religion? fake? real?

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in It's a Conspiracy!

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RufioPan

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MY butthead only has one comment and that is that I live quite nicely without god.

By all means, continue to live as such :) It's your perogative entirely! It's everyones responsibility to ensure that they live their lives in the best way possible and that they acknowledge truth wherever they find it. I just hope you've given religion a chance as a source of truth.

Grand Master

insurektion

Posted
Posted

Um a few points not well though out but I am stating as I think (Thats right you are reading this as my brain thinks it). Also a few notes before. I dont think the church is always right. I will not blindly follow they church. You should question authority, test it to see if its real. I am Christian (Dont worry about denomination, it means nothing to me I just happen to go to a church with a title) By christian I mean I believe in the bible as the word of God. That jesus died and resureccted himself lived a while long and ascended to heaven in a cloud. His perfect death cleansing the sins of anyone (YES ANYONE) who believes in him and follows him.

1. Doesnt it seem sad to those who dont believe in God (for whatever reason) that you are insignifigant. You are not but by not believing in God you become nothing. Say the world lasts forever. Out of infinity you had mabye 80-90 years of impact people may remeber you but everythign is eventually lost/forgotton. They only way to win is if eternal life is possible. Thus I believe in God because (though many will say otherwise) signifigant. I am good for something as long as I am something.

2. Do you fear death? I dont I could die any second and I believe (which is all that counts seeing as you make urself insignifigant) I would open my eyes on my way to heaven. I have something to lookforward to. Death is not scary but great (Not that a good life here isnt worth anything). We should use our time here to spread what we have found to others out of good will and hoping that they too may enjoy this free gift given to us.

3. It doesnt matter what anyone believes. Nothing is changed by what you believe the truth is the truth (I believe I have found the truth and nothing will hskae me from it). This is why I see non-belivers (athiest, agnostics) as idiots. Since your life is worhtless is there is no God (ie infinty time makes you less and less approaching nothin) then you should at least spend it on a chance that there is something more. (Which there is those who dont believe get to goto hell in isolation no parties no seeing anyone just heat thirst, pain and being alone (no fun)).

4. I could be wrong but at least I have pursued this believing in it fully and spent myl ife on a worthwhile purpose of eternity (in heaven not hell).

Thats it. Everyone should believe in something (Christianty makes the most sense but if Im wrong then at least I didnt choose to believe in nothing which would ensure the pointlessness of my insignifigant existance).

So go on attack me with whatever you will. You are nothing without the gift of Christ. Dont like it? DOnt believe it? Doesnt matter. The truth shall be revealed to me or to you. I just increased my chances. I hope you will too.

Grand Master

insurektion

Posted
Posted

By the way God gave you a gift (last time I checked you dont have to work ie Goign door to door)( for a gift (thats called a job)). Eternal life is Gods gift to you and you should spread it out of wanting others to know about it not try to meet some supposed cutoff line for good people in heaven. None of us is good, we have evil in us which makes us as bad as anyone else. Jesus died so we could be purified. Think of it like this. Would you drink some Coke with some pee in it? What if there was just a little? No? thats why God sent jesus to die for us no matter how little sin we have its always too much (none of us is pefect) therefore Jesus purifies us so we can be presentable (or drinkable to extend the analogy). Please read what I psot it contains noteworthy thoughts.

PM me or add me to ur msn:([email protected])

if ya have any questions (or even if ya wanna flame me im up for that just listen after ur done)

Spam me if ya want to I dont care I just want this part of my existance (on earth) to help others so they will not suffer.

BTW I hope i dont come of biggoted, or arrogant. I am as 'bad' of a person as anyone else. I just have hope and want to spread it to others

Grand Master

TheElite

Posted
Posted
To me, the whole universe is one huge testament to a single God. You really won't find any contradictions in the laws of the universe... and thus you won't find any contradictions between scientific fact and the Quran. I defy anyone to prove otherwise. ZAnwar, pay attention here... the Quran does not deny the Big Bang theory, and in fact stated it as fact 1400 yrs ago.

