Quote: And I also don't hate you for believing, as I said. You can't really help it, and I outlined why I think that is (psychologically)... not believing is a more daring step, one most people wouldn't and don't want to take. Losing that comfort blanket can be rough... that's not the whole of it of course, but it's certainly a big part.
But that's not necessarily true, about not being able to help it. I'm sure I've said on several occasions that I was very much an athiest, or at the very least agnostic for most of my life. Really, all of it except the last three years or so. It was then that I went through what was probably the roughest period of my life, and it was then that I realized that atheism did nothing for me. I believe that God got me through that period of rotten times and my life's been pretty damned good ever since. Did God, the great invisible deity, really have anything to do with little old me? I believe so, because when I denied God, my life was at best, without meaning. I won't say God is the only reason I live, but I think He has helped me find my meaning in life and to improve myself. I am a much better human being than I was three years ago. You will disagree, you might even say it was my own determination to improve myself that is responsible. I don't think I could have done it alone, because I never was able to. :)
Anyway, that's why I respect your non-belief, because you're like me: I don't care if everyone else believes (or doesn't). Believers who act like Darunia, on the other hand, were the missionaries, crusaders and inquisitors. And with the exception of the passive missionaries, no one has much good to say about those kinds of people.
I say, let me believe what I want and I'll extend you the same courtesy. When you write long posts about why my belief is bullshit, you're not convincing me at all, you are simply trying to affirm your own disbelief, and you can do that in private. :)
I never denied that there is some power in belief. Like as I said, disease... oh often it doesn't help but it can make a difference. Now that isn't necessarially religious belief, but it most often is... or (as your example shows) it helps with guidance... now I'd argue that often that isn't good guidance, but much of that is opinion (however much I disagree with said opinions). I'm no psychologist or anything but you say that you came back to god or something and your life improved... i don't know, mental state? Certainly sounds reasonable to me based on that...
Quote:Anyway, that's why I respect your non-belief, because you're like me: I don't care if everyone else believes (or doesn't). Believers who act like Darunia, on the other hand, were the missionaries, crusaders and inquisitors. And with the exception of the passive missionaries, no one has much good to say about those kinds of people.
I say, let me believe what I want and I'll extend you the same courtesy. When you write long posts about why my belief is bullshit, you're not convincing me at all, you are simply trying to affirm your own disbelief, and you can do that in private.
I'm not trying to convert you, because I know you'd never listen... just trying to say what I see as why belief in deities is a major factor in human existance... and that is obviously a major historical and psychological question that I'd say is interesting, which is why I wrote some long posts on it. It wasn't just for you or anything. :)
Oh, and I don't like it when people try to push their religion onto others, as I have said before. Feel free to believe what you want but I don't want it pushed on to me... but we've been over that one several times before. What is funny is how when I say it about Bush talking about God you act offended but when you say it about me talking about how to explain away religion, you take it as sensible... :)
First off, I also believe in freedom of speech and religion----and in as much, I'll respect Weltall for not reading after this paragraph and letting this conversation die as is. I won't think anything of it.
On another note, I believe that atheism should be pressed onto people because it's like seeing a child trying to do a math problem. He has the wrong answer. Do you correct it for him, or just walk by, and let him get it wrong? Furthermore, I believe that if all of humanity got rid of wasteful spending and time on religious pursuits, humanity could evolve at a lightning pace--and that perhaps in just a few generations, with all of humanity and our resources properly utilized, we could be journeying to the stars, or living to be 200, and seeing out gr-gr-gr-gr-great grandchilden before our own life spans end. To me---who has no hope of life beyond death or salvation, prolonging life is the ultimate goal of humanity.
It was then that I went through what was probably the roughest period of my life, and it was then that I realized that atheism did nothing for me. I believe that God got me through that period of rotten times and my life's been pretty damned good ever since.
Seems like the boogey man under the bed or in the closet---he's only there for you if you believe in him.
[/b]Did God, the great invisible deity, really have anything to do with little old me? I believe so, because when I denied God, my life was at best, without meaning.[/b]
To the extent of my beliefs, life IF without meaning---we're only here to reproduce and die. Just really advance microbes. We have no divine mission or anything of that sort. It's really depressing and sad--which is why atheism isn't so popular. People believe what they want to believe.
Quote:On another note, I believe that atheism should be pressed onto people because it's like seeing a child trying to do a math problem. He has the wrong answer. Do you correct it for him, or just walk by, and let him get it wrong? Furthermore, I believe that if all of humanity got rid of wasteful spending and time on religious pursuits, humanity could evolve at a lightning pace--and that perhaps in just a few generations, with all of humanity and our resources properly utilized, we could be journeying to the stars, or living to be 200, and seeing out gr-gr-gr-gr-great grandchilden before our own life spans end. To me---who has no hope of life beyond death or salvation, prolonging life is the ultimate goal of humanity.
You certaintly aren't asking for very much.
Quote:On another note, I believe that atheism should be pressed onto people because it's like seeing a child trying to do a math problem. He has the wrong answer. Do you correct it for him, or just walk by, and let him get it wrong? Furthermore, I believe that if all of humanity got rid of wasteful spending and time on religious pursuits, humanity could evolve at a lightning pace--and that perhaps in just a few generations, with all of humanity and our resources properly utilized, we could be journeying to the stars, or living to be 200, and seeing out gr-gr-gr-gr-great grandchilden before our own life spans end. To me---who has no hope of life beyond death or salvation, prolonging life is the ultimate goal of humanity.
Wow.
