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As language changes, so new translations become necessary. We don't speak "old English" of King James time, so a new translation is necessary. Various translations are attempted by different groups, which is why there are so many. Ultimately, the original languages convey the truest word, and so many Christian ministers do actually learn those languages - my father being one such person. Islam's Qu'ran (written in Arabic) has various English translations by individuals rather than groups floating around, but then the Qu'ran is considerably smaller than the Bible. [ 01-22-2003, 01:29 AM: Message edited by: Yorick ] |
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Afterthought: Ohh, I've seen a camel do that once, but I had to pay top dollar for the opportunity. Camels that act like elephants don't come cheap you know ;) [ 01-22-2003, 01:57 AM: Message edited by: AzRaeL StoRmBlaDe ] |
As another after thought as well, I think it is unfair to judge it like that in the first place. Basically, because your set of beliefs says that I will go to hell if I don't believe in God, I should believe in it because it is the better of two scenario's? Maybe in my set of beliefs there is one scenario. You die and then that's it. Again there is nothing to prove which theory is right or wrong, but I would already have that belief value in me. Had I already that belief value in me, I would be convinced of it being correct, and therefore, the fact that if believing your religion gave me a 50% chance according to your religion, would have absolutely no bearing on my belief system, because I would to begin with, be convinced that you are completely wrong in your veiw of things, so I would veiw your personal beliefs to that topic as irrelevant, speaking as one that would be an atheist. As an athiest it would be a waste of my time to observe your religion, as I would completely not beleive in it to begin with.
Again I might be losing some people, but if you get me and can explain better please do. basically I am saying that If i was an athiest already, your believes wouldn't hold any value in my culture, thus the initial question would be irrelevant. |
Ah, very interesting thread. I'm always interested in seeing different perspectives on how people view their world.
OK, so here is mine... As an atheist, and thus not believing in the concept of a god, I look forward to being pleasantly surprised when I die and end up in hell. [img]smile.gif[/img] It would be more than what I’m expecting to happen! From all I have seen of the world, I have come to the conclusion that religion does play the important role of keeping people in line to an extent… acting as the ‘glue’ of a society. It provides stability, direction, and instills hope—usually all good things. IMO the creation of the concept of god by humanity is an act of vanity on our part. As humans living on a tiny planet, orbiting an average star, in a small corner of the milky way galaxy, are we not pushing it a bit to make the assumption that we are even remotely significant or unique among the billions and billions and billions of other planets? Well perhaps we aren’t and we really are that special, I don’t know. Perhaps a few centuries from now we will have some more concrete answers. IMO, I just think that believing in a god is just jumping to a premature conclusion. The universe is much more complicated than we give it credit for. |
<font color='white'> I hate to jump in the middle of a disscussion like this and kind of derail it a bit, but it would be kind of senceless to create a whole new topic on it, when there is already one so similar to it.
But anyway, here is another question for Athiest. You know how you always hear people finding Jesus or God, well, if they did infact not exsist what are these people talking about finding? Could millions of people around the world all be finding nothing, but all feel the same way? Seems a bit odd if thats the case doesnt it? You know what I mean? </font> |
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IMO pretty much everything boils down to chemical interactions in our brain (tunnel of light anyone?), Indeed, quite an unromantic notion. |
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[ 01-22-2003, 04:33 AM: Message edited by: Iron_Ranger ] |
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:D |
Well I wouldn't call myself an atheist, I'm not sure what to call it but heck I'll try to explain.
To me religion is a great idea that has been exploited and misused by people to control and keep people in line and while it may not be the cause for war, it has often been used as a excuse to go to war... Not to mention how people use it to prey on the weak to make money of them, teach them bigotry and intollerance("Our God is better than their God!!! Hate them!"). and not to mention the fact their there are so many religions in the world... how on earth can you possibly know which is the right one to follow? Wouldn't it suck to life your life in the name of christ, all your life be as religious as possible and then stand in front of the glorious gate of heaven and Saint Peter says to you... "Oh, sorry but the jews were right...you are going to hell..." Or find your self in front of Vishnu, and he's explaining to you why it's a good thing you have to go back as a dungbeetle..." So to wrap up... I got no problem with the concept, just how people misuse it. [ 01-22-2003, 04:41 AM: Message edited by: Jorath Calar ] |
I figured it out now. There IS a god and his name is money. Money rules all, and people pray so that they may have it.