In chapter 21, verse 31, the Quran states:

Two facts stated here and not known by mankind at that time were that the universe was once a closed up mass (perhaps a super dense black hole?), and that all living things are created from water (supporting the fact that humans are comprised mostly of water... 75% i believe). I do not think there is a more accurate description of the initial state of the universe in any other faith, and certainly none made by any secular scientists of the time. Where did this knowledge come from then?

The Quran also talks of the universe's ever-expanding state (a well known fact of modern times, yet unthinkable 1400 yrs ago):

no doubt bruv, i didnt deny the big bang theory, i denied it happening without an external power (God). ;)

Proficient

RufioPan

Posted
Posted
I went to Catholic schools through all of school before college. I have given religion a chance :)

and it is my opinion entirely that people should live their lives as they want as long as they don't interfere with mine. :)

So, if you don't mind my asking, why did you choose to remove God from your life?

That's a pretty personal question, so I apologize in advance if it offends you!

Mentor

clonk

Posted
Posted
This is an observation I have made over a few years and it always amuses me. Jesus was born and lived in the middle eastern area...I don't know exactly where Bethlahem and Nazareth are but he's from that general area. Now I might get my terminology wrong here and I don't mean to offend anyone, but people from that area are arabic and have a dark complexion. However, in all the pictures I have seen of Jesus and in all the movies that have been made where someone acts as Jesus, he is white. This is something I've never understood. I don't see how Jesus could have been white, it doesn't make much sense to me....maybe someone could explain if they know otherwise.

Israel, the area were Jesus lived and did most of his teachings, is a region located on the eastern edge of the mediterranean sea. To its east are countries like Iran, Iraq. The Hebrews, around approx 1100 BC, came to rule and occupy this region initially. These people were the ancient Jews, God's chosen people (true Jews of today do not accept Jesus as the son of God, they do not believe he has come to us yet, this is one thing that seperates their beliefs from that of other Christians). These people are not of arabic decent. They are essentially white people. Jews and Christians originate from this area. I found a picture of an Israeli and Palestinian shaking handing, it is smaller, but you can clearly see that these people posess largely caucasian features:

Palestinian-Israeli-s.jpg

If you look at the movie 'The Passion of the Christ' you will see largely accurate portrayal of the ethinicities of the players involved. I hope this clarifies things for you.

Here is a map to aid you in visualizing the location of Israel.

00001383.gif

Veteran

kongit

Posted
Posted
So, if you don't mind my asking, why did you choose to remove God from your life?

it doesn't offend me at all. I have gone through various stages of my beliefs in God. At first through about the 6th grade I fully believed in God, and all the good Catholic stuff. I went to a Catholic school, and the religion was pretty much beaten into us. I shall call this the molding. Many of my morals and opinions that I can't change because they are too ingrained in me were formed during these years (I still consider many if not most of the Catholic morals ot be very good) Between the 6th and the 8th grade I slowly started to lose my religion. I stopped believing what the church told me. I also was still very childish and very much disliked going to church, this is probably more responsible for this drift from the church. For the first few years of high-school I gradually gained back faith in the church. This culminated with my confirmation. At confirmation you become a full blown adult member of the Catholic Church. What really spurred this was the enviroment at my high-school. Is was very religion oriented back then. Then during my junior year I started to work my ass of at school. I didn't think about God, I didn't rely on religion, and I didn't care about religion. that was my best year in highschool in terms of productivity. I relied on myself, and myself pulled through exceptionally well. I didn't loose faith then (I stilled believed in god, but had no time for him), but between my junior and senior year. that summer I went to the British Isles for 2 weeks. Those 2 weeks have probably changed my life more than any other. My mind opened and new thoughts started flowing through. the trip was more like a catalyst for my change than anything else. I started to wonder about God, life, and various other serious topics using my full brain and logic. While this may seem like a great thing, it some cases it was but in many it wasn't. I soon started thinking more about life. I soon started overthinking life. Whenever you overthink stuff bad things happen, and with life one of the worst things happened: I went into a depression. Now I am out of that, but with no help from god (medicine saved me). Since that time I have gradually stopped thinking or involving god in my life. And I have found no difference with my life. I am still happy and I retain my moral values set in youth. I soon realized that in order for society to function correctly, it needs not god or religion, but rather morals so people can interact peacefully and happily together. I find the idea of god and religion to be an extra step that is not necessary. I also find many inconsistancies with the idea of the christian god and the practices of christianity. here are a few:

