Philosophical Belief Thread

[Zeonix]

If you look at numbers, people with higher intelligence and education are much less likely to be religious. The more education, the more secular they lean. It's also why less advanced, sophistocated countries (especially in the Middle East, Asia and Africa) tend to be more religious, and war over it constantly.

Oh, you and your science. You'd believe absolutely anything that is supported by overwhelming evidence. I'll pray for you.

It's funny how every religious argument we have centers around J-Dude, where he essentially judges all of us for being inferior, and we respond in kind. And yet he is still somehow the victim in all of this.

 

[Synth]

I assumed any religious discussion on this forum, had J-Dude's antagonism in mind.

If we actually just looked at religion as a method of the psychological, rather than the philosophical, it would be and feel more individual.

But, some people prefer others doing the thinking for them.

 

[kam!]

If a god would send me to eternal damnation just because I didn't blindly belief in him with
my entire being, but I was a "good" person, then I don't want to be in his heaven.

I mean satan isn't such a bad guy afterall, he gives refuge to everyone that jealousy god doesn't want. /jk

 

[Zeonix]

If a god would send me to eternal damnation just because I didn't blindly belief in him with
my entire being, but I was a "good" person, then I don't want to be in his heaven.

I mean satan isn't such a bad guy afterall, he gives refuge to everyone that jealousy god doesn't want. /jk

The concept of Satan, or God's opposite, also irks me. Why would a cosmic being have an opposite? Why would there be someone of equal or close to equal power out there fighting his creator, or even his other half, for control over that which the cosmic being had originally created, be it directly or indirectly? It doesn't make sense to me. What is so supreme about a being that has a polar opposite of equal power, or a being that isn't even whole?

And before you say Satan was nothing compared to the all powerful God of the old testament, I suggest you actually read what happened regarding Satan's rebellion. Not only was Satan able to convince a large portion of God's army to side with him, but God was so scared that he might lose, that he struck preemptively. A God that is capable of feeling fear is no God at all. The fact that Christians suggest God and Satan are warring over who wins our souls suggests to me that their God isn't even a supreme being, but a being of limited power.

 

[DiebytheSword]

The concept of Satan, or God's opposite, also irks me. Why would a cosmic being have an opposite? Why would there be someone of equal or close to equal power out there fighting his creator, or even his other half, for control over that which the cosmic being had originally created, be it directly or indirectly? It doesn't make sense to me. What is so supreme about a being that has a polar opposite of equal power, or a being that isn't even whole?

And before you say Satan was nothing compared to the all powerful God of the old testament, I suggest you actually read what happened regarding Satan's rebellion. Not only was Satan able to convince a large portion of God's army to side with him, but God was so scared that he might lose, that he struck preemptively. A God that is capable of feeling fear is no God at all. The fact that Christians suggest God and Satan are warring over who wins our souls suggests to me that their God isn't even a supreme being, but a being of limited power.

God was never afraid . . . he simply didn't want to punish his children. These were the beings closest to him. Sadly, there came a time when perdition was the only answer, and they were ejected from heaven permanently with a flick of his wrist. Hardly the fear you are speaking of.

Further, Satan is not god's opposite, he is our opposite. Satan translates to the Advesary. He is the accuser of mankind, not god. In fact, many texts cite that his rebellion, while prideful, was not along the lines of:

"I'll take over heaven and destroy god!"

It was more like:

"I know I'm going down, but I'll take those god damn monkeys with me."

And so ever since, Satan seeks to take men from gods side, and keep them here, where he was given dominion. According to my studies, he seems to have never thought that he was rebelling against God. He refused to serve man, and chose to save God from surrounding himself with filth.

Upon reading through again, I see that this thread is practically demanding a literal farm of warnings for borderline flaming.

First and foremost, Alea you are asserting something that simply isn't true. My "indoctrinated faith" died long ago. I didn't go to church for many years, and I generally speaking, don't believe in what my mother believes. I do not believe because I fear everlasting hell. The proof is there for me, I found enough of it to believe, through observation, in at least part of Christian "Mythology". After this event, I have been a believer ever since. I struggle, day to day, to justify what I know against what I've been taught. It has been an interesting journey, and I would love to share it with you all, however, I might as well tell you tales about dragons and faries, you'll have as much reason to believe it as Christianity . . . unless you undertake the same journey. Even then, my journey is not for you, it is something you must have faith in, look for yourself, and then know. If you do not have faith, you cannot find the path that will lead you to what you seek.

