God is a positive illusion.

Wow, this is a really great discussion, something this board lacks from time to time.

I just want to say I'm happy to be a Pagan :)

God is speaking to me right now so wait your fucking turn!

Great lyrics

yeah , sucks that the Guy who sings the song , Shannon Hoon died of a Herion Overdose...

But I like it

Judge not lest thee also be judged. Why continue to do to them the very thing you hate them doing to others? You're simply perpetuating the cycle. You claim you hate hypocrisy and how Christians try and impose their beliefs on others, but how hypocritical is it when you turn around and do the same thing in this thread.

Believe it or not you and I have had very similar upbringings and parents and I too am an independent thinker. Ten years ago I was exactly where you are, I was dead set on proving that Jesus and Christianity was a total farce. After traveling the world, two theology degrees, ten of thousands of hours of reading and research, and talking to people from all over the world from all different belief systems I've come full circle and reached my own conclusions and beliefs that I'm comfortable with. I've witnessed and had occurences happen to me that I can't explain and have helped shape my beliefs. I realize nobody else has walked in my shoes and some things that have happened to me most wouldn't believe. Again, you either believe or you don't, no need to mock others for their beliefs and try and "tear" them down.

I'll be more than happy to discuss with you many of the things you've mentioned in this thread off the board. I just made a conscious decision a long time ago that I wouldn't debate theology on this board after serious threads turned into ******* and goatse. There's a time and a place for everything and this isn't the place.

I think your answer is in front of you... there is no "real" God. At least not in a biblical sense. And by some freak chance there is, he is either powerless, dead or does not care about us and has moved on to something better.

Jesus hung out with thieves and prostitutes... a "ministering to those who need it most" thing.:glugglug

That's another thing that really bothers me about Christians.... the large majority of them have never even read the book they claim to believe in... just bits and pieces that are poured down their throats by preachers. That's why they have no idea that scriptures like Hosea 13:16 exist.

The more I have read, the more I have observed, the more I discuss the less I believe in any divine entity. I am convince god is an invention of man to explain the unknown and in particular death.

Man is the only animal we talk to that can anticipate death and from that awarnes forward it is a fear of the unknown.

Nothing has caused more war, death and slavery than religion. As used by man it is evil. Even if I am wrong and there is a god he/she/it would be quite disturbed about what is done in he/she/it's name.

"Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business." - Govenor Jesse Ventura

:thumbsup

I believe in god. I don't believe there is one religion. I don't think god would damn me for eternity for not follow a set rules of beliefs or he would be biased to a certian religions. If he is a supreme being why would he have a trait of prejudice. As long as stay true to my morales I believe I am ok.

it is called free will . . . . everyone has it

I don't think you can define what and who God is. If he exists it is obvious that mortal, living humans will never be able to define what he is. Hell, some people worship rats, cows, etc (no joke) as their God, so it shows the power of the human mind to create something. We are better off just making earthly decisions, based on earthbound principals and situations, regardless of God.

You don't need God to be moral, to be courageous, to be kind, etc, all these things are valued within humanity regardless of any higher power. If a God exists (and I believe it may well be the case) than he is beyond anything we can or should ever describe.

That's a nice cop out, used by many Christians to explain such things.

My son has free will too... doesn't mean I'd stand by and let him kill one of his siblings.

If anyone has the time they should look into Meme theory. Its a new research into the mechanics of how beliefs spread through society.. Also look into NLP (neuro linguistic programming).

I will try to be simply in the words I use...

Meme theory looks at societys belief systems from a macro view, meaning like if you were playing sim city.

ok now I want you to imagine something...

Imagine that a mother gave birth to a child, and right after the child was born, the baby was taken to a room with no doors, no windows, no colors, no smell, no living things, all inaminate objects.. and was fed by a mechanical arm every day of its life until the age of 18.

How do you think this living thing would live its life?

Do you think it would have any of the same beliefs that we do today? Do you think it would develop some of the same traights as a wild animal?

Now, think to yourself, how do people take in information or data.

We have representational systems such as our eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and skin... All of these things produce electronic like signals to our brain.

Evolutionary psychologists have observed the behaviours of humans and how they evolve along with our environment.