if god knows what you are thinking your feelings and everything else about you why do you pray. God knows what you want, and if you really want it you wouldn't have to pray to express those feelings.

why do you pray about things that you can fix. I see no point in praying about the poor countries and the sick. God knows they are poor and sick, and would probably rather see you help them then pray

God cannot directly interact with the world. all actions have an equal and opposite reaction. if he did something good in one place it would make something bad happen somewhere else. God cannot make something bad happen because he is infinitely good so he cannot directly interact with the world.

There is no way to know if a person who says they are inspired by God, is really inspired by God. this is the same through all of history. There is no way to know if Jesus is really God or inspired by God. however Christianity takes this on faith and in their beliefs.

I think that many of Jesus's ideas, if he was real, have been entirely misinterpretted. The early Christian Church had to get power and followers. They often changed ideas slightly to get more people to follow, over much time these slight shifting of ideas can totally change one. Also when the Church became the center of power in Europe many of the ideas were changed to keep the church in power.

The bible is not accurate and should never be treated as so. First of all the books represented in it are not all the books ever written, they were hand chose to support the Christian faith. Additionally the souces behind the books have never been fully revealed. Many of the New Testament books are though to be writtne nearly 200 years after Christs Death. Additionally many of the books have been editted to help support the Christian Church. these last 100 years scholars have been pouring over the original manuscripts if available so the bible today is probably more accurate than it has been for 1500 years, but still not very accurate considering the lack of validity of the sources. I also think that bible should be taken symbolically and metaphorically instead of literally.

If you haven't read nietzsche you really ought to. don't take his works for face value though, I don't think he meant for them to be interpretted that way. The idea of the evolution of man into god is very interesting, and the idea that man (science) will kill god is also interesting. My thoughts after reading it was that someday man will have advanced far enough to not need the idea of god anymore. instead they will be trying to attain the power of god. however they never will be able to become god, but when they hit the point of going no farther society will be perfect. this is what we should strive for. a perfect society.

sorry this is a little long. I still have many more opinions about religion. :)

Grand Master

TheElite

Posted
Posted
God cannot directly interact with the world. all actions have an equal and opposite reaction. if he did something good in one place it would make something bad happen somewhere else. God cannot make something bad happen because he is infinitely good so he cannot directly interact with the world.

heh, how do u think we are here. he created us, how do you think everything is changed, in a matter of seconds. God can do whatever he wants with this world, at anytime.

I would post a Surah (verse) fromthe Quran or something from Hadith to back this up, if ya want it, tell me.

Enthusiast

1Houston

Posted
Posted

I'm not really sure.

All I know is this:

I haven't been to church in 20 years (literally).

I do still pray once in a while.

I HAVE had an experience where I've seen results from my "complaining to God." (literally cussing him/her out for **** that was happening in my life and I simply was not going to take that **** anymore)......THAT was a mistake. :blink:

I believe in being HONEST, and that WHAT COMES AROUND, GOES AROUND.

But "religion" I think, itself, is man-made.

Every time I think of ANY religion, I think of Jim Jones. A religion is nothing but people following "something or somebody" and they always do what that entity tells them to do. I DEFINATELY do NOT believe in that.

Grand Master

RadishTM Veteran

Posted
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Posted
we (believers (muslims)) can only explain why we are here, the rest of the world DOES NOT have a clue!