It is the double edged blade of religeon. One cannot know without believing, and some cannot believe without knowing.

Either way, I have my proof, and I believe because I know, not because I have been brainwashed. Also, what you atheist and agnostics know about Christianity, on the whole, is authored by what I like to call a false church. In the end, majority of Christians have been led astray, and it is something that makes me sleep light at night.

At any rate, cool it down in here or I will shut down the thread and hand out warnings to all involved.

 

[Zeonix]

God was never afraid . . . he simply didn't want to punish his children. These were the beings closest to him. Sadly, there came a time when perdition was the only answer, and they were ejected from heaven permanently with a flick of his wrist. Hardly the fear you are speaking of.

Further, Satan is not god's opposite, he is our opposite. Satan translates to the Advesary. He is the accuser of mankind, not god. In fact, many text cite that his rebellion, while prideful, was not along the lines of:

"I'll take over heaven and destroy god!"

It was more like:

"I know I'm going down, but I'll take those god damn monkeys with me."

And so ever since, Satan seeks to take men from gods side, and keep them here, where he was given dominion. According to my studies, he seems to have never thought that he was rebelling against God. He refused to serve man, and chose to save God from surrounding himself with filth.

He didn't want to punish them? But he did so almost immediately. According to the Bible, he took away the beauty they had as angels once it was clear he and his followers weren't going to bow to him. To go from being extremely beautiful to being extremely hideous sounds like one hell of a punishment, especially if we're to believe Satan is vain.

How exactly is Satan our opposite? In order for that to work, we'd have to either be perfect, or completely devout followers of God. We're obviously neither. The best Satan can do according to the bible is deceive us, or convince us to give in to our basest instincts, or our most negative of emotions, both of which exist within all of humanity. Why is God constantly creating flawed creatures, and then getting angry when those flaws become apparent? Why do angels even have free will to begin with?

And back to God not wanting to punish "his children". Why is he so willing to punish humanity all of the time then? How many times has he killed large groups of people because he was irritated or angry? Why are we constantly threatened with his judgment and his ire? Why does he even feel human emotions? Why isn't he able to control them? Why is he even a he? Why is humanity treated as the only sentient species in all of the Universe?

Why does God even have his own military force and why are his angels allowed to commit murder in the case of Herod Agrippa I, for example?

 

[DiebytheSword]

God is a creature of wild extremes. I tend to think of god as an alien. He doesn't think like us, he doesn't act by our set of rules. He created the angels to obey him without fail, and they found a loop hole through that by hating us so much that they refused to serve us or kneel before us. They felt that we were trash unfit for heaven, and so they obeyed gods command and protected the glory of his kingdom so to speak. All I can say, because not much is written on it, is that he probably gave them some time to work it out, and hope that they would come to their senses. When it was obvious that they would not (and if god is truly all knowing, then he knew that it would play out as it did) he flushed them out. I believe that any stalling here on his part was out of compassion for his creations, however, once a certainly line is crossed there is no turning back. There are many mysteries about the fall, and it's never quite explained in full. There is mention of one angel being so blasphemous after Lucifer's meddling, that he was ejected from heaven and his name stricken from everything so that he can never be remembered in the position of his former glory. This angel is currently locked in what we call hell.

Still, there is nothing to suggest fear there. A note here, I do not believe god to be infallibale or perfect. He is simply right. If you are against him, you are wrong. It's distance and closeness to god that determines good and evil in this sense. He even admits so himself in the old testament: I am an angry and jealous god.

A few mistakes and generally bad assumptions that need to be addressed in your argument:

According to Jewish mysticism, there were three created races of intellegent creatures. Qlippoth, Angels, and Mankind. The qlippoth came first, and were nothing but hungry emptiness that devoured. The word qlippoth means empty husk. God then created the angels, and left the qlippoth in the "world beneath our own". This is where the idea of hell probably comes from. He then created the angels, who were capable of love and who were hard programmed to love him unfailingly. An interesting aside, is that if the fallen truly exist, and are still alive, and are here on this earth wandering with us (all that I have read suggests this is so), then they most certainly still revere god, and might even attend church services of their own. The last group was given free will, and it is this that makes us greater than the angels. Who knows, God might upgrade later and cast us aside in the furture.