For example, if you were born into a family that lived a world of violence, murder, deceit, and survival.. How would this living thing adapt?

I really could ask you many questions, but all in all it comes down to genes...

humans are *just* advanced biological computers. yep I said it, we are just living machines... all of our thoughts, decisions, wars, movements, everything is a result of binary (or maybe a more advanced number system) of data.

How could as we know it people fight for beliefs they can not prove? How does someone know how to prove something? how does one know what these symbols that we know as words make up meaning? Why do words grouped in a certain order produce fear, hate, anger, laughter, etc...

How does religion propagate? Why would religion need its own followers to recruit new followers? Isn't that what multi level marketing companies do? Why does religious followers have to use faith to convey their message when they could just simply ask their higher god to prove his existence... Why don't religious followers ask themselves why they believe in their religion.

Why do republicans and democrats always fight over whats true?

heh... sometimes I believe (little pun there) that every time someone conveys what they think inside that it transforms into another message, kinda like cryptogrophy... its like the game you played as a kid when you sit in a circle and one person tells the other a sentence and as it goes around it changes into something completly distorted... well thats a pretty good example of what people do... maybe even the bible, can I prove it? of course not, its unprovable, and thats exactly why people are fooled.. even if it was true, never knowing the truth is exactly the same as not ever making your own decisions and being a slave, which is exactly what all human life is...

what if scientists figure out a way to interface our brains with computers, so we can read and write information into our brains synaptic system or whatever system that controls whats stored in our brain... what if we could be born with every single piece of information known to man... would everyone then believe in a god? would there be so much overwhelming evidence to support a believe in a being that shows no evidence of itself... why is this not ludacris and thrown out of our judgement... seems like religion found a human exploit, exploiting our thought system.. pretty simliliar to a computer exploit, like a buffer overrun.. slipping a piece of code into your orginal set of beliefs...

maybe I should write a book about questions to ask yourself...

P.S. yeah yeah, I know, I just thought I would add a long rambling to this thread.. its probably not organized but maybe it will spread and evolve someones beliefs here. ;-)

God doesnt love you, doesnt love any of us.

havent you ever had one of those friends who's girlfriend/boyfriend treats them like absolute shit, but when you ask why they stay with them its always..

"because were in love"

kind of the same thing going here with religion, people wanna beleive it so bad nothing will tell them otherwise.. not even if God himself gives you a 45 minute face slapping session or tries to run you over with his car. :2 cents:

Great post, xuron. I enjoyed reading it.

It's a lot easier to just be a sheep than a shepherd.

Ignorance is bliss.

and most mortals don't stand by and let other mortals do evil . . . what is your point?

can everyone please stfu, everyone in here claims to know shit about religion, but we all are evil sick fucks, therefore a discussion on this topic is FUCKING ILLEGITIMATE!!! please, talk about boobies or something, u are in no fucking place to diss people of faith when all of our fucking souls are as empty as John Kerry's campaign hopes... so please.... CHOKE ON MY COCK

No

well put

I had to use simple words so he would understand :winkwink:

"Momma always had a way of explaining things so I could understand them..."

- Forest Gump -

"Denny Crain..."

- Denny Crain -


:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

I love that show...

:winkwink:

God is nothing more than an interpretation of our environment. The definition of God is limited to our senses and our powers of observation and apprehension. When our explanation and understandings of our environment is correct, we succeed in our goals and when it is not, we fail. If we calculate the numbers right, our engines will work. If we add them up wrong, they fail. If we had gotten God right, we would have been saved since day one. But we kept suffering because we kept getting God wrong. We kept thinking it really does exist.

The "mystery" of God is simply our lack of understanding. Nature will ALWAYS work based on the same laws of physics. All the anomalies we translate as miracles are all exaggerations and embellished fairy tails of 100% explainable natural events. Instead of finding out how things really work, we feared what we could not understand and explain and placed all the blame on a single being who creates and controls all, and thus handed over our ultimate responsibility, our destiny, onto it, our savior. Savior from what? Ourselves. Our only chance.

It's always been just us. We are the ones who came up with it all. WE did all the killing and all the saving.

I don't belive in God. I don't believe in heaven. I have much higher hopes and ambitions.