Scientology

[kah]

Just for our own amusement and as a source of reference when we want to mock the church or Tom Cruise, here's a website that gives you answers.

Scientology Controversy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_controversy)

And here's a fun one...
Tom Cruise is Nuts! (http://www.tomcruiseisnuts.com/home.php)

edited: I had a different link up there that was directly to a scientology website, but after reading the Wikipedia article, I think it's best I not grab their attention. Next thing you know, I'll be framed for murder, or something equally horrible to discredit me and save face for the fanatic cultists.

[kah]

And a book about L. Ron Hubbard.

L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman? (http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/mom/Messiah_or_Madman.txt)

[Asonokirk V 2.0]

I have carefully avoided paying any attention to scientology. Ignorance is bliss . . . :)

[MPG]

Just for our own amusement and as a source of reference when we want to mock the church or Tom Cruise, here's a website that gives you answers.
Brainwashing, witch hunts, harrassment of people who don't agree with the Church... to me it all sounds like Scientology is going through the same phase that Christianity went through in the middle ages. I think most religions go through a "kill the infidels" phase sooner or later. So basically, Scientology could be a well-respected religion in a few hundred years.

I think the main disadvantage they have is that they were founded in a time where information does not delete itself as it did thousands of years ago, so the information about how Scientology was founded is available more readily than the information about e.g. how Christianity was founded. Otherwise, it would be more obvious that nearly every argument that is used against Scientology works just as well against Christianity or Islam.

[kah]

Brainwashing, witch hunts, harrassment of people who don't agree with the Church... to me it all sounds like Scientology is going through the same phase that Christianity went through in the middle ages. I think most religions go through a "kill the infidels" phase sooner or later. So basically, Scientology could be a well-respected religion in a few hundred years.

I think the main disadvantage they have is that they were founded in a time where information does not delete itself as it did thousands of years ago, so the information about how Scientology was founded is available more readily than the information about e.g. how Christianity was founded. Otherwise, it would be more obvious that nearly every argument that is used against Scientology works just as well against Christianity or Islam.

You mean how Constantine edited the New Testament to omit what he didn't approve of? I don't think it was the creators of religions that were doing the witch hunts, harrassment and brainwashing. That was for the majority populace that followed an older religion. Scientology is unique in that they are using strongarm tactics of the established religion even though they are the minority. Cult tactics.

[MPG]

You mean how Constantine edited the New Testament to omit what he didn't approve of? I don't think it was the creators of religions that were doing the witch hunts, harrassment and brainwashing. That was for the majority populace that followed an older religion.
Keyword: "Holy Inquisition"
Scientology is unique in that they are using strongarm tactics of the established religion even though they are the minority. Cult tactics.
I don't really think that "strongarm tactics" are any more or less acceptable if you're in the majority.

[kah]

Keyword: "Holy Inquisition"

I don't really think that "strongarm tactics" are any more or less acceptable if you're in the majority.

The Inquisition was carried out by the Catholics (majority in Spain) against the Jews and Muslims. There was also the time of the Protestant Reformation, when Catholics were persecuting Protestants. Then there was the Diocletian Persecution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletian_Persecution) of the Romans against the minority Christians. Let's not forget the Jews' enslavement by Egypt, or the US attack against the Branch Davidians in Waco in 1993. Ok, they are a bad example- or are they? Their religion was named a cult, but the Branch Davidians didn't go out into the general public and threaten people who dared to question their activities. They just hid- like the people down in Colorado City, Arizona are doing. They may strongarm and brainwash their own people, but they don't have the balls to go out and try to do it to people on the outside, unlike the scientologists.

And, no, it is not more acceptable to use strongarm tactics when you are in the majority, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Most of the time, it just depends upon your viewpoint to determines whether the force is acceptable or not, hence the right in the majority.

[Jakester]

Moop's made some pretty good arguments about how Scientology isn't, contextually speaking, any wackier than any other religion, and he's got a point.

But we can prove that Scientology is a completely made-up religion founded by a two-bit hack sci-fi writer as a way to make money and probably bang chicks.

On a completely unrelated note, my new book Plan 9.5 from Mars, Where They Need Women will be released soon, followed thereafter by How to Heal Your Spirit in Ten Easy Steps While Watching TV.

[Intelligent_Design]

Moop's made some pretty good arguments about how Scientology isn't, contextually speaking, any wackier than any other religion, and he's got a point.


Any other Religion? I don't know about that statement. Unless you are well versed on every religion.

[MPG]

Moop's made some pretty good arguments about how Scientology isn't, contextually speaking, any wackier than any other religion, and he's got a point.

But we can prove that Scientology is a completely made-up religion founded by a two-bit hack sci-fi writer as a way to make money and probably bang chicks.
Yea, that's pretty much the main difference. With "ancient" religions, it's much harder to prove conclusively that they were made up and that the people who made them up had an agenda. It's not impossible - the proof just isn't as in-your-face clear and easily available as with Scientology.

It's funny though that people mock Tom Cruise because he believes in all this stuff about Xenu and Thetans, but someone who believes that some guy walked on water and turned water into wine or that the world was created 6000 years ago and that the first woman was made out of the first man's rib can become the president of the USA. As wacky as Cruise and Scientology may be, most stuff that Cruise believes in is still significantly more plausible and logical than the stuff that the President (along with a majority of Americans) believes.

[Jakester]

I don't know about that, Moop. DC-9 spaceships and burying trillions of beings in volcanoes? That'd be way more volcanoes than we have on the planet. Then blowing them up with nooklear weapons and making their spirits watch bad TV as a method of brainwashing?!

I guess I can buy the TV=brainwashing thing, and...hmm...maybe the trillions of beings on DC-9s is a question of scale. Maybe thetans are much smaller than we are. Shit. Sign me up!

[Intelligent_Design]

As wacky as Cruise and Scientology may be, most stuff that Cruise believes in is still significantly more plausible and logical than the stuff that the President (along with a majority of Americans) believes.

Well I guess thats your first mistake. Believing that religion should be "Plausible and Logical".

[kah]

Well I guess thats your first mistake. Believing that religion should be "Plausible and Logical".


Amen! ~cough~ Ahem, I mean AMEN!! Lol, this is why I don't believe in organized religion. As far as I am concerned, they are all just overblown cults. So there.

[Jakester]

Like the Cult of Personality?

[Intelligent_Design]

Amen! ~cough~ Ahem, I mean AMEN!! Lol, this is why I don't believe in organized religion. As far as I am concerned, they are all just overblown cults. So there.

Well the first problem is Human's are not logical beings. Thats why we indulge in Illogical pursuits. Like Gambling. So we tend to seek comfort in Illogical things. Like religion

[Asonokirk V 2.0]

Religion is a very good thing. It is the people involved with them that are the problem.

[kah]

Religion is a very good thing. It is the people involved with them that are the problem.

That is quite the conundrum. Religion is good. People are bad. Religion needs people.

I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with being spiritual. I fully believe that there is a reason I have instincts and a conscience to control them. I live my life the best I can. I do whatever I can for others, I don't do things that will hurt other people (or I try my best not to), I don't lie, and I try to respect all life around me. I don't need to read a book, or kneel, or sings songs with people, only to have someone tell me I am going to hell for enjoying that glazed chocolate cake doughnut(mmmm). Besides, I deal enough with hypocrites and liars on a daily basis, I don't need to go to church to hang out with a room full every Sunday. I am sure religion is great for some people. Religion saved my grandpa from alcoholism. It is not for me, though. Maybe that's just because I am anti-establishment and maybe it's not, but I do know that I am a good person, without religion.

[Metuzalem]

Religion is a very good thing. It is the people involved with them that are the problem.

I don't know who it was that said it, but I think it was best summed up thusly: "Jim Morrison was alright, it's just his followers who are complete cnuts. A bit like Jesus."

[MPG]

I had meant to reply to this much earlier but had totally forgotten about it.

I don't know about that, Moop. DC-9 spaceships and burying trillions of beings in volcanoes? That'd be way more volcanoes than we have on the planet.
Pretty ridiculous, isn't it? But no worse than managing to stick every species on the planet into one ship, then redistributing them across the planet.
Then blowing them up with nooklear weapons and making their spirits watch bad TV as a method of brainwashing?!
I find this about as silly as the Bible's big "brainwashing story" of how the Christian God created the languages of the Earth by confusing the people of Babel, then scattering them all across the world, because he was afraid that if all humans understood each other, they could end up achieving too much. Translators are sinners, you know?

There really is nothing in the Scientology belief system that is not matched or even topped by something that is written in the Bible and taken literally by millions of people - people whole beliefs we're told to respect. The reason why I keep going on about this is that Scientology holds up a mirror to established religions. If you read the "mythology" behind Scientology and find it to be damn fucking ridiculous, then you have just realized what an objective observer would say about e.g. Christianity. The only reason why the Christian beliefs sound more "reasonable" is that they are a part of our culture and history, while Scientology is coming "from the outside", so to speak. That is also the reason why many people would like to get rid of religious influences as much as possible. It's hard to be objective, when everywhere, the ridiculous is being presented as the norm.
I guess I can buy the TV=brainwashing thing, and...hmm...maybe the trillions of beings on DC-9s is a question of scale. Maybe thetans are much smaller than we are. Shit. Sign me up!
The people who were blown up were not thetans. Their "souls" are called thetans.

[MPG]

Religion is a very good thing.
Why? What is good about it? I always see this statement presented as some kind of axiom or basic truth. If no religion had ever existed on Earth, would we really be any worse off now? If all memory of religion were suddenly erased from everyone's memories, would the world fall into chaos or would it stop being chaotic?

[Jakester]

Moop, sometimes you really are a fucking moron who can't see the "bigger picture." Seriously. All of your atheism bullshit sounds good, but "would we really be any worse off now?" WHAT THE FUCK?! Of course we would be! And here's the reason it's just three words, but they are important, and without them, I'm sure the world would be worse off, you silly little twat.

CATHOLIC SCHOOLGIRL OUTFITS

[jayce78]

Tom Cruise Injects:


''You Think I'm queer don't ya!''

http://img400.imageshack.us/img400/3372/fsg1ug.png (http://imageshack.us)

''They think I'm queer Opra , did you hear that!'' ''Hhahaaaaaaaa!!''


''Now excuse me I have to go F - Katie in the parkin lot!''

[jayce78]

Emotionally stable & serious Tom Cruise injects:


''You can be Jewish , and be a Scientologist , you can be a Christian and be a Scientologist , you can be Buddist and be a Scientologist , you can be a moron and be a Scientologist '' . . . .

http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/4811/sdfv7hf.png (http://imageshack.us)


You can be a poor picked on mult-millionare , who makes money while he blows his nose and has dirty sex with a 22 year old in the kicthen and is in love with his own fame, and be a Scientologist. So it's open to everybody.''

[Intelligent_Design]

I had meant to reply to this much earlier but had totally forgotten about it.


Pretty ridiculous, isn't it? But no worse than managing to stick every species on the planet into one ship, then redistributing them across the planet.

I find this about as silly as the Bible's big "brainwashing story" of how the Christian God created the languages of the Earth by confusing the people of Babel, then scattering them all across the world, because he was afraid that if all humans understood each other, they could end up achieving too much. Translators are sinners, you know?

There really is nothing in the Scientology belief system that is not matched or even topped by something that is written in the Bible and taken literally by millions of people - people whole beliefs we're told to respect. The reason why I keep going on about this is that Scientology holds up a mirror to established religions. If you read the "mythology" behind Scientology and find it to be damn fucking ridiculous, then you have just realized what an objective observer would say about e.g. Christianity. The only reason why the Christian beliefs sound more "reasonable" is that they are a part of our culture and history, while Scientology is coming "from the outside", so to speak. That is also the reason why many people would like to get rid of religious influences as much as possible. It's hard to be objective, when everywhere, the ridiculous is being presented as the norm.



I admit I don't know much about Scientology but I think the reason people think it's kooky is because it's literal where the bible gets a free pass because its more allegory(if thats the right term).

[Jakester]

...allegory? Depneds on with whom you speak, 'innit? I mean, there are those who, as Moop points out, believe that the Earth is 6000 years old and that Man and Dinosaur lived together (assuming that Dinos actually existed, and God didn't plant the bones to test our faith). C'mon, Os, didn't you live in southern VA? Sheesh.