I suppose you are correct, I misspoke when I said that Satan was our opposite. He is our advesary. Just as you described it: that certainly makes him no anti-god. Still, your argument is as wrong as it was from before I posted. Christianity is not a two god town. Satan is a follower that fell. It would be like the pope coming out tommorow and announcing that Satan and his followers are merging with the Catholic Church. Sure the Pope would be a bad guy, but he wouldn't exactly be the anti-god either. Satan cannot create universes, or beings for that matter. He can only accuse, and lead astray.

God never mentions any other race of sentient beings, but why should he have to? I am quite sure that this means nothing one way or the other. I personally believe that there is intelligent life elsewhere, and certainly life period.

Opinion: God's millitary force, the angels, the holy host, exists to keep the first creations, the Qlippoth at bay until their slow return to the universe is completed.

It's written in one of the Kabbalistic texts that they will be absorbed back into creation from which they were pulled. Just as it is written we will.

The Catholic church threatens you with judgement and ire. True christianity offers redemption and closeness, or distance from god. Funny thing here is, I agree, Hell is a myth . . . kinda. Something like the hell we've been told about exists, but not for us, and we are given a choice to be close or far from him. Distance might as well be hell, as the angels could attest, they want nothing more than to be in his good grace again, something that will never happen.

 

[SailorAlea]

First and foremost, Alea you are asserting something that simply isn't true. My "indoctrinated faith" died long ago. I didn't go to church for many years, and I generally speaking, don't believe in what my mother believes. I do not believe because I fear everlasting hell.

I was referring to the person (I believe it was J-Dude) who said "it makes more sense to take the chance and believe; you have nothing to lose, because if nothing exists afterward and you did believe, there's no difference."

I've heard that before, but my response was what I gave earlier: I don't think such a God, obsessed with making people believe in it, would find that attitude to be positive or honorable.

Even then, my journey is not for you, it is something you must have faith in, look for yourself, and then know. If you do not have faith, you cannot find the path that will lead you to what you seek.

That's the thing. You didn't just magically have faith when you were born; at some point, the faith was drilled into you (or at least, is, into most children) that God is real; society constantly confirms it numerous ways I mentioned earlier; there is powerful cultural pressure to conform to Christianity, especially in the US.

Either way, I have my proof, and I believe because I know, not because I have been brainwashed. Also, what you atheist and agnostics know about Christianity, on the whole, is authored by what I like to call a false church. In the end, majority of Christians have been led astray, and it is something that makes me sleep light at night.

Too subjective. Each random denomination thinks it has the right way and others are wrong. There's no scientific way to know, because there is no science involved.

The really sad part is that the majority of people's opinions of things like "Heaven," "Hell," "God," etc--come from things like Dante's Inferno, word of mouth stories told about Dante's Inferno and various fictional stories and colorful, stretching interpretations of biblical texts.

I've had people tell me straight to my face, that so and so sinners go straight to a specific "Circle of Hell, as proscribed in the Bible."

In any case, it seems entirely too convenient that such majestic, Biblical acts do not occur in a time where we can explain, document and investigate them. Relying on word of mouth, and translated translated translated works written by people intoxicated on ether, opium, or sulfur fumes do not impress the image of "God" into my mind.

 

[Zeonix]

Satan is the exact opposite of Jesus in every way. Every single time one of them is described, you can pretty much guess how the other will be described, and be right when you finally come across the appropriate text. That's what I was taught as a child, by protestants. Most of their arguments are pretty similar to what I found here:

http://www.ucg.org/booklets/RD/godandsatan.htm

To me, Jesus is the polar opposite of Satan, and vice versa. And that's fine, if you think of Jesus as some dude. But then people start saying, "Jesus was actually God in human form!" which throws the entire "Son of God" thing out the window. So if Satan and Jesus are polar opposites, and Jesus is actually God, then it sounds logical to me to assume God and Satan are polar opposites.

