There is probably no God

It bothers me that there are a couple of people on this thread who would like to see a massacre of Christians vs. Muslims. Why would any two groups of people killing eachother be appealing? That is sick.

That is not a value in my personal ethical code.
 
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2: It is a leap of faith…… you said that you wanted someone to admit it…… but what are the alternatives? If my faith is right, and yours is wrong(no faith) then you have Hell to pay……

Rob

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You don't sound very convinced of your belief in God, "If my faith is right"
You mean to tell me that you are betting on God's existence?
You are hoping if he exists then sucking up to him by simply stating you believe in him will get you into Heaven?

Would God not reward kindness, generosity, humility or sincerity regardless of wether you were aware of his existence?

Your point here could only ever be an argument for faking belief in God.
If your God is all knowing, dont you think he would be insulted by this deception?
Anyone can go to church, sing hymns and read the bible every day, but none of that can make people actually believe it if they don't.

Having said all that your quote makes about as much sense to me as saying - 'At the far end of an infinite distance a coin is being spun, which way will you wager'
 
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'At the far end of an infinite distance a coin is being spun, which way will you wager'

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It is iterresting you quoted Pascal. What do you think of this?

"You have two things to lose: the true and the good; and two things to stake: your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to avoid: error and wretchedness. Since you must necessarily choose, your reason is no more affronted by choosing one rather than the other. That is one point cleared up. But your happiness? Let us weigh up the gain and the loss involved in calling heads that God exists. Let us assess the two cases: if you win, you win everything: if you lose, you lose nothing. Do not hesitate then: wager that he does exist."--Pascal

AxeKnot: What do you wager
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I already stated what I thought about 'Pascal's Wager' which was basically what RemWiz was trying to say in his first post(2nd point).

I'm glad you picked up the quote.

Pascal was a mathematician and a philosopher so I reckon he was saying that reason alone could not settle any matter of religious belief.
He proposed the famous "wager". Saying belief in God is a better bet, because if you are wrong, the consequences are unknown to you, if you are right heaven awaits.

He was probably joking when he promoted his wager, unfortunately there are many people who use it wrongly as an argument for believing in God.

So Notahacker.....Which way will you wager?
 
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He was probably joking when he promoted his wager, unfortunately there are many people who use it wrongly as an argument for believing in God.

So Notahacker.....Which way will you wager?

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I think he was being creative the the "Wager." And yes, I think you are right: "there are many people who use it wrongly as an argument for believing in God."

The way I read/interpret Pascal's "Wager" is that, it is a better of the two bets to bet there is a God. For the outcome will be more rewarding.
 
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2: It is a leap of faith…… you said that you wanted someone to admit it…… but what are the alternatives? If my faith is right, and yours is wrong(no faith) then you have Hell to pay……

Rob

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You don't sound very convinced of your belief in God, "If my faith is right"
You mean to tell me that you are betting on God's existence?


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Have you heard of "playing the devil's advocate"? or sarcasim? These terms are used to make points out of your opinions by stating obvious inconsistancies, and asking the questions that the opposed party is not capable of coming up with.

now that being said, it is evedent to me that you are probly' a lot smarter than me(from reading some of your posts) and i think that you like "playing the devil's advocate". it would not suprise me if you do believe in God, and you just might like Master Blaster
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nuff funnin, in my opinion(non college educated, southern boy thinking) it is harder for a well educated, deep thinking, sometimes pridefull, and synical person(not saying you are any of these) to have faith in the unseen. that is why Jesus told us that: One must become like a child to have the faith to believe in the truth.

this makes me think back to when i was a little boy deer hunting with my Dad(he let me go as soon as i was out of diapers-- allright, enough jokes). i was terrified of two things.... Dark, and heights(i am still scared of one of those), and you encounter both of these hunting. but one thing i knew, my Dad was not going to let anything happen to me, and if i just trusted him to lead me through the dark woods and carry me up into the deer stand. i would be alright. I have seen my son put the same trust in me, and i understand that this is all that God wants from us

when we "grow up" mentally, if we do not have our faith already grounded, then our "intelect" gets in the way. all of the signs point to the earth being flat, and no amount of sailing is going to prove otherwise to us. when we get to the point of lynching Christopher Columbus and turning around, we need to go a little further and search a little more, pull out the telescope, stand in the crow's nest, and pray that our sight is not clouded by the lynch mob standing down on the deck asking us if we see anything.


