I feel like people here are discrediting religion because it has been actually proven to be false. It hasn't. Has it been proven to be true? Nope. That is what belief is all about.
I feel like people here are discrediting religion because it has been actually proven to be false. It hasn't. Has it been proven to be true? Nope. That is what belief is all about.
I think a lot of people have some sense of power believing that the Human Race is somehow highly advanced and we somehow have unlocked the secrets to the universe or something, and have thus proven that there is no God, etc.
We haven't. In fact, The human race knows jack shit about...well...basically everything.
1000 years from now (if we still exist) we will laugh at our own false sense of knowledge.
Things are going to be discovered that will change everything, I am sure.
There are too many unanswered questions to discredit even some such as religion.
The main issue Jesus addresses is loving your fellow man and letting God work in you so that you can get past your own selfish lust, selfish greed and selfish pride.
God is perfect; he will create a reality with us in it that incorporates what is perfect in us. For now existence is flawed, the birthing pains of our future reality: would you be who you are without your suffering? To have faith in Christ is to love others at the cost of selfishness. To love others at the cost of selfish desires is to love Christ.
All of this selflessness is not earned; it comes from God giving us the ability.
A baby has no concept of others; a baby cannot be selfish if it doesn't know there is selflessness. A baby is a potential for future love or harm, but before that state it is only a beauty that allows for us to love it.
Christ lives in every human and how we treat every human is how Christ will judge us for having treated him. Babies are the greatest of all of Gods saved creatures, not because they are 'innocent' but because they live entirely by grace and love. We should strive to be politically and socially aware enough to work against everything that increases infant mortality and work towards everything that decreases it. I truly hate how this loving idea has been co-opted by many institutions that seek the opposite outcome. This is what Christ stands for: love, selflessness and helping because it is the human-loving thing to do.
God became Jesus, this is impossible. Jesus-God had the needs of a man, this is also impossible. God-Jesus died because some guys nailed him to a tree for saying how it would be a good idea if we all were just nice to each-other, this too is impossible. God-as-man came back from the dead after three days, this is also... impossible. Jesus spoke, in the flesh and blood, to thousands who were willing to testify to the death that they encountered him, after his death, which is of course impossible. Christ Jesus was then raised into an ethereal reality where he now sits at the right hand of the creator of all existence (which he happens to also be) and prepares a place for those of us who love him, which as we all know is impossible as well.
SO! If you're able to believe in six impossible things before breakfast, why not top it off with self-denying faith in Christ? Faith doesn't make logical sense, but if you accept selfless-other-loving truth and side with God against yourself you'll have the most fulfilled existence possible!
I'm not trying to preach, not really. And I don't expect to convince anyone of anything: your world view is yours, that's cool, I don't think you're "wrong" just different. Jesus said he didn't come for the people that don't need him. He came for the crack-addicts and emotionally broken. I just wanted to clear up what seem like a number of misconceptions about the biblical Jesus.
Pretty sure there was a thing called the Black Death in there. Hard to advance scientifically when the central power, the Romans, collapses and followed by major plagues.
But, I generally agree. We could be like the Tolans from SG1 right now.
uh, what?
You're whole argument relies on the fact that God cannot do X.
God exists, he cannot do X, so God does not exist.
If you start your argument that there is a God, then anything can be done... he can even microwave a burrito so hot that he cannot eat it.
Do you really believe that crap?
And how do you know that your faith is the correct one?
Agreed, religion is a big problem, particularly when it takes the place of faith in Christ (as outlined above).I believe that religion has its place. And its place is far too high on peoples agenda.
No doubt man… no doubt.But once you use religion to, say, stop a child from having a life saving operation or blood transfusion, then religion is evil and is holding mankind back.
unless you plan on killing people in the name of your beliefs, you are right.What i am is none of your fucking business.
There are ways of measuring this sort of thing using psychology and scientific observation. It turns out that modern faith in Christ, instead of faith in a religious sect, is a rare phenomenon, so you may well be right.I think that religion has become so completely perverted and misused that there is only rare positives that come from it.
this phenomenon is often referred to as the ‘holy otherness’ of God. Part of the appeal of faith in Christ is that it allows for a faith that makes God personal to humans, through Jesus, despite being so amazingly incomprehensible that God might as well be a flying spaghetti monster.Our human minds are far too small to properly describe it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus :Jesus is an anthropomorphism of the sun
the vast majority of scholars in the study of biblical history believe that the existence of Jesus as a historical figure can be established using documentary and other evidence
I do need to specify: other hurting, selfish-greed, selfish-lust and selfish-pride. I don’t know how you define ‘moral implications’ but when selfishness is hurting others or at least making it less likely you will care for those that need it, I call it wrong;Selfishness is a natural imperative and has no moral implications.
