You know what question I always ask people who are religious that they can never seem to answer? If god is real, which I have no problem believing (but I don't think I do), why does he hide himself? I think if we actually knew there was a god for sure, people would take morals and values into MUCH higher consideration than just basing their behavior on something we don't know is there. Especially in todays world where we do anything that feels good. You would think at times like this God would show himself before we do all of these things that are horrible according to religion. I just don't see a concrete reason why God would want to hide himself. It makes so much more sense to me that God would make himself known if he did exist so that we would behave in a way he wanted us to. According to the bible God gave us free will. We could still have free will and know that God exists for sure every day. I think if this really were the case people would think twice before they stole, murdered, raped, etc., but no. God just seems to hide himself when all of this senseless suffering (on the victims part) keeps on happening. You would think if God did care about his people he would try to end their suffering. I can't think of one good reason that he would chose to hide himself but just to mess with us. What does pride mean or the notion that "it's the point of believing in what you can't see". Well fuck, I could believe in Santa Claus and never see him, but we don't because we know he's not real. I don't see why the same thing can't be said for God.
I wasnt referring to unbelievers as the wacko's, I was referring to the radicals that have branched off of Christianity, and preach a different message than what is intended and make people see christians differently. Sorry for the confusion. We'll you wrote a lot, I read it and will be able to address everything but will have to wait until tomorrow whenever I can do some researching to address it properly (studying for the cpa exam right now ) I guess this can be a good thing, helps me to continue digging and relate and understand better the issues that non-believers have, so i'll be looking forward to it tomorrow. Since your daughter is smart tell her to go into a different field than public accounting, she can make a lot more money and have a lot more fun.
I definitely don't believe in the "God" portrayed in the Bible. I believe in something, but I'm not sure what that is. Nobody does, and maybe we never will.
you don't believe because you can't see it? Faith. Thats what Christianity is about. God won't reveal himself to you because he wants you to have the faith that he is real. He made us that way on purpose so only the worthy will make it to Heaven. If your one of those must see it to believe it people, think of this way, If you believe and God exists, you go to Heaven. If he doesn't oh well. If you don't believe and he exists you spend eternity in what my teacher said he believes would be your worst nightmare or thing your most scared of and experience it over and over never ending.
The worthy? Ha. For thousands of years millions have died over religion. Through wars, religious perges etc. Which totally controdict the "10 commandments". And if someone doesnt believe then they suffer in hell? Thats pathetic. Religion inspires fear so you believe. Plus there are hundreds of different Gods, and different religions. So what makes Christianity so great? Maybe because it called of others who didnt believe. To answer your question, no, i do not believe in God, or Gods. I am infact totally against religion.
wait... so according to you, you have to believe in god or you suffer for eternity in the depths of hell just because you were influenced by outside variable not to believe in god? and why is faith SO important that it determines whether or not we go to heaven or hell? IMHO, when we die it's eternal nothingness just like before we were born. doesnt make too much sense to me. Also, like said above, what makes the christian faith true and so much better than paganism or even witchcraft? I don't get how hinduism or even scientology can't be true if christianity can.
God gave us free will to see who will go to Heaven. the ones that CHOOSE to give into temptations, sin, and follow the devil obviously won't go to heaven.
Haha im sorry to say, thats such bullshit. If he gave you free will, then its your choice to believe. But if you choose not to, you are punished? Thats not freewill!!
Not religious one bit. I don't believe in a 'god'. I do believe that significant religious leaders like Jesus did exist but he was no different from you and me. There are religions that are no longer in existance that we laugh at their beliefs. What about the other religions that can't be found in history? 10,000 years from now people are going to make jokes about what people worship today. By then they might worship comets for all we know. Story: One of my close friends is very religious. She goes to church every sunday with her churh group and whatnot. One of the times I was talking to her about god she went on some rant about another church in town that are "non-believers". She didn't agree with how they preached the 'lord' and was saying how everyone in that church was going to hell. I happen to drive by the church and bullshit with a few people outside talking about how I thinking about coming to this church to worship rather than my friend's and the woman said the same thing. "You should pray at our church, they are non believers and will punished by 'god'". Isn't church about unity and worshiping 'god' together? BUT! If you disagree with someone and don't like the fact that they pray for 5 minutes instead of 10, they aren't worthy enough for your 'god'? Religion is the opium of the masses.
no. i said if you choose to sin badly and aren't truly sorry for it, you will be punished. you can not believe, but still live a good life and go to Heaven... idiot your uneducated in religion and maybe thats why your so against it? but i don't care what you believe do what you want.