Rob
 
Axe: thinking about infinite time, not just into the future, but coming from the past. Wouldn't there have to be a greater reality that verges on the divine?

I think belief has grown up over time, way beyond the cardboard images that a literalist reading of various scriptures conjures up.

(But then again, I also think that Shindaiwa made the second best tree saw ever
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Most religions all have the common theme of "don't be an a$$hole." Such phrases as don't be a liar, don't steal, treat you fellow man with respect. I can see how some on this forum have problems with those concepts.
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And I can see a whole forum that has problems with it. Gang rape hey, was that the latest offering?
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How many religions? How many Gods?

Here you go Axeknot, 10 myths and 10 truths about atheism.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/harris06/harris06_index.html

Very interesting reading.
 
Christianity

I dont believe there are many true Christians.

Christianity is a leap of faith, it is something that totally transforms a person's life, in the way that evidence, proof or knowledge never could. Which means that to prove Christianity would actually make it emotionally empty.

From what I see and read faith involves a relationship with an invisible, eternal and transcendant God utterly remote from our immediate day to day lives. A relationship that can often produce feelings of guilt and despair in those commited to it(feelings that anyone outside of the religious life would not understand).

I think that true Christian faith is not some kind of second-rate belief(Pascal's wager is just an argument for faking belief in God). True Christian faith is a kind of passionate inwardness, the acceptance of a unique and precarious way of life. It has nothing to do with knowledge, proof or evidence.

This is why I think to be a true Christian you have to think for a long time about your decision and why you are making it then make a Leap of Faith.

Although I did have a basic Christian upbringing I was never convinced that I was a true Christian.
And I've thank my parents for never forcing religion upon me. I think you have to be be careful what you tell your children about the world.

The reason I started this thread was to see what people thought about Atheism, which is just as hard a belief system to accept truthfully as Christianity.

I think that you have to try to be honest with yourself and be an individual with your own thoughts.

You can copy what others do or develop a detached attitude to your own life or blame fate for things going wrong in your life or you can rely on others to order you about.

The responsibility that comes with being your own person is very hard to deal with.
If things go wrong, other people may get hurt, you may ruin your whole life, and if any of this happens then only you are to blame.

Society puts a lot of pressure on us to behave in a certain way - It may be lazy of me to drift into into my fathers trade, follow his political beliefs, marry and settle down and raise my 2 children. But that does not mean I am not free to choose who I become. Everyone should behave as if we were free in spite of all the pressures put on us by society.

Having choice in our lives is the hardest thing to deal with, if there is no God then this places an even greater meaning on the roles of human freedom, choice and responsibility.

Even if God did exist we would still have to choose wether or not to obey him, out of principle. Well I would anyway, I might not agree with him about certain things.

To me there is something very wrong about willing myself to believe in God, it just doesn't seem right.

But if you are Christian then I respect your individual freedom to make that choice because I believe that all our individual freedoms are being threatened by repressive forces in our modern society.

I also think many religions and churches are hierarchical and authoritive institutions with no true spirituality.
 
Re: Christianity

Told ya' you were a lot smarter than me. well stated..... as for the feelings of guilt and despiar, these feelings should have no place in a true christians life. true forgivness relieves the guilt, and the inevedability of eternity with God should drive all despiar away.
now human tendencies and imperfections still mar a christians existance, and the choice to do wrong is often made. It is common for people in general to be very afraid of God, Like he is the schoolyard bully. they think that everytime that they do something wrong, God is going to get them..... I think that this theroy is wrong. God said that even our good works are like his dirty laundry. How can this be? Could God see our motives? Our attitudes? when is the last time each of us did something with a pure motive and good attitude? Well if he is going to GET US for doing wrong, then he is going to be working overtime to keep up.
i don't know where im going with this.....

oh well, i would love to sit down with each of you and talk about all the different stuff that gets posted on TB.... maybe we could do it over a beer....

yes, some christians drink

I find it hard to have a good argument, when you cant see expressions, and it takes hours or sometimes days to get a reply. it takes the wind out of the sails

Mark, maybe you and Tom could work on that
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Re: Christianity

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as for the feelings of guilt and despiar, these feelings should have no place in a true christians life.

