Why bother taking obscure ideas founded some 2,000 years ago in one geographical area, (meanwhile the Aborigines, in only one example, had had completely conflicting beliefs predating this at least 40,000 years – but obviously they’re all wrong and going to burn in Hell for all eternity because you’re right and Christianity didn't exist back then), slapping these 'beliefs' on top evolution (which, again, in the majority perception is wrong because you’re right), and calling it objective truth in the name of ‘religion’

The whole idea of a 'Heaven' and a 'Hell' is logically irritating. Obviously they sprung up as a result of someone examining the extremely relative “good” and “bad” ideals of society at their given time and have been written into religious literature themes as 'truth'. How can we categorise people’s entire lives into these two broad spectrums? This is nothing short of ridiculous.

'Good', 'bad', 'right', 'wrong', this terminology doesn’t concern me. They’re completely relative terms in relative times. Worse still, pretentious enthusiasts take these terms and their literature, and try to put their archaic text into what they would like to think is objective truth by conveniently taking "God's word" and trying to adjust it to what is socially acceptable to the issues at their time of Judeo-Christian majority (statistical sanity, so they claim), then packaging this off as something resembling, “What God was really trying to say, despite his vulgarity was…”

Kind of funny how the majority (if not all) of the candidates are Christian because it appeals the majority of citizens. If Atheism was the predominant belief (if you can call it that), a complete reversal of the candidates opinions would reflect this... all smoke and mirrors?

What pisses me off the most if that we’ve based our entire system of history dating off a guesstimation of a false prophet. Let’s establish a standard (the introduction of Our Ford's first T-Model automobile to be chosen as the opening date of the new era - A.F.) that allows easy conversion between the old and new system of dating and allow the transition to take place. Then we shall cut the tops off all the crosses in the world, making them become T's (in memory of Our Ford's first T-Model) to mark the new era of abandoning all previous conceptions of the indoctrinating fear propaganda that benefited the archaic aristocracies of the dominant institute at that time, of a fork of Judaism.

Even if Jesus does exists and tries to judge me, I'll tell him to his subjective face to fuck off, I don't care. You can't blame me for being born into a logical frame of mind that favours science over an ancient story that appears to be indistinguishable to any other fairy-tale.

Yes, I enjoy reading Aldous Huxley.

What pisses me off the most if that we’ve based our entire system of history dating off a guesstimation of a false prophet. Let’s establish a standard (the introduction of Our Ford's first T-Model automobile to be chosen as the opening date of the new era - A.F.) that allows easy conversion between the old and new system of dating and allow the transition to take place. Then we shall cut the tops off all the crosses in the world, making them become T's (in memory of Our Ford's first T-Model) to mark the new era of abandoning all previous conceptions of the indoctrinating fear propaganda that benefited the archaic aristocracies of the dominant institute at that time, of a fork of Judaism.

Even if Jesus does exists and tries to judge me, I'll tell him to his subjective face to fuck off, I don't care. You can't blame me for being born into a logical frame of mind that favours science over an ancient story that appears to be indistinguishable to any other fairy-tale.

Whats so bad about our dating system? That last part also didn't make sense.

Whats so bad about our dating system? That last part also didn't make sense.

Nothing wrong with it, it works after all, right? It just constantly reminds me that any significant human achievement is based on how many years after Jesus was born. I was just playing around with the dating system in Brave New World (After Ford). That last part was me trying to explain that Jesus, or whoever else, can't hold me accountable as being 'evil' and being sent to Hell because of my personality that favours 'new-age' reason over old literature.

I agree with everything you've said. Christianity is retarded.

If only that Roman emperor never ended up converting the empire. Thats where it started.

I hate how people think the only source of decency and morality is found within the Christian fairy tale books.

Never heard that before..

Why bother taking obscure ideas founded some 2,000 years ago in one geographical area, (meanwhile the Aborigines, in only one example, had had completely conflicting beliefs predating this at least 40,000 years – but obviously they’re all wrong and going to burn in Hell for all eternity because you’re right and Christianity didn't exist back then), slapping these 'beliefs' on top evolution (which, again, in the majority perception is wrong because you’re right), and calling it objective truth in the name of ‘religion’

The whole idea of a 'Heaven' and a 'Hell' is logically irritating. Obviously they sprung up as a result of someone examining the extremely relative “good” and “bad” ideals of society at their given time and have been written into religious literature themes as 'truth'. How can we categorise people’s entire lives into these two broad spectrums? This is nothing short of ridiculous.

'Good', 'bad', 'right', 'wrong', this terminology doesn’t concern me. They’re completely relative terms in relative times. Worse still, pretentious enthusiasts take these terms and their literature, and try to put their archaic text into what they would like to think is objective truth by conveniently taking "God's word" and trying to adjust it to what is socially acceptable to the issues at their time of Judeo-Christian majority (statistical sanity, so they claim), then packaging this off as something resembling, “What God was really trying to say, despite his vulgarity was…”

Kind of funny how the majority (if not all) of the candidates are Christian because it appeals the majority of citizens. If Atheism was the predominant belief (if you can call it that), a complete reversal of the candidates opinions would reflect this... all smoke and mirrors?

What pisses me off the most if that we’ve based our entire system of history dating off a guesstimation of a false prophet. Let’s establish a standard (the introduction of Our Ford's first T-Model automobile to be chosen as the opening date of the new era - A.F.) that allows easy conversion between the old and new system of dating and allow the transition to take place. Then we shall cut the tops off all the crosses in the world, making them become T's (in memory of Our Ford's first T-Model) to mark the new era of abandoning all previous conceptions of the indoctrinating fear propaganda that benefited the archaic aristocracies of the dominant institute at that time, of a fork of Judaism.

Even if Jesus does exists and tries to judge me, I'll tell him to his subjective face to fuck off, I don't care. You can't blame me for being born into a logical frame of mind that favours science over an ancient story that appears to be indistinguishable to any other fairy-tale.

Yes, I enjoy reading Aldous Huxley.




What pisses me of the most is how people like you assume all religion believes in a hell and most probably listens to Carl Sagan or some other science prophet who thinks that if life on other planets is ever discovered that religion will become defunct.
Nowhere in the bible does it state that there is not life anywhere other where than earth .You sound like a ex catholic or a child of a catholic .Don't sit there and spurt shit based on one fucked religion which by the way went out of there way to keep the bible from the masses and even went so far as to change the wording within it .As for the Aboriginals and as with most cultures there is common thread in there telling .

Sit there in your immense wisdom, taking the word of your science teacher and making chook shit into feather pillows.There is science in the bible and it was there long before Christoper told us the world was round .

Never heard that before..

This.

And to the OP, everything is illogical. Wheres the logic in bitching and moaning about how stupid Christianity is? Does this thread do anything to make the situation better for you?

Funny thing is, I agree with you! Christianity is very illogical.

Why bother telling this to totse? Why can't you just be content knowing that you're not a part of "Christianity" and leave it at that?

It is because your position is no better. Not at all.

If only that Roman emperor never ended up converting the empire. Thats where it started.

Then the majority of people who are Christians would instead be some form of pagan and people like you would be just as bothered by that.

What pisses me of the most is how people like you


Blatant generalisations are really fun, huh?

assume all religion believes in a hell and most probably listens to Carl Sagan or some other science prophet who thinks that if life on other planets is ever discovered that religion will become defunct.


More generalisations based on no evidence whatsoever. Christians would be up in arms because we are somehow "created in God's image" (what a crock of shit) if they found out aliens existed. We've evolved, taking a random snippet of our history of evolution and slapping on the 'God's image' tag doesn't mean shit.

Nowhere in the bible does it state that there is not life anywhere other where than earth .You sound like a ex catholic or a child of a catholic .


More assumption, I've made the rational and logical choice of being an atheist all my life, but thanks for the guess. It doesn't say anything about President Bush, or the World Trade Center being blown up, or Richard Dawkins, or, or; please, spare me this nonsense. Leaving things out from literature does not equal knowledge; but I'm sure in their primitive days (where knowledge) of disease caused by sin (black plague, anyone?) that they would have sincerely believed that they where the only life forms in the universe; what with the sun revolving around the Earth and all, ha!


Don't sit there and spurt shit based on one fucked religion which by the way went out of there way to keep the bible from the masses and even went so far as to change the wording within it .As for the Aboriginals and as with most cultures there is common thread in there telling .


I admit I am picking on Christianity, but for good reason. Oh and I'm sure the bible was never subjected to any misinterpretation or mistranslations over its 2000 years, huh? Nope, it 100% remained in tact. When I turn on the Television or my computer I and observe news, this bullshit is what concerns me. Not Islam, not Buddhism, not Judaism. This nonsense is what is stopping my society I participate in from progressing further. Stem cell research, pro-choice, choosing to go 'green' because Christianity has jumped on that bandwagon and now pretends it followed it all along to appear 'socially acceptable' (God's word conveniently changes to what is socially acceptable at the appropriate time in society) meanwhile it's just a corporation who has decided to improve profits by utilising an efficient Public Relations team that Christians are now priding themselves on following; much like fatties and their Subway, really. Do you remember when Christians used to read the bible and have the attitude of "rape, pillage and plunder", because of reading Genesis a certain way? Oh no, of course not, it's not in Christians interests, is it? All it really does is tag alongside science then as soon as science discovers an issue, or a way to change society in a certain way, Christianity will put its pretentious nose into the issue it declares as being a "moral issue" and separate itself, claiming to offer the "moral" choice for carbon-neutral good/wholesome Christian families, while subconsciously brainwashing these fools into believing that the Church discovered the issue themselves and now path the way to a moral outlook on the situation, and this can be seen with global warming. It's a big joke.


Sit there in your immense wisdom, taking the word of your science teacher and making chook shit into feather pillows.There is science in the bible and it was there long before Christoper told us the world was round .

Generalising again are we? Sigh... no matter. Your insults are so petty and only further your appearance of immaturity on this forum. First of all, I don't go to high school, I go to University; second of all I when I did study science (I study communication in case you where wondering in your pseudo-wisdom) I found the superficial science teaching I received to be very inefficient, nearly all of what I have learnt (and posted to this thread) is what I have studied and observed myself through self research and thought. Sure, there is plenty of science in the bible, if you enjoy twisting words around and trying to find your own interpretation to make it appear like the bible was onto something it obviously was not (being socially acceptable). Plenty of scientific errors in there too... your point? It's ancient literature and in no way represents an accurate view of our world (unless you enjoy completely subjective and relative morals)

This.

And to the OP, everything is illogical. Wheres the logic in bitching and moaning about how stupid Christianity is? Does this thread do anything to make the situation better for you?

Funny thing is, I agree with you! Christianity is very illogical.

Why bother telling this to totse? Why can't you just be content knowing that you're not a part of "Christianity" and leave it at that?

It is because your position is no better. Not at all.

I don't really agree with everything being illogical, a lot of things make sense to me, I think everything is relative instead. And I don't know why I write this to totse, I suppose because I enjoy writing? Why does anyone tell MGCBTSOOYG anything if they can be content with or without religion? I get pretty bored and like feedback? Just putting ideas out there and see what people will respond with to see if I can further refine my ideas.

I don't really agree with everything being illogical, a lot of things make sense to me, I think everything is relative instead.