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Can you make something which has enough incentive, choice, volition and emotion to love, destroy itself, build or create.</font>[/QUOTE]But there is no proof of God existing. It has been proven that the universe was created by the Big Bang. All these people who have said they have seen Jesus or God and they have healed them, how do we know that these people weren't delirious or on drugs? And how do we know that there IS such a place called Heaven? I have been to religious classes when I was younger just to see what they were like. I found many of the stories interesting and some believable. There COULD have been a person called Jesus who healed people but I think that people may have made up alot of stuff. I also think that many people belive in God as a security thing. They don't know HOW the Earth was created so they say God did it etc. They so that after you die you go to Heaven because no-one KNOWS what happens.... This is just my opinion..... (Sorry for all the spelling mistakes..I typed this really fast! And I can't be bothered to change them) [img]tongue.gif[/img] [ 01-22-2003, 04:55 AM: Message edited by: GokuZool ] |
I agree with you Gokuzool. You can also describe Jesus and his followers as some kind of cult, i think the Romans did that.
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The answer to both is Answers. Answers to every question any given person will ever ask or think about throughout the course of his/her entire life (and they will ask a lot). Humans have a desire to understand every detail of every minor aspect of their lives or their surroundings. It is a sad fact that there is not a single human who has ever lived that is qualified to answer all our questions. The sum knowledge of all the world's civilisations still falls short of answering the least of our great quandries. We are advancing in knowledge at an alarmingly fast pace but we simply cannot accept the fact that we will never know the answers to all our questions. Can't we just leave it at that? Hell no. We have to turn to an imaginary higher being and ask it our questions. And when we don't get any answers we have to make them up ourselves and supplant them as accepted fact. And put them into print and mass produce them and distribute them so that everybody can share in this wonderful naivete that has brought meaning to an otherwise meaningless existence. And when we find that other humans just like us have already invented their own Answer to the questions of life, it offends us. It makes us angry that another does not accept our version of the truth. It makes us wrathful that our own version of the truth is belittled and holds less meaning in light of the new Answer. So what do we do? We take up arms and go to war on behalf of our Answer. And in so doing, we contradict everything that it stood for and destroy any chance it ever had of providing bliss with acceptance rather than ignorance. You are a human. You are a wonderfully complicated bundle of flesh and blood; chemicals and electricity; senses and reactions; thoughts and feelings. You are going to ask a lot of questions in your lifetime and, if you're smart enough, you'll realise that there is no single human or collaboration of humans that can answer all of them. You're going to have to get on with life by applying logic and reasoning to your questions and incorporating facts with your beliefs as you learn them. Life is not meaningless. Even without an Answer, your life will be full of amazing experiences. Do you really need to Know to be able to enjoy them? Are you going to enjoy/experience more by subscribing to someone elses Answer? Are you incapable of thinking for yourself? Two of my favorite unanswered questions. |
where does it say that if you dont believe in god you dont get into heaven? way i see it even saddam hussein gets a chance [img]tongue.gif[/img] (believes in a different religion and is an evil psycho) , heaven seems to let just about anyone in so long as they repent, and if your standing outside heaven then you'd probably be pretty heartfelt in your repenting. IF there is a heaven and IF it follows what the bible says then you pretty much guaranteed to get in, unless your evil and have no care for anyone else, if you live a good life thats far more important than believing in god, if god is what hes said to be then which would he prefer? would god prefer you to live a good life and not believe or would he prefer you to lead a terrible life whilst being very religious? im 100% that i believe god would choose the former and would let you into heaven regardless of your faith.
