Why are you religious/non-religious?

[Dark Lord Cam]

To be fair, many religions with polytheistic beliefs did have a single supreme god above all the others. The Christian god is just different in that he asks you to never follow any other god. What I find interesting is that he never states himself that the other gods do not exist. He only wants you to ignore them.

I could be somewhat wrong about that.

[VirtualWeasel]

To be fair, many religions with polytheistic beliefs did have a single supreme god above all the others. The Christian god is just different in that he asks you to never follow any other god. What I find interesting is that he never states himself that the other gods do not exist. He only wants you to ignore them.

I could be somewhat wrong about that.

This is... Wonderfully interesting...

[Dark Lord Cam]

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/gods.html

Indeed. Looks like I found a contradiction.

[JockoBeans]

To be fair, many religions with polytheistic beliefs did have a single supreme god above all the others. The Christian god is just different in that he asks you to never follow any other god. What I find interesting is that he never states himself that the other gods do not exist. He only wants you to ignore them.

I could be somewhat wrong about that.

We must look at the mindset of the people of those times. To acknowledge a supreme god over all the others was something that the pagans could relate to. To say that there is ONLY one god was to basically go over their heads. They had no concept of only just one god.

Man existed before Jesus and Christianity, and they had different religions too. The Romans, Greek, and even before them (Mesopotamia etc.) are just some examples of man living without Christianity. God didn't just leave man alone, he let them 'sin' and believe anything they wanted to believe. How exactly does it make sense for God to let man live without Christianity for so long then just decide to send a prophet to guide them?

Ummmm.... Hebrews, Jews, Israelites, and Judeans or whatever non-derogatory name for that race/religion. They were around long before the Greeks and Romans. The Hebrews were contemporary with the Mesopotamians.

Note: Allah hu Akbar actually means "God is Great" Its connection to Jihadists is very minimal. It is more akin to Christians saying "Praise Jesus" than it is a battle cry.

The muslim armies of the Middle Ages carried banners that contained quotes from the Koran. During battle they would recite quotes or just do simple ones such as "Allahu akbar"

That reminds me... Crusaders would often shout "Deus lo vult!" meaning "God wills it" in Latin. Or they would shout it in their own language.

[leroybrown]

If you're afraid of text walls then you better hit the deck.

The Romans, Greek, and even before them (Mesopotamia etc.) are just some examples of man living without Christianity.

Yeah, the story of the flood was jacked from the Sumerians. The story is different in their version, but this was written before the pyramids were built. Enlil be with you, Matt.

What I find interesting is that he never states himself that the other gods do not exist. He only wants you to ignore them.

I could be somewhat wrong about that.

Nah, you hit the nail on the head. Another cool thing is when Moses was trying to convince the Pharoah to release his people (Jews), he had a hard time impressing him. This is because the Pharoah had his own magicians that could replicate Gods feats such as turning a staff into a snake.

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Am I religious? No I don't think so. I do meditate, but I don't look at it as having anything to do with spirituality. It's just like working out, I work out to be strong and healthy. In the same sense, I meditate so I can focus better. It's like working out for my brain.

I was raised a Christian, and confirmed in the Lutheran faith. This means I had to stand in front of the entire congregation and answer questions about the religion. I passed and still have the book that says I'm confirmed in the faith.

I don't 'buy' the story anymore. I'm not saying that The Bible is wrong, but I am saying I am not convinced that the book is 100% correct. That's a huge reason for me not buying the story. The book was passed down from parent to child for generations before it was ever written. There is an extremely low probability that the story carried on through without error. The original language itself cannot be directly translated into English, and it was translated twice before it got to English. It was also edited, books removed by the Council of Nicea. So what was once the Holy Bible was wrong, but THIS time it's not? I don't buy that.

A few weeks ago they said on the news that they are changing the wording of the Bible (again). The only thing I remember is the virgin Mary will be called 'young woman' instead of virgin.

Also, people reflect their culture. If you're born amongst headhunters, you're going to hunt heads. If you're born in a Christian family, you'll probably be Christian. Same with all other religions and walks of life. I am of the opinion that me being raised a Christian is coincidence, not me being chosen by God or whatever.

I do also believe that religion is used as a tool to help manage masses of people. No, not control, but help manage. Carl Jung wrote about this. It's also quite apparent with the spread of missionaries in Africa. Kinda like how they were during the Colonial American times and beyond. The evidence supporting these theories are pretty damning in my opinion.