[Intelligent_Design]

...allegory? Depneds on with whom you speak, 'innit? I mean, there are those who, as Moop points out, believe that the Earth is 6000 years old and that Man and Dinosaur lived together (assuming that Dinos actually existed, and God didn't plant the bones to test our faith). C'mon, Os, didn't you live in southern VA? Sheesh.

I agree there are people out there that believe some crazy shit. I read a story in Time magazine once that stated the odds of the universe creating itself and then humans evolving to the point we are at now are equal to















winning the lottery.......











every day.........














for 40,000 years!!!!






yet some people believe thats what happen.......they are some crazy sombitches:lol: :lol: :)

[kah]

Why? What is good about it? I always see this statement presented as some kind of axiom or basic truth. If no religion had ever existed on Earth, would we really be any worse off now? If all memory of religion were suddenly erased from everyone's memories, would the world fall into chaos or would it stop being chaotic?

I honestly believe that most people need religion. I can only imagine being a nomad in ancient times, hunting wild animals, wearing their skins, and hoping not to get killed while I slept. While they were sitting around the fire, the elders would tell stories to the children about how the world was created, and that the animals were there to feed them and clothe them. They would give a reason to all things in their stories, because they had to have something to believe in. The same is true today. For someone who has lost a child, suffered a crippling illness, fought in a war, learned they could not have children, or any other form of human suffering, the people who recover and become stronger for it, are often very strong in their faith, or they become so. For some people, it makes their suffering easier, believing that there is a reason for it, and that God has another plan for them. It's like giving up control to a higher power. Some of us (and you know who you are) like to be in control, and therefore have a hard time accepting religion as a matter of fact. We don't like to be told that we don't have control of our own destinies, so we tend to reject someone (church) telling us what to do and how to live our lives. For many people, they just want someone to lay out a plan for them. To take control, so they don't have to worry about the responsibilty of leading. They let God lead. And I'm sure it can be incredibly comforting at times, to believe that God will take care of you, and keep you safe, and that if he doesn't, then that is his will, and he has another plan for you that will become clear in time.

I don't think the world would be better without religion. I think it would be better if tolerance was an infectious disease.

[Space Tycoon]

Kah, that is more or less exactly how I feel.

If you want to bug an atheist sometime, just remind them that most of the 20th Centuries' biggest killers (in terms of numbers) were Marxists of some variation or another. It is argued that even Hitler was truly motivated by atheism, and not Catholicism, as is often charged. "Organized religion is nothing more than a joint-stock corporation organized for the exploitation of human stupidity," he famously wrote. Sounds like some atheists I've known...

Stalin, Mao, plus various assorted East Bloc and Third World Communists murdered tens of millions of people with little or no compunction, always secure in the faith that it would lead to utopia. And they would still be doing so today, had they not been confronted by millions of resolute Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and Jews.

Religious tolerance is indeed what is called for in today's world. I believe the instinct for reverence, the need for higher moral guidance, is at least as much a part of the makeup of human psychology as Chomsky's "instinct for freedom."




.

[MPG]

If you want to bug an atheist sometime, just remind them that most of the 20th Centuries' biggest killers (in terms of numbers) were Marxists of some variation or another.
It would bug me, if Marxism could be equated with atheism or if Marxism followed out of atheism. You know the definition of the term "straw man argument"?
It is argued that even Hitler was truly motivated by atheism, and not Catholicism, as is often charged.
Being motivated by atheism is like being motivated by the non-existence of Santa Claus. After all, there is no atheist philosophy. There's a Marxist philosophy that just happens to be atheistic (and for some reason, you seem to equate both), but there really isn't a Big Book of Atheism that tells you how to act. I think Hitler was motivated by neither atheism nor Catholicism, and I haven't really seen many people make such a claim.

By the way, the way how the German state deals with the established religions (e.g. collecting taxes for them, allowing them to teach religion in public schools, etc.) is still based on laws that the Nazis negotiated with the churches. Rather than saying that they were motivated by one or the other, I would say that they were motivated by whatever suited them.
"Organized religion is nothing more than a joint-stock corporation organized for the exploitation of human stupidity," he famously wrote. Sounds like some atheists I've known...
He also wrote and said a lot of paranoid stuff about conspiracies, yet I wouldn't say that this means that conspiracy theorists are in any way associated with his ideas. He also built a lot of highways, yet not everyone who drives on them is a Nazi.

Einstein was an atheist, yet he apparently didn't quite agree with Hitler on many issues. That must be a weird contradiction in your mind.
Stalin, Mao, plus various assorted East Bloc and Third World Communists murdered tens of millions of people with little or no compunction, always secure in the faith that it would lead to utopia. And they would still be doing so today, had they not been confronted by millions of resolute Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and Jews.
Right, of course, there's no way that people would have brought down those governments, had it not been for the guidance of their religious beliefs. :smirks:

[MPG]

I honestly believe that most people need religion. I can only imagine being a nomad in ancient times, hunting wild animals, wearing their skins, and hoping not to get killed while I slept.
I have no trouble understanding why those nomads came up with religions to explain how the world worked. But we're not sitting around camp fires anymore, yet we still share the beliefs of the people who did. :wink:
For someone who has lost a child, suffered a crippling illness, fought in a war, learned they could not have children, or any other form of human suffering, the people who recover and become stronger for it, are often very strong in their faith, or they become so. For some people, it makes their suffering easier, believing that there is a reason for it, and that God has another plan for them.
Sure, I wouldn't dispute that. It's a bit like giving a placebo though. I've had a lot of discussions with people about whether or not it is "good" for doctors to give placebos to patients. Many people are of the opinion "I don't care if it's a placebo or 'real' medicine - as long as it works." That is a very tempting point of view, but in my opinion, giving people placebos is very myopic, because it may make the search for the real cure seem less urgent and placebos are most effective in relieving symptoms than in curing the underlying disease. That is one problem I have with religion or spirituality. It may help people get over certain problems and it can be quite effective in that, but it's an easy way out. While providing a quick fix, it may keep people from really getting over the problem. Also, just like a placebo, religion or spirituality is a rather fickle remedy except for the people with the strongest faith.
It's like giving up control to a higher power. Some of us (and you know who you are) like to be in control, and therefore have a hard time accepting religion as a matter of fact. We don't like to be told that we don't have control of our own destinies, so we tend to reject someone (church) telling us what to do and how to live our lives.
I don't think that this is really what motivates most atheists. Sure, it does make you wonder why people who are proud of their freedom, democracy, etc. don't have a problem with a Christmas song containing the line "Fall on your knees" but that's more of a sidenote. :D I know as a fact that I have fairly little control over my life. I have to work a steady job, I have to pay taxes, I have to follow the laws, etc. Yes, I have a certain amount of control that most theists don't have - "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul" - and I follow certain moral codes because I myself recognize them to be correct, not because they were handed down to me by some deity, but other than that, I have fairly few delusions of greatness. :wink:
For many people, they just want someone to lay out a plan for them.
But instead of just fulfilling that wish, perhaps these people would be better off learning how to make their own plans? It seems that you think that many people will never be able to do that, so they need religion, but I strongly believe that people are capable of doing that. It may just be a matter of trying.

[MPG]

I agree there are people out there that believe some crazy shit. I read a story in Time magazine once that stated the odds of the universe creating itself and then humans evolving to the point we are at now are equal to winning the lottery....... every day......... for 40,000 years!!!! yet some people believe thats what happen.......they are some crazy sombitches:lol: :lol: :)
I think that every day, a lottery is not only being won once somewhere in the world, but multiple lotteries are being won each day. In fact, it doesn't really happen too often that a lottery is NOT being won - it's always a big issue when a lottery accumulates a big jackpot because it wasn't won for a few weeks. So when you consider that it is quite likely for lotteries to be won and if you remember that the world is significantly older than 40,000 years... well, you get the picture. Doesn't sound that crazy anymore now, does it? :wink:

[MPG]

And here's the reason it's just three words, but they are important, and without them, I'm sure the world would be worse off, you silly little twat.

CATHOLIC SCHOOLGIRL OUTFITS
Those never really did anything for me. That could explain a lot. :ohwell:

[Scotia]

Welll, at least it's been confirmed that atheists are a gabby lot.

























:wink: :wink:

[MPG]

Welll, at least it's been confirmed that atheists are a gabby lot.
Just trying to do something about my post count. :wink:

[Jakester]

Moop, you are a sick, sad little man. I'll pray for you, and by pray, I mean enjoy myself with schoolgirl-outfit wearing pr0n stars.

[neglet]

Moop, you are a sick, sad little man. I'll pray for you, and by pray, I mean enjoy myself with schoolgirl-outfit wearing pr0n stars.

Oh, and here I thought you meant you got off on WEARING Catholic schoolgirl outfits. :o

[Jakester]

Only on holidays, Negs.

[Intelligent_Design]

"I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul" - and I follow certain moral codes because I myself recognize them to be correct, not because they were handed down to me by some deity, but other than that, I have fairly few delusions of greatness. :wink:



But you took the "moral codes" form what you learned from religion and apply them to your life. Its funny to hear atheists say these moral codes spring from within. After attending church and studying religious text at some point in their life. Its like me taking a geometry class and afterwards saying I didn't need to take that class I knew that stuff before I took it. You can never really prove that your "moral codes" came from within or were instilled by the church. Conversely if you were never exposed to religion you would have no choice but to be Atheists.

[Intelligent_Design]

I think that every day, a lottery is not only being won once somewhere in the world, but multiple lotteries are being won each day. In fact, it doesn't really happen too often that a lottery is NOT being won - it's always a big issue when a lottery accumulates a big jackpot because it wasn't won for a few weeks. So when you consider that it is quite likely for lotteries to be won and if you remember that the world is significantly older than 40,000 years... well, you get the picture. Doesn't sound that crazy anymore now, does it? :wink:

True, but to build a (non)belief system around a set of events, in the face of such astronomical odds against it....is just mind-boggling. I would guess the probability of the bible being 100% correct is greater than the universe and mankind being created Without a higher being. Don't get me wrong. I don't believe god placed Dinosaur bones here to test our faith. In fact I believe 99% of religion is bullshit. 1% that I believe is true is the existence of God. I would almost be a Deist but I think God takes an active role in the events of this planet.

[neglet]

But you took the "moral codes" form what you learned from religion and apply them to your life. Its funny to hear atheists say these moral codes spring from within. After attending church and studying religious text at some point in their life. Its like me taking a geometry class and afterwards saying I didn't need to take that class I knew that stuff before I took it. You can never really prove that your "moral codes" came from within or were instilled by the church. Conversely if you were never exposed to religion you would have no choice but to be Atheists.

First of all, I don't think most atheists claim that their moral codes "spring from within" without any outside influence--we learn from our parents/family and our observations of the world around us. In my case, my parents taught me that stealing was wrong, hurting people was wrong, and they didn't need to take me into a church to teach me that. The morals outlined in the 10 Commandments are not exclusive to Jews or Christians, otherwise everyone else in the world would think it's okay to murder people, steal, commit adultery, and those actions are condemned by most societies around the world. In so much as those ideals are practically universal, you could say they come from the condition of being human, or from within--but that's debating semantics, not philosophy.

And your math analogy isn't very useful. Before I took algebra class, I could figure out that if Cindy has 5 apples, gives away some, and has 3 left, then she gave away two apples. I couldn't have written "5-x=3, thus x=2," but I knew the truth of the statement even if I didn't have the mathetical language to describe it. Similarly, I think you could say that most people know that murder is wrong, even if they don't have religious terms in which to frame the concept. It's just one of the philosophical approaches through which you can explore it.

[Intelligent_Design]

First of all, I don't think most atheists claim that their moral codes "spring from within" without any outside influence--we learn from our parents/family and our observations of the world around us.

Thats right you learn it. Thats the key phrase there. It doesn't matter if you are taught the 10 commandments at home or church you were still taught to live a Christian life. So it seems like you are agreeing with me here. All morality , learned in Sunday school or in a strip club, in human history can be traced to some form of religion.


The morals outlined in the 10 Commandments are not exclusive to Jews or Christians, otherwise everyone else in the world would think it's okay to murder people, steal, commit adultery, and those actions are condemned by most societies around the world. And you have religion to thank for that.


