There’s also the fact that it says we’re made in his image. So your argument doesn’t hold up much if you go with Christian values.
if you had read it, what they was describing was how god appeared to them in a “form” that they could accept as man. God did create us in his image, but that image is our souls, our bodies are nothing more then “tents” as some christain preachers would describe. Souls are spirits, therefore god is a spirit, despite what “hollywood” would have you believe. I’m not a religous nut, I’m not even religous but it’s good to know all the facts (And I mean that in what certain faiths are about)
I have yet to see you post a fact that relates to the discussion of the legitimacy of atheism.
Surely the holy spirit is a spirit?
Also, referring to Hollywood as some kind of mind controlling cabal makes you seem like a conspiracy nut.
i referred to hollywood because they depict things and people believe thats how it is, for example, if I shot at someone who hid behind a car door with a gun, my bullets wouldn’t magically bounce off the door they’d pentrate and hit the person behind them. Same as, if hollywood, depicted god as a man, that doesnt mean that faith says gods a man, it just means the writer and the director say that gods a man. And don’t get me started on how America depicts the English lol
Back on topic, so yeah God, if he exsists, could be the first spec of light or essence in our universe, the “bang” as it were, if you imagened the bang as a sort of massive sun exploding (I say sort of because a real sun would expand till it collapsed in it on self), which would explain why we wouldnt be able to see god because you’d fry if you did…
EDIT: If God is the creator and the bang created all life, whos to say they cant be one and the same thing?
Go on, Soup I’ll let you take that one.
Thanks, Garcian.
“Hollywood” is not some kind of hive-mind. It’s a place where people make films, amongst other things.
Directors and producers are responsible for the fallacies in their films, it’s just that many people who work in Hollywood ‘borrow’ from each other and don’t really care if it’s wrong. You’ll also notice that many people make films like that and have nothing to do with Hollywood. It’s hardly a conspiracy intended to get everyone in a firefight killed when they hide behind a door.
You’re basically naming an event “god” and then worshipping it. If that’s the case, why not worship the sun? Additionally, that would mean that god is god, since the Big Bang as you mean it ain’t exactly a continuous thing.
Also, not all suns die in the same way. You obviously don’t know much about physics, as evidenced by your ignorance of the Big Bang, so please look things up or don’t bring them up.
The point I was “trying” to make (Something I see I’m increasgly bad at) is that when some people see something in a movie, they take that as real. For example I bet if you asked most people what they think happens if you took a shotgun blast to the chest, they’d say you are thrown or pushed backwards, not true, you might flinch or step back, but you’ll fall forward with a gaping hole in ya chest
whos not to say god isnt the sun, could be his tent…
im also trying to say that god is not neccasirly the event, but more what caused the event or what was at the “heart” of the event in question
There are many people here who are equally not as educated on faith and so occasionaly comment on things that they are wrong in saying (And choosing to reject an idea, you should at least be educated to what that idea is), I accept physics isnt my strong suite and I aplogise for any mistakes I make on that front
(brought in from the overpopulation thread)
Most religious organizations that are made to help third world countries are corrupt beyond belief, most of the time they will cut someone of if the person does not accept the organization’s god and sometimes the money is used as “collateral” to help the leaders get some fancy things. Ironic since things like these are reported to happen more with religious charities and organizations than normal ones.
source?
Time magazine (meh, I know), some issue from last year.
It’s a widespread thing.
The Catholic Church has another downer in terms of it’s charity work. Pretty much all of it’s charity work is “balanced out” by the massive amount of harm it does in places with high rates of AIDS. It actively spreads rumours that condoms increase the likelihood of catching HIV and preaches celibacy. That’s tantamount to murder, on a pretty darn big scale.
I replied to garth’s post a while back but I had been ninja’d by the thread-locking dev so I left it in Word for no reason. I’m not even sure he’s replied to anything on this thread yet (only checked the last page) but the reply goes for the majority of the people here as well. If you’re looking for proof of God you’re not going to find it. That’s pretty much the whole point of religion, that there is no proof. Yes it’s flawed, yes it’s illogical, yes you get some retards who take the wrong meanings from it or get brainwashed and fuck things up for the rest of us, but in my experience religious people are generally normal - nice, pleasant, normal people. The worst thing you can do is assume that they are perfect human beings, or even anything close to it. I personally use my own analogy of sports fans. There are millions of people who watch football all over the world. Some follow their own teams avidly, who never miss a game and who wear their team’s clothes when they go out. Others watch it simply because there’s nothing else on, but you can’t assume that they’re all the same. I think what many people fall into the trap of is that they assume that people who follow a religion follow it flawlessly, and that they take those beliefs blindly and follow them to the letter without thinking it through. Utter bollocks. One of my best friends is a scottish former rugby-playing nutcase who has taken huge amounts of drugs and has had some pretty hilarious and scary sexual encounters in his time, and yet through and above all that he’s a Christian. Fuck knows why but he is. I wonder whether his faith has any effect on his life at all, or whether he’d be any different without it, but you absolutely cannot assume that he’s a perfect person and then criticise him for not showing any proof.
Now when someone who follows a religion and chastises you for not following God, or outrightly says that you are wrong, you are, I feel, morally entitled to defend yourself and debate about the existence of God and how there is no proof. However, what I’ve seen many people do is repeatedly challenge, and aggressively so, the existence of God and attack the supposedly small and weak-minded individual who follows him, and that is pretty much doing the opposite of those who attack others for not believing in God. I’m not saying that anyone in particular is doing that here, but it’s so easy to get carried away and become overly aggressive.