Except for Christianity? Thats what you are saying with this thread.

And I don't know why I write this to totse, I suppose because I enjoy writing? Why does anyone tell MGCBTSOOYG anything if they can be content with or without religion? I get pretty bored and like feedback? Just putting ideas out there and see what people will respond with to see if I can further refine my ideas.

Go for it. Your position is not any better then Christianity. They are both illogical.

Why bother taking obscure ideas founded some 2,000 years ago in one geographical area, (meanwhile the Aborigines, in only one example, had had completely conflicting beliefs predating this at least 40,000 years – but obviously they’re all wrong and going to burn in Hell for all eternity because you’re right and Christianity didn't exist back then), slapping these 'beliefs' on top evolution (which, again, in the majority perception is wrong because you’re right), and calling it objective truth in the name of ‘religion’

The whole idea of a 'Heaven' and a 'Hell' is logically irritating. Obviously they sprung up as a result of someone examining the extremely relative “good” and “bad” ideals of society at their given time and have been written into religious literature themes as 'truth'. How can we categorise people’s entire lives into these two broad spectrums? This is nothing short of ridiculous.

'Good', 'bad', 'right', 'wrong', this terminology doesn’t concern me. They’re completely relative terms in relative times. Worse still, pretentious enthusiasts take these terms and their literature, and try to put their archaic text into what they would like to think is objective truth by conveniently taking "God's word" and trying to adjust it to what is socially acceptable to the issues at their time of Judeo-Christian majority (statistical sanity, so they claim), then packaging this off as something resembling, “What God was really trying to say, despite his vulgarity was…”

Kind of funny how the majority (if not all) of the candidates are Christian because it appeals the majority of citizens. If Atheism was the predominant belief (if you can call it that), a complete reversal of the candidates opinions would reflect this... all smoke and mirrors?

What pisses me off the most if that we’ve based our entire system of history dating off a guesstimation of a false prophet. Let’s establish a standard (the introduction of Our Ford's first T-Model automobile to be chosen as the opening date of the new era - A.F.) that allows easy conversion between the old and new system of dating and allow the transition to take place. Then we shall cut the tops off all the crosses in the world, making them become T's (in memory of Our Ford's first T-Model) to mark the new era of abandoning all previous conceptions of the indoctrinating fear propaganda that benefited the archaic aristocracies of the dominant institute at that time, of a fork of Judaism.

Even if Jesus does exists and tries to judge me, I'll tell him to his subjective face to fuck off, I don't care. You can't blame me for being born into a logical frame of mind that favours science over an ancient story that appears to be indistinguishable to any other fairy-tale.

Yes, I enjoy reading Aldous Huxley.

MAN STFU, it's the most obvious thing in the world and it makes you a fucking dumbass to join the majority of the minority and make huge diatribes pointing out the obvious. You don't even need to say all that, you just have to explain a mythological story, then explain the story of Jesus and realize they are both made up of the same 'magic' element which doesn't fucking exist. Then you can go ahead and compare it to other world religions, and top it off with a nice dose of 'no one's ever contacted God', and why not throw a picture of a starving African child into the mix for good fun. At the end of the day, it comes down to fear, ignorance and tradition and you're not special for finding this shit out.

Okay I just wrote my own diatribe.

Nothing wrong with it, it works after all, right? It just constantly reminds me that any significant human achievement is based on how many years after Jesus was born. I was just playing around with the dating system in Brave New World (After Ford). That last part was me trying to explain that Jesus, or whoever else, can't hold me accountable as being 'evil' and being sent to Hell because of my personality that favours 'new-age' reason over old literature.

God condemns whomever He pleases and shines mercy down on whomever He pleases. The question I ask you is this: Who are you to say anything at all? Did you create your mouth? Your tongue? Your brain? Your vocabulary? Did you feed yourself from childhood? Did you educate yourself? Do you manifest yourself by your will alone into the mind's eye of millions? Do you have the power to grant conviction and correction to all humanity? Do you know what is good and what is not? Do you know clean from unclean? Do you know holiness from wretchedness? Do you know all history? Do you know all truth? Do you know what justice is? Do you know what the Earth was before it was the Earth? Do you know the secrets about all mankind that mankind does not even know about itself? Do you know the day and the time that all of this ends? Tell me by what power you possess may God not hold you accountable?

Oh, and for the record, I concur, as does the Bible itself, that all it says falls on deaf ears. It is illogical. It is absurd. It is scandalous. It is unbelievable. It is contrary to all sense and reason. It is impossible. We CAN NOT believe it...unless we are convicted to believe it. Not even a mad man would believe Christ is LORD, bore our sins, died for them, rose from the dead, and grants merciful salvation by His grace to all who believe and confess. I am no mad man, yet I believe this...not because it makes sense, but because I have been convicted to believe it.

MAN STFU, it's the most obvious thing in the world and it makes you a fucking dumbass to join the majority of the minority and make huge diatribes pointing out the obvious. You don't even need to say all that, you just have to explain a mythological story, then explain the story of Jesus and realize they are both made up of the same 'magic' element which doesn't fucking exist. Then you can go ahead and compare it to other world religions, and top it off with a nice dose of 'no one's ever contacted God', and why not throw a picture of a starving African child into the mix for good fun. At the end of the day, it comes down to fear, ignorance and tradition and you're not special for finding this shit out.

Okay I just wrote my own diatribe.

Wow... sorry if it's a diatribe in your eyes... like I really care what you say/think. You didn't have to read all this, and in fact it wasn't even aimed at people like you. Obviously it's not that much of a diatribe or the most 'obvious thing in the world' if hundreds of millions of people believe in the nonsense I'm trying to point out. Trying to suffice what I said with your little comment, and expecting people to see the correlation between a few words obviously isn't going to do nearly as much as my "diatribe" in your eyes.

And what the fuck is with you people and thinking people assume they're special because they like to go to a bit more effort and write more? Fuck off. I know I'm not special and I'm just part of a tiny speck of evolutionary history, you fuck. Spend your time writing this to Christians who think they're all special with their mythological God.

Oh shit, I just wrote another diatribe... fuck off/don't care.

God condemns whomever He pleases and shines mercy down on whomever He pleases. The question I ask you is this: Who are you to say anything at all?
That's fine, if you believe in a fictional God. I am a Homo Sapien with a voice, or in this case, fingers. Who am I? No one in particular, besides a human with a name and enough intellect to realise that believing in God and/or subscribing to a religion is part of joining a cause of mass stupidity and delusion.

Did you create your mouth?
Evolution and DNA from parents did.

Your tongue?
Evolution and DNA from parents did.

Your brain?
Evolution and DNA from parents did.

In fact, when I look at one of my toes I see it's a bit crooked. This is a family trait I've inherited. Over hundreds of years, if my family's lineage is still going (I know you'll insert your typical Christian insult here), this trait will probably still be there, if not changed greatly. This change, as small as it may be, proves evolution in itself, and that we are not created in God's image. Some people have massive differences.

Your vocabulary?
Primary education allowed me to learn this social construction of communication.

Did you feed yourself from childhood?
No. My parents did, just like the rest of nature that doesn't have the brain capacity to invent mindless nonsense about entirely relative morals dependant on social situations of good and bad.

Did you educate yourself?
I am now. But my parents and the institute of school taught me the basics.

Do you manifest yourself by your will alone into the mind's eye of millions?
If a billion people believe a silly thing, it still is a silly thing.

Do you have the power to grant conviction and correction to all humanity?
Given a long enough time scale, fame, authority, and media transmission abilities, sure. If I went back in time and made up a fairy tale when people were very delusional and susceptable, sure.

Do you know what is good and what is not? Do you know clean from unclean? Do you know holiness from wretchedness?
Nope, because they don't exist. They're entirely relative and dependant as to what is socially acceptable at the time of examination. Nothing is 'good' or 'bad' as these terms don't represent the truth, merely the value people from different times and places place on them.

Do you know all history?
No. Am I supposed to? Do the prerogatives of our ancient ancestories bother me? Not even slightly.

Do you know all truth?
Subjective or objective truth? Subjective, (i.e. religion) I don't bother learning. Objective, (i.e. science) I'm learning more of everyday.

Do you know what justice is?
A relative term that determines what is socially acceptable at the time of judgement...?

Do you know what the Earth was before it was the Earth?
Depends on what you consider 'Earth' If you think it was a molten rock in the Hadean eon a few billion years ago, or whether it only became 'Earth' when all life was in the oceans, or what you see around you now; with Jesus obliterated in a totally created civilisation descendant from apes. Buddhist tea-cup argument? But probably just a large accumulation of rocks, I'm guessing.

Do you know the secrets about all mankind that mankind does not even know about itself?
Well seeing as we're all just organisms, indifferent to other animals, everything in your pseudo-wisdom is just you taking a superficial examination of human culture that is all mostly now completely irrelivant and taking a stab and saying that there are all these wonder 'secrets' that can only be uncovered by using the unexplainable to explain the unexplainable, a.k.a, Christianity. But I'm not too sure, why don't you enlighten me of all these secrets from the time when people believed disease was caused by sin?

Do you know the day and the time that all of this ends?
Whenever the radiation from a world war gets to us... or the human population gets too big for the Earth... or when the sun explodes...? Oh wait, I've got it now, when Jesus gets pissed and comes down to judge both the living and the dead, right!?

Tell me by what power you possess may God not hold you accountable?
The power of my own logic. I mean, if God was real, that is... which he isn't.

Oh, and for the record, I concur, as does the Bible itself, that all it says falls on deaf ears. It is illogical. It is absurd. It is scandalous. It is unbelievable. It is contrary to all sense and reason. It is impossible. We CAN NOT believe it...unless we are convicted to believe it. Not even a mad man would believe Christ is LORD, bore our sins, died for them, rose from the dead, and grants merciful salvation by His grace to all who believe and confess. I am no mad man, yet I believe this...not because it makes sense, but because I have been convicted to believe it.
All according to a fairy tale written down when people we're stupid enough to buy into this derivative of Judaism. Please clarify the term, 'convicted' In a law sense it's when you're found guilty of a crime... But I'm having a hard time trying to work out how this ties into Jesus and your own understanding, or lack of understanding.

Who am I? No one in particular, besides a human with a name and enough intellect to realise that believing in God and/or subscribing to a religion is part of joining a cause of mass stupidity and delusion.

But you lack enough intellect to realize that believing in names and subscribing to society is also stupid and delusional?

I thought you said the illogical (which has been called the stupid, and also the hilarious) is relative?

...

All your answers are illogical. I would go into specifics, but I am short on time.

The power of my own logic. I mean, if God was real, that is... which he isn't.

The power of your logic?

Logic is a carefully woven veil worn over humanities collective head to limit our perception of the illogical.

Logic cannot explain the illogical.

But you lack enough intellect to realize that believing in names and subscribing to society is also stupid and delusional?
This being said on your own merit? Placing being part of society in the same boat as believing in something you can't interact with using any of your senses is ridiculous. How exactly is having a name and being part of society stupid or delusional? They both serve a purpose of identity, whereas believing in something you only know exists because of being told about it, at which point the knowledge of which if you do not believe (conveniently after you die, so there's no proof whatsoever), will result in Hell.