And to be perfectly honest, what you're describing doesn't even sound like a God. You're describing a flawed being who happens to have more power than other people around him. He's just as nasty, just as mean and can be nice when he feels like it, but ultimately, he's seems to be a human with waaaaay too much power. When someone doesn't do something his way, he throws a tantrum and a million people die. I know we're supposed to forget about all of his tantrums and focus on the love, but if we're to assume the latter part is true, then the former must be as well. I'm simply not as forgiving as Jesus and I'm not going to forget about everything else because, you know, he's God and God makes mistakes. You're basically saying God isn't perfect, that God isn't a God in the way that a God is supposed to be, but in the way that a bunch of stone age humans describing something they have no way of understanding say s/he/it is.

The point I was making is, by definition, God wouldn't need a military force. His angels wouldn't need to fight wars for him in Revelations. He wouldn't need to send his angels to assassinate people who he feels have wronged him (again with the feelings). A supreme deity shouldn't even be bothered by anything we do, because we're so very small in the scheme of things.

Satan may not be able to create universes and matter, but how are we supposed to know for sure? The bible never specifically said he can't do any of that. Who's word am I supposed to take on that? The bible's? That'd be like me writing a book about how awful Sub is because I'm angry at him. If you take all of your facts from that book, you're still only getting half the story, and the half you are getting is basically propaganda because I wrote the book (or inspired my very best friend to write it).

I can argue with a person about Dune mythology all day and night, but in the end, its just that: mythology. To me, this isn't any different.

And back to what Alea is saying, there are quite a few denominations. Every time I try to force my understanding of christian mythology to adapt to a specific sect, I find out that both I and the sect I was speaking to are completely wrong. No, this is the one true way. All of the others have forgotten the true message, but not these guys. No sir, they still remember. Fine. I'll accept that. Move on to the next sect. What? I'm speaking blasphemy? That sect was completely wrong and you know the truth to end all truths? And it just keeps going round and round, and all it does is make me not give a crap about trying to understand something.

 

[DiebytheSword]

And who tells you what god is supposed to be like? I'm sorry, were you a manager at God Mart, where you could get your very own custom made deity for a low, low price? That argument is circular, and you are right we could go at it all day. God is god, I did not make him, I can only go on what I've read, what I surmise, and what I believe. There is that, or I can be an atheist or agnostic. Since I am neither of those, I must then spend my life making sense of god. I'm not supposed to have the answers yet and I don't. Assuming you do is, pardon me, arrogant in the extreme. You assert that god should be what you imagine him to be like. I assert that god is what he is, and I must deal with that in time.

 

[Chakra-X]

Whoa. J-Dude. I think you are warping some people's messages into attacks. Personally, I think the way Alea spoke about an intelligent adult not following a religion was not exactly what she meant or a little harsh, but as for Sub

One does good deeds because he feels it is the right thing to do. He is an athiest.

The other does good deeds because he is a religious man, and believes that if he does good deeds, he will get into heaven.

I think he was using two hypothetical people as an example. If there was some guy, who was a great guy, nice, caring, and followed the rules, but did not believe in a God, Sub is saying he would (or should) have a greater chance of getting into heaven than some guy who believes in God and only does good things because he will not go to hell. If this particular, hypothetical, individual religious guy was told there is no after life, he would do whatever the hell he wanted, meaning his goodness is only out of fear and is not sincere.

It's quite obvious you are a very devout Christian, J-Dude; but you're so devoted, that any (or most) of the opinions here that point out flaws or disagree with the idea of religion are calling you "feeble minded" or "underdeveloped". But honestly, I think its the mostly the Christian concepts popping up.



I personally am still open to the idea of a supreme being, just not in the Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc. concepts, because they contradict too much.


Personally, I do not need absolute proof to believe something. I'll maybe have doubts, but I don't think EVERYTHING can be proven through scientific experiments. However, you must understand, that if someone is telling an atheist or agnostic that "God exists. Believe it, or burn in hell. Evidence does not matter. You don't need it for God transcends it", they are going to raise eyebrows.

If it is that simple for a religion to be correct, why can't someone today rise up, write a book that would found a new religion, gather a lot of people, and call it divine? If this person claims God told him to do so, why is that any different than the starting of any of the religious texts with a similar story? (Meaning not just Christianity).

AND

I am not attacking your faith. You intelligence. Your life. Your personality. Your God. None of that. I am simply questioning it. I'm not trying to get you to say "oh, you're right, I was wrong. Sorry", because I know and I'm pretty sure most people here know that is not how religion works. I am trying to get you to understand why others would question Christianity. Not because they are the workers of the devil, or cynical bastards, but because they are human, who are naturally curious.