Also, I just have an issue with 'faith.' I think if God is real, he would want his followers to be intelligent. So when one of them dies and goes to heaven, the asks the question, "Why did you believe in me?" God would be disappointed if someone said, "Because I was told you were real." He would want a power point presentation with a mountain of evidence.

[Spiney]

I'm atheist. It's hard for me to string my head around religious concepts. A lot of them seem illogical to me when there's more logical ways to easily explain them.

[Dark Lord Cam]

Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

One reason I like being agnostic is that I can talk about religion and stuff without worrying about having to take sides. I can also debate from either side quite equally if I wanted to. I have a great deal of experience with religion.

By my count, I have been: A Mormon, A baptist, a protestant, a new age guy, a catholic, and a Buddhist.

At this moment I consider myself an Existentialist/Humanist . That doesn't really count as a religion so I'll let it be.

[JockoBeans]

Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

One reason I like being agnostic is that I can talk about religion and stuff without worrying about having to take sides. I can also debate from either side quite equally if I wanted to. I have a great deal of experience with religion.

By my count, I have been: A Mormon, A baptist, a protestant, a new age guy, a catholic, and a Buddhist.

At this moment I consider myself an Existentialist/Humanist. That doesn't really count as a religion so I'll let it be.

Speaking of humanism, have you ever studied some of the grat Humanists of the Reniassance. They were brilliant thinkers, like Erasmus, for example.

[Dark Lord Cam]

I have read a few works. I find them to be... enlightening. Hehe. Ninja joke.

[Spiney]

Would a realist count? Only accepting that which has flawless proof, or at least more than the other side.

[Dark Lord Cam]

Would a realist count? Only accepting that which has flawless proof, or at least more than the other side.

I guess you could call yourself a realist.

Then again, so could I.

Example: Is the cup half empty or half full?

Me: Both.

[Veck]

You don't need solid proof to be a realist. I'm one, and I just look for what makes sense rather than whatever has absolute solid proof, because nothing does really. Even science is just theories.

[Spiney]

You don't need solid proof to be a realist. I'm one, and I just look for what makes sense rather than whatever has absolute solid proof, because nothing does really. Even science is just theories.

Do note when some things are called "theory's" are actually proven. Like the Theory Of Evolution is undoubtedly proven. Though it still holds its Theory title. Same goes for the Theory of Special Relativity.

[Dark Lord Cam]

Actually, they have not been proven. There is still a lot of disagreement over these things. Something that has been proven is called a Law. The Law of Gravity for example.

[Veck]

Of course, there are still a lot of people who believe scienctific evidence has been put here by god to test our faith. And for all we know, they may be right, although I seriously doubt it.

[Dark Lord Cam]

Of course, there are still a lot of people who believe scienctific evidence has been put here by god to test our faith. And for all we know, they may be right, although I seriously doubt it.

I know a lot of people who say that science proves god is real because it shows that there is order in the universe.

[Spiney]

That's an odd concept. Though based on new evidence, it's been shown that some parts of the Universe are Newtonian, and some non-Newtonian.

[JockoBeans]

Nothing is as it seems, but I think that sience does prove a lot of things, until it is disapproven. Sciene always changes and contradicts itself. In science, there is no constant. What was scientific truth 80 years ago is now false today. For example, Einsteins's theories are being torn down by modern phyicists who have a better understanding of how the cosmos functions. Problem is that they find more questions than answers. That is why it is impossible to prove anything.

That's an odd concept. Though based on new evidence, it's been shown that some parts of the Universe are Newtonian, and some non-Newtonian.

Intersting how Newton's theories are not as strong as they once were. Some have been replaced by better theories.

[Generalno1]

Science isn't an absolute. Almost all of science is an educated guess, pretty sure we'll keep progressing further than we've already achieved.

[Roadcone]

It's kind of the entire point of science really. Someone develops a theory based on evidence and reason and that theory is assessed, if it's good then it will be accepted by the community if it's bad it will be rejected. however, if new evidence comes to light then it can't be ignored, it has to be accommodated into the theories.

for example, before Galileo we believed the sun orbited the earth. we had no reason to think otherwise, if you look into the sky, the sun appears to travel across it. it was only through reason and evidence that we discovered that in fact the earth orbits the sun.

when a new evidence comes to light science has to adapt it's viewpoint to things. It's not a weakness of science, in fact it's a huge strength. without it we wouldn't have been able to develop all of the technology and ideology we have today.