I'm a Muslim, yet I respect other religion's perceptions of how the world came to exist and why we are here on Earth - some of this intertwines with Islam, why can't you respect that? - if you can't, you are very ignorant indeed.

heh, how do u think we are here. he created us, how do you think everything is changed, in a matter of seconds. God can do whatever he wants with this world, at anytime.

I would post a Surah (verse) fromthe Quran or something from Hadith to back this up, if ya want it, tell me.

Again you are forcing your religious opinions upon another member, without taking into consideration their perception of the religion they follow :rolleyes:

Not everyone in this world believes in Islam ZAnwar.

Radish?

Grand Master

RadishTM Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
yeah, but there is only one correct one, that is Islam

^ Just looking back on the earlier pages of this thread and this caught my eye, that single comment was the most ignorant I've read from a muslim's point of view.

You really need to stay away from my forum, and Real World Issues if you're going to post comments like that.

I would love to see how long you'd last if you said that in front of real people of various religions :rolleyes:

Radish?

Collaborator

irate

Posted
Posted
it doesn't offend me at all. I have gone through various stages of my beliefs in God. At first through about the 6th grade I fully believed in God, and all the good Catholic stuff. I went to a Catholic school, and the religion was pretty much beaten into us. I shall call this the molding. Many of my morals and opinions that I can't change because they are too ingrained in me were formed during these years (I still consider many if not most of the Catholic morals ot be very good) ...

Wow. I started reading this post and then doubled checked the nick, to be sure I hadn't posted this while drunk one night. My story (aside from the bit about the British Isles) mirrors my own almost exactly. I however, was a bit slower in coming to the same conclusions. I would consider myself more of an agnostic for my first three years of university, now I'm borderline agnostic/atheist.

I know how you feel though. I don't need God to be who I am. I don't think that I ever did. I've lived a pretty easy life, I must admit. But nonetheless, what I do is because it's something I want to do, not because I'm listening to some imagined deity.

And, I haven't read all countless pages of this thread, so I hope it hasn't been said yet, but I always use religion to build temples, so I can keep my people content...

/sorry

Veteran

kongit

Posted
Posted
And, I haven't read all countless pages of this thread, so I hope it hasn't been said yet, but I always use religion to build temples, so I can keep my people content...

wow. my thoughts exactly. I also enjoy them for their beauty... well at least some of them. :)

Proficient

RufioPan

Posted
Posted (edited)

Been pretty busy lately, but I wanted to reply in this thread earlier... in any case...

kongit: Sorry to hear that you went through a depression. I know that can be pretty rough, as I had a cousin in the exact same situation. What's remarkable though is that whereas you came out of your depression an atheist, my cousin came out of it and went on to start at an Islamic missionary school where he is the happiest and most content he's ever been.

I do find it quite odd though that after much reflection you decided you didn't need religion/God anymore, but of course, it's your choice.

Like many of the posters in this thread, it seems most of your complaints against religion/God are based on the Christian religion/concept of God, and I have to admit (and I apologize if I offend anyone) I don't see the same thing amongst Muslims, at least not on the same level.

Again, I'm not going to get into any Christianity vs. Islam discussion in this thread, but for me, my faith has been indispensable and infalliable. Personally, I don't understand the opinion ?quoting scripture will never hold to logic?. It does not make sense to me since I find my religion to be completely logical and rational. I believe that so strongly that I'd defy anyone to demonstrate a Quranic injuction or prophecy that contradicts any knowledge/events that are certain. That's how strong my belief in my faith is.

Y'know, at my last week's Friday sermon, the imam (priest) talked briefly about God's reply in the Quran to those who don't believe in Him. In the Quran, God declares that He is the one that causes death... and so it is an open challenge to anyone who disbelieves in God to avert their death. In reflecting upon that, I realized that really, it seems stupid to challenge death, but in actuality, if there is no God, why should there be death? What is it that causes death, and more importantly, what is it that leads to the end of things? Everything has an end. Plants die, animals die, even stars die... why? That is the big question. And if there is no God, no one to cause our death, why can we not avert it?