 

[Zeonix]

And who tells you what god is supposed to be like? I'm sorry, were you a manager at God Mart, where you could get your very own custom made deity for a low, low price? That argument is circular, and you are right we could go at it all day. God is god, I did not make him, I can only go on what I've read, what I surmise, and what I believe. There is that, or I can be an atheist or agnostic. Since I am neither of those, I must then spend my life making sense of god. I'm not supposed to have the answers yet and I don't. Assuming you do is, pardon me, arrogant in the extreme. You assert that god should be what you imagine him to be like. I assert that god is what he is, and I must deal with that in time.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/god

a) A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.

I generally operate by that ^ definition, although I don't limit the concept of God to those words. I don't even think of God as "the ruler of the Universe" in the way that a King consciously and actively rules his domain. When someone describes their God as a dude with an attitude problem, I can't bring myself to take it seriously. I know. That's my problem. But that's just how I feel. If I had to worship a God, it'd be The All of The Kybalion, as the concept of The All falls far more in line with my concept of God than that of any of the major religions.

I'm not simply imagining things and saying "God must be all of these." If I wanted to go that route, God would be exactly like me, except with the Infinity Gauntlet, plus all of the things the dictionary says a God should have. Like omnipotence and infallibility. You, on the other hand, derive your understanding of God from your "studies", which means absolutely nothing to me. Hell, your understanding of God doesn't even fall in line with that of any of the sects I've tried to understand. When my mother tried to indoctrinate me, God was supposed to be perfect in every way, and so the mind could never truly understand him.

To me it seems you had to take God down a few notches so that it'd be easier to understand God, rather than attempt to raise yourself to meet its standards. Nothing I'm saying means anything to do, and that's alright with me, but it's just my take on your perspective. I'm sure even J-dude would have a few problems with your idea of what God is.

 

[VideoJinx]

God is a creature of wild extremes. I tend to think of god as an alien. He doesn't think like us, he doesn't act by our set of rules. He created the angels to obey him without fail, and they found a loop hole through that by hating us so much that they refused to serve us or kneel before us. They felt that we were trash unfit for heaven, and so they obeyed gods command and protected the glory of his kingdom so to speak. All I can say, because not much is written on it, is that he probably gave them some time to work it out, and hope that they would come to their senses. When it was obvious that they would not (and if god is truly all knowing, then he knew that it would play out as it did) he flushed them out. I believe that any stalling here on his part was out of compassion for his creations, however, once a certainly line is crossed there is no turning back. There are many mysteries about the fall, and it's never quite explained in full. There is mention of one angel being so blasphemous after Lucifer's meddling, that he was ejected from heaven and his name stricken from everything so that he can never be remembered in the position of his former glory. This angel is currently locked in what we call hell.

Still, there is nothing to suggest fear there. A note here, I do not believe god to be infallibale or perfect. He is simply right. If you are against him, you are wrong. It's distance and closeness to god that determines good and evil in this sense. He even admits so himself in the old testament: I am an angry and jealous god.

A few mistakes and generally bad assumptions that need to be addressed in your argument:

According to Jewish mysticism, there were three created races of intellegent creatures. Qlippoth, Angels, and Mankind. The qlippoth came first, and were nothing but hungry emptiness that devoured. The word qlippoth means empty husk. God then created the angels, and left the qlippoth in the "world beneath our own". This is where the idea of hell probably comes from. He then created the angels, who were capable of love and who were hard programmed to love him unfailingly. An interesting aside, is that if the fallen truly exist, and are still alive, and are here on this earth wandering with us (all that I have read suggests this is so), then they most certainly still revere god, and might even attend church services of their own. The last group was given free will, and it is this that makes us greater than the angels. Who knows, God might upgrade later and cast us aside in the furture.

I suppose you are correct, I misspoke when I said that Satan was our opposite. He is our advesary. Just as you described it: that certainly makes him no anti-god. Still, your argument is as wrong as it was from before I posted. Christianity is not a two god town. Satan is a follower that fell. It would be like the pope coming out tommorow and announcing that Satan and his followers are merging with the Catholic Church. Sure the Pope would be a bad guy, but he wouldn't exactly be the anti-god either. Satan cannot create universes, or beings for that matter. He can only accuse, and lead astray.

