Religion? Nah.

[WhateverItTakes]

Throughout the written history of humanity, people have been trying to figure out why we exist on this planet, and it usually brings up the existence of a higher power.

I think that the reason there is life on this planet is because we won a universal lottery.. we just happened to be close enough to a sun and have a terrestrial planet with the necessary chemicals capable to produce an atmosphere that supports humanity. I don't think there is a God who did this, I think we were just lucky. It seems that most theists argue, 'well, if there is no god, how did the universe form.. something can't come from nothing' ... an easy argument for a theist because we do not know how the universe began, and therefore difficult to argue against. So, if someone wants to tell me that 14 billion years ago or so there was some higher power who decided to create a few more quarks than antiquarks when creating a primordial soup of subatomic particles, i'll just shake your hand and say i'm fine with that. However, that's not what the whole point of God is all about. We're supposed to be special... we're supposed to be watched over and loved by this described "God".. this "where does the universe come from" argument doesn't address that at all. We have life, who knows how many other planets in the universe have life.. we're lucky, yes. Special? No...

There's not one other species on this planet that believes in a higher being. Aside from that, there's all different religions believing different things all over the world. That would indicate that the concept of religion is more social than factual - if God wanted to make himself known, he would do it so every human believes in him, and not just Christians or Muslims, or whatever... I find that interesting. Isnt it ironic.. the only reason we believe in God is because humans are sophisticated enough believe in, what i consider to be, "supernatural foolishness."

But this is just one man's opinion.

[Agent007]

Quote by: Dr. Pundit Give me one religion that requires "drugs, sex, and crime." A religion easily applies a direction for a person; a direction that would lead him or her to personal success. The person must follow this provided code or he or she would be unhappy; a paradigm of not following the code is participating in the thread "The Most Beautiful Women of All Time." Is this why you are atheist, Mr. Starboy? Are you atheist so that you can indulge in these unethical pleasures? Are you atheist because you believe that by being so, there is no deity in your way to the "stars" and that you can achieve greater things without religion? Indeed, Mr. Starboy, you are being a hypocrite. Indeed, Mr. Starboy, you are being dishonest. Even the secular points of mankind frown on unethicality in looking at pornography and doing narcotics.

I think this quote sums up to an answer for your question.

[Starboy]

Welcome WhateverItTakes. I agree with most of what you have said. What is even more interesting is that for many of the supernaturalists their beliefs mirror almost exactly the fantasies of an abandoned child that never knew their parents. Many of these children believe that somewhere out there mommy and daddy exist and that they love them very much and that they are rich and powerful and that someday they will be reunited with mommy and daddy and they will get to live in a mansion and have all the toys and goodies and friends they could possibly want. God is the daddy that loves them and heaven is that big mansion in the sky with all the goodies. Sure it is comforting for immature minds but hardly realistic and kinda pathetic.

Starboy

[WhateverItTakes]

Agent 007, what you posted I find absurd.. especially this part:

"Give me one religion that requires "drugs, sex, and crime." A religion easily applies a direction for a person; a direction that would lead him or her to personal success. The person must follow this provided code or he or she would be unhappy"

I will make this as simplistic for you as I possibly can. I am not a religious person, whatsoever. However, I do not do drugs, give to charity, treat others as I would wish to be treated myself, involve myself with crime... etc. If you remember what I wrote, I implied that we were "lucky" to be here... we have brains that are sophisticated enough, for the majority of us, to understand how fortunate we are, thus realizing the importance of preserving life - we value our own lives and understand that others value their own, and they have families that love and care about them too. You imply, with no organized religion, we would be a disorganized mess. I argue, we are an intelligent-enough being to avoid such behavior. Consider this:

MANY scientists are not religious believers. However, it is the scientists who are studying the earthquakes that kill people, tornadoes that kill people, and ozone layer holes that could eventually kill people... why are they doing this? So they can learn more about these phenomenons, thus giving them the chance to SAVE LIVES by providing humans with more time to get to safety in the event of an earthquake or tornado, or provide methods of stopping ozone layer depletion to avoid UV dangers to humans in the future. Many of these people aren't religious, so why are they trying to protect humanity? You seem to think the nonreligious scientists should have just descended into a life of drugs, sex and crime... hmmmmmmmmmmm.

[Starboy]

WhateverItTakes, don't you know? If there was no god we would all kill ourselves. The funny thing about it is there doesn't appear to be any god at all but I do not see everyone lining up to kill themselves. Gee, could it be that all species must have a strong survival instinct to say..... survive? And that any species that didn't have such a trait would not be here to .... talk about it? In fact most supernatural religions are very odd in that many are obsessed with death and the afterlife. Hardly life affirming. They all say they want to go to heaven, and I have offered to send them there but there are no takers. How odd.