reason to your original question vaskez that i dont go with the guaranteed win/win situation is that a) i dont believe at all so would be hypocritical to do so, and surely if god is all power he'd know i was lying about really believing, so what would be the point? b) even if a god did appear in front of me and started telling me things, id be highly suspicious for one, and for two i wouldnt feel like i owe ANYTHING to him, its my life, i lived it and i shaped it, so what i do is my business. c) IMO life is about living it to the full, its a simple as that, you get your life then it ends, do what you can in between. d) you can only ask your original question because you believe in christianity, forget atheists, what about every other religion? they all believe something different, should they believe every other religion just to have a great afterlife? it doesnt work like that... the best thing i saw is in the film the Mummy where that weaslly guy is confronted by the mummy for the first time, he goes through about 5 or so religions (he has the religious symbols around his neck), talk about hedging your bets [img]smile.gif[/img] so effectively he believes in all of those religions, he cant lose then surely, whatever way it goes he gets in? Thats basically what your saying with your original point, its not about what you believe in, its about your actions in life that define your faith, as i said before, if there really was a god that would be what he cares about, not how devout you are.... |
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Another example: I went on holiday this summer to Chersonnisos (Creta) with some friends. One of the guys got a psychosis attack in the hotel one of the last days (he had to spend the rest of the holiday in the psychiatric hospitol and go with a special plane home :( ). He dearily believed what he saw was reall, he thought he was being haunted by a ghost and that the ghost tried to invade him. There were a lot of matters which made out clear that it was not true, but he himself believed in it, which made it so convincing. It all comes back to what you want to believe in that moment. |
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More or less (I didn't read this topic... so this MAY have been said... ;) ) |
Vask, people can force themselves to believe lots of things, which they will actually truly start to believe in the end. Now, if someone started to believe in God because (s)he's "got nothing to lose and everything to gain" wouldn't that 1. be one of the worst reasons to start believing 2. be a completely hypocritical and unreal faith? I've always thought people believed in God because they truly experienced his presence at some point in their life. That to me is the way you can truly become a believer. I absolutely agree that atheists have just as little or as much proof about the existence of God. But it's a big step to go from accepting that there's no proof God DOESN'T exist to actually truly believing in him. I don't think that's the way to go about it. You don't decide to become religious, all you can do is open yourself to the possibility and faith is something that will have to come from the heart, not the head.
Dagorion, you mentioned one of my pet peeves... that the Muslim God is called Allah by Westerners (and non Arabic-speaking Muslims as well for that matter). (warning, radical opinion following) I feel this is a terribly stupid thing to do, and in some cases may even be done to widen the gap between Christians and Muslims. When translating something like "Allah Akbar", from a linguistic point of view it's just WRONG to translate Akbar into English but not Allah. Allah means God! Christians who speak Arabic pray to Allah! They pray to the Christian God, the word for whom is "Allah". I often hear people talk about how Muslims did this or that because "Allah wanted it", in a derogatory or conspiratorial tone. That's deliberately increasing and encouraging the feeling of the Muslim's "Otherness" that many people secretly already have. If you speak Arabic, call God Allah, regardless of whether you mean "the Christian one" or "the Islamic one". When you speak another language, call God whatever God is called in that language, no matter which one you mean. Will that cause confusion?? I don't think so. After all, it IS the same word for the same thing. Whew... I have to stop going off on these offtopic rants.... not good [img]redface.gif[/img] BTW... pssst, Hugh? I think you mean Lebensraum (Space to live) rather than Lebenstraum (dream of life) ;) |
hmmm most muslims i know use both god and allah sometimes in the same speeches, theres no difference, and again most people i know are well aware that god is god, though try telling both religions that they worship the same god thats when things go pearshaped.
the reason allah has got bad connotations for some westerners is that alot of bad things were done in the name of allah, the reason god has a bad connotation for some muslims is that alot of bad things were done in the name of god [img]tongue.gif[/img] ahhh religion is a funny old game [img]tongue.gif[/img] |
I'm an agnostic... I need proof...
And I think that having some higher power is not all that great a thing. I think that all these rules in religion would not be what a GOOD god would command... for example... not being able to eat certain animals in the Muslim and Jewish (and probably more) religions... what kind of NICE guy would set such rules... and fasting... etc etc. Such fanaticism is too me a reason against religion... if i was to believe, then I would maybe agree to some or all of the commandments (or equivalent) as a way of living... but not to go that far... religion is meant to be a good thing to make you feel protected by a higher power or something like that... not so that you spend your life doing penance for every bad thought that you ever had... so that you can be rewarded in this life... My view is the opposite pragmatism... Why believe and adhere to rules just tso that you will have a nice afterlife that way not exist... better to enjoy yourslef in what you KNOW exists... Just my two cents... not meaning to offend people... I'm probably wrong or not expressing myself how i want to anyway... :D |
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There's also an Internet site of a guy called Jack Chick, that proclaims similar stuff. No matter how good you think you are, even religious, the only thing that will get you into heaven is "accepting Jesus as your saviour". Needless to say I think this is a terrible belief (no offense of course!). Just think what heaven will look like! Any murderer who truly repents his crime and gives himself up to God can be redeemed, but not someone who gave all their earthly possessions away to the poor, who lived an exemplary life, did similar things saints did, but never really decided about God one way or the other will go to hell. Judging purely by the respective populations, I don't know whether hell is worse than heaven in this scenario. But anyway, nuance, nuance, most Christians I know do not hold this belief. [ 01-22-2003, 07:17 AM: Message edited by: Melusine ] |
callum your pointing out the difference between religion (what god would say) and culture (what people intepret it as and live) people are continually making that big mistake, fasting and all of that, doesnt help anything IMO and is a waste of time, it doesnt make people believe more. Rules and regulations were originally set out in the long distance past (allegedly) by god, anything made more recently in the last 1000 years or so is completely human in design, not eating pork for example for muslims and jews (for muslims the reason for not eating pork was pork went bad before other meats so was seen to be unclean so now its meant to be totally abhorrent to eat it, but early muslims happily ate pork) and for jews its because it has the cloven hoof, supposedly of the devil, again this is a more recent thing, the devil and cloven hooves and all that is more current folklore (by current i mean after the original sort of ten commandments time [img]tongue.gif[/img] so not all that current) with hindus at least i can understand why they dont eat cows, they held them sacred from the start of the religion, so thats more understandable, but all the other stuff wasnt from the beginning, and i hate it when muslims come into my home and open the windows etc because of the smell of my lunch (pork chops being one of my favourites [img]tongue.gif[/img] ) the strength of their reaction is amazing especially considering their ancestors happily chowed down on pig back in the day, theres just no good reason for it nowadays.