And your math analogy isn't very useful. Before I took algebra class, I could figure out that if Cindy has 5 apples, gives away some, and has 3 left, then she gave away two apples. I couldn't have written "5-x=3, thus x=2," but I knew the truth of the statement even if I didn't have the mathetical language to describe it. Great argument but I didn't use Algebra as a example. Good try though. I used geometry for a reason. Are you saying you could come up " A straight line is a line which lies evenly with respect to its points" On your own without being taught it? If so, are you Euclid reincarnated?

[kah]

I would like to add that even though I don't believe in organized religion, it doesn't make me an atheist. I believe there are higher powers, but it would be silly to think that anyone knows their purpose. I think the people who wrote the religious tomes were possessed of very creative minds, and had the intent of acheiving widespread moral authority. I also agree with Neg. I would not kill someone simply because the Ten Commandments, or Hammurabi said not to. Just thinking about killing someone without just cause makes me nauseaus. You just have to look at serial killers to understand. They are missing a conscience. They could be good Christians, and tell themselves that it is wrong to kill because God said so, but they lack the conscience to back up their beliefs. It is all tied to instinct and the ability to learn. You can't look at this earth and tell me you don't believe there is something, or was something/someone who set things in motion. They way a baby is created is proof enough for me. Now, that doesn't mean I believe in religion, because religion is, after all, a product of man, and they haven't proven themselves trustworthy in over 4 million years. So :tongue:

[Trazalca]

After reading this thread and watching it build for the last few hours,
I have finally come up with what I want to say to all of you:

Jesus loves you.

And that's it. :D

[DaForce]

Jesus loves you.



Yeah, I've heard that one before.




I didn't fall for it when Jakester said it to me, and I'm definitely not going to fall for it just because you're saying it, Traz.






I mean really, who wants to get pregnant by you guys?


















Oh.....um....I mean besides your loving wives.












:D

[Intelligent_Design]

After reading this thread and watching it build for the last few hours,
I have finally come up with what I want to say to all of you:

Jesus loves you.

And that's it. :D

Confucius loves you.

[DaForce]

http://www.solitarytrees.net/pickets/added/xwt2.jpg



Xenu loves ewe.



:hugs:

[Intelligent_Design]

http://www.mirosatan.sk/Satan_sk/galeria/satan45.jpg


SATAN LOVES YOU!!!

[Kaeos]

Shu'up man or Tom will eat yo placenta!!!!

http://www.geocities.com/amie_07/TomCruise/magnolia06s.jpg

[sickness]

http://www.solitarytrees.net/pickets/added/xwt2.jpg



Xenu loves ewe.



:hugs:

No, that's Bibble. But Bibble does love you. Even though Bibble's fo' shizzle and he's all 'bout Bibble. He may think he's great, but he cares about other people, too.

[Asonokirk V 2.0]

I said that because I mean if you read the messages embedded in Religion, they are all about loving each other, being honest and honorable people, and working for the greater good of all. There is no selfishness preached by any religion that I know of (except maybe Satanism, but I really don't know what they preach). Again, the problem is the PEOPLE who claim to be acting in the name of religion, but aren't. Just because some one calls themselves a Muslim, a Christian, or anything else, doesn't mean they are one.

[Space Tycoon]

It would bug me, if Marxism could be equated with atheism or if Marxism followed out of atheism. You know the definition of the term "straw man argument"?...

Being motivated by atheism is like being motivated by the non-existence of Santa Claus. After all, there is no atheist philosophy. There's a Marxist philosophy that just happens to be atheistic (and for some reason, you seem to equate both), but there really isn't a Big Book of Atheism that tells you how to act. Well, I equate the two. Obviously not every atheist is a Marxist, but every Marxist, by definition, must be an atheist. Marxist-Leninism, and it's offshoots Stalinism and Maoism, made the abolition of religion one of the first orders of business.

Which is why in East Bloc countries like Rumania, Albania and others, you had until recently entire generations who have never been given any moral or ethical teaching beyond pure materialism or nationalism as dictated by the totalitarian state. Small wonder that the worst forms of corruption and organized crime flourished so quickly and completely. Once freed from the yoke, the people did not return to traditional virtues and beliefs, as many had hoped, but rather to a different form of materialism-- or to an even harsher form of ethnic nationalism, as seen in Jugoslavia.

Incidentally, I feel the same way about Ayn Rand's brand of atheism, even though she was obviously on the other end of the spectrum. It's just a dead end, Moop. Any healthy society must incorporate a balance between the needs of this world and the hereafter, however one perceives that to be.

This is how I feel, anyway.


I think Hitler was motivated by neither atheism nor Catholicism, and I haven't really seen many people make such a claim.Hitler was motivated by a blend of nationalism and racial pseudoscience, which I guess was basically his "religion," for lack of a better word. What his true beliefs are is anyone's guess. I think it would be more accurate to say Hitler was a skilled manipulator of religion, rather than an adherent of it. People with an axe to grind for Roman Catholicism often assert that Hitler was a Catholic, flat out. People who are opposed to atheism like myself would simply judge him by his actions, which can only be described as anti-Christian in every sense of the word.


Einstein was an atheist, yet he apparently didn't quite agree with Hitler on many issues. That must be a weird contradiction in your mind. Well as I said all atheists do not think alike. Communism and Naziism are, to me, simply the biggest examples of what can happen when atheists are given full reign.

Right, of course, there's no way that people would have brought down those governments, had it not been for the guidance of their religious beliefs. :smirks: Their faith simply made them stronger. In my view, even if we had done nothing to confront it, Marxist-Leninism would have collapsed under the weight of it's own impracticality and lack of vitality. But it would have been a long, agonizing wait, as witness North Korea.




.

[MPG]

True, but to build a (non)belief system around a set of events, in the face of such astronomical odds against it....is just mind-boggling.
Read my message again - I think you missed the part where I tried to explain that there are no astronomical odds against it. Like I said, lotteries are being won every day. A lottery has pretty good odds of being won, or else nobody would play. Yes, for a single person, the odds of winning a lottery are pretty small, but people still keep playing, because lotteries are being won all the time.

People look the wrong way at this "evolution is like playing the lottery" thing. They look at it from their own "I have never won the lottery" perspective, but they are not the players in this particular lottery. Nature is. And nature holds a astronomically huge amount of lottery tickets.

Recommended reading:
"Climbing Mount Improbable" or "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins. Or even better: "The Selfish Gene". If anyone asked me which book a person is supposed to have read by the age of 16, "The Selfish Gene" would be my first answer. Dawkins actually managed to change my mind on quite a few things and that is not an easy thing to do.

[MPG]

But you took the "moral codes" form what you learned from religion and apply them to your life. Its funny to hear atheists say these moral codes spring from within.
"Spring from within"? Sounds a bit too much like "making it up as you go along" to me.

As far as non-religious moral codes go, I don't see chimpanzees worshipping, yet they don't kill each other. Most animals don't eat members of their own species (as far as I know, not even their own dead). There are some interesting studies on incest-avoidance in non-human primates (and actually, this is not even limited to primates). Apparently, many parts of what we would consider moral codes were around before religion, not the other way around.

Actually, my moral code is stricter than what I find in the religions that I personally know, so to me that's proof enough that I didn't get it out of religion. The categorical imperative is an improvement over the so-called "golden rule" that you can find in most religions. Apparently, Kant managed to develop it all by himself without relying on the dominant religion he grew up with. If I just made my moral codes up as I go along, as you seem to imply, I would agree that it's hard to tell where they actually come from. If however, they come from logical thought and deductive arguments, then I can't agree at all.
Conversely if you were never exposed to religion you would have no choice but to be Atheists.
I doubt that. I think that the urge to believe in a higher power is not necessarily unnatural (though the same goes for many other urges that we have thankfully learned to suppress). The capacity for "superstition" in the form of pareidolia has been proven to be very natural (and possibly even essential for survival) and pareidolia is the fertile ground on which religion grows.

[MPG]

Well, I equate the two. Obviously not every atheist is a Marxist, but every Marxist, by definition, must be an atheist.
What you just said is: I equate the two, but I don't equate the two. :wink: In any case, if you realize that Marxism and atheism are not the same thing, then making a statement about atheism by referring to Marxism is pretty pointless. It's like saying "All Republicans are stupid, because all the members of George Bush's family that I know of are stupid, and all members of George Bush's family that I know of are Republicans." As interesting as it sounds, it's not quite logical, is it? :D

By the way, I know a lot of marxists who are not atheists.
Which is why in East Bloc countries like Rumania, Albania and others, you had until recently entire generations who have never been given any moral or ethical teaching beyond pure materialism or nationalism as dictated by the totalitarian state. Small wonder that the worst forms of corruption and organized crime flourished so quickly and completely.
Some of the most religious states in the world are also the most corrupt. Italy is stereotypically famous for its organized crime.

You keep trying to prove stuff by example. That just doesn't work.
Once freed from the yoke, the people did not return to traditional virtues and beliefs, as many had hoped, but rather to a different form of materialism-- or to an even harsher form of ethnic nationalism, as seen in Jugoslavia.
Yugoslavia is one of the most religious areas in the former "eastern bloc", possibly on a level with Poland (and certainly more religious than many West European countries), yet in Poland, religion supposedly aided the downfall of Stalinism, but in Yugoslavia, the lack of religion supposedly caused trouble?

I finally get it. You're starting with what you want to prove and then you argue the wrong way around. If something goes wrong, you define it as an example for how bad atheism is, if something goes right, it's an example for how beneficial religion is.
I think it would be more accurate to say Hitler was a skilled manipulator of religion, rather than an adherent of it. People with an axe to grind for Roman Catholicism often assert that Hitler was a Catholic, flat out. People who are opposed to atheism like myself would simply judge him by his actions, which can only be described as anti-Christian in every sense of the word.
Well, there are also many Popes who did "anti-Christian" things, yet you wouldn't call them "atheists" or judge atheists based on their actions. Hitler, for all that I know, was an atheist (though actually, the vast majority of nazis were probably Christians). So were many other bad people. And many good people. Many bad people were Christians. Many good people were Christians, too. Like I said, proving points by example doesn't get you very far.
Well as I said all atheists do not think alike. Communism and Naziism are, to me, simply the biggest examples of what can happen when atheists are given full reign.
So if I were to come to power, I'd end up killing a lot of people? :D Well, at least someone is afraid of me!

[Space Tycoon]

What you just said is: I equate the two, but I don't equate the two. :wink: In any case, if you realize that Marxism and atheism are not the same thing, then making a statement about atheism by referring to Marxism is pretty pointless. Nyet! I don't see it that way. What I'm saying is Communism was an empire based on the attempted destruction of centuries of religious belief. It is one example of militant atheism in action. Perhaps there will be another one day, based on a different ideology.

By the way, I know a lot of marxists who are not atheists. Well in that case they are not really Marxists, in the strictest sense of it. Just socialists who happen to be influenced by Marx's theories.

Yugoslavia is one of the most religious areas in the former "eastern bloc", possibly on a level with Poland (and certainly more religious than many West European countries), yet in Poland, religion supposedly aided the downfall of Stalinism, but in Yugoslavia, the lack of religion supposedly caused trouble? In Poland religion definitely helped bring down communism. In Jugoslavia, ethnic nationalism replaced communism, not just religion, unfortunately. The Orthodox priests made appeals based on ethnic chauvinism.

The level of criminality in former East Bloc states goes far beyond that of Italy. In Italy and Sicily the Mafia exists and is protected, to some extent, by the Church, true. But in Russia and other former east bloc countries organized crime is practically an institution unto itself, drawn from people who had power under communism. And in my view, the abolition of religious teaching facilitated that. If materialism was all that mattered under communism, why shouldn't it be the only thing that matters under capitalism? It all comes back to human beings needing some sort of higher power, or judge, to guide their actions.

Well, there are also many Popes who did "anti-Christian" things, yet you wouldn't call them "atheists" or judge atheists based on their actions. Hitler, for all that I know, was an atheist (though actually, the vast majority of nazis were probably Christians).The 20th century definitely belonged to the atheists. The Russian Revolution was their "big chance" to prove that human society could be organized strictly on economic or scientific lines, without religion. Many atheists in the west saw the bolshevik government as wiping away ancient, useless religion and replacing it with a society based on pure reason. As far as most nazi followers being Christians, there is a good chance of that. But Hitler himself was no Christian, rather a user of religion.