Well, for one thing, you're not 'correcting someone who is wrong'. You're forcing your opinion on people who don't share it. You are forcing your belief on people who believe otherwise. That isn't correcting anything, when, to me, you're as wrong as you claim me to be.
Furthermore, humanity HAS evolved at a lightning pace over the last hundred years. Religion has had very little to do with it, bad or good. Technology has reached the point where such rapid advancement is possible.
Upon reading that website I'm suddenly reminded of episode #23 of Cowboy Bebop.
The one with Brain Scratch? Didn't work out too well, if I remember. And it was controlled by a comatose teenager. :D
Anyway, I think a lot of what I read about the Transhumanists seem like they want to live in a Star Trek novel. They are way too idealist. They believe, to some form, that they can branch out entirely seperate and become a race of supermen, essentially. One referred to them becoming as "the Greek Gods".
It all sounds very lovely, but I think it's going to stay on the pages of sci-fi novels. I believe their goals of bettering people through technology is wonderful, however, that is inevitable. One needs only to compare us in 2004 to people of 1904. Lifespans have nearly doubled. We've been to the moon and touched the stars. We can do things that people a hundred years ago could never begin to imagine. And yet, we did it all without a profound cultural change. The real future will likely differ a bit from their vision of a utopia, but at least from the technological side of things, we're on our way there. It may not happen as fast as they'd like, but it's inevitable that we will get there, and it probably won't take very long.
Yes, some of that stuff is pretty whack---but I myself am all for the branches off extending longevity, and reaching for the stars. I wouldn't be opposed to many things in there, actually.
Lifespans have nearly doubled.
I know that's popular legend, but from the best of my knowledge, that's greatly exaggerated. I've compiled a magnificent genealogical database, and at least MY ancestors' lifespans weren't half what they are today. I see my gr-gr-gr-great grandparents, excluding mishaps, living to seventies, eighties and nineties on average. While we do live longer today, I'd attribute that average to more about a decade or two better than 1904. Most of the lower life expectancies back then were owing to accidents, just like the rampid AIDs in Ethiopia brings their life expectancy down to, what, 38 is it now?
Quote:The one with Brain Scratch?
That's the one.
Weltall, when you consider life expectancy there is one key thing: infant mortality rate. Now, it is absolutely true that more people live longer than ever before now. But the numbers are skewed even higher because most infants live. In the past life expectancy was cut a lot by how so many infants died young...
Still, you're right that we've advanced a lot in the last century. And that Darunia's idea there is idealistic and not especially realistic... I don't see how getting rid of religion would cause some great improvement in human thought and condition. Maybe it's because I'm cynical but I don't have much respect for the greatness of human nature... people are stupid and will do dumb things. They'd just replace it with something else stupid. :)
If people stopped living in fantasy worlds wherein they didn't fear death as well they should, they'd probably world more fervently towards prolonging their lives, and improving our temporary existence. I fervently believe that...many people don't feel the need (as in many religious people don't think we should go into space), because their religion and it's teachings conflict with it. Remove the religion, and your remove the conflict. This leaves only room to grow.
Obviously it's a generalization, and with most people it wouldn't make a difference, but I believe that in many cases, technology would advance faster if people were more motivated.
Religion is hardly restricting human development. It has sparked some of humanity's greatest achievements. One needs only to remember how much of the art of the Renaissance was influenced by religion, or to view the beautiful cathedrals, mosques, and some of the giant Buddha statues to know.
Religion is like almost everything else man practices: It has good and bad traits. It has been used for great evil and for great good. It can just as easily inspire creativity, reason, and morality in a person as it can hatred and intolerance. Just because it doesn't go right every time is no reason to get rid of it.
Religion is hardly restricting human development. It has sparked some of humanity's greatest achievements. One needs only to remember how much of the art of the Renaissance was influenced by religion, or to view the beautiful cathedrals, mosques, and some of the giant Buddha statues to know.
Art, not technology. The Renaissance wasn't the direct result of religious influences. Statues and paintings aren't going to get us to the moon. How can you say that religion doesn't restrict progress! What about Evolution; half the country even today doesn't want Evolution being taught in schools! Wasn't it just sixty years ago that ignorant Creationists OUTLAWED evolution in Tennessee?
Religion is like almost everything else man practices: It has good and bad traits. It has been used for great evil and for great good. It can just as easily inspire creativity, reason, and morality in a person as it can hatred and intolerance. Just because it doesn't go right every time is no reason to get rid of it.
I believe that it was useful once, but no longer. The bad that it has made continues to do outweigh the trivial soundeness of mind it brings. Millions have died for religion. What has been gained...?
---Millions died in forced conversions, crusades, witch hunts, inquistions
---Millions were tortured; i.e. when Columbus cut off the hands of Indians who would not convert in the Caribbean.
---It is a corrupt institution... (at least the Catholic part is.)
---It promotes ignorance.
---Religion promotes hatred: Catholics, many hardliner Christians don't like gays because its against their religion to be with the same sex. This even effects our closet-Christian government!
--Without religion, the Jews wouldn't have suffered because of their beliefs in the Holocaust.
---Today, religion drives the only serious threats to world peace: The Jews vs. the Arabs, and the Muslims vs. the Democracies, which are predominantly all Christian. If religion weren't so broad, there certainly wouldn't be anywhere near as much death and hatred in the world today. 9/11 almost certainly never would've happened.
on the other hand,
---Religion provides some morale standing.
---It makes people happy and comforts them.
One of the reasons that so many people came to colonize what would become the U.S. was because they wanted religious freedom.
Quote:--Without religion, the Jews wouldn't have suffered because of their beliefs in the Holocaust.