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Unfortunately they do. Regardless of the all forgiving nature of God. I think for a true Christian who tries to read and understand the bible the New Testament's notion of everyone being born with original sin is a very hard concept to understand and can lead to feelings of anxiety and despair. This is basically a re writing of the story of Adam and Eve. But why should every child be condemned to inherit the sin of an ancient ancestor?

Look at it this way, Why did Adam break God's commandment and eat the apple from the tree of knowledge? The usual explanation is that the very idea of doing it tempted Adam and inspired him to break God's commandment.
But what if the real reason was that Adam was so scared of breaking the rule that he became consumed with anxiety, and so to release the anxiety he eats the apple to release himself from the temptation.

Anyway the decision was Adam's alone and no one else's, so he has to take responsibility for it. Not all his future generations of ancestors.
This is what I mean about making difficult choices on your own. You and you alone are responsible for them not anyone else.


Many Christians are preoccupied with sin.
 
Re: Christianity

I find it interesting that you use the term "true Christian" (hahaha!).

It was mentioned earlier in the thread that some folks believe in a yet future Armageddon, etc. Those people, whether they know it or not, are denying the "prophecy" made by the very person/entity/being they claim to follow. What they're actually promoting is the Judaic belief that the Messiah will one day come and restore the kingdom of Israel. In that sense, they're denying that Jesus was(/is) the Messiah.

They don't seem to have much trouble believing he came to do the first part of what he was going to do (though it would seem many of them feel it was merely an accidental event -- as though the all-powerful one-true God they proclaim could have his plans thwarted by a bunch of humans [the Jehovah's Witnesses evidently feel similarly about "the fall"; the very first thing they try to teach you is that God originally intended man to live forever in [an] Eden setting (... and one day he'll get it right) and when pressed for proof of that intention they just want to move on to the next lesson.]. Hence (back to before the JW rant) we have such notions as "the suspended 70'th week", "7 dispensations", etc.

The Rapture. Where do I start? The passages that talk about two being in the field and one taken, etc., are indeed referring to what would happen when "the end of the world" would come; the destruction of the remnants of the Kingdom of Israel with the high point being the final destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The individuals being "taken" were not the "good" guys, but the "bad". Just like when the Flood came and people were "taken", or when folks were "taken" at Sodom and Gemorah (spelling?). Read the darned passages for crying out loud! Those "in the know" were to see the signs and flee Jerusalem, not even going inside to get their stuff, so as to not be "taken".

Paul talks about "we will not all die but will go to be with God; at the last trumpet" (paraphrase; it was in one of the letters to the Corinthians). That might be construed as a "rapture" but I see it as more of a process not an event. Jesus talks about the rich man and Lazarus where one dies and is confined in a less than desireable location while the other is getting good treatment. It would seem as though up until man's redemption folks "slept" when they died but after that they would (all; both those who'd died before and those yet living) go to stand in judgment. Does the "judgment scene" necessarily mean "all at once" or is it "the way it will work from now on"? The former is preferred by those who feel the Bible teaches Jesus was wrong in what's recorded he told his disciples in direct answer to their direct questions, and it just so happens that notion usually coincides with "the end of the world is yet to come" teaching.

Insofar as one can feel a set of documents written over any length of time (could have) accurately predicted events which were future to that time and those events (provably) then took place just as foretold, folks who wish to follow Jesus yet deny he's already returned are missing out on the greatest proof he was legitimate. They are instead bordering on calling him a liar, or at least being mistaken.

