What do you Believe??? (Religion)

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

3 minutes ago, The Sisko said:

A lot of theists think that atheists have no morals or belief system

 

 

Troubling.  The threat of personal punishment is not a way to go about treating people right.  Empathy > Fear.  Empathy is all around us, you feel other's pain and happiness.  You identify with it.

 

If a person is suffering near me I help.  Why?  Not because I want to go to heaven, but because I can identify with the suffering.  I want to relieve them of what I know is miserable.  Send me to hell, heaven, ham and chees sandwhich...I don't care.  I'm a good person because I have empathy.

 

11 minutes ago, The Sisko said:

Doublestroker wasn't entirely correct in how he stated it

 

HEY!  Excuse me....

 

Please make the o's 0's in my name, or I'll find it disrespectful and send you to eternal suffering.

[Renegade7]

@The Sisko before I respond to everything you jus said, I'd like to give @zCommander a chance to clarify what he said here so we're all in the same page:

 

On 2/17/2022 at 5:15 PM, zCommander said:

 If praying for stuff was an actual reality then there would be no famine or poverty or diseases, or cancer, just to name a few, in the world.

Edited February 24, 2022 by Renegade7

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

Clarify?  😆  I mean I ain't gonna speak for the guy...

 

He clearly means mass suffering continues to be an enormous black mark on our species, yet we can't pray it away.  WHY NOT?!?!  Come on, God!

 

Can I say that?  Is he cool? We cool God?

[Renegade7]

And Mark 11:24 doesn't prove you right:

 

Quote

²³ For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

²⁴ Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

 

The way I read this (and anyone can correct me on this) is again prayer alone isn't enough, you also have to have faith God will actually do it. This totally makes sense to me, if somebody who didn't believe God was real prayed for nothing bad to ever happen to them while also at the same time maintaining the argument God isn't real in order to prove he wasnt real, should that person reasonably expect their prayer to be answered?

 

I also brought up Mark 9:26-29, I need more time to fully digest what's being said lately in this thread so I don't rush a response, but I want to show I'm not ignoring yall.

3 minutes ago, d0ublestr0ker0ll said:

Clarify?  😆  I mean I ain't gonna speak for the guy...

 

He clearly means mass suffering continues to be an enormous black mark on our species, yet we can't pray it away.  WHY NOT?!?!  Come on, God!

 

Can I say that?  Is he cool? We cool God?

 

I say let him say that so we're on the same page of what we are all responding to.

Edited February 24, 2022 by Renegade7

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

2 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

 

I say let him say that so we're on the same page of what we are all responding to.

 

Alright so those are my words, I said that.  Forget me quoting him.

 

Why the **** all the mass suffering?  Are you praying for it to stop?  Why won't it?

[PeterMP]

6 hours ago, The Sisko said:

You're making an invalid comparison with this. I have empirical evidence that my wife and daughter love me. I see it every day in their actions that jibe with their verbal claims of love for me. However, in the Bible that some Christians accept as the unerring word of God and others at least accept as mostly true, there is evidence that God is a genocidal maniac. He killed the world's population except for Noah, his family, and various animals including penguins and polar bears that somehow managed to make their way from the frigid north to the desert to hop on a cramped ark. According to the Bible, he also killed the innocent, firstborn sons of the Egyptians to prove a point to a recalcitrant ruler. He killed Job's family and gave him replacements as though that was adequate compensation for the loss of unique individual lives - people that as an omnipotent being, he could have just raised from the dead BTW, but chose not to. Furthermore, this "loving" God ordered ethnic cleansing, being generous, or genocide if I'm not generous, against the Canaanites, among others. So, once Jesus shows up, I'm now supposed to believe that this same murderous, genocidal God is now all about love and forgiveness simply because, well, what? I've said it before in this thread I think, that I may be wrong and God does in fact exist. However, if the God of the Abrahamic religions does exist, by the evidence in his own book, he's not a moral being worthy of my friendship, let alone worship. Now even though I can't know with 100% certainty that my wife and daughter love me, I can say with the same degree of certainty that I don't have any proof they don't. Moreover, unlike theists with their God, if I ever was given proof my family didn't love me, I'd govern myself accordingly rather than excusing the behavior through various apologetics.