I grew up in a pretty strict christian home. Believed in god and jesus and all that up until about a year ago. I just started to truly think on my own and realized that there has to be more. And I know that lovely mary jane had a help in all this. I agree with the above posts... I don't understand that for the people who don't believe... they go to hell. Say whattt? Makes no sense whatsoever to me. Why would a god that loves me so much punish me for eternity in a place called hell? He gave me the option to not believe. He created all these miraculous things. And I'm supposed to go to hell? Ugh I just don't get it. But it's also mind boggling to think that there isn't a god. How was this world even created? Where did the gases and energy COME FROM that made up the universe. I understand that the universe is expanding. But what came before it? Some argue nothing... it was just there. That doesn't make sense. Nothing does! It's just this game called life. We could all just be in a glass ball sitting on someones desk. So many questions.
I will thank you. Just dont preach and say if we dont believe were going to hell. And i am educated actually, i took religion through college for two years. I know more than most religious people. Which is odd.
that was uncalled for. I don't disrespect others, or at least I try not to as hard as I can. I don't believe in god, but you do. On another note, I hate when Christians bash other religions for "outrageous" beliefs. In all essence, what do Christians believe? That some magic guy was born out of no where, died on the cross and rose from the dead? Man, I will lead my life doing good things for other and hoping the same can be reciprocated for me. If god is real and i go to heaven, then I will obviously take back all the things I said. However, I think it is complete bullshit that you can't be a good person and lead a good life helping others without religion.
Yeah, i might have seemed a bit disrespectful there as well. So sorry. But i will never be for religion. I cant accept something that has killed billions in history.
I'm an atheist. Nobody in my family is really religious, I think they're all agnostic, not atheist though. I was never really brought up to go to a place of worship, and when I was old enough to think for myself I came to the conclusion that God doesn't exist. I'm happy with how it worked out. Edit, even if I did believe in some sort of deity I realized at a very early age that organized religion was complete bullshit. I mean, if God did exist, who is any mortal to tell anyone else the proper way to worship.
I grew up going to church, was baptized and all that.. But like a couple of you have said, once I got older, I started having a LOT more questions... Now... I look around and im just in total SHOCK, how many ADULT people, still believe in such crazy shit.. My girlfriend believes... but im slowly showing her, that she only believes because she doesnt know much about it... so instead of learning about somthing, she is just being ignorant... the more I tell/show her, the more stupid it sounds Then again, im also into shit like the spirit molecule, the pineal gland is a crazy crazy thing
Reading the God Delusion was really the biggest turning point for me. I never really believed in God before, I guess I was more agnostic than anything, or really I just didn't care to think about it. But after reading that great book I was swayed and am proud to be an atheist.
"Your" uneducated? If you sin, you will be punished? Sooo God => Man => Free will => Use it => ETERNAL DAMNATION!!! Man...God likes to fuck with us I guess. And what constitutes 'sin'? If I'm (some religion) and its considered a 'mortal sin' and I'm not sorry for it, doesn't that make me screwed even if I'm a good person?