One thing I find interesting is the phrase Paul wrote to Timothy: "... we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe". You get folks who believe in "predestination" saying "all men" means "only those who are predestined to be saved" (that's another can of worms; they have problems with passages that clearly state one can be "saved" and then turn their backs on God). I think the best thing to do with that sentence in the first letter to Timothy is to take it at face value. If you're a human, you're covered; if you want greater joy in that then then believe and act like it.

Oh, well, maybe I had a point when I started.

I might be inclined to elaborate on this a bit more what with there being no possibility I can get misunderstood to be a Nazi sympathizer or a fan of Hitler, etc., or that folks might be compelled here to try to put words in my "mouth" to make it seem so.
 
Re: Christianity

Faith in some kind of God needs to be completely separated from choosing to subscribe to a belief system. Faith, unlike belief, can be incremental, rather than achieved in a leap; evidence of God is more a feeling in the heart, not data received by the other senses. And though the post-modern mind may real in shame at such a non-empirical approach, atheism is empirical only in a rushed, ego-centric way -- like medical practice (as contrasted with "medical science".) In the end, the burden of proof is on neither "side". The choice to try faith is a momentary willingness in the individual to admit how little he/she can ever "know", and to allow his/her hearts to lead, even if for only a moment.

Most religions have mystical threads, and they all have in common an openess to a type of subjective, experience of a monistic God, an experience that in and of itself leads to greater and greater faith. Call it meditation, call it prayer (this is what the recent steps toward deep ecumenism have taught us). In a way, it makes the belief system itself almost irrelevent: when one prays beside someone with a completely different set of beliefs, and comes to the crystal clear realization that each of you is having exactly the same fundamental experience, there is clearly something universal at work. You may say that it is a universal proclivity to take the easy way out, and you may be right. But the problem with atheism is that, given the impossibility of proving either existence or non-existence, why deny yourself this experience? Go ahead and call it brain chemicals, or whatever, but open yourself, momentarily, to the experience. You can work out the belief system, and, if you're lucky, find like minded fellow travellers, later.
 
Re: Christianity

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as for the feelings of guilt and despiar, these feelings should have no place in a true christians life.

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Unfortunately they do. Regardless of the all forgiving nature of God. I think for a true Christian who tries to read and understand the bible the New Testament's notion of everyone being born with original sin is a very hard concept to understand and can lead to feelings of anxiety and despair.


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I dissagree. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6&7 (NIV)

I used to stuggle with anxiety and despair before I bacame a Christian (age 16). However, this verse is what I lean on.--The same goes for most Christians.
 
Re: Christianity

dont take this the wrong way....but how high can anxiety and despair levels actually be in someone before the age of 16?
 
Re: Christianity

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Look at it this way, Why did Adam break God's commandment and eat the apple from the tree of knowledge? The usual explanation is that the very idea of doing it tempted Adam and inspired him to break God's commandment.
But what if the real reason was that Adam was so scared of breaking the rule that he became consumed with anxiety, and so to release the anxiety he eats the apple to release himself from the temptation.

Anyway the decision was Adam's alone and no one else's, so he has to take responsibility for it. Not all his future generations of ancestors.
This is what I mean about making difficult choices on your own. You and you alone are responsible for them not anyone else.


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Again, I disagree: You have good speculation and your opinion you can keep.
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The way I see it from Genesis 3: Eve was approached and tempted (verse 1-5). Eve, then considered the temptation (verse 6). Adam went along with it (He was passive). He didn't stand for his convictions, nor did he try to protect Eve. He was with her, but the Serpent did not talk to Adam. (end of verse 6).

At that moment they didn't die a physical death. However, they were cursed (verse 14-19) and separated from God's presence(verse 23-24).--They sinned. And they passed that sin down to all generations.

--They had free will, yet they blew it for temporary satisfaction.

Now, that would be anxiety and despair.
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Re: Christianity

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dont take this the wrong way....but how high can anxiety and despair levels actually be in someone before the age of 16?

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You are kidding right?

Google "anxiety in teens", please.
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I will give you 2 names to summorize it: Dylan Klebold & Eric Harris.

If you'd like to hear what I was going through at that age let me know. I'll send you a personal message. But, I will warn you. There was a lot of crap in my life at the time.
 
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