 

 

I've already addressed the idea that the Bible is unerring word of God in this thread.  The rise of taking the Bible literally as a major Christian belief is relatively new and recent.

 

From there, the rest is really irrelevant to whether to believe in (a) god.  The first baseline pass has to be is a belief in a god reasonable.  From there, the question becomes what god (or type of god) makes the most sense to believe in.

 

(And just pointing out that you are citing events from the Bible that there is good evidence to ignore.  The evidence that things like Noah's flood or Exodus happened as described are extremely weak.

 

You aren't arguing against a belief in God.  You are arguing against a specific strain of Christianity that really is relatively recent in terms of being a major form of Christianity.)

 

I can't and have no interest in defending fundamental Christians that take the Bible complete literally is the unerring word of God.  But that isn't historically what most Christians believed.  I've often argued here with people that believe that take the Bible complete literally and as the unerring word of God that they are wrong.

Edited February 24, 2022 by PeterMP

[Renegade7]

11 minutes ago, d0ublestr0ker0ll said:

 

Alright so those are my words, I said that.  Forget me quoting him.

 

Why the **** all the mass suffering?  Are you praying for it to stop?  Why won't it?

 

If you give me time I'll try to answer your questions here more in depth (all though this isn't the first time I or others have talked about this in this thread). 

 

They are important and fair questions.

 

Having said that, if you really want to know versus waiting for a chance to continue telling me I'm wrong, do your own research so we can compare notes over the weekend. Do not take this as a shot, if I said the earth was flat, none of you would wait for me to flesh out my argument before trying prove me wrong.

 

Sometimes I need to time before responding to something like @ClaytoAli last post in his black history month thread (I'm going to respond to you, but need to finish my research first before I do).

 

As has been noted by me and others, this is NOT an evangelism thread, this is a "What Do You Believe?" Thread.  I'm not attempting to convert anyone to believe what I believe, this is merely a place for us to talk about and have a healthy debate about it considering we all have own beliefs (some similar, some the same, some obviously widely different from each other).

[The Sisko]

4 hours ago, PeterMP said:

I've already addressed the idea that the Bible is unerring word of God in this thread.  The rise of taking the Bible literally as a major Christian belief is relatively new and recent.

 

From there, the rest is really irrelevant to whether to believe in (a) god.  The first baseline pass has to be is a belief in a god reasonable.  From there, the question becomes what god (or type of god) makes the most sense to believe in.

 

(And just pointing out that you are citing events from the Bible that there is good evidence to ignore.  The evidence that things like Noah's flood or Exodus happened as described are extremely weak.

 

You aren't arguing against a belief in God.  You are arguing against a specific strain of Christianity that really is relatively recent in terms of being a major form of Christianity.)

 

I can't and have no interest in defending fundamental Christians that take the Bible complete literally is the unerring word of God.  But that isn't historically what most Christians believed.  I've often argued here with people that believe that take the Bible complete literally and as the unerring word of God that they are wrong.

I understand that not all Christians believe this. However, once one accepts that it's not, in its entirety the inerrant word of God, how do you know which parts you should believe? I suppose many Christians simply write off much of it as "that stuff in the OT that you can't really trust." However, the NT is full of errors, forgeries, contradictions, etc. as well. At some point, it's difficult to know which parts of it to trust. Now you could say the universal stuff like loving thy neighbor and not murdering people and such is what can be absolutely trusted, but then other than sociopaths, nobody really needs a holy book to tell them those things. Besides, why would an omnipotent God reveal a book (or more accurately, a series of books that were melded together later) only to casually watch as (his) its revelation was corrupted, whether intentionally or otherwise? That kind of defeats the purpose, no?

