If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above.
You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed.
To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.
Politics & ReligionWell Since every damn forum has one. Might as well leave it out there. This place is loosely moderated and should not be entered if you're weak of heart.
i only believe in hopes that jesus will turn all my water into wine and i can get drunk
but seriously, ive been a non believer for like 4 years, i think it's something that people use to help them with their lives, thats fine but that's not for me
i never understood why an all knowing, all loving god would create something he knows will fail or cause harm to others. murderes, rapists, deaths from nature..etc. the easy explaination is that everything can't be so easy all the time. my explaination is that shit happens and you gotta deal with it.
__________________
'88 FZR1000 - sounds like a lawnmower
Now this is a thread that I have really enjoyed reading. This topic I have put a lot of thought in to over the years. This is what I have come up with so far, Faith is believing is something that you have no hard facts to prove. Religion is the system to teach the guide lines, history, values, and customs of a given group. You don't need to goto the church, temple, moss, or the synagog to have faith. Now saying that I will tell you that I am not, nor have ever been part of any religious group. Religions have a lot of power, and power has and always had a way to corrupting, so your doubts are well founded. In my life I have been invited and have gone to many, Christen, Catholic, and Jewish services, some I have found mine numbing boring and some were fantastic. In general the message is pretty much the same if not for the way it is preached. For me I believe there is something of a higher power, call it god or by any other name that works for you.
I do not believe in organized religion, but I do believe in a higher power. A good portion of the reason I don't believe in "religion" is this: I think EVERYONE that claims some religious faith is essentially believing in the same God. By that I mean I think Buddha & Jesus are one in the same, the Christian version of God & Allah are the same, etc. How can 7/8 of the world's population be wrong? I think God appears to different people differently, in order to provide them with the means of believing in what they can relate to.
I just cannot support or defend those that would preach that their God is the "right" God, or their religion is the only "real" one. My faith is just that, MY faith. I cannot prove my God, neither can anyone else, so who am I to tell someone else their God is wrong, mine is right?
__________________
I don't know who the hell this Murphy guy is, but he can take his laws and shove them up his
Growing up my parents tried to send me to sunday school, youth groups, get books, and go to church every sunday to teach me about christianity. I am not sure what to believe now, maybe its the way i'll always be or just something coming along with my age. I'd like to beleive in a higher being, but w/ so many religions touting that there the one to trust, and any other you're gonna die and go to hell believing in it, which one do you choose? Sometimes I look at the old people at work and see that they don't have much time left, and I lie in bed at night and wonder what happens when my time comes and its makes me confused trying to understand it. I wonder why a "higher being" would love or care for us. In the relative timeline of earth's beginning to end put in the timeframe of 100 years, I think human existence would be a mere 10th of a second. I think human existence has been marked with more destruction then creation, why would anything care about us?
I don't think anyone can claim to have all the answers--but we can all try. The real challenge is to not feel threatened when others offer contradictory ideas.
One of my great loves in this life is to rationalize and come up with logical arguments for anything--more often than not, the less popular opinion. I find it quite enjoyable to find and fortify arguments for or against any topic. Unfortunately, there is very little that can be logically argued for the existence of a god--and that's likely just as much a blessing as it is a curse.
Anyway, I'm still rather tired from having pulled an all-nighter, but here are some thoughts.
---
Lets, first, assume the existence of a god who is perfect. As such, he would be implicitly correct, and therefore his will could never waver--as any change in his will would be telling of imperfection. If he communicated, he would have to, in suit, always communicate perfectly--that is to say, in exact accordance to his unwavering will, and what he said would not change from person to person--but rather from situation to situation.
As this perfect and thus unwavering being, could this god be called sentient? Could a being with a perfect, completely rigid will have thoughts and emotions to go with them? What is there to think about, after achieving perfection? To that which is perfect and complete, no further thought is required. This would leave god completely lacking personality--nothing but a cosmic will that is in some way perfect and complete, or a non-perfect being, which we have already assumed is not the case.
Furthermore, consider that having a perfect will would also require a perfect knowledge of all that is, has been, and will be. This is a commonly portrayed trait of god, making him an omniscient being who knows what will be--thus making his will being perfect possible. This serves only to further de-humanize him, though, as it would reduce his role to nothing more than what some call 'fate.'
---
As for what I believe, I believe that I don't have all the answers, and can't be expected to. In religion's stead, I simply live life by a set of morals and standards and refuse to waver from them, no matter what the circumstance.
I was raised Catholic -- spent 12 years in Catholic school and know plenty about the Bible, and religion in general. To me, accepting those teachings doesn't amount to anything more than blind faith. Nobody ever showed me anything provable or observable to back up anything that they were preaching. I never had a personal religious experience, like some of you say you have had. I'm an atheist today because I've seen nothing that leads me to believe anything to the contrary is true. The idea that when you die, you go to heaven to continue your existance is certainly more appealing to me than simply becoming worm food, however I can't fool myself into really believing that is what is going to happen.
I certainly HAVE done the research, and I've come up empty. I don't think you need to "believe" in science -- nobody needs to ask me to believe in gravity because I can easily observe it's effects every day. Even theoretical science (evolution, the big bang, most of quantum physics, etc) is grounded in hard evidence -- while the current theory of evolution may not be completely correct, at least we have seen things that led us to draw a logical conclusion. I don't think that there is any evidence out there that points to the existance of an all-powerful deity watching over us.
Again, just my 2 cents.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tony824
I believe in Jesus today, and the teachings of the Bible.
The non-believer will always say, "show me God, and I wiill believe" while the believer will say, "believe in God, and he will reveal himself to you." I would post more but Troy already covered everything.
I was antheist before, but that was what I considered blind faith. I grew up believing in evolution, science, the whole nine yards. God? Pleh...... rubbish. There was abosolutely no way that I thought I would be Christian today. Without getting in depth into my testimoney, I encourage anyone that before they come to a conclusion, do some research. Information is out there if you're willing to look.
I was watching a TV show awhile back about identical twins that were separated at birth. They went on to live their own separate lives, only to be reunited many years later. A scientific study was commissioned to study how the twins minds worked, and what the similarities were. Not surprisingly, a overwhelming % of the twins had the same types of jobs, like the same music, and danced the same way, etc. The surprising fact was that a overwhelming % also practiced the same religion, even when they were living in totally different countries, in some cases where the predominate religion was different.
Now, religion is all about the power of choice. If your 'good' and believe in the right 'GOD' you go to heaven, get 50 virgins, whatever. However if you don't believe in the right 'GOD' you go to Hell, no 50 virgins, and pretty much are screwed, regardless of how well you lived your life.
Now, the question is... what if we really don't have a choice? What if our belief choices are predetermined by our genetic makeup? That would be a pretty unfair way to go to hell because my genetic makeup was already written for me not to believe in the right invisible man. If we have no -real- choice how can 'GOD send us to hell because we made no real decisions in our belief structure?