God never mentions any other race of sentient beings, but why should he have to? I am quite sure that this means nothing one way or the other. I personally believe that there is intelligent life elsewhere, and certainly life period.

Opinion: God's millitary force, the angels, the holy host, exists to keep the first creations, the Qlippoth at bay until their slow return to the universe is completed.

It's written in one of the Kabbalistic texts that they will be absorbed back into creation from which they were pulled. Just as it is written we will.

The Catholic church threatens you with judgement and ire. True christianity offers redemption and closeness, or distance from god. Funny thing here is, I agree, Hell is a myth . . . kinda. Something like the hell we've been told about exists, but not for us, and we are given a choice to be close or far from him. Distance might as well be hell, as the angels could attest, they want nothing more than to be in his good grace again, something that will never happen.

>=] Interesting words.. but I have to agree about the Distance away from God(the highest love/experience) is Hell in a nutshell.. the further away you are.. the worse it is ..

In my beliefs were all on the same "journey" but we'll all have different paths leading back to God(the infinately high love/experience)

 

[J-Dude]

To me it seems you had to take God down a few notches so that it'd be easier to understand God, rather than attempt to raise yourself to meet its standards. Nothing I'm saying means anything to do, and that's alright with me, but it's just my take on your perspective. I'm sure even J-dude would have a few problems with your idea of what God is.

Well, really, I don't know about that to be honest...

I mean, that definition of yours was made by who? Humans, right? Well, perhaps God DOES have flaws. We were made in his image, were we not? How are we in his image? I don't feel that God takes any physical form, so I can only conclude that it is our spirit that is in His image. In the grand scheme of things, even through the Bible, we know so little about what God is.

Sword, your thoughts on this matter intrigue me, and I'd absolutely love to hear more about it. It's really eye-opening. I'd never considered such an enlightening perspective. I may not be able to experience that which has opened your heart to God while still thinking intellectually as many here do, but I'd love to hear it.

 

[Zeonix]

Every definition we have of God comes from humans, whether it be found in the dictionary or in the Bible. If you're going to believe in a flawed God, then he really isn't any different than someone who happens to be part of a class 4 or 5 civilization. He becomes a person with a lot of power. We don't know where his power comes from, so I'll go ahead and assume its derived from his class 4/5 civilization's technology, which, when shown to a class 0 civilization such as ours, appears to be magic and/or holy.

Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

To me, this would explain why the god of the Bible acts in a typical human fashion. And J-Dude, don't use the Bible to prove the Bible correct.

I did some reading on the whole Satan thing, and it turns out that in the Jewish tradition, Satan is simply doing God's bidding. In the Christian tradition, Satan is indeed God's opposer. The Jews view the concept of God having an equal but opposite opponent to be polytheistic, seeing as how that would no longer make God the head honcho. The Christian tradition contradicts the Jewish tradition despite the Christian tradition supposedly being derived from the Jewish tradition.

 

[sub]

@Sub: Your post particularly offended me. I mean, really, how dare you? How dare you suggest that all atheists are inherently more virtuous than Christians, and that Christians only do things for their own gain and not for the simple sake of others? I'm sorry, but I cannot ignore the sheer gall of that statement. You're pinning us all as self-serving jackasses, and it's libel of the sort that really stuns me that someone can find the nerve to say.

J-Dude, you took what I said and blew it completely out of proportion. Read what I wrote again:

There are two people.

One does good deeds because he feels it is the right thing to do. He is an athiest.

The other does good deeds because he is a religious man, and believes that if he does good deeds, he will get into heaven.

A just got would send person number 1 to heaven, regardless of his religion.

Where in this did I suggest that "all atheists are inherently more virtuous than Christians, and that Christians only do things for their own gain and not for the simple sake of others"?

You took what I wrote and your imagination made it ten times worse than what I actually said. It would be silly for me to suggest that all atheists are inherently more virtuous than Christians, or that Christians only do good things for their own gain. Of course there are many religious people who are good people, just as there are many atheists who are bad people.

The point I wanted to make was that atheists generally don't need an incentive to do a good thing, where as religious people very much have a selfish incentive to do good. This is a fact. I did not mean for you to be insulted, and I don't believe what I said should in any way invoke a sense of disgust.

edit: I want to make it clear. I stated in my previous post that I'm not here to make you denounce your faith. I'm not trying to insult you.