Oh please. Like Hitler wouldn't have found other groups to torture...oh wait! He did! Remeber the gays, gypsies, slavs, Russians, ect?
Quote:If religion weren't so broad, there certainly wouldn't be anywhere near as much death and hatred in the world today. 9/11 almost certainly never would've happened.
I doubt that as well. The terrorists simply use religion to try and justify their attacks. They want to kill us because we believe in freedom for everyone and they don't like that. There's other reasons too and religion is probably one of them though I doubt it's the main reason and it certaintly isn't the only.
Darunia, a number of the so called flaws in the Bible are from your misunderstanding of it. First off, your main argument, why doesn't God simply proove himself once and for all? Honestly, if a giant being boomed from the heavens that He is the One, would you suddenly believe? Be honest. Would you believe, or would you rather assume that it was a hologram made by a cult. If you heard it in your mind, or were suddenly transported to Heaven to talk to God then sent back, would you believe? Maybe you would, but if you were intent on doubting, I have a feeling you would simply assume you were hallucinating or dreaming. Science itself states nothing can be proven 100%. In fact, the laws of physics prevent that. Things can be prooven 99%, which is what I think you want. However, the entire point of Chrstianity is that you are willing to have FAITH in God. Time and time again I've tried drumming this into your head. It's not faith if you know it already is proven.
Now then, your other points I must elaborate on. Concerning the imperfections of the human form, animals, and the universe itself, you need only remember "the curse". We WERE perfect life forms beforehand. Adam and Eve had bodies that were perfect, likely producing no waste. The very laws of the universe of course had to be different. A STATED example is that whereas before they had eternal life, after the first sin, they had mortal lifespans. Rather than our food all growing naturally with ease exactly when we needed it and never cluttering up things or rotting, we have to toil to get it to grow. Technology is basically an attempt to regain bit by bit everything God originally gave us, using what God let us keep.
You may wonder why God had to create Eve from a rib, or for example why it took an ENTIRE 6 days to make all that is. Well, He didn't HAVE to. He didn't HAVE to breathe life into man, as just before he merely created all the animals and such. He purposefully did things in a longer more complicated way for a reason. Likewise, God wasn't ACTUALLY exausted. The Bibles I've read merely say He rested, not that He needed to. This isn't some Greek god here. I rest a lot of the time even though I'm still pumped full of energy. Why? Relaxing JUST for the sake of relaxing is an enjoyable activity, and it would seem God is in favor of people having such a luxery as just being able to sit back. It's likely that human fatigue is merely His way of sorta putting a physical reminder to just sit back now and again.
Regarding how evil can possibly exist if God created all and God isn't evil, keep this in mind. Evil, defined by Christianity, only means "against God". Essentially, any choice that is against God's will is evil, and anything that is WITH God's will is good. If God's will was that someone destroy Mercury, and that person didn't do that, it would be evil. The only reason it's wrong to hurt people is because it's against God's will. It's against God's will because He, and only He, knows the way people should be. Now, here's an important thing. You may still be wondering "okay, but why do people choose to go against God?". There's the heart of the matter. God gave us free will. He gave us the ability to choose how we can live. If were were merely dolls, we wouldn't BE. There would be no point at all to our existing. God wants us to follow His will of our OWN choice, not because he turned us into robots. There is no point in us choosing to follow Him unless it is OUR choice to do so. That's exactly why things like the crusades were so evil. Again, it went against God's will both in the sense that, guess what, murder is WRONG, and it went against God's desire for us to follow Him of our own choice. It's what we THINK, not so much what we DO (what we do is merely the evidence that we truly think something).
Now then, you asked the childish riddle "If God can do anything, can He make a rock so big He can't lift it?". You say it's logically sound, but it's not. It's logically flawed and you know why. Grammer allows us to MAKE sentences like that, but that doesn't mean they make any sense at all. If God can do anything, no He CAN'T make a rock so large He can't lift it. You may say "then He can't do EVERYTHING can He?" but that's not an actual ability. It's a nonsense statement.
Here's another nonsense question. Is this statement true or false? "This statement is false." It's the same sort of logically flawed thing. That statement is null. It can't be considered either true OR false. If you tried programming it into a computer, for example, "if variable equals false, then variable equals true, if variable equals true, then variable equals false" it would result in an infinite loop, crashing the program (unless there's an error trap, but that's still an error). This is the same thing. Using administrator privilages, it would be like saying "admin always has priviliages to do EVERYTHING" followed by the admin disablling it's own privaliges to do... something, like I dunno access a printer. The program, if it made sure that admin ALWAYS has all privilages no matter what, would let the admin do that, but it wouldnt' have an affect, as it would immediatly be undone before the admin could even try to fail at accessing the printer. It's a fallacy in logic if it can't be programmed into a machine, even a theoretical machine from the future. I'm ignoring quantum mechanics here. However, assuming a quantum machine COULD allow such a ridiculous illogical thing to work, then I suppose God COULD do that couldn't He, via the very Quantum physics He created.
Other things are misunderstandings as well. Angels aren't needed at all really, but He created them anyway. Why? The Bible never really talks about it. I dunno... I'll find out one day I suppose. God not only COULD see Satan's betrayal, He DID. He did nothing to stop him because of the value God seems to have on free will. Again, I really don't know why God values our choice so much, but being created in His image, spiritually, we all likely have a good idea. It's no good if He just FORCED Satan to stop. God wanted, and likely still wants, to have Satan WILLINGLY change his mind. According to the Bible, God knows he never will, but God is still giving him the chance. After all, quantem physics DEMAND that free will is possible.