As for the Muslims who love to go on about how the Quran hasn't been changed, I'll pretty much give them that. The problem is that their only achievement has been to carefully and meticulously preserve source material...that turned out to mostly just restate the myths of the Torah and Bible. Woo hoo!😑

Edited February 24, 2022 by The Sisko

[ClaytoAli]

4 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

 

If you give me time I'll try to answer your questions here more in depth (all though this isn't the first time I or others have talked about this in this thread). 

 

They are important and fair questions.

 

Having said that, if you really want to know versus waiting for a chance to continue telling me I'm wrong, do your own research so we can compare notes over the weekend. Do not take this as a shot, if I said the earth was flat, none of you would wait for me to flesh out my argument before trying prove me wrong.

 

Sometimes I need to time before responding to something like @ClaytoAli last post in his black history month thread (I'm going to respond to you, but need to finish my research first before I do).

 

As has been noted by me and others, this is NOT an evangelism thread, this is a "What Do You Believe?" Thread.  I'm not attempting to convert anyone to believe what I believe, this is merely a place for us to talk about and have a healthy debate about it considering we all have own beliefs (some similar, some the same, some obviously widely different from each other).

[PeterMP]

2 hours ago, The Sisko said:

I understand that not all Christians believe this. However, once one accepts that it's not, in its entirety the inerrant word of God, how do you know which parts you should believe? I suppose many Christians simply write off much of it as "that stuff in the OT that you can't really trust." However, the NT is full of errors, forgeries, contradictions, etc. as well. At some point, it's difficult to know which parts of it to trust. Now you could say the universal stuff like loving thy neighbor and not murdering people and such is what can be absolutely trusted, but then other than sociopaths, nobody really needs a holy book to tell them those things. Besides, why would an omnipotent God reveal a book (or more accurately, a series of books that were melded together later) only to casually watch as (his) its revelation was corrupted, whether intentionally or otherwise? That kind of defeats the purpose, no?

As for the Muslims who love to go on about how the Quran hasn't been changed, I'll pretty much give them that. The problem is that their only achievement has been to carefully and meticulously preserve source material...that turned out to mostly just restate the myths of the Torah and Bible. Woo hoo!😑

 

1.  Your question was answered by Christian thinkers centuries ago.  It is difficult to know what is accurate.  That's why God gave us the ability to reason and think.

 

You do understand that's where modern science comes from.  Church thinkers (most notably St. Augustine) looked at the Bible and said some of this has issues, but God has given us logic and the ability to understand the world around and by using that logic and studying nature we will better understand God, his creation, and what parts of the Bible to believe.

 

Early scientists, like Copernicus and Galileo, were influenced by St. Augustine.  They were doing what they were doing to understand God.  So my answer to your question is science (and other methods of intellectual studies) just as it would have been for Galileo.

 

2.  Some people clearly don't know to love their neighbor etc.  At a time when Russia is invading Ukraine, it seems like an odd thing to claim that people know.  And human life appears to have had less value and human society more tribal in the past.  What is more self-evident today was less self-evident in the past.  You're determining something is self-evident as somebody whose life and society has been shaped by Christian thinking.

 

(Even the idea of science as a process to understand nature today is seems self-evident.  But at the time of St. Augustine that wasn't the case.)

 

3.  I tend to think God has mixed objectives.  God wants us to know God and wants us to have free will.  The more God reveals (especially in the context of modern science) the less free will we have.  If we had an ancient book that was full of absolute truths and 100% historically accurate, that would erode (and really destroy) the free will that humans have to believe in God or not.  Also the humans that had the Bible had free will.  For God to have prevented corruption of the Bible would have required eliminating their free will. So God walks a tight rope with information to give us a path to God but also to leave us independent.