Starboy

[WhateverItTakes]

Starboy, I agree with everything you said 100%... Very well put and humorous as well, I gotta admit I sincerely enjoy reading your posts. Keep up the good work!

[Starboy]

Thanks WhateverItTakes. I get a lot of flack from the supernaturalists. I must be hitting a nerve.

Starboy

[Thunder Wave]

Quote by: Starboy WhateverItTakes, don't you know? If there was no god we would all kill ourselves. The funny thing about it is there doesn't appear to be any god at all but I do not see everyone lining up to kill themselves. Gee, could it be that all species must have a strong survival instinct to say..... survive? And that any species that didn't have such a trait would not be here to .... talk about it? In fact most supernatural religions are very odd in that many are obsessed with death and the afterlife. Hardly life affirming. They all say they want to go to heaven, and I have offered to send them there but there are no takers. How odd. Starboy

I want to go. I want to go to heaven. Please take me now from this God forsaken land.

On a side note. Religion has given some ground rules that do help society.

But when used to kill others it has gone too far, and even as much as just controlling people and brainwashing them, it has gone too far.

I find that society will always strive to work better with others especially in times of distress. I mean hasn't 9/11 proven that and the great flood of last New Years proven that no matter what you believe people tend to want to live peacefully to survive and help each other out?

Did God Help? Did he come down from the sky shedding "mana" on the land to help. No. Society helped.

[Starboy]

Quote by: Thunder Wave I want to go. I want to go to heaven. Please take me now from this God forsaken land.

As far as I can tell the recipie is simple. Take Jesus into your heart and just die.

On a side note. Religion has given some ground rules that do help society.

This claim is made often but seldom demonstrated. Taken as a whole supernatural religions have done at least as much harm as good.

But when used to kill others it has gone too far, and even as much as just controlling people and brainwashing them, it has gone too far.

Like I said.

I find that society will always strive to work better with others especially in times of distress. I mean hasn't 9/11 proven that and the great flood of last New Years proven that no matter what you believe people tend to want to live peacefully to survive and help each other out?

Well yes. Society will strive to work together. But it is not as if supernatural religions have done this. History shows the opposite.

Did God Help? Did he come down from the sky shedding "mana" on the land to help. No. Society helped.

The other thing that magical thinkers appear to overlook is if god takes sides then who's side was god on during 9/11?

Starboy

[castille]

Quote by: WhateverItTakes I think that the reason there is life on this planet is because we won a universal lottery

That's actually not hard to believe. See, some people ask, "How can so many lucky things happen to us?"

Well there are plenty of lifeforms which got unlucky, and never existed, or never survived. We think it's impossible because we won the "lottery of life", but people do win lotteries. We happen to be one of them.

[James]

Quote by: WhateverItTakes if God wanted to make himself known, he would do it so every human believes in him, and not just Christians or Muslims, or whatever... I find that interesting. Isnt it ironic.. the only reason we believe in God is because humans are sophisticated enough believe in, what i consider to be, "supernatural foolishness." But this is just one man's opinion.

Seeing is believing. If God walked down onto earth so that every person could see Him, and perform miracles, and rule over all, then that doesn't take much faith.

ANYONE can see and believe.
But it takes FAITH to 'walk by faith, not by sight'.
If God didn't want us to have to decide, we wouldn't have free thoughts or free will.

[Starboy]

Quote by: James Seeing is believing. If God walked down onto earth so that every person could see Him, and perform miracles, and rule over all, then that doesn't take much faith. ANYONE can see and believe. But it takes FAITH to 'walk by faith, not by sight'. If God didn't want us to have to decide, we wouldn't have free thoughts or free will.

That is the very, very, very funny thing about all of it. If you heard a story of an itinerant bum in your area that was doing magic tricks and claimed to be god you would not believe it.

Starboy

[James]

Quote by: Starboy That is the very, very, very funny thing about all of it. If you heard a story of an itinerant bum in your area that was doing magic tricks and claimed to be god you would not believe it. Starboy

You're probably right. I'd love to meet God, but I don't have that much faith, I'll admit that.
If I had a dream or a vision or something where God came to me and told me that He had taken on the form of someone on earth, I would go see.

But, what's your argument? Admitting I'm right?

[Starboy]

Quote by: James You're probably right. I'd love to meet God, but I don't have that much faith, I'll admit that. If I had a dream or a vision or something where God came to me and told me that He had taken on the form of someone on earth, I would go see. But, what's your argument? Admitting I'm right?

My point is that even Christians would not believe the story they claim to believe if it were presented in contemporary form. That the story is unbelievable. That in order to accept an unbelievable story that they would not believe in any other context they must practice a double standard. They must use a lower standard of acceptance than they would apply to basically the same claim but in a different circumstance. They must lie to themselves.

