Originally posted by Tenchimaru Draconis
<img src=“http://www.rpgclassics.com/staff/tenchimaru/td.gif”> The whole idea of a big floating man up there in the sky somewhere seems kinda silly.
…Especially when there’s a big block of cheese floating up there! And the bright light bulb that was put there to scare the gremlins off!
Originally posted by Cala
My main reason for being an atheist is this: If God’s omniscient and omnipotent, why did he let Lucifer fall, why did he let Lucifer tempt Eden, why did he let Eden eat the fruit, and why did he kick them out of the Garden? I mean, he knew it was going to happen and could’ve stopped it. Doesn’t sound like a loving type of god to me.
What is the point of God giving human-beings free will if he intervenes in everything they do? The way I see it, this life is just a test for us.
And Gallo, I like your take on the creation story. Not quite as funny as CH’s post, but still good.
But he wanted us to be happy, and we’re quite the opposite today.
Who says I believe in YOUR God?
Originally posted by Cybercompost
Who says I believe in YOUR God?
I don’t!
The fact that science is currently “unable” to explain something “sufficiently” (a perception that varies depending on one’s scientific background) simply means that it is not at that level of understanding of that subject yet. Thousands of years ago, no one knew that the earth revolves around the sun. That does not mean that the unscientific explanations, that held that the sun really revolves around the earth, happened to be true until it was discovered that the earth really revolves around the sun. If there is no scientific explanation for something, that’s cause not to fall back on an unscientific explanation, but to attempt to discover the correct scientific explanation.
Originally posted by Shinobi
I rather not get into the topic of religion, but its the Bible. Its total, complete, bullshit. Do you understand that in the Old Testament, if you wore a peice of clothing made of more than one type of material, you should be hung. I’ve read it myself. And the “New Testament”. Yeah, lets revise THE HOLY WORD OF OUR ALLMIGHTY GOD, CUZ HE TOLD US TO. WE HEAR HIM. The Bible is basically made to make people believe they’ll receive worse punishment after death, so they have to be good. Its like Christmas with Santa. Except on a larger scale. and lets face it, Santa’s REAL.
It’s my belief that God created the Big Bang, and the world became so according to the bible AND somehow mixed with this evolution from apes thing.
As for the bible itself, I view it as a guide for those who want one. I rather follow my own path and set my own morales, but the bible still is nice.
So nyah.
One reason I don’t like Genesis’ creation stories is that they go against Evolution. I mean, the evidence to support Evolution has already been presented and all…
I’d rather not jump in too deep into this discussion (as I usually don’t know what Im talking about :P) but I’ll throw a few questions into the mix without getting too personal. I’ll point out something I’ve observed from life ( not this thread)-a common misconsception- if “God” loves us so much or wanted us to be happy, why do we live in a bad world? Well…God isn’t starting the wars with His own hand (I say this loosely, as an individual and not someone that believes in God, so bear with me) it’s people. Sure they do it in God’s name or whatever, but it’s still people. And earth or the world wasn’t created to be some sort of paradise, or heaven. Of course not everything will be all happy-go-lucky and perfect. Should we blame religion, God, Allah, WHOEVER, when people become homeless, or if someone gets shot, or if someone has no friends? No, because a majority of people want to be in control of their own lives (which is perfectly acceptable and understandable), and do not feel comfortable with their “fate” in a devine being’s hands…but what I’m getting at is, when some people, who don’t believe in God (anyone in particular, not anyone here) have things go wrong in their lives, they are quick to turn around and mock the Bible, or God and ask that question “Well if God loves us so much why doesn’t He make things better” and such and such…well I always think, “If you don’t believe, why are you wasting your time asking that?” Man made this world hell, not God. A lot of it was BECAUSE of religion, but it was still commited by humans, and any Athiest who blames God and Religion because of the world today is basically contradicting themselves (“I don’t believe in God, but he should make this world better. If he was there, he would.”) if God doesn’t exist, then how can he let everyone suffer and just not care, in the world today? That’s what I don’t get from some people.
…
…Ooook.Well yes I strayed and got a <i>bit</i> personal. I habour no grudges against any Athiest or Christian, so please don’t kill me:cool:
I honestly believe you can’t talk about religion and not get personally involved in it, so don’t worry.
Yeah it’s not something you can only say a few words on phew Oh well live and let live I guess. These kinds of debates are interesting to read.
A quote I read somewhere:
Believe in those who seek truth, doubt in those who find it.