You state that humans don't have free will as well, or as much as that anyway. You say we are all predestined to think what we think, and thus salvation is out of our reach because we can't choose anything. If that's so, no one can be considered responsible for anything. However, it's not true. Quantum physics proove absolutely that our universe is unpredictable, and that it's impossible to know what will happen in the next moment EXACTLY, because there is a random element. At the simplest level, the universe is throwing dice to determine things. This isn't just something along the lines of how the beating of a butterfly's wings can have huge reprecussions centuries later. It's that if you REWOUND time back to that moment again, didn't change a SINGLE thing, and then ran it forward, things would progress DIFFERENTLY. That's right, if you rewound time, and played it agian, it would NOT happen the same way. The universe is not like a video tape. It's like a video game. Taken in a religious context, we ARE able to choose the life we want to live. We can't choose the DNA we get, and a lot of our environment is beyond our control, but we CAN choose an infinite number of things within these boundries. You may say that if there are boundries, it can't be infinite, but the fact is the universe itself has two boundries, the infinite density infinite heat state, and the 0 density 0 heat state, yet there are inifinite possilibities therein, and any percentage defined by more variables is a "lesser infinity", though infinite is infinite no matter how you cut it. You can take infinite away from infinite and there's still infinite left. Makes for a very long game of bottles on the wall countin'....
One other thing, you make a point about the perpetual void before creation. Here's the thing, the universe's starting point, the Big Bang, and God, work the same way in this sense. Scientists, physicists, have asked for some time, because they ARE scientists, why did the universe start at THAT moment and not any point infinitly before that? Simple, time doesn't exist until something CHANGES. The first change is the first instance of time. Steven Hawking put it in the sense that time is more of a sphere, with an imaginary time direction perpendicular to the normal time direction. Essentially, the Big Bang, or God, isn't the start of time, it's a pole, like the north pole or south pole. They are boundries outside which there is nothing. There was no time before God started creating. So, there was no before. Big Bang, God, same thing in THIS sense. The difference is in the feasibility. God requires the leap of faith in something with no evidence, none that can't be attributed to something else anyway, whereas the Big Bang is proven every time we hit a static station on the dial.
Here's another thing I've decided for myself lately. I believe that evolution CAN occur at this point, not really that it's how we got HERE, but that after we got here it can happen. For that matter, the universe could easily have been created long before God actually got around to making us during the 6 day period. It may seem I'm being backed into a corner by science and am being forced to give up things, but honeslty I haven't given up a single thing yet. For that matter, science and religion are NOT mutually exclusive. Many well renowned physicists are Christians themselves.
Anyway, a good number of things are from one other lack of understanding. You see, pre-Christ and post-Christ are two very different periods both in how humans were expected to behave and how God dealt with them. Confusing yes? Seems the eternally always right God is fickle suddenly doesn't it? Well, a little analyzing and you see God's point. You see, pre-Christ, human kind sinned. They were all eternally doomed. God was making a point before bringing in Christ that nothing mankind can do can save it. We do not have the ability to save ourselves. No good can wipe away the taint of evil. The good is still good on it's own merits, but it doesn't suddenly justify the evil that was done. For example, no matter how many lives a person may have saved, if they killed one person, they are still just as guilty as before. They can never gain back that life that was taken. It can never be undone. It can't be justified just because the same person is truly repentant and has done so much good since. All that can be done is this. Forgiveness. This is where Christ comes in. Before, God had a very complicated list of tasks to do. They didn't save the person, Christ did later, but God was trying to make a point. The slaying of animals with their blood was a representation of things, not the true salvation that was to come soon enough. It was a covenant with the people, evidence of their faith in the future salvation. Christ eventually came along and did His amazing thing, being both God and human at the same time, not a half breed, but a fusion. He died for all of us, so we no longer needed to use this "proof" of our faith, but rather just HAVE the faith because the deed is done. Really, the only reason all that pre-Christ salvation stuff was even done was because God really wanted to make a point, not because it was really needed, Christ the future salvation was the only part that was needed. So, God IS very forgiving, but pre-Christ He wanted to make a huge point of how guilty we truly are without forgiveness, yet with it we are truly saved. However, we must ACCEPT forgiveness. It's like a gift. We are given a final choice in the end. We can accept this gift, or, we are allowed to deny the gift. God COULD force us to accept the gift, to believe, but God values our free will, our willing choice.