On the opposite end of the scale, there is creation. I'm not just talking about creating art or 'creating' a baby, but about real creation: make something out of nothing. Preposterous, right? Of course... in our universe, everything is essentially energy (even matter), and we know that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but simply converted from one form to another. If that is the nature of our universe, why then is it that we can conceive of true creation (something from nothing)? There is no example of it, it's not at all possible, it defies every law of nature, yet we have a concept of it. How?

Think you can compare this to say... spontaneously growing wings? In those scenarios there are always two explanations: It's a flight of fancy, or it's something that might someday be possible. Every situation can be explained like so.... except one: creation from nothing. The reason for this is that we know we exist (we have self-awareness), yet there is no law in our universe that allows for us to exist out of nothing, yet our existance cannot be ruled out as an impossibility. Since we live in a causal universe there must be a cause for everything. Even if there exists something outside our universe, that thing must also have a cause in order to be the cause of our existance. Thus, everything that is, must have been created from something. There cannot be an infinite chain of causes, so there must be a starting point. This predicament is unique... anything else we imagine can be ruled out as impossible or possible... except creation. only explanation for creation is God. only reason we have a concept of creation is so that we can realize the existance of God.

It's a big philosophical challenge, but there are many more in the Quran that implicitly and explicitly lead to the fact that there is indeed a God. God is the only explanation to all these philosophical questions, and the only explanation for the scientific knowledge and prophecy in the Quran and other Holy Books. No other explanation is reasonable, so I'm always intrigued when people tell me they don't believe in Go:) :)

Another thing I'd like to comment on...

Many people also target religion as movements that arose in times of lesser understanding. Again, I reiterate my challenge to those people to demonstrate fact that contradicts the knowledge in the Quran. Not only that, but religion is really just the best path to God. True there are a number of paths, but there is always a path of least resistance, the path that God recommends. And of course, religion is not just about doing what God says, but doing it because it's also in our best interests. If religion is really a reaction of fear to the unknown, then why does it still exist? If it's political, why are there so many similarities between the religions? In fact, just take that one point... how is it that religions that developed in different parts of the world, and in some cases in civilizations that had no contact with one another are so similar? Why do we question the nature of our existance? Why have human beings evolved into self-realizing beings? Science can only answer the 'whats', 'wheres', and 'hows'... but what about the 'whys'? I think when we examine our nature and the nature of the universe, there is no 'why' except God... because there is no self-describing reason for the universe (especially considering that we live in a causal universe, as stated earlier).

So kongit... if you don't believe in God or religion, what do you believe in? What logical/rational reason is there for your existance and my existance? And don't say there's no reason at a:) :) The very fact that humans have been scratching their heads for eons and millenia over that question is proof that there is reason, or at least that it is ingrained within our nature to question our reason for existance. Then you'd also have to explain biologically, why humans evolved to the point that they were able to ask these questions. Socially, if we have no reason for existance, we'd easily descend into anarchy... but somehow, people have reasons to exist.

Nowadays, most people's reason to exist is for themselves or in order to accomplish something in their lifespan. But why? If we exist for ourselves, then our actions are meaningless because once we cease to exist, what use are our actions to us? Those accomplishments are meaningless. If we exist so that our actions can be remembered by others after we are gone, then they are still meaningless because as mentioned up above, all things come to an end.

So while living for oneself and one's accomplishments may be enough for some people, it doesn't stand to reason, and moreover, there are billions of people who are unsatisfied enough with living for themselves that they believe in God.

So there are a lot of questions there... I really would like to hear your opinions on this topic, and you wrote some days ago that you have many more opinions on religio:) :)

Edited by RufioPan
Collaborator

irate

Posted
Posted

I don't think anyone in specific "killed" this thread. It's just that it's a very emotional subject to a lot of people, which is hard to express in text form alone. I don't believe, someone else does. We're both pretty set in our ways usually, and this isn't a great forum (as in an area of discussion, not this bbs specifically) to expres yourself on this subject.

Having said that, I do rather enjoy reading some of the posts, and I'm trying to keep my eye on this thread.

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