 

11 hours ago, The Sisko said:

Doublestroker wasn't entirely correct in how he stated it, but that's not how this works. The burden of proof is on the one making extraordinary claims. An all powerful God is exactly such an extraordinary claim. 

 

I wanted to come back to this that was a part of a response to somebody else.  The idea that a belief in God is an extraordinary claim seems odd.  Certainly in the course of human history more people have believed in a higher power than not.  And I'm pretty sure that's still the case.

 

How can something that most people believe in be an extraordinary claim?

 

Who makes the decision that something is an extraordinary claim?

Edited February 24, 2022 by PeterMP

[The Sisko]

12 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

And Mark 11:24 doesn't prove you right:

 

 

The way I read this (and anyone can correct me on this) is again prayer alone isn't enough, you also have to have faith God will actually do it. This totally makes sense to me, if somebody who didn't believe God was real prayed for nothing bad to ever happen to them while also at the same time maintaining the argument God isn't real in order to prove he wasnt real, should that person reasonably expect their prayer to be answered?

 

I also brought up Mark 9:26-29, I need more time to fully digest what's being said lately in this thread so I don't rush a response, but I want to show I'm not ignoring yall.

No problem. We've all got a lot of stuff going on.

 

I'm totally not understanding your point. I'm sure there are some people that pray for stuff and don't have a lot of faith, but surely some of them do. This idea is really unfair though. My sister in law died at 37 from lung cancer. My mother in law who was/is really religious and genuinely, truly believes and did all the things before her advanced dementia prevented her from participating anymore prayed her ass off, but to no avail. So you're saying she just didn't believe strongly enough? She didn't even have the faith of a mustard seed? Which, according to the Bible is all it takes to move mountains. OTOH, maybe its because she made the mistake of being a JDub and God doesn't like people ringing his doorbell and waking him up early on Saturday mornngs. Forgive the snark, but even over a decade later this is still sensitive territory for me and it's part of what opened my eyes to the emperor having no clothes.

 

That brings me to the free will argument. Let's say I accept it. I don't but we can easily remove it from the equation by taking into account situations where it's not involved. So, did the people that died in hurricanes, tsunamis, random accidents, or sitting in a church praying before they were shot down, etc. have any choice? So why weren't their prayers answered? Now maybe the only ones to survive these kinds of things are the people with true faith. But then very often, people survive who aren't Christians or even theists, so that can't be it.

 

So, getting back to what we believe, I have found that it's much more distressing to me that there could be a being that most people consider benevolent who stands by and watches as the free will he's given is misused to hurt innocent people or just allows random accidents to happen in spite of the pleas of people that believe in him and even love him. Instead, it's much more comforting for me that the universe is simply a random place where stuff happens sometimes. Sometimes, maybe even most of the time to good people. I'm not a Five Percenter, but the idea that we're all our own gods makes much more sense to me than the idea of an omniscient allegedly loving being that somehow allows so much misery to befall those who, as he commands, love and worship him. Again, maybe such a being exists but it's immaterial to me because if it does, the best case scenario is that based on the evidence, it is completely disinterested in our welfare.

 

5 hours ago, PeterMP said:

 

1.  Your question was answered by Christian thinkers centuries ago.  It is difficult to know what is accurate.  That's why God gave us the ability to reason and think.

 

You do understand that's where modern science comes from.  Church thinkers (most notably St. Augustine) looked at the Bible and said some of this has issues, but God has given us logic and the ability to understand the world around and by using that logic and studying nature we will better understand God, his creation, and what parts of the Bible to believe.

 

Early scientists, like Copernicus and Galileo, were influenced by St. Augustine.  They were doing what they were doing to understand God.  So my answer to your question is science (and other methods of intellectual studies) just as it would have been for Galileo.

 

2.  Some people clearly don't know to love their neighbor etc.  At a time when Russia is invading Ukraine, it seems like an odd thing to claim that people know.  And human life appears to have had less value and human society more tribal in the past.  What is more self-evident today was less self-evident in the past.  You're determining something is self-evident as somebody whose life and society has been shaped by Christian thinking.

