if you can not prove that something is NOT god, wouldn't it make sense to believe in everything as possibly being god? say hello to my big toe. now you can see why the world doesn't work that way. instead, it is more logical to require evidence before believing something. how can you possibly know which god to worship? --> HOW ARE YOU CHOOSING ONE? <-- you wouldn't happen to believe in the god you do because your family suggested it to you at a young age, would you? do you think if you were born in iraq, rather than in the usa, you'd still believe in whatever religion you do now? if you're honest, the answer to that question is a big "NO"
We choose our beliefs based on our own life experiences. Whether or not my beliefs would be different had I experienced a different background is irrelevant since I would not be the same person. The essence of faith is acknowledging that there are things which cannot be proven through logic alone. Logic itself can breakdown (see Godel or Russell's paradox or many other logical contradictions). We establish our logic based on cause and effect and when something does not follow that sequence, then it falls outside the realm of science. You're having these thoughts and feelings right now. If you wanted to do so, you could go out right now and break windows or whatever else your heart desired. You've been given one of the most powerful computers on earth (your mind) and you've also been given ample time to process the world and draw your own conclusions about your origins. If you believe it was all just a nice random sequence of events that got us all here to debate the subject, then that is your choice. You can't knock another man for having a different faith than you. Everyone wants to question the world in which they live. Skeptism is healthy. Don't get upset if someone else believes that Christ is their saviour. Who are you to judge another man?
is it in your religion to do the same? need i direct you to longshot's prior post? will a true muslim respect my beliefs, being i'm an infidel and they are instructed to kill me? that's just one problem with religion...... how about it hurting the advancement of the human race. instead of focusing on the facts and what's really going on in the universe, we have all these religious people believing in some total bs. i will say right now, we'd be more advanced than we are now if so many people weren't brainwashed. the biggest beef i have with religion IS THE BRAINWASHING. admit it or not, you most likely did not make a choice to be religious. i can't stand how it is passed on from generation to generation to children at a young age and IT'S A BUNCH OF BULLSHIT NEVER-THE-LESS!!!!!! oh!! and if u don't believe, ur going to hell! a very bad place!!!!!!!!!! misery forever! bad people go there! i'm going there, right?! because i don't believe!? good people (believers) go to heaven! a happy place!! you'll see all ur dead friends/family! u better believe..or else!!! religion sucks...fuck all of it.....
Gee, whatever makes you say that? ______________ "The earth is flat. Whoever claims it is round is an atheist deserving of punishment." ~Sheik Abdel-Aziz ibn Baaz, the supreme religious authority of Saudi Arabia.
Oh come on Fruity, you're going a bit far there. While it may have been true in the past that religions stifled scientific inquiry, saying that this is still the case really isn't very representative of what religions like modern Christianity stand for at all. Given that the proposition "God exists" is essentially unfalsifiable -- ie there is no theoritical state of affairs that would force a theist to conclude that God doesn't exist -- the entire field of science is open to a non-fundamentalist (the VAST majority) religionist. If, for example, the scientific community determined that some super-string theory was responsible for the origin of the universe, it is a simple matter for the devoted theist to posit God as the source of this (or any other) phenomenon. In any case, you make it sound as though if only people weren't indoctrinated into religions, or even better, were never aware of any to begin with -- in short, if we were all atheists -- that there would be this massive surge of scientific investigation into the origins of life or of the universe. Well, I beg to differ. I don't think that [everyone being atheist] alone is enough to suppose that there would be a hugely higher interest in science at all. Oh, and "advanced" doesn't only apply to scientific advancement either. So you might want to reconsider just how much more "advanced" we'd be without religion, if at all.
Pebble, you are in error here. Muslims only attack if threatened. Trying to suggest groups such as AL-Qaida represent islam is just about as inane as trying to suggest that the KKK represents Christianity.
When I was in college I took a class called History of Religion. Since I basically went to church every Sunday I thought it was basically about Christianity. What it actually covered though was the 5 main religions: islam, buddism, hindism, judism, and christianity. It started off going over hinduism which is the oldest of the major religions. To make this story short I thought that those Indian people were completely nuts worshipping gods with elephant heads and a bunch of other weird stuff that they did. Then he went into budism and I thought it was kinda nutty and then judism and islam and they were just as weird as the other two. Then he went over christianity and I thought that my religion was the only normal one but after he went over it I thought it was just as weird as the others. Then near the end of the semester I started to wonder about which one is right and how a particular christian church could say that the others were wrong and were going to hell just because they didn't believe in Jesus and not only believe in him but accept him as your personal saviour. I went back and asked my pastor about the american indians and if they went to heaven or hell? As I didn't think it was fair that they go to hell for not knowing about Jesus. He told me that they should know because if you just look at nature then you should know there is a God just by the beauty and trees etc...and through that process they should come to the conclusion that God is the true God. Needless to say I thought that was pretty lame. Another issue I had was that Jesus was always drinking wine in the Bible but it was a sin for us now to drink a beer. He said that it really wasn't wine just watered down grape juice. I thought that was kinda lame too. I still go to church and I still take my kids (to a different one) because even if you take religion completely out of the picture there are some great benefits for having them go imo. Do I believe in a supreme being? Whether you call him God, Jesus, or whatever. Yes and I still like going to a Christian church I just personally don't believe that they should be exclusive. ex. you either believe what I say, this church says, or my interpretation of the bible or you are going to hell ....that kinda thing is just plain wrong.
Who told you that it was a sin to drink beer? The bible clearly states all things in moderation. That is one of the major flaws in relying on a teacher instead of studying the major works themselves, page by page, in their original languages if need be.
Who told you that it was a sin to drink beer? My pastor is who told me. The bible clearly states all things in moderation. That is one of the major flaws in relying on a teacher instead of studying the major works themselves, page by page, in their original languages if need be. I should have stated that I was in Junior High at the time when I asked him. It isn't like I actually would study anything at that age, except girls.