And now, a final thought. You make it clear that you understand your own mortality, and you have accepted something that's logical considering the lack of proof otherwise, that you will simply cease to exist when you die. Your main objective then is to lengthen your life. Trust me, that desire is something we ALL want. Every single life form that has ever been succesful desires to life forever. Mating is merely a last ditch effort to make sure some bit survives, but all creatures want they themselves to live forever. This is deeply entrenched, the deep desires to eat and mate are merely representative of this deepest need way beyond these. You may well lengthen your life. However, realizing that won't be enough, you will want more. The thought that you will cease to exist, no one can simply settle for that. No one can sit by and accept it. You will want to lengthen and lengthen. You may even remove the aging process altogether. So long as you keep getting an outside energy source, it's perfectly physically possible to have eternal life. You will realize though that the Earth is doomed, that's why humans, deep down, want to leave. We know the sun won't last forever. Even those fine with things as they are will readily admit they want future generations to leave rather than all die in a horrible hell fire. However, that's not enough. Eventually we will need to leave our Milky Way galaxy (which will eventually be the Milky Andromeda galaxy, or maybe Andromeda Way sounds better...), as everything will be sucked into the depths of the super massive black hole at the center, which will only grow when Andromeda's black hole merges with it. Travelling in the vast void between galaxies, you'll know (and maybe me too, there's a lot I'd like to do in this physical reality before I go), that we can't have perfect efficiency, and some energy will inevitable seep out. We may find ways to get energy, likely loosing so little that the distant light of far off galaxies we will be drifting to will be enough to keep our super colony going. Maybe gravity waves will power incredibly efficient motors to give us back the energy we loose, maybe all of the above. At any rate, eventually we will notice something. That black hole that ate the fused galaxy seems to have exploded. Somehow, it gave off particles one at a time, via the strange quantum ability of the universe to randomly create particles from nothingness while at the same time subtracting an equal amount from some other area, and these appear in pairs, so that rather than the virtual particles that may appear just outside that black hole colliding like usual, the gravity of the hole will grab one particle and suck it beyond the reach of the other, thus half the mass that just got subtracted manages to STAY sent outside the black hole, and with the black hole surrounded by nothing new to absorb, over a google years, it will eventually evaporate away until it doesn't have the mass to hold itself together, and BOOM. This thing will be happening all over the universe. You will also notice stars all over slowly blipping out of sight. They aren't suddenly being sucked up, no, they are being shot so far away by the expansion that we will never see them again. For you see, the universe is not just expanding, it's ACCELERATING. One might expect gravity to slowly, VERY slowly, slow the universe down, or at least it would be so imperceptible that it would appear to be the same speed, but no, it's speeding up. The vaccuum has an energy of sorts that pushes out, shoving things out of itself. The more vaccuum you have, the more push you have. This "dark energy" will only push harder with more empty space between everything, and the gravity will weaken. You shall see this keep up all over the universe, with no way to stop it. Your own colony, maintained well enough by the little energy it can get from distant light and gravity waves, will soon run out. Both of us, standing there, looking into nothing, shall see that everything has been pushed so far from everything else, thinned out so much by dark energy, that in effect there is nothing. The void has won. Soon, the ship too will fall into disrepair, we eternal life forms will die due to the inability to have perfectly efficient machines (a physical impossibility). This desperate moment is the utter end of all things. The ship too shall suffer the same fate, as bit by bit, the energy is all send wayward, and the ship breaks apart, and soon all is seperated. This is how the universe ends. We are standing there, looking into this fate. We both by now have realized there is NO possible way to lengthen our lives any further, and no point. Nothing but nothing is ahead of us. I have the afterlife to look forward to. You however, I am afraid, are left with nothing at all. I don't mean to frighten you or anything. However, a life lived only to lengthen itself only has THIS bleak future. The universe has been doomed from the start. It will never collapse in on itself as some used to think, the Big Bang is doomed to end in the Silent Wimper.
I believe that it was useful once, but no longer. The bad that it has made continues to do outweigh the trivial soundeness of mind it brings. Millions have died for religion. What has been gained...?
---Millions died in forced conversions, crusades, witch hunts, inquistions
Shame on the catholic apostates .
---Millions were tortured; i.e. when Columbus cut off the hands of Indians who would not convert in the Caribbean.
I never heard of this before, But its really columbus who is at fault, That kind of savagery is condemned in the good book
---It is a corrupt institution... (at least the Catholic part is.)
Thats just one shitty religion
---It promotes ignorance.
Your pretty ignorant generalizing everyone who has a religion
---Religion promotes hatred: Catholics, many hardliner Christians don't like gays because its against their religion to be with the same sex. This even effects our closet-Christian government!
Its shame on the catholics babby! but there not telling people to go out and kill homosexuals.
--Without religion, the Jews wouldn't have suffered because of their beliefs in the Holocaust.
This part blows my mind , Hitler hated the jews the same way the whites hated the blacks , Jews are not just a religion their a ethnic group,He didnt hate them for their religion otherwise he would have persecuted the christians and all the other groups.
---Today, religion drives the only serious threats to world peace: The Jews vs. the Arabs, and the Muslims vs. the Democracies, which are predominantly all Christian. If religion weren't so broad, there certainly wouldn't be anywhere near as much death and hatred in the world today. 9/11 almost certainly never would've happened.
What about Stalin and Hitler both atheists , Who comited the most horrible crimes in history. Not all Muslims hate the U.S just a small extremist group who view the western culture has a evil.The Jews and palestinians isnt over religion its over land and terroritory, The didnt hate the jews before the creation of isreal,Isreal came in and stole a chunk of their country, Infact the Koran says for muslims too respect the jews and christians since they both follow in gods teachings
on the other hand,
---Religion provides some morale standing.
---It makes people happy and comforts them.
DJ, that was quite possibly the largest post I have ever seen!
No it's not! I've posted posts about A JILLION times the size!
BLADES OF GRASS!
I had written a long post but lost it. So just a few points.
Darunia: Again, you overestimate humanity... getting rid of humanity would not open it to some higher purpose... yes reducing its influence would do good things, but it wouldn't lead to fundamental change.
Weltall: Religion has done great, great evil. What I'd call its greatest one isn't atrocities, though... it's its hatred of new ideas and change. Religion is against progress. Progress is, on the whole, a good thing. That doesn't make religion evil but it makes it a huge force against understanding and knowledge... those are not by any stretch of the imaginiation good things. The Renaissance? Sure arts flowered but religion was still strict... greatly limiting artistic expression, and cutting growing science as much as possible...
DJ, you seem to be trying to cling to a direct interpretation of the Bible -- its word is the word of God and is all true. Your insistence in not ruling out the 'the world was literally created in 6 days' thing (something I'd call idiocy, believing something that obviously false) proves that. So, how do you explain the contradictions in the Bible? They are EVERYWHERE, starting from around page two or three! I mean, there are two creation stories... :)
It cannot all be right. Like how we've since decided that slavery is wrong, but it's all over the Bible and not just as an evil.
