A very dark topic...Read at your own risk.

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I wish I could have this discussion with some of you in real life. I have no one to talk "crazy" with anymore really.
I have been meaning to post a topic similar to this for quite sometime. I am fascinated by this entire subject, and dwell in the possibility or at least attempt to. There is a book entitled, God In All Worlds which is an anthology. There is a piece in there called "God is a Daoist" actaully, I enjoyed entire book. Is anyone else familar with it?
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set it light and set it free | http://esthete.milligram.org
 
I find it amazing that there are human beings on this planet that have the arrogance to believe that they could possibly KNOW beyond a reasonable doubt that there is or is not a god. (By the way, I'm not referring to most people in this topic, just humanity in general)
After all, we human beings (homo sapiens) have been on this planet for a loooonngggg time (either 2500 years or hundreds of thousands of years, depending on your point of view...heh) and we are only just now realizing the momentous nature of our universe, of how infinitely big our universe is, and how infinitely small our component parts are. We just put a man on the moon only 30 freakin years ago, and the moon is what, half a million miles away? Compare to trillions of trillions of stars that are infinitessimally farther away...if we can't figure out how to get there, how can we hope to understand the existence of god?
But of course, being the amazing beings that we are, we have no choice but to question and wonder why...and eventually, we WILL figure it out, the same way we figured out how to get to the moon. If there is a god, I have no doubt that he/she is applauding our efforts to explore ourselves through these questions.
I am grateful for this thread and for the people who are contributing to it. I don't think we are going to figure out the answer, but who knows. But I know that most people here are thinking with their heads and with their hearts, are questioning how strongly they feel and why they feel that way, and are by and large LISTENING with an open mind. That's a rare thing, especially with this kind of topic...keep it up kids!
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"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality."
-Jules de Gautier
[This message has been edited by AJe (edited 22 July 2000).]
 
Okay, time for another post from...me.
well, i would have to say that one post really intrigued me, it was by Turbo Monk, and two statements really got me, it was these two.....
"Many of us have believed things in the past that we no longer believe. We were in a measure of darkness. Satan's job is to hide the light and blind us with falsehood. A constant barrage of lies is aimed at every person's mind. These spirits lie to us about God- that He doesn't exist, or that He is not good and loving. They give us wrong concepts about others. Or they tell us lies about ourselves, making us hate ourselves. This is all darkness.
Evolution's scientific credentials are also no signifigance from a spiritual warfare point of view. Rather than arguing over strata and fossils, we only need to look at the results of evolutionary theory in the hearts and minds of men. It is an anti-God philosophy, justified with ludicrous propositions, and cleverly disguised as science. No other philosophy vomited onto this planet has damned more souls than evolution. No competitor from the pits of hell has half of its artful deceit.
well, i think that i will say that these views are something i have never come across before.
And as a strong believer of science being logical truth, i will have to comment on one very strong comment, a very strong comment that i would have never expected to hear from anyone
it is "It is an anti-God philosophy, justified with ludicrous propositions, and cleverly disguised as science."
now, Turbo Monk i ask you what promts you to say this???
You may be a very strong believer in religion, and believing that god created earth and man and that is the whole truth.
Okay, i respect that you may feel this way, but there has been many experiments done to prove the scientific theories.
Example- Urey Miller experiment. Proved that the conditions of the earth at the time would have created, from basic chemical compounds which arrived on earth on meteors from space, amino acids and things that are in the basic make-up of humans.
and evolution- everything has a common link with the immediate anscestors, and we all have a common link- carbon is the base of all living organisms.
So, saying it is not true and simply made up to form a society of people who are anti-christ is ridiculously closed minded.
A lot of religions say that there is 2 truths, the scientific truth, and the religious truth- these run along side each other as they are contradictory, only i find it too hard to believe in god- the christians higher being, as i see no actual proof for the existance, now or past, of anything of the sort.
I am not closed minded, i have simply not seen evidence for the existance.
But the whole satan blinding us from the truth, making us believe that god isn't real, i am closed minded on that issue, and this i apoligise for, but i see this in the same way you see scientific theories.
well, ciao peoples
smile.gif

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In a time of ancient gods, warlords and kings... a land in turmoil cried out fo a hero.... she was xena- a mighty princess forged in the heat of battle.
The power, the passion, the danger ..... her courage would change the world.
 
