + Show Spoiler +because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it. Plasmaball, I never said that current scientific theories coincide with biblical explanations. I said that scientific facts support biblical explanations better than they support scientific theories. Seeing as how scientific theories are overarching explanations for a multitude of related scientific facts, your statement is necessarily false. Furthermore, scientific facts also disprove Biblical explanations many times over. Genesis is flat-out falsified (Creation myth, Destruction myth, etc.). Granted, most scholars understand that these are supposed to be taken as allegory now, but how many Biblical stories have to be falsified and then backpedalled *to be meant as allegory* to be overlooked? Science says people can't rise from the dead too. Whoops, sorry Jesus. Science disproves the notions of 900 year old people. It's a scientific fact that Adam and Noah never existed. It's also a scientific fact that snakes don't have a voice box. Sorry devil snake. Science disproves the global flood myth. Science disproves any Young Earth Creationist claims. Now, for every Biblical claim made that's falsified by science, you can dismiss it with "Well that wasn't supposed to be taken seriously!" but then you're just cherry-picking your Bible verses, which makes the whole argument irrelevant.
Some Christians dismiss those as allegory. I don't dismiss any of them. What you fail to understand is the concept of miracles, which is odd, because in a sense, every aspect of science is a miracle.
|
On May 28 2011 14:04 masterbreti wrote:I'm going to give a rather unique prospectice on this. A Baha'i perspective. I am a Baha'i and my beliefs might make more sense to some than to others. I don't want to debate my faith though, I don't want to debate whether my faith is true of false. My belief is my own and your faith is yours, redgardless of who or what you believe, pastafarians included. + Show Spoiler +According to Bahá'í teachings, human nature is fundamentally spiritual. Although human beings exist on earth in physical bodies, the essential identity of each person is defined by an invisible, rational, and everlasting soul. The soul animates the body and distinguishes human beings from animals. It grows and develops through the individual's relationship with God, as mediated by His Messengers.
The gardens surrounding the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh.Cultivation of one's spiritual side has several benefits. First, the individual increasingly develops those innate qualities that lie at the foundation of human happiness and social progress. Such qualities include faith, courage, love, compassion, trustworthiness, and humility. As these qualities develop, society as a whole advances.
Another effect of spiritual development is alignment with God's will. This growing closer to God prepares the individual for the afterlife. The soul lives on after the body's death, embarking on a spiritual journey towards God through many "worlds," or planes, of existence. Progress on this journey, in traditional terms, is likened to "heaven." If the soul fails to develop, one remains distant from God. This condition of remoteness from God can in some sense be understood as "hell." Thus, heaven and hell are regarded not as literal places but descriptions of one's spiritual progress toward the light of God.
The Shrine containing the remains of the Bab, situated on Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel.The soul does not die; it endures everlastingly. When the human body dies, the soul is freed from ties with the physical body and the surrounding physical world and begins its progress through the spiritual world. Bahá'ís understand the spiritual world to be a timeless and placeless extension of our own universe--not some physically remote or removed place.
Entry into the next life has the potential to bring great joy. Bahá'u'lláh likened death to the process of birth. He explains: "The world beyond is as different from this world as this world is different from that of the child while still in the womb of its mother."
The analogy to the womb in many ways summarizes the Bahá'í view of earthly existence. Just as the womb constitutes an important place for a person's initial physical development, the physical world provides the matrix for the development of the individual soul. Accordingly, Bahá'ís view life as a sort of workshop, where one can develop and perfect those qualities which will be needed in the next life.
"Know thou, of a truth, that if the soul of man hath walked in the ways of God, it will, assuredly return and be gathered to the glory of the Beloved," Bahá'u'lláh wrote. "By the righteousness of God! It shall attain a station such as no pen can depict, or tongue can describe."
Beyond this, the exact nature of the afterlife remains a mystery. "The nature of the soul after death can never be described," Bahá'u'lláh writes.
This was taken from an article written by the Baha'i community from canada and quotes the founder of the Baha'i faith, Baha'u'llah. I would have written something myself, but this is presented better than I could have thought
oh my god. oh my god. another baha'i on team liquid. surely you caught my baha'u'llah quote on the last page!!!!
|
On May 28 2011 13:56 Kiarip wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 12:22 D10 wrote:
Simply put, standard jewish-christian religious culture believes we got only 1 shot to make outselves worthy of illumination, heaven, etc...
But what about autists, and other people who suffer from severe mental disabilities and can barely experience the world, why their 1 shot is a horrible experience at life, one where he couldnt even be properly held accountable by his actions, how could this kind of existance be reasonably justified in their system ? well im sure you all heard a few explanations.
But in my opinion, theres just a failure of concept there, if we are really working with a god that has infinite love, inteligence, and power, he would have a very specific reason for someone to be born in such a horrible contition, and in my mind that is punishment.
how difficult would it be for him, to program the universe with a system of kharma, so people can be born, make their mistakes, and then be born again, and pay for them in a way that allows them to keep evolving.
We think we know love, but big religious heads cant fathom how many chances god will really give us, just dont stay away from god to stay away from church, they are not the same,
With churches you either surrender to their house of faith or you are utterly lost and godless, and theres no middle ground, nowdays I feel theres less to gain visiting the church than simply maintaining a health work ethic, morally speaking.
Religion is cultural
Faith is universal
Reencarnation seems absurd at first, but if there is an almighty and powerfull god that wants us to experience material life to achieve illumation Ill take a leap of faith and say that, our daddy would give us some coins to continue playing. No, your logic is missing some scenarios. First of all, our idea of fairness may be incorrect in the eyes of god. But imo, a more interesting idea is that we all are in fact fairly/equally designed to achieve divinity/illumination. Meaning that it's something that's independent of all of our physical, intellectual and emotional qualities in which we are all different. Since we are all completely different the only thing that obviously pops out as something we can all do equally is be ourselves, so in the end it just boils down to doing what you think is the right thing to do in light of who you are. Become the person you want to be you know? That type of stuff.
Sure, I dont disagree with that, we have talent for a reason, everyone should pursue their path to happiness.
I guess the big thing about reincarnation is that you simply cannot believe in it, and not believe in a very complex spiritual society, with many layers and functions.
From the poor guys in the abyss who never managed to get their vibration out of that cesspool suffering in their bubbles of nightmares being drained by even more evil things for life essence until they reencarnate again probably with heavy deformities or maybe even an abortion
while guys who have passed that stage will be wandering to the limbo suffering until they open their heart and have faith that god will help them, so they can get out of there, go to one of the restoration colonies, where reincarnations are organized, and souls spend most of their time.
And theres the upper spheres made more of fluidical energy and thoughts than anything.
Endless worlds across the cosmos, all with anthropomorphic life in different stages of evolution all going thro the same thing, evolution, in all senses, towards a state of pure glory and usefullness for god that I cant even fathom how it is.
This is what I believe in, might sound crazy, but at least its crazy I can believe in.
|
It's spelled "Reincarnation". With an "i".
|
On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me...
We already have good scientific evidence that humans and apes have common ancestors, which have ancestors in some other early mammals, which have ancestors in reptiles or what not, which have ancestors in amphibians, which have ancestors in fish, which have ancestors in micro-organisms.
So your argument about the chances of human DNA occurring in nature is really just asking what are the chances of there being micro-organisms occurring in nature.
Your entire line of logic is loaded. I mean do you know how many stars there are in the Universe? There's an insane amount of other intelligent species far far away looking at the sky and asking similar question, like "what's the chance of us being here?"
Well, yeah the chances are pretty damn slim, but guess what, if we weren't here we also wouldn't be asking ourselves that question, and some other species on 1 of the trillions of planets that exist would. We could have been living on any other planet and still had tails, and we wouldn't know the difference.
|
On May 28 2011 14:05 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 28 2011 13:54 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:49 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:44 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:41 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... That's all good and well, and although I disagree with you on all those points, none of them even affirm your hypothesis of Christianity, just the need for something to always have been there, which I think is a perfectly reasonable claim. You just for some reason thinks that thing is named God and that he sent his son down to earth to die and then be turned into crackers or w/e, I think it was matter. Also, given infinite time, you get infinite possibilities, and therefore eventually get DNA. Read my post on page 2 about why I believe in the historical and spiritual accuracy of the bible, and it will explain why I chose my set of beliefs. I did not arbitrarily choose God and Christianity over Mohammed and Islam. I did so by considering factual evidence. I'm afraid I don't see where. And also choosing Christianity over Islam isn't the same as explaining why Christianity is valid while NO other religion is. My question: What fact proves the existence of Jesus and the Holy trinity but disproves the existence of Odin and the mountain giants? And also disproves any other god that I could possibly imagine up. + Show Spoiler +because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it. Plasmaball, I never said that current scientific theories coincide with biblical explanations. I said that scientific facts support biblical explanations better than they support scientific theories. Seeing as how scientific theories are overarching explanations for a multitude of related scientific facts, your statement is necessarily false. Furthermore, scientific facts also disprove Biblical explanations many times over. Genesis is flat-out falsified (Creation myth, Destruction myth, etc.). Granted, most scholars understand that these are supposed to be taken as allegory now, but how many Biblical stories have to be falsified and then backpedalled *to be meant as allegory* to be overlooked? Science says people can't rise from the dead too. Whoops, sorry Jesus. Science disproves the notions of 900 year old people. It's a scientific fact that Adam and Noah never existed. It's also a scientific fact that snakes don't have a voice box. Sorry devil snake. Science disproves the global flood myth. Science disproves any Young Earth Creationist claims. Now, for every Biblical claim made that's falsified by science, you can dismiss it with "Well that wasn't supposed to be taken seriously!" but then you're just cherry-picking your Bible verses, which makes the whole argument irrelevant. Some Christians dismiss those as allegory. I don't dismiss any of them. What you fail to understand is the concept of miracles, which is odd, because in a sense, every aspect of science is a miracle.
No. Science obeys the laws of physics. The Book of Genesis by enlarge defies those laws. Do you believe the earth is 6,000 years old?
|
On May 28 2011 14:05 koreasilver wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:01 ClysmiC wrote:Einstein Quote: I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a god who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind From this quote it appears Einstein was a deist, which is a form of theism. Kinda irrelevant though D: Yes, and if you know anything about Spinoza, then you would know that Spinoza held various criticisms for Judeo-Christianity.
You're point being? I wasn't tryiing to make an argument with that post. I was just stating my interpretation of Einstein's quote. Then I even stated how irrelevant I think Einstein's view is. Even if Einstein's view perfectly coincided with my own, I would consider it irrelevant, as it is kind of a logical fallacy.
|
I'm going to watch GSL, I think the atheists won this one. gg, wp plasma. And D10 and Clysm, I hope you come around before you waste too much time worshiping something that doesn't exist. n_n.
|
On May 28 2011 14:06 nozh wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:04 masterbreti wrote:I'm going to give a rather unique prospectice on this. A Baha'i perspective. I am a Baha'i and my beliefs might make more sense to some than to others. I don't want to debate my faith though, I don't want to debate whether my faith is true of false. My belief is my own and your faith is yours, redgardless of who or what you believe, pastafarians included. + Show Spoiler +According to Bahá'í teachings, human nature is fundamentally spiritual. Although human beings exist on earth in physical bodies, the essential identity of each person is defined by an invisible, rational, and everlasting soul. The soul animates the body and distinguishes human beings from animals. It grows and develops through the individual's relationship with God, as mediated by His Messengers.
The gardens surrounding the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh.Cultivation of one's spiritual side has several benefits. First, the individual increasingly develops those innate qualities that lie at the foundation of human happiness and social progress. Such qualities include faith, courage, love, compassion, trustworthiness, and humility. As these qualities develop, society as a whole advances.
Another effect of spiritual development is alignment with God's will. This growing closer to God prepares the individual for the afterlife. The soul lives on after the body's death, embarking on a spiritual journey towards God through many "worlds," or planes, of existence. Progress on this journey, in traditional terms, is likened to "heaven." If the soul fails to develop, one remains distant from God. This condition of remoteness from God can in some sense be understood as "hell." Thus, heaven and hell are regarded not as literal places but descriptions of one's spiritual progress toward the light of God.
The Shrine containing the remains of the Bab, situated on Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel.The soul does not die; it endures everlastingly. When the human body dies, the soul is freed from ties with the physical body and the surrounding physical world and begins its progress through the spiritual world. Bahá'ís understand the spiritual world to be a timeless and placeless extension of our own universe--not some physically remote or removed place.
Entry into the next life has the potential to bring great joy. Bahá'u'lláh likened death to the process of birth. He explains: "The world beyond is as different from this world as this world is different from that of the child while still in the womb of its mother."
The analogy to the womb in many ways summarizes the Bahá'í view of earthly existence. Just as the womb constitutes an important place for a person's initial physical development, the physical world provides the matrix for the development of the individual soul. Accordingly, Bahá'ís view life as a sort of workshop, where one can develop and perfect those qualities which will be needed in the next life.
"Know thou, of a truth, that if the soul of man hath walked in the ways of God, it will, assuredly return and be gathered to the glory of the Beloved," Bahá'u'lláh wrote. "By the righteousness of God! It shall attain a station such as no pen can depict, or tongue can describe."
Beyond this, the exact nature of the afterlife remains a mystery. "The nature of the soul after death can never be described," Bahá'u'lláh writes.
This was taken from an article written by the Baha'i community from canada and quotes the founder of the Baha'i faith, Baha'u'llah. I would have written something myself, but this is presented better than I could have thought oh my god. oh my god. another baha'i on team liquid. surely you caught my baha'u'llah quote on the last page!!!!
Your religion sounds awesome, I really wish you took a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gospel_According_to_Spiritism I believe you will enjoy it
I take nothing away from this Baha guy, he has written nothing wrong
|
On May 28 2011 14:05 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 28 2011 13:54 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:49 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:44 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:41 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... That's all good and well, and although I disagree with you on all those points, none of them even affirm your hypothesis of Christianity, just the need for something to always have been there, which I think is a perfectly reasonable claim. You just for some reason thinks that thing is named God and that he sent his son down to earth to die and then be turned into crackers or w/e, I think it was matter. Also, given infinite time, you get infinite possibilities, and therefore eventually get DNA. Read my post on page 2 about why I believe in the historical and spiritual accuracy of the bible, and it will explain why I chose my set of beliefs. I did not arbitrarily choose God and Christianity over Mohammed and Islam. I did so by considering factual evidence. I'm afraid I don't see where. And also choosing Christianity over Islam isn't the same as explaining why Christianity is valid while NO other religion is. My question: What fact proves the existence of Jesus and the Holy trinity but disproves the existence of Odin and the mountain giants? And also disproves any other god that I could possibly imagine up. + Show Spoiler +because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it. Plasmaball, I never said that current scientific theories coincide with biblical explanations. I said that scientific facts support biblical explanations better than they support scientific theories. Seeing as how scientific theories are overarching explanations for a multitude of related scientific facts, your statement is necessarily false. Furthermore, scientific facts also disprove Biblical explanations many times over. Genesis is flat-out falsified (Creation myth, Destruction myth, etc.). Granted, most scholars understand that these are supposed to be taken as allegory now, but how many Biblical stories have to be falsified and then backpedalled *to be meant as allegory* to be overlooked? Science says people can't rise from the dead too. Whoops, sorry Jesus. Science disproves the notions of 900 year old people. It's a scientific fact that Adam and Noah never existed. It's also a scientific fact that snakes don't have a voice box. Sorry devil snake. Science disproves the global flood myth. Science disproves any Young Earth Creationist claims. Now, for every Biblical claim made that's falsified by science, you can dismiss it with "Well that wasn't supposed to be taken seriously!" but then you're just cherry-picking your Bible verses, which makes the whole argument irrelevant. Some Christians dismiss those as allegory. I don't dismiss any of them. What you fail to understand is the concept of miracles, which is odd, because in a sense, every aspect of science is a miracle.
