Religion

Off Topic
101

Walleye,

First off thet me start by saying I do believe in what you consider to be “GOD”. I may have a different mental image or understanding of what I think god is but nonetheless we both believe there is a “creator” of things.

Secondly it is impossible for any human being to prove or disprove the existance of something that is in fact impossible to even comprehend. To me god is all I can think about times infinity. As a human I will never be able to understand all there is to know, if I could I would be god.

I also believe that I am a part of god, as god is everything in my view, therefore there is a chance that I might be reunited with the creator thus knowing all that is. I believe this is what christians refer to as heavan. I refer to it as returning to the source.

In any event one who looks hard for an answer will have abetter chance at finding it than one who looks only as far as he is comfortable with. Example If I were to have been perfectly happy with my christian up-bringing and stopped looking for answers and accepted the ones my church gave me, I would knot have the understanding that I do with regards to myself. Maybe Christian religion has answered all of your questions to thier fullest and that is all anyone can ask for. As for myself I will never stop searching for the answer until I find it.

102

Sorry pal, but science aint a set of beliefs.

Moreover, why cannot you religious types just simply ascribe your beliefs to faith? No one can get you on that.

When you start attributing your beliefs to evidence, errant philosophical arguments, and that which cannot be explained, you look like dummies, e.g. pseudoscience, religions of the gaps, etc…

103

A man convince against his will is of the same opinion still. This thread is a retread and the same people have chimed again. Until next time??

104

Moreover, why cannot you religious types just simply ascribe your beliefs to faith?

The same can be said for “non-religious types”

105

Vegita, it sounds like we are on the same page as far as the limits of philosophical and theological arguments can take us.

Now here is the rub of the Christian faith. Yes, I can use historical evidence to defend the Gospel, the Resurrection, and the Bible. However, I did not investigate this until AFTER I became a Christian.

The Rub of the Christian faith is that the Holy Spirit bears witness to God, Jesus, and the Bible. This is where it gets real interesting. Only until after I became “born again” did I know the Christian faith to be true. Wierd huh?

My world view as defined by philosophy: Ontological Dualist. This merely means I believe there are 2 ultimate realities. The first reality is the Christian God. The second reality is the Universe.

My understanding of why people don’t acknowledge or believe God is because they supress the Truth. If you have a Bible look in the New Testament in Romans 1:18.

Yes Christianity has answered all my questions as far as life and death goes. However, I still read and investigate other points of view because it gives me a greater appreciation for their life/philosophy.

I respect people who have thought out their worldview and investigated the way they want to live.

So what do you think? I think we understand each other.

106

Someone said that science isn’t a belief. That’s true. However, one must believe in science first.

Think about this for a second. When you ask someone what they think about the ultimate reality.

Some say:

I don’t BELIEVE in god. . .
I BELIEVE in sciende . . .
I’m a skeptic . . . (except I’m not skeptical about my own skepticism ;))
I don’t BELIEVE in anything. . .
I BELIEVE in God. . .

All of our systems of knowing things have to begin with Belief. I challenge you to think about this for yourself.

107

wow, i never thought i would get so many responses. I couldnt read through them all since i just checked the thread, but its great to hear all of yalls views

108

Walleye,

whether you realize it or not, your contention smacks of post-modernism. Do you think that there exists a reality, independent of our observation and notice…whose existence does not hinge upon our beliefs? (I hope so) For example, does the moon physically exist or is its existence dependent on us, seeing it, calling it The Moon, etc… Does the reality of existence require us to establish a set of beliefs?

And yes, many atheists operate merely on faith. Most that I have come across typically do not when it comes to religion.

Anyhow, attribute it to faith and you religios will be fine.

109

Personally, I don’t give a damn if you believe in God. If you don’t want to enjoy the freedom of religion, then that’s your perogative. RLTW

rangertab75

110

bangs

I communicate in such a way so that it makes sense in a post modern world. Your moon example was good. How I like to understand it is this way.

In the Bible God spoke to the Israelites in the Desert. He wrote the 10 commandments in Stone. God revealed Himself throughout history. In fact, God was pretty close to us in early history. HOwever, we kept pushing him away, like how the Israelites pleaded with Moses to tell God to stop speaking lest they Die!

Philosophically, there are 4 ways we can know things.

Authority
Intuition
Empiricism
Rationalism

Christians rely on Authority first. Then the other 3.

Scientist primarily use Empiricism.

Philosophers primarily use rationalism.

I can think of a group of people who use intuition, maybe mystics?

Anyhow, they should have called this post, Post-Modern philosophical world view!!! :wink:

Take care, good lifting!