So were many other bad people. And many good people. Many bad people were Christians. Many good people were Christians, too. Like I said, proving points by example doesn't get you very far.Well I do not see how one can ignore the fact that two most dangerous movements of the twentieth century, naziism and communism, had their roots in a perversion of science and reason, rather than a perversion of religious faith. And frankly, I can see our own society moving in the same direction of rampant (dare one say it?) Godless materialism.

So if I were to come to power, I'd end up killing a lot of people? :D Well, at least someone is afraid of me! Well, a little knowledge is dangerous... :eek:




.

[Trazalca]

If I just made my moral codes up as I go along, as you seem to imply, I would agree that it's hard to tell where they actually come from. If however, they come from logical thought and deductive arguments, then I can't agree at all.

In regards to your "logical thought and deductive arguments",
how did you come by them? It would seem to me that not everybody
has that talent for it. Or is talent the wrong word?
Is that to say then that these are attributes open to any and all willing to apply them?
For yourself, atheism is a logical road that you see plainly.
And if others do not see the road you see, it's because they
failed to apply the logic and deductive reasoning you have applied.
Am I wrong in saying this?

[Jakester]

Shouldn't you have made that post in the "Questions Only" thread?

[MPG]

In regards to your "logical thought and deductive arguments", how did you come by them? It would seem to me that not everybody has that talent for it. Or is talent the wrong word?
Is that to say then that these are attributes open to any and all willing to apply them?
Sure.

I don't know if it's a talent though. I think it's more of an interest. Or a choice. You have to be interested in it and you have to want to use it. Most people aren't interested in logical explanations, because they are less romantic, comforting, exciting, etc.

I had a friend who was addicted to slot machines. He played on the kind of slot machines where you have to press some buttons to "interact" with the machine. Over time, he developed certain theories about when he had to press the buttons to win. Of course, the behaviour of the machine was totally random, and the button presses had nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not he won, but sometimes it worked, and that reinforced his belief. I think it gave him some kind of comfort, it made him feel like he was in control. He realized deep down that it was all BS, but had this realization surfaced, he would have been hit by the harsh reality that he was basically giving his money away with no chance of winning it back. Period. He eventually kicked the habit and holds a university degree now. He's a smart guy, quite capable of logical thought. So much for logic being a "talent" as opposed to it being a choice.
For yourself, atheism is a logical road that you see plainly.
Note that what I said in this thread is that there can in my opinion be a moral code that is derived purely through some kind of logical reasoning. Atheism as such doesn't play into it.

However, as far as atheism as a result of reasonable consideration goes, I think we've had discussions about Occam's razor before. :wink:
And if others do not see the road you see, it's because they
failed to apply the logic and deductive reasoning you have applied.
Am I wrong in saying this?
Well, many Christians have told me things like "You just don't see the light." or "You just refuse to open your heart for Christ's message." that I have lost any qualms about responding with "You refuse to use basic logic." :wink: But usually, that kind of insult is reserved for people who first insult me with those statements I quoted, and I think it's fair to use it when religious people try (and invariably fail) to squeeze religion into some kind of logical scientific context. Religious people are reasonably safe from a full-frontal logic assault as long as they maintain that religion doesn't have to be logical and stick to that position. :D

[Intelligent_Design]

Read my message again - I think you missed the part where I tried to explain that there are no astronomical odds against it.

"...the odds against DNA assembling by chance are 10*40,000 to one [according to Fred Hoyle, Evolution from Space,1981]." Those are pretty long odds dude. Like I said before Mindbogging that any one would believe something in the face of astronmical odds. I know laws of physics are invovled but they don't dictate life must be created from molecules "

[MPG]

"...the odds against DNA assembling by chance are 10*40,000 to one [according to Fred Hoyle, Evolution from Space,1981]." Those are pretty long odds dude. Like I said before Mindbogging that any one would believe something in the face of astronmical odds.
As far as I can tell, Hoyle's major fallacy is that he assumes that evolution is based on macromutation, i.e. the spontaneous assembly of DNA molecules. However, evolution is based on micromutation. He also came up with that silly example of the self-assembling Boeing 747. If you get your numbers from people who misunderstand or misrepresent evolution, then yes, it will seem mind-boggling to you.

[Asonokirk V 2.0]

In a twist on your discussion here, I have found that most of the atheists I know are actually more "Christian" than most of the people I know who call themselves Christians.

I have come to realize that many of the people who are the most vocal in their support of Christianity are people who are most likely to completely miss the point of Christ's teachings. Too many are hung up on the things that they've been indocrinated with, and too many simply haven't read the Bible enough to understand it. They just go along with what they are told they are supposed to believe without really trying to understand what it is they think they are believing in.

I believe Christ would go postal on the asses of many of today's so-called Christians were He alive today.

[MPG]

You can't look at this earth and tell me you don't believe there is something, or was something/someone who set things in motion.
Yea, that's a rather old argument. So you can't believe that the Universe, Earth and life came about through a chain of events that can be explained through the laws of physics, but you find it easier to believe that all of this was set in motion by a rather powerful "something" that is/was apparently intelligent enough to create all of this? You really find the latter explanation to be the more reasonable and believable one? We humans are too complex to have come about without divine intervention, but that intelligent and powerful "something" came... from... where exactly? :wink:

Actually, that is the one question that pulls the plug on the whole intelligent design (not to be confused with Intelligent_Design) discussion. It starts because people believe that a complex system must have an intelligent designer, but the question remains: Then who designed the designer?

If you say that complexity indicates design, then you end up with an even bigger mystery than before.

[Intelligent_Design]

"Spring from within"? Sounds a bit too much like "making it up as you go along" to me.

As far as non-religious moral codes go, I don't see chimpanzees worshipping, yet they don't kill each other. I don't understand what you are getting at here. How can you compare human morality with a chimps observed actions?:dunno:

Most animals don't eat members of their own species (as far as I know, not even their own dead). Insects the largest group of life on the planet eat members of their own species all the time even the dead. But I don't understand how that relates to human morality and religion?:dunno:



Actually, my moral code is stricter than what I find in the religions that I personally know, so to me that's proof enough that I didn't get it out of religion. So you took what you learned in Sunday school and improved on it. That makes great a case for religion. It can be a gateway to increased morality.

The categorical imperative is an improvement over the so-called "golden rule" that you can find in most religions. Apparently, Kant managed to develop it all by himself without relying on the dominant religion he grew up with. Hey I never said that morals laid down in religion could never be improved upon.I really don't know enough at this moment to debate a position on Kant but I found this interesting.

"This [most central] objection is that Kant's basic framework is incoherent. His account of human knowledge leads to a conception of human beings as parts of nature, whose desires, inclinations and actions are susceptible of ordinary causal explanation. Yet his account of human freedom demands that we view human agents as capable of self-determination, and specifically of determination in accordance with the principles of duty. Kant is apparently driven to a dual view of man: we are both phenomenal (natural, causally determined) beings and noumenal (non-natural, self-determining) beings. Many of Kant's critics have held that this dual-aspect view of human beings is ultimately incoherent."Onora O'Neill

If I just made my moral codes up as I go along, as you seem to imply, I would agree that it's hard to tell where they actually come from. If however, they come from logical thought and deductive arguments, then I can't agree at all. No. I stated you seem to take all the lessons taught to you from religion and apply them to your life while saying religion is useless.



I doubt that. I think that the urge to believe in a higher power is not necessarily unnatural (though the same goes for many other urges that we have thankfully learned to suppress). The capacity for "superstition" in the form of pareidolia has been proven to be very natural (and possibly even essential for survival) and pareidolia is the fertile ground on which religion grows. Some people have belief in a higher power but don't practice a religion so how do you explain their capacity or lack of superstition?

[Asonokirk V 2.0]

Yea, that's a rather old argument. So you can't believe that the Universe, Earth and life came about through a chain of events that can be explained through the laws of physics, but you find it easier to believe that all of this was set in motion by a rather powerful "something" that is/was apparently intelligent enough to create all of this? You really find the latter explanation to be the more reasonable and believable one? We humans are too complex to have come about without divine intervention, but that intelligent and powerful "something" came... from... where exactly? :wink:

Actually, that is the one question that pulls the plug on the whole intelligent design (not to be confused with Intelligent_Design) discussion. It starts because people believe that a complex system must have an intelligent designer, but the question remains: Then who designed the designer?

If you say that complexity indicates design, then you end up with an even bigger mystery than before.

I have come to believe that it is a mistake to assign labels based on a human perceptions of the infinite. "Intelligent" design implies that the universe was created by something we can understand. What I think escapes most is the realization that as human beings we simply have no ability to comprehend that which might exist as a "cause" or reason for existence. However the universe came to be, it wasn't because some intelligence as we understand that term created it. What did create the universe, and what people like to call God, is not something remotely resembling anything we can actually understand in terms that have any value to us.

We are in way over our heads when we claim to know anything about the nature of creation. No one has any real knowledge of the purpose or reasons that might exist behind existence. We can speculate all we want, but not a single one of us has anything to say about why there is existence that has any basis in any kind of fact. We just don't have enough information to draw any kind of conclusions about anything.

I believe it is helpful to keep your mind open to all things, and it is only by asking questions that any answers can be found, but I sincerely believe
that humanity doesn't even know the right questions to ask at this point in time.

I once prayed and asked God to give me awareness and insight into creation, and He did so. He told me the following:

"With all of the knowledge of the universe available to you, and a job, you can pay your rent."

I am not trying to be glib or funny, I am serious. Trying to understand the nature of existence might be a fun exercise in creative thinking, but ultimately that understanding has no real application to us. It isn't important as to how we got here, it is important that we are here.

[neglet]

ID, you keep implying that nonbelievers such as Moop and myself learned our morality lessons from "Sunday School." I think Moop has said he has fallen away from the beliefs he was originally taught, but personally, I never attended a single Sunday School class. I've never been baptized. Growing up, I only attended church a handful of times, for weddings and stuff like that. How then I have learned my moral values from religion? I just don't get how you can make the progression: Christianity teaches moral values; Neglet espouses moral values; therefore Neglet learned her moral values from Christianity. That's a logical fallacy which assumes that moral values are the exclusive domain of religion.

[Intelligent_Design]

As far as I can tell, Hoyle's major fallacy is that he assumes that evolution is based on macromutation, i.e. the spontaneous assembly of DNA molecules. However, evolution is based on micromutation. He also came up with that silly example of the self-assembling Boeing 747. If you get your numbers from people who misunderstand or misrepresent evolution, then yes, it will seem mind-boggling to you.

I seems to me that the possiblity of micromutation ocuring is greater than 10*40,000 to one that Hoyle purposed. There are rapid leaps in evolution in some periods of history. That makes the case even stronger that there was a guiding hand. Lastly it seems as if Hoyle's was more a joke than anything thing else.

[Intelligent_Design]

ID, you keep implying that nonbelievers such as Moop and myself learned our morality lessons from "Sunday School." I think Moop has said he has fallen away from the beliefs he was originally taught, He said " Actually, my moral code is stricter than what I find in the religions that I personally know" That isn't implying falling away. Thats impling improving on a base.

I only attended church a handful of times, for weddings and stuff like that. How then I have learned my moral values from religion? You have admitted you are a fast learner. :) I know you learned your moral values from religion because you are a moral person.The base for all Human morality springs from some form of religion.

I just don't get how you can make the progression: Christianity teaches moral values; Neglet espouses moral values; therefore Neglet learned her moral values from Christianity. That's a logical fallacy which assumes that moral values are the exclusive domain of religion. There is no possible way I can be proven wrong. Because You can only Assume that having never been exposed to Christianity or any other religion your moral values would be parallel to those.

[DaForce]

http://www.smileyworld.com/dictionary/images/smileys/MoodHands/yawning.gif


Wake me when this thread closes.




.

[Intelligent_Design]

http://www.smileyworld.com/dictionary/images/smileys/MoodHands/yawning.gif


Wake me when this thread closes.




.


Nah, we like you better when you are Sleeping.




:wink:

[Trazalca]

If you say that complexity indicates design, then you end up with an even bigger mystery than before.

Would you consider that as unacceptable?

Just on the viewpoint of winding up with a bigger mystery than before,
I was thinking about the movie The 6th Sense. If you've seen it, you
know how it ends. You may even watch it again to see how it had famously
"tricked" you the first time. That is providing, of course, that were taken
in by it's surprise twist, and that you never saw it coming the first time.