If you don't dismiss them, then you recognize that those Biblical claims are actual natural claims that are just plain wrong. The Bible says there was a global flood. Reality, science, facts, etc. says there wasn't. The Bible is wrong. No miracle was involved here. The Bible is incorrect. Sorry.
I fully understand the concept of miracles. Those are just things that beat the laws of probability, You arbitrarily invoking something as a miracle means nothing though; there would still be evidence of its existence. The Biblical claims are not miraculous, because they didn't actually occur. You winning the lottery on your first try would be closer to a miracle, although we could debate on the math involved in that.
|
On May 28 2011 14:06 nozh wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:04 masterbreti wrote:I'm going to give a rather unique prospectice on this. A Baha'i perspective. I am a Baha'i and my beliefs might make more sense to some than to others. I don't want to debate my faith though, I don't want to debate whether my faith is true of false. My belief is my own and your faith is yours, redgardless of who or what you believe, pastafarians included. + Show Spoiler +According to Bahá'í teachings, human nature is fundamentally spiritual. Although human beings exist on earth in physical bodies, the essential identity of each person is defined by an invisible, rational, and everlasting soul. The soul animates the body and distinguishes human beings from animals. It grows and develops through the individual's relationship with God, as mediated by His Messengers.
The gardens surrounding the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh.Cultivation of one's spiritual side has several benefits. First, the individual increasingly develops those innate qualities that lie at the foundation of human happiness and social progress. Such qualities include faith, courage, love, compassion, trustworthiness, and humility. As these qualities develop, society as a whole advances.
Another effect of spiritual development is alignment with God's will. This growing closer to God prepares the individual for the afterlife. The soul lives on after the body's death, embarking on a spiritual journey towards God through many "worlds," or planes, of existence. Progress on this journey, in traditional terms, is likened to "heaven." If the soul fails to develop, one remains distant from God. This condition of remoteness from God can in some sense be understood as "hell." Thus, heaven and hell are regarded not as literal places but descriptions of one's spiritual progress toward the light of God.
The Shrine containing the remains of the Bab, situated on Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel.The soul does not die; it endures everlastingly. When the human body dies, the soul is freed from ties with the physical body and the surrounding physical world and begins its progress through the spiritual world. Bahá'ís understand the spiritual world to be a timeless and placeless extension of our own universe--not some physically remote or removed place.
Entry into the next life has the potential to bring great joy. Bahá'u'lláh likened death to the process of birth. He explains: "The world beyond is as different from this world as this world is different from that of the child while still in the womb of its mother."
The analogy to the womb in many ways summarizes the Bahá'í view of earthly existence. Just as the womb constitutes an important place for a person's initial physical development, the physical world provides the matrix for the development of the individual soul. Accordingly, Bahá'ís view life as a sort of workshop, where one can develop and perfect those qualities which will be needed in the next life.
"Know thou, of a truth, that if the soul of man hath walked in the ways of God, it will, assuredly return and be gathered to the glory of the Beloved," Bahá'u'lláh wrote. "By the righteousness of God! It shall attain a station such as no pen can depict, or tongue can describe."
Beyond this, the exact nature of the afterlife remains a mystery. "The nature of the soul after death can never be described," Bahá'u'lláh writes.
This was taken from an article written by the Baha'i community from canada and quotes the founder of the Baha'i faith, Baha'u'llah. I would have written something myself, but this is presented better than I could have thought oh my god. oh my god. another baha'i on team liquid. surely you caught my baha'u'llah quote on the last page!!!!
I didn't auctally see it. I am blessed today to see another Baha'i on tl.
|
On May 28 2011 14:09 Oreo7 wrote:
I'm going to watch GSL, I think the atheists won this one. gg, wp plasma. And D10 and Clysm, I hope you come around before you waste too much time worshiping something that doesn't exist. n_n.
Well thank you, although I wasn't necessarily arguing for atheism... just trying to shed some light on the interactions between religions and how science plays (or doesn't play) a role in religious texts  I do happen to be an atheist though.
Anyways, I need to go to sleep as well. Good night everyone! Happy discussing!
|
On May 28 2011 14:08 Oreo7 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:05 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 28 2011 13:54 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:49 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:44 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:41 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:
[quote]
Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God.
Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... That's all good and well, and although I disagree with you on all those points, none of them even affirm your hypothesis of Christianity, just the need for something to always have been there, which I think is a perfectly reasonable claim. You just for some reason thinks that thing is named God and that he sent his son down to earth to die and then be turned into crackers or w/e, I think it was matter. Also, given infinite time, you get infinite possibilities, and therefore eventually get DNA. Read my post on page 2 about why I believe in the historical and spiritual accuracy of the bible, and it will explain why I chose my set of beliefs. I did not arbitrarily choose God and Christianity over Mohammed and Islam. I did so by considering factual evidence. I'm afraid I don't see where. And also choosing Christianity over Islam isn't the same as explaining why Christianity is valid while NO other religion is. My question: What fact proves the existence of Jesus and the Holy trinity but disproves the existence of Odin and the mountain giants? And also disproves any other god that I could possibly imagine up. + Show Spoiler +because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it. Plasmaball, I never said that current scientific theories coincide with biblical explanations. I said that scientific facts support biblical explanations better than they support scientific theories. Seeing as how scientific theories are overarching explanations for a multitude of related scientific facts, your statement is necessarily false. Furthermore, scientific facts also disprove Biblical explanations many times over. Genesis is flat-out falsified (Creation myth, Destruction myth, etc.). Granted, most scholars understand that these are supposed to be taken as allegory now, but how many Biblical stories have to be falsified and then backpedalled *to be meant as allegory* to be overlooked? Science says people can't rise from the dead too. Whoops, sorry Jesus. Science disproves the notions of 900 year old people. It's a scientific fact that Adam and Noah never existed. It's also a scientific fact that snakes don't have a voice box. Sorry devil snake. Science disproves the global flood myth. Science disproves any Young Earth Creationist claims. Now, for every Biblical claim made that's falsified by science, you can dismiss it with "Well that wasn't supposed to be taken seriously!" but then you're just cherry-picking your Bible verses, which makes the whole argument irrelevant. Some Christians dismiss those as allegory. I don't dismiss any of them. What you fail to understand is the concept of miracles, which is odd, because in a sense, every aspect of science is a miracle. No. Science obeys the laws of physics. The Book of Genesis by enlarge defies those laws. Do you believe the earth is 6,000 years old?
Science, to scientists is separate from religion. If you base your definition of science off of the accepted criteria of: Consistent, observable, natural, predictable, testable, tentative, then no, religion is not a science. I base my definition of science off of the actual, objective truth. Thus, I do believe that the book of Genesis is scientific, as I believe that God's ability to perform miracles are an objective truth.
|
On May 28 2011 14:07 D10 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:56 Kiarip wrote:On May 28 2011 12:22 D10 wrote:
Simply put, standard jewish-christian religious culture believes we got only 1 shot to make outselves worthy of illumination, heaven, etc...
But what about autists, and other people who suffer from severe mental disabilities and can barely experience the world, why their 1 shot is a horrible experience at life, one where he couldnt even be properly held accountable by his actions, how could this kind of existance be reasonably justified in their system ? well im sure you all heard a few explanations.
But in my opinion, theres just a failure of concept there, if we are really working with a god that has infinite love, inteligence, and power, he would have a very specific reason for someone to be born in such a horrible contition, and in my mind that is punishment.
how difficult would it be for him, to program the universe with a system of kharma, so people can be born, make their mistakes, and then be born again, and pay for them in a way that allows them to keep evolving.
We think we know love, but big religious heads cant fathom how many chances god will really give us, just dont stay away from god to stay away from church, they are not the same,
With churches you either surrender to their house of faith or you are utterly lost and godless, and theres no middle ground, nowdays I feel theres less to gain visiting the church than simply maintaining a health work ethic, morally speaking.
Religion is cultural
Faith is universal
Reencarnation seems absurd at first, but if there is an almighty and powerfull god that wants us to experience material life to achieve illumation Ill take a leap of faith and say that, our daddy would give us some coins to continue playing. No, your logic is missing some scenarios. First of all, our idea of fairness may be incorrect in the eyes of god. But imo, a more interesting idea is that we all are in fact fairly/equally designed to achieve divinity/illumination. Meaning that it's something that's independent of all of our physical, intellectual and emotional qualities in which we are all different. Since we are all completely different the only thing that obviously pops out as something we can all do equally is be ourselves, so in the end it just boils down to doing what you think is the right thing to do in light of who you are. Become the person you want to be you know? That type of stuff. Sure, I dont disagree with that, we have talent for a reason, everyone should pursue their path to happiness. I guess the big thing about reincarnation is that you simply cannot believe in it, and not believe in a very complex spiritual society, with many layers and functions. From the poor guys in the abyss who never managed to get their vibration out of that cesspool suffering in their bubbles of nightmares being drained by even more evil things for life essence until they reencarnate again probably with heavy deformities or maybe even an abortion while guys who have passed that stage will be wandering to the limbo suffering until they open their heart and have faith that god will help them, so they can get out of there, go to one of the restoration colonies, where reincarnations are organized, and souls spend most of their time. And theres the upper spheres made more of fluidical energy and thoughts than anything. Endless worlds across the cosmos, all with anthropomorphic life in different stages of evolution all going thro the same thing, evolution, in all senses, towards a state of pure glory and usefullness for god that I cant even fathom how it is. This is what I believe in, might sound crazy, but at least its crazy I can believe in.
Honestly I'm down to believe in a lot of spiritual stuff or at least try to get into the shoes of someone who does, but no matter what I do I can't get reincarnation to not seem like a cop out, or an excuse.
And according to the philosophies that I find most believable it seems to follow that acting as if reincarnation doesn't exist is in fact the correct way to act, so really is there a point to thinking this way other than just for the sake of being "right" which you can't actually be absolutely certain in.
|
On May 28 2011 14:02 koreasilver wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:53 D10 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:44 koreasilver wrote:God's design is not an obvious accommodation of "infinite love" in the way that you're presenting it. The theology that rises from Judaism and Christianity is anything but the wishy washy good feeling happy ending for everyone new-age bullshit. There is nothing obvious about God in Judeo-Christianity. Even Christ, who you hold to such a high esteem, said so. To say that God is obvious when you quote from Judeo-Christianity is like expressing out loud that one doesn't get it. Kierkegaard
Woe to him therefore, who preaches Christianity without the possibility of offense. Woe to the person who smoothly, flirtatiously, commendingly, convincingly preaches some soft, sweet something which is supposed to be Christianity!
... take away from Christianity the possibility of offense or take away from the forgiveness of sin the battle of an anguished conscience. Then lock the churches, the sooner the better, or turn them into places of amusement which stand open all day long! Merde. Sure by your texts and references, that view must probably be true. I dont hold the canon is such a high regard, my view of god is more based on meditation, life changing spiritual experiences who made me get closer to god, and the gospel according to spiritism. My view, should not be seen, as drawn from there. This is such a horrible cop-out. If you're going to quote someone saying that one must believe in reincarnation if one believes in Christ as the savior (which is extremely arguable), then you're going to have to factor in the context of the statement. You can't just cherry pick parts you like and when encountered with an opposition that tells you that you're taking things wildly out of context, reply with a "oh, well, that part doesn't matter to me". It is inconsistent and leads to a jumbled mash that makes little sense. Then upon this jumbled bullshit you confuse faith with truisms and faith loses its quality as faith.
Yea well its true, I dont care that much to avoid doing this, so my bad to you.
And about the truisms, does it ? To me the difference is that, instead of investing the energy into a dream, a project or a vision, one tries to elevate all that to something higher, unfathomable but utterly reasuring, a feeling unlike the others sure, but the essence is the same, to be a sapient creature is to be able to have faith, in that in my opinion, investing your energy in say, a dream you had all your life, believing you will achieve it non matter what, and believing god will help you achieve it non matter what
is more of a question of trying to project your "faith" a certain specific way, religion says it should be in god first and foremost, doesnt that means it could be somewhere by itself ?
|
I'm going to watch GSL, I think the atheists won this one. gg, wp plasma. And D10 and Clysm, I hope you come around before you waste too much time worshiping something that doesn't exist. n_n.
Sigh, doesn't surprise me, coming from someone who is an Aethiest (I assume, from what you were saying) and when the religious are outnumbered 10:1 on the internet.
|
On May 28 2011 14:15 Kiarip wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:07 D10 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:56 Kiarip wrote:On May 28 2011 12:22 D10 wrote:
Simply put, standard jewish-christian religious culture believes we got only 1 shot to make outselves worthy of illumination, heaven, etc...
But what about autists, and other people who suffer from severe mental disabilities and can barely experience the world, why their 1 shot is a horrible experience at life, one where he couldnt even be properly held accountable by his actions, how could this kind of existance be reasonably justified in their system ? well im sure you all heard a few explanations.
But in my opinion, theres just a failure of concept there, if we are really working with a god that has infinite love, inteligence, and power, he would have a very specific reason for someone to be born in such a horrible contition, and in my mind that is punishment.
how difficult would it be for him, to program the universe with a system of kharma, so people can be born, make their mistakes, and then be born again, and pay for them in a way that allows them to keep evolving.
We think we know love, but big religious heads cant fathom how many chances god will really give us, just dont stay away from god to stay away from church, they are not the same,
With churches you either surrender to their house of faith or you are utterly lost and godless, and theres no middle ground, nowdays I feel theres less to gain visiting the church than simply maintaining a health work ethic, morally speaking.
Religion is cultural
Faith is universal
Reencarnation seems absurd at first, but if there is an almighty and powerfull god that wants us to experience material life to achieve illumation Ill take a leap of faith and say that, our daddy would give us some coins to continue playing. No, your logic is missing some scenarios. First of all, our idea of fairness may be incorrect in the eyes of god. But imo, a more interesting idea is that we all are in fact fairly/equally designed to achieve divinity/illumination. Meaning that it's something that's independent of all of our physical, intellectual and emotional qualities in which we are all different. Since we are all completely different the only thing that obviously pops out as something we can all do equally is be ourselves, so in the end it just boils down to doing what you think is the right thing to do in light of who you are. Become the person you want to be you know? That type of stuff. Sure, I dont disagree with that, we have talent for a reason, everyone should pursue their path to happiness. I guess the big thing about reincarnation is that you simply cannot believe in it, and not believe in a very complex spiritual society, with many layers and functions. From the poor guys in the abyss who never managed to get their vibration out of that cesspool suffering in their bubbles of nightmares being drained by even more evil things for life essence until they reencarnate again probably with heavy deformities or maybe even an abortion while guys who have passed that stage will be wandering to the limbo suffering until they open their heart and have faith that god will help them, so they can get out of there, go to one of the restoration colonies, where reincarnations are organized, and souls spend most of their time. And theres the upper spheres made more of fluidical energy and thoughts than anything. Endless worlds across the cosmos, all with anthropomorphic life in different stages of evolution all going thro the same thing, evolution, in all senses, towards a state of pure glory and usefullness for god that I cant even fathom how it is. This is what I believe in, might sound crazy, but at least its crazy I can believe in. Honestly I'm down to believe in a lot of spiritual stuff or at least try to get into the shoes of someone who does, but no matter what I do I can't get reincarnation to not seem like a cop out, or an excuse. And according to the philosophies that I find most believable it seems to follow that acting as if reincarnation doesn't exist is in fact the correct way to act, so really is there a point to thinking this way other than just for the sake of being "right" which you can't actually be absolutely certain in.