111

Yes walleye we do understand eachother to a point. One are where we do not agree is on some parts of the cristian faith that I do not believe in but you do. One inconsistancy that I have never been able to believe was the aspect of hell and the devil or pue evil being the anti god. I do not believe in eternal damnation for anybody. In fact I believe in one way or another every single being must experience everything there is to experience. Be it great fear, pain and suffering, or be it great joy happiness and love. I also believe in incarnations, I don’t believe our spirits can gather the experiences and knowledge and understanding they need in just one trip to earth, I also believe that they probably don’t just incarnate on earth, The universe is so god damn big, it would not make any sense for god to have created it only to have les than .000000000000000001% of it inhabited by beings with spirits. I believe that eventually all things lead back to the source. I also don’t think god want’s me to prove anything to him, what would an all powerful creator possibly gain by me bowing and kneeling and reciting stuff all the time? That sounds more like an egomaniocal king than a benevolant god. IMHO things are going quite fine for gods tastes, the more things change and the more things god can experience of himself through us through the universe, I’m sure god is plenty happy. If not he could just destroy everything and start over right.

112

Vegita, you are a really interesting person. (I know it has already been said a few times…)

 A quick simple statement: everything (bible, universe, "god") is a human creation.  We create labels for these things based on our perception and knowledge.  Primitives believed the rain was caused by god. We know better now, right?  There are some things science can not explain. Look back a few hundred years, what would they think of computers?  They would not be able to explain it, they did not have the technological capacity.  I do not remember the name of the patent clerk, but at one time (many years ago) someone said eveything that could be invented had been.  He was wrong.  Science will advance, and we will be able to explain more.  It is only a matter of time.

Belief in science? Science does not even believe in itself, that is why there are tests and retests performed. If you do not “believe” in science, how can you use this site? It offer scientific insight into exercise and performance enhancement. They may be wrong on some things, and I am sure they test all of the time to find out if they are. This “belief” in science is a matter of cumulative knowledge. If you do not believe in science, what exactly holds you to the ground? That is a pretty commonly “believed” or accepted scientific postulate (gravity). That was not an attack, but an example. It is pretty well accepted, right? We just haven’t stacked up enough knowledge to answer everything yet.

113

All of our systems of knowing things have to begin with Belief. I challenge you to think about this for yourself.

Don`t worry too much about that.

Minds and neural nets will make sure of that: the limitation of possibilities and filtering out of data, if not only to attain goals, is automatic mechanisms. Somewhere, you just gotta sort things and data if you want to evolve, to separate truth or accurate from false or inaccurate.

Id be more worried about close-mindedness that gets worse and worse with the years. Specially from a too small limited set of beliefs. Why? Cause if the poor schmuck has not too many alternatives, he`s predictible and stuck. Who was it that said:

To a hammer, everything looks like a nail?

Just my 2 cents.

114

Steely-
Thanks for the reply. I can respect the view of dislike of organized religion. After all, I HATE organized religion. Put anything in the hands of humans and watch it go to hell… Look at Adam and Eve- given perfection, they didnt even have the knowledge of evil. What do they do? Screw it up.

But, at the same time, I have had geeks in thick glasses trying to cram the darwinistic views down my throat ever since I was in grade school. They just do it when I cant shut the door in their face like I can with Bible thumpers :stuck_out_tongue:

I respect that you see no need to hunt for meaning or the like, and quite frankly, neither do I.

I just dont like the whole “if i cant see it it must not exist” argument because it is really rather short sighted…

And I dont know if there is a “wrong” religion, per se. maybe just different paths to the creator…

115

Ok, to throw a slight curveball in the direction of this thread, I would like to explain how my Ideas of god and existance impact my life.

Ok so by now most of you understand my basic views on things, god is everything, he learns of himself through our individual experiences, as we progress through existance we continually draw closer to god. We can never fully reach the level that is god however because it is always increasing in all directions infinitely, and we cann never move faster than infinity to catch up.

This allows me complete acceptance of everything and anything that occurs. I have removed extreme emotions of negativity due to the fact that I no longer fear anything. If anything happens to me that is what we consider bad here, in the big picture of things this is actually a good and desired happening. It is an experience nothing more, nothing less. As an infinite being Experiences are all we are going to have. When I get stung by a bee, I can quickly run through my mind how that experience was transmitted to god, not only from my perspective but also from the bee’s perspective, and any possible whitnesses to the experience. This takes any fear or pain out of the experience and replaces it with wonder and awe. Now I don’t walk through life daydreaming about sending info to god, but when a tough situation arises, I can sit back for a few seconds, contemplate the big picture, and relax and actually find some humor or joy out of a very bad situation for my ego here on earth. Ultimately our ego’s are what cause fear and anger, our ego is afraid it will not survive, and guess what it won’t. Our ego is like the sound coming out of a pair of speakers. The speakers themselves, are like our mind and body, the power source or amplifier is our spirit or soul. The better the speaker the more clearly and representive of the origional power source the sound will be. The really cheap crappy speakers with the same power sourch will sound all distorted and fuzzy. The good thing is that as I have done, so can anyone, upgrade their speaker system and let their soul ring clearly out into the world.