 

(Even the idea of science as a process to understand nature today is seems self-evident.  But at the time of St. Augustine that wasn't the case.)

 

3.  I tend to think God has mixed objectives.  God wants us to know God and wants us to have free will.  The more God reveals (especially in the context of modern science) the less free will we have.  If we had an ancient book that was full of absolute truths and 100% historically accurate, that would erode (and really destroy) the free will that humans have to believe in God or not.  Also the humans that had the Bible had free will.  For God to have prevented corruption of the Bible would have required eliminating their free will. So God walks a tight rope with information to give us a path to God but also to leave us independent.

 

 

I wanted to come back to this that was a part of a response to somebody else.  The idea that a belief in God is an extraordinary claim seems odd.  Certainly in the course of human history more people have believed in a higher power than not.  And I'm pretty sure that's still the case.

 

How can something that most people believe in be an extraordinary claim?

 

Who makes the decision that something is an extraordinary claim?

Much of this is highly flawed reasoning. In order:

1. These same free thinkers who weren't necessarily trying to contradict scripture or dogma, nonetheless ran afoul of the church and were persecuted for their "heretical" scientific ideas. The view you're espousing, i.e. "God created the universe and put it there for us to discover how it works", was a thing in the Islamic empire until around the time of al-Ghazali at which point the Islamic Luddites took sway and imposed a distrust of science and reason that resulted in a decline that continues to this day. I'd argue that the US version of al-Ghazali, not as an individual but collectively as the 'Muricun Taliban, is attempting to do the same thing to this country, so far with some success. Good luck with that.

2. I didn't say that people always act on the knowledge of morality, simply that they don't need a religious book to tell them of it. Humans typically have a concience. It's not typical of them to always act upon it. Whether they do or not, seems to be independent of their adherence to Christianity or any other religion. Religious people can be putzes and so can atheists. Neither of the ideas seems to affect human behavior much one way or the other.

3. So God took free will away from the copiers of the Quran who managed to bring it to the present day without any material changes but allowed the "truth" of the Bible to be changed just to give Christians a Rubics cube of doctrine to decipher?

3A. Claiming the existence of God(s) is by definition an extraordinary claim. Do Gods die? Are they limited by human-like frailties? Is it normal or typical for anyone or anything in human experience to be omniscient? Omnipotent? Ominpresent? Has anyone or anything in human history been able to perform miracles like raising the dead, multiplying food to feed multitudes, returning after his/its own death, walking on water, etc.? Hell, the very meaning of the word miracle is an extraordinary event and by definition a God is a being outside human existence, time, and understanding. Please explain how that's not an extraordinary claim.

3B. As for validity based on numbers of adherents, billions of Hindus also believe in a pantheon of Gods. Are you saying that argues for the existence of Hindu Gods alongside your God simply because bazillions of people have believed in them for over a thousand years before Jesus' birth?

Edited February 25, 2022 by The Sisko

[PeterMP]

1 hour ago, The Sisko said:

No problem. We've all got a lot of stuff going on.

 

I'm totally not understanding your point. I'm sure there are some people that pray for stuff and don't have a lot of faith, but surely some of them do. This idea is really unfair though. My sister in law died at 37 from lung cancer. My mother in law who was/is really religious and genuinely, truly believes and did all the things before her advanced dementia prevented her from participating anymore prayed her ass off, but to no avail. So you're saying she just didn't believe strongly enough? She didn't even have the faith of a mustard seed? Which, according to the Bible is all it takes to move mountains. OTOH, maybe its because she made the mistake of being a JDub and God doesn't like people ringing his doorbell and waking him up early on Saturday mornngs. Forgive the snark, but even over a decade later this is still sensitive territory for me and it's part of what opened my eyes to the emperor having no clothes.