I thought you said the illogical (which has been called the stupid, and also the hilarious) is relative?
Things generally can't seem to exist without their relative counterpart, but what exactly is Christianity relative to if it is completely fabricated? In some abstract sense I suppose you could say that you can't have illogicality without logicality as a benchmark. In terms of relativity to Christianity, I said the social constructs of morals which Christianity is based and prides itself on are all relative to God's word, which conveniently changes depending on what is socially acceptable at the time of "interpretation" (twisting God's word to make it look like he/she/it was right all along to fit into any given social situation)

All your answers are illogical. I would go into specifics, but I am short on time.
What a totally awesome reply to contribute. Why even bother writing this if you don't have time?

The power of your logic?

Logic is a carefully woven veil worn over humanities collective head to limit our perception of the illogical.
Wow. And I suppose dinosaur fossils were put there by God to test us, too? What I said is that all I can do is use my own logic and reasoning to make sense of the world. How can you punish someone forever for using their own logic to understand religion, and everything else for that matter? Oh, right, because you're infinitely powerful by default (GodMode = true, right?) Sure, let's just chalk it up to a 'veil' over all our heads, and jump on the religious bandwagon... because that makes a lot of sense.

Logic cannot explain the illogical.
Um... so you're saying that you can't make sense of that which does not make sense...?

This being said on your own merit? Placing being part of society in the same boat as believing in something you can't interact with using any of your senses is ridiculous. How exactly is having a name and being part of society stupid or delusional? They both serve a purpose of identity, whereas believing in something you only know exists because of being told about it, at which point the knowledge of which if you do not believe (conveniently after you die, so there's no proof whatsoever), will result in Hell.

Wheres the reason behind creating an identity?

Names and society are stupid and delusional because they do not exist outside of belief. Can I see names, or interact with them? No. Must I obey the rules founding the structure of my society? No.

A tree is not really named a tree, thats in my mind. Breaking the law is not breaking anything, that law is in my mind.

Believing in society is as illogical as believing in God.

Things generally can't seem to exist without their relative counterpart, but what exactly is Christianity relative to if it is completely fabricated? In some abstract sense I suppose you could say that you can't have illogicality without logicality as a benchmark. In terms of relativity to Christianity, I said the social constructs of morals which Christianity is based and prides itself on are all relative to God's word, which conveniently changes depending on what is socially acceptable at the time of "interpretation".

Christianity is logical to Christians in the same way names and society are logical to you. Christians do not believe the Bible to be fabricated, just as you do not believe names and society to be meaningless.

What a totally awesome reply to contribute. Why even bother writing this if you don't have time?

Because I wanted to get my thoughts down before I went to class, which as it turns out got canceled. So here I am, back again.

^That answer I provided is illogical. There is no reason why I reply with anything, no reason why any of this exists.


Wow. And I suppose dinosaur fossils were put there by God to test us, too?

I am not a Christian. Dinosaur bones exist for no reason at all, as with everything.

What I said is that all I can do is use my own logic and reasoning to make sense of the world. How can you punish someone forever for using their own logic to understand religion, and everything else for that matter? Oh, right, because you're infinitely powerful. Sure, let's just chalk it up to a 'veil' over all our heads, and jump on the religious bandwagon... because that makes a lot of sense.

All Christians do is use their own logic and reasoning to make sense of the world. How can you call them illogical and stupid for trying to understand stuff? Oh, right, it's because you see reason behind everything. Let's be assholes and tell everyone else they're wrong ... because we know that position makes a lot of sense.

:rolleyes:


Um... so you're saying that you can't make sense of that which does not make sense...? Thanks Captain Obvious?

If it is so obvious, how come you do not realize your position is no better then Christianity?

53v3N...
1. I won't insult you for not believing as I do.
2. I won't argue with your positions on evolution, social construction, or even moral relativity.
3. I will, however, argue that the efforts of human will hold not as much power as a single hair of my head.

My proof: Write down to yourself exactly what your life is like right now. Compare it to what you want your life to be like in five years and try your absolute best to get exactly where you want to be. You will not be there, and more than likely, you will be further away than ever. Your mind will change: what was prior logic will now be ill logic, old dreams will have faded, new ones seen, new ones chased.

The hair on my head will still be a hair on my head, however. Still keeping my scalp warm. Still performing all of its functions perfectly. (barring baldness, of course, haha...then I suppose that hair would be as impotent as your will)

Seriously, give it a try. If you really believe in your own power, it's the very best course you could possibly take anyways. All the better if it helps you realize that you are not your own and never have been and never will be.

Yes, I enjoy reading Aldous Huxley.

If you haven't done so already, read his book "The Perennial Philosophy."

Wheres the reason behind creating an identity?

Names and society are stupid and delusional because they do not exist outside of belief. Can I see names, or interact with them? No. Must I obey the rules founding the structure of my society? No.

A tree is not really named a tree, thats in my mind. Breaking the law is not breaking anything, that law is in my mind.

Believing in society is as illogical as believing in God.

That is an argument regarding semiotics, not Christianity.

Sure, civilisation is an evolutionary social construct. Sure, laws, popular belief and morals are entirely relative to your geographical area. Sure, I think free will exists and you don't need to follow the law or rules founding the structure of your society. But, I realise that names do not exist in a physical sense; they are only labels just like anything else that serve the purpose of identification. I don't doubt for a second that they are created structures resulting from the evolution society. The reason behind this? I'm not 100% sure but I believe that it's so we can communicate in a way that avoids confusion between identification of multiple instances of material objects and people; its purpose, and a common-ground standard of identification (call it statistical sanity if you must), is justified for the purpose of a beneficial system.

Drawing out the usual non-physical versus non-physical argument here doesn't apply; air exists based on physical evidence, not dogma.

Everything we have created in our culture is a physical or mental construction, including religion and semiotics, and this is the result of our race having evolved far enough to have the ability to do this. So yes, you can go on nihilist rants about the pointlessness of everything if you choose; but all I'm stating is that religion, including Christianity, is no exception to this rule.

Trying to draw similarities between the lack of a material existence of identifiers and semiotics in our culture in the status quo (I know they're social constructions, they're not meant to be physical entities, and so does everyone else!) to that of religion (which claims that it has always been infallible in its relatively tiny existence of a very rough 2,000 years) seems quite silly, if not completely ignorant of history (Sigh, go through your nihilist motions of relative 'silliness' if you must... it's quite tiring...)

Christianity is logical to Christians in the same way names and society are logical to you. Christians do not believe the Bible to be fabricated, just as you do not believe names and society to be meaningless.

I see what you're trying to do and it isn't very clever. Maybe in their perceptions of what they believe is 'truth' and logistics. I realise that names and society, and everything else in our culture for that matter, are results of evolutionary social constructions through evolution of the brain and civilisation. But most (if not all) Christians separate themselves from this scientific realm and believe they are part of something special, which they aren't. They're just decaying organisms like everything else; and evolution (based on physical evidence, not dogma) shows this.

Because I wanted to get my thoughts down before I went to class, which as it turns out got canceled. So here I am, back again.

^That answer I provided is illogical. There is no reason why I reply with anything, no reason why any of this exists.

Nihilism...?

All Christians do is use their own logic and reasoning to make sense of the world. How can you call them illogical and stupid for trying to understand stuff? Oh, right, it's because you see reason behind everything. Let's be assholes and tell everyone else they're wrong ... because we know that position makes a lot of sense.

:rolleyes:

Relative to my first post, sure.

Looking back, I don't see how my first post doesn't make sense. I'm not just standing here and simply saying Christianity is wrong. What I am saying is that if you go through the logistics I've stated, you'll most likely see Christianity is silly to believe in. And these logistics I'm talking about are relative to history, evolution, and morals and beliefs based entirely on relativity to what is socially acceptable at the time of interpretation of God's word, resulting in moral and, dare I say, 'scientific', cherry-picking.

But you can use this illogical versus logical argument that you think is so clever and apply it to invisible pink unicorns living in closets simply because you can't disprove it, then slap on the usual 'they were using their own logic and reasoning to make sense of the world'

If it is so obvious, how come you do not realize your position is no better then Christianity?

My position (please clarify -- existence?) in a sense of 'better'? What does better mean? More good than something else? Well, I never claimed my existence is better than an institute created at a guesstimated 2,000 years ago. This has nothing to do with me or my position, merely my contribution to totse, however small or big anyone may consider it to be; which in this case is dismissing Christianity as being totally ridiculous to believe in.

But having argued with you about all of this has definitely been a worthwhile experience as it has made me analyse that which I did not before.

And I'm going off what makes sense based on physical evidence (please let your social/semiotics argument die, it's so flawed and irrelevant to the argument) rather than buying into that which has no physical counterpart at all (identifiers and labels are created for a purpose, not for the rigid and binary eternal salvation/damnation)

53v3N...
1. I won't insult you for not believing as I do.
2. I won't argue with your positions on evolution, social construction, or even moral relativity.
3. I will, however, argue that the efforts of human will hold not as much power as a single hair of my head.

My proof: Write down to yourself exactly what your life is like right now. Compare it to what you want your life to be like in five years and try your absolute best to get exactly where you want to be. You will not be there, and more than likely, you will be further away than ever. Your mind will change: what was prior logic will now be ill logic, old dreams will have faded, new ones seen, new ones chased.

The hair on my head will still be a hair on my head, however. Still keeping my scalp warm. Still performing all of its functions perfectly. (barring baldness, of course, haha...then I suppose that hair would be as impotent as your will)

Seriously, give it a try. If you really believe in your own power, it's the very best course you could possibly take anyways. All the better if it helps you realize that you are not your own and never have been and never will be.

I'm familiar with this, a notable guy in history did the same thing, right? I know my perceptions of the world change as I myself change. But at the same time I realise that I am in no way important or special. I thoroughly believe that my position on evolution or religion, just like Richard Dawkins, will not change. I'll give it a shot, regardless.

If you haven't done so already, read his book "The Perennial Philosophy."

Currently reading 'The Doors of Perception and Heaven & Hell'; but I'll definitely look into this.

After Ford, eh? Sounds like someone just read Brave New World. Also, other dating systems exist, but why fix what's broken? Wikipedia tried using a different dating system, but it just doesn't work. Religion aside it's what we use.

Why bother taking obscure ideas founded some 2,000 years ago in one geographical area, (meanwhile the Aborigines, in only one example, had had completely conflicting beliefs predating this at least 40,000 years – but obviously they’re all wrong and going to burn in Hell for all eternity because you’re right and Christianity didn't exist back then), slapping these 'beliefs' on top evolution (which, again, in the majority perception is wrong because you’re right), and calling it objective truth in the name of ‘religion’

The whole idea of a 'Heaven' and a 'Hell' is logically irritating. Obviously they sprung up as a result of someone examining the extremely relative “good” and “bad” ideals of society at their given time and have been written into religious literature themes as 'truth'. How can we categorise people’s entire lives into these two broad spectrums? This is nothing short of ridiculous.

