Religion

[formerly known as hf]

God is a DJ

[KVZ]

Sanchez say that there is no god, so it must be the case (assuming that I say the same).

[formerly known as hf]

A man didn’t understand how televisions work, and was convinced that there must be lots of little men inside the box. manipulating images at high speed. An engineer explained to him about high frequency modulations of the electromagnetic spectrum, about transmitters and receivers, about amplifiers and cathode ray tubes, about scan lines moving across and down a phosphorescent screen. The man listened to the engineer with careful attention, nodding his head at every step of the argument. At the end he pronounced himself satisfied. He really did now understand how televisions work. "But I expect there are just a few little men in there, aren’t there?"

[Nalaris]

Your point being? Science and God don't contradict each other, contrary to popular belief, so your point is moot.

Sanchez say that there is no god, so it must be the case (assuming that I say the same).

You don't have eyewitness experience that there is no God. You never saw God not existing. Your point is moot: that's nothing but an opinion.

[AoM]

If God threw everyone who didn't believe in him into Hell, I might consider calling him a merciless tyrant as well. But he doesn't. The only way into Hell is to believe in God, acknowledge it counciously, and still work against Him. Just not believing in him will still get you into Heaven, just a lesser degree of Heaven.

If this were the common belief of all Christians, things would be a whole lot nicer.

But it isn't. Most "believers" will tell you that unless you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are bound for Hell.

Hence, the whole God = merciless tyrant figure.

If there is a God who wants my eternal soul to go to Heaven, he'll let me in when I die, because I'm pretty sure I'm an allright guy and wouldn't be a bad addition to his collection. If he wants me to believe in him unquestioningly during my time on earth, he'll show me a sign. That sign will not be some wide-eyed, Bible-thumper using circular logic to try to pound "THE TRUTH"tm into me. It'll be an honest-to-God miracle.

[KVZ]

You don't have eyewitness experience that there is no God. You never saw God not existing. Your point is moot: that's nothing but an opinion.

You don't have eyewitness experience that there is God. You never saw God existing. Your point is moot: that's nothing but an opinion.

You see? There is no difference.

[formerly known as hf]

Your point being? Science and God don't contradict each other, contrary to popular belief, so your point is moot.

Yes, because the science behind the big band theory;

The science behind the observable, testable and provable fact of evolution;

The science behind the age of the planet.

The science behind the age of human civilisation.

And the rest...

All coroborate the existence of God.

Of course! I hadn't realised before! Wow! Such an eye opener...

[Diego]

You don't have eyewitness experience that there is no God. You never saw God not existing. Your point is moot: that's nothing but an opinion.

You don't have eyewitness experience that there is God. You never saw God existing. Your point is moot: that's nothing but an opinion.

You see? There is no difference.

Well, there is a difference. While both of you are correct and neither can make a categorical statement on the existance of God, the default state is inexistance--just like there is no evidence that God doesn't exist, there is no evidence that there are no men in tights riding spaceships about to implode the Sun. However, the default position is not to assume that anything exists until evidence is provided for its existance.

Yes, because the science behind the big band theory;

The science behind the observable, testable and provable fact of evolution;

The science behind the age of the planet.

The science behind the age of human civilisation.

And the rest...

All coroborate the existence of God.

Of course! I hadn't realised before! Wow! Such an eye opener...

One could say that Science is the study of the natural world, while Religion deals exclusively with the supernatural. Ergo, one and the other need not contradict each other.

[Pie]

AAACtually.

I care none of what you think happened before the bible. Heck, we came frome monkeys. So what? Does that change jesus?

Also, does god care? Does he care if you believe that we came frome monkeys? that we evolved? Why should he care about some thery, about what you think, when he COULD be worrying about where your soal will be going?

Also, AOM: Good for you. Just do yourself a favor. Don't worship satan. That is a BIG no-no. And calling apon familiar spirits and or deamons for power is ALSO a big no-no. ALSO, lying cheating adultery robbery gluttony and a few others are a big no-no.

I for one find it easyer to resist these adictions by addicting me onto somthing far less..... destructive.

Also, the reason i go in circles is becaus it works. You haven't been able to break the three step story of jesus. He lived. He died. He rose again. You can't reasonably say that he didn't live. you can't reasonably say, that if he did live, that he didn't die. you cant say that he didn't rise again. Untill YOU stop flogging this dead hors called the "Religion" thread, than I will ceep flogging my dead horse. Becaus, you brought it up.

But first, i must clerify my point on why myrters are telling the truth. Bleh, i don't fell like it... but i will anyway.

Would YOU, faced between going scott free without any retribution if you would just renounce what you saw, or dying a horibal slow death, tell a lie?

[AoM]

Awww... no Satan worship?

y'know, I think this Lucifer guy gets a bad rap. Sort of like the ultimate scapegoat. Having a being that is responsible for everything bad that happens in life is even harder to believe in than a God who is responsible for everything good.

Truly, I think "Satan" is just a representation of people unwilling to take responsibility for things that they've done. (Assuming that they believe in free will, which as Christians, the purportedly do.)

