Some thoughts ive been having about god

[GolgiApparatus]

Well, ive been thinking alot about "god" and things like that.

Recently i picked up a book called 'Rendevous with Rama" and i read that and all of the sequals.

By far one of the best series ive ever read i would completely reccomend it.

Anyway, so alot of things are brought up in the book. One thing is religion.

Heres a tiny backstory, just go with it.

An alien spaceship containing a human is heading towards earth. This spaceship is massive and contains a perfect habitat for humanity to thrive on it. It has towns, electricity, everything that would be included in normal human life. The purpose of the ship is for a far greater alien civilization to study humans, as they do with every space-faring species.

So the government tricks 2,000 people of all backrounds, socio and ecenomic, by saying that they will colonize mars, when in reality they will colonize this spaceship.

They inhabit the spaceship, which is a marvel in itself. Life begins anew. There is no sign of any alien life besides the spaceship. The spaceship is just a massive "dome" and no controlls are shows, just an environment. As the people get more and more comfortable, in the long run you see how they slowly become corrupt. The government becomes taken over by thugs who run the casinos and whorehouses. A government which was run by hard labor and virtue is now run by drugs and blood.

In short, the people become corrupt and violent, segregating themselves by race and becomming more and more irrational.

Soon they begin to question the human who was originally on board. She pleads with them to stop, saying that they are being observed, but the people, not seeing any sign of the aliens, do not stop and end up almost destroying the entire spaceship.

Now this reminds me of something.

Jesus told us we are being watched by god. Even though there is no sign of god, we are living on a collosal work of art that is our planet. Just like the colony was living on the collosal spaceship. Are we really being ignorant, and maybe there IS a god, we just cant open our eyes and see? Was jesus REALLY right that we were being watched?

your thoughts on any of this?

[ZIGGS]

i grew up christian but havent been to church since i was 11 maybe 12...now with my own thought i've basically considered myself an athiest with hope. The way i see it, if there's a god and he sees and knows all i have nothing to worry about because the good i do far outweighs the bad.

[Jimbozu]

When you were young, and you're parents were always watching over you, did you always judge your actions on what their opinions would be? Maybe you did, maybe you didn't, but do you still now? Of course not, you grew up, became an adult and became capable of making decisions for yourself. After a point you don't need some arbitrary rule maker to set limits for you, because you have the capacity to govern your own life.

Maybe there is a god, and long ago it made us and gave us rules to follow. Why should we continue to follow those rules? Why must we forever live for our maker and not for ourselves?

[joe Biggs]

there is no christian god because the ethics that deem us to heaven and hell are not an absolute. wrong and right choices are in the eyes of the behold, we are all capable to individually perceive everything. and i do not believe a spiritual being is judging my actions and existence.

although to justify matter, energy and life. i would have to say it is quite possible a non-understandable higher power(s) is responsible for these creations.

[kinkz]

i honestly don't believe in God because of all the other religions out there. i basically wish i could piece all of them together in one way or another. but, it's up to you if you want to believe in him or not. what do you really think? it's not about knowing but about believing at this point.

[TokinTurky]

I have grown up in a Christian family with a father who is a preacher, and a mother who teaches at a Christian preschool. I have heard just about everything relating to this religion. It was not until lately that I have began to think for myself and wonder why this religion has to be the correct one. I realized that if I am going to believe in a God, it is going to be because I truly believe in that God. I am in the process of finding out what I truly believe, and why I believe it. Blindly following something does no good for me anymore. (Especially the bull shit propaganda that the government has been dishing out about cannabis and other drugs, I think we can all agree about this one. XD)
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Joe Biggs- Just to address what you said about there being no Christian God because of "the ethics that deem us to heaven and hell are not an absolute. wrong and right choices are in the eyes of the behold". You may believe anything that you want. I am not trying to bash what you said in any way, because you are entitled to what you think just as much as I.

----I also think that right/wrong choices, and ethics in general are not up to us to determine. I like what you said about there being no absolute wrong or right in this world. Other cultures view ethics differently than we do. Something common in our culture may seem wrong to them, likewise; something normal in their culture may seem wrong to us. Who other than God (if you believe so) has the power to judge whats right and whats wrong? (Good stuff there =D I was thinking about this a lot lately.)

----I just wanted to add that Christianity does not require someone to follow all the commandments given to us, if it did we would all spend eternity in the hell that the bible describes. This is why God sent his son, Jesus, so that even if we committed a sin we would be forgiven. Certain ethics do not deem us to heaven or hell in Christianity. The only thing that makes a person a Christian is that they believe that Jesus is their one and only savior, and that he died to cleanse their sins. So even if a mass murderer were to die, while believing that Jesus was his savior, the bible says that he would be forgiven for what he had done, and thus would be sent to heaven. Many people think that doing right instead of wrong determines whether you go to heaven or not. Even if the "bads outweigh the goods", it doesn't matter because we are forgiven for our sins. Now this doesn't mean that we shouldn't follow the commandments, they are guidelines for which Christians "should" live their lives. Now who honestly likes it when people are killed? XP

----If anyone was wondering,I grew up in a non-denominational church which has different views from the other two thousand denominations. XP Each interprets the bible differently, and this is just what I learned. I don't know much about others, but I think Catholics must confess their sins to a priest to be forgiven? Correct me if I am wrong about this, but from what I learned its the "person>priest>Jesus/God" order for Catholics, instead of what I had believed "person>Jesus/God". I remember hearing that "no one talks to me (God) except through Jesus. Jesus and God are one of the same in my view, so thats what the "/" indicates.

I love this "Spirituality And Philosophy" section, It's the shit! =D

[Ypres]

Though you can draw parallels with many stories and allegories relating to religion, I think the reality tends to be MUCH different than the stories. The world isn't so simple and the idea of a God is usually assumed in order to make decisions. Some people need the idea of a God so that everything makes sense to them, though I disagree who am I to tell them otherwise, what can I prove? What can they prove? Live a good life, hope for the best.