Turbo Monk, you probably also believe that Satan planted the dinosaur bones to contradict the Bible to piss off Christians.
Evolution is NOT anti-God.
Let me state this again,
Fact: If there is a God, it programmed evolution into the world so its organisms could adapt to their environment.
To argue that species don't adapt and improve over time is a complete insult to me, yourself, and the rest of the human race.
But then again, I could also argue that YOU don't appear to be evolving.
The fact that we're having this conversation is evidence of evolution of the human mind.
And as far as Satan goes, you can thank your God for creating that one.
"God cannot be both all good and all powerful. For if he will not defeat the devil, he cannot be all good. If he cannot, then he is not all powerful." - Unknown
You should also be careful, because Satan could very well be the one who is causing you to believe what you do.
"It is of course always best to be led by god, and have him personally whisper into your ear. Only, when it is the devil talking he will tell you he is god, for the devil is a crafty liar. So you never know who is talking to you." -- Franz Bibfeldt
 
Good quotes there Stasis
smile.gif

i like 'em
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In a time of ancient gods, warlords and kings... a land in turmoil cried out fo a hero.... she was xena- a mighty princess forged in the heat of battle.
The power, the passion, the danger ..... her courage would change the world.
 
I'd like to take this discussion in a slightly new direction, with my response here. This has less to do with whether or not God exists than it does about how we rationalize human behavior.

1.) Religion is the cause of much of man's inhumanity to man.

I seriously doubt this. There are a lot of things people fight over besides religion:

sex, money, power, race, or just for the hell of it. Religion is merely a veneer used to justify *some* of these actions--if it weren't religion, some other excuse would take its place. People can be as violent and cruel or as peaceful and caring as they want to be. Think, if we turned back the clock 1,000 years and magically took away all the world's religion and its "irrational" impulses, would the past millennium have been more peaceful? No way to know, but I doubt it.

Reason can even be used as a weapon against other people. So-called "scientific racism" was very popular in the U.S. and Europe from the late 19th through the early 20th century.
This held that some races were more or less evolved than others (with whites always at the top), and so were fit to be regarded as subhuman. This all happened in the wake of the popularization of "On the Origin of Species". Whether the science was bad or not doesn't matter--only that it was used to justify discrimination.

Take Nazism, for example. That had nothing to do with religion, though the target was a religious group. Hitler and company would all give seemingly rational, scientific reasons for doing what they did. Science and reason can be used to justify anything, and without the unscientific baggage of morals.
Even in a society that supposedly follows reason, contradictions abound. The Romans liked to think of themselves as a restrained, rational people--yet they worked themselves into a very irrational frenzy over people hacking themselves to pieces in the arena. Go figure.

2.) Atheism / agnosticism is a rational, ideal way of life.

Perhaps this is true. Perhaps people who espouse these beliefs are the happiest on the planet. But--would life be better if everyone followed it? This ties in closely with # 1. Say everyone woke up tomorrow and 90% of the U.S. population was either agnostic or atheist, and they ran the government at all levels. Would life be better without all the irrational religious banter we live with? Again, I doubt it.

I can see it already--the tide of public opinion would turn against the remaining 10% of the religious population, and I imagine they would make life difficult for those "superstitious morons". Maybe not outright persecution, but definitely not complete tolerance.
"Now wait here," Stasis or Trancendence will say, "I'D never do that, and that is completely contrary to the tenets of my beliefs." That may also be true. But you are not 270 million people with various life-histories, psychologies, and different motives for what they do. You all are probably familiar with the phenomenon of "groupthink" and how it can negatively affect behavior. As a variance on a quote from "Men in Black": A person is smart; people are dumb and impulsive. Let's also not forget that discrimination is against Christian tenets, yet it's practiced every day. So I imagine it would be the same with atheism / agnosticism.