This is what I said; except we are arguing over what selfish means and I did need to specify my boundaries better. Other-hurting selfishness is something a baby doesn’t know about and therefore cannot be healed to be ‘immoral’ for.Man's concept of selfishness necessarily derives from self-awareness AND social interaction. A baby has neither…
Clearly I think that my faith makes a lot of sense, from a functional stand point: But God as a human who died is foolishness to the logician.Except "faith doesn't make logical sense" doesn't make sense.
There are different vessels on this earth and if someone is a vessel for one thing and someone is a vessel for another is it my place to tell that vessel it is wrong for not being like me? I think better is to explain why I like being me and if the other vessel is inclined to chance, it can, if it isn’t then I’m not the creator to judge.there are wrong and right views
That’s just what Jesus said, right man? If someone feels they are 100% moral and don’t have to worry about what they do that isn’t someone Jesus is here for: right? Jesus is for the broken clay pots, not the ones with their cracks covered over with wax and paint.Also the statement that Jesus "didn't come for the people that don't need him"
Guild trip… that is so wrong… If it’s unintentional, from say talking about what is right and you feeling guilty, that’s one thing. But Jesus is here for people who already feel guilty, giving them a way up and out.On the other hand, if a believer (gonna say Christians here) Id have to go to church and close my eyes and make pretend and listen to another man try and give me a guilt trip.
If God is the definition of right then God can never be wrong. If God contradicts himself God would therefore not be God because God will have contradicted what God said.If you start your argument that there is a God, then anything can be done...
exactly, but he cannot then eat said burrito because he is always right and there for put that limitation on his power.he can even microwave a burrito so hot that he cannot eat it.
um… I meant it to be a funny, though potentially insightful, parody of H2G2.the OP's post is difficult to discuss because he jumps beyond a basic metaphysical language into rhetoric.
I am as I am because of what I have experienced, To change the world from what I have experienced is to create someone that is not me, but some other bloke with a different set of experiences… and I like me and you better than a theoretical other set of conditions that would have lead to a different world.Why would a god allow for regionality.
If I cut a branch off of a tree because it is rotting and will kill the tree am I punishing the branch or saving the tree? When God does away with everything that isn’t part of Christ (other loving) then everything else will be gone, which is sad because I like reality, but good because we’ll have a better reality.The next postulate that I have problems with is that of Hell
The bible says about as much; The problem though is how we deal with our lives now, and following the self-denying other-loving path is what we know to be right: do that and you will at least not have the wrong motives. In my life I’ve found that selfishness provides my life unless my behavior comes from faith in Christ.Lately I have begun to postulate that if a creater god exists the universal concept of good and evil must be very different than the human understanding of such.
Fish gata swim, bird gata eat. The essential existence of other things isn’t in jeopardy, it is all natural: our awareness of others and self allows for faith that goes beyond our animal/tribal mind-set and denies self for others we don’t know.I see no reason that if a soul exists it should be exclusive to humans, or even animals.
I feel like people here are discrediting religion because it has been actually proven to be false. It hasn't. Has it been proven to be true? Nope. That is what belief is all about.
I think a lot of people have some sense of power believing that the Human Race is somehow highly advanced and we somehow have unlocked the secrets to the universe or something, and have thus proven that there is no God, etc.
We haven't. In fact, The human race knows jack shit about...well...basically everything.
1000 years from now (if we still exist) we will laugh at our own false sense of knowledge.
Things are going to be discovered that will change everything, I am sure.
There are too many unanswered questions to discredit even some such as religion.
What does it mean to prove it to be true? Burning bushes and parted seas not enough? Visions and voices from heaven, prophecies, miraculous healing? But then the point isn't to prove to others, instead prove to yourself. That's where the belief comes. Even shown a miracle a person can still choose to not believe, it still comes down to choice.
No, religion claims to have all the answers and claims the human race is special.
Ask any scientist and they'll agree that the amount of knowledge we don't know is infinitely more vast than what we do.