'Good', 'bad', 'right', 'wrong', this terminology doesn’t concern me. They’re completely relative terms in relative times. Worse still, pretentious enthusiasts take these terms and their literature, and try to put their archaic text into what they would like to think is objective truth by conveniently taking "God's word" and trying to adjust it to what is socially acceptable to the issues at their time of Judeo-Christian majority (statistical sanity, so they claim), then packaging this off as something resembling, “What God was really trying to say, despite his vulgarity was…”

Kind of funny how the majority (if not all) of the candidates are Christian because it appeals the majority of citizens. If Atheism was the predominant belief (if you can call it that), a complete reversal of the candidates opinions would reflect this... all smoke and mirrors?

What pisses me off the most if that we’ve based our entire system of history dating off a guesstimation of a false prophet. Let’s establish a standard (the introduction of Our Ford's first T-Model automobile to be chosen as the opening date of the new era - A.F.) that allows easy conversion between the old and new system of dating and allow the transition to take place. Then we shall cut the tops off all the crosses in the world, making them become T's (in memory of Our Ford's first T-Model) to mark the new era of abandoning all previous conceptions of the indoctrinating fear propaganda that benefited the archaic aristocracies of the dominant institute at that time, of a fork of Judaism.

Even if Jesus does exists and tries to judge me, I'll tell him to his subjective face to fuck off, I don't care. You can't blame me for being born into a logical frame of mind that favours science over an ancient story that appears to be indistinguishable to any other fairy-tale.

Yes, I enjoy reading Aldous Huxley.


think of heaven and hell as more along the lines of this.

God's given you a choice, to live your life his way, or to reject him.

now he respects the decision you make in this lifetime.

say you reject him, and go 'God, i don't need you, your illogical, and i turn away'.
God will seemingly say to you,
fine, you have chosen to reject me, i respect your decision, and i will put you in a place where there is no me for all of eternity (since that's what you chose in this lifetime) (place without God = hell)


here's a summary by Cliffe Knechtle, on ' Isn't believing in Jesus irrational'.

Many people think that if they place their faith in Christ, they will have to commit intellectual suicide. They don't realize that Christ died to take away their sins, not their brains. Christians don't deposit their brains at the coat-check window and pick them back up on their way to heaven.

You can go to two extremes when it comes to the subjects of faith and reason.The first is to say that faith needs no reason: we just trust God without reservation then leap off the high board into the dark. But the fact is that Christianity does have a basis in history and in logic. There is evidence that Jesus was an actual historical person. The New Testament writings,the writings of Josephus and other first-century historians document this.

The second extreme is to say that if an idea is not logical, if it has no basis in rational thinking, then it has no place in my belief system. If you follow that thinking to its conclusion, then you have to throw out a lot of the miracles and healings in Scripture since logically people do not rise from the dead, logically the crust of leprosy does not fall off the body of its victim at the touch of a hand, and legs crippled for nearly forty years do not unhinge and become new because someone tells them to get up.

This is the balance people need to keep in mind when they say they are too rational to have faith, when they say they won't believe in something unless they can see it. Some have even said, "Cliffe, I wish I had your faith."Sometimes people mean this sincerely, but often they really mean, "Cliffe, I cannot be so stupid, so intellectually naive to believe all the superstition and garbage about God that you've apparently swallowed." In a way that issue is moot. All of us believe in things we can't see. All of us place our trust in things that are not plainly evident. We believe in team spirit, patriotism, love, and goodness. Although we can't reach out and grasp any of these values, and though we so often see them misused and flaunted for selfish gain, we still believe they exist and often believe they have value.

Every one of us has faith. Every one of us believes in someone or something that gives us direction in life, that gives us security. Peter Schaeffer wrote a play titled Equus. In the play a young boy begins to worship a picture of Jesus hanging over his bed. The boy's father, who is a devout atheist, rips the picture off the wall and replaces it with a photograph of a horse. The young boy, needing meaning and purpose, begins to worship the picture of the horse. The father gets more upset and sends the boy to a psychiatrist to have this fixation removed.

As the psychiatrist begins talking to the boy, he gains some understanding that was not apparent to the father. The boy does not have a fixation on Christ or a fixation on horses; the psychiatrist realizes that the picture gives the boy meaning, purpose and direction.

Schaeffer's point is clear. Whatever motivates us defines who we are. Live for pleasure-you are a hedonist. Live to amass wealth-you are a materialist. Live for personal happiness and fulfillment-you are a narcissist. Live to pursue knowledge-you are a rationalist.

The British writer G. K Chesterton said that when a person stops believing in God, he does not believe in nothing. He will believe in anything.

The question I put to those who tell me they won't believe unless it's rational is, "What is the object of your faith? Whom do you trust?" If the object of your faith is not trustworthy, it is not reliable. Real faith in something or someone that is trustworthy is not blind. Real faith will include the evidence to buttress it, and personal commitment. The faith of a Christian is based on the trustworthiness of Jesus Christ. Jesus stated, "The Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve,and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mt 20:28). Jesus gave us the evidence to back up his words; he consistently assumed the posture of a servant. Even at the very end of his public ministry, on the very night he was betrayed, he assumed the posture of the lowliest servant and washed his disciples' feet.

One day Peter asked Jesus, " 'Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?' Jesus answered,'I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times' " (Mt 18:21-22).He spoke of complete and utter forgiveness.

Jesus gave us the evidence to back up his words. As he was bleeding and dying on the cross, his enemies taunted him. His response? He prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He proved his trustworthiness; he proved his evidence was sound, and he asks us to trust him on the basis of that evidence.

A few people carry their inquiry even further. They say, "I must know absolutely that Christ alone is the truth before I can believe in him."This can be intellectual arrogance carried to an extreme. It requires that God give enough evidence of his existence to satisfy an insatiable intellect.This kind of arrogance demands that God meet every one of my requirements before I believe in him.

Suppose I demanded that my wife, Sharon, risk her life for me repeatedly to prove her love for me. Once would never be enough. The insatiability of my desire to know absolutely would be cruel manipulation, not intellectual integrity.

Yet many of us do exactly the same thing with God. We continually deny his past trustworthiness and say, "Now, what have you done for me lately?"This kind of wheeling and dealing is not intellectual prowess. It is cowardly manipulation. It also separates the proud from the humble. The proud say,"God, you meet these requirements, then I'll decide whether or not I want to believe in you." The humble person will look for evidence, discover it, and trust that if God was true to his word yesterday, he will be true to it today.
Confronting what I feel is intellectual dishonesty is never easy. It means having the discernment to know whether or not the intellectual arguments people offer are sincere. All of us need help in this area. If I confess my own intellectual and moral insincerity before God, I will be one step closer to being the kind of authentic witness God wants me to be.

That is an argument regarding semiotics, not Christianity.

Sure, civilisation is an evolutionary social construct. Sure, laws, popular belief and morals are entirely relative to your geographical area. Sure, I think free will exists and you don't need to follow the law or rules founding the structure of your society. But, I realise that names do not exist in a physical sense; they are only labels just like anything else that serve the purpose of identification.

Whats the purpose of identification?

Looks like you gave me some reasons here:

I don't doubt for a second that they are created structures resulting from the evolution society. The reason behind this? I'm not 100% sure but I believe that it's so we can communicate in a way that avoids confusion between identification of multiple instances of material objects and people; its purpose, and a common-ground standard of identification (call it statistical sanity if you must), is justified for the purpose of a beneficial system.

For what reason is a "beneficial system" something to care about?

See, we can keep going back and forth like this forever; eventually we come to a point where things are happening for no reason at all (things are illogical).

Even if we were to ignore that, a Christian can still call Christianity a beneficial system.

Drawing out the usual non-physical versus non-physical argument here doesn't apply; air exists based on physical evidence, not dogma.

Did I mention the air? No, I mentioned words and society, things which are just as illogical as God and religion.

For what reasons should concepts which are based on "physical evidence" be considered before those which are not?

Everything we have created in our culture is a physical or mental construction, including religion and semiotics, and this is the result of our race having evolved far enough to have the ability to do this.

And it is all completely illogical.

So yes, you can go on nihilist rants about the pointlessness of everything if you choose; but all I'm stating is that religion, including Christianity, is no exception to this rule.

You can go ahead and state that. I'm not arguing that Christianity is divinely inspired or anything.

I'm just stating that your position is just as illogical as Christianity.

Trying to draw similarities between the lack of a material existence of identifiers and semiotics in our culture in the status quo (I know they're social constructions, they're not meant to be physical entities, and so does everyone else!) to that of religion (which claims that it has always been infallible in its relatively tiny existence of a very rough 2,000 years) seems quite silly, if not completely ignorant of history (Sigh, go through your nihilist motions of relative 'silliness' if you must... it's quite tiring...)

See, you're starting to get it. I am being silly (or hilarious, or stupid, or illogical), just like Christianity and just like you.

I see what you're trying to do and it isn't very clever. Maybe in their perceptions of what they believe is 'truth' and logistics. I realise that names and society, and everything else in our culture for that matter, are results of evolutionary social constructions through evolution of the brain and civilisation. But most (if not all) Christians separate themselves from this scientific realm and believe they are part of something special, which they aren't. They're just decaying organisms like everything else; and evolution (based on physical evidence, not dogma) shows this.

According to your perception of what you believe is true and logical.

And thats completely illogical, just like everything else.

Nihilism...?

I don't consider myself a Nihilist.



Relative to my first post, sure.

Looking back, I don't see how my first post doesn't make sense.

Because there is no reason for you to. There is no reason you, or anything, even exists.

I'm not just standing here and simply saying Christianity is wrong. What I am saying is that if you go through the logistics I've stated, you'll most likely see Christianity is silly to believe in. And these logistics I'm talking about are relative to history, evolution, and morals and beliefs based entirely on relativity to what is socially acceptable at the time of interpretation of God's word, resulting in moral and, dare I say, 'scientific', cherry-picking.

I'm not saying you are wrong. What I am saying is that if you take a look around you, you'll see that everything is illogical. Christianity is no exception.

But you can use this illogical versus logical argument that you think is so clever and apply it to invisible pink unicorns living in closets simply because you can't disprove it, then slap on the usual 'they were using their own logic and reasoning to make sense of the world'

Illogical vs logical? WTF are you talking about?

They aren't opposites or something like that. Logic is a slave to the illogical. Everything is illogical, even the things you think are logical.

My position (please clarify -- existence?) in a sense of 'better'? What does better mean? More good than something else?

By calling Christianity illogical and going on your little rant about it, it certainly seemed as if you were under the opinion that there is another position besides Christianity (presumably your position, since you are the one able to see the silliness of Christianity) which is not as illogical as Christianity is. So I meant "better" as "logical", as you appear to think your position is that.

Well, I never claimed my existence is better than an institute created at a guesstimated 2,000 years ago. This has nothing to do with me or my position, merely my contribution to totse, however small or big anyone may consider it to be; which in this case is dismissing Christianity as being totally ridiculous to believe in.

Thats fine.

I am dismissing existence/reality as being totally ridiculous.


But having argued with you about all of this has definitely been a worthwhile experience as it has made me analyse that which I did not before.

Cool.

And I'm going off what makes sense based on physical evidence (please let your social/semiotics argument die, it's so flawed and irrelevant to the argument) rather than buying into that which has no physical counterpart at all (identifiers and labels are created for a purpose, not for the rigid and binary eternal salvation/damnation)

Yes, I understand what you are doing. Do you understand it just as illogical?

Alright, fine.