 

That brings me to the free will argument. Let's say I accept it. I don't but we can easily remove it from the equation by taking into account situations where it's not involved. So, did the people that died in hurricanes, tsunamis, random accidents, or sitting in a church praying before they were shot down, etc. have any choice? So why weren't their prayers answered? Now maybe the only ones to survive these kinds of things are the people with true faith. But then very often, people survive who aren't Christians.

 

So, getting back to what we believe, I have found that it's much more distressing to me that there could be a being that most people consider benevolent who stands by and watches as the free will he's given is misused to hurt innocent others or just allows random accidents to happen in spite of the pleas of people that believe in him and even love him. Instead, it's much more comforting for me that the universe is simply a random place where stuff happens sometimes. Sometimes, maybe even most of the time to good people. I'm not a Five Percenter, but the idea that we're all our own gods makes much more sense to me than the idea of an omniscient allegedly loving being that somehow allows so much misery to befall those who, as he commands, love and worship him. Again, maybe such a being exists but it's immaterial to me because if it does, the best case scenario is that based on the evidence, it is completely disinterested in our welfare.

 

Much of this is highly flawed reasoning. In order:

1. These same free thinkers who weren't necessarily trying to contradict scripture or dogma, nonetheless ran afoul of the church and were persecuted for their "heretical" scientific ideas. The view you're espousing, i.e. "God created the universe and put it there for us to discover how it works", was a thing in the Islamic empire until around the time of al-Ghazali at which point the Islamic Luddites took sway and imposed a distrust of science and reason that resulted in a decline that continues to this day. I'd argue that the US version of al-Ghazali, not as an individual but collectively as the 'Muricun Taliban, is attempting to do the same thing to this country, so far with some success. Good luck with that.

2. I didn't say that people always act on the knowledge of morality, simply that they don't need a religious book to tell them of it. Humans typically have a concience. It's not typical of them to always act upon it. Whether they do or not, seems to be independent of their adherence to Christianity or any other religion. Religious people can be putzes and so can atheists. Neither of the ideas seems to affect human behavior much one way or the other.

3. So God took free will away from the copiers of the Quran who managed to bring it to the present day without any material changes but allowed the "truth" of the Bible to be changed just to give Christians a Rubics cube of doctrine to decipher?

3A. Claiming the existence of God(s) is by definition an extraordinary claim. Do Gods die? Are they limited by human-like frailties? Is it normal or typical for anyone or anything in human experience to be omniscient? Omnipotent? Ominpresent? Has anyone or anything in human history been able to perform miracles like raising the dead, multiplying food to feed multitudes, returning after his/its own death, walking on water, etc.? Hell, the very meaning of the word miracle is an extraordinary event and by definition a God is a being outside human existence, time, and understanding. Please explain how that's not an extraordinary claim.

3B. As for the validity of numbers of adherents, billions of Hindus also believe in a pantheon of Gods. Are you saying that argues for the existence of Hindu Gods alongside your God simply because bazillions of people have believed in them for over a thousand years before Jesus' birth?

 

That people ran afoul of other people doesn't make the answer a bad answer, not the truth, and isn't really evidence that it isn't logical.  Any time your attack an argument is that some people didn't like it or it makes some people mad, that's a weak argument.  And isn't good evidence that the argument isn't true, reasonable, or logical.

 

But especially in the context of your argument, this is nonsensical.  I think all Christians are wrong and that God doesn't exist.  Oh but your argument is flawed because it makes some Christians unhappy.  How does that logic make any sense?

 

For centuries most cultures allowed and accepted some form of slavery.  People's concise didn't bother them with enough to end slavery.  If you showed up essentially anywhere on the planet in 1000 AD going back into ancient history from the start of human civilization and said that slavery is inherently wrong, essentially all of the population would have disagreed with you.  Things started to change when people started to look at religious text (in the west the Bible via Quakers) and said this is wrong.  What is largely self-evident to us today (that slavery is inherently wrong) was not self-evident to people for millennia.  And the fact that it is largely self-evident to us today is the work of people acting based on religious text, including the Bible.  It is easy to sit here today in world that has been shaped by religious texts and people thinking about the right things to do in the context of religious texts and say that people don't need religious text to do the right thing.  But history suggest otherwise.

