Indeed. We're 'learning' about ethics here too, instead having to listen to a 'born-again christian'.
My teacher's a christian though, and he doesn't like it when I criticize certain things he says. He probably doesn't like a 17-year old beating him in a debate.
I'm not trying to change ur beliefs niko, but, the universe WAS created by something, but God is infinite so he wasnt created, He has no beginning, no end, but thats my opinion
You have to be really stupid for believing in a God in plenum 21th centuy, it´s an old and out of date credence :Eyecrazy:
BUT, the thing is that some people have to believe in it because this help them psychologicaly, so they prefer to not wonder if it exists or not, they just assimilate it. And I have not nothing against that, if you need it, just believe it. No problem here.
Fortunately, at this moment, I don´t feel the need for believing in it, but I understand people who do. They are usually weak mind people who don´t trust themselves.
Of course, this is just my lowly opinion :Kick_Can_
if its anything like the religion lessons i had in school its nothing like what youre thinking of and on the contrary one of the few/only subjects in school that deals with philosophy
most of my time in religion class was spent being taught by a fascinating theologian who spent a few years as a lutherian priest
believe it or not but its him who taught me that pretty much everything in the bible is a parabel and should absolutely not be taken literally
eg on the topic of creationism according to him genesis isnt even supposed to imply that the world is 6000 years old because to anyone with a brain its dead obvious that we now know more about the history of the earth then we did then... what its about though is the question which science cant answer which is "who?" and i think you comming from an agnostic standpoint you will have to acknowledge that genisis answer to this question is one of the possibilities
keep in mind that a large amount of those 10 billion years were spent cooling and creating the oxygen we breath the iron we build stuff with and the uranium we use to nuke each other
So if i don't believe in a god i must believe in a god?
My personel opinion... 2000 years ago a dude was around who said hey be groovey to each other, and was nailed to a plank for that. Douglas adams said that at the start of h2g2, and I believe Jesus existed, even if i don't believe in a god, or believe the miracles he supposedly performed.
I don't like the way People look at the bible literary, mainly because its been translated from different laungauges over the 1000's of years, and the new testiment was supposdly writtern a 100 or so years after the time of a guy called jesus.
I don't need a book to tell me how to lead a good life, i believe i can lead one by just not being a dick :S.
Yes! LFSnoob, say you believe in the flying spaghtie monster, or the force, and your parents don't want you learning about other faiths! get out of lesson free card
Niko, in the UK your parents could withdraw you from RS. I'm going to be sixteen this time next month (I.E. GCSEs soon), in my year there is only one person who has withdrawn (she's a JW). It's probably a better idea to expose it as the bullsh*t that it is, it's an Emperor's New Clothes situation, when one person starts being an open atheist many more will.
After following several links to other pages I've noticed that most non-religious pages are trying to challenge the god-theory by scientific analysis and logic, none of which actually works. Religion is not something that "makes sense", there really is not a working solution to find logical holes and conflicting issues because the founding theories include stuff like "god is always right", "unknown are god's ways" and "god is everything". You can not challenge anything with logic if the "target" doesn't even claim to have logic, or follow logic.
The whole thing revolves around the "infinite god"-theory and if you are not ready to accept that you cannot accept the bible or anything else. There is no point challenging the literature aspects, the wordings used or the complexity of the written stuff when it can not challenge the most vital part of any religion, the infinite god.
The whole religion thing is all about god, a supernatural being (or something) and the sole reason why the god is so almighty is because if the god was anything less than pure infinite and perfect it would be downright easy to prove it is false (Santa claus, tooth fairies etc.). But because the whole theory has nothing linked to real life it can not be proven false or true. There is nothing science could puts its hands on with religion. Doing scientific research on something like religion will never prove scientific results because there is no scientific evidence to work with. It is possible to make theories about theories but without the base theory making sense the whole process of experiement or study has not proved anything.
You might even say that the whole theory has been written with the sole purpose that you cannot prove it false because it doesn't actually prove anything. There are no proofs to prove false or true. Therefore the whole thing is about "belief" and "faith" which in turn puts us back right where we started.
Indeed. I've often been told by Christians that, in order to be a true Christian, you have to have faith - you *must believe* - without proof. That is what strengthens your faith. The more strongly you believe in god, in the face of dissenters and/or evidence to the contrary, the greater your chances of eternal life.. demonstrating "true faith in god"
Of course, by an amazing coincidence, this kind of blind faith and total belief in something, in the total absence of rational substantiation, is also what makes people complete idiots.
I've always hated discussions on religion. I'm certainly open to any viewpoint (strange as I may find them), but it all seems kinda pointless to me when it is impossible to know for certain (and even that's not very certain).
My take? Probably no supernatural being and probably no afterlife. But again, I just don't and cannot know. I hope there is such a thing as an afterlife or reincarnation or something along those lines, but none of it makes sense to me.
That said, things do seem to have a way of just falling into place sometimes and at just the right moment, so who knows.
Again I recommend that all watch this vid, - originally posted by Not Sure in this thread.
Its a long video - almost two hours actually, bu I found it most controvertial and interesting.
I am not at all religeous, for me religeon just does not make sense, unless if you see it as a controlling mechanism, in which case for those that believe it seems to work a treat - even to descibing the followers as a flock, - sheep don't think for themselfs they just follow the crowd without thinking - nuff said.
However I was always prepared to believe there was guy called Jesus, my thinking was that there had to be at least someone about who all the stories were written.
But I spend more and more time looking into religeon than I used to, just as a subject to be investigated, and now I'm really not sure if the guy existed at all - certainly nothing seems to be written about him whilst he was alive - no official record at all from what I can see - so did the guy actually exist at all?
Religeon has always said that black is white, and has persecuted and even put to death those that have said anything different.
Always the message, "we are right everyone else is wrong" don't even look or listen to anything that says differently, we are the one true path.
But time after time religeon has had to move its opinion and techings as science has rolled back the mystery of our planet and the sun and the Universe, now it is clinging on to its last vestige of credibility (to some at least) by saying that science still cannot say what was there before the big bang, and what was there must have been created by God.
Of course in time science will find out what was there pre-big bang and as usual religeon will yet again move the goalposts.
So there's nothing special about religeon, for me there is and never has been a god, religeon lost its credibility to me as soon as I started to question it when I was 11 years old.
Really its a pretty weak belief system once the doubt leads to questions.
Religeon requires unquestioning faith.
Science requires constant doubt and questioning to reinforce what is already known.
Science provides convincing answers to almost everything, sure there is much we don't know, but it will be science that provides the answers, not a child/woman abusing pervert in a dress, who requires you to give money to support his narrow minded point of view.