The point you illustrate is that, for all the wisdom the knowledge of reincarnation brings, it gives an incentive to play idle instead of actively chasing the things others who think they have only one chance work so hard to achieve, because you know how it really works, and you are in really no hurry to start changing everything radically.
|
On May 28 2011 14:13 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:08 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 14:05 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 28 2011 13:54 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:49 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:44 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:41 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:
[quote]
You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith".
Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... That's all good and well, and although I disagree with you on all those points, none of them even affirm your hypothesis of Christianity, just the need for something to always have been there, which I think is a perfectly reasonable claim. You just for some reason thinks that thing is named God and that he sent his son down to earth to die and then be turned into crackers or w/e, I think it was matter. Also, given infinite time, you get infinite possibilities, and therefore eventually get DNA. Read my post on page 2 about why I believe in the historical and spiritual accuracy of the bible, and it will explain why I chose my set of beliefs. I did not arbitrarily choose God and Christianity over Mohammed and Islam. I did so by considering factual evidence. I'm afraid I don't see where. And also choosing Christianity over Islam isn't the same as explaining why Christianity is valid while NO other religion is. My question: What fact proves the existence of Jesus and the Holy trinity but disproves the existence of Odin and the mountain giants? And also disproves any other god that I could possibly imagine up. + Show Spoiler +because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it. Plasmaball, I never said that current scientific theories coincide with biblical explanations. I said that scientific facts support biblical explanations better than they support scientific theories. Seeing as how scientific theories are overarching explanations for a multitude of related scientific facts, your statement is necessarily false. Furthermore, scientific facts also disprove Biblical explanations many times over. Genesis is flat-out falsified (Creation myth, Destruction myth, etc.). Granted, most scholars understand that these are supposed to be taken as allegory now, but how many Biblical stories have to be falsified and then backpedalled *to be meant as allegory* to be overlooked? Science says people can't rise from the dead too. Whoops, sorry Jesus. Science disproves the notions of 900 year old people. It's a scientific fact that Adam and Noah never existed. It's also a scientific fact that snakes don't have a voice box. Sorry devil snake. Science disproves the global flood myth. Science disproves any Young Earth Creationist claims. Now, for every Biblical claim made that's falsified by science, you can dismiss it with "Well that wasn't supposed to be taken seriously!" but then you're just cherry-picking your Bible verses, which makes the whole argument irrelevant. Some Christians dismiss those as allegory. I don't dismiss any of them. What you fail to understand is the concept of miracles, which is odd, because in a sense, every aspect of science is a miracle. No. Science obeys the laws of physics. The Book of Genesis by enlarge defies those laws. Do you believe the earth is 6,000 years old? Science, to scientists is separate from religion. If you base your definition of science off of the accepted criteria of: Consistent, observable, natural, predictable, testable, tentative, then no, religion is not a science. I base my definition of science off of the actual, objective truth. Thus, I do believe that the book of Genesis is scientific, as I believe that God's ability to perform miracles are an objective truth.
Watch out - you're playing word games here by redefining the commonly-accepted meaning of 'science'.
Don't equate science with actual, objective truth when it is at best humanity's closest "approximation" to the truth / most successful method for predicting future events.
|
God doesnt exist.
Why, can humanity in general not accept this. It is way beyond me how sensible people can in our modern age still subscribe to bronze age myths. Judeo-christian mythologies were made for a single purpose, which is to govern the behavior of great masses of people. Without religions like christianity many modern societies like America could not achieve such stability with such a massive population living in such a relatively small space. Without it, these people would revert to violent tribalism in order to compete for resources and would surely miss out on all the advantages that would come of co-operation beyond a band of say 60 or 100 people.
They would be a nation.
Religion is like a glue that keeps a massive state together. It is also a tool that can be misused, often, as history shows, to the detriment of a great many people. The general instability and constant conflicts in the middle east is a prime example of the misuse of religion.
The key thing to realize is how religion derives its power. Religion's power comes from the belief of its followers. Often people argue about weather God exists or not and after much proper reasoning, one can conclude that his existence is so irrelevant. It is the belief that is
key. As long as you believe he does, then this can be used in order to manipulate your behavior.
Ive studied the writings of the bible for quite some time. The more I learned, the more confusing it became. A lot of things written in that book made absolutely no sense to me and when "true believers" explained it to me, I began wondering if these people were brain damaged.
Seriously how could the most powerful and knowledgeable being in the universe commit such simple logical fallacies ? And even more amazing, his followers can't even see how stupid their beliefs actually are. They would commit to logical fallacies of their own in order to explain why their precious bible was perfect. It really got absurd until I took a step back and looked at this from a different angle and realized the truth. The truth is that the bible was in fact designed for people like these "true believers", people so incapable of proper reasoning that in order to get them to behave sensibly, you have to take advantage of their cognitive shortcomings by brain-raping them with something basic enough for their simple minds to grasp.
Reality is anything but simple so we create a simple reality for these people. "Dont kill otherwise God will send you to hell to burn for eternity".....Simple idea. Your belief in God will give you pause whenever you think of killing someone, hence your behavior is modified. Very effective. Notice I said belief. It is not relevant weather he does exist or not. But if you really examine the bible and apply serious thought to it.....you should realize that no all knowing being could be so self-contradicting and sometimes just stupid. No way that this God could ever be real.
|
On May 28 2011 14:18 Ryalnos wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:13 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:08 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 14:05 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 28 2011 13:54 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:49 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:44 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:41 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:
[quote]
Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal.
Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... That's all good and well, and although I disagree with you on all those points, none of them even affirm your hypothesis of Christianity, just the need for something to always have been there, which I think is a perfectly reasonable claim. You just for some reason thinks that thing is named God and that he sent his son down to earth to die and then be turned into crackers or w/e, I think it was matter. Also, given infinite time, you get infinite possibilities, and therefore eventually get DNA. Read my post on page 2 about why I believe in the historical and spiritual accuracy of the bible, and it will explain why I chose my set of beliefs. I did not arbitrarily choose God and Christianity over Mohammed and Islam. I did so by considering factual evidence. I'm afraid I don't see where. And also choosing Christianity over Islam isn't the same as explaining why Christianity is valid while NO other religion is. My question: What fact proves the existence of Jesus and the Holy trinity but disproves the existence of Odin and the mountain giants? And also disproves any other god that I could possibly imagine up. + Show Spoiler +because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it. Plasmaball, I never said that current scientific theories coincide with biblical explanations. I said that scientific facts support biblical explanations better than they support scientific theories. Seeing as how scientific theories are overarching explanations for a multitude of related scientific facts, your statement is necessarily false. Furthermore, scientific facts also disprove Biblical explanations many times over. Genesis is flat-out falsified (Creation myth, Destruction myth, etc.). Granted, most scholars understand that these are supposed to be taken as allegory now, but how many Biblical stories have to be falsified and then backpedalled *to be meant as allegory* to be overlooked? Science says people can't rise from the dead too. Whoops, sorry Jesus. Science disproves the notions of 900 year old people. It's a scientific fact that Adam and Noah never existed. It's also a scientific fact that snakes don't have a voice box. Sorry devil snake. Science disproves the global flood myth. Science disproves any Young Earth Creationist claims. Now, for every Biblical claim made that's falsified by science, you can dismiss it with "Well that wasn't supposed to be taken seriously!" but then you're just cherry-picking your Bible verses, which makes the whole argument irrelevant. Some Christians dismiss those as allegory. I don't dismiss any of them. What you fail to understand is the concept of miracles, which is odd, because in a sense, every aspect of science is a miracle. No. Science obeys the laws of physics. The Book of Genesis by enlarge defies those laws. Do you believe the earth is 6,000 years old? Science, to scientists is separate from religion. If you base your definition of science off of the accepted criteria of: Consistent, observable, natural, predictable, testable, tentative, then no, religion is not a science. I base my definition of science off of the actual, objective truth. Thus, I do believe that the book of Genesis is scientific, as I believe that God's ability to perform miracles are an objective truth. Watch out - you're playing word games here, which helps no one. Don't equate science with actual, objective truth when it is at best humanity's best approximation to the truth.
Then don't tell me it is a fact that I am wrong, based on your "best approximations." It seems plasma was simply trying to argue against my statements by throwing out the word science
|
On May 28 2011 14:13 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:08 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 14:05 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 28 2011 13:54 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:49 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:44 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:41 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:
[quote]
You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith".
Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... That's all good and well, and although I disagree with you on all those points, none of them even affirm your hypothesis of Christianity, just the need for something to always have been there, which I think is a perfectly reasonable claim. You just for some reason thinks that thing is named God and that he sent his son down to earth to die and then be turned into crackers or w/e, I think it was matter. Also, given infinite time, you get infinite possibilities, and therefore eventually get DNA. Read my post on page 2 about why I believe in the historical and spiritual accuracy of the bible, and it will explain why I chose my set of beliefs. I did not arbitrarily choose God and Christianity over Mohammed and Islam. I did so by considering factual evidence. I'm afraid I don't see where. And also choosing Christianity over Islam isn't the same as explaining why Christianity is valid while NO other religion is. My question: What fact proves the existence of Jesus and the Holy trinity but disproves the existence of Odin and the mountain giants? And also disproves any other god that I could possibly imagine up. + Show Spoiler +because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it. Plasmaball, I never said that current scientific theories coincide with biblical explanations. I said that scientific facts support biblical explanations better than they support scientific theories. Seeing as how scientific theories are overarching explanations for a multitude of related scientific facts, your statement is necessarily false. Furthermore, scientific facts also disprove Biblical explanations many times over. Genesis is flat-out falsified (Creation myth, Destruction myth, etc.). Granted, most scholars understand that these are supposed to be taken as allegory now, but how many Biblical stories have to be falsified and then backpedalled *to be meant as allegory* to be overlooked? Science says people can't rise from the dead too. Whoops, sorry Jesus. Science disproves the notions of 900 year old people. It's a scientific fact that Adam and Noah never existed. It's also a scientific fact that snakes don't have a voice box. Sorry devil snake. Science disproves the global flood myth. Science disproves any Young Earth Creationist claims. Now, for every Biblical claim made that's falsified by science, you can dismiss it with "Well that wasn't supposed to be taken seriously!" but then you're just cherry-picking your Bible verses, which makes the whole argument irrelevant. Some Christians dismiss those as allegory. I don't dismiss any of them. What you fail to understand is the concept of miracles, which is odd, because in a sense, every aspect of science is a miracle. No. Science obeys the laws of physics. The Book of Genesis by enlarge defies those laws. Do you believe the earth is 6,000 years old? Science, to scientists is separate from religion. If you base your definition of science off of the accepted criteria of: Consistent, observable, natural, predictable, testable, tentative, then no, religion is not a science. I base my definition of science off of the actual, objective truth. Thus, I do believe that the book of Genesis is scientific, as I believe that God's ability to perform miracles are an objective truth.
Science is not and never was at all about anything that's right. Science is about trying to explain things that actually happened. So first you need concrete evidence of things happening. Then you create an explanation for why it happened, and then you test it.
So yes, Science is BUILT AROUND things that are factual, but Science itself isn't factual, it's just our currently best way to explain everything that we have observed up to this point.
If magic was a repeatable phenomenon under testable conditions, our attempts to explain it would become part of Science. Things described in the Bible aren't in the subset of things that Science accepts as things we've "observed" similarly to how Science doesn't attempt to explain the Sumerian belief that Angels came down from the sky and taught them complex mathematics.
Despite, and partially thanks to the exclusion of these alleged super-natural phenomena Science was able to serve our civilization extremely accurately. On the other hand if the accounts Bible were accepted as observed facts, then Science today would have to be a lot more general to encompass their explanations, and a lot of the useful predictions that it made wouldn't have been made in the first place, and we wouldn't be this far as a civilization.
The point you illustrate is that, for all the wisdom the knowledge of reincarnation brings, it gives an incentive to play idle instead of actively chasing the things others who think they have only one chance work so hard to achieve, because you know how it really works, and you are in really no hurry to start changing everything radically.
Well that case I wish not to subscribe. When you don't do anything things fall into entropy.
When you stop exercising your muscles distrophy.
When you stop trying to solve problems your mind loses its problem solving abilities.
Hell, if it wasn't in our DNA to chase after "more," we probably would have never made it into the stone age.
I think the fact that radically changing things is bad is more due to the fact it's just not the optimal way to change things, and not because change in general is bad.
Change can always be good, if I subscribe to this belief, then I'm making a change in my philosophy, but according to your philosophy I shouldn't do anything that could possibly improve my well-being because of reincarnation, so once again, should I actually not subscribe to this philosophy, because then I would be doing too much?
|
On May 28 2011 14:22 Maru- wrote:
God doesnt exist.
Why, can humanity in general not accept this. It is way beyond me how sensible people can in our modern age still subscribe to bronze age myths. Judeo-christian mythologies were made for a single purpose, which is to govern the behavior of great masses of people. Without religions like christianity many modern societies like America could not achieve such stability with such a massive population living in such a relatively small space. Without it, these people would revert to violent tribalism in order to compete for resources and would surely miss out on all the advantages that would come of co-operation beyond a band of say 60 or 100 people.
They would be a nation.
Religion is like a glue that keeps a massive state together. It is also a tool that can be misused, often, as history shows, to the detriment of a great many people. The general instability and constant conflicts in the middle east is a prime example of the misuse of religion.
The key thing to realize is how religion derives its power. Religion's power comes from the belief of its followers. Often people argue about weather God exists or not and after much proper reasoning, one can conclude that his existence is so irrelevant. It is the belief that is
key. As long as you believe he does, then this can be used in order to manipulate your behavior.
Ive studied the writings of the bible for quite some time. The more I learned, the more confusing it became. A lot of things written in that book made absolutely no sense to me and when "true believers" explained it to me, I began wondering if these people were brain damaged.
Seriously how could the most powerful and knowledgeable being in the universe commit such simple logical fallacies ? And even more amazing, his followers can't even see how stupid their beliefs actually are. They would commit to logical fallacies of their own in order to explain why their precious bible was perfect. It really got absurd until I took a step back and looked at this from a different angle and realized the truth. The truth is that the bible was in fact designed for people like these "true believers", people so incapable of proper reasoning that in order to get them to behave sensibly, you have to take advantage of their cognitive shortcomings by brain-raping them with something basic enough for their simple minds to grasp.
Reality is anything but simple so we create a simple reality for these people. "Dont kill otherwise God will send you to hell to burn for eternity".....Simple idea. Your belief in God will give you pause whenever you think of killing someone, hence your behavior is modified. Very effective. Notice I said belief. It is not relevant weather he does exist or not. But if you really examine the bible and apply serious thought to it.....you should realize that no all knowing being could be so self-contradicting and sometimes just stupid. No way that this God could ever be real.
If you shoot down one explanation, it would be kind of you to offer an alternative.
|
On May 28 2011 14:22 Maru- wrote:
God doesnt exist.