Well, the thing of it is, I've seen the movie 3 times. But, my interest
in seeing it again is diminished quite a bit. The mysteries it posed throughout
the film have now been answered. Mysteries are fun, but once the answer
is known, you move on to something else. Unless you become a fan
of the method it presents, there really is no point in dwelling too much on
it anymore.

Now, what if it only gave you part of the answer. Nothing total.
Just some of it. With the unanswered questions still left hanging,
your desire to want to know more lingers, and even grows.

God has been described as among the greatest of mysteries.
So much so, that he is described as so big, and so grand in scale,
it would be impossible to take in what he's all about,
with him as a spirit being, and us as humans.

Is it too crazy an idea to accept God as a mystery in faith?
To worship an unseen entity that has created us, and go on
according to what was inspired in scripture?
Is the idea of a much bigger unanswerable mystery too much to accept?
Do we need to know all the answers?

[kah]

We are in way over our heads when we claim to know anything about the nature of creation. No one has any real knowledge of the purpose or reasons that might exist behind existence. We can speculate all we want, but not a single one of us has anything to say about why there is existence that has any basis in any kind of fact. We just don't have enough information to draw any kind of conclusions about anything.

I believe it is helpful to keep your mind open to all things, and it is only by asking questions that any answers can be found, but I sincerely believe
that humanity doesn't even know the right questions to ask at this point in time.



This is what I am getting at. No one alive actually has any answers. The reason I believe there has to be something/someone/multiple someones is because of the veritable study of randomness this planet is. I don't believe in Creation, because that, to me, is just another myth in the story of Christianity and Judaism. Believing that the earth and all its species were created after the Big Bang, and that all things evolved from single celled creatures is just as ridiculous to me. Do I think it is coincidence that there is a food chain, and a cycle of life and death, and that the female of most species can create a new life inside of itself from an egg and a sperm? Is it coincidence that trees turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, and that we breathe in oxygen, while exhaling carbon dioxide? I don't think it is. I also don't think there was some big invisible guy in the sky, putting his little paintbrush to the butterflies' wings, and dusting snow on the mountaintops. Who says the Greeks were wrong? Just because it became unpopular to believe in many gods doesn't mean they were wrong. It seems more likely to me, having gods and goddesses who are responsible for seasons, fertility, war, the forest, the lakes, love, vanity, etc. If there were many gods, each would only have to be responsible for a small part of the world.

What I really mean, though, is who actually knows? No one was alive 4 1/2 billion years ago when the earth was supposedly created. There was no one to write down the story of how it all happened, or even to pass the tale down to his/her children, only to have them skew the details in eons worth of "telephone". I just trust that there is something, and that if "it" wanted us to know about "it", then we would know.

Then again, maybe we are all stuck in the Matrix, and none of this is real.

[kah]

By the by...

I started this thread to mock Scientology, not to have an intelligent discussion about religion.

[Trazalca]

I just trust that there is something, and that if "it" wanted us to know about "it", then we would know.

Not through human endeavors, like anything written down in a Bible,
but directly, like a giant finger coming down to tap you on the shoulder
followed by a big booming voice, saying "Hello."
You mean like that?

How would you respond if that happened?

[Trazalca]

By the by...

I started this thread to mock Scientology, not to have an intelligent discussion about religion.

Welcome to CINESCAPE! :D

[neglet]

No, no, Traz. The proper greeting is: Welcome to Cinescape! Now show us your tits!

[MulderLestatBlk]

http://www.whyaretheydead.net/

[neglet]

You have admitted you are a fast learner. :) I know you learned your moral values from religion because you are a moral person.The base for all Human morality springs from some form of religion.

There is no possible way I can be proven wrong. Because You can only Assume that having never been exposed to Christianity or any other religion your moral values would be parallel to those.

Well, according to that "logic" there is no possible way you can be proven right, either. (Unless you want to create a biodome somewhere and use robots to raise a generation of children who are not exposed to religion, to see whether they develop morals or not. You raise the money and I'll program the robots. :smirks:)

But do answer me this, then: if my occasional exposure to religion was enough to teach me moral values, why then did it not teach me to believe in Christianity? Could it be because my moral values were reinforced through something besides religion?

[Asonokirk V 2.0]

This is what I am getting at. No one alive actually has any answers. The reason I believe there has to be something/someone/multiple someones is because of the veritable study of randomness this planet is. I don't believe in Creation, because that, to me, is just another myth in the story of Christianity and Judaism. Believing that the earth and all its species were created after the Big Bang, and that all things evolved from single celled creatures is just as ridiculous to me. Do I think it is coincidence that there is a food chain, and a cycle of life and death, and that the female of most species can create a new life inside of itself from an egg and a sperm? Is it coincidence that trees turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, and that we breathe in oxygen, while exhaling carbon dioxide? I don't think it is. I also don't think there was some big invisible guy in the sky, putting his little paintbrush to the butterflies' wings, and dusting snow on the mountaintops. Who says the Greeks were wrong? Just because it became unpopular to believe in many gods doesn't mean they were wrong. It seems more likely to me, having gods and goddesses who are responsible for seasons, fertility, war, the forest, the lakes, love, vanity, etc. If there were many gods, each would only have to be responsible for a small part of the world.

What I really mean, though, is who actually knows? No one was alive 4 1/2 billion years ago when the earth was supposedly created. There was no one to write down the story of how it all happened, or even to pass the tale down to his/her children, only to have them skew the details in eons worth of "telephone". I just trust that there is something, and that if "it" wanted us to know about "it", then we would know.

Then again, maybe we are all stuck in the Matrix, and none of this is real.

I was led to the conclusions I reached in part by reading the New Testament repeatedly over a 7 year period. I read something every single day for that period of time, such that after 7 years I had read through the entire book many times. God is a real concept, it is that He is not as we can imagine and it is not up to us, nor is it necessary for us, to assign any attributes to God. I am using the word "God" to represent all that is unknowable and unimaginable, not as some "entity" that has motivations we can understand on some level. I really believe that mankind was given some kind of assistance by a higher authority through Jesus, and other religious figures whose teachings seem inspired. But to draw the conclusion that God is some kind of father figure is ludicrous in the extreme.

You must be open to the idea that we are not able to interface with portions of reality within which we exist, and of which we are unaware, in order to be able to begin appreciate that enormity of the task we face in trying to understand existence. I am implying that there is more around us than we are able to perceive, or imagine. I guess the best analogy I can provide is that consider man as a single cell drifting along in a blood vessel. This cell cannot even begin to comprehend he is inside a man since it has no frame of reference from which to draw the idea of a man. I'm not suggesting the universe is some big creature, I'm suggesting that we don't have any frame of reference from which we can draw upon that would help us have more understanding of the nature of reality. Without such facts, we are free to speculate at will, and that means just about everyone's belief system or ideas about creation are just as valid as the next person's.

[kah]

I am going to offer a couple of things for you all here.

First, here (http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/arguments.html#lll) is a page that gives time to all the atheist arguments.

Second, I am more an agnostic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism) than anything else.

Third, thank you Traz. I had forgotten where I was for a second.

[sickness]

I just trust that there is something, and that if "it" wanted us to know about "it", then we would know.

Perhaps not. Perhaps "it" is so complex that "it" is incapable of communicating with us. To make an analogy, how would you explain the world to an ant?

[Trazalca]

Perhaps not. Perhaps "it" is so complex that "it" is incapable of communicating with us. To make an analogy, how would you explain the world to an ant?

Or even better, how would an ant explain the world to another ant,
without coming off as being a prime candidate for the funny (ant?)farm?

:smirk:

[Intelligent_Design]

Then again, maybe we are all stuck in the Matrix, and none of this is real.

Its funny you bring that up. When we create landscapes and entities in the digital realm don't they exist. Of course they are controlled but the creator but you also hear alot of people in the real world say the same thing. I think its possible that years from now we will be able to create self aware entities and universes in a digital format.

[Jakester]

What is the Matrix?

[Trazalca]

http://www.darthgoat.com/images/morpheus_project/morpheus_006.jpg

You must take the red pill, and see how far down the rabbit hole goes.
Which for you, Jakester, should be incentive enough. :smirk:

[Intelligent_Design]

Well, according to that "logic" there is no possible way you can be proven right, either. (Unless you want to create a biodome somewhere and use robots to raise a generation of children who are not exposed to religion, to see whether they develop morals or not. You raise the money and I'll program the robots. :smirks:) Every one is tainted by religion in some way. Directly or indirectly. We need to find or make a pure test subject. I'll get Dharma on the phone.:)

But do answer me this, then: if my occasional exposure to religion was enough to teach me moral values, why then did it not teach me to believe in Christianity? Could it be because my moral values were reinforced through something besides religion? I can't answer that but I reject religion because I see it as a corrupt system used to subjugate billions of people. I don't even agree with most of the morals imposed by Christianity. But I don't deny thats where they originate. Religion is also extremely dated and doesn't hold up well in our modern society.

[Magell]

I'm with Intelligent Design in rejecting organized religion because it is used to control people and force them to follow a man made doctrine in how they worship God. It's dumb.

Back to mocking Scientology as this thread was for. Check out this shirt http://www.tshirthell.com/store/product.php?productid=641

[Queen Mae]

just a little reminder:

Religion, organized religion, and Christianity are not synonamous.

oh, and Christianity did not invent morality and infinite regress is a problem for the "Big Bang" as well as Intelligent Design. In addition to that, neither necessitate the exclusion of the other.

(I keep thinking of things to add here)

I'm assuming that by "religion" all of you mean a religion that involves a Saguna?

[Minion]

just a little reminder:

Religion, organized religion, and Christianity are not synonamous.

oh, and Christianity did not invent morality.
Exactly. They invented the yo-yo.

Minion: And god bless them for that. :D

[Asonokirk V 2.0]

Its funny you bring that up. When we create landscapes and entities in the digital realm don't they exist. Of course they are controlled but the creator but you also hear alot of people in the real world say the same thing. I think its possible that years from now we will be able to create self aware entities and universes in a digital format.

You are touching upon a theory that I have. I just have a kind of gut level impression that what is really going on is that man becomes God in the end. At which point it becomes necessary to re-create man in our own image so that we may come to exist. It is an endlessly repeating cycle. Man creates God so that God can create Man.

I am becoming aware that we have a lot more power than we realize. We can physically alter the universe around us, and we can create our own environments out of nothing more than the matter existing within our physical surroundings. We can physically effect other planetary bodies within our awareness. We can spread ourselves out into the larger universe around us for as far as we wish, and we can come to evolve to a level of understanding and awareness of creation that allows us to become aware of concepts that we can now only barely perceive as "something" that "is not definable."

For us here and now, what I've come to understand is that I have absolute control over my life to the point I can exist as I so choose. I believe that is essentially true for all of us. We are each a piece of God, and all we have to do is find that within ourselves. That is when you have found the direction in which to travel that is right for yourself.

[jayce78]

Tom Cruise once again comments:


''We really need to get back to discussing what matters in this world , like how great I am & how much I wanna F-Katie over & over.''

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/4698/untitled1sy.png (http://imageshack.us)


''hhahahahahahaha . . . .YEeeeA!!!!''

[DaForce]

Tom Cruise once again comments:


''We really need to get back to discussing what matters in this world , like how great I am & how much I wanna F-Katie over & over.''

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/4698/untitled1sy.png (http://imageshack.us)


''hhahahahahahaha . . . .YEeeeA!!!!''


You've gotta wonder if that's the face he made when they inserted the turkey baster into Katie.


"EWWWWW!!!"

[Intelligent_Design]

You've gotta wonder if that's the face he made when they inserted the turkey baster into Katie.


"EWWWWW!!!"

I think Katie is more of an eye dropper type girl.

[Asonokirk V 2.0]

Tom Cruise once again comments:


''We really need to get back to discussing what matters in this world , like how great I am & how much I wanna F-Katie over & over.''

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/4698/untitled1sy.png (http://imageshack.us)


''hhahahahahahaha . . . .YEeeeA!!!!''

Ah sees, says ah.

I know nothing of Tom Cruise outside of his films, and don't care to know anything about him personally. I find the idea of including any consideration of him in my conscious mind to be . . . distasteful . . .

:)

[Intelligent_Design]

I'm assuming that by "religion" all of you mean a religion that involves a Saguna?


I'm sorry......I forgot:


Saguna Brahma loves you!!!!:) :)

[Intelligent_Design]

I'm with Intelligent Design in rejecting organized religion because it is used to control people and force them to follow a man made doctrine in how they worship God. It's dumb.