Everything we have created in our culture is a physical or mental construction, including religion. Names, society and semiotics, and everything else in our culture for that matter are results of evolutionary social constructions through the evolution of the brain and civilisation. So everything is illogical and pointless because it's only an invention, just like us, a natural progression of evolution?

Should I give up the search for meaning and embrace inevitable death of me, the individual, and the inevitable death of humanity as a whole when the sun explodes? Do we take to space and spread to the rest of the Universe like a plague?

So everything is illogical and pointless because it's only an invention, just like us, a natural progression of evolution?

I don't agree with that reasoning.

Everything is illogical because there is no reason for everything. Even the apparent logic of that statement is illogical.

Should I give up the search for meaning and embrace inevitable death of me, the individual, and the inevitable death of humanity as a whole when the sun explodes? Do we take to space and spread to the rest of the Universe like a plague?

Thats up to you. I am not suggesting that anything needs to be done or should or shouldn't change. Personally, I like being happy.

Should I give up the search for meaning and embrace inevitable death of me, the individual, and the inevitable death of humanity as a whole when the sun explodes? Do we take to space and spread to the rest of the Universe like a plague?

right, you have an inate drive for purpose and meaning.
below is an extract from Cliffe Knechtle.


We crave purpose and meaning.

Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian novelist, asked,'What is life for? To die? To kill myself at once? No, I am afraid. To wait for death till it comes? I fear that even more. Then I must live. But what for? In order to die? And I could not escape from that circle." Ernest Hemingway, the great American novelist, wrote, "Life is just a dirty trick, a short journey from nothingness to nothingness."

Confronted by the meaninglessness of life, Hemingway decided to shorten the journey by committing suicide. If your birth was an accident and if your death will be an accident, then all that lies between is another accident we call life.

Adam Schaff, the Polish Marxist philosopher, writes, "From the point of view of the progress of nature death is entirely sensible. But from the point of view of a given individual death is senseless and places in doubt everything that he does.... Attempts to ridicule this do not help."Carl Jung, the famous psychologist, said, "The question of the meaning and worth of life never becomes more urgent or more agonizing than when we see the final breath leave a body which a moment before was living."Jean Paul Sartre, the French existentialist philosopher, wrote, "Manis absurd, but he must grimly act as if he were not." Why not? Why not face the logical ramifications of those assumptions? If there is no God, life is an accident. Humanity is absurd. Try and live out that view of reality. Most of us can't or refuse to. We insist upon attaching meaning and significance to our lives and actions. We have an innate drive to understand the purpose of our lives.Jesus said that we were created to love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves.Our desire to live meaningful lives comes from the Creator who made us for a purpose.

Many of us pervert the purpose of life from loving God and loving people to the pursuit of superficial happiness and instant gratification. This makes sense for a few affluent, educated Westerners. It automatically condemns the majority of humanity to a meaningless existence. Jesus said, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (Jn 3:16). Jesus Christ makes sense not simply for one sector of humanity but for the entire world. Jesus Christ brings meaning and purpose in life to the person in the third world and to the person in the United States.

It's illogical for many reasons. I have some favorites. Here's one.

God creates the finest individual ever, born under a bright star, with the express mission of fixing Earthly culture, adding holiness to the mix, eliminating war and murder and strife and abuse and all evil. Right? Okay, so the guy gains popular support and then he demands of the Roman rulers that he be appointed to the position of "King of the Jews". From that high office he can readily affect the kinds of changes that will fix Earthly culture. But he gets thwarted and is instead put to death. Okay, the man knew what his calling was and tried to achieve it. He fell short obviously and couldn't stick around to actually and literally RULE. So war and strife and depravity continue pretty much unchecked.

Kill the savior, and you've killed any chance that this species will ever successfully stamp out evil. Oops, no salvation after all; just a pack of lies from vacant high muckity-mucks, talking heads, empty souls; who insist on this message, "Do whatever evil you care to do and KNOW that your sins are pre-forgiven ..it's ALRIGHT, go ahead."

It's illogical for many reasons. I have some favorites. Here's one.

God creates the finest individual ever, born under a bright star, with the express mission of fixing Earthly culture, adding holiness to the mix, eliminating war and murder and strife and abuse and all evil. Right? Okay, so the guy gains popular support and then he demands of the Roman rulers that he be appointed to the position of "King of the Jews". From that high office he can readily affect the kinds of changes that will fix Earthly culture. But he gets thwarted and is instead put to death. Okay, the man knew what his calling was and tried to achieve it. He fell short obviously and couldn't stick around to actually and literally RULE. So war and strife and depravity continue pretty much unchecked.

Kill the savior, and you've killed any chance that this species will ever successfully stamp out evil. Oops, no salvation after all; just a pack of lies from vacant high muckity-mucks, talking heads, empty souls; who insist on this message, "Do whatever evil you care to do and KNOW that your sins are pre-forgiven ..it's ALRIGHT, go ahead."

Christ did not demand of the Romans to be appointed King of the Jews. Christ was not thwarted either. He fulfilled every last of the Jewish prophecies regarding the Messiah, and just as the past prophets, the Prophet Christ was put to death for speaking the Divine. Also, not a single man convicted by the Holy Spirit will preach, "Do what you will and know your sins are pre-forgiven." The Spirit convicts us to preach the Word, not just in tongue but in action. That is, to walk not in the way of sin, but in the way the Spirit itself convicts us to walk.

Any man who preaches, "Sin and know your sins are naught," is a false teacher, of which there have been many, are many, and will be many more before the return of Christ, who will cut to the very soul of mankind with the Sword on His Tongue that is Truth. All of mankind will account his sins before the Father in the Day of the LORD's return. The bad trees shall be cleaved in twain and incinerated; but to the trees that believed on Christ and received the Spirit, being renewed and regenerated from their soul's death, that is, being dead and having a new birth as a tree of good fruits, unto Life Eternal, justified in their faith and displayed in their works, shall have their mediator, the LORD Christ Himself, as His defense and justification before the Judge.

Sin, as defined by the Bible:

Sin is anything that does not proceed from faith.

How can any man call Himself Christian who preaches opposition to the very message Christ gave, which is that faith without works is a dead faith, and works without faith is iniquity (that is, sin). And how, knowing what sin is, and knowing that the 'love of sin' means 'making your way of life out of working iniquity', can he say that by intellectual knowledge of mercy one is saved when Christ says that only those who know Him will be welcomed at the Father's Table?

It is a false message, from false teachers, from a false church. A degree in Biblical Studies does not make you honest, convicted, baptised, or Christian. A church building does not constitute the Church of Christ. Calling yourself Christian does not make you Christian. The ability to preach, to recite scripture, to teach scripture, these do not make you Christian. If you rely on your own talents rather than the Holy Spirit, you walk outside of faith and work iniquity, and give cause for the Gentile to blaspheme God, not to their own fault, but to yours.

Romans 2:17-24

Indeed you are called a Jew, and rest on the law, and make your boast in God, and know His will, and approve the things that are excellent, being constructed out of the law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having the form of knowledge and truth in the law. You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say, "Do not commit adultery," do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law? For "the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you," as it is written.

A man who falsely instructs, not only in word, but in action, blasphemes God as his own sin by causing his brothers and sisters to sin in blasphemy rather than to hear the Holy Spirit.

Though even the saved will sin, as they are not rendered by God's perfect glory as the Christ was, they do not WALK in sin; iniquity is not the way of Christ, and walking in iniquity is grounds for God to break off the branch from the vine with as much ease as He grafted it in. We walk in iniquity when we walk without faith; if we lose our faith, our works are iniquity. If we have no works to display God's glory, then our faith is dead already. Both are unlike salvation's work of faith and deed. Let no man deceive you with a claim of Christianity who walks in theft, drunkenness, perversion, deceit, murder, adultery, or any other form of unrighteousness that is that man's way of life, for he still lives in the flesh and his spirit is dead. To those whom Christ is within, their flesh is dead because of sin yet they are alive in the Spirit; the dead flesh is still with them, but it is no longer their walk, it is no longer their reliance and their providence yet it is nonetheless theirs. To these who walk with the Spirit and whose flesh is dead, their faith is alive and their works display their salvation; to those who say, "Sin on for it is naught!" They walk in their flesh with a dead spirit, with faithlessness and works of iniquity to blaspheme God.

Christ did not demand of the Romans to be appointed King of the Jews
He asked then. I seem to recall hearing or reading something about that. You should double check that.

Yes, I read your whole post. Nice, but I'm not swayed. Your post portrays Life as "a sticky wicket" and very very tricky. It's not. The goal of Life is to make your small contribution and then get the hell out of the melee forever. But the real goal of Life is to be other than human, for humans don't belong on a gorgeous planet full of wondrous things. Humans just plain can't be trusted with anything that precious and the natural flora and fauna are indeed precious, so humans have got to go. God will usher us away, IMHO.

...Christ was not thwarted either. He fulfilled every last of the Jewish prophecies regarding the Messiah

You speak a lot of your religion. I wouldn't mind hearing your views about the Eschaton, or what you folks term the Second Coming, and when it will occur.

Many thanks.

There almost certainly is no God.

[QUOTE=sparkle foo;10625685]It's illogical for many reasons. I have some favorites. Here's one.

God creates the finest individual ever, born under a bright star, with the express mission of fixing Earthly culture, adding holiness to the mix, eliminating war and murder and strife and abuse and all evil. Right? QUOTE]

Wrong.

"I come not to bring peace, but a sword." -- Matthew 10:34

There almost certainly is no God.

There is almost certainly no reality.

^With all due respect, what are you guys smoking?

In my universe, we create our own reality, as we create God in out own image.

That is, our conception of God depends on our level of spiritual evolution (see "the seven faces of God" thread for more details)

^With all due respect, what are you guys smoking?

Life and death, the universe. The infinite.

You speak a lot of your religion. I wouldn't mind hearing your views about the Eschaton, or what you folks term the Second Coming, and when it will occur.

Many thanks.

I, nor any other knows the day or time, but there were definite signs given to us in order to see its approach. Most of the signs prior to the antichrist have been shown. Those which are not: the Temple doesn't yet stand again. The world governments have not been united under the antichrist. Currency still exists. Those in the Holy Spirit are not yet persecuted on a world-wide basis (we're still relatively safe here in North America).

October 17th, 2006; a few of my friends (I'll call them K, J, and C) and I, were out in the middle of the street in C's neighborhood playing hacky sack. The wind picked up from a still calm to strong gusts and a layer of clouds moved quickly out of view, revealing behind it a face in the clouds. K and I were staring at it, commenting back and forth how we have never seen anything in the clouds that defined and blatantly not just a trick of the mind. J and C were looking around the sky some more, and there were more faces in the clouds. We counted 12 total. Now, mind you, I know how the mind can make something from nothing, but all 4 of us were completely dumbfounded by how CLEAR these faces were. All 12 were identical too. Their brows, eyes, cheeks, noses, lips, chins were all clearly defined by differently shaded clouds that just hovered in the pattern for a couple minutes. The wind gusts died down and the faces broke apart. We were questioning whether or not we had seen what we did...but 4 of 4 had seen it. It was real.

He asked then. I seem to recall hearing or reading something about that. You should double check that.