Why, can humanity in general not accept this. It is way beyond me how sensible people can in our modern age still subscribe to bronze age myths. Judeo-christian mythologies were made for a single purpose, which is to govern the behavior of great masses of people. Without religions like christianity many modern societies like America could not achieve such stability with such a massive population living in such a relatively small space. Without it, these people would revert to violent tribalism in order to compete for resources and would surely miss out on all the advantages that would come of co-operation beyond a band of say 60 or 100 people.
They would be a nation.
Religion is like a glue that keeps a massive state together. It is also a tool that can be misused, often, as history shows, to the detriment of a great many people. The general instability and constant conflicts in the middle east is a prime example of the misuse of religion.
The key thing to realize is how religion derives its power. Religion's power comes from the belief of its followers. Often people argue about weather God exists or not and after much proper reasoning, one can conclude that his existence is so irrelevant. It is the belief that is
key. As long as you believe he does, then this can be used in order to manipulate your behavior.
Ive studied the writings of the bible for quite some time. The more I learned, the more confusing it became. A lot of things written in that book made absolutely no sense to me and when "true believers" explained it to me, I began wondering if these people were brain damaged.
Seriously how could the most powerful and knowledgeable being in the universe commit such simple logical fallacies ? And even more amazing, his followers can't even see how stupid their beliefs actually are. They would commit to logical fallacies of their own in order to explain why their precious bible was perfect. It really got absurd until I took a step back and looked at this from a different angle and realized the truth. The truth is that the bible was in fact designed for people like these "true believers", people so incapable of proper reasoning that in order to get them to behave sensibly, you have to take advantage of their cognitive shortcomings by brain-raping them with something basic enough for their simple minds to grasp.
Reality is anything but simple so we create a simple reality for these people. "Dont kill otherwise God will send you to hell to burn for eternity".....Simple idea. Your belief in God will give you pause whenever you think of killing someone, hence your behavior is modified. Very effective. Notice I said belief. It is not relevant weather he does exist or not. But if you really examine the bible and apply serious thought to it.....you should realize that no all knowing being could be so self-contradicting and sometimes just stupid. No way that this God could ever be real.
Look, if you dislike religion thats ok, i do too, its been perverted by unworthy man for millenia, but I find it infantile at best, that you use anything other than your own experiences in life, to judge those things.
The bible in the way standard christians read it is a book for people who really, just wanna know god is there and he wants them to work hard, anything else is too much for their brains =p
|
|
|
On May 28 2011 14:25 Kiarip wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:13 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:08 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 14:05 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 28 2011 13:54 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:49 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:44 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:41 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:
[quote]
Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal.
Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me... That's all good and well, and although I disagree with you on all those points, none of them even affirm your hypothesis of Christianity, just the need for something to always have been there, which I think is a perfectly reasonable claim. You just for some reason thinks that thing is named God and that he sent his son down to earth to die and then be turned into crackers or w/e, I think it was matter. Also, given infinite time, you get infinite possibilities, and therefore eventually get DNA. Read my post on page 2 about why I believe in the historical and spiritual accuracy of the bible, and it will explain why I chose my set of beliefs. I did not arbitrarily choose God and Christianity over Mohammed and Islam. I did so by considering factual evidence. I'm afraid I don't see where. And also choosing Christianity over Islam isn't the same as explaining why Christianity is valid while NO other religion is. My question: What fact proves the existence of Jesus and the Holy trinity but disproves the existence of Odin and the mountain giants? And also disproves any other god that I could possibly imagine up. + Show Spoiler +because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it. Plasmaball, I never said that current scientific theories coincide with biblical explanations. I said that scientific facts support biblical explanations better than they support scientific theories. Seeing as how scientific theories are overarching explanations for a multitude of related scientific facts, your statement is necessarily false. Furthermore, scientific facts also disprove Biblical explanations many times over. Genesis is flat-out falsified (Creation myth, Destruction myth, etc.). Granted, most scholars understand that these are supposed to be taken as allegory now, but how many Biblical stories have to be falsified and then backpedalled *to be meant as allegory* to be overlooked? Science says people can't rise from the dead too. Whoops, sorry Jesus. Science disproves the notions of 900 year old people. It's a scientific fact that Adam and Noah never existed. It's also a scientific fact that snakes don't have a voice box. Sorry devil snake. Science disproves the global flood myth. Science disproves any Young Earth Creationist claims. Now, for every Biblical claim made that's falsified by science, you can dismiss it with "Well that wasn't supposed to be taken seriously!" but then you're just cherry-picking your Bible verses, which makes the whole argument irrelevant. Some Christians dismiss those as allegory. I don't dismiss any of them. What you fail to understand is the concept of miracles, which is odd, because in a sense, every aspect of science is a miracle. No. Science obeys the laws of physics. The Book of Genesis by enlarge defies those laws. Do you believe the earth is 6,000 years old? Science, to scientists is separate from religion. If you base your definition of science off of the accepted criteria of: Consistent, observable, natural, predictable, testable, tentative, then no, religion is not a science. I base my definition of science off of the actual, objective truth. Thus, I do believe that the book of Genesis is scientific, as I believe that God's ability to perform miracles are an objective truth. Science is not and never was at all about anything that's right. Science is about trying to explain things that actually happened. So first you need concrete evidence of things happening. Then you create an explanation for why it happened, and then you test it. So yes, Science is BUILT AROUND things that are factual, but Science itself isn't factual, it's just our currently best way to explain everything that we have observed up to this point. If magic was a repeatable phenomenon under testable conditions, our attempts to explain it would become part of Science. Things described in the Bible aren't in the subset of things that Science accepts as things we've "observed" similarly to how Science doesn't attempt to explain the Sumerian belief that Angels came down from the sky and taught them complex mathematics. Despite, and partially thanks to the exclusion of these alleged super-natural phenomena Science was able to serve our civilization extremely accurately. On the other hand if the accounts Bible were accepted as observed facts, then Science today would have to be a lot more general to encompass their explanations, and a lot of the useful predictions that it made wouldn't have been made in the first place, and we wouldn't be this far as a civilization.
From what I understand, you aren't hesitant saying that "science" does not necessarily equal "real."
Yet you refuse to believe that "not science" possibly equals "real."
But this discussion about the definition of the term "science" isn't going to get us anywhere. Perhaps I was mistaken using the word science in my support of my beliefs. I'm not sure what would have been a better word though.
|
if you dislike religion thats ok, i do too, its been perverted by unworthy man for millenia
Agreed. I call myself a Christian because that term best sums up my beliefs (ie. the bible is true, and we're saved by God's grace) but that does not mean that I blindly follow the beliefs of Churches, or institutions of man. Like I said before, I believe what the bible says, no more, no less.
And Jaybee, I'd love to hear your logical arguments. All I've heard you say is how illogical and wrong we all are, but you haven't presented any actual logic of your own.
|
On May 28 2011 13:36 Oreo7 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:31 D10 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:26 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I disagree with faith being universal. One does not need to believe things based on faith; one can most certainly only accept things that have evidence for existing.
And are you really saying that if Christianity is correct, than reincarnation exists? o.O That's not how it works. Well jesus himself droped the R bomb on top of a whole religious following, id like to see how you run from his statement about John the baptist being Elias Regarding faith, you can have faith in yourself, in a project, in science, in someone else, in a way of living. You might think you made a purely rational decision by only believing in what you can attest, but at the same time you could be one of those guys who was completely and utterly sure that the earth was flat and the sun orbited around it. Faith is universal. But the extent of faith differs between religion and science. Religion asks you to take the jump from this guy named Jesus, he was great to he was the son of god and also god at the same time, while offering no real proof for that claim. Science makes a claim, we can use evolution for example, that man shares ancestry with chimps, and then shows you the evidence and the logical observations that lead to that conclusion, which makes the leap of faith much, much smaller. TL;DR: everything takes faith, but religion is an extraordinary claim with no extraordinary evidence.
Why, in the last 3000 or so years havn't humans evolved even a little bit? I mean eskimo's should look like fuckin Big Foot (hairy to stay warm in the Alaskan weather)...
|
On May 28 2011 14:32 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:25 Kiarip wrote:On May 28 2011 14:13 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:08 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 14:05 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 28 2011 13:54 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:49 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:44 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:41 Oreo7 wrote:
[quote]
That's all good and well, and although I disagree with you on all those points, none of them even affirm your hypothesis of Christianity, just the need for something to always have been there, which I think is a perfectly reasonable claim. You just for some reason thinks that thing is named God and that he sent his son down to earth to die and then be turned into crackers or w/e, I think it was matter.
Also, given infinite time, you get infinite possibilities, and therefore eventually get DNA. Read my post on page 2 about why I believe in the historical and spiritual accuracy of the bible, and it will explain why I chose my set of beliefs. I did not arbitrarily choose God and Christianity over Mohammed and Islam. I did so by considering factual evidence. I'm afraid I don't see where. And also choosing Christianity over Islam isn't the same as explaining why Christianity is valid while NO other religion is. My question: What fact proves the existence of Jesus and the Holy trinity but disproves the existence of Odin and the mountain giants? And also disproves any other god that I could possibly imagine up. + Show Spoiler +because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it. Plasmaball, I never said that current scientific theories coincide with biblical explanations. I said that scientific facts support biblical explanations better than they support scientific theories. Seeing as how scientific theories are overarching explanations for a multitude of related scientific facts, your statement is necessarily false. Furthermore, scientific facts also disprove Biblical explanations many times over. Genesis is flat-out falsified (Creation myth, Destruction myth, etc.). Granted, most scholars understand that these are supposed to be taken as allegory now, but how many Biblical stories have to be falsified and then backpedalled *to be meant as allegory* to be overlooked? Science says people can't rise from the dead too. Whoops, sorry Jesus. Science disproves the notions of 900 year old people. It's a scientific fact that Adam and Noah never existed. It's also a scientific fact that snakes don't have a voice box. Sorry devil snake. Science disproves the global flood myth. Science disproves any Young Earth Creationist claims. Now, for every Biblical claim made that's falsified by science, you can dismiss it with "Well that wasn't supposed to be taken seriously!" but then you're just cherry-picking your Bible verses, which makes the whole argument irrelevant. Some Christians dismiss those as allegory. I don't dismiss any of them. What you fail to understand is the concept of miracles, which is odd, because in a sense, every aspect of science is a miracle. No. Science obeys the laws of physics. The Book of Genesis by enlarge defies those laws. Do you believe the earth is 6,000 years old? Science, to scientists is separate from religion. If you base your definition of science off of the accepted criteria of: Consistent, observable, natural, predictable, testable, tentative, then no, religion is not a science. I base my definition of science off of the actual, objective truth. Thus, I do believe that the book of Genesis is scientific, as I believe that God's ability to perform miracles are an objective truth. Science is not and never was at all about anything that's right. Science is about trying to explain things that actually happened. So first you need concrete evidence of things happening. Then you create an explanation for why it happened, and then you test it. So yes, Science is BUILT AROUND things that are factual, but Science itself isn't factual, it's just our currently best way to explain everything that we have observed up to this point. If magic was a repeatable phenomenon under testable conditions, our attempts to explain it would become part of Science. Things described in the Bible aren't in the subset of things that Science accepts as things we've "observed" similarly to how Science doesn't attempt to explain the Sumerian belief that Angels came down from the sky and taught them complex mathematics. Despite, and partially thanks to the exclusion of these alleged super-natural phenomena Science was able to serve our civilization extremely accurately. On the other hand if the accounts Bible were accepted as observed facts, then Science today would have to be a lot more general to encompass their explanations, and a lot of the useful predictions that it made wouldn't have been made in the first place, and we wouldn't be this far as a civilization. From what I understand, you aren't hesitant saying that "science" does not necessarily equal "real." Yet you refuse to believe that "not science" possibly equals "real." But this discussion about the definition of the term "science" isn't going to get us anywhere. Perhaps I was mistaken using the word science in my support of my beliefs. I'm not sure what would have been a better word though.
Science operates under the assumption that it tries to explain all real phenomena. "Real" is somewhat subjective, so generally it refers to things that we have observed, and in many cases (but not all,) it requires us to be able to reproduce the phenomena, or at least show that's possible for this phenomena to occur again.
When I say that Science isn't always right I mean that the explanations that it gives for the observed phenomena aren't always correct.
However, everything that it tries to explain is assumed to be real, and everything that it doesn't try to explain is assumed to be not real, or at least unobserved. Science itself (the explanations) aren't always right, but definitions of reality of things rarely if at all change, largely because of the strict requirement for something in order for it to be considered real.
My point about the Bible that if Science included the occurrences of the Bible as observed fact which you claim that they are, then Science would become infinitely less useful to the humanity, because the much broader scope of phenomena would require a much more general explanation which would be a lot less useful.
|
On May 28 2011 14:24 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:18 Ryalnos wrote:On May 28 2011 14:13 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:08 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 14:05 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 28 2011 13:54 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:49 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:44 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:41 Oreo7 wrote:
[quote]
That's all good and well, and although I disagree with you on all those points, none of them even affirm your hypothesis of Christianity, just the need for something to always have been there, which I think is a perfectly reasonable claim. You just for some reason thinks that thing is named God and that he sent his son down to earth to die and then be turned into crackers or w/e, I think it was matter.
Also, given infinite time, you get infinite possibilities, and therefore eventually get DNA. Read my post on page 2 about why I believe in the historical and spiritual accuracy of the bible, and it will explain why I chose my set of beliefs. I did not arbitrarily choose God and Christianity over Mohammed and Islam. I did so by considering factual evidence. I'm afraid I don't see where. And also choosing Christianity over Islam isn't the same as explaining why Christianity is valid while NO other religion is. My question: What fact proves the existence of Jesus and the Holy trinity but disproves the existence of Odin and the mountain giants? And also disproves any other god that I could possibly imagine up. + Show Spoiler +because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it. Plasmaball, I never said that current scientific theories coincide with biblical explanations. I said that scientific facts support biblical explanations better than they support scientific theories. Seeing as how scientific theories are overarching explanations for a multitude of related scientific facts, your statement is necessarily false. Furthermore, scientific facts also disprove Biblical explanations many times over. Genesis is flat-out falsified (Creation myth, Destruction myth, etc.). Granted, most scholars understand that these are supposed to be taken as allegory now, but how many Biblical stories have to be falsified and then backpedalled *to be meant as allegory* to be overlooked? Science says people can't rise from the dead too. Whoops, sorry Jesus. Science disproves the notions of 900 year old people. It's a scientific fact that Adam and Noah never existed. It's also a scientific fact that snakes don't have a voice box. Sorry devil snake. Science disproves the global flood myth. Science disproves any Young Earth Creationist claims. Now, for every Biblical claim made that's falsified by science, you can dismiss it with "Well that wasn't supposed to be taken seriously!" but then you're just cherry-picking your Bible verses, which makes the whole argument irrelevant. Some Christians dismiss those as allegory. I don't dismiss any of them. What you fail to understand is the concept of miracles, which is odd, because in a sense, every aspect of science is a miracle. No. Science obeys the laws of physics. The Book of Genesis by enlarge defies those laws. Do you believe the earth is 6,000 years old? Science, to scientists is separate from religion. If you base your definition of science off of the accepted criteria of: Consistent, observable, natural, predictable, testable, tentative, then no, religion is not a science. I base my definition of science off of the actual, objective truth. Thus, I do believe that the book of Genesis is scientific, as I believe that God's ability to perform miracles are an objective truth. Watch out - you're playing word games here, which helps no one. Don't equate science with actual, objective truth when it is at best humanity's best approximation to the truth. Then don't tell me it is a fact that I am wrong, based on your "best approximations." It seems plasma was simply trying to argue against my statements by throwing out the word science
Make sure to look back to the last page to see where I stand. I am [i][not/i] "with them". I don't feel that there is much of a point in these arguments on a message board. The majority of the posts are effectively copy-pastes of the same old arguments, yadda yadda nothing moves forward. Perhaps it was unnecessary to poke at your use of language there, but it mildly irritates me when the truth value of science is overstated (this coming from a physics grad student - as if this gives me any cred).