3.) "To make a good person do bad things, that takes religion."--Stasis

I disagree with this yet again. This response ties in closely with the previous two.

As I said before, people are very complex, and can find any excuse to harm their fellow man. There have been many cases when this excuse is not religion.

The main problem I have with this explanation is that it begs the question: Who is a good person, and who is a bad one?
Morality / goodness is a whole other philosophical conundrum. Let's not go there, though. Is a bad person a Crusader who fought against the Muslims, killed countless civilians and soldiers, but who was a kind, dedicated family man at home?

Is a bad person a gay basher who can beat the sh*t out of a stranger, but be warm and collected at home? Who's to say Hitler or Stalin weren't nice guys when they were hanging with their pals (they *weren't* religious). Some people say I'm the nicest person they know, but my past to other people would make me an insensitive jerk (I assure you that religion had nothing to do with most of those occasions). With or without religion, would somebody be more or less "good"? Would Mother Theresa have been a philanthropist if she weren't Catholic? In short, I think goodness (or the lack thereof) is independent of any beliefs, and any links are nigh impossible to prove. As I said before, you can choose to be as nice or as cruel as you want to be.

I'll take a break for now...
[This message has been edited by Belisarius (edited 22 July 2000).]
 
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Ok people, I must say one thing to enlighten you all.
We are all God. We all make up God. All our "souls" combined form God. Or I could be full of shit. The only answer to all this (seriously) would be for the entire planet to commit mass-suicide. Now sure this would make everything make sense, I love the experience too much, whether it be good or bad. Shit, we could all be here, centuries from now reincarnated back into human bodies laughing about it all. Seriously I wish something would happen...we all gotta believe in what makes sense to us an makes living life content to our hearts.
 
Im hopeing everybody remembers that when your on the dancefloor and you have a rush of love come over you.. The music along with GOD is giving you a experience only you can figure out for yourself... Godd doesnt get mad... If anyone could show as much love as he does ide love to meet this person... My total thanks to god for making party kids so that for all reasons they can come into my life and have me learn my lessons as a human being.... MONICA
 
Im hopeing everybody remembers that when your on the dancefloor and you have a rush of love come over you.. The music along with GOD is giving you a experience only you can figure out for yourself... Godd doesnt get mad... If anyone could show as much love as he does ide love to meet this person... My total thanks to god for making party kids so that for all reasons they can come into my life and have me learn my lessons as a human being.... MONICA
 
"I can see it already--the tide of public opinion would turn against the remaining 10% of the religious population, and I imagine they would make life difficult for those "superstitious morons". Maybe not outright persecution, but definitely not complete tolerance."
I'm just glad it isn't the other way around, and a bunch of religious people are trying to tell me what I can and can't do with my own body, like drugs, sex, and....
Well, at least they aren't passing any *laws* against...
Well, at least the don't come knocking at my home on Sunday morning....
Well, at least they are civil about it, not describing my personal beliefs as something "Vomited onto this planet"....
Hmm. Nevermind.
BTW, for anyone who is interested in quantum mechanics: I read that Fermilab finally found the tau neutrino.
[This message has been edited by Rob (edited 22 July 2000).]
 
Hey Stasis,
You really did put a little doubt in my mind, then again it has always been there.
THE WORST PART OF THE BIBLE is the part where he tells you not be envious yet he is a jealous god
OR HOW ABOUT thou shalt not murder but he can kill people by drowning them? Over and over again!
YET I WOULDNT TOTALLY DISMISS HIM after all i could have been dead many many times and if I am still ALIVE then there has to be some one looking after me.
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"When information is outlawed only outlaws will have information"
[This message has been edited by 2sense-short (edited 22 July 2000).]
 
hey Stasis I just saw you like Indian Food man the shit is great.!!!!!
SORRY guys but the subject where i found this was closed!
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"When information is outlawed only outlaws will have information"
 