Ok George Washington was just an example of a historical figure, I dont know his character but he probably had a lot of screwed up views on how to treat others. But my main point stands that you have to read the Bible as a whole to get what the entire thing is about. I would say MANY, definitly not EVERY culture has had moral views on how to treat humans. And yes man has been the ones who defined what a "human" is. But that is not what the Bible says. Some of the Bibles main focus is that all people are created equal. Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Genesis 5:2 "He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them "man." Proverbs 22:2 "Rich and poor have this in common: The LORD is the Maker of them all." Leviticus 25:53 "He is to be treated as a man hired from year to year; you must see to it that his owner does not rule over him ruthlessly." These are just a few examples of the Bible describing the equality of man, there are plenty more. In no place does the Bible ever instruct unequality. Also, a slave back then isnt in most cases the same as a slave within the last couple hundred years ago. Money did not have the same bering as it has today, yes there was money, but many people were more interested in working to provide themselves food and shelter. So in most cases term slave in the Bible does not mean an uncompensated worker who is treated like an animal. Many people requested of others to allow them to become a slave, basically saying please give me a job and food and shelter. But God instructs that "slaves" should be treated like family. Christianity (Judaism) is the worlds oldest religion, so if a lot of cultures adopted morals could it be possible that they were adopted from christianity? There are fish and shark skeletons found in the mountains, and I found seashells in texas when I was younger. Is this not evidence that a world wide flood or at least a mostly world wide flood COULD HAVE POSSIBLY occured? Is it not more far fetched and complex that we evolved? Why have we stopped? And why is there no documentation from early humans talking about "the others" who have not evolved yet? Did we happen to evolve at the exact same time? If recorded history is only thousands of years old how in the world can we claim that things happened millions or billions of years ago? Thats a long freaking time of absolutly no documentation and dont bring up carbon dating, that is just as faith based as anything, if you dont have a control of something that you know is that old how can you say it is? There is just as much PROOF (seems to be what everyone requries) if not less in the THEORY of evolution as there is the THEORY of creation. Its just a matter of which you are putting your faith in. But the actual proof is the same. Sorry that was just a list of ranting questions that maybe somebody as a believer of evolution can explain to a christian. Moving on... First off i'm not sure where you found your quotes, i'm sure it was from a reputable source and not some website that is devoted to bringing Christianity down. I never said that the Old Testament wasnt true, I believe it to be just as true as the New Testament, what I said was the standard of righteousness was changed, the way people lived up to God's standards. In the old testament the people tried to be righteous by living by the Law, which was a very strict rulebook of do's and don'ts. God saw this to be basically impossible to follow and therefore sent Jesus to change the standard of righousness. The new standard was now that Jesus has forgiven all sins, there isnt not a standard to live by anymore, the only thing you have to do is accept Jesus' grace and love him. Thats it. Again I never said the old testament was not true, and of course Jesus referred to the old testament a lot. And I dont know the scholors that you are talking about that moses did not write the first five books of the bible but the Majority of Christian and Jewish scholors agree that Moses did write it. Of course there are going to be a minority of "scholors" who disagree with the rest. Again, refer to above, the Bible's main points are equalty, compassion, love, etc, etc.. There are a few passages that can be taken out of context that describe horrible things that happened but it is not the teaching of the Bible. I dont know if I covered everything from your last post but I think I at least covered most. There are a lot of things in the Bible that are complex, that we do not have insight on. It is hard to understand a lot of it. But just because you cant understand absolutly everything about something doesnt mean you cant understand what the the thing as a whole is about. Have you ever thought that if God knows the big picture of everything that is happening in the world, how can we as a single individual see what is best, or see a plan? Its just like having a child and you knowing everything that is good for that child and you see what is going to happen, but the child will never understand the reasons why until they are older and learn. And believe me that I do have questions all the time and dont understand everything but those questions will be answered one day.
to the above poster: do you not understand the concept of evolution at all? The evolution theory doesn't go like this: a monkey gives birth to a human. And as for other nonevolved organisms, have you ever heard of Neanderthals? Evolution hasn't stopped, it never will until life ceases to exist. It is a gradual process that takes place over thousands of years. Humans are lucky because we have evolved to become so intelligent that instead of having to wait for natural selection to improve our species, we are able to do it in one life time using logic and problem solving. At this point there is no need for us to evolve any further because we have in essence beat natural selection. Take, for instance, people who are mentally retarded. Thousands of years ago they would have never been able to survive, but today we are smart enough that they don't need to fend for themselves, instead we (other humans) can take care of them and they live. Evolution is a MUCH more plausible and logical theory than "everything just happened". Why don't things just "happen" today? we know that things don't just spontaneously occur. As for your education as far as science I can clearly see why you seek an alternative explanation. Carbon dating is not base on faith. Maybe you know how it works maybe you dont, but all elements have a half life. A half life is the amount of time it takes for half of a substances mass to decay into another. Uranium and it's various isotopes have some of the longest half-lives of any substance known to man. Through radioactive dating we've been able to age rocks at around 3.2 billion years. Can religion explain that? Even if it is inaccurate with a HUGE margin for error, I find it plausible to believe that rocks are at least 1 billion years old. Hard to believe that God created the earth 1 billion years ago but just decided to create humans just thousands of years ago. Carbon dating is surprisingly accurate. As for finding seashells in Texas, have you never heard of plate tectonics? That is a concrete proven scientific fact. We have found fossils of the same exact species of lizard in Africa that we have found in South America. I guess God put them there.