Much better to demonstrate ever greater love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control because it is not me who lives, but He.
|
On May 28 2011 14:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:09 Oreo7 wrote:
I'm going to watch GSL, I think the atheists won this one. gg, wp plasma. And D10 and Clysm, I hope you come around before you waste too much time worshiping something that doesn't exist. n_n. Well thank you, although I wasn't necessarily arguing for atheism... just trying to shed some light on the interactions between religions and how science plays (or doesn't play) a role in religious texts I do happen to be an atheist though. Anyways, I need to go to sleep as well. Good night everyone! Happy discussing!
Actually there was a large flood that was recorded by all cultures in the world at the time, from the Japanese, to Europeans, to the Native Americans... They all have a flood story and science DOES prove the "great flood" happened. It was on History channel last year on a special on religions... Cant remember the name though
|
On May 28 2011 14:38 Kiarip wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:32 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:25 Kiarip wrote:On May 28 2011 14:13 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:08 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 14:05 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 28 2011 13:54 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:49 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:44 ClysmiC wrote:
[quote]
Read my post on page 2 about why I believe in the historical and spiritual accuracy of the bible, and it will explain why I chose my set of beliefs. I did not arbitrarily choose God and Christianity over Mohammed and Islam. I did so by considering factual evidence.
I'm afraid I don't see where. And also choosing Christianity over Islam isn't the same as explaining why Christianity is valid while NO other religion is. My question: What fact proves the existence of Jesus and the Holy trinity but disproves the existence of Odin and the mountain giants? And also disproves any other god that I could possibly imagine up. + Show Spoiler +because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it. Plasmaball, I never said that current scientific theories coincide with biblical explanations. I said that scientific facts support biblical explanations better than they support scientific theories. Seeing as how scientific theories are overarching explanations for a multitude of related scientific facts, your statement is necessarily false. Furthermore, scientific facts also disprove Biblical explanations many times over. Genesis is flat-out falsified (Creation myth, Destruction myth, etc.). Granted, most scholars understand that these are supposed to be taken as allegory now, but how many Biblical stories have to be falsified and then backpedalled *to be meant as allegory* to be overlooked? Science says people can't rise from the dead too. Whoops, sorry Jesus. Science disproves the notions of 900 year old people. It's a scientific fact that Adam and Noah never existed. It's also a scientific fact that snakes don't have a voice box. Sorry devil snake. Science disproves the global flood myth. Science disproves any Young Earth Creationist claims. Now, for every Biblical claim made that's falsified by science, you can dismiss it with "Well that wasn't supposed to be taken seriously!" but then you're just cherry-picking your Bible verses, which makes the whole argument irrelevant. Some Christians dismiss those as allegory. I don't dismiss any of them. What you fail to understand is the concept of miracles, which is odd, because in a sense, every aspect of science is a miracle. No. Science obeys the laws of physics. The Book of Genesis by enlarge defies those laws. Do you believe the earth is 6,000 years old? Science, to scientists is separate from religion. If you base your definition of science off of the accepted criteria of: Consistent, observable, natural, predictable, testable, tentative, then no, religion is not a science. I base my definition of science off of the actual, objective truth. Thus, I do believe that the book of Genesis is scientific, as I believe that God's ability to perform miracles are an objective truth. Science is not and never was at all about anything that's right. Science is about trying to explain things that actually happened. So first you need concrete evidence of things happening. Then you create an explanation for why it happened, and then you test it. So yes, Science is BUILT AROUND things that are factual, but Science itself isn't factual, it's just our currently best way to explain everything that we have observed up to this point. If magic was a repeatable phenomenon under testable conditions, our attempts to explain it would become part of Science. Things described in the Bible aren't in the subset of things that Science accepts as things we've "observed" similarly to how Science doesn't attempt to explain the Sumerian belief that Angels came down from the sky and taught them complex mathematics. Despite, and partially thanks to the exclusion of these alleged super-natural phenomena Science was able to serve our civilization extremely accurately. On the other hand if the accounts Bible were accepted as observed facts, then Science today would have to be a lot more general to encompass their explanations, and a lot of the useful predictions that it made wouldn't have been made in the first place, and we wouldn't be this far as a civilization. From what I understand, you aren't hesitant saying that "science" does not necessarily equal "real." Yet you refuse to believe that "not science" possibly equals "real." But this discussion about the definition of the term "science" isn't going to get us anywhere. Perhaps I was mistaken using the word science in my support of my beliefs. I'm not sure what would have been a better word though. Science operates under the assumption that it tries to explain all real phenomena. "Real" is somewhat subjective, so generally it refers to things that we have observed, and in many cases (but not all,) it requires us to be able to reproduce the phenomena, or at least show that's possible for this phenomena to occur again. When I say that Science isn't always right I mean that the explanations that it gives for the observed phenomena aren't always correct. However, everything that it tries to explain is assumed to be real, and everything that it doesn't try to explain is assumed to be not real, or at least unobserved. Science itself (the explanations) aren't always right, but definitions of reality of things rarely if at all change, largely because of the strict requirement for something in order for it to be considered real. My point about the Bible that if Science included the occurrences of the Bible as observed fact which you claim that they are, then Science would become infinitely less useful to the humanity, because the much broader scope of phenomena would require a much more general explanation which would be a lot less useful.
Real, by its very definition, is not subjective.
Once again, I apologize for using the term "science." I was trying to express that many aspects of science support the existence of God (such as DNA). But you have successfully convinced me that science, humanity's attempts to understand reality, at times does not support the existence of God.
This does not make God any less real to me though as God, an infinite being, can not be fully explained by the efforts of humans, finite beings.
|
On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. On May 28 2011 14:05 ClysmiC wrote:
What you fail to understand is the concept of miracles, which is odd, because in a sense, every aspect of science is a miracle.
This guys is....
Poll: Cysmic isTroll (11) 61% Honestly believes in what he's saying (7) 39% 18 total votes Your vote: Cysmic is (Vote): Troll
(Vote): Honestly believes in what he's saying
You guys are being trolled imho.
|
On May 28 2011 14:47 VIB wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:05 ClysmiC wrote:
What you fail to understand is the concept of miracles, which is odd, because in a sense, every aspect of science is a miracle.
This guys is.... Poll: Cysmic isTroll (11) 61% Honestly believes in what he's saying (7) 39% 18 total votes Your vote: Cysmic is (Vote): Troll
(Vote): Honestly believes in what he's saying
You guys are being trolled imho.
You sir, are adding nothing to what is, admittedly, a typical old trainwreck of a discussion.
|
On May 28 2011 14:39 Ryalnos wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:24 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:18 Ryalnos wrote:On May 28 2011 14:13 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:08 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 14:05 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 28 2011 13:54 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:49 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:44 ClysmiC wrote:
[quote]
Read my post on page 2 about why I believe in the historical and spiritual accuracy of the bible, and it will explain why I chose my set of beliefs. I did not arbitrarily choose God and Christianity over Mohammed and Islam. I did so by considering factual evidence.
I'm afraid I don't see where. And also choosing Christianity over Islam isn't the same as explaining why Christianity is valid while NO other religion is. My question: What fact proves the existence of Jesus and the Holy trinity but disproves the existence of Odin and the mountain giants? And also disproves any other god that I could possibly imagine up. + Show Spoiler +because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it. Plasmaball, I never said that current scientific theories coincide with biblical explanations. I said that scientific facts support biblical explanations better than they support scientific theories. Seeing as how scientific theories are overarching explanations for a multitude of related scientific facts, your statement is necessarily false. Furthermore, scientific facts also disprove Biblical explanations many times over. Genesis is flat-out falsified (Creation myth, Destruction myth, etc.). Granted, most scholars understand that these are supposed to be taken as allegory now, but how many Biblical stories have to be falsified and then backpedalled *to be meant as allegory* to be overlooked? Science says people can't rise from the dead too. Whoops, sorry Jesus. Science disproves the notions of 900 year old people. It's a scientific fact that Adam and Noah never existed. It's also a scientific fact that snakes don't have a voice box. Sorry devil snake. Science disproves the global flood myth. Science disproves any Young Earth Creationist claims. Now, for every Biblical claim made that's falsified by science, you can dismiss it with "Well that wasn't supposed to be taken seriously!" but then you're just cherry-picking your Bible verses, which makes the whole argument irrelevant. Some Christians dismiss those as allegory. I don't dismiss any of them. What you fail to understand is the concept of miracles, which is odd, because in a sense, every aspect of science is a miracle. No. Science obeys the laws of physics. The Book of Genesis by enlarge defies those laws. Do you believe the earth is 6,000 years old? Science, to scientists is separate from religion. If you base your definition of science off of the accepted criteria of: Consistent, observable, natural, predictable, testable, tentative, then no, religion is not a science. I base my definition of science off of the actual, objective truth. Thus, I do believe that the book of Genesis is scientific, as I believe that God's ability to perform miracles are an objective truth. Watch out - you're playing word games here, which helps no one. Don't equate science with actual, objective truth when it is at best humanity's best approximation to the truth. Then don't tell me it is a fact that I am wrong, based on your "best approximations." It seems plasma was simply trying to argue against my statements by throwing out the word science Make sure to look back to the last page to see where I stand. I am [i][not/i] "with them". I don't feel that there is much of a point in these arguments on a message board. The majority of the posts are effectively copy-pastes of the same old arguments, yadda yadda nothing moves forward. Perhaps it was unnecessary to poke at your use of language there, but it mildly irritates me when the truth value of science is overstated (this coming from a physics grad student - as if this gives me any cred). Much better to demonstrate ever greater love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control because it is not me who lives, but He.
My apologies Ryalnos. I thought that the word-games comment was coming from Oreo7 (I misread the huge chain of quotes).
|
On May 28 2011 14:46 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:38 Kiarip wrote:On May 28 2011 14:32 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:25 Kiarip wrote:On May 28 2011 14:13 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:08 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 14:05 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 14:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 28 2011 13:54 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:49 Oreo7 wrote:
[quote]
I'm afraid I don't see where. And also choosing Christianity over Islam isn't the same as explaining why Christianity is valid while NO other religion is.
My question: What fact proves the existence of Jesus and the Holy trinity but disproves the existence of Odin and the mountain giants? And also disproves any other god that I could possibly imagine up. + Show Spoiler +because the different books of the bible were written over a 1000+ year period, by over 40 authors, almost all of whom have never met each other. Yet, every single book is consistent with all of the others, and countless Old Testament prophecies come true in the New Testament. This could not be conspired, due to the amount of time and people who wrote the bible without meeting each other. It also could not be chance, for the same reasons. The only explanation is the one offered by the bible: that it is God-breathed. Thus, I believe that every book of the bible is canon: no more, no less. Also, the bible claims that no words should be added or diminished from it. Plasmaball, I never said that current scientific theories coincide with biblical explanations. I said that scientific facts support biblical explanations better than they support scientific theories. Seeing as how scientific theories are overarching explanations for a multitude of related scientific facts, your statement is necessarily false. Furthermore, scientific facts also disprove Biblical explanations many times over. Genesis is flat-out falsified (Creation myth, Destruction myth, etc.). Granted, most scholars understand that these are supposed to be taken as allegory now, but how many Biblical stories have to be falsified and then backpedalled *to be meant as allegory* to be overlooked? Science says people can't rise from the dead too. Whoops, sorry Jesus. Science disproves the notions of 900 year old people. It's a scientific fact that Adam and Noah never existed. It's also a scientific fact that snakes don't have a voice box. Sorry devil snake. Science disproves the global flood myth. Science disproves any Young Earth Creationist claims. Now, for every Biblical claim made that's falsified by science, you can dismiss it with "Well that wasn't supposed to be taken seriously!" but then you're just cherry-picking your Bible verses, which makes the whole argument irrelevant. Some Christians dismiss those as allegory. I don't dismiss any of them. What you fail to understand is the concept of miracles, which is odd, because in a sense, every aspect of science is a miracle. No. Science obeys the laws of physics. The Book of Genesis by enlarge defies those laws. Do you believe the earth is 6,000 years old? Science, to scientists is separate from religion. If you base your definition of science off of the accepted criteria of: Consistent, observable, natural, predictable, testable, tentative, then no, religion is not a science. I base my definition of science off of the actual, objective truth. Thus, I do believe that the book of Genesis is scientific, as I believe that God's ability to perform miracles are an objective truth. Science is not and never was at all about anything that's right. Science is about trying to explain things that actually happened. So first you need concrete evidence of things happening. Then you create an explanation for why it happened, and then you test it. So yes, Science is BUILT AROUND things that are factual, but Science itself isn't factual, it's just our currently best way to explain everything that we have observed up to this point. If magic was a repeatable phenomenon under testable conditions, our attempts to explain it would become part of Science. Things described in the Bible aren't in the subset of things that Science accepts as things we've "observed" similarly to how Science doesn't attempt to explain the Sumerian belief that Angels came down from the sky and taught them complex mathematics. Despite, and partially thanks to the exclusion of these alleged super-natural phenomena Science was able to serve our civilization extremely accurately. On the other hand if the accounts Bible were accepted as observed facts, then Science today would have to be a lot more general to encompass their explanations, and a lot of the useful predictions that it made wouldn't have been made in the first place, and we wouldn't be this far as a civilization. From what I understand, you aren't hesitant saying that "science" does not necessarily equal "real." Yet you refuse to believe that "not science" possibly equals "real." But this discussion about the definition of the term "science" isn't going to get us anywhere. Perhaps I was mistaken using the word science in my support of my beliefs. I'm not sure what would have been a better word though. Science operates under the assumption that it tries to explain all real phenomena. "Real" is somewhat subjective, so generally it refers to things that we have observed, and in many cases (but not all,) it requires us to be able to reproduce the phenomena, or at least show that's possible for this phenomena to occur again. When I say that Science isn't always right I mean that the explanations that it gives for the observed phenomena aren't always correct. However, everything that it tries to explain is assumed to be real, and everything that it doesn't try to explain is assumed to be not real, or at least unobserved. Science itself (the explanations) aren't always right, but definitions of reality of things rarely if at all change, largely because of the strict requirement for something in order for it to be considered real. My point about the Bible that if Science included the occurrences of the Bible as observed fact which you claim that they are, then Science would become infinitely less useful to the humanity, because the much broader scope of phenomena would require a much more general explanation which would be a lot less useful. Real, by its very definition, is not subjective. Once again, I apologize for using the term "science." I was trying to express that many aspects of science support the existence of God (such as DNA). But you have successfully convinced me that science, humanity's attempts to understand reality, at times does not support the existence of God. This does not make God any less real to me though as God, an infinite being, can not be fully explained by the efforts of humans, finite beings.
Yeah, but what is considered to be real and what isn't considered to be real is subjective, and that's what really matters when talking about things that humans believe/understand.
|
On May 28 2011 14:48 Ryalnos wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:47 VIB wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. On May 28 2011 14:05 ClysmiC wrote:
What you fail to understand is the concept of miracles, which is odd, because in a sense, every aspect of science is a miracle.