It also takes a massive amount of ego to believe a totally omnipotent being has created an entire universe just for humans.
Hopefully in 1,000 years we'll look back and laugh at how long Middle Eastern superstitions stuck around.
We do not have burning bushes and parted seas. We have stories about burning bushes and parted seas, but then we also have stories about dog-headed aethieopians, cyclops, minotaurs, mermaids, chupacabras, etc, etc...What does it mean to prove it to be true? Burning bushes and parted seas not enough?
A lot of people have visions and hear voices. Nobody's ever demonstrated heavenly origins of any of them, and quite often we put those people in mental hospitals.Visions and voices from heaven,
Funny thing about so-called "prophecies"... when people aren't out-and-out fabricating stories of their fulfillment, they are both deliberately attempting to fulfill previous predictions while simultaneously ignoring the slews of failed predictions that encompass them. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Even a blind hog gets a corn cob once in a while. Pick your metaphor. At the end of the day, it's all confirmation bias.prophecies,
You mean like all those people "miraculously" healed by Benny Hinn? Should we delve a little deeper into those?miraculous healing?
Obviously the burden of "proof" you've set for yourself is irrationally low.But then the point isn't to prove to others, instead prove to yourself.
You can't show someone a miracle.That's where the belief comes. Even shown a miracle a person can still choose to not believe, it still comes down to choice.
Un-babtized babies go to heaven, but when they get there the spirits of dead priests molest them.
While I consider myself a Christian and Believe in God and Jesus; I do not buy in to the Church. I believe that while there is many truths to the written accounts such as the Bible, and what have you. I also believe that they have likely been twisted and changed to certain peoples benefits at the time of writing, etc, and have been greatly misused.
Basically, for all we know over half the information written in any book of religious purpose is false, and was made of for the benefit of those attempting to manipulate the masses.
...how do you know that your faith is the correct one?
The first circle is for the unbaptized and virturous non-christians so that's where they go.
Dude, that's the thing about faith. You don't KNOW. There's no scientific instruments to measure anything, so you can make a SWAG and say it's true, or it's not true.
It's FAITH. Stop trying to think scientifically about it. To do so only shows your own silliness.
Just ask yourself: Is denying other-hurting selfish natural impulses a good thing? If it is then whatever is good for learning to do that and changing your ways is good, no matter how suspect the origins. It is best not to hurt others for your own gain, everyone knows this, no book is needed but it can be helpful.So if religious texts are corrupted by men and we have no way of telling what parts have been manipulated and what parts have not, then the entire book becomes suspect.
But theorizing through them is explanatorily useful for future inductive empiricism which can then be used to better support findings deductively.With regards to the Hell postulate: As the teleologic arguments have shown argument by analogy is neither logical or deductive.
Just ask yourself: Is denying other-hurting selfish natural impulses a good thing? If it is then whatever is good for learning to do that and changing your ways is good, no matter how suspect the origins. It is best not to hurt others for your own gain, everyone knows this, no book is needed but it can be helpful.
But theorizing through them is explanatorily useful for future inductive empiricism which can then be used to better support findings deductively.
But we should state our assumptions out right, ontologically i accept that truth exits, epistemologically i deny that truth can be entirely known and proven, deterministically i assume that foreknowledge does not create pre-destination and I believe that knowledge is gained through discrete methodology that accounts for the ideographic context.
So, sociologically, I would argue for realism, anti-positivism, Volunteerism and nomothetic methodology.
From this stand point it seems that the key to understanding the phenomenon of Christ is to look at it from a series of case studies and inductively derive a set of testable hypothesis that include as many moderating and mediating constructs as necessary for explanation. From this we can do a longitudinal assessment of a statistically significant sample of people to see the overall impact. From the few cases I’ve encountered in my own life this will show a great deal of individual psychological and sociological benefit. This, of course, is more of an idiographic interpretation. My argument doesn't go to basic assumptions regarding fairness, location or end-game scenarios but the impact other-loving faith in Christ has on the individual’s well being.
I believe that teleological thinking is the basis of many a Machiavellian going against the self-denial and other-loving that is intrinsic to what is a much more deontological Christian world view which ascribes simply to the duty of loving others and not performing other-hurting selfishly lustful, greedy or prideful acts.
The Atheist Bible
Chapter 1
.Don't be a dick and eat all your vegetables
The End.