 

The history of the Quran is different than the Bible, especially the OT.  The Quran is much more recent so there has simply been less time to accumulate differences, been much more in control of a central authority, and in an area and time where communication has been more seamless.  Keeping it constant didn't really require negating people's free will by God

 

(And this is where I honestly have to ask.  Can you not really see that yourself?  Can you really not look at the history of the Quran and the history of the Bible, especially the OT and not see why the Bible is likely to have accumulated changes that the Quran hasn't or are you just making stupid arguments without thinking?  Do you actually put any thought into what you are writing or are you just arguing for the sake of arguing?)

 

There are lots of questions that remain unanswered about our universe.  That doesn't make the claim that our universe exist an extraordinary claim.  And you've simply repeated yourself.

 

If I went around and started saying that I'm 50 years old and never played a lick of professional basketball but I could still go score 50 in an NBA game, most people would say that doesn't seem true.  Most people would say the claim is likely false.  Then I could seeing I made an extraordinary claim.

 

The claim that there is a higher power is a claim that most people alive today and in history accept (I believe). 

 

I wouldn't claim that the existence of the Hindu gods is an extraordinary claim.  It isn't something that I personally believe.  But I wouldn't claim that everything that I don't believe in is an extraordinary claim.  Which is what you seem to be doing.

Edited February 25, 2022 by PeterMP

[Renegade7]

@The Sisko I saw your post with this in It and want to make time to address it:

 

Quote

So you're saying she just didn't believe strongly enough? 

 

Absolutely not. That is not what I'm saying at all.

 

I am sorry for your losses, I truly am.  Both my Dad's parents died from complications with cancer and went to church as much as they could all the way to end, and it didn't change that one bit.

 

We are humans, not immortals, we all know this and Bible even says that.  It is terrible what happened to your SIL and MIL, but i dont agree with implying that they died because God didn't care about them or they weren't Christian enough.

 

Let me know if you still don't understand my point you were quoting, and I noticed you have some of the same questions concerning human suffering with respect to God doing something (or "nothing") about it as @d0ublestr0ker0ll

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Renegade7

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

4 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

Let me know if you still don't understand my point you were quoting, and I noticed you have some of the same questions concerning human suffering with respect to God doing something (or "nothing") about it as 

@d0ublestr0ker0ll

 

I don't believe in God NOT to disprove him.  I have no intention to, because if I have proof I will accept HIM as real.   I take things at face value, however. 

 

You have a long winded story with long winded explainations after 2000 years of being able to provide proof.  How about a "duh, he's real, this is why" sentence.  Keep it short and sweet.

 

Why won't God be cool if I question his existence?  Is he that egotistical?

 

Almost as egotistical as he is stealthy.

Edited February 25, 2022 by d0ublestr0ker0ll

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

Sorry

Edited February 25, 2022 by d0ublestr0ker0ll

[zCommander]

On 2/22/2022 at 10:40 PM, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Could you give me an example of anything that has been proven not to exist?

 

2000+ years ago people thought the Sun revolved around the Earth but it was later proved that it was the Earth that revolves around the Sun instead. The Earth being flat would be another one. 

 

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by zCommander

[bearrock]

54 minutes ago, d0ublestr0ker0ll said:

 

I don't believe in God NOT to disprove him.  I have no intention to, because if I have proof I will accept HIM as real.   I take things at face value, however. 

 

You have a long winded story with long winded explainations after 2000 years of being able to provide proof.  How about a "duh, he's real, this is why" sentence.  Keep it short and sweet.

 

Why won't God be cool if I question his existence?  Is he that egotistical?

 

Almost as egotistical as he is stealthy.