This guys is.... Poll: Cysmic isTroll (11) 61% Honestly believes in what he's saying (7) 39% 18 total votes Your vote: Cysmic is (Vote): Troll
(Vote): Honestly believes in what he's saying
You guys are being trolled imho. You sir, are adding nothing to what is (admittedly) the same old trainwreck of a discussion.
I agree, there isn't really any point in discussing this anymore. I never take part in online discussions, for exactly this reason. Both sides have their stance, and neither one budges... must don't even try to understand the others' points of view.
I only joined this discussion because it irritated me to see the very basis of Christianity misrepresented in the OP.
And on that note, I'm going to bed. Thank you to those of you who discussed this topic with decency, whether you agree or disagree with me. And just because we disagree, it does not mean that dislike you and I hope that you do not dislike me
To those of you who attacked/flamed, I suspect that you yourself don't have a strong enough opinion on this matter to contribute. I encourage you to investigate all of the arguments out there, and to read every religious and scientific text there is, and decide on your own.
Night guys.
EDIT:
And at least I am not required to commit atrocities in his name in hopes of getting a ticket into a wonderful fantasy land
Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."
Doesn't sound like an atrocity to me.
|
I believe in Tassadar. He will lead me to the Khala's end. There is no greater glory than that.
(Before anyone mocks that, it is infinitely easier to rule out the existence of the gods of most "accepted" religions than it is to rule out Tassadar. And at least I am not required to commit atrocities in his name in hopes of getting a ticket into a wonderful fantasy land)
Edit:
Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."
Doesn't sound like an atrocity to me.
"If a man rapes a girl in the city, you must stone him to death, and the woman as well." Deut. 22:24
But that does.
|
On May 28 2011 14:52 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:48 Ryalnos wrote:On May 28 2011 14:47 VIB wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. On May 28 2011 14:05 ClysmiC wrote:
What you fail to understand is the concept of miracles, which is odd, because in a sense, every aspect of science is a miracle.
This guys is.... Poll: Cysmic isTroll (11) 61% Honestly believes in what he's saying (7) 39% 18 total votes Your vote: Cysmic is (Vote): Troll
(Vote): Honestly believes in what he's saying
You guys are being trolled imho. You sir, are adding nothing to what is (admittedly) the same old trainwreck of a discussion. I agree, there isn't really any point in discussing this anymore. I never take part in online discussions, for exactly this reason. Both sides have their stance, and neither one budges... must don't even try to understand the others' points of view. I only joined this discussion because it irritated me to see the very basis of Christianity misrepresented in the OP.
I will admit it appalls me when someone makes a post in which they make a claim which to them appears clear and obvious to them but in actuality is "way out there" and backed up by woefully simplistic arguments which ignore the complexity of the topic.
|
If we're talking about the God of the Bible, it is plainly obvious, from the text, that YHWH isn't fair.
|
On May 28 2011 14:36 ClysmiC wrote:
And Jaybee, I'd love to hear your logical arguments. All I've heard you say is how illogical and wrong we all are, but you haven't presented any actual logic of your own.
I could do that on his behalf. It'll be my pleasure to show you exactly the kind of retarded bullshit that believers constantly carry around in their heads absolutely convinced that it makes sense.
Ill open with a scripture:
2 Peter 3  : "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is long suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."
This seems simple enough. Basically, God desires that all come to repent their sins and presumably enter heaven. Nothin wrong with that. Moving on.....
Luke 13:23-24 and 28, “Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able ... There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.”
Ok so here God acknowledges that not everyone is going to make it....understandable.
Psalm 139:1-6
(1) O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
(2) You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar.
(3) You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
(4)Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, You know it all.
(5) You have enclosed me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me.
(6) Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.
Ok wait hold the fuckin phone....God can see into the future ?
“Great is our Lord, and of great power: His understanding is infinite” (Psalm 147:5)
Infinite understanding ? Wow what an incredible guy!!!
Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Wow the kid even knows me before I was even conceived. But hold up....this guy is one sick fuck. You mean with that infinite knowledge and ability to see most likely infinitely into the future, this guy knew that all this shit was going to happen yet makes a passionate statement about not wanting anyone to perish.
If through his infinite foresight, he knew what his creation would become before he actually made them then it stands to reason that if he still went ahead and made us knowing full well what would happen then that was his will i.e. for some to perish. How can this twisted sick fuck then say that he wishes none to perish when he could have simply not made us or made us in a way that will fulfill his desire that none perish.
Forgive my strong language but its really insulting to ask an intelligent person to accept this garbage as fact. Can no one see this makes no sense ?
On May 28 2011 14:47 VIB wrote:
You guys are being trolled imho.
Of course he is a troll...he believes the bible....The bible is the bronze age trolling the infomation age.
|
On May 28 2011 13:33 Oreo7 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:15 D10 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:13 Oreo7 wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. Hardly. Especially if we're talking any kind of organized religion. Science actually has explanations for how it arrived at it's conclusions; religion is basically arbitrary with it's conclusions. Hence, faith. Tho theres so many scientists with faith that I dont see why people separate them so much, as if one canceled the other. If one day, science proves the afterlife is real, would that blow your mind ? Why would it blow your mind ? because you thought it was impossible to prove, or because it didnt exist ? Science's conclusions are based on the scientific process, one of the key steps of which is observation. You can't observe god, nor can you trace any impacts in our world back to a god, therefore god does not scientifically exist, according to current evidence. Of course it's possible (anything is) it's just much more likely he doesn't. Yes, the after life being proven real somehow through observation and experimentation that had consistent results would blow my mind and it would also be the happiest day of my life.
If God exists, do you really think he would let us know that he exists? I mean TRULY KNOW that he exists, like we all know that the earth is round? It's possible that some ppl have actually seen or heard God, but not without first proving that their faith for God is infinite, in which case they didn't need proof of his existance in the first place.
According to Christianity, Judaism and (I think) Islam, God put us on earth so that we would get the chance to embrace him. He wants us to make a decision. It's not a question of choosing from good and bad. It's a question of whether we want to accept the responsibility of being a Christian/Jew or whatever you want to call it. God knows that our happiness will be so much greater if we choose to go in his footsteps, but he still doesn't want to make the decision for us. If we know that God exists, wouldn't that make life on earth meaningless (according to religion)? If you're not willing to believe in God, because you don't think the investment is worth the risk that he might not be real, then you're looking at religion the wrong way. To believe in God doesn't mean to accept that God is real, it's all about accepting that his teachings is sound, and that following them would make your life better.
You can't prove that God exists in a way that we could comprehend, because doing so would make his plan obsolete, and thus prove that he doesn't exist at the same time. Religion is 100% about faith. If you don't accept that, noone can convince you into believing.
I've always believed in God. Atleast I can't remember not believing in him. I believed in the concept of God before I had even heard about his teachings, because as a child I had felt his presense. I was very vulnerable as a child, so because I had a greater need of comforting, I might have felt his presence stronger than others. But I think children in general are more spiritual and have stronger ties to God. Children look for comfort in God, and when they grow up, they drift away from God, and get more and more comfort from addictions. It's a sad reality.
|
Preachers always tell me "God can judge them". Weak humans cannot fathom/understand how/what/why god will do it, but he has a plan for everyone.
Pretty shitty argument IMO (no offense intended, but logically a bad argument)
|
On May 28 2011 14:52 ClysmiC wrote:I agree, there isn't really any point in discussing this anymore. I never take part in online discussions, for exactly this reason. Both sides have their stance, and neither one budges... must don't even try to understand the others' points of view. I only joined this discussion because it irritated me to see the very basis of Christianity misrepresented in the OP. And on that note, I'm going to bed. Thank you to those of you who discussed this topic with decency, whether you agree or disagree with me. And just because we disagree, it does not mean that dislike you and I hope that you do not dislike me To those of you who attacked/flamed, I suspect that you yourself don't have a strong enough opinion on this matter to contribute. I encourage you to investigate all of the arguments out there, and to read every religious and scientific text there is, and decide on your own. Night guys.
Wait, don't go. I am willing to discuss Christianity with you. It is my belief that Christianity is not real. Let me explain why from a Muslim perspective.
"There is no god worthy of worship except God and Muhammad is His messenger."
This declaration of faith is called the Shahada, a simple formula which all the faithful pronounce. In Arabic, the first part is: La ilaha illa Llah - 'there is no god except God'; ilaha (god) can refer to anything which we may be tempted to put in place of God - wealth, power, and the like. Then comes illa Llah: 'except God', the source of all Creation.
Muhammad, was born in Makkah in the year 570, at a time when Christianity was not yet fully established in Europe. Since his father died before his birth, and his mother shortly afterwards, he was raised by his uncle from the respected tribe of Quraysh. As he grew up, he became known for his truthfulness, generosity and sincerity, so that he was sought after for his ability to arbitrate in disputes. The historians describe him as calm and meditative.
Muhammad was of a deeply religious nature, and had long detested the decadence of his society. It became his habit to meditate from time to time in the Cave of Hira near the summit of Jabal al-Nur, the 'Mountain of Light' near Makkah.
Islam may seem exotic or even extreme in the modern world. Perhaps this is because religion does not dominate everyday life in the West today, whereas Muslims have religion always uppermost in their minds, and make no division between secular and sacred. They believe that the Divine Law, the Shari'a, should be taken very seriously, which is why issues related to religion are still so important.
Islam is not a new religion, but the same truth that God revealed through all His prophets to every people. For a fifth of the world's population, Islam is both a religion and a complete way of life. Muslims follow a religion of peace, mercy, and forgiveness, and the majority have nothing to do with the extremely grave events which have come to be associated with their faith.
One becomes a Muslim simply by saying 'there is no god apart from God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.' By this declaration the believer announces his or her faith in all God's messengers, and the scriptures they brought.
The Quran says: God forbids you not, with regards to those who fight you not for [your] faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them; for God loveth those who are just. (Quran 60:8)
It is one function of Islamic law to protect the privileged status of minorities, and this is why non-Muslim places of worship have flourished all over the Islamic world. History provides many examples of Muslim tolerance towards other faiths: when the caliph Omar entered Jerusalem in the year 634, Islam granted freedom of worship to all religious communities in the city.
Islamic law also permits non-Muslim minorities to set up their own courts, which implement family laws drawn up by the minorities themselves.
Now, in light of all of this, are you able to address what I've said in order to prove that Christianity is real and that I am wrong? Please rebut every single one of my points that I have made in order to make a valid argument otherwise you are simplying ignoring my arguments.
|
Are we really going to debate who's god is real and who's is fake now ? Are you guys serious ?
Both Islamic mythology and Judeo-Christian mythology are equally absurd when it comes to realism.
|
On May 28 2011 14:39 SacredSoul wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 28 2011 14:09 Oreo7 wrote:
I'm going to watch GSL, I think the atheists won this one. gg, wp plasma. And D10 and Clysm, I hope you come around before you waste too much time worshiping something that doesn't exist. n_n. Well thank you, although I wasn't necessarily arguing for atheism... just trying to shed some light on the interactions between religions and how science plays (or doesn't play) a role in religious texts I do happen to be an atheist though. Anyways, I need to go to sleep as well. Good night everyone! Happy discussing! Actually there was a large flood that was recorded by all cultures in the world at the time, from the Japanese, to Europeans, to the Native Americans... They all have a flood story and science DOES prove the "great flood" happened. It was on History channel last year on a special on religions... Cant remember the name though
Most cultures that have Destruction myths do so in the form of floods because that is what they are familar with, since all civilizations are built near water. However, the floods they talk about are actually just large local floods that they exaggerate (or just make up for the sake of allegory). For example, the Biblical flood Destruction myth is actually in reference to a large local flood that happened in the area, probably the one that happened in the Black Sea.
It's rather silly to think that a city in the Middle East 4000 years ago would have any idea what the weather is like in South America or Australia.
But to be clear, science has absolutely disproven any recent global floods through geology and archaeology.
|
On May 28 2011 20:00 Maru- wrote:
Are we really going to debate who's god is real and who's is fake now ? Are you guys serious ?
Both Islamic mythology and Judeo-Christian mythology are equally absurd when it comes to realism.
all three of them believe in the same god anyway
|
Before this gets too heated, you guys have to understand that he's from Brazil and there's a strong Spiritist culture in that country. Research and read about Chico Xavier (most famous Brazilian Spiritist) to get a sense of where he's getting his perspective.
Edit: I didn't notice this was already six pages long. Sorry, I didn't pay attention. 
|
On May 28 2011 18:11 Maru- wrote:
The bible is the bronze age trolling the infomation age.
That is a brilliant line lol. I mean, all of what you said was spot on, but that was great haha. You mind if I quote you on that elsewhere?
|
On May 28 2011 19:47 Tony Campolo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 14:52 ClysmiC wrote:I agree, there isn't really any point in discussing this anymore. I never take part in online discussions, for exactly this reason. Both sides have their stance, and neither one budges... must don't even try to understand the others' points of view. I only joined this discussion because it irritated me to see the very basis of Christianity misrepresented in the OP. And on that note, I'm going to bed. Thank you to those of you who discussed this topic with decency, whether you agree or disagree with me. And just because we disagree, it does not mean that dislike you and I hope that you do not dislike me To those of you who attacked/flamed, I suspect that you yourself don't have a strong enough opinion on this matter to contribute. I encourage you to investigate all of the arguments out there, and to read every religious and scientific text there is, and decide on your own. Night guys. Wait, don't go. I am willing to discuss Christianity with you. It is my belief that Christianity is not real. Let me explain why from a Muslim perspective. "There is no god worthy of worship except God and Muhammad is His messenger." This declaration of faith is called the Shahada, a simple formula which all the faithful pronounce. In Arabic, the first part is: La ilaha illa Llah - 'there is no god except God'; ilaha (god) can refer to anything which we may be tempted to put in place of God - wealth, power, and the like. Then comes illa Llah: 'except God', the source of all Creation. Muhammad, was born in Makkah in the year 570, at a time when Christianity was not yet fully established in Europe. Since his father died before his birth, and his mother shortly afterwards, he was raised by his uncle from the respected tribe of Quraysh. As he grew up, he became known for his truthfulness, generosity and sincerity, so that he was sought after for his ability to arbitrate in disputes. The historians describe him as calm and meditative. Muhammad was of a deeply religious nature, and had long detested the decadence of his society. It became his habit to meditate from time to time in the Cave of Hira near the summit of Jabal al-Nur, the 'Mountain of Light' near Makkah. Islam may seem exotic or even extreme in the modern world. Perhaps this is because religion does not dominate everyday life in the West today, whereas Muslims have religion always uppermost in their minds, and make no division between secular and sacred. They believe that the Divine Law, the Shari'a, should be taken very seriously, which is why issues related to religion are still so important. Islam is not a new religion, but the same truth that God revealed through all His prophets to every people. For a fifth of the world's population, Islam is both a religion and a complete way of life. Muslims follow a religion of peace, mercy, and forgiveness, and the majority have nothing to do with the extremely grave events which have come to be associated with their faith. One becomes a Muslim simply by saying 'there is no god apart from God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.' By this declaration the believer announces his or her faith in all God's messengers, and the scriptures they brought. The Quran says: God forbids you not, with regards to those who fight you not for [your] faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them; for God loveth those who are just. (Quran 60:8) It is one function of Islamic law to protect the privileged status of minorities, and this is why non-Muslim places of worship have flourished all over the Islamic world. History provides many examples of Muslim tolerance towards other faiths: when the caliph Omar entered Jerusalem in the year 634, Islam granted freedom of worship to all religious communities in the city. Islamic law also permits non-Muslim minorities to set up their own courts, which implement family laws drawn up by the minorities themselves. Now, in light of all of this, are you able to address what I've said in order to prove that Christianity is real and that I am wrong? Please rebut every single one of my points that I have made in order to make a valid argument otherwise you are simplying ignoring my arguments.