Ok that is enough from me for now.

Peace

116

Vegita,

I mean I understand what you are saying. Yes we disagree on things. I wanted to reply to your last message a little bit.

You said:

“Yes walleye we do understand each other to a point. One are where we do not agree is on some parts of the cristian faith that I do not believe in but you do. One inconsistancy that I have never been able to believe was the aspect of hell and the devil or pue evil being the anti god. I do not believe in eternal damnation for anybody.”

OK, I want to clarify the issue of Satan and Hell from a Christian perspective so that you can know what we Christians are saying. First, Satan was created by God. He was Ethically and Ontologically good. Then Satan wanted to receive worship like God does. At this point Satan became ethically evil, he is still ontologically good. The punishment for Satan and the Angels who listened to Him was Hell.

Hell is a very real place. Jesus spoke more about Hell than he did about heaven. My logic is that if God did not spare Jesus from that gruesome death on the Cross to pay for our sins, then Hell has to be real. Again, this is what most Christians believe. However, there are groups of Christian scholars who believe in a metaophorical Hell or annihilationism (big fancy word for our Spirit dies and their is no Hell in the afterlife).

Back to you:

In fact I believe in one way or another every single being must experience everything there is to experience. Be it great fear, pain and suffering, or be it great joy happiness and love. I also believe in incarnations, I don’t believe our spirits can gather the experiences and knowledge and understanding they need in just one trip to earth, I also believe that they probably don’t just incarnate on earth, The universe is so god damn big, it would not make any sense for god to have created it only to have les than .000000000000000001% of it inhabited by beings with spirits. I believe that eventually all things lead back to the source."

First of this view is that of neo-platonism. This is an old metaphysical view that everything eminates from the One. The One is like God and everything drips from it. Think of it sort of as a lava lamp. We drip down and then go back up.

As for ET in the universe, who knows? The Bible doesn’t speak of this, it’s possible I guess.

Back to you:

“I also don’t think god want’s me to prove anything to him, what would an all powerful creator possibly gain by me bowing and kneeling and reciting stuff all the time? That sounds more like an egomaniocal king than a benevolant god.”

Worship is something that many Christians don’t even understand from a philosophical point of view. John Piper has a book called “Desiring God” that explains this quite well. The logic goes something like this. If God is the greatest being that can be conceived, then worshipping anything else is nonsense.

You said:

“IMHO things are going quite fine for gods tastes, the more things change and the more things god can experience of himself through us through the universe, I’m sure god is plenty happy. If not he could just destroy everything and start over right.”

The Christian view is that God is in control of everything. He is perfectly content by himself. Evil does grieve Him but He will make all things new one day.

Vegita I hope you understand where Christians are coming from. Yes we Christians have made tons of mistakes. Yes we have streyed from the teachings of Jesus and the Bible. For that and I ask on behalf of my fellow Christian brothers and sisters that you forgive us if we have caused you any grief.

Peace,

walleye

117

I was raised roman catholic and was confirmed when I was 17 I understand the christain faith quite completely. I even sat through church every sunday untill the day I made my confirmation, this was my mothers wish so I complied.

One thing I would like to point out is that christianity is open to interpretation just like anything else, I have heard christian ministers in all their infalability on the altar speak of a hell that is not an actual place but a state of being. I agree more with this thinking by the way. You also have Homosexual priests who believe thier interpretation to be just fine. Every religion can be viewed from many different lights. Like I said before, for me the christian thing did not make sense.

I waould also like to at this point explain my thoughts on the origins of organized religion and it’s origional purposes.

Back when man was first starting to learn to use his brain and more complex thought patterns were emerging people began to congregate together more. Eventually human tribes began to form and within those tribes a class structure began to develop. At first these class system were based soley on physical strength, Whoever was strongest ruled. As the groups got bigger and bigger however, a single strong individual could easily lose his power if he was challenged by more than one person.

This fear of losing power coupled with mans limited understanding of the unkown gave rise to many primitive beliefs in Gods. A leader of a tribe might tell his people that that severe lightning storm that just happened was his god showing all who would go against his rules the power they would face. This kept the simple minded tribes people in check very well. There is many times when nature shows it’s power, and at every turn there could be someone there to take advantage of the situation claiming he had insight as to why it had happened.

Over many many many centuries, these small tribes grew expanded, mixed and got more intelligent. This also caused the primitive religions to adapt and evolve into the more modern religions of today (although they are know getting very old). With the increased capacity for thought, religions had to deal with concepts such as death, morals, afterlife, and all other things that were then unkown.

Now I know some people will start quoting scriptures as proof that all their teachings came from god himself, but I don’t believe it. I believe that religion was the initial governing system of our world, and the problems we are having today is because we are transferring from one governance system to a new system which will eventually be one world government. Even today as we speak many religions are losing their grip on the masses. there are countless more people today that don’t subscribe to a particular faith than in the past.