Back to mocking Scientology as this thread was for. Check out this shirt http://www.tshirthell.com/store/product.php?productid=641

Yep and most of these so-called holypersons would have you believe that the path to salvation only goes though them. Great site also. I wonder how long its gonna be up before Crazy Tom has it shutdown?:smirks:

[MPG]

I seems to me that the possiblity of micromutation ocuring is greater than 10*40,000 to one that Hoyle purposed.
Actually, it's far far smaller. Your original lottery allegory wasn't too far off the mark. The 10^40,000 referred to (I think) the spontaneous assembly of a complex DNA molecule out of practically nowhere. A small mutation is far more likely than that.
There are rapid leaps in evolution in some periods of history. That makes the case even stronger that there was a guiding hand.
"Rapid" being over 100,000 to a million years. :wink:

There is some discussion about how long humans have been breeding dogs for specific purposes, but it's probably a range of a few thousand years. Now look at how far apart different dog races have grown from a common ancestor within an incredibly short period of time. I'd call that a "rapid leap".

Now I'm sure that many people are going to think "AHA! But those were human breeders taking an active role!" But that's where natural selection comes in. A breeder doesn't do anything that natural selection doesn't do. If you're looking for a guiding hand, look no further than natural selection. Natural selection prefers certain properties in exact the same way as a dog breeder. It won't breed dogs that look cute, or docile lap dogs, but it would prefer dogs that e.g. hunt well in packs, but the mechanism is exactly the same. Natural selection also has one advantage over human breeders: It works on the whole population, not just on a small part of it.

These are really the two things that need to be understood to realize that there is nothing spectacular about evolution:
1. Beneficial mutations are not too unlikely when considering that we're dealing with huge populations over a large amount of time.
2. Natural selection is as strong (or possibly even stronger) as a human who breeds animals for specific purposes.

Seriously, I wasn't being sarcastic when I suggested those books by Richard Dawkins. The vast majority of people who say that evolution is not possible had a teacher in high school who just couldn't explain how evolution works. It's a very simple concept, but very easy to misunderstand. Dawkins is absolutely excellent at explaining these issues, and for the most part, his books are immensely entertaining. I promise you'll find it much more satisfying to have evolution explained to you by a biologist (Dawkins) as opposed to an astronomer (Hoyle).
Lastly it seems as if Hoyle's was more a joke than anything thing else.
The Boeing 747 thing? Well, it's being quoted as a serious argument quite often. In any case, it's directly connected to Hoyle's general misunderstanding of evolution. Joke or not, it's incorrect.

[MPG]

First of all, my apologies for always coming in with my answers when the thread has already moved on. Different time zones suck. :D

Would you consider that as unacceptable?
What I find unacceptable is that people say "The universe is complex, so it must have been designed." but don't make the step "The designer is complex, so he must have been designed." If the first argument is a must, then the second argument should be a must as well, or to put it the other way around: If you can accept that a god appears "out of nowhere" or has been around forever, then you should also be able to accept that the Universe appeared "out of nowhere" or has been around forever in some form, because a Universe is still less complex than a god.

Now you end up asking four totally distinct complex questions, each of which require a very long answer (and none of which has anything to do with the statement I made, I may add). :wink: Anyway, I'll give you the quick answers.
Is it too crazy an idea to accept God as a mystery in faith?
Is it too crazy an idea to accept the existence of The Invisible Pink Unicorn (http://www.palmyra.demon.co.uk/humour/ipu.htm) as a mystery in faith?
To worship an unseen entity that has created us, and go on
according to what was inspired in scripture?
Replace "unseen" with "most likely non-existing", and you know my answer. :D
Is the idea of a much bigger unanswerable mystery too much to accept?
Thankfully, many humans throughout history have answered that question with "Yes" or else we wouldn't have the Internet right now to discuss this issue. Perhaps I'd be throwing bananas at you at the moment.
Do we need to know all the answers?
Why not?

Don't you think it's revealing that you use a movie mystery to explain your point? Yea, mysteries are fun. Sometimes it's more fun for mysteries to remain unrevealed. So should I believe in something because it's more fun, because it sounds nice, because I want to believe, or should I believe in it, because I assume it to be correct? I somehow don't put the same requirements on my beliefs that ultimately determine my moral codes as I do on the screenplay of a movie.

Having a billion Dollars would be a lot of fun, yet I don't believe that I have a billion Dollars. Do you? :D If not, why not?

[fastcar]

Whew.... you're lucky. I thought you were going to say Invisible pink folders. Those exist!

[MPG]

There are more 'facts' to prove the existence of God than The Invisible Pink Unicorn.
But I strongly suspect you'd have to seriously stretch the definitions of the words "facts" and "prove" to support that statement. :wink:

But anyway, I realize that the IPU is not a good example, because there seems to be some weird common consensus that it was made up as some kind of joke. :D So I'll change my statement to something more reasonable: "Is it too crazy an idea to accept the existence of Zeus, Poseidon, Aphrodite and the other ancient greek gods as a mystery in faith?"

After all, at some point one of the most advanced cultures in the world believed in these gods and while other cultures didn't believe in exactly the same gods, they often believed in strikingly similar gods. Some of the smartest men of that time believed in them, many impressive works of art and architecture were inspired by these beliefs and I don't think anybody can deny that the stories about the Olympian gods are at least as interesting as the stories of the Bible.

[Trazalca]

So I'll change my statement to something more reasonable: "Is it too crazy an idea to accept the existence of Zeus, Poseidon, Aphrodite and the other ancient greek gods as a mystery in faith?"

For those who worshipped ancient greek gods, it wasn't crazy at all.
It made perfect sense. They accepted the mystery of the greatness
of their reported deeds and lives. And who could blame them?
I remember being fascinated with Greek and Norse mythology
when I was in school. (But I guess that made me a geek when I was 12,
reading the Illiad and the Odyssey. Not because I was told to in school,
but simply because I was interested on my own. :o )

But I will ask-
where is the worship of those gods throughout the world?
where is the worship of Zeus in Thailand? Or Australia? Or Japan?
True, these countries have their own gods to worship.
But what I'm getting at is, why is Christ worshipped all over the world?
Why aren't there missionaries for Aphrodite?
What makes Christ so different from all the rest, demanding our worship
above all the others?
Why are Christians so willing to share the story of Christ with others?
Agenda? As a result of brainwashing, or a lack of logic?

Accepting the mystery of God in faith is an effect, something that's
done as a result after recognizing what Christ has done first.
What have any gods of any religion done for anybody
that matches or comes close to what Christ has done?

[omicron]

....
But what I'm getting at is, why is Christ worshipped all over the world?


Better Marketing? :lol:

Omi

[Queen Mae]

There are more 'facts' to prove the existence of God than The Invisible Pink Unicorn.


Like what facts?

There weren't missionaries for Aphrodite, Traz. Christianity spread the way that it did because the Roman Empire adopted it and later it was spread through violent force and through mental abuse (guilt).

This is not to say that people weren't converting of their own volition, obviously, they were. Initially, Christianity had a lot to offer Greco-Roman citizens - especially the impoverished. It was the cult of the poor for a long time, and as we know, the poor are more prevelant than the rich. The poor could not acheive positions of power in Greco-Roman cults, like they could in Christianity. When I say "positions of power" what I mean is "control over their religious practices." Another reason why Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire was that it greatly resembled other cults of the time. To pagans, religion was mutable. You could easily move from one god to the next without any "consequences," which is why there are many mosaics depicting Christ as the sun god Apollo. To most of them, God was god, it didn't matter how you dressed or worshipped him (I should also note that the goddess was the goddess, it didn't matter how you dressed or worshipped her, which is why Mary looks a lot like Artemis did in the ancient East.) Without the violent enforcement that the Roman Empire gave Christianity, it is unlikely that it would have spread as much as it did.

The Roman emperors used Christianity as a tool for conquering the weak, which is unfortunate, because it is completely counter to Christ's message.

[MPG]

But I will ask-
where is the worship of those gods throughout the world?
So the problem with that religion is that it doesn't exist anymore? What you're saying is that if we were living in Greece 3000 years ago, you'd be a faithful follower of Zeus and the other Olympian gods and if I tried to convince you that you should believe in only one God, you'd tell me that there's nobody who believes in that stuff?
But what I'm getting at is, why is Christ worshipped all over the world?
Why aren't there missionaries for Aphrodite?
Why aren't there missionaries for the Hindu faith? Why are there no Buddhist missionaries? There aren't even Muslim missionaries and certainly no Jewish ones. It has nothing to do with the "quality" of those religions but only with the fact that "spread the word" has been a part of the Christian teachings from very early on.
Accepting the mystery of God in faith is an effect, something that's
done as a result after recognizing what Christ has done first.
What have any gods of any religion done for anybody
that matches or comes close to what Christ has done?
Actually, that's a perfectly circular argument. To believe that Christ has done something special for you, you first have to believe that he was the son of God. For that, you have to believe that God exists. However, your faith in God seems to be based on the fact that Christ has done something special for you.

As far as what gods of other religions have done for their believers: A whole lot, and in some cases even more than the Christian God. The Egyptians had gods which helped them into the afterlife and who made the Nile flood to provide them with a great harvest. The Norse had a god who made thunder and lightning, so they had someone to beg for mercy when they felt this god's wrath. The Greek and the Romans had a god who ruled the seas, so they could ask him for a safe voyage. If you had asked these people whether they actually believed that their prayers had any effect, their answer would have been quite the same as the answer that I'd probably get from you if I asked you that question. They'd probably even tell you stories about how Thor made a thunderstorm go away when they asked him to or how Poseidon made their ships come home safely. It doesn't stop there. The Norse gods are one day going to sacrifice themselves in an unwinnable battle against the monsters of the underworld and in one Aztec creation myth, gods sacrificed themselves to create the sun and the moon. Their gods have done a whole lot for these people. Does that make you any more likely to believe in these gods?

I seriously wonder why you don't believe that you have a billion Dollars. It is such a simple leap of faith, no more or less valid than the one that you're asking me to consider.

[Queen Mae]

This your mutual respect enforcer popping in to say hello.

[Intelligent_Design]

Actually, it's far far smaller. Your original lottery allegory wasn't too far off the mark. The 10^40,000 referred to (I think) the spontaneous assembly of a complex DNA molecule out of practically nowhere. A small mutation is far more likely than that.

A mutation of what? A spontaneous assembly of a complex DNA molecule would have to occur first before a mutate could take place. Do you think that that all life on the planet spawned from one DNA molecule?




The vast majority of people who say that evolution is not possible had a teacher in high school who just couldn't explain how evolution works.

True, but that doesn't disprove Gods hand in jumpstarting evolution, or furthering evolution or even hindering evolution. I'm a firm believer in Evolution. The only sticking point between what I believe and you believe. Is a higher power's role or lack thereof in its start and progression. I just find it highly unlikely that from the first DNA molecule that assembled to all life on the earth now, that there is no God intervention(s).

[Queen Mae]

True, but that doesn't disprove Gods hand in jumpstarting evolution, or furthering evolution or even hindering evolution. I'm a firm believer in Evolution. The only sticking point between what I believe and you believe. Is a higher power's role or lack thereof in its start and progression. I just find it highly unlikely that from the first DNA molecule that assembled to all life on the earth now, that there is no God intervention(s).

Personified or not-personified?

[Intelligent_Design]

Like what facts?


I placed it in spoiler tags because I don't want to give away the ending. But be warned its a major spoiler. You have been warned!!!





I am God

[Queen Mae]

I am Asherah, let's hook up.

[Intelligent_Design]

No time for hook-ups. That last time I took my eyes off of mankind ,chaos ensued you have to watch those children closely or they hurt themselves. I really need a babysitter.


:smirks:

[Queen Mae]

Yeah, well if you wouldn't have marginalized me in the Old Testement that wouldn't have happened.

[southpaw]

A wise man once said,

"If Jesus isn't real, then who carried me across that beach?"

[Queen Mae]

The facts are that Jesus rose from the dead. The proof is the empty tomb. If the resurrection was a hoax. It would of eventually come out. People like to talk. All his disciples were killed for this belief. None of them said the resurrection was a lie.


Jesus had hundreds of disciples and not all of them were martyred, unless you mean "apostles" in which case John, though violently persecuted, was not martyred.