I'm not sure what you mean by rebutting your points, as this was primarily a summary of Islamic beliefs and history, not an argument for its correctness. But I'll discuss some of the points made.
I understand that the religion Islam is not extreme like most people think. Sure, some people take it to extremes performing acts of jihad, but that is not an issue with the religion itself (just as the Crusades were not Christianity's fault, they were the fault certain Christians who did not understand their own religion). From what I understand, Islam preaches peace and love.
But here's one thing I've never quite understood about Islam. Muslims regard Jesus as one of the most honorable prophets of God. In fact, the Qur'an mentions him more than it does Muhammed. Yet, Jesus, in no uncertain terms, states himself to be the Son of God, and states that he "is the way to truth and the light. No one comes to the Father but through [him]" (John 14:6), which is not believed by Muslims. The only explanation I can think of is that Muslims believe one of their highest prophets made heinous, untruthful claims. To me, this severely undermines the integrity of the religion as a whole.
I don't claim this explanation to be the actual view of Muslims, but it is the only one that I can think of. I'd like to hear if you have a different explanation for this seeming inconsistency so that I can further understand the views of Islam, as I love to learn about all religions.
|
On May 29 2011 00:49 Darclite wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 18:11 Maru- wrote:
The bible is the bronze age trolling the infomation age.
That is a brilliant line lol. I mean, all of what you said was spot on, but that was great haha. You mind if I quote you on that elsewhere?
Sure, feel free my friend. Quote it to your heart's content.
|
the Dagon Knight4002 Posts
On May 28 2011 20:00 Maru- wrote:
Are we really going to debate who's god is real and who's is fake now ? Are you guys serious ?
Both Islamic mythology and Judeo-Christian mythology are equally absurd when it comes to realism.
I have a feeling that this might have been a more productive discussion had it been a balance argument between a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim.
"Allah is so OP!"
|
Just leave it already, its dead jim
|
On May 29 2011 05:10 SirJolt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 20:00 Maru- wrote:
Are we really going to debate who's god is real and who's is fake now ? Are you guys serious ?
Both Islamic mythology and Judeo-Christian mythology are equally absurd when it comes to realism. I have a feeling that this might have been a more productive discussion had it been a balance argument between a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim. "Allah is so OP!"
Thank Go...uhh...Be thankful it didnt because this thread would never die as each person would be trying to prove without actual proof that their absurd beliefs are less absurd than the other guys' beliefs.
|
On May 29 2011 05:24 D10 wrote:
Just leave it already, its dead jim God is fair. It will reincarnate 
On May 28 2011 18:11 Maru- wrote:Of course he is a troll...he believes the bible....The bible is the bronze age trolling the infomation age. Signature-worthy material here. If mine wasn't already awesome I would quote you instead ^^
|
the Dagon Knight4002 Posts
On May 29 2011 07:13 Maru- wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2011 05:10 SirJolt wrote:On May 28 2011 20:00 Maru- wrote:
Are we really going to debate who's god is real and who's is fake now ? Are you guys serious ?
Both Islamic mythology and Judeo-Christian mythology are equally absurd when it comes to realism. I have a feeling that this might have been a more productive discussion had it been a balance argument between a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim. "Allah is so OP!" Thank Go...uhh...Be thankful it didnt because this thread would never die as each person would be trying to prove without actual proof that their absurd beliefs are less absurd than the other guys' beliefs.
"Mohammad only did totally reasonable stuff! Jesus walked on water and did all miracle loaves and fishes food... so imba."
|
On May 28 2011 13:37 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:16 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 13:10 ClysmiC wrote:On May 28 2011 13:05 Oreo7 wrote:
Religion's much easier to understand when you realize it's fantasy. Every single of aspect of life is much, much harder to understand when you rule out the existence of God. Convincing yourself to believe secular explanations is a greater leap of faith than believing a religious one. You missed something between "harder to understand" and "greater leap of faith". Tell me something, if you believe in God, why aren't you using that God given brain of yours to educate yourself? Funny you should mention that, but I have a 4.5+ GPA and am ranked 4th in my class. I am very educated in the scientific details of life, and in my opinion they only confirm my faith. Science only reinforces the bible. You tell me how random chance can create perfect conditions for life, and also make DNA (which is far more complex than the computer that you are typing on) out of inorganic matter. Then tell me how that inorganic matter was created out of nothing. In order for anything to exist, something has to be eternal. I say that that eternal thing is God. Your idea of science says that there isn't anything eternal. Anyway, back to the DNA thing. If you saw something simple, like a watch, you would never even begin to think that it was made by nature. Yet human beings and other life forms that are millions of times more complex than that watch were? Doesn't add up to me...
Actually, I would. That is, if watches reproduced, mutated and were subject to natural selection. Amusing, isn't it?
|
The fact of the matter is, we don't know whether God exists or not, let alone do we know the nature of God if he does exist.
Also, what is "fair" is often very subjective and disputed by different individuals with different world views.
|
On May 29 2011 00:58 ClysmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 19:47 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 14:52 ClysmiC wrote:I agree, there isn't really any point in discussing this anymore. I never take part in online discussions, for exactly this reason. Both sides have their stance, and neither one budges... must don't even try to understand the others' points of view. I only joined this discussion because it irritated me to see the very basis of Christianity misrepresented in the OP. And on that note, I'm going to bed. Thank you to those of you who discussed this topic with decency, whether you agree or disagree with me. And just because we disagree, it does not mean that dislike you and I hope that you do not dislike me To those of you who attacked/flamed, I suspect that you yourself don't have a strong enough opinion on this matter to contribute. I encourage you to investigate all of the arguments out there, and to read every religious and scientific text there is, and decide on your own. Night guys. Wait, don't go. I am willing to discuss Christianity with you. It is my belief that Christianity is not real. Let me explain why from a Muslim perspective. "There is no god worthy of worship except God and Muhammad is His messenger." This declaration of faith is called the Shahada, a simple formula which all the faithful pronounce. In Arabic, the first part is: La ilaha illa Llah - 'there is no god except God'; ilaha (god) can refer to anything which we may be tempted to put in place of God - wealth, power, and the like. Then comes illa Llah: 'except God', the source of all Creation. Muhammad, was born in Makkah in the year 570, at a time when Christianity was not yet fully established in Europe. Since his father died before his birth, and his mother shortly afterwards, he was raised by his uncle from the respected tribe of Quraysh. As he grew up, he became known for his truthfulness, generosity and sincerity, so that he was sought after for his ability to arbitrate in disputes. The historians describe him as calm and meditative. Muhammad was of a deeply religious nature, and had long detested the decadence of his society. It became his habit to meditate from time to time in the Cave of Hira near the summit of Jabal al-Nur, the 'Mountain of Light' near Makkah. Islam may seem exotic or even extreme in the modern world. Perhaps this is because religion does not dominate everyday life in the West today, whereas Muslims have religion always uppermost in their minds, and make no division between secular and sacred. They believe that the Divine Law, the Shari'a, should be taken very seriously, which is why issues related to religion are still so important. Islam is not a new religion, but the same truth that God revealed through all His prophets to every people. For a fifth of the world's population, Islam is both a religion and a complete way of life. Muslims follow a religion of peace, mercy, and forgiveness, and the majority have nothing to do with the extremely grave events which have come to be associated with their faith. One becomes a Muslim simply by saying 'there is no god apart from God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.' By this declaration the believer announces his or her faith in all God's messengers, and the scriptures they brought. The Quran says: God forbids you not, with regards to those who fight you not for [your] faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them; for God loveth those who are just. (Quran 60:8) It is one function of Islamic law to protect the privileged status of minorities, and this is why non-Muslim places of worship have flourished all over the Islamic world. History provides many examples of Muslim tolerance towards other faiths: when the caliph Omar entered Jerusalem in the year 634, Islam granted freedom of worship to all religious communities in the city. Islamic law also permits non-Muslim minorities to set up their own courts, which implement family laws drawn up by the minorities themselves. Now, in light of all of this, are you able to address what I've said in order to prove that Christianity is real and that I am wrong? Please rebut every single one of my points that I have made in order to make a valid argument otherwise you are simplying ignoring my arguments. I'm not sure what you mean by rebutting your points, as this was primarily a summary of Islamic beliefs and history, not an argument for its correctness. But I'll discuss some of the points made. I understand that the religion Islam is not extreme like most people think. Sure, some people take it to extremes performing acts of jihad, but that is not an issue with the religion itself (just as the Crusades were not Christianity's fault, they were the fault certain Christians who did not understand their own religion). From what I understand, Islam preaches peace and love. But here's one thing I've never quite understood about Islam. Muslims regard Jesus as one of the most honorable prophets of God. In fact, the Qur'an mentions him more than it does Muhammed. Yet, Jesus, in no uncertain terms, states himself to be the Son of God, and states that he "is the way to truth and the light. No one comes to the Father but through [him]" (John 14:6), which is not believed by Muslims. The only explanation I can think of is that Muslims believe one of their highest prophets made heinous, untruthful claims. To me, this severely undermines the integrity of the religion as a whole. I don't claim this explanation to be the actual view of Muslims, but it is the only one that I can think of. I'd like to hear if you have a different explanation for this seeming inconsistency so that I can further understand the views of Islam, as I love to learn about all religions.
I'm not a muslims (i'm a Baha'i) but the quote from john I can easily explain.
its all about how you look at it. Jesus never auctally states that he was the son of God (he calls God Father, but so do many christains) so the fact he was son of God is auctally decided at the council of nicea, where also what books in the current bible were decided. There are many other books written by followers of christ that were not in the Bible. Many have been found and are now pulblished in books. But still not in the Bible.
Putting that aside. We look at that quote and think that only Jesus was the way to God, and anything else is false and lies. We need to look deeper than that.
In the Baha'i faith we call Jesus a messenger of God, Messengers come at times when the world needs them most. ( not an official Baha'i source but a good one for more info on that last sentance. http://bahaikipedia.org/Progressive_revelation )
so if we look at it that way, he is one of a big line of messengers who have come and gone. We believe that all the messengers have the same Spirit (so to speak) and so they are different, but the same.
If you take Christ's comment. Nobody goes to the Father but through him. He is declaring that whoever goes through one of the messengers of God. WIll go to the Father.
When we think about it this way it makes a bit more sense.
In the Baha'i faith we believe that regardless of your religion, your race, creed, culture, gender, sexuality. If you do good on this Earth, God will reward you. Because God is not so cruel as to only let Baha'is to the Abha' Kingdom (closeness to God (or heaven, as some call it) ). There are people of all religions (or no religion, or don't believe in God) with God.
If you do bad things on this Earth, you will be far from God and in a metaphorical Hell.
|
On May 28 2011 12:58 ClysmiC wrote:
I just want to point out that the Christians don't try to make themselves worthy of illumination (well some do, but they have a misunderstanding of the bible).
There are many sects of Christianity and they do not all believe as you do on this one.
|
If god was fair and existed, then yeah either reincarnation would have to exist or hell, how could he put people in situations where they're born into starving families in 3rd world countries etc...
A recent WKUK sketch involving storks sending babies everywhere was pretty hilarious and related to this topic
|
On May 29 2011 00:58 ClysmiC wrote:
But here's one thing I've never quite understood about Islam. Muslims regard Jesus as one of the most honorable prophets of God. In fact, the Qur'an mentions him more than it does Muhammed. Yet, Jesus, in no uncertain terms, states himself to be the Son of God, and states that he "is the way to truth and the light. No one comes to the Father but through [him]" (John 14:6), which is not believed by Muslims. The only explanation I can think of is that Muslims believe one of their highest prophets made heinous, untruthful claims. To me, this severely undermines the integrity of the religion as a whole.
Yes, I have heard this argument several times in Christian apologetic circles, and no doubt it is a point that you heard being made in a Church sermon and that you have never actually gone out into say a Mosque or Iman to discuss to try and understand from a Muslim perspective. It can easily be explained by the Koran - which is the scriptures Muslims follow, rather than the books of the New Testament, which are the scriptures Christians follow. Nowhere in the Koran does it say that Jesus said He was the Son of God, but rather that He is a holy prophet. In which case I am also pretty sure you've never read the Koran before, but only the Bible. This is the problem with a lot of Christians, especially mainstream American evangelical Christians, who take every word their pastors say as truth without trying to rebut or challenge what they teach their flocks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_Islam
|
Holy Qur’an 19:34-37—"That is Jesus, son of Mary, the Word of Truth (Qawlu’l-Haqq) whereon you dispute! Allah could not take to Himself a son! Celebrated be His praise! When He decrees a matter He only says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is. And verily, Jesus said, ‘Allah is my Lord and your Lord, so worship Him: This is the right way.’ But the sects have differed among themselves."
Holy Qur’an 3:58-59—"These signs, and this wise warning do we rehearse to thee. Verily, Jesus, is as Adam in the sight of Allah. He created him of dust, He then said to him, Be—and he was."
Holy Qur’an 43:57-65— "And when the son of Mary was sent forth as a sign, lo! Thy people cried out for joy thereat. And they said, ‘Are our gods or is he better?’ They put this forth to thee only in the way of dispute. Yea, but they are a quarreling people. Jesus is only a servant whom we favored, and made a sign to the Children of Israel; and if we pleased, we could from yourselves bring forth angles to succeed you on earth; and he shall be a sign of the Last Hour; doubt not then of it, and follow ye me; this is the right way; and let not Satan turn you aside from it, for he is your manifest foe. And when Jesus came with manifest proofs, he said, ‘Now I am come to you with wisdom; and a part of those things which ye differ, I will clear up to you; therefore, worship Allah, and obey my commands; this is the right way;’ but the different parties fell into disputes among themselves; but woe to those who thus transgressed, because of the punishment of a painful day!"
Holy Qur’an 9:30—"The Jews say Ezra is the son of Allah; and the Christians say the Messiah is the son of Allah; that is what they say with their mouths imitating the saying of the unbelievers before them—Allah fight them! How they lie!"
Holy Qur’an 3:78-79— "And truly among the people of the Book are some who change the scriptures with their tongue, in order that ye may suppose it from the scripture. And they say: ‘This is from Allah, yet it is not from Allah, and they utter a lie against Allah, and they know they do so.’ It is not fitting that Allah should give him the scripture and the Wisdom, and the gift of prophecy, and then he should say to his followers, ‘Be ye worshippers of me as well as of Allah;’ but rather, ‘Be ye perfect in things pertaining to Allah since ye know the scripture, and have studied deep.’"
Holy Qur’an 5:17—"Infidels now are they who say, ‘Verily Allah is the Messiah son of Mary!’ Say: And who could divert form Allah, if He chose to destroy the Messiah, son of Mary, and his mother and all who are on the earth together?"