I’m not assuming that God exists. I’m debating from a certain standpoint in order to communicate to those who do assume that God exists. Plus, it’s not so much an assumption that he exists, but rather a way of stepping over the tiresome argument of whether or not he does exist, as that is fruitless. You either believe in God, or something to that effect, or you don’t – in my experience it’s impossible to convince someone to believe in God straight off. You can make them believe in God’s teachings and then the idea of God, but not the other way around.
No, what you’re talking about is a black and white argument of science vs. religion. You’re still looking at the smaller picture - trying to convince those who have faith and believe in God to abandon it in the face of overwhelming logic. That has already been discussed and concluded – logically, the idea of God is silly. You can’t prove that he exists beyond all doubt, and yet people still believe. What you need to do is accept that and move on – you can’t force people to your own opinion. That’s as bad as someone preaching about going to hell, and I intensely dislike people who do that, as I’m sure you do. You’re the same, just on the other side of the fence.
I’m not criticising your views, just your approach to this sort of debate and the sort of input which isn’t helpful.
What the rest of us are looking at (I think) is more theological – assuming that God exists, why does he behave as he does, exactly how important is the Bible and why should we trust and believe it etc. which is far more open-ended and interesting. You can believe that God doesn’t exist – no one will stop you. Or at least, no one should. We’re all sensible, logical adults here.
That’s not true. I try and treat others how I would like to be treated for the same reason that those who don’t believe in God do good things – because it is right. Loving your neighbour, even your enemy, might not immediately be moral, but when you look at people as human beings with emotions and flaws, you realise that it is right.
Even so, that’s possibly one of the more misinformed and ignorant posts I’ve seen in a while. I accept that you’re stating your opinion and that’s absolutely fine, but you assume so much. I would guess that you’ve encountered or seen or heard some sort of Christian or other believer who has offended you or someone you know? And therefore you feel obliged to assume that every believer is like that. No one’s denying that there are bad Christians in the world, but really there are only bad people. Christianity is an ideal – you are only a perfect Christian if you treat others how you would like to be treated and to love your neighbour as yourself, which is inherently impossible. Therefore the way I see it is that people are always people and only ever will be that. You can say that some are Christians, but that is no more valid or correct than saying someone is black. You can argue that someone is black of course, but first and foremost they are a person. You can’t assume anything about them until you know them. You can’t assume that they are weak-minded blundering sheep any more than you can assume that everyone from Afghanistan is a terrorist.
Now that to me shows something that is wrong with people’s assumptions of religion, that believers just accept what they are told without question and follow it without complaint. Of course not. I’ve always struggled with religion – the idea of an omnipotent God is ridiculous, but it’s through observing and questioning and downright complaining about religion that you learn. I’ve always stated that religion is a journey. I personally find it extremely hard to believe that God exists, but I want to. I’ll spend the rest of my life questioning God, whether I believe in him or not, and whatever the conclusion I reach at the end is, I can say that I’ve done my best and believe in it. What I couldn’t stand myself doing (and what I find hard to fathom in some people) is that they assume something is so and carry on their whole lives believing it. This goes for both religious and atheists. I hope that people can be open-minded enough to accept the possibility of the alternative, or at the very least accept the other person for who they are without challenging them with questions that you both know are unanswerable. I say accept the possibility of the alternative, but really you can only carry on down this road so far until you come to the question of proof. As far as Christians are concerned, there is no scientific proof of God and there never will be. I will always say that it’s much easier to be an atheist than it is to be a believer of a religion. People who follow and believe in something have my absolute respect and admiration. It’s easy to be an atheist – you can challenge and argue with a ton of evidence and scientific fact behind you all day long. But to be a believer in something, that takes balls – like being the defendant to a man who was found next to a body, had the knife in his hand, thirteen witnesses who had seen him stab the victim and who had said to the police upon arrival “I’m glad I killed the bastard.”
As for Danson, don’t you see any parallels in your case where you believed so firmly in conspiracy theories and religion? You say yourself that you apologise for the “harassment of others that I certainly caused by clinging to this shit,” but your fickleness in both belief in something and the passion with which you harassed others is surely testament to the fickleness with which you so surely degrade those who follow a religion. If there is no answerable question of proof, then there is no question, only those who follow teachings and those who choose their own path in life. Neither is right and neither is wrong. All we have here is the questioning of people. You can criticise those who believe in something and counter their arguments because it’s easy, but when there’s no answer and no escape route for those who are receiving the questioning, all you’re doing is kicking a man in the nuts when he’s down. It sounds as though he’s arguing back at you and inciting you but really he’s just standing up for his beliefs. Can you blame him for that? Even when you yourself don’t understand it and don’t agree with it?
You make some pretty bold statements, and I’d like to know why to be honest. How can you believe something that is so extreme. If you really do believe what you state here, then logically you are pretty close-minded, because religious people are no different to you. You get some that take their beliefs too far, but the same can be said of everyone and their beliefs, religious or not.
This made me laugh. Soldiers and simple people? This isn’t a medieval shire. I’m an open-minded person capable of logical thinking and yet I go to church. I might not believe in God entirely or everything in the Bible or everything that the Church teaches but I make an informed decision. I try. At the end of the day I agree with the basis of Christian teaching – to love your neighbour as yourself, and I find that going to church and having some incredible friends there who are equally intelligent and like-minded helps me in that. Some of the greatest minds who ever lived and who were undoubtedly open-minded have also believed in God. There is no reason to think that because someone believes in God that they are close-minded.
2 out of the 3 largest charities in the US (united way, goodwill, salvation army) are either explicitly religious or have roots in the religious community. You guys are going to need a lot more than vague allegations of corruption if you want to discredit the positive impact of these organizations.
I don’t necessarily doubt you, but source?
zOMG floyd, that’s spot on. Much better than I could ever have said it.
Also, there would be just as much charity if there was no religion. People don’t need religion to do good things.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t talk about any corruption.
No?