Yes, I read your whole post. Nice, but I'm not swayed. Your post portrays Life as "a sticky wicket" and very very tricky. It's not. The goal of Life is to make your small contribution and then get the hell out of the melee forever. But the real goal of Life is to be other than human, for humans don't belong on a gorgeous planet full of wondrous things. Humans just plain can't be trusted with anything that precious and the natural flora and fauna are indeed precious, so humans have got to go. God will usher us away, IMHO.

No, Pilate marked Jesus' cross with a sign that had, "King of the Jews" on it. This was not done at Jesus' request.

^With all due respect, what are you guys smoking?

In my universe, we create our own reality, as we create God in out own image.

That is, our conception of God depends on our level of spiritual evolution (see "the seven faces of God" thread for more details)

When I started my journey, I did conceive of God as my own image on a larger scale. As I got better, so did my idea of God. Having reached a sort of limit on growth while living the human experience, I find that God is much bigger than anything I am able to conceive...or be.

Thanks for those insights. (You've looked at clouds from both sides now.)

Apparently there's plenty of contention over some details of Jesus' claims. Just now, I got this from Wikipedia's "Jesus" article:
During the Sanhedrin Trial of Jesus, the high priests and elders asked Jesus, "Are you the Son of God?" When he replied, "You are right in saying I am," they condemned Jesus for blasphemy (Luke 22:70–71). The high priests then turned him over to the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, based on an accusation of sedition for forbidding the payment of taxes Luke 23:1-2 and claiming to be King of the Jews.[54] When Jesus came before Pilate, Pilate asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" to which he replied, "It is as you say."

...adding holiness to the mix, eliminating war and murder and strife and abuse and all evil. Right?

Wrong.

"I come not to bring peace, but a sword." -- Matthew 10:34

I think perhaps that's just a diction that reformers like to use for public speaking, implying that evildoers don't stand a chance and that he's gonna bring down the infidel's house and clean up Dodge yada yada yada. You know.

Thanks for those insights. (You've looked at clouds from both sides now.)

Apparently there's plenty of contention over some details of Jesus' claims. Just now, I got this from Wikipedia's "Jesus" article:

Aye, Pilate asked Jesus if He was the King of the Jews. Jesus made no request to be acknowledged as such, but answered the question honestly.

Aye, Pilate asked Jesus if He was the King of the Jews. Jesus made no request to be acknowledged as such, but answered the question honestly.

If that's the case then my assertions are made more dubious. But I still think Jesus' plan was to ascend to a tangible seat of power rather than be killed. Zillions and zillions of upstanding individuals have been heedlessly slaughtered, and many of those have been victims of government action. Jesus' image wound up being exploited as the icon of a major religion. Big deal! It doesn't deter the coming Eschaton one iota. [drifting off topic here] In the coming fracas, humankind will loose its footing altogether and will perish -- here in just a few years. It's a matter of cosmic justice and nothing more. Humanity is guilty of (1) despoiling the Earth's environs, (2) answering to myriad and sundry false gods (including Jesus), (3) using witchcraft to get a larger bite of the food chain and (4) being a glaring oddity among the indigenous fauna ...and God is permitted to condemn us for being different! :cool:

"Christianity is Illogical"

No shit. [/thread]

What pisses me off the most if that we’ve based our entire system of history dating off a guesstimation of a false prophet.


My teacher told me today B.C. didn't stand for before Christ, it was like before civilization or something like that.

Interesting reading all the replies here.

I think that most, if not all, major religions and evolution cannot exist together. For this reason I think this is why most religious folk try their hardest to avoid all evidence towards evolution (and there is A LOT), try to find as much evidence against it, and continue believing whatever it is they believe. I think approaches of this type of reason (if you can even call it that) are flawed due to their own selfish demands of subjectivity.

To me, and through belief in evolution, the entire history of human civilisation is just an invention based on our ability to reason, nothing more. And the Earth will pass us as just that: a random genetic mutation that lived in decline for a relatively insanely small time and then died, only so another could rise. Backtrack a few hundred thousand years and see how primitive our ancestors would have lived (probably just fucking, fighting, eating - outstrip spirituality and there really isn't much difference) and then ask the same question about whether we would have possessed souls at that stage.

There was no one intelligent enough in existence to invent such an elaborate concept back then.

Why bother taking obscure ideas founded some 2,000 years ago in one geographical area, (meanwhile the Aborigines, in only one example, had had completely conflicting beliefs predating this at least 40,000 years – but obviously they’re all wrong and going to burn in Hell for all eternity because you’re right and Christianity didn't exist back then), slapping these 'beliefs' on top evolution (which, again, in the majority perception is wrong because you’re right), and calling it objective truth in the name of ‘religion’

The whole idea of a 'Heaven' and a 'Hell' is logically irritating. Obviously they sprung up as a result of someone examining the extremely relative “good” and “bad” ideals of society at their given time and have been written into religious literature themes as 'truth'. How can we categorise people’s entire lives into these two broad spectrums? This is nothing short of ridiculous.

'Good', 'bad', 'right', 'wrong', this terminology doesn’t concern me. They’re completely relative terms in relative times. Worse still, pretentious enthusiasts take these terms and their literature, and try to put their archaic text into what they would like to think is objective truth by conveniently taking "God's word" and trying to adjust it to what is socially acceptable to the issues at their time of Judeo-Christian majority (statistical sanity, so they claim), then packaging this off as something resembling, “What God was really trying to say, despite his vulgarity was…”

Kind of funny how the majority (if not all) of the candidates are Christian because it appeals the majority of citizens. If Atheism was the predominant belief (if you can call it that), a complete reversal of the candidates opinions would reflect this... all smoke and mirrors?

What pisses me off the most if that we’ve based our entire system of history dating off a guesstimation of a false prophet. Let’s establish a standard (the introduction of Our Ford's first T-Model automobile to be chosen as the opening date of the new era - A.F.) that allows easy conversion between the old and new system of dating and allow the transition to take place. Then we shall cut the tops off all the crosses in the world, making them become T's (in memory of Our Ford's first T-Model) to mark the new era of abandoning all previous conceptions of the indoctrinating fear propaganda that benefited the archaic aristocracies of the dominant institute at that time, of a fork of Judaism.

Even if Jesus does exists and tries to judge me, I'll tell him to his subjective face to fuck off, I don't care. You can't blame me for being born into a logical frame of mind that favours science over an ancient story that appears to be indistinguishable to any other fairy-tale.

Yes, I enjoy reading Aldous Huxley.

Have you ever considered that maybe marijuana is not your friend? Seriously man that sounds like some stoner logic to me, not bashing weed in any shape or form but what you write high is infinintly less clever than you believe it to be.

Have you ever considered that maybe marijuana is not your friend? Seriously man that sounds like some stoner logic to me, not bashing weed in any shape or form but what you write high is infinintly less clever than you believe it to be.

I like weed, and it definitely changed me for the better. But I didn't write this while high.

Am I destined to burn in Hell forever because I can't bring myself to believe in something even if I wanted to?

Am I destined to burn in Hell forever because I can't bring myself to believe in something even if I wanted to?

Do you want to believe? I get the impression from your quote above that you do not want to believe. It looks to me like you choose not too.

Do you want to believe? I get the impression from your quote above that you do not want to believe. It looks to me like you choose not too.

I don't want to believe because I choose not to because to me it doesn't seem logical. If that makes sense.

I don't want to believe because I choose not to because to me it doesn't seem logical. If that makes sense.

Yeah, I follow you. I have not read this entire thread. So if you don't mind, what is the hardest thing for you to come to grips with?

Yeah, I follow you. I have not read this entire thread. So if you don't mind, what is the hardest thing for you to come to grips with?

Mainly how ignorant Christianity is. It's only roughly 2,000 years old and yet it claims that it has all the answers to the past and future. But the hardest thing is how can you quantify someone's whole life (let's say eighty years) into two spectrums - good or bad; heaven or hell? That to me is blatant ignorance.

Most people's retort is that it is God who chooses this, and so they feel that they are morally justified to select the truth that they want, their bible, without requiring any real physical evidence of any of these events actually occurring (except the accounts of Fishermen and Peasants some two-thousand years ago... mistranslation, misinterpretation, exaggeration, etc, etc), and then have the nerve to demand physical evidence for everything else (all facets of science), but in this case, mainly evolution; and any evidence of which is placed under extreme scrutiny because it will conflict with their so-called 'beliefs' which are more comparable to fairy-tales than objective evidence.

And what about kids or adults that are killed overseas and never even hear the name 'Jesus'? Are they given 'special treatment'? Do they not have to live their life to qualify to get into Heaven like all other Christians? If so, then hearing about Jesus is a punishment in itself, is it not? "You have now heard of Jesus. And now, as a result, if you do not believe you do not receive and will be punished eternally."

There are far too many inconsistencies.

It seems that Christianity works for the middle-class white men and women living in English speaking countries that are blessed with blessed Capitalism; but any unexplainable exception was tried to be captured by that one invention: Limbo. It seems they invent truth as it suits them so they can't be caught out on anything unexplainable. And of course, the black death was caused by sin, and any time anything goes wrong in the world it seems history conveniently repeats itself in this regard...

You can't prove or disprove God, I know this, but the burden of proof lies on the believers and I see none except a damn good explanation for all of it: evolution through natural selection. And, believing this, I do not see how anyone is justified to take a relatively TINY speck of evolutionary history, right near the end of which some prophet has come down to talk about eternal salvation -- completely disregarding all previous religions and belief system that predated it FAR back and writing them all off as simply being "wrong", and desiring to appear to be all accepting of faiths. But it's simple: if you don't believe in this one prophet, you are going to Hell forever.

This to me is illogical, and I struggle to come to grips with it.

^ This ^

I pity anyone who oppresses themselves by following a religion.

And what about kids or adults that are killed overseas and never even hear the name 'Jesus'? Are they given 'special treatment'? Do they not have to live their life to qualify to get into Heaven like all other Christians? If so, then hearing about Jesus is a punishment in itself, is it not? "You have now heard of Jesus. And now, as a result, if you do not believe you do not receive and will be punished eternally."

You bring up a good question that is often asked. How can God condemn people who through no fault of their own never had the opportunity to receive Christ as their Savior? A person's salvation or damnation thus appears to be the result of historical and geographical accident, which is incompatible with an all-loving God.

This objection is, however, fallacious, because it assumes that those who have never heard about Christ are judged on the same basis as those who have. But the Bible says that the unreached will be judged on a quite different basis than those who have heard the gospel. God will judge the unreached on the basis of their response to His self-revelation in nature and conscience. The Bible says that from the created order alone, all persons can know that a Creator God exists and that God has implanted His moral law in the hearts of all persons so that they are held morally accountable to God (Rom. 1.20; 2.14-15). The Bible promises salvation to anyone who responds affirmatively to this self-revelation of God (Rom. 2.7).

Now this does not mean that they can be saved apart from Christ. Rather it means that the benefits of Christ's sacrifice can be applied to them without their conscious knowledge of Christ. They would be like people in the Old Testament before Jesus came who had no conscious knowledge of Christ but who were saved on the basis of his sacrifice through their response to the information that God had revealed to them. And, thus, salvation is truly available to all persons at all times. It all depends upon our free response.