Holy Qur’an 5:72-75—"They misbelieve who say, verily Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary, but the Messiah said, ‘O Children of Israel! I worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord.’ Verily, he who associates partners with Allah, Allah hath forbidden him paradise, and his resort is the fire, and the disbeliever shall have none to help him. They misbelieve who say, ‘verily, Allah is the third of three,’ for there is no Allah, but One; And if they do not desist form what they say, there shall touch those who misbelieve amongst them grievous woe. Will they not turn again towards Allah and ask pardon of Him? For Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. The Messiah, the son of Mary, is only a Prophet! Prophets before him have passed away; and his mother was a witness; they, both, used to eat food. See how we explain to you the signs, yet see how they turn away."
Holy Qur’an 4:171— "O ye people of the Book! Overstep not bounds in your religion; and of Allah, speak only truth. Jesus, son of Mary is only a Prophet of Allah, and His Word, which he conveyed into Mary, and a Spirit from Him. Believe, therefore, in Allah and His Prophet, and say not ‘three’ (there is a trinity)—forbear—it will be better for you. Allah is only One Allah! Far be it from His Glory that He should have a son! His is whatever is in the heavens, and whatever is in the earth! And Allah is a sufficient Guardian."
|
I posted this in the other thread which is from a Jewish perspective, but also lends weight to the Muslim idea that it would have been ridiculous for Jesus to claim to be the Son of God:
God spent 1400+ years pounding the idea that He was One, perfect unity (indivisible and incapable of being diluted) into the mind of the Jews, and then the Christians expect them to believe that God said: "Oops, just kidding, I became a man even though that's what I always said I wouldn't or couldn't do! It is now OK to worship a human because it's really Me"!
See the entire part after the spoilers:
+ Show Spoiler +It is often said in Pentecostal Churches that Jesus was the Messiah, and that somehow this is proof that the Bible is infallible - because He fulfilled all these prophecies in the Old Testament that the writers could not possibly have known about. If the Trinity and the Divinity of Jesus can be proven based on the Old Testament, then one would have to accept Him as their Lord and have a relationship with Him in order to be saved. So basically, the fact that Adolf Eichmann (the 'architect of the Holocaust') had accepted Jesus into his heart right before his execution meant that he would have been admitted straight into the Kingdom of God (Jesus having paid the full price), and the 6 million 'Heathen' Jews he killed, who did not have a 'relationship with Jesus' and who did not accept Him as their 'Lord and Saviour' (and in fact, being of the Judaic faith, would have flat out rejected this notion of Him being the Messiah) would be 'separated from God for all eternity' (Luke 11:25 - "Remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things; but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us").
Jewish theology argues that Jesus was not the Messiah that was foretold by Isaiah and others because He failed to fulfil even the basic requirements of a Messiah. Take for example the following prophecies:
* The Sanhedrin will be re-established (Isaiah 1:26)
* Once he is King, leaders of other nations will look to him for guidance. (Isaiah 2:4)
* The whole world will worship the One God of Israel (Isaiah 2:17)
* He will be descended from King David (Isaiah 11:1) via Solomon (1 Chronicles 22:8-10, 2 Chronicles 7:18)
* The Messiah will be a man of this world, an observant Jew with "fear of God" (Isaiah 11:2)
* Evil and tyranny will not be able to stand before his leadership (Isaiah 11:4)
* Knowledge of God will fill the world (Isaiah 11)
* He will include and attract people from all cultures and nations (Isaiah 11:10)
* All Israelites will be returned to their homeland (Isaiah 11:12)
* Death will be swallowed up forever (Isaiah 25:8)
* There will be no more hunger or illness, and death will cease (Isaiah 25:8)
* All of the dead will rise again (Isaiah 26:19)
* The Jewish people will experience eternal joy and gladness (Isaiah 51:11)
* He will be a messenger of peace (Isaiah 52)
* Nations will end up recognizing the wrongs they did to Israel (Isaiah 52:13-53:5)
* The peoples of the world will turn to the Jews for spiritual guidance (Zechariah 8:23)
* The ruined cities of Israel will be restored (Ezekiel 16:55)
* Weapons of war will be destroyed (Ezekiel 39)
* The Temple will be rebuilt resuming many of the suspended mitzvot (Ezekiel 40)
* He will then perfect the entire world to serve God together (Zephaniah 3)
* Jews will know the Torah without study (Jeremiah 31:33)
* He will take the barren land and make it abundant and fruitful (Isaiah 51:3, Amos 9:13-15, Ezekiel 36:29-30, Isaiah 11:6-9)
All of this is supposed to happen during the lifetime of Israel's Messiah. There is no concept of second return (a la Revelation) mentioned anywhere in the Old Testament. Peter expected Jesus to become King when He appeared before them, which is why he refused to believe that Jesus had to be crucified. Yet Jesus says to Peter: "get behind me Satan". So the way modern Churches view Jesus today as the Messiah who fulfilled the Old Testament prophecy is not the way the 5000 who followed Him during His lifetime viewed Him (because they did not believe that He was going to die and say: "I'll come back another time, in the meantime, here's the Holy Spirit"). They had expected Him to establish His Kingdom there and then. And the way that modern Churches view Jesus today is not the way Judaism views Him, as Jews believe that, given a literal interpretation of the Old Testament, Jesus was not the foretold Messiah, failing to fulfil the prophecies above (which are yet to come).
So let's move on to why the Pharisees of that time wanted Jesus killed. Was it because they were just plainly cold hearted and jealous so did not want to believe that that He could die for our sins, as an atonement for their sins?
Deuteronomy 13 states: Everything I command you that you shall be careful to do it. You shall neither add to it, nor subtract from it. If there will arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of a dream, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder of which he spoke to you happens, and he says, "Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us worship them," you shall not heed the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of a dream; for the Lord, your God, is testing you, to know whether you really love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall follow the Lord, your God, fear Him, keep His commandments, heed His voice, worship Him, and cleave to Him. And that prophet, or that dreamer of a dream shall be put to death; because he spoke falsehood about the Lord, your God Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and Who redeemed you from the house of bondage, to lead you astray from the way in which the Lord, your God, commanded you to go; so shall you clear away the evil from your midst. If your brother, the son of your mother, tempts you in secret or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your embrace, or your friend, who is as your own soul saying, "Let us go and worship other gods, which neither you, nor your forefathers have known." Of the gods of the peoples around you, near to you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; You shall not desire him, and you shall not hearken to him; neither shall you pity him, have mercy upon him, nor shield him. But you shall surely kill him, your hand shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
Let's not forget to mention the fact that God commanded in the Old Testament:
Deuteronomy 4:40 - So you shall keep His statutes and His commandments which I am giving you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may live long on the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time.
Deuteronomy 11:1 - You shall therefore love the Lord your God, and always keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and His commandments.
Deuteronomy 12:28 - Be careful to listen to all these words which I command you, in order that it may be well with you and your sons after you forever, for you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.
Why exactly would these commandments not be binding forever and it be OK for all the Jews, Samaritans and Gentiles to suddenly worship Jesus when the Israelites didn't know Him? Because God clearly commanded His people to only worship Himself only, who saved them from slavery in Egypt.
Why would God say that those commandments are forever if He was going to come back under human form and say: "nevermind all that guys, changed my mind, just believe in Me as your Lord and Saviour and all will be fine (by the way here's a list of very drastic changes to your basic theology that will be further explained to you by non-Jews and now you're all going to go to Hell instead of Heaven if you listen to what I told you before in the Old Testament - get on with the program)". And please note that the place of Hell is a theological concept that came with Jesus - back in Old Testament times, people were simply destroyed.
God spent 1400+ years pounding the idea that He was One, perfect unity (indivisible and incapable of being diluted) into the mind of the Jews, and then the Christians expect them to believe that God said: "Oops, just kidding, I became a man even though that's what I always said I wouldn't or couldn't do! It is now OK to worship a human because it's really Me"!
Then Christians expect the Jews to believe that Jesus was the Messiah God sent to be accepted as an innocent human sacrifice for His people - please note that this is not the Jesus of Revelation riding on a white horse to defeat Satan - He was meant to come as is in the way He is described by... Guess who... John, the Holy Spirit 'Jesus is the only way' disciple, the 'one whom He loved', in Revelation (refer to the verses quoted above). Would God truly be so incapable of forgiving those who had followed Him all through the Old Testament, those whose relationship with Him was in complete contradiction to Jesus, without creating a stumbling block - telling them to suddenly forget everything Moses said, and instead adopt the ideas of the pagans, who had many demigods dying and being reborn and to worship Jesus?
The NT is in Greek, despite the fact that Jesus spoke Aramaic (see Mark, it quotes him speaking Aramaic during his teachings). Jesus probably couldn't even speak Greek. So the only surviving record we have of him left is in Greek, written for a Greek audience (Aramaic phrases translated for their convenience, Jesus is called "the Logos" which is a 100% Greek philosophical idea found only in Greek texts) and calls him the "Son of God", which was likewise a Greek concept (Emperors were called 'sons of God' as well). Couple this with the fact that all quotations of the Old Testament in the NT are from the Greek translation.
The teachings of Christ was somewhat coherent among the three synoptic gospels, but they do not agree at all on the virgin birth, or on the resurrection or ascension. Mark (the earliest gospel) has no virgin birth account, and Luke and Matthew have conflicting accounts and genealogies. All four gospels have different people going to the empty tomb (and Mark just ends at the empty tomb), and had differing accounts of what Christ did after he rose. Even Paul in all his letters does not mention an empty tomb, even when it would have helped his views.
So let's focus on something that is obviously of important significance: What did Jesus say about all of this?
Jesus said to him: "Go, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord, and serve Him only'".
And Jesus said to him: "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone".
But of that day or hour no one knows, not even the Angels in Heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.
Despite the writings of those wishing to paganise Old Testament Judaism and make Christ an idol, bits and pieces of the truth seep through. Christ was a mortal, just like all other humans, and he urged his followers to worship God only, saying: "Jesus answered: "The foremost is, 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is One Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind and strength'". He emphasised to the blind man he healed or the lepers not to go and tell the Pharisees of His deeds, because He did not want to be known as the Son of God.
Let's return to the list of prophecies one more time, now that we have a background understanding:
* The Sanhedrin will be re-established (Isaiah 1:26)
The Sanhedrin (Pharisaic Courthouse) still existed during the lifetime of Jesus, and was dissolved long after His death, and hasn't been reinstated after His death. He is supposed to be crowned King and the leaders of the world would go to him in Jerusalem to ask for guidance. Didn't happen. Hasn't happened since then.
* Once he is King, leaders of other nations will look to him for guidance. (Isaiah 2:4) The whole world will worship the One God of Israel. (Isaiah 2:17)
The whole world is supposed to worship the God of Israel. Didn't happen. Hasn't happened since then.
* Evil and tyranny will not be able to stand before his leadership (Isaiah 11:4)
Didn't happen. Hasn't happened since then. Note that this comes in Revelation.
* Knowledge of God will fill the world (Isaiah 11)
Didn't happen. Hasn't happened since then.
* He will include and attract people from all cultures and nations (Isaiah 11:10)
He is supposed to include and attract people from all nations during his lifetime. He wasn't even able to attract anyone except a handful of ignorant Jews who knew nothing about Judaism or Mosaic law (this is not me being an asshole, that's from the New Testament itself. All of a sudden everyone who was rescued from Egypt and formed Israel was suddenly wrong about God and Moses' teachings became irrelevant).
* All Israelites will be returned to their homeland (Isaiah 11:12)
Didn't happen. Hasn't happened since then.
* Death will be swallowed up forever (Isaiah 25:8)
Death will be swallowed up forever? People are still dying. Didn't happen. Hasn't happened since then.
* There will be no more hunger or illness, and death will cease (Isaiah 25:8)
No more hunger, illness or death? Didn't happen. Hasn't happened since then.
* All of the dead will rise again (Isaiah 26:19)
All the dead will rise again? Didn't happen. Hasn't happened since then.
* The Jewish people will experience eternal joy and gladness (Isaiah 51:11)
The Jews will experience eternal joy and gladness? Didn't happen. Hasn't happened since then.
* He will be a messenger of peace (Isaiah 52)
No religion has shed more blood in History than Christianity, not even Islam gets that title. Didn't happen. Hasn't happened since then.
* Nations will end up recognizing the wrongs they did to Israel (Isaiah 52:13-53:5)
* The peoples of the world will turn to the Jews for spiritual guidance (Zechariah 8:23)
Nations will recognise the wrongs they did to the Jews and turn to them for spiritual guidance? Didn't happen. Hasn't happened since then. Please note that if you are discarding these prophecies you are discarding the Old Testament.
* The ruined cities of Israel will be restored (Ezekiel 16:55)
* Weapons of war will be destroyed (Ezekiel 39)
* The Temple will be rebuilt resuming many of the suspended mitzvot (Ezekiel 40)
* He will then perfect the entire world to serve God together (Zephaniah 3)
What about the ruined cities of Israel being restored or the fact that swords will be turned into ploughshares and there won't be war anymore? Didn't happen. Hasn't happened since then. The Temple still stood when he died, has been destroyed and hasn't be rebuilt. The Messiah is supposed to rebuild the third Temple. Didn't happen. Hasn't happened since then. Sacrifices are supposed to be reinstated in that Temple. Didn't happen. Hasn't happened since then. The world is supposed to be perfected and the whole world is supposed to serve God. Didn't happen. Hasn't happened since then.
* He will give you all the worthy desires of your heart (Psalms 37:4)
* He will take the barren land and make it abundant and fruitful (Isaiah 51:3, Amos 9:13-15, Ezekiel 36:29-30, Isaiah 11:6-9)
He will take barren lands and make them fruitful, give all the worthy desires of your heart. The Negev is still a desert and I don't see people receiving their worthy desires. Didn't happen. Hasn't happened since then.
Most Christians get their beliefs probably from listening to a pastor at a Church, who in turn probably did the same. They believe that Jesus died and rose again, and that He's alive in Heaven now. So He is still alive, in the Christian understanding. Completely ignoring the fact that the OT does not explicitly say that the prophecies didn't have to be fulfilled in the Messiah's Earthly lifetime. Christians assert that the prophecies have been fulfilled, ignoring the majority of them which say He's going to rule over the Earth, and just pass them off by saying: "He's going to come back when the rapture comes" - despite the fact that nowhere in Old Testament prophecy of this concept.
Where does it say in the Old Testament that there is such a thing as the second return. Old Testament prophecies describe what is going to happen once the Messiah is revealed and what will happen to the people who live in his generation. None of the above things happened during the lifetime of Jesus. Christians say: "Well He's just going to come back"! Where does it say that he's going to die and come back in the Old Testament? Nowhere. Please remember that the Gospels were a historical record of Jesus' life, not prophetic books. And please note that a lot of the theology today which dominates mainstream Churches (which, I am reluctant to call theology given that a lot of it is just simply feel good romanticism) all stem from Paul's letters. Now why would Paul teach all these things about Christ and the meaning of His dying as an atonement for our sins, when Jesus Himself never emphasised these things? Pentecostal faith is heavily dependent on the Book of Romans - the whole 'relationship with God' ideology, whereas everything Jesus ever talked about represented good works. So when I hear in Church: "being a Christian is about having a relationship with God, not good works" - this is in fact following Paul's teachings, whereas Jesus often accepted those who knew nothing about God, such as little children, saying the Kingdom of God is theirs, not saying: "without a relationship with Me, you will not get to Heaven".
So, if Jesus is indeed the Messiah and He is going to come back and do what He's supposed to do sometime in the future (Revelation), why are Jews doomed to Hell for rejecting Him when He clearly did nothing He was supposed to do in terms of Old Testament prophecy?
|
Or there is no god! /thread
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
