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Are you religious beliefs logically consistent?

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  • #16
    I second that. :dontcare
    A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

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    • #17
      Which part? ;)

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      • #18
        Everything in the Universe just being created, betrays the laws of Physics. Matter can not be created or destroyed. This means it had to exsist as matter or energy for an infinitly long time.

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        • #19
          Battleground Analysis
          Congratulations!
          You have been awarded the TPM medal of distinction! This is our second highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.

          The fact that you progressed through this activity without being hit and biting only one bullet suggests that your beliefs about God are internally consistent and well thought out.


          A direct hit would have occurred had you answered in a way that implied a logical contradiction. The bitten bullet occurred because you responded in a way that required that you held a view that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. However, because you bit only one bullet and avoided direct hits completely you still qualify for our second highest award. A good achievement!

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          • #20
            Regarding the "people dying of painful diseases for a higher purpose" question:

            You've just bitten a bullet!

            Many people cannot accept what you have just accepted; namely, that a loving God - a God who possesses great power and insight - has created the world in such a way that people need to suffer horribly for some higher purpose. There is no logical contradiction in your position, but some would argue that it is obscene. Could you really look someone dying of a horrible flesh-eating disease in the eye, and tell them that their suffering is for the greater good of themselves or the world?
            In MY beliefs, if you have faith in (your) God, when you die, HOWEVER you die, it's because that's how it's supposed to happen. That's how cancer, dying babies, etc., can all be rationalized. Their pain/sacrifice was for a purpose. Again, just my belief...
            I never understood "fire for effect". I thought the firing WAS the effect...

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            • #21
              I believe God created the matter of the universe, set into motion the big bang, and then went off to other endeavours.

              I also don't believe there is a single person alive that has the first friggin clue what god wants, doesnt want, desires, or abhores.

              I believe it is only man's arrogance to profess to know what God desires that has led to religion- the number one cause of war and death throughout history.

              I certainly don't belive God gives a damn what i eat, or how i dress...and view those that do as little more than foolish sheep that have bought into the ultimate scam.

              If i had to identify what i think God 'is', i would point to mother nature in her entirety.

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              • #22
                "And next, kids, we'll have Sniper giving us his haiku on peace, entitled "Hot Lead Headed for You"..."
                I never understood "fire for effect". I thought the firing WAS the effect...

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                • #23
                  I second that poorly worded part!

                  But pretty much my idea of God is very similar as that of Snipe's except i still dont know who/what created the universe. Unless they dont provide a concrete answer I still cannot believe the existance of God. But may be i believe in my conscience and a bigger power , mother nature.

                  To me any one who helps man kind/me is a God, not that i'm gonna bow aqnd pray in front of them. But there are certain qualities with in ourselves that makes us godly.

                  Also I dont believe in after life, heaven and hell.

                  Most of all, I dont even want a religion, I respect your thpughts, but please dont preach me yours.

                  All in all I guess I'm a Paganist, who believes in nature...Sun, moon etc.
                  A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

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                  • #24
                    *** The following is not to be misconstrued as "preaching," merely sharing a point of view, so hopefully nobody will be offended. ***

                    Christianity (like most other religions) is sometimes referred to as a "faith"... 'Christian faith,' 'Jewish faith,' 'Muslim faith,' etc.

                    The reason for that word choice is simple. You can take the Bible, Talmud, Torah, Quran/Koran, or any other religious texts, and read them cover to cover. Stand-alone, you have stories that amount to nothing more than Aesop's fables or nursery rhymes.

                    The KEY to any religion which deifies a higher being (God, Jesus Christ, Allah, etc.) is the believers' faith. The writings and the structure of the religion are set up so that you HAVE to simply "believe" without proof of existence, plain and simple. The reason for that? Because your deity says so. Period. It's a frustrating, ironic twist that scholars and laymen have discussed, debated and rebutted for centuries now. People have lost their lives, statuses, jobs, families and probably a few have lost their minds over this conundrum. To believe with no physical, tangible proof, or to disbelieve without anything solid to back the religion on...

                    I guess for most people it comes down to a gut check of sorts. Either you feel that something's out there, watching over us (the details of this part are individual to the faiths), or you feel that we're all masses of organic compounds that stemmed from monkeys, which stemmed from less-evolved mammals, which stemmed from... ... ...which stemmed from single-celled organisms which were created from a combination of chemicals being given a spark in the ocean during some electrical storm billions of years ago (or, insert your own theory here).

                    Point is, they're called "faiths" because that's what they require. If you don't have it, then that's your right. If you wanna worship tinfoil hats, that's your prerogative too. Once we're in the ground feeding worms, who truly knows what the real answers are? It's all about what you're comfortable believing.
                    I never understood "fire for effect". I thought the firing WAS the effect...