The funny thing about something that is actually real is it doesn't matter what you believe. It is still real. And the magic still works even thought you continue not to believe in it. You do not have to believe in electrons to use the light switch on the wall. The electrons don't care. And if you believe it is not electrons the light switch will still work.

Any situation where the magic will only work after you believe in it is just out and out foolery. And of course it is very funny that many supernaturalist know this. But they have managed to fool themselves with all this "belief" crap. If it is real belief is irrelevant.

Starboy

[James]

Quote by: Starboy My point is that even Christians would not believe the story they claim to believe if it were presented in contemporary form. That the story is unbelievable. That in order to accept an unbelievable story that they would not believe in any other context they must practice a double standard. They must use a lower standard of acceptance than they would apply to basically the same claim but in a different circumstance. They must lie to themselves. The funny thing about something that is actually real is it doesn't matter what you believe. It is still real. And the magic still works even thought you continue not to believe in it. You do not have to believe in electrons to use the light switch on the wall. The electrons don't care. And if you believe it is not electrons the light switch will still work. Any situation where the magic will only work after you believe in it is just out and out foolery. And of course it is very funny that many supernaturalist know this. But they have managed to fool themselves with all this "belief" crap. If it is real belief is irrelevant. Starboy

God also continues to exist even though you and others don't believe in Him. And He still loves everyone on earth. God loves you and me, God loves Osama bin Laden, heck-God even loves George W. Bush, believe it or not!

God doesn't need us, but we do need Him.
The Bible says that ignorance will not pardon you from punishment for your sin.

I would have enough faith to go and find out if it is God. The Bible says that anyone who is even lightly against God cannot be with Him, but against Him. A way to tell if someone is of God or not is to ask them to confess Jesus Christ as Messiah and savior of the earth. If they cannot do this, then they are evil and not of God.

I might not have enough faith to believe now that a man is God on earth, but I have enough to believe that He was here 2,000 years ago.

[Starboy]

Hey my point still stands. Even you would not believe the original story that you base your so called faith on if it were presented to you today in contemporary form. You think about that.

Starboy

[James]

Quote by: Starboy Hey my point still stands. Even you would not believe the original story that you base your so called faith on if it were presented to you today in contemporary form. You think about that. Starboy

The question of 'would I still believe it if it happened today' is not a fair question. My opinion and answer can't be truthful, since it already happened once. And the Messiah couldn't come today, He already came. And when He comes again, it'll be to call the believers home.

The way I see it: If I believe today in what happened 2,000 years ago,
I would believe it if it happened today instead.
The same if I had lived back when Jesus was on earth.

Souls don't change. It's the soul that chooses to believe or to not believe.

[Athena]

Starboy, I so agree with you. That is why I totally do not worry about going to hell. I think there may be a God, just not the one described in the bible, or any other mythology. Like Spinoza, for me, God is the X factor of the universe, not a humanized supernatural being competing with another supernatural being for our souls. There could be no Satan worshiping with this belief system, so it is really silly to blame Satan worshiping on anything but the Christian belief system. It is really, really silly to believ Christians with supernatural beings of good and evil, angels and demons, oppose superstition. If they at least knowledged their belief as superstition, there would be some sanity to it.

[Starboy]

I agree Athena. The only hope Christianity has for surviving is just to admit it is mythology and get on with it. If they claim that their ethos contains good guidance for society then they should show that. But all the hocus pocus is just plain silly.

Starboy

[Athena]

Quote by: James God also continues to exist even though you and others don't believe in Him. And He still loves everyone on earth. God loves you and me, God loves Osama bin Laden, heck-God even loves George W. Bush, believe it or not! God doesn't need us, but we do need Him. The Bible says that ignorance will not pardon you from punishment for your sin. I would have enough faith to go and find out if it is God. The Bible says that anyone who is even lightly against God cannot be with Him, but against Him. A way to tell if someone is of God or not is to ask them to confess Jesus Christ as Messiah and savior of the earth. If they cannot do this, then they are evil and not of God. I might not have enough faith to believe now that a man is God on earth, but I have enough to believe that He was here 2,000 years ago.

Your loving God, told the Hebrews to extremate people and take their land, and was very clearly the God of Abraham, not a universal God. This God destroyed all living things that Noah couldn't get into to the ark. This God uses demons and plagues to punish people with sickness and famine, he punishes people with volcanos, tornades, earthquakes, etc., and occasuionally if people pray right, they are spared by God. We should remember to paint our doors with the blood of lamb, so that plagues pass by our doors and do not take our first born. Do Christians actually read the bible?