so totally agree with you callum, thats all about pragmatism & culture and not belief at all. |
Callum, I think I know what you mean and I agree, why hold on to something you don't know for sure is there.
Also, people use god as a reason to why we are here. Then what is that reason, to amuse him? I have as much fun here in my life as someone with believe, and I'm probably for the same reason here. |
OMG dont even mention that jack chick guy, he is a religious nutter, no offense but i read his site, its posted as a joke site on some forums, took me a while before i realised he was actually serious, (i am remembering rightly this is the one with the (not so)comic strips?)
and yeah it is a terrible belief that you can be evil as you want through your life then turn round and say oh yes i truly regretted all of it and get into heaven, just because you believe? what a load of bollax frankly [img]tongue.gif[/img] i definately say, if god has a filtering policy on heaven, hes going to let in people who are intrinsically good, not those who pray to him alot, from all i have read in the bible and elsewhere, god doesnt really care anymore if you believe in him (after jesus died not before) all your sins are taken care of, but he does want you to lead a good life if you expect to get into heaven, regardless of your faith. Thats the way i intepret things, so if i did believe in all that then id expect to get into heaven because i believe im a good person, even though i dont believe in god [img]tongue.gif[/img] |
Uh, that's not exactly what I meant... but it may also have something to do with the fact that your posts are just very difficult to read. A little punctuation hasn't killed anyone yet that I know of mate ;) :D
Oh and yes, Chick's the one with the comics. [ 01-22-2003, 07:28 AM: Message edited by: Melusine ] |
Exactly, that is what it is all about, living your life good, without because god told you so, but because you really want to and you really are like that.
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exactly irongrinder, thats the way i see things, keeps it simple, and why should i be a hypocrite, when i believe that being good, showing love etc far outweighs anything religion can offer, its the tenants of religion without the paraphenalia.
punctuation? whats that then? [img]tongue.gif[/img] my posts are always straight off and typed before i think unfortunately, i could always reread them and punctuate properly and paragraph, but im lazier than an unemployed sloth [img]smile.gif[/img] |
Bloody hell, this thread's escalated a bit. I've scanned all the posts, not read in great detail as there's too much.