[Stendarr]

Nothing is as it seems, but I think that sience does prove a lot of things, until it is disapproven. Sciene always changes and contradicts itself. In science, there is no constant. What was scientific truth 80 years ago is now false today. For example, Einsteins's theories are being torn down by modern phyicists who have a better understanding of how the cosmos functions.

That's not true at all. Most likely, Einstein and Newton's work are not complete, their theories are not complete. It all works in a smaller scale, but when you get into a galactic scale, incredible masses and speeds, something else, maybe something additional is at work, something we can't figure out yet. Although we did recently discovered (as foretold by Einstein) gravitational magnetism, a force which its effect can only be seen at higher scales. The experience was in orbit around the Earth, and the force the balls were subject to were minimal. It might have an effect and be part of the "dark energy equation" although it seems to not do what scientists are looking for.

As far as I know, science doesn't contradict all that much. Scientists gather clues and evidence, and nothing is held as a major theory just like that. At least through my studies I never heard of any theory that flat out contradicted others, it's more about alternate explications which get disproved. Like the French dude who was against Darwin thought we could transmit what we learn to other generations, still he was right about transmitting genetic information. For all our important theories, they are constantly being verified and reinforced, something which those which were proven to not be true didn't get to have, hence why they were disproved.

And by the way, most of Einstein's theories are key to astrophysics, we wouldn't have gotten much far without them. And they are important to modern physics too.

[Wolfie]

@ Wolfie: In one of your posts, you claimed that there are no contradictions in holy texts. A few posts later, however, it seems that you are claiming that it doesn't matter if two different holy texts contradict each other. Obviously if different holy texts contradict each other, then they both can't be 100% truth. Perhaps what you're trying to say is that if we interpreted them both properly, they would agree with each other? Not sure, but yeah, you should clarify that.

What I'm trying to say is neither one of them is "contradiction"
and even then they agree on a lot of things except a few and even then its humans deciding that
ike marry no where in the bible is marry lifted up as high as the catholics make her
The reason some don't believe Christ was lord is because they read the bible say saying he will be warrior, or that he died as such he failed, once again it never says he was just a "prophet"and they see him being gods "son" as us being his sons and daghuters
once more not in the bible but rather what we think it says
should it be invalid just because some people don't agree with it?
this is not a mistake in the books, its a "mistake" with how pepole read them

As for leaving parts out (cause i know someone is going to say this is proof its not real), the bible never claimed to have evrey man who worked for god writing in it , nor dose it claim to have all the prophets.
Speaking bible wise It's possible to have one now

[Lindai]

Science and religion shouldn't be pitted against each other in this day and age. Science is basically the study of how and perhaps why stuff happens. I can't remember the last time I went to Mass to have the priest religiously explain to me how electricity is conducted. Similarly, I can't remember the last time my Chemistry teacher told me to forgive and forget. The scientist and the man of God are explaining two different things. Science is a universal study, a study of animals,atoms and stuff we can't even see. Religion explores something...else.

There are 2 places where science and religion have conflicted in the explanation of something: The origin of life/human race and the beginning of the Universe. The religious explanations offered in The Bible can and should be interpreted as parables, though the religious explanation for the Universe's beginning makes more sense to me than science's current variant.

So when you say "religion is illogical",well, 'twas never really intended to explore the workings of mathematics in the first place. Because mathematics,the fundamental science, is just organised common sense.

[Generalno1]

Religion explores something...else.

Religion is based on Belief and faith, those are the words you're looking for

[Wolfie]

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/gods.html

Indeed. Looks like I found a contradiction.

Nope you did not just another guy who did not bother to reacher

# 1 John 10:
30 I and my Father are one.
31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?
33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
36 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?"

the trinity three in one, one in three.
he is talking to Jesus.

another point is this
It says God in English but the Hebrew word is Elohiym, which is a plural noun, in other words it would be "God's" but the translator messed up so
this is him talking to Jesus who is mentioned in the OT a lot but not named
Hince why we call Jesus "lord" he and God have been around sing the start
But since they are "together" yet not
you can say "God" or God's" and you will be right

As for the rest of them there our gods but not in the way your thinking
the gold cow was a god dose that mean he is real?
no
he is saying no other idols
like the Gold calf