 

[DiebytheSword]

The point I wanted to make was that atheists generally don't need an incentive to do a good thing, where as religious people very much have a selfish incentive to do good. This is a fact. I did not mean for you to be insulted, and I don't believe what I said should in any way invoke a sense of disgust.

A point of order here, man cannot enter heaven on mighty works, it says so in almost every version of the bible (to my knowledge . . . some of the more extreme rewrites may not have it). Mighty works is understood to mean someone who does good all his life but still seeks distance from god by not believing. So, those good people who do not wish to be at gods side will not be forced to sit at his side.

You are all created with free will.

God is a strange creature, I freely admit I believe him both fallible and not perfect. He himself says he has qualities which we would consider bad. That does not change the idea that he created us, and made this universe we live in. I agree with him not ruling the universe as a king does. He is literally the engineer in control of all the stuff that works around you. He runs it, keeps it from breaking, and occasionally stops in to check on us. This is what I believe, and as you were so quick to point out, your perspective doesn't change mine one bit.

As for you J-Dude, open your mind and your heart, question everything but continue to have faith if you believe. Only through questioning do you understand, as I believe most of the sheep have forgotten.

 

[Zeonix]

A point of order here, man cannot enter heaven on mighty works, it says so in almost every version of the bible (to my knowledge . . . some of the more extreme rewrites may not have it). Mighty works is understood to mean someone who does good all his life but still seeks distance from god by not believing. So, those good people who do not wish to be at gods side will not be forced to sit at his side.

You are all created with free will.

God is a strange creature, I freely admit I believe him both fallible and not perfect. He himself says he has qualities which we would consider bad. That does not change the idea that he created us, and made this universe we live in. I agree with him not ruling the universe as a king does. He is literally the engineer in control of all the stuff that works around you. He runs it, keeps it from breaking, and occasionally stops in to check on us. This is what I believe, and as you were so quick to point out, your perspective doesn't change mine one bit.

As for you J-Dude, open your mind and your heart, question everything but continue to have faith if you believe. Only through questioning do you understand, as I believe most of the sheep have forgotten.

And that is, of course, just the Christian point of view. Because the Bible says you can't get into heaven if you don't open your heart to someone/something that hasn't made its presence known in a few thousand years (which makes me wonder why he decided to skip out on us), even if you're the best person who's ever lived doesn't exactly make it so. Wanting further proof, or some kind of validation, doesn't mean you're saying, "**** YOU GOD I DONT WANT YOU!" It just means you're only willing to meet that kind of a God half-way. If he doesn't show up, maybe he doesn't exist. You shouldn't be cast to hell with the worst kinds of people for not being "sheep" or however you'd like to describe yourself.

 

[Chakra-X]

As for you J-Dude, open your mind and your heart, question everything but continue to have faith if you believe. Only through questioning do you understand, as I believe most of the sheep have forgotten.

For the record J-Dude, a lot of other people have been saying things like this to you. I've seen people say things like the above quote and the other post, but you never called them "eye opening", but instead proclaimed that you're faith was not moved. I hope this strong respect is not just because of Sword's sturdy Christian beliefs

 

[Sonic the Vampire]

So... uh... not to uh, interrupt the flow or anything...

I am first and foremost a hard determinist. I suppose I could be considered agnostic as well as I don't have any particular bias toward or against the idea that there may exist a supreme deity who had a hand in our creation... I just don't feel that he has any influence in our day to day lives. I border on deism, but I wouldn't push myself quite that far because I firmly believe that none of us have the hardware built into us to make a realistic assessment of a creator even if one does exist.

I have had a couple of very spiritual dreams in my time, including one that was particularly vivid and particularly bhudist in nature, but they haven't swayed my opinions on the mathematical certainty of our circumstances. Believing that the world is simply unfolding like a mathematical equation makes it difficult to conceptualize any kind of logical system of judgment that would determine an afterlife, or a purpose for said afterlife to exist, so for the moment, I don't have an opinion on any of that. Some might find it a cynical point of view... believing that we are being forced through a series of experiences into our inevitable and entirely predetermined demise can make you sour. I believe life is like a really fascinating film we're all watching to its conclusion, and I just hope there's a break afterwards where we can all sit about and discuss its high and lowpoints before we either dissipate into the aether or shuffle ourselves onto another plane.