Anyway, all the old arguments have come out. Personally I can shoot all of them down in a way to convince myself but that's not the question here. Thing people have to realise about me, is that I'm not out to convince anybody of anything. I simply believe things that I am convinced of by a mixture of logic and inner feeling. The fact is I really don't see where some people get their beliefs. I mean I'm no genius or expert on anything but some of the arguments just seem ridiculous to me. I'm just here to learn what makes people tick that's why I'm asking these questions. Main points: 1) The idea that we are here for no particular purpose, that we are just insignificant beings floating in an uncaring world to live and to die and for no other reason just seems laughable to me. Look at EVERTHING in the world we know. EVERYTHING happens for a reason, every damn thing, even if we don't see the reason. Look at the perfect logic and pattern in nature. Scientists for thousands of years have been trying to work the world out. From biology chemistry and physics points of view. Each new discovery amazes them and how the world is built up. It all had to come from somewhere, Even scientists admit that just for the atoms to come together to form life the chance is like 10^-31 which is an unimaginably small chance. Then we haven't even spoken of where the very first matter came from. The only explanation is that it came from something that was there before it right? But where does that thing come from? Etc. Only an infinite thing BEYOND OUR COMPREHENSION can exist for ever. Therefore call it what you want. Some people say that the universe, the lifeless atoms created themselves or were always there. Bollocks. Everything except something that is infinite has an end and a beginning. Atoms are not infinite. Only something that understands infinity, i.e. has an infinite mind can create infinity. THere must be such a thing. We call it a God. 2) I'm no Bible basher. I don't even read it regularly and see most of it as symbolic, my belief that there is a God is completely seperate from the issue of whether I'm a Christian or not. People should see this as a seperate issue. Religion can only be based on past teachings and a feeling. The existance of a God can be based on logic (as in 1) that logic satisfies me) and feeling. 3) The point that religions cause war is also complete bollocks as Yorick has nicely pointed out. If the people fighting in the name of Christianity or Islam ever took notice of their own religion's teachings, they'd realise that all religions teach peace and love your neighbour. They give false reasons based on religions for their wars. Some people may THINK they are fighting in the name of their religion and their God is smiling on them but the chances are they have been misled in the name of religion. The Christian God at least never says war is good. These people I suppose can be said to be fighting because of religion but they are misled and it is not the religion itself's fault but the fault of the leader who misled them. The real cause, as Yorick said, is money etc. And the common argument that even the Bible says "eye for an eye" is invalid. People don't realise that that is in the Old Testament and the New Testament overrides and supercedes the Old Testament. The New Testament says love your neighbour. Think about that if you want to use the Bible in an argument. 4) People who believe that they are fine just by living a good moral life: this is all well and good but if you just admit the possibility that the Bible is true then it's not good enough. Like I said if you admit the possibility then you'd be stupid to just be satisfied with that. If you don't admit the possibility that the Bible is true then you I guess it's good enough for you. But then think about the point in 1) If you then admit the possibility that there is a God you must also admit the possibility that he gave his word in a book. Therefore all you have to decide is which book it is. Bible, Q'uran? Those 2 are pretty similar anyway and contain some of the same teachings. I have no argument to say that one religion is better than the other. I believe that the muslim God is the same as the Christian one, but as people have said, they are interpreted differently by different people. 5) People who share their beliefs with others do so because they believe that they are right and are happy and wish to share their happiness. They do not want to tell you their beliefs and convince you because they are arrogant and think your beliefs are stupid, rather, they love you as a brother/sister and as such want to do whatever they belive they need to to help you and make you happy. Some preachers can be bloody annoying, I admit and they are wrong to condemn everyone else, these are not the people you should listen to. The ones you should listen to are like Yorick who sees you as a friend and equal and just shows an honest will to make people happy in the way he knows best. If you do not want anyone's "help" because you are fine as you are then ok, but there's no need to be angry at nice people who think they are giving up their free time to help a brother. 6) People who have thought about this a lot and are happy in their belief that there is no God. Good for you if you are content and happy. I don't believe you are right because of logic in 1), the question that can a billion Christians be completely misled etc.? You might say they can be misled I mean, hey, they all believed that the world was flat in the middle ages. But, as so many people have said, you can make people do things but you can't make them FEEL and KNOW in their heart the presence of a God. You can't force faith. Also there is somewhat of a feeling inside me that plays a part of course, we of course you can't explain. Other aruments exist which are convincing to me: would we really have come about/been created with a need for food if there was no food? A need for sex if there was no sex? A need for God if there was no God? You might say that you don't feel a need for God. Of course, it might not be as strong as a "need" but I don't think that there is any person alive who has not by him/herself at least considered the possibility of a greater being? Why is this? Phew that's all my thoughts I could come up with now. Hope you found them logical/helpful. [ 01-22-2003, 09:23 AM: Message edited by: Vaskez ] |
The fact that God wouldn´t exist can never be proved wrong. There is no method to do it, we just have to trust our own judging that god doesn´t exist because evolution has no place for something like God. The theory of evolution gives answers to the questions you might have about the little miracles of life. It cannot explain all the things, but then what could? Therefore I think being atheist is good for your mental health & sense of reality.