I will respond to some of the other objections you posted but for the sake of time, I will respond a little later. Thanks!

You bring up a good question that is often asked. How can God condemn people who through no fault of their own never had the opportunity to receive Christ as their Savior? A person's salvation or damnation thus appears to be the result of historical and geographical accident, which is incompatible with an all-loving God.

This objection is, however, fallacious, because it assumes that those who have never heard about Christ are judged on the same basis as those who have. But the Bible says that the unreached will be judged on a quite different basis than those who have heard the gospel. God will judge the unreached on the basis of their response to His self-revelation in nature and conscience. The Bible says that from the created order alone, all persons can know that a Creator God exists and that God has implanted His moral law in the hearts of all persons so that they are held morally accountable to God (Rom. 1.20; 2.14-15). The Bible promises salvation to anyone who responds affirmatively to this self-revelation of God (Rom. 2.7).

Now this does not mean that they can be saved apart from Christ. Rather it means that the benefits of Christ's sacrifice can be applied to them without their conscious knowledge of Christ. They would be like people in the Old Testament before Jesus came who had no conscious knowledge of Christ but who were saved on the basis of his sacrifice through their response to the information that God had revealed to them. And, thus, salvation is truly available to all persons at all times. It all depends upon our free response.

I will respond to some of the other objections you posted but for the sake of time, I will respond a little later. Thanks!

So a person living in the old days was supposed to gather that all of this was created by a higher force to get into Heaven, while the rest of us have to follow very obscure beliefs and rituals to get to the same place? And what is true 'moral law'? In all societies it is different, so who is to say that sanity is statistical? And if a tribe is on an island and lacks any kind of spirituality and contact to the 'outside' world, then what?

Seems like some kind of filler-logic to catch the exceptions of history and geography.

It appears that Christianity and other religions kicked in as a result of man having enough cognition to invent such social inventions in a prehistoric attempt to put meanings to their lives. Think about this. At their time of writing, they were wrong, or had very little idea about pretty much everything in this world, from disease to the earth and the sun; why should religion be any exclusion to this?

More generalisations based on no evidence whatsoever.

You funny, boi.

Yeah Chritianity is illogical, no shit. Pick up any religion and you'll find the same thing. People look for explanations. Before humans made up science they had these explanations, and there are still some who don't find scientific explanation convincing. Which is good because I really doubt that science is any closer to the truth than religion is.

Logic/reason/science is just another belief system.

Logic/reason/science is just another belief system.

...That is based on at least some tangible evidence as opposed to none...

...That is based on at least some tangible evidence as opposed to none...

From logic's point of view, yes. It depends how you're looking at the "tangible evidence" though. Don't get me wrong, I think reason shits all over religion, but it's just another system and it can only take you so far. A logical critique of religion is as good as a Hindu critique of Catholicism.

From logic's point of view, yes. It depends how you're looking at the "tangible evidence" though. Don't get me wrong, I think reason shits all over religion, but it's just another system and it can only take you so far. A logical critique of religion is as good as a Hindu critique of Catholicism.

I think I'll keep my logical point of view.

your mom is illogical.

im 16, im a junior in high-school, and im in a biology class, we were going over the cell theory and something occured to me, i will quote this directly from the book and wont alter a word.

Law 1 -
All organisms are composed of one or more cells.

i found this to be true and most likely logical,
then came along

Law 2 -
The cell is the basic unit of structure and organization of organisms

i thought again, this could possibly be true, cells form to make bigger cells and so on and so forth..

then came the final law

Law 3 -
All cells come from preexisting cells.

i thought to myself, "if this is true, then where did the very first cell come from?"
surely it didn't come from nothing expanding upon nothing causing friction and the friction from both nothings explode? (you know the big bang)
so where did the first cell come from?
God,
the scientists who came up with the evolutionary theory ( not just Darwin bu people who he worked with and oothers from his time)
they believed in spontaneous genertation.

for example (this is an ACTUAL observation)

When one puts a pile of old rotting nasty dirty clothes in a corner, after awhile (like a week or so) mice will be found in and around these clothes with no explenation of how they got there, you and me obviously know that the mice were attracted there by the aromas and the cover being offered.


i haven't memorized my bible, but i will come up with some verses..
just hold on lol

im 16

It shows.

It shows.

Thank you for the comment, i have tooken it to heart, and have this to say to you.

"hey man, f**k you"

lol

the bible says "Let not your age be an excuse"

Thank you for the comment, i have tooken it to heart, and have this to say to you.

"hey man, f**k you"

lol

the bible says "Let not your age be an excuse"

The bible also says "bless them that curse you."

The bible also says "bless them that curse you."

and turn the other cheek, yes i know this, i do have a bible, its sitting next to me lol

but, it was only sarcasm...i hope you caught it and took it modestly.

anyways, i will combat with scripture now =D

i just lied lol, im going to sleep.

but, if you dont believe in christianity how are we here now?
even if you believe christianity, how did we get here?
do you HONESTLY think that nothing comibned with nothing caused friction with eachother and decided to explode?
do you believe we evolved from rocks?
if evolution is real, how come we see no half species walking around?
how come when we breed within our families and a mutation is formed on the child that has been bred will never show on the next generation?
how come mutation wont happen?
god is real, and you (and me) will be judged on the way you conduct yourselves today, and who you affect by it, one day you will see, one day you will believe, it may not be now, i may be when you die and are a the judgment seat of christ, but god is real, and may he have mercy on your souls.

i just lied lol, im going to sleep.


Isn't that a sin?
but, if you dont believe in christianity how are we here now?

Christianity isn't the only explanation for how we got here.

even if you believe christianity, how did we get here?

Huh? If you believe christianity, God created all of us.

do you HONESTLY think that nothing comibned with nothing caused friction with eachother and decided to explode?

No. The Big Bang is not the only opposing theory to Christianity. Science and religion are not polar opposites. I don't think that's how the theory goes anyway.

do you believe we evolved from rocks?

Does anyone? It's not impossible. It's about as realistic as an omnipotent being who created everything.

if evolution is real, how come we see no half species walking around?

Because not all of the half-breeds have visible defects. You for example obviously have the intelligence of a jellyfish. Learn about the theory of evolution before you ask obvious questions.

how come when we breed within our families and a mutation is formed on the child that has been bred will never show on the next generation?

Probably has something to do with Adam and Eve spawning the entire human race. Or genetics. You know. Whatever.

how come mutation wont happen?

Didn't you watch the X-Men movies?

god is real, and you (and me) will be judged on the way you conduct yourselves today, and who you affect by it, one day you will see, one day you will believe, it may not be now, i may be when you die and are a the judgment seat of christ, but god is real, and may he have mercy on your souls.

Well now I believe.

Maybe a god, but not the god of your bible. You barely have to read it to notice all the glaringly obvious errors. But I'm not going to try to change your mind, that's something that takes time and personal development. Just like no religious argument can convince me to believe, no rational argument will convince you. That's cool. Just try not to be so preachy and dumb. If you're going to tell others that god is real, you better have a damn good argument.

^ This ^

I pity anyone who oppresses themselves by following a religion.

I pity those who believe reality to hold no ultimate purpose yet use their intellectual pride to hold themselves back from the greatest and most satisfying of all possible experiences even though their own reasoning admits that there is no definite purpose to rely upon their own reasoning.

To the anti-Gods: Life has no empirically defined purpose. Empirically, life ends when the brain ceases to function. Why then, on the basis of faith being illogical, deny yourself from experiencing it when every last account testified to by those who have experienced it describe it as the most wonderful, powerful, and incredibly transforming series of events they have ever had the pleasure of going through?

Would it really be so painful for you to admit that your own logic falters in this respect? Why, with no purpose to this life, would you intentionally deny yourself this experience? Is it honestly fulfilling to know that you didn't 'believe the lie' even though in your own system of logic there is no lasting purpose or any benefit whatsoever to not believing? Do you fear being like me? Happy? Content? Satisfied? Clear minded? Intent? Relaxed? Loving? Compassionate? Faithful?

What holds you back? What does it matter if it makes sense when there is no benefit whatsoever to something making sense? By your own reasoning there is no purpose whatsoever to being logical! This is it for you! Why, by what twist of thinking, do you justify withholding this wonderful experience away from yourself when this is all you will ever experience? Shouldn't it be the best? Shouldn't it be fulfilling? Shouldn't it be joyful?

I present this sincerely. I really do want to know why the empirically minded don't give spirituality an honest try.

I pity those who believe reality to hold no ultimate purpose yet use their intellectual pride to hold themselves back from the greatest and most satisfying of all possible experiences even though their own reasoning admits that there is no definite purpose to rely upon their own reasoning.

To the anti-Gods: Life has no empirically defined purpose. Empirically, life ends when the brain ceases to function. Why then, on the basis of faith being illogical, deny yourself from experiencing it when every last account testified to by those who have experienced it describe it as the most wonderful, powerful, and incredibly transforming series of events they have ever had the pleasure of going through?

Would it really be so painful for you to admit that your own logic falters in this respect? Why, with no purpose to this life, would you intentionally deny yourself this experience? Is it honestly fulfilling to know that you didn't 'believe the lie' even though in your own system of logic there is no lasting purpose or any benefit whatsoever to not believing? Do you fear being like me? Happy? Content? Satisfied? Clear minded? Intent? Relaxed? Loving? Compassionate? Faithful?

What holds you back? What does it matter if it makes sense when there is no benefit whatsoever to something making sense? By your own reasoning there is no purpose whatsoever to being logical! This is it for you! Why, by what twist of thinking, do you justify withholding this wonderful experience away from yourself when this is all you will ever experience? Shouldn't it be the best? Shouldn't it be fulfilling? Shouldn't it be joyful?

I present this sincerely. I really do want to know why the empirically minded don't give spirituality an honest try.

Good question.

In this case specifically, I would say that Christianity as it is has very little to do with spirituality. At least the way it's processed. Sure, there's prayer, but people don't pray like the desert fathers did, or even like the monks. A lot of the time it's used to give justification for a belief in a certain moral code and an afterlife so that they have hope. Most of this is the good part of religion.

For spirituality, I'd look elsewhere. I mean, there are a bunch of different religions which offer different paths but all claiming that their way is the right way. I don't know if being rational makes me any less happy. I don't know if it has anything to do with it, but then again I'm not entirely closed to religion so I guess I can't really answer that well.

Good question.

In this case specifically, I would say that Christianity as it is has very little to do with spirituality. At least the way it's processed. Sure, there's prayer, but people don't pray like the desert fathers did, or even like the monks. A lot of the time it's used to give justification for a belief in a certain moral code and an afterlife so that they have hope. Most of this is the good part of religion.

For spirituality, I'd look elsewhere. I mean, there are a bunch of different religions which offer different paths but all claiming that their way is the right way. I don't know if being rational makes me any less happy. I don't know if it has anything to do with it, but then again I'm not entirely closed to religion so I guess I can't really answer that well.

If it helps, you can entirely disregard religion and just seek a relationship with God. It's not difficult. It is available to absolutely anyone. It won't turn away a single person. It wants you to know It...that's why you have, inside of you, the ability to communicate with It, just like every other organism can. Too much erratic thought and too wild of emotional swings deafen us to It though. Well, if you don't want to give it a try though, that's fair enough.