Or how about God himself? You talk about repentance, but the Old Testament God seems to have very little interest in that! And that's when he was manifest... the New Testiment is just through Jesus. In the Old Testament where he speaks (and acts) he does a lot of punishment and precious little forgiveness... Oh, and this goes against your statement that he loves free will too... unless somehow the nature of God changed when Jesus came into existence? But if he's all powerful then he should have known the best course from the beginning you know... :)
Just showing how this can go around in circles. I find so much of it so arbitrary but it's that very fact that it does set down these absolutes (something the things we know as facts cannot do) is what makes it so attractive...
Oh yeah on a similar theme, belief is all well and fine but belief agaisnt proof is obstinate and only brings about bad things. Like not admitting that the Big Bang definitely happened and the clear trail of events we are tracking is what occurred and that evolution is how our species evolved. And you call yourself a liker of science! Sure scientists are often religious but your ideas here are just absurd for one who claims to like this stuff...
I mean, if you don't believe that the record we see is what happened what's stopping me from saying "the world was created exactly as it is (to the atom, which would set your thoughts in your brain as they are) one second ago" and having you unable to argue against it because you think God could have created the world from wholecloth 6000 years ago or something and us from mud? Of course no one could prove that statement wrong, but neither can anyone disprove the idea that God created us from nothing with the entire earth as it is (remember, the dinosaur bones are a temptation from God trying to pull us off the path that says that the world was created ~6000 years ago!)...
Oh yeah, and Marx was wrong about a whole lot of stuff, but he is absolutely right that religion is an opiate for the masses. It's hardly the only one, but it's a big one and has been for just about forever. I mean, it's a key part of keeping the population down in any society with unfairness! When the peasants are told by their priest -- the local voice of God -- that they were born in the station they deserve to be in and the only way to go to Heaven is to work hard and follow orders and do as your lords command, well, they listen and stay oppressed despite hardships because they want to go to Heaven... Nationalism works too (see Nazi Germany or Militarist Japan up to the end of WWII), but Religion is one of the best tried and true methods for getting people to do what you want.
How does that connect to what you said? As you might guess, religion keeps people doing things that can quite quickly reduce their lifespan (Banzai charges, the Crusades...)... as those examples show, religion when mixed with some kind of group identity -- nationalism, defending the Western world, and some 'other'... the Enemy. Utter evil, generally -- introduce any humanity in your enemy and you have more trouble killing them. But he CERTAIN that they are heathens doomed to die and burn in the fires forever, and tortures and massacre comes easy!
I had written a long post but lost it. So just a few points.
Quote: Darunia: Again, you overestimate humanity... getting rid of humanity would not open it to some higher purpose... yes reducing its influence would do good things, but it wouldn't lead to fundamental change.
Weltall: Religion has done great, great evil. What I'd call its greatest one isn't atrocities, though... it's its hatred of new ideas and change. Religion is against progress. Progress is, on the whole, a good thing. That doesn't make religion evil but it makes it a huge force against understanding and knowledge... those are not by any stretch of the imaginiation good things. The Renaissance? Sure arts flowered but religion was still strict... greatly limiting artistic expression, and cutting growing science as much as possible...
The renaissance was a different time period were people didnt have the rights or freedoms we have today, The lands were not under democracies but harsh feudal kings.How did it limit artisitic expression? They had fiascos with naked bodies which are still controversial today.The great artist and scientist like Leonardo divinchi were all highly religous men and the churches hired them too do fiascos on the chapel ceilings.Religion had a major impact the growth of the art world in the renaisance.
The catholic church is a corrupt entity and its evil does not represent the hole christianity, The repression of scientist like Galileo were not bible based, They had come up with their own stupid doctrines that had nothing too do with the bible.
Quote: DJ, you seem to be trying to cling to a direct interpretation of the Bible -- its word is the word of God and is all true. Your insistence in not ruling out the 'the world was literally created in 6 days' thing (something I'd call idiocy, believing something that obviously false) proves that. So, how do you explain the contradictions in the Bible? They are EVERYWHERE, starting from around page two or three! I mean, there are two creation stories... :)
It cannot all be right. Like how we've since decided that slavery is wrong, but it's all over the Bible and not just as an evil.
1. Its not a contradiction ABF it is your lack of knowledge of the bible itself ,
The bible was original written in hebrew and its definition of the word "day" is much different then english, The hebrew definition of day is a passage of time not literal 24 hours.So those days could mean thousands or billions of years seperated in 6 passages of time.There is no contradictions only poor knowledge and understanding of the book itself.
WTF are talking about slavery?Another thing the word Slave or servant
in hewbrew means "worker".
Quote:Or how about God himself? You talk about repentance, but the Old Testament God seems to have very little interest in that! And that's when he was manifest... the New Testiment is just through Jesus. In the Old Testament where he speaks (and acts) he does a lot of punishment and precious little forgiveness... Oh, and this goes against your statement that he loves free will too... unless somehow the nature of God changed when Jesus came into existence? But if he's all powerful then he should have known the best course from the beginning you know... :)
He had brought out the law for the isrealites, Just like the U.S has laws today were can get executed for breaking certain ones.
The only time anyone was killed is because they desserved it for comiting a Horrible crime like Murder.If you think free will gives you the right to kill or do whatever you feel like your sadly mistaken .