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                    • #25
                      Once we're in the ground feeding worms, who truly knows what the real answers are? It's all about what you're comfortable believing.
                      dunno when others wud understand this simple concept :puke
                      A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        There is proof of God, but it does not extend beyond the proof that matter exists, and that it came from somewhere, and that the explanation for that totally defies science.

                        Matter cannot have 'always' existed, because time has a starting point.

                        Before the beginning of time, nothing existed.

                        So, it was God that started the shot clock.

                        Anything beyond that is pure conjecture.

                        Of course, these are just my opinions, and i would not blow myself up over them either.

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                        • #27
                          Then what created God?

                          By your same logic God had to have had a starting point.

                          It is far more plausible that the matter/energy that makes up the universe has always exsisted then a being that has exsisted forever and then one day decided to create something out of nothing.
                          Last edited by Praxus; 23 Oct 03,, 01:19.

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                          • #28
                            *** Again, simply my own opinion; not meant to step on others' beliefs. ***

                            1. God has existed forever, before everything else, before anything else, and is all-powerful.

                            2. God "got bored" (for lack of a better expression), and decided to create our universe.

                            3. God created the matter by which our universe has been constructed, produced the 'Big Bang,' and began modeling everything. (I liken this part to coming home wanting to build something, throwing a bag of miscellaneous parts on your garage floor, scattering things all around, and building random stuff.)

                            In order to accept the belief that God is all-seeing and omnipotent, you have to accept that He has existed forever. He could've just been bored 'til he created our universe... or He could've been busy creating billions of other universes, one after another. The Bible and what current Christian ideas say about God and 'creation theory' only really points to OUR universe and world. God could've been cranking out totally different things in tons of other dimensions. He could have trillions of other universes (or whatever else His infinite imagination could come up with) all co-existing right now, running in different dimensions, that we might never be able to understand or discover.

                            Again, I point all of this back toward the word "faith". God knows it's hard to believe in something that we human beings with our rational, scientific minds cannot touch, see, smell, taste or hear. If it were easy and there was physical proof enough for everyone, I would assume atheism would lose some of its followers, as would a few other religions. It's for reasons like this that a lot of people choose to follow 'Deism,' whereby their religious beliefs agree with the fact that there is indeed a 'higher power,' but they don't necessarily agree on which form this 'higher power' exists in.

                            I love religious discussion... took a class a few years ago in college that was all about viewing someone else's religious beliefs through their eyes, and trying to understand them. Not accept them necessarily, but just to see how and why they can believe the way they do. Discussion was awesome, and helped me get some of my "God theories" out in the open. I could go on and on, but I'd probably end up seeming like a "bad Christian" with some of the stuff I've rationalized out...
                            I never understood "fire for effect". I thought the firing WAS the effect...

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                            • #29
                              Originally posted by Praxus
                              Then what created God?

                              By your same logic God had to have had a starting point.

                              It is far more plausible that the matter/energy that makes up the universe has always exsisted then a being that has exsisted forever and then one day decided to create something out of nothing.
                              you limit said being to "our" laws of time and phsyics.

                              Edit: to expand on that, consider this. God (or any of His other names) isn't bound by our definition of reality. Past present and future mean nothing because by His very nature he transends all time. Imagine being cognizant of every milisecond of your life from begining to end and being able to operate in any one millisecond that you choose in no particular order..... at some poin the idea of "time" loses its meaning.
                              Last edited by Stinger; 23 Oct 03,, 15:47.
                              Your look more lost than a bastard child on fathers day.

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                              • #30
                                My point exactly, Stinger.

                                If you classify any being or entity as "all-powerful," you have to, by definition, give that being the attributes of being able to do WHATEVER he/she/they/it wants.

                                Example: the omnipotent being of your choice could, in theory, simultaneously destroy all existence, and recreate it at exactly the same 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001-th of a second, so that we don't know as humans that we have just been 'blanked out' and brought back at all. Kinda far-fetched, but it could happen. If the entity were, in fact, all-powerful. Which all deities that I know of (God, Allah, etc.) are supposed to be.

                                Too many times people discussing religion get trapped inside the limits of our own experience and senses. Logic takes over, but that logic is based on our world as WE see it. It's kinda like 'The Matrix.' Things happen the way they do inside the Matrix because the ones that KNOW it's just a program are able to rationalize breaking rules like gravity, flight, etc. The rest of humanity trapped in the Matrix can't do the wicked kung-fu or jump across skyscrapers because they view their world with the rules that we as humans have learned are "matter-of-fact." But in order to have an all-knowing, all-powerful God (or other deity), you have to realize that NONE OF THOSE RULES APPLY TO THEM. Time, age, physical senses, space, gravity, sickness, death, hunger, matter/anti-matter creation... nothing can stick on an all-powerful being... they MADE those rules and laws of physics. You can't constrain them with rules that they made, and that it took us humans thousands of years to understand and finally put into mathematical equations.
                                I never understood "fire for effect". I thought the firing WAS the effect...

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