You know though, refusing to eat something you've never tried before when it hasn't killed anyone else that's eaten it doesn't make much sense.

Try some real prayer....from the heart, from the mind...what's in you...not what some ass in a funny hat tells you to pray. And you don't have to be on your knees either (though it may convince you of your own humbleness, haha).

Just talk to God, ya know? If you give it a real try, It will answer back with something. And I only say 'something' because It answers us in a whole variety of ways.

If you give it a whirl, enjoy! Life with God is a REAL trip!

If it helps, you can entirely disregard religion and just seek a relationship with God. It's not difficult. It is available to absolutely anyone. It won't turn away a single person. It wants you to know It...that's why you have, inside of you, the ability to communicate with It, just like every other organism can. Too much erratic thought and too wild of emotional swings deafen us to It though. Well, if you don't want to give it a try though, that's fair enough.

You know though, refusing to eat something you've never tried before when it hasn't killed anyone else that's eaten it doesn't make much sense.

Try some real prayer....from the heart, from the mind...what's in you...not what some ass in a funny hat tells you to pray. And you don't have to be on your knees either (though it may convince you of your own humbleness, haha).

Just talk to God, ya know? If you give it a real try, It will answer back with something. And I only say 'something' because It answers us in a whole variety of ways.

If you give it a whirl, enjoy! Life with God is a REAL trip!

Yeah see that's sort of different from Christianity. I think spirituality should be a personal thing. Your post definitely speaks to me. Thanks Hex.

What pisses me off the most if that we’ve based our entire system of history dating off a guesstimation of a false prophet. Let’s establish a standard (the introduction of Our Ford's first T-Model automobile to be chosen as the opening date of the new era - A.F.) that allows easy conversion between the old and new system of dating and allow the transition to take place. Then we shall cut the tops off all the crosses in the world, making them become T's (in memory of Our Ford's first T-Model) to mark the new era of abandoning all previous conceptions of the indoctrinating fear propaganda that benefited the archaic aristocracies of the dominant institute at that time, of a fork of Judaism.
I agree with all of your post, but I think it's a little late to do this now. It would cause wars, or at least large-scale conflicts, to do this.

I tl;dr-ed the rest of the thread because I gotta jet--I'm in a hurry, so I'm sorry if someone already said this.

NO religion is logical, stop picking on the Christians.

There is Mainstream Christianity which beliefs include false doctrines, paganism, idols, wars, whoring itself to governments and corporations, twist the wording of the Bible to suit themselves (Homosexuals), change the Bible, read an old ass translation, and keep the followers from reading the Bible.


Then there are Christians who model themselves after Jesus.

/ Thread?

^Word to the fella above me.

I was raised Christian. Went to church every sunday, parents taught me to pray every night before bed (as well as any other time), blah blah blah. The whole shibang.

There have been times in life that I've questioned whether or not Christianity is real. Is Jesus really God's son? Did he even exist?
I've decided (and you're free to disagree with me) that Jesus, whether real or not, was a pretty good model for life. The best, in fact. The way he lived, the things he taught, they all would lead a person on to living a great life. Even if you ignore anything he ever says about God, his teachings will still lead you to living a wholesome life.

There are so many traditions in churches today that I think are completely done purely out of ritual. We're not taking communion to remind us that Jesus died for us. It feels more like we're taking it so we can say later, "But look what we've done! We did something "holy"!" It's completely pointless.

So regardless of whether you believe in God or completely hate him, I think we can all agree that the teachings in the Bible will help with life. I propose that everyone stop bashing it, read it, get what you can out of it, and move on.

/thread?

I've decided (and you're free to disagree with me) that Jesus, whether real or not, was a pretty good model for life. The best, in fact. The way he lived, the things he taught, they all would lead a person on to living a great life. Even if you ignore anything he ever says about God, his teachings will still lead you to living a wholesome life.


Well the reason why Jesus was such a good example was because as a perfect human he was the closest "image" (man made in Gods image) of God that we have. To not believe in his teachings about God is silly because he spent his entire life devoted to God and the preaching work. Sorta like Faith w/o works.

I pity those who believe reality to hold no ultimate purpose yet use their intellectual pride to hold themselves back from the greatest and most satisfying of all possible experiences even though their own reasoning admits that there is no definite purpose to rely upon their own reasoning.

To the anti-Gods: Life has no empirically defined purpose. Empirically, life ends when the brain ceases to function. Why then, on the basis of faith being illogical, deny yourself from experiencing it when every last account testified to by those who have experienced it describe it as the most wonderful, powerful, and incredibly transforming series of events they have ever had the pleasure of going through?

Would it really be so painful for you to admit that your own logic falters in this respect? Why, with no purpose to this life, would you intentionally deny yourself this experience? Is it honestly fulfilling to know that you didn't 'believe the lie' even though in your own system of logic there is no lasting purpose or any benefit whatsoever to not believing? Do you fear being like me? Happy? Content? Satisfied? Clear minded? Intent? Relaxed? Loving? Compassionate? Faithful?

What holds you back? What does it matter if it makes sense when there is no benefit whatsoever to something making sense? By your own reasoning there is no purpose whatsoever to being logical! This is it for you! Why, by what twist of thinking, do you justify withholding this wonderful experience away from yourself when this is all you will ever experience? Shouldn't it be the best? Shouldn't it be fulfilling? Shouldn't it be joyful?

I present this sincerely. I really do want to know why the empirically minded don't give spirituality an honest try.


You aren't happy because you've done something. You aren't content because you have friends, or a community. You aren't satisfied because you continue to accomplish your goals. You're satisfied because you have an imaginary friend. Your faith is not a positive aspect. Faith is inherently harmful.

In contrast, I am fulfilled because I accomplish things, and I'm happy because I continue to do so. I have real things and real reasons for any positive feelings I have. And I have real reasons and real things behind any negative feelings I have. I don't delegate my life to some third party.
I pity those who feel that they will only achieve happiness by asking another entity for it.
I also pity those who feel that the only purpose in life is to die having done the right dance steps.

Life has no _provable_ purpose, but there are a lot of reasons to keep getting up in the morning. If your only reason is "zomg GOD!!!!" then you're a stupid fangirl.
I'm not going to give into a cult that wants me to abandon my fundamental assertion that life matters. That this life matters, and that it matters atomically, with NO regard to any other potential life.

Well the reason why Jesus was such a good example was because as a perfect human he was the closest "image" (man made in Gods image) of God that we have.

Prove it. That sounds like complete bullshit to me.

http://tinyurl.com/68acle

http://tinyurl.com/68acle

Oh lol, did you tinyurl your link to ebible so I wouldn't just laugh at you?

If you haven't noticed, the bible provides ZERO proof of ANYTHING. I would sooner stake my "immortal soul" on the Cthulhu mythos than that piece of shit.

Oh lol, did you tinyurl your link to ebible so I wouldn't just laugh at you?

If you haven't noticed, the bible provides ZERO proof of ANYTHING. I would sooner stake my "immortal soul" on the Cthulhu mythos than that piece of shit.

I did link it so you wouldn't laugh! Did it work?

I disagree however by it not proving anything. What discredits the Bible from being true? I'd love to make a thread providing information about the Bibles credibility if your interested, but I think you've already made up your mind.

I did link it so you wouldn't laugh! Did it work?

I disagree however by it not proving anything. What discredits the Bible from being true? I'd love to make a thread providing information about the Bibles credibility if your interested, but I think you've already made up your mind.

I'd never laugh at something that destructive.

You're a complete idiot, and not worth talking to, so I'll end there.

I did link it so you wouldn't laugh! Did it work?

I disagree however by it not proving anything. What discredits the Bible from being true? I'd love to make a thread providing information about the Bibles credibility if your interested, but I think you've already made up your mind.

http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/bible.htm
I do not feel Divinity and contradictions belong together. How can a book inspired by one of omnipotence contradict himself?

Do you realize that the link you posted refutes all those contradictions? You just googled Bible contradictions didn't you? Anyways, it depends on your definition of omnipotence.

Well the reason why Jesus was such a good example was because as a perfect human he was the closest "image" (man made in Gods image) of God that we have. .

That's an inarticulate way of explaining it.

"Jesus had a perfect relationship with God"

there.

I'd say our two reasons compliment each other.

He had a very close relationship with him, yes. But I was conveying the fact that we as humans can display the same qualities as God. Jesus was the only perfect human thus reflected Godly qualities making him a example for all humans.

I'd say our two reasons compliment each other.

He had a very close relationship with him, yes. But I was conveying the fact that we as humans can display the same qualities as God. Jesus was the only perfect human thus reflected Godly qualities making him a example for all humans.

Synonymous with the concept of nirvana or enlightenment yes? To be fully realized.

The way you worded it created all sorts of connotations; communication is a complex problem ( yes its a problem).

When you were saying "made in the image of god" implied creation, whereas having a relationship of God is not only about the pastimes of God.

You can see the man saying "Prove it that's bullshit".

Its easier for others to realise it is possible to have a relationship with god; than the possibility we are made in the image of God- although that is a realization that comes with a relationship with God.

^^ True say.

Prior to his human life Jesus had who knows, billions, trillions of years (more?) to get to know his father. On earth he didn't have memory of his former life, yet knew he was special. But yes through prayer Jesus as James 4:4 says drew close to God, and God drew close to him.

^^ True say.

Prior to his human life Jesus had who knows, billions, trillions of years (more?) to get to know his father. On earth he didn't have memory of his former life, yet knew he was special. But yes through prayer Jesus as James 4:4 says drew close to God, and God drew close to him.

Meditation>prayer.

Christians all around the world praying so they can have more money to buy more shit.

That is no way to contemplate god.

Christians that pray like that likely aren`t getting their prayers heard by God. Praying to God is like talking to a friend.

Christians that pray like that likely aren`t getting their prayers heard by God. Praying to God is like talking to an imaginary friend.

fixed.

Take that shit to SG

Christians that pray like that likely aren`t getting their prayers heard by God. Praying to God is like talking to a friend.

i know that there is christian meditation, but its not as universally practiced or accepted as prayer.

I meditation because it focuses on intentions and belief, its more of an introversion.

Whilst prayer is more of an extroverted approach, it is asking for outcomes through god. So prayer can often contaminated with material desires.

TM just seems better for self-realization but maybe that's because im a very introverted person

Meditation is great for getting to know yourself and your stand on life, but as for getting to know God its all about prayer. Its not just asking for things. Jesus prayed for a long ass time after he was baptized. He also mediated during that time though.

Both are good, one not better than the other.

Meditation is great for getting to know yourself

Yes. Transcendental meditation specifically does that because realizing your TRUE self is realizing that you are a spiritual being which based on spiritual knowledge leads to the conceptualization of God.

but im not very well informed on prayer im under the influence that it is just peoples desires. It seems prayer is an expression to god or talking with God whilst meditation is contemplating or listening to God.

In my opinion speaking is useless if you dont also listen; and because of our human nature ( we are born lacking knowledge and understanding) the balance we should have is to mostly listen and seldom speak unless it is education derived from discussion.

To the OP: yes it is illogical, however sometimes that is all that makes sense:D Read some Tolstoy and perhaps you will understand;) http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/wes/confession.complete.html