Originally posted by Sinistral
Christian principles were laid down to appeal to the masses and create change and exert political influence against the ruling establishment and later became a corrupt organization in itself, determined upon sustaining its own authority. I don’t know about the origin of Islam, but it is no better than medieval christian practice in the ruthlessness of its application in a lot of the world. And Christianity didn’t really start changing being revolutionary until the elite themselves got involved. I don’t think people who abuse their authority get their just desserts, I think those are the exception. It takes many generations before a local populace gets pissed and starts killing off the last generation of oppressors. Note that I didn’t say the old men in control tried to maintain power, but I said they wanted to gain power over the masses.
Your first sentence, and maybe this was unintentional, makes it sound as if some sneaky shadow group pretended there was or created this thing called Christianity to beguile people, and then all the poor ignorant “masses” clung to it until it helped overthrow the balance of power, putting the sneaky shadows in control. This is not the case, surprisingly the world isn’t always like FFT. Christianity was an evolutionary split from the even older religion of Judaism. The proponents of Christianity believed in many of the Judaic foundational beliefs, but introduced some radically liberal ideas that stemmed from the belief that the “savior” promised in Judaism had manifested Himself in Jesus of Nazareth. And the founders and preachers and spreaders of this gospel were poor people who rose to prominence due to the appeal (or veracity depending on your own judgment) of this new religion. Paul really did travel around the Mediterranean, Peter really was the first pope of Christianity. Furthermore, it would be hard to say that Christianity actively “enacted” change in the Roman world. Rather, despite the religion being trashed and attacked for centuries after Christ’s life and death, its level of participation continued to rapidly increase in most of the underclass, and had even begun to be accepted by the middle classes as well. And, while it was certainly appealing for the upper classes to convert since it’d give them more support and loyalty, there was never a sword put to the throat of the old Roman patrician families. And while Christianity is certainly a factor in the decline of the Roman Empire (because its belief system of passivity, humility, and charity were much different from the value system of ye olde Romans which helped get them their empire to begin with), Christianity became the official religion of first Rome and then the Western world through its relative voluntary acceptance, not with the sword. Even the Arabs resorted to conquering to achieve much of the reach of Islam. You are likely complaining about the later politicalness that Christianity became with the rise of Catholicism and the relative hegemony of the Church over Europe through much of the middle ages, but that is immaterial to the foundation of Christianity, and there are quite a few who argue that at that point Christianity wasn’t really Christianity anymore; people such as Martin Luther (Protestantism) or the keepers of Orthodox Christianity in Eastern Europe.
Originally posted by Cala
My main reason for being an atheist is this: If God’s omniscient and omnipotent, why did he let Lucifer fall, why did he let Lucifer tempt Eden, why did he let Eden eat the fruit, and why did he kick them out of the Garden? I mean, he knew it was going to happen and could’ve stopped it. Doesn’t sound like a loving type of god to me.
The way John Milton, the author of Paradise Lost, and who isn’t necessarily an official theological source, tried to explain the fall of Lucifer and the expulsion from Eden, basically was this. Lucifer, and the third of the hosts of Heaven who went with him, had a choice. They could have not rebelled against God, but they chose to, and thus had to suffer the consequences for all eternity; since angels (being infinite beings) don’t get a chance to “reform” and mend their ways. Being in the realm of infinity, they are infinitly being granted a choice, and infinitly rejecting it; since time has no real value in the face of Infinity. This is also how God is able to grant them the choice, even though He already knows what the outcome will be. Since it is Infinity, there is no real “sequence” of events as we understand them, merely the existence of all events (think of it like Instrumentality if you’ve watched Eva, or The Oracle’s “no choice only the understanding of choice” speech in Matrix 2 if you’ve seen that).
The same choice was given to Adam and Eve (Eden was where they lived Cala, not who was tempted). They had a choice, to eat or not eat the fruit. They “disobeyed” this one, single request of their Creator, and were tempted/chose to partake of fruit. But, since Adam and Eve and their progeny are not infinite beings, and since they are flawed beings (unlike angels), this does not condemn them for all eternity. God loves them too much, plus Jesus implores and offers himself in exchange for their second chance. Adam is shown by the angel Michael near the end of Paradise Lost the progression of events from here, all the horrors that are out in the world, Jesus’ sacrifice for mankind, and man’s eventual redemption and return to grace. Thus, when it is time to go, Adam and Eve are frightened, but exit Eden more bravely than earlier to face the world and begin the process of earning their redemption and their journey back to grace.