 

If existence of God was amenable to proof, it would not be called faith.  You don't believe.  Fine.  Other people do.  What difference does that make to you?

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

5 minutes ago, bearrock said:

 

If existence of God was amenable to proof, it would not be called faith.  You don't believe.  Fine.  Other people do.  What difference does that make to you?

 

I don't want to burn in anguish for eternity...lol.

[bearrock]

2 minutes ago, d0ublestr0ker0ll said:

 

I don't want to burn in anguish for eternity...lol.

 

Well, if monotheistic God doesn't exist you won't. *shrug*

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

Just now, bearrock said:

 

Well, if monotheistic God doesn't exist you won't. *shrug*

 

If he does, *shrugs in lava*

[Renegade7]

6 minutes ago, d0ublestr0ker0ll said:

 

I don't want to burn in anguish for eternity...lol.

 

Maybe i misread your posts, but I thought you didn't believe in God, so what do you have to worry about? : )

 

Are you atheist or agnostic?

 

Honestly, and I don't mean this with any disrespect, but I'm not convinced you are actually trying to have a debate about religion in this thread and more airing your frustrations with it. 

 

Which is totally fine, those no rule that says you can't do that.  Just...I'm going to keep that in mind when I respond to your posts in here...

[CousinsCowgirl84]

5 hours ago, zCommander said:

 

2000+ years ago people thought the Sun revolved around the Earth but it was later proved that it was the Earth that revolves around the Sun instead. The Earth being flat would be another one. 

 

 

So what didn’t exist?

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

15 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

 

Maybe i misread your posts, but I thought you didn't believe in God, so what do you have to worry about? : )

 

Are you atheist or agnostic?

 

Honestly, and I don't mean this with any disrespect, but I'm not convinced you are actually trying to have a debate about religion in this thread and more airing your frustrations with it. 

 

Which is totally fine, those no rule that says you can't do that.  Just...I'm going to keep that in mind when I respond to your posts in here...

 

I am not athiest, I question everything.

 

I am agnostic to a very high degree.

 

I see a bunch of horsehockey having to be argued with huge amounts of writing.

 

If God is proven, well I don't want to ****ing burn forever.

 

Sorry God.  I should've believed in you.

 

Hope (his...not hers) ego is chillin.

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

John Cena is God.

[tshile]

I am also agnostic (I think?) and I have that same concern where it’s like - man if I’m wrong I’ll burn in hell so that sucks. Quite a gamble we got here. 
 

unfortunately, or fortunately maybe, I was raised Christian and at some point during confirmation this discussion was had and it was taught that no, god doesn’t respect hedging your bets. You can’t die and be like “oh **** you’re real. Cool I believe now”

 

which sucks for me cause I really like to see evidence for something before I, I don’t know, determine it’s how I will live the rest of my life… 

 

it’s very unsettling. What if like I go to hell because I didn’t “believe in God”, and my family friends are in heaven like “damn, tshile didn’t make it”

 

But “I don’t want to go to hell” isn’t really an acceptable form of believing in god. At least that’s how I was taught. It’s a bit bigger investment than that. 
 

i resign myself to trying to be an honest and nice person; I help out when I can. But I do not live a strictly Christian life. i prefer to believe that, if the god I was raised to believe in exists, he’s capable of understanding your intentions and knows everything about who you are and what type of person you are. The rest is just window dressing. 
 

I haven’t been to church in 25 years. I always felt like I was surrounded by hypocrite at church - preaching love thy neighbor and then badmouthing anyone that’s character doesn’t conform to their values (other religions, gay people, etc) My children aren’t even baptized yet - which is difficult to do because we don’t belong to a church and “we just want to get our kids baptized” isn’t really a thing around here. They all want you to establish your family as members first. I want my children baptized, I don’t consider myself an atheist. I’m not in any way opposed to the idea there is a god. 
 

im just not a fan of organized religion. 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2022 by tshile