Sorry I didn´t have time and patience to read through all answers, in case someone has pointed this out already. EDIT: Check below for original. [ 01-22-2003, 08:21 AM: Message edited by: NiceWorg ] |
About point 3
It is also about believe. For the leaders who start the war not, for them the reason is money, power and who knows what else. But for the people fighting the fight (the suicide bombers, the people hating each other next door in Northern Ireland) the reason is in many cases religion and not money, because they hardly see anything from the money but believe in what their leaders tell them about their believe and the opponents believe. So without their believing who would fight for the leaders? [ 01-22-2003, 08:13 AM: Message edited by: Irongrinder ] |
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Everyone returning to the thread, please read my attempted summary and thoughts a few posts up. It's the bloody long post :D [ 01-22-2003, 08:19 AM: Message edited by: Vaskez ] |
forget humans, what about amoeba? they have feelings too [img]tongue.gif[/img] (well maybe not but who knows what animals, bacteria, etc believe in) why are they not mentioned? whats their purpose on the planet? to get into heaven? no its not, their purpose is to procreate, eat and die and so on. Why are people so egocentric that they think everything is about the human race, the human race is insignificant we are one tiny miniscule part in this galaxy let alone the universe, theres probably billions of lifeforms out there, all who have different beliefs. Using the human race as the only example without consideration of other lifeforms i find to be not taking the bigger picture.
why does there HAVE to be a purpose for me on this planet? i dont feel like asking or answering that question, far as im concerned im here, why care why? im here, im going to enjoy my life and then hopefully if my personal beliefs come true im going to have an afterlife of sun, sea, sand, sex, etc [img]smile.gif[/img] i dont even care "why am i here" a dog doesnt question why its on the planet, a human does, that says to me a human is more evolved and more intelligent but also becaue they are more complex they need questions like that to stop them going insane, a dog has no such troubles, what that DOESNT mean is that there "has" to be a reason for everything. one thing i noticed that you did not address and seem to be avoiding is the original point about getting into heaven, id like to know your responses to that. plenty of religions DO put forward war as a good thing, just not mainstream ones. and in the past almost all religions considered war a good thing, its just changed in recent centuries. Didnt want to mention it again, but look at the crusades, knight templars etc are a religious order, fighting for god etc. But its all in the past now and not relevant today, just dont make a statement that all religions arent about war, cos thats untrue, some are and some were. You dont think 1 billion people can be misled!?!?! are you mad [img]tongue.gif[/img] , were HUMAN we believe way too much, if tv told people something you'd get a billion people believing it quickly if it sounded plausible enough, in the middle ages almost every person on the planet KNEW the world was flat, so erm yes 1 billion people can easily be misled or wrong. as for need, well need is need, but why it should come from a higher power i still dont see your argument at all, need comes from instinct, whether that instinct was created by a higher power or just by a simple reaction to your environment, well its far more plausible that its environment and not a higher power. Your trying to talk about things in terms of whats plausible and that just doesnt work, everyone can prove either way whats plausible or not , and thats an unwinnable argument. But i do still want to know exactly why god would let saddam hussein in if he repented but wouldnt let mother teresa in if she professed not to believe in him? If i know anything about god he'd let mother teresa in and saddam would find himself with a severly scorched backside. |
evolution does allow a place for god, theres plenty of christians who believe in evolution too, afterall its easy to just say god designed evolution and has an ultimate purpose that were evolving into.
thats the "great" thing about religion, you can get it to mean anything you like. |
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Vaskez, about point 6: Why is this? Because people always need something to hang on to, that's in our nature. I myself keep options open, but need proof to believe in it. It would be interesting to know why we are here and if there really is a god, but in my opinion I don't see what that would help me live my life right.
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Very interesting thread!
I'm an atheist. I simply don't believe. There is no way I could force myself to, and it would feel as though I was compromising my own beliefs to try. If it turns out that I'm wrong, there won't be a lot I can do about it. I do find that it is an interesting question about the identity of God/Allah/multitudinous ancient gods. I have many muslim friends, and when they talk about god to someone English, they use the word God. When they talk to other non-English muslims, they use the word Allah. They are clear that the Christian and Muslim gods are one and the same, and use the appropriate term depending on who they are speaking to. The main difference is that muslims do not believe that Jesus was the son of God, but another prophet, albeit a less important one than Mohammed. Another interesting point, neo-druidism was originally a break-away from Christianity. They believed in God, but came to the conclusion that he was one of many ancient Gods (I believe they decided that he was most likely to have been worshipped by the ancient Egyptians as the Sun-god and creator, Ra). This viewpoint was obviously irreconcileable with Christianity since it accepted the existence of other gods and goddesses, so the neo-druidic groups split from the Church, while retaining their belief in God, but calling him by a different name. [ 01-22-2003, 08:35 AM: Message edited by: Epona ] |
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