If non-believers do go to Hell when they die, I'll bet that Lucifer doesn't treat them all that bad. Hell, the guy can empathize... I'll bet Hell is a rockin' place of reason and scientific learning and alternate philosophy. Might not be such a bad place at all...

[Nosajimiki]

Would YOU, faced between going scott free without any retribution if you would just renounce what you saw, or dying a horibal slow death, tell a lie?

There is a diffence between "lieing" and "not telling the truth". A lie is a dillibreate act of speaking that which is untrue. A matyr probly would not being lieing to say, "there is a god." as they believe there is, but to believe that God exists is different than God actually existing as it is unverifiable. If God did undeniably exist than this tread would not exist to denine it on.

Also some historical background. It is a post-babalonian conquest invention that the devil/satin/lucifer is inheirently evil. The original literal context of Satin as "the adversary" was not that he was adverse against the will of God, rather, that he was tasked by god to be the adversary of man to test our loyaly which is why the book of genisis does not mention his apocraphal rebelion. The preversion of this veiw came from the Babalonian concepts of Good and Evil being the result of opposed spritual forces. Afterall if God is all good, why would he make something that is all evil? Not to say Satin should be worshiped presay, but in a theological context, God made him the way he is intentionally and therefore to say that Satin is wrong to test man or to assume he is punnished for testing us would be siding with pagonism: not a biblical source. In this same context one could also argue that to view athiesm and/or other religious views as being in anyway less "good" than your own is to oppose the will of God as he who is infalible created the non-belivers with purpose just as he created Satin with one; therefore, you are sucumming to Satin's influcence and being proved less loyal than he who accepts his creations as they are despite not ackowledging his existance.

[Nosajimiki]

oh and another side note about Hell. It's name comes from the Noris godess of the disgraced dead (not nessissarly evil), Hel, who was used by Catholic missionaries inorder to turn the Norismen, Anglo-Saxons, etc. against thier old relgion by preaching that living a life in servitude to God was a form of valour. So when preachers would say, "you are going to Hel." They wern't saing where they were going but to whom they were going. The Bible gives no clearly non-parablic versions of damnation, only various levels of reward for faithfulness.

[Pie]

But how? How could they not be telling the truth?You're saying that jesus lied, right? But how? How could he have lied to them in a way so deviant, as to having them beleave that he was raised frome the dead?

Hipnotism? No. Tooo many people. You see, a hypnotists dosen't just randomly choos someone frome the crowd when they do take a sidekick. They start the hypnotist proces, and then look out to the crowd to see who is reacting the best to these small trics. But you must remember the 5000, or 500 or whatever that were fed on the mountain of olives. Also you must take into acount of the wemon that saw the tome empty. Also you must take into acount THE EMPTY TOME.

Now another way for them to be not telling the truth is for them to have lied to themselves. Perhaps, with all of the greif and sadness that went along with jesus dying, they convinced themselves into beleaving that jesus rised frome the dead.

Halusination? Nope. To many people. It is very unlickly that everyone who did see jesus live all had the properties, be it malnutrition, heat, or a medical deseas, to have them halusinate jesus living. Also you must take into account that... well...correct me if i'm rong but Halusinations usually take somthing that is alredy there, and then change it. I don't know if maby this guy was just walkind down the road, and he looked slightly like jesus, but i doubt it.

Group trikery? I think not. you see, often times people will see somthing, and then will talk about it in a group, maby exadurate something, or make personal conjectures, and then the story will compleatly change into somthing like "I saw this person who looked like jesus" to "I saw jesus." But, to do this, you would need to have some event to stimulate even starting to tell these storys. And I wouldn't think that "I saw this guy" to "I saw the tome was empty and an angel talked to me and i told james and he later saw jesus and i saw him and we all drank tee and had cokies" whatever.

I know of no other reasons for them to not be telling the truth.

[Zanthos]

You have to remember that the bible was compiled from texts written decades or more after the cruxifiction of jesus (for example, the newly found gospel of judas dates back to 300 ad). Yes, it is probably based in fact but it has also been edited by priests and popes over the centuries to make jesus look how they wanted.

I see it like my church sees relics: Whether or not they are real artifacts isn't what matters, what matters is the symbol they represent.

I have no doubt that much of the bible is exaggerated or even fabricated - it was a tool to make the church cohesive in its teachings, and many of the origional texts included were thrown out by a pope (maybe one of the pious or innocents).

[Nosajimiki]

also don't forget no matter how many theoretical witnesses there were of these events, the Bible only has 4 of these acounts (the gosple) which the church itself admits are derived from a single theortical source acount, ei: all four written versions are second-hand variations of a sigle witness. Doesn't it stike you as odd that if all these people saw Jesus do these things and there is only one unknown witness to have reported it? The Dead Sea scrolls that were a liberary of history, legal documents and contemporary events composed in Jesus's time have no record of his mircles, though they have political pamphlets, birth records, and even a compleate copy of the old testiment. It doen't take 5000 people halucinating to create a hoax, just one person saying that 5000 people saw it
When David Coperfield made the statue of liberty disapear it was the same thing, one person thought up the hoax, he got a couple of "witness" to make it believeable, and overnight he made an entire country believe he did the impossible.