In the old testament God didnt destroy Sodom and Gomorah untill he knew that every rightous honnest person was out of harms way. The story of Jonah he was going to do the same thing too Ninevah but he spared the city and forgave the people because they repented.God only kills the wicked.
Quote:Just showing how this can go around in circles. I find so much of it so arbitrary but it's that very fact that it does set down these absolutes (something the things we know as facts cannot do) is what makes it so attractive...
Oh yeah on a similar theme, belief is all well and fine but belief agaisnt proof is obstinate and only brings about bad things. Like not admitting that the Big Bang definitely happened and the clear trail of events we are tracking is what occurred and that evolution is how our species evolved. And you call yourself a liker of science! Sure scientists are often religious but your ideas here are just absurd for one who claims to like this stuff...
Just because you dont believe in Evolution doesnt mean you hate science , Evolution is a theory not a fact.
Quote:I mean, if you don't believe that the record we see is what happened what's stopping me from saying "the world was created exactly as it is (to the atom, which would set your thoughts in your brain as they are) one second ago" and having you unable to argue against it because you think God could have created the world from wholecloth 6000 years ago or something and us from mud? Of course no one could prove that statement wrong, but neither can anyone disprove the idea that God created us from nothing with the entire earth as it is (remember, the dinosaur bones are a temptation from God trying to pull us off the path that says that the world was created ~6000 years ago!)...
See above about what the Hebrew word "day "means
Quote:Oh yeah, and Marx was wrong about a whole lot of stuff, but he is absolutely right that religion is an opiate for the masses. It's hardly the only one, but it's a big one and has been for just about forever. I mean, it's a key part of keeping the population down in any society with unfairness! When the peasants are told by their priest -- the local voice of God -- that they were born in the station they deserve to be in and the only way to go to Heaven is to work hard and follow orders and do as your lords command, well, they listen and stay oppressed despite hardships because they want to go to Heaven... Nationalism works too (see Nazi Germany or Militarist Japan up to the end of WWII), but Religion is one of the best tried and true methods for getting people to do what you want.
How does that connect to what you said? As you might guess, religion keeps people doing things that can quite quickly reduce their lifespan (Banzai charges, the Crusades...)... as those examples show, religion when mixed with some kind of group identity -- nationalism, defending the Western world, and some 'other'... the Enemy. Utter evil, generally -- introduce any humanity in your enemy and you have more trouble killing them. But he CERTAIN that they are heathens doomed to die and burn in the fires forever, and tortures and massacre comes easy!
Marx was a idiot ignorant moronic athiest who thought he knew everything, Clearly his creation has done more damage too the world then religion. His view on religion was biggoted and generalize just like yours.Sure religion has been twisted by Terrorist and likes too do what they want just like nationalism or communism.
Marx was a idiot ignorant moronic athiest who thought he knew everything, Clearly his creation has done more damage too the world then religion. His view on religion was biggoted and generalize just like yours.Sure religion has been twisted by Terrorist and likes too do what they want just like nationalism or communism.
Yes, because all atheists are idiots. You say it as though being a Freethinker is bad. Think outside of the box, if your Lord will let you. Which he won't. His creation is flawed; but it was a beautiful idea--everyone's equal, no more rich asshole capitalists owning 90% of their country. I'm unaware of his views on religion; but since you abhor them, they must be correct ones. Religion IS THE cause of the Middle Eastern violence! All the bloodshed caused by communism is far, FAR less than that of religion...and communism is on the way out; so doesn't that mean religion is too? Let's hope that 5,000 years of it haven't made it inextricable intwined with humanity. :shake:
Actually, I'm very willing to bet that the last 100 years of communism killed more human beings than every religious war combined. According to
"The Little Black Book of Communism", there are about 100 million deaths attributed to Communist nations... in less than 100 years.
That's just in a hundred years. That's more people dead than lived on earth for probably half of civilization. The worst toll from religious warfare is generally attributed to the Crusades, of which there were several and spanned centuries. The toll? An estimated 2 million. In what, 400 years? It would take, at a conservative estimate, twnety-thousand years of constant warfare at the level of the Crusades to be able to match a hundred years of Communist savagery.
After all, is it worse to kill someone over religious differences, or to simply kill everyone indiscriminately? Let's also keep in mind that not only did two nations kill probably several times as many people in less than a hundred years than every religious war in human history, but that those two nations were officially atheist.
So much for free-thinking.
Actually, I'm very willing to bet that the last 100 years of communism killed more human beings than every religious war combined.
I really doubt it. And if it were true, it'd only be owing to the increase in population---three centuries ago, 5,000 men was a big army, and when 35,000 were killed, it was a considerable loss. 5 million today wouldn't even slow down our population growth rate--but regardless, I don't believe it anyway.
According to "The Little Black Book of Communism", there are about 100 million deaths attributed to Communist nations... in less than 100 years.
Curiously well-rounded number.
After all, is it worse to kill someone over religious differences, or to simply kill everyone indiscriminately?
Over religions differences---at least that way, as long as you kill off a religious person, you're skimming the gene pool. :nodding:
Let's also keep in mind that not only did two nations kill probably several times as many people in less than a hundred years than every religious war in human history, but that those two nations were officially atheist.
And they were?
So much for free-thinking.
A bunch of questionable "facts", and ended it off with a cute little cliché. That's right; if communists were largely atheist, all atheist are genocidal madmen. I'd fix the real number of communist-related death at---well, I have no idea, but it's not 100 million. That's Weltaux logic for you.
Go worship Darwin Darunia and dont forget to hit yourself on the door on the way out.
:goron:
Quote:That's right; if communists were largely atheist, all atheist are genocidal madmen.