Also, think of it this way Cala. It is important to know that the fruit they ate from was the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.” Before this point, Adam and Eve were content and lived pleasantly, but they weren’t really people. Their immediate needs were satisfied, but they lacked both desire and aspiration and emotion and human intellect, etc. They had no actual genuine freedom. Sure, partaking of that fruit got them kicked out, and inflicted untold number of horrors both on themselves and future humanity, but they ate of good also. They can come back. They have a choice, a chance. It’s not predetermined for us (even though for God He knows how things will play out), the tree and God’s declaration gave us the freedom to choose our lives for ourselves. What is more intrinsically valuable: to exist in a state of permanent contentment but lacking all willpower or any genuine meaning, or to be able, in the face of all the bad things that go on, and despite of the temptation to choose bad stuff, still choose what is good for you and try to live that way?
I wonder why people still beleive in Evolution though, I’ve yet to see apes slowly form into men, neither has anyone since Darwins studys. Evolution is a load of shit, yeah so is god in my opinion. But I can basically say those who seek the definition of life, have no life themselves. What keeps me going every day is that, we’re all here and nothings going to change that by worshipping anything, or nothing. Religion is just a comfort, no more, no less.
Originally posted by Sephiroth Katana
The fact that science is currently “unable” to explain something “sufficiently” (a perception that varies depending on one’s scientific background) simply means that it is not at that level of understanding of that subject yet. Thousands of years ago, no one knew that the earth revolves around the sun. That does not mean that the unscientific explanations, that held that the sun really revolves around the earth, happened to be true until it was discovered that the earth really revolves around the sun. If there is no scientific explanation for something, that’s cause not to fall back on an unscientific explanation, but to attempt to discover the correct scientific explanation.
What you say is true, but a major reason for my belief in God, which I did give as an example, is the existence of life. It has been SCIENTIFICALLY proven that all life comes from pre-existing life. You cannot cause dirt to become alive. However, life had to begin sometime, and the only possible explanation I have is that God created it.
There is one assumption that needs to be made to support this concept: There was a beginning. If you don’t believe there was a beginning, and that everything just always was and always will be (there can’t be an end if there was no beginning), then you can ignore this concept.
And Cala, the Bible isn’t meant to be interpretted literally. After all, there was no one around to see God create the world, and since He didn’t write the Bible, it is easy to understand that the work may be embellished. Also, much of the Bible is symbolism, especially the numbers, since when it was written, people understood their symbolic meanings (somewhere I have a chapter of a book that explains what they mean).
But he did inspire the writers of the Bible.
From what I’ve read so far, it seems the correct sequence of events for human evolution, as the theory or whatever, goes is that hominiods appeared about 20 million years ago. From this group evolved Hlobatids (gibbons and siamangs), Pongids (apes), and Hominids. Then humans (Homo Habilis I guess being considered human) evolved from the hominids, probably Austroalopithecus garhi or some such gracile hominid. So really, under evolutionary theory, humans didn’t evolve from apes but rather both came from a distant relative. Sin or Spoony probably know more on the subject.
As for religion, I’m Christian, specifically confirmed Episcopalian (not sure how well my beliefs fit in with all of the Episcopalian doctrine, they’re pretty orthodox and mainstream in that regard though). As for why I believe? Well, my religious answer would be that God moved me through the Holy Spirit into accepting His Son Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Non-religious answer? Probably because it just gives me a sense of comfort or something. I’m actually rather reserved in my faith, espousing it only when asked. I don’t go out Bible thumping and demanding that all you heatens (:P) convert to Christianity. I guess that’s the Calvinist in me speaking.
Edit: Just saw demigod’s post about life from nothingness. That’s where the Theory of Abiogenesis comes from. It’s been 5 years since learning it, so some facts will be rusty. It’s something like 3.5 billion years ago or whenever life first appeared on Earth, conditions were much different than now. Basically, the conditions made it possible that from the atmosphere basic proteins or amino acids or something could form. These combined to form heterotrophic single celled organisms that fed on the other protein being formed. As conditions changed due to these organisms, such products no longer were being formed, so autotrophic species somehow evolved. Once again, Sin probably has the specifics on this and can explain it better.
I do not deny the possibility of <b>A </b>god, but yeah, I don’t like the organized religions.
Edit: Church is for n00bs
The first thing I would like to say is that I do believe in Evolution and science (not God), but I don’t much care for how it all started though, since I don’t lik to live in the past if I can help it.
Secondly, Exo, no one from Darwin’s time ever saw an ape evolve into a man. What they saw was connections and similarities, and they came up with the thoery. For how it is, that WE were once apes, but on the “path” of evolution, some of us went one way, and the rest an other. Giving us humans and apes.
Finally going back to one of demigod’s first points. Although I don’t believe in God, I do think that every life has a purpose, a destiny if you will. But that does not mean I like it, since think of all thoses who have died in wars and “things”, was that THEIR destinies? I hope not.