It is not a "fact" that Jesus rose from the dead. Many of his disciples believed that the ressurection was metaphorical and stood for a new beginning in the afterlife - which is one of the reasons that there were many different factions of Christianity in the first few centuries.

All we know, on a material level, is that a group of people discovered the body of their leader, Joshua, missing from his grave and that people had visions of Joshua after he died.

Just like we know that a large amount of people believed that Mithras was born on December 25th and ascended to heaven as the savior of humanity.

[Emperor Norton]

The facts are that Jesus rose from the dead. The proof is the empty tomb.

Additionally, not finding Hitler's body in the bunker proves he's still alive.

And Al Capone's empty safe proves he was a very unsuccessful mobster.

Finally, the lack of finding an alien at Area 51 proves that the government is covering up the impending invasion.

[Emperor Norton]

facts

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[Queen Mae]

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

(I love being a forum with nerds like me)

Religion, for most people, is not about materially provable (not sure if that's the correct way to phrase this) pursuits. It is about perception and emotional fulfillment, or guilt - whichever.

Seriously though, it's not something that can be proven with facts because for every "fact" for Christianity there are 10 more "facts" for pagan religions. I can list a lot of facts that indicate that Judaism grew out of Canaanite and Sumerian polytheistic religions. I doubt those facts will change a Christian's opinion on monotheism.

For the people who believe in a god, whatever god they choose, the proof exists somewhere inside of them and cannot be qualified in scientific terms. Although I have heard talk that mathematics will one day prove god exists, it seems to me that it will only prove a god without qualities and not the personified god of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic worldview.

[Magell]

The facts are that Jesus rose from the dead. The proof is the empty tomb. If the resurrection was a hoax. It would of eventually come out. People like to talk. All his disciples were killed for this belief. None of them said the resurrection was a lie.

You have a choice to believe it or not. The choice is yours.

Are you quoting the Bible as fact? The book that was written by several different authors, was revised several times throughout its life by biased parties, was written a hundred years or so after the events in it took place depending on which book we are talking about, the book that has author's who's identity we can't precisely identify, that book?

It could be his disciples did not say it was a lie because they were not involved in the hoax at all.

[Intelligent_Design]

Well, focus groups were conducted and a standing pole just wasn't popular so we had to scale you back in the OT.No hard feelings but we had books to move.

[MPG]

This your mutual respect enforcer popping in to say hello.
I like to quote Douglas Adams (actually, this used to be my sig):
"I don’t accept the currently fashionable assertion that any view is automatically as worthy of respect as any equal and opposite view."

After all, how many people here respect Tom Cruise's beliefs? :D

[MPG]

For the people who believe in a god, whatever god they choose, the proof exists somewhere inside of them and cannot be qualified in scientific terms.
I think you made an important statement here... most people who believe in a god think that they have some kind of proof. I don't think there are many people who just accept it as a matter of faith.

Let me put it this way: I have often thought about what would happen if Jesus came back and knocked on every door, telling everyone "Hi, I'm Jesus. Leave everything you have behind and follow me." How many people would follow him? The catch is: He wouldn't do anything to prove that he is Jesus. After all, you're supposed to have faith without the need for a proof. I'm sure that many people would say "Oh, I would just feel that it's him." but that would be proof. He would make sure that you couldn't recognize him like that. There'd be no holes in the hands and feet, no miracles and there'd be no warm and fuzzy feeling. Now how many people would actually accept that the guy standing on their doorstep is Jesus purely based on faith? I don't think I have met anyone who would. People want proof. Some want to see miracles. Some want to hear a thunderous voice announcing "THIS IS MY SON!" Some want to hear some stories from him that show his infinite wisdom. Some want to get a warm feeling that they could get only in the presence of the Son of God. All of this would prove to them that they are really dealing with Jesus. Without proof, they wouldn't believe him.

I once thought that the idea that only 144,000 people would go to heaven is quite ridiculous, but now I think that Jesus might have a hard time finding 144 otherwise sane people who would follow him.

[Asonokirk V 2.0]

I think you made an important statement here... most people who believe in a god think that they have some kind of proof. I don't think there are many people who just accept it as a matter of faith.

Let me put it this way: I have often thought about what would happen if Jesus came back and knocked on every door, telling everyone "Hi, I'm Jesus. Leave everything you have behind and follow me." How many people would follow him? The catch is: He wouldn't do anything to prove that he is Jesus. After all, you're supposed to have faith without the need for a proof. I'm sure that many people would say "Oh, I would just feel that it's him." but that would be proof. He would make sure that you couldn't recognize him like that. There'd be no holes in the hands and feet, no miracles and there'd be no warm and fuzzy feeling. Now how many people would actually accept that the guy standing on their doorstep is Jesus purely based on faith? I don't think I have met anyone who would. People want proof. Some want to see miracles. Some want to hear a thunderous voice announcing "THIS IS MY SON!" Some want to hear some stories from him that show his infinite wisdom. Some want to get a warm feeling that they could get only in the presence of the Son of God. All of this would prove to them that they are really dealing with Jesus. Without proof, they wouldn't believe him.

I once thought that the idea that only 144,000 people would go to heaven is quite ridiculous, but now I think that Jesus might have a hard time finding 144 otherwise sane people who would follow him.

Perhaps if one thought along the following lines . . .
The proof of God's existence is all around you. It is staring you right smack in the face every second of every day, yet you don't see it (by you, I don't me literally "you," I mean the collective "you" that is all of us).
The proof is that it isn't that there isn't "God," and the proof of "God's" existence is painfully obvious, it is in the fact that what it is God is perceived as being.

Most people make the same mistake. They think of God as some sort of being or conscious entity. They think of God as something existing within human terms. What I believe may be true is that God is simply those forces whose acts, and actions have resulted in creation, and continue to act as the creation process.

The root cause of all the confusion is the fact that people have bought into what they've been told about God, and haven't thought to question what they've been told. It has taken me many years to reconcile some things I know to be true, and what I've been told is true.

[Queen Mae]

Whatev. Madonna and Demi are gonna bring me back to the mainstream!

[Intelligent_Design]

Jesus came back and knocked on every door, telling everyone "Hi, I'm Jesus. Leave everything you have behind and follow me." How many people would follow him? The catch is: He wouldn't do anything to prove that he is Jesus.

But Jesus was a miracle worker. That backed his claim.

[Meathead]

Intelligent_Design is an idea.......And ideas are bulletproof!!!!
BUt the people who spread those ideas aren't... :D

[kah]

But I will ask-
where is the worship of those gods throughout the world?
where is the worship of Zeus in Thailand? Or Australia? Or Japan?


First, you have to consider that the Greek and Roman religions started thousands of years ago. Then consider, around the time Christianity was making a name in Rome, many of the citizens were starting to feel much the way many of us do now. The stories were so old to them, they didn't feel the touch of the gods in their everyday lives, and they had become so philosophical, that they were doubting the very existence of gods. Quite what we are doing in this thread right now. Very much like the whole last century in this country. So when a new religion offered itself up, one that was very different from their own, many converted. Christianity has run its 2000 year cycle, and here we are, discussing whether it is even possible, or has been simply a story all along. And some have converted to Scientology, because it is a new religion, and it seems to have answers to the questions about Christianity.

Second- apparently, worship of the old Greek gods is not dead- Greek court rules worship of ancient Greek deities is legal (http://www.juiceenewsdaily.com/index.php/2006/03/27/greek-court-rules-worship-of-ancient-greek-deities-is-legal/)

Isis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis) was worshipped for quite a long time, and across much of Africa and Europe until her worship was banned by Christians in the 6th century.

Astarte (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astarte) was another widely worshipped goddess, both in regions and religions.

Why was it easier for the ancients to accept gods and goddesses from other religions? Doesn't it make sense that there should be a mother goddess if there is a father goddess? It made sense thousands of years ago. The ancients knew that life grew from the feminine, yet the Christian religion has all but made us extraneous. Is that simply due to editing by Constantine (http://www.roman-emperors.org/conniei.htm) when he had the fifty Bibles commissioned to be written? Or are we supposed to believe that the one true religion values women so much less than men? If that is the case, it is a wonder that Christianity even got off the ground. However, it seems to be that creative editing (http://womenshistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=womenshistory&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pbs.org%2Fwgbh%2Fpages%2Ffront line%2Fshows%2Freligion%2Ffirst%2Fwomen.html) of Bible texts has made Christianity what it is today. I wonder how it would have been received 2000 years after its inception, had men not tried to subjugate women with it. I wonder how different the world would be?

Besides, the Israelites didn't always worship one god either. In the Bible, God says, "Worship no gods before me." Now, that might mean He wanted the Israelites to forgo worshipping idols, as is often interpreted now. However, it could mean that He was the chief god. He's saying, "You can keep your other gods as long as you realize that I am number 1. I'm the boss, and don't you forget it." Here's (http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/MSmith_BiblicalMonotheism.htm) a short article that relates my point in greater detail.

Here's an interesting article- apparently Hindus (http://www.radiosai.org/Journals/Vol_02/08April15/03_Spiritual_Blossoms/03_Reflections/reflections.htm) are having the same discussion.

And here is the Wikipedia for Religion. It answers a lot of questions, and raises more. Enjoy! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion)

Well, I've done it again. I've been so immersed in finding pages to support my arguments, I've lost track of my thought process.

[Queen Mae]

Hindus have been having the debate about Nirguna vs Saguna for ages. The Hindu religion is rather diverse and it's a bit of a slippery slope to classify it as a cohesive religion. Some people worship Kali as the supreme deity, while others worship the holy family of Kali (Pavarti), Shiva, and Ganesha. Still others foresake any personal god and worship only Nirguna Brahman, while others have their "holy trinity" of Brahman, Shiva and Visnu.

Wikipedia can be sketchy for references especially in religious historical discussions. Astarte and Aphrodite are not synonomous.

(My classics and religion majors are rearing their pretty heads)

It's always interested me, Kah, how people overlook the mentions of other gods in the Old Testement. IMO, it gives credence to the idea that Judaism grew out of the polytheistic religions of ancient Babylon.

[fastcar]

I'm still trying to get over the fact that you had sex with your brother.....


Baal

[Queen Mae]

Yeah well Lot had sex with his daughters!

[sickness]

He had sex with your brother, too! And I don't mean Baal.

[Trazalca]

Sorry for the long post. I would've responded yesterday,
but like time zones suck, so do long 2-hour commutes home from work.
:rolleyes:

So the problem with that religion is that it doesn't exist anymore? What you're saying is that if we were living in Greece 3000 years ago, you'd be a faithful follower of Zeus and the other Olympian gods and if I tried to convince you that you should believe in only one God, you'd tell me that there's nobody who believes in that stuff?

If I didn't know any better, I probably would. Then again, I'd be curious to
know why I should be believing in only one God, especially from you. :wink:

Why aren't there missionaries for the Hindu faith? Why are there no Buddhist missionaries? There aren't even Muslim missionaries and certainly no Jewish ones. It has nothing to do with the "quality" of those religions but only with the fact that "spread the word" has been a part of the Christian teachings from very early on.

True.

Actually, that's a perfectly circular argument. To believe that Christ has done something special for you, you first have to believe that he was the son of God. For that, you have to believe that God exists. However, your faith in God seems to be based on the fact that Christ has done something special for you.

Yes he did. He died for me and rose again. But you do bring up something
interesting. I used to belong to a cult, one that worshipped God without
much recognition of anything Christ did. It revolved heavily around prophecy
and the law. I honestly didn't recognize Jesus until I was in my 20's, and before then,
I only recognized God in my life. I loved and obeyed him,
but if I did anything wrong, the guilt of it stayed in me to fester for years.
I never understood forgiveness, redemption or grace. Those things were foreign to me.

Now this does beg the question- why did I believe in God before I believed
in Christ (addressing the circular point you made)? Growing up in deeply religious house, it was hard not to. It was all around me and taught to me right and left. I saw the power of God
in the lives around me, the innumberable answered prayers, and strength
God provided when none was expected. And that life continues to this day,
but once Christ was recognized, many things I never understood Biblically
were suddenly opened to me. And since then, I began to personally witness
the power of change in many people that were in the same church with me.
A change towards a stronger peace, love, understanding, tolerance, and sharing than ever before. And through Christ, I saw God in all of it.
So yes, I did have to believe in God's existence first,
since I saw it in the lives of so many people that I loved.
Yet once Christ entered the picture, then new understandings opened up,
and a relationship that I didn't know was possible with God
became much clearer, deeper, and more meaningful to me than before.