Yeah, you tell him, Darunia! Don't let him get away with
GROSS EXAGGERATIONS AND GENERALIZATIONS like that!
No nation has ever been Communist. They're all just disguised dictatorships. I don't know if any nation could... Marx is just too idealistic for his system to work in the real world. So saying Communism killed that many people is only true by the letter, in fact it was dictators that did it...
Oh, and the Bible. Look, it was written a LONG time ago... obviously some of its morality is not the same as ours. This is a fact; you can't deny it. We don't think exactly the same way now that we did then about these things. They prohibited plenty of things we allow and had much harsher punishments as well, as was normal in the ancient world... I'm not saying it's all bad or anything (obviously some things in it are good), just that you can't take it all as true or not (I'm sure that many of the legends in it are based on some fact, like legends often are... like the Flood and that fairly convincing theory that it (since so many cultures in the area have one its existance is thought to have happened in some form) was the flooding of the Black Sea when the Meditteranean broke through the Bosphorus...). The contradictions, like that second creation story in Genesis, support that as well.
Whats this second creation story your talking about? Maybe I could clear it up.
Yeah, what are you talking about, ABF?
Hmm... I don't have a bible right here... umm, I'll find it... ah here's one online.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Gen/Gen001.html
The first page has God creating the world in 6 days and resting on day 7...
http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Gen/Gen002.html
The 'second creation' starts in Gen 2:4. Note that this time Woman is created from Man, while in the first it essentially just says 'man and woman were created'. Also, the (other) animals are created AFTER the people -- in the first one, it's animals first, then people.
Hmm? :)
What, in chuch they never mentioned the contradictions in the Bible? :)
That's not a 'second creation', Genesis 2:4 begins the story, everything before it is like a synopsis of the Creation. 2:4 is where the details begin, and it restates some of what was in book 1. It's not the sort of writing structure anyone would use in contemporary literature, but it's not a second creation story, and honestly I've never even heard the idea put forth before.
I dunno how you got a 'second creation' out of that. Plus, it says Woman and Man are created much in the same way that one would say 'the twins were born', when it would be obviously inferred that one twin came first. You've read enough books to know better. You're just looking for the tiniest details, as if it discredits the very foundation of belief or something.
Not a different creation story though in one the humans are made before the rest of the animals and in the other they're after? :)
And yes obviously in the first one one has to come first, but it doesn't imply that one was created FROM the other. Important difference.
Is that a totally different story, or a single discrepancy in the same story?
The Bible, after all, was written by humans. And translated into five zillion different languages. And taken into five zillion and four different contexts. That is why I interpret the bible very liberally. Knowing that some very corrupt people controlled access to the Bible for thousands of years, and that there are several versions of it now, make me unable to accept it as being true verbatim.
Again, I wonder if this is supposed to be some good reason not to have faith? I'm not convinced it is.
Quote: Not a different creation story though in one the humans are made before the rest of the animals and in the other they're after?
What your talking about is a synopses to the later chapter, God had created types of animals after Adam was made to help him.
2:18 God created domestic animals to help Adam after he was created.
No, it's not, just saying that you can't interpret the bible literally as some people seem to want to... it's hard to reconcile the 'written by people directly controlled by God' thing with the fact that it's not a perfect document...
If God wanted to be taken seriously, why'd he have fallible humans interpret his word. Wouldn't it have been better to just wiggle his nose like Bewitched and produce a finished edition of his word. Why's he always taking the long way---like an all-powerful diety can do anything instantaneously, yet it took his seven days to create the world.
Darunia Wrote:If God wanted to be taken seriously, why'd he have fallible humans interpret his word. Wouldn't it have been better to just wiggle his nose like Bewitched and produce a finished edition of his word. Why's he always taking the long way---like an all-powerful diety can do anything instantaneously, yet it took his seven days to create the world.
1.Because things needed to be calculated and refined and he probaily wanted to enjoy himself doing it,But if you concider the fact Jesus turned water into a sweet wine by just saying a pray I think he can do things instantaneously.
2.Would it make sense to drop books from the sky on people and then say read it?Some of the Bible books is personal journals and experiences from his Prophets.
Secondly the bible has been translated from language to language ,It goes from hebrew to Aramiac then greek and latin and finally to english I think any errors are the result of the translators, There are Bible versions that translated directly from the original hebrew and greek scriptures instead of being translated from other translations.
Finally quit bashing our beliefs, Were sopposed to live in a tolerant soceity not communist china.
2.Would it make sense to drop books from the sky on people and then say read it?
God delivered the 10 Commandments instantaneously--why couldn't he have Moses or some other character discover the finished edition of the Bible on Mount Sinai?
Finally quit bashing our beliefs, Were sopposed to live in a tolerant soceity not communist china.
Quit referring me to a Nazi in your signature, you retarded, illiterate Canadian. And "fieur" is spelled Fuhrer. Espece de cul.
Quote:God delivered the 10 Commandments instantaneously--why couldn't he have Moses or some other character discover the finished edition of the Bible on Mount Sinai?
Thats alot of rocks moses would have had to carry , The bible waisnt written all at once . The new testament was sopposed to be written when Jesus arrived a thousand years later.Much of the bible is recorded journals of people who served god and wanted to share their history and hardships while serving god,the things god wanted written down he would send Angels and visions to the prophets and he knew people would learn better by following human examples who sufferd they same things they did then him doing it all himself.
The Ten commandments was so important God burned it down on rock slabs himself and had Moses then write it down on papper.
I am sorry but I couldnt find "Fuhrer" in the dictionary. stop calling my religion bull shit , Maybe I will stop calling you a nazi.
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