"after all i could have been dead many many times and if I am still ALIVE then there has to be some one looking after me."
Question, if I may.
(I am assuming that when you say dead, you mean no pulse or breathing, not brain-death)
Did modern medical technology/knowledge play any role in "restarting" your body each time? What I mean is, had the circumstances of your experiences been exactly the same except it had happened 100 years ago (or 500, or 1000), would you still be alive today? And I mean something even as simple as CPR/heimlich(sp).
If not, than I can understand your point of view. If so, would your faith be not better directed at the modern state of medical technology and knowledge? Because if someone had not been able to restart your body with anything from CPR to open heart surgery, you would be dead whether or not there was a God, no?
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"The idea of God sacrificing himself to himself, in order to prevent himself sending us all to Hell for commiting sins because of the way he made us, and which he know we were going to do anyway, is a little hard to swallow." - Adrian Barnett
 
Want to know why I (and many others) are so anti-religious?
Shit like this:
The Catholic Conference of Illinois and its hospitals said they will refuse to provide raped women with morning-after contraceptive pills, after the Illinois House passed legislation requiring hospitals to do so. Source: Chicago Sun-Times, March 29, 2000
I'm sorry, but if you are so deluded by religon that you think that a raped woman MUST CARRY THE CHILD OF HER ATTACKER, you are fucking sick.
If YOU want to carry that child because of your beliefs, more power to you, but religious zealots forcing their point of view like this make me physically ill. Does it seem sometimes that athiests/agnostics attack christians/cathlics specifically? Yes, but only because the jesus-based religions are the only ones forcing their point of view down other peoples throats. People get sick of it, and sometimes the fight back.
I'm sorry if this is probably way off the topic at hand, but reading that just pissed me the hell off.
 
Why hate all religions just because the Catholics do some stupid shit? They even make up a place between heaven and hell. Christ said everything is either from the tree of life or is not, there is no "in between." As of this red hot second, I don't know of any other Christian belief systems that conjure up Purgatory.
Btw.. I agree the belief that a woman should marry her attacker is absurd.
Stasis:
Improving how? Through technology? We are still succeptable(sp?) to cancer, which is our own doing. Several thousand years ago man lived longer because there wasn't pollution and chemicals added to foods that destroy our cells. How have we "adapted" to avoid this?
College geology and history books, do they illustrate man's inner stuggles in detail? Hardly.
The Bible is an account of man's spiritual quest, so don't expect to have all your geological puzzles answered there.
Dinosaur bones? Fossils? They are not as old as you think. Do you think an Earth-wide flood would be able to kill off most dinosaurs? Anyone remember a couple months ago, divers discovered lost cities? Would that not be evidence of a flood?
I truly think some people like the search more than they like the find.
There's also a tradeoff involved:
pro-creation: simple process in which we came into being, more disciplined moral and ethical codes
pro-evolution: complex, ongoing process in which we came into being, minimal moral and ethical codes
The US was founded on Biblical principles and I'd say it's made this country prosperous. Something that disturbs me as of late is America's newfound interest in restoring morals and values in itself and is looking in areas outside its origins. It's not using the same baseline to re-establish itself, so it will only make matters worse.
[This message has been edited by Turbo Monk (edited 23 July 2000).]
 
Turbo Monk-
You have no understanding of geology, astronomy, anthropology, etc. Evolution happened and is happening. Deal with it.
This country was not founded on Biblical of Christian principles. That's a common myth. Most of the founding fathers were Deists. They believed in God, but only as a creator (this is pre-Darwin, remember) and not as the Christian God. My favorite quote by Thomas Jefferson: "Question with boldness even the existence of God."
Everything you've said is the kind of bullshit propaganda I was told when I belonged to the church. Do what I did: get an education. Then you'll see what bullshit Christianity really is.
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Trance and Dance: the enlightened path to Trancendence.
[This message has been edited by Trancendance (edited 23 July 2000).]
 
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