As far as what gods of other religions have done for their believers: A whole lot, and in some cases even more than the Christian God. The Egyptians had gods which helped them into the afterlife and who made the Nile flood to provide them with a great harvest. The Norse had a god who made thunder and lightning, so they had someone to beg for mercy when they felt this god's wrath. The Greek and the Romans had a god who ruled the seas, so they could ask him for a safe voyage. If you had asked these people whether they actually believed that their prayers had any effect, their answer would have been quite the same as the answer that I'd probably get from you if I asked you that question. They'd probably even tell you stories about how Thor made a thunderstorm go away when they asked him to or how Poseidon made their ships come home safely. It doesn't stop there. The Norse gods are one day going to sacrifice themselves in an unwinnable battle against the monsters of the underworld and in one Aztec creation myth, gods sacrificed themselves to create the sun and the moon. Their gods have done a whole lot for these people. Does that make you any more likely to believe in these gods?

Not really. Since none of them offer salvation or eternal life.
There's no claim from any of them to creating human beings or
even being personally involved in such a creation in addition
to everything else. Most of those gods were exclusive to specific things.
So for example, if I had to choose worship to Poseidon for safe passage
across an ocean, Thor to survive a terrible electric storm, or Christ for
the safety through all things, and this in addition to my salvation, then
I'll choose Christ.

I seriously wonder why you don't believe that you have a billion Dollars. It is such a simple leap of faith, no more or less valid than the one that you're asking me to consider.

Well, if I take a quick peak at my bank statement, and see the balance
which is currently at an embarrassingly low figure, I would say no.
But since you posed the question, I would want to know the source for
your faith that I have a billion dollars. Is it buried in a pirate's treasure
chest in my backyard? Is it in a suitcase, sort of like the one under the big
W? Should I be expecting a visit to my house from Bill Gates who, for some
unknown reason has an insanely random and generous heart, is ready to hand me a check? The idea from you of my faith in having a billion dollars seems arbitrarily put forth.
Are you suggesting God's existence, let alone the mystery of him, be regarded as such?

And btw, there's just GOTTA be better way to respond to these posts.
Responding to a quote that's in reference to a post that
quotes a reply responding to another quote easily makes me cross-eyed.
Oy. :ohwell:

[sickness]

Yes he did. He died for me and rose again. But you do bring up something
interesting. I used to belong to a cult, one that worshipped God without
much recognition of anything Christ did. It revolved heavily around prophecy
and the law. I honestly didn't recognize Jesus until I was in my 20's, and before then,
I only recognized God in my life. I loved and obeyed him,
but if I did anything wrong, the guilt of it stayed in me to fester for years.
I never understood forgiveness, redemption or grace. Those things were foreign to me.

Just say it. You were Catholic! :D

[Asonokirk V 2.0]

But Jesus was a miracle worker. That backed his claim.

Yes, but did Jesus himself ever state, categorically, that he was performing some miracle at the time? Aren't all of the examples depicting Jesus responding to a situation? Could it be that he was just doing something anyone could have done with some training? I mean there are large gaps of time missing from the life of Jesus where the foundation that allowed his "miracles" to be performed could have been lain.

We, ourselves, can easily change water into wine by dropping in a pellet that would disolve into the water changing it so. We can make devices for our feet that would allow us to walk on water. We could have dehydrated pellets of fish and bread that, with the addition of water, make what would appear to be some small quantity turn into a huge supply.

Do we not have drugs that can cure illnesses that used to be 100% fatal? Can't we operate on eyes allowing blind ones to see?

Since these acts can be duplicated simply with the application of some technology, it suggests that "miracle" is not the applicable terminology. I suspect, especially given the profound enlightenment expressed in the teachings of Jesus, and based on all of the other available writings, that Jesus was actually a being whose origin is extra-terrestrial and derived from a more technologically, ethically, and socially advanced culture. I mean the Virgin Mary may have simply been artificially inseminated. If what I'm suggesting has some basis in fact, I would deduce that the purpose of all of it was to give humanity a blueprint for existence that would allow us to survive for the long term. I would also theorize that this advanced culture travels from inhabited world to inhabited world in an attempt to help less advanced civilizations survive.

When I think of the story in this light, it makes sense and explains a lot of loose ends. It also proves that all of what was passed on by the disciples was absolutely true, and since they simply didn't understand some of the things they witnessed as being based on technology, their descriptions derive from a perspective lacking the knowledge to know what it was they were really seeing.

Now, one might assume from what I'm saying that I am suggesting there is no supernatural explanation to the events described in the Bible. All I am suggesting is that for those who have trouble with accepting a supernatural explanation for questions about the nature of existence, nothing that religion discusses in supernatural terms cannot be accounted for by science. Perhaps we are all actually on the same page without realizing it. I mean, really, Jesus did not emphasize anything supernatural, he emphasized a message of tolerance, love, honor and dignity, as well as other things. The message was what we are supposed to focus on, and we don't need to worry about what we think of as the supernatural side, as that just isn't relevant.

[Trazalca]

Just say it. You were Catholic! :D

LOL :lol:

You're funny. Oddly enough, I did start off Catholic,
then went into the cult blindly, then left that to be where I am now.
What a long strange trip it's been. :smirk:

[sickness]

So there's another group out there that's made heavy use of the guilt trip? That was the thing that pointed me to you being Catholic (besides the fact that it had come up in conversation when we met). I didn't even realize that you had said "cult."

[Queen Mae]

Not really. Since none of them offer salvation or eternal life.
There's no claim from any of them to creating human beings or
even being personally involved in such a creation in addition
to everything else.


That's not true.

The Norse are one example - they believed in eternal life for their soldiers in Vahalla - with a bunch of beautiful women no less! Freya and her band of Valkyries rescued the bravest soldiers from the battlefield and took them to "heaven" where they lived an afterlife of rewards for their service to her husband, Odin.

In addition, you are discounting those who believe in reincarnation as a form of salvation and eternal life.

There are claims from nearly every religion that explain their gods being personally involved in the creation of humanity and in it's "destiny." Most of these involve a mother goddess giving birth to humanity, like the Aztec Coatlique. In the story of Gilgamesh when the gods are deciding whether or not to flood humans out of existence the decision is left up to Ishatar because they were "her people." She says: "How could I bespeak evil in the Assembly of the Gods, ordering battle for the destruction of my people, when it is I myself who give birth to my people!"

The parental deity is not unique to Judeo-Christian thought, and neither is the idea of eternal life.

[Trazalca]

That's not true.....The parental deity is not unique to Judeo-Christian thought, and neither is the idea of eternal life.

I stand corrected Queen, plus I have to make a correction,
since MPG did include the point of the Egyptians offering acceptance
to an afterlife, which is why so many Pharoahs believed that if you
died, you COULD take it with you. Tis a shame so many of their
belongings are stuck in glass boxes in museums all over the world!
I guess there'll be one heck of a baggage claim to make once
Imhotep reaches the end of his journey. :smirk:

[Queen Mae]

ha!

[fastcar]

Yeah well Lot had sex with his daughters!



Was she as salty tasting as mom?

[Intelligent_Design]

We, ourselves, can easily change water into wine by dropping in a pellet that would disolve into the water changing it so.

Thats not wine, thats G.M.B.:lol:

Yeah Jesus would have to up his game when he comes back. He may have to lead the Jets to a superbowl victory, The Tampa devilrays to a world series victory, and the Knicks to a NBA title......an thats just the first year.:lol:

[Intelligent_Design]

That's not true.

The Norse are one example - they believed in eternal life for their soldiers in Vahalla - with a bunch of beautiful women no less! Freya and her band of Valkyries rescued the bravest soldiers from the battlefield and took them to "heaven" where they lived an afterlife of rewards for their service to her husband, Odin.



Best after-life ever!!!! :)

[Asonokirk V 2.0]

Thats not wine, thats G.M.B.:lol:

Yeah Jesus would have to up his game when he comes back. He may have to lead the Jets to a superbowl victory, The Tampa devilrays to a world series victory, and the Knicks to a NBA title......an thats just the first year.:lol:

Well, would you go back to a place where the last time you were there you were nailed to a cross? :)

It is funny that you mentioned the Tampa Bay Devilrays. I always believed that their existence is proof that time travellers from the future are altering the past. I mean, a major league baseball team in Tampa? Called the Devil Rays? It was surreal when they came into the league. And then the Florida Marlins winning the world series just a few years after they were created? When teams like Boston and Chicago don't have living fans who remember them making the World Series? Don't tell me some guy from the future didn't come here, put a bunch of money on them, and then carefully rearrange events so that the Marlins ended up winning. Hmm, I bet if we check Vegas records we might just find that one person bet a huge pile of money on the Marlins before that season began, when the odds would have been very high against them. I'll go check . . . .

I'm back. OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD . . . there is one bet, by, you just won't believe this . . . PETE ROSE!!! :)

[neglet]

Yeah Jesus would have to up his game when he comes back. He may have to lead the Jets to a superbowl victory, The Tampa devilrays to a world series victory, and the Knicks to a NBA title......an thats just the first year.:lol:

If Jesus really wanted to prove his divinity, he'd lead the Lions to win the Super Bowl.








But then, maybe there are limits to even divine powers. :ohwell:

[Asonokirk V 2.0]

If Jesus really wanted to prove his divinity, he'd lead the Lions to win the Super Bowl.









But then, maybe there are limits to even divine powers. :ohwell:

Right. Given the history between Christians and "Lions," I don't think Detroit is probably ever going to make the Super Bowl . . . :)

[kah]

If Jesus really wanted to prove his divinity, he'd lead the Lions to win the Super Bowl.

But then, maybe there are limits to even divine powers. :ohwell:

You know, if the Lions ever actually won a Superbowl, I'd have no reason to watch football ever again. Well, ok, not really, but I'm a big fan of the Lions, and honestly, I'd be afraid to watch ever again. It's like, you get one big moment, and then it's over, and then there's nothing else.

[neglet]

You know, if the Lions ever actually won a Superbowl, I'd have no reason to watch football ever again. Well, ok, not really, but I'm a big fan of the Lions, and honestly, I'd be afraid to watch ever again. It's like, you get one big moment, and then it's over, and then there's nothing else.

Really? A big Lions fan? Torture enough. But living in Wisconsin, surrounded by cheeseheads? I can't imagine the pain. You need one of these: :hugs:

[kah]

Really? A big Lions fan? Torture enough. But living in Wisconsin, surrounded by cheeseheads? I can't imagine the pain. You need one of these: :hugs:

LMAO Thanks! It's a good thing ritual sacrifices aren't popular around here, or I could've been a victim a time or two growing up. To make things even funnier, my bf is a Raiders fan. Boy, do we know how to pick 'em!

[McJester]

Hey just dropping by, I guess you cant say anything about religion in any other thread but this one... So yeah Praise GOD Blessed Jesus Christ all mighty!!!

[kah]

Well, McAss, that's not what I said. What I said was that if you looked around, instead of assuming that your ideas are original, you would find the answers to your questions. You're just being lazy suggesting we repeat ourselves.

[McJester]

Well Kah Kah... I dont know what you mean!! Original ideas??? You assume that I'm assuming... What I said was totally harmless, completely and totally harmless. What makes you so fired up to go out of your way to tell me that my thoughts are un-original? What a meaningless decision.... or was it?
OH and by the by... repeating ourselves??? Explain please what you are talking about... cause it really feels like your putting words in my mouth!

[Jakester]

I'll put something else there if you'd like.

[McJester]

LOL. When I decided to word that last line, I had this quick thought that someone could easily turn it right around on me almost the exact way you did Jake... Thanks for brightening my morning. 8-]

[Jakester]

I love it when you're easy.

[KingVoyeur]

Gee, I thought you'd prefer him hard.

And yet another thread degenerates into gutter thinking.

Woohoo!

[sickness]

Would you have it any other way? :D

[rappites]

Yeah a thread that is six months old. I think we should go thru all of the old threads a corrupt them.

[southpaw]

I thought the threads here come corrupt...

[omicron]

hell, half of em are probably already in the gutter.

[kah]

I'd bet it's more like 3/4ths.

[Bill_the_Pony]

:Angry:
http://www2.kungsholms.se/images/volym/couch.gif


Now look. You've all made Mr. Cruise upset. :shakehead: