You knew it was coming...

[Saturn V]

There's 900 million Muslims in the world. who cares if they are in Iraq or not...

You're missing my point.

My point was that if.. nevermind. Read the earlier posts.

[froedrick]

I would but it's like 20 after 12 and I'm tired

[Sarien]

It makes sense. However when you seek your own "logical" answers, it tends to seperate you from God even more - if you accept the fact (as I do) that religion/spirituality is completely illogical to begin with.

I don't even begin to buy the fact that searching for logic seperates you from a deity. In fact, I would venture to say that is ample reasoning behind not believing in said deity to begin with. Religions are for the most part not illogical as much as they are fundamentally flawed. They ask you to believe and deal in hearsay, rumors. You can't use that, to convict someone of so much as a traffic ticket, yet millions upon millions of people put their faith and blind trust behind it. Do you see the schism?

You take Christianity and you apply your logic test, and it fails, so people say that you can't use logic. But at the same time, if you take Buddhism, they tell you straight out, that every benefit from the religion is personal and real for you. If it doesn't make sense or work, then they tell you striaght up, then go find something else if you want. So Religion isn't about logic or not, it's something very personal. I just happen to believe strongly that a LOT of people are being played for suckers, because they believe that a religion isn't supposed to make sense when it can't stand up to scrutiny. It's too eerily much like an abuse victim, too ready to justify the abusers actions all away as something else, when in reality the abuser is just a prick.

And Howdy, JT.

[Vykromond]

zippen zippen zop, folks. zippen zippen zop.













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[Epinephrine]

My take on all of this:

I base this on the 5-6 years that I attened chruch (my parents suddenly decided to try religion, but needless to say in the end it wasn't worth waking up early on Sundays for so we stopped going and I was happy cause I hated waking up early on Sundays) and from my super-Christian roommate who I argued with a lot last year. For the record if you were to label me I guess I'm agnostic, but to clarify I was born with no religion in my family since time immemorial, and I fully believe in the concepts of science.

Okay the way I see it, if you believe in one of the three major religions (Islam, Christianity, Judism) then that's all you believe in. Basically you believe in it, and you think you are 100% or else you wouldn't believe in it. The important fact is that other people are obviously wrong because you're obviously right or else you wouldn't believe in it. I think the Buddists accept other religions in tandem and I don't know much about any other belief system so I won't comment.

To specify on Christianity, the idea is if you're truly Christian then you believe in the Bible. Specifically you believe that Jesus died for all of mankind's sins, and that the only way to enter heaven is to believe in Jesus and in some way atone for what you do during life that's bad. The idea is that you believe in this absolutely. Being judged by God once you die to sort out where you end up for eternity is 100% absolutely the ONLY thing that happens when you die. There is NO OTHER option. This is how the religion specifies how the world works. If you believe that there can be other options, then you are NOT Christian. Similarily Judism and Islam preach the same in that whatever they believe in is THE TRUTH and absolutely NOTHING ELSE is correct. That is how the religion is laid out a priori. You cannot question that if you truly believe in the religion. If you question it, then you don't really believe in it.

So the idea is, since you are right, everyone else who isn't like you is WRONG. They are going to burn in hell. There is absolutely no other way.

Christian ethics will create some loopholes to this idea. I'm not sure if these things are specified in the Bible, or were created later to make people happy that Christianity isn't purly evil. Babies and really young children who have no chance to actually learn about Jesus, aren't born Christians (i.e. born to Christian parents) and who die before they can really understand the concept of Jesus are obviously spared and get to go to heaven. People who live in remote places who have never heard of Christianity are also spared, or perhaps they go to purgatory and are judged by their actions on Earth. If virtuous they may go to heaven because it's not their fault they never heard of Jesus. Everyone else... well too bad for them.

Now from what I understand of the history of Christianity and Judism, the fact is Judism has always been a very closed religion. There is no real impetus to convert people, because Jews are 'God's chosen people', and everyone else... is not. I guess if you REALLY wanted to become a Jew you could convert, but if you don't, they probably won't harass you cause they aren't chosen.

Christianity meanwhile comes from a very evangelicial tradition. Jesus and his apostles tried to actively convert Jews and anyone else to Judism. Look at Paul... he spent his whole life trying to convert people. So not only is it tradition to but I've read somewhere before that some Christians think it's their moral imperative to convert people. The idea is that since Jesus died for ALL OUR SINS instead of just 'the chosen', that significantly opens up the number of people who can be saved from a select few to everyone on Earth. Therefore there is a moral imperative to actively convert people and to save souls. It's the ONLY MORAL thing to do. You KNOW you are 100% absolutely correct. You KNOW they are 100% absolutely wrong, and thus they will go to hell. So to be a virtuous person you really should be trying to convert them. Sorta like how if you want to be a good person you give homeless people on the street money, well the stakes are much higher here.

If you still don't believe it, think about it this way. I would consider myself a scientist. I did my undergrad degree in science, and my future profession is based on science. Whenever I see ignorance in people who completely misinterpret science I feel it my duty to correct these obviously 'ignorant' people. I mean hey, they are completely wrong and it's just my personality to point out that they're stupid for not believing in the basic precepts of science, mainly that truth is always evolving and based currently on experimentally reproducable outcomes in all instances. So I guess you can say I'm trying to 'convert' people to science, although I like to think of it as making sure people are 'educated'.

So we've established that the fundamental ideals of the 3 most important religions in the western world are that they essentially believe that they are 100% correct and that if you don't believe in what they believe in, then you are 100% incorrect. Therefore there is no real tolerance for other religions because they are WRONG. Secondly we've established that Christianity has evangelical roots dating back to the sermons of Christ. Thirdly we've established that even without that tradition, because of the idea that everyone can potentially be saved, it is a MORAL imperative to 'save' as many people as you can or else you're essentially letting them go to hell, as much as not feeding the homeless would be letting them starve to death.


So you say, what is faith then?

In the original post, faith was defined in a number of ways and so was belief. I do not think you can use dictionary definitions of words and express a religion in that. As I've expressed throughout my post, if you are of certain religions, then you believe in what they say fundamentally. As I've stated some religions such as Buddism aren't mutually incompatible with other beliefs, but Christianity IS.

========
This can be best summed up apply the theory of natural selection on religions:

You started out with religions that only were more like belief systems. Systems where say you had a wind spirit, or rock spirit or whatever and it wasn't really formal. Somewhat like the Native North American beliefs of certain tribes that we stereotypically attribute to them all. These beliefs as a formal system aren't too powerful. You basically acknowledge that there are other gods, probably local gods to other tribes and so you aren't right, they aren't right, everyone's sorta right. This works for small bands of people. Basically people like believing in stuff, and this lets them believe in stuff without trying to explain it (i.e. why is there wind? Why does it rain in the rainy season?). In smaller groups, you don't need much control over a society because everyone knows eachother.

Then you have a more formalized system where you have names for these spirits, formal ideas about them. You may even create idols. This eventually is replaced by even more formal ideas where not just your local gods, but there are overriding gods which everyone in a culture believes in on top of the 'local' gods. This can be shown most famously by the Ancient Greek polytheism and their panthon of gods, or by the ancient Egyptians. This is a much more powerful idea. Using the idea of an allpowerful sun god Ra, the ancient Egyptian ruling class was able to invoke fear in their subjects and rule by economic, military AND religious supremacy. In larger human groupings you need a more powerful relgious idea. Usually the king IS the god. You must fear the king, therefore you obey. Also the other gods invoke a sense of fear in you over just the military/police forces so you feel an urge to act morally and not do what we may now consider to be 'bad' things becuase you don't want the gods to punish you (as in the past police/military wasn't that effective for the average person).

Then you have monothestic ideas. The idea is that god is now removed from a human perspective. You only have ONE god, so your fears and your ability to believe in living a moral life is centered on only one figure. This makes everything very uncomplicated as there are no local gods to worry about. In many of the most successful monotheisms, there is no idol worship as well. This removes all and any physical thing you fear. Basically you fear the UNSEEN. This is a powerful idea because you're basically always fearing, and there is nothing physical. God is ALWAYS watching you. This still of course does not replace the other beliefs because they just simply don't believe you.

So you go one step further. You create a religion that combines the ideals of monotheism, evangelism so that you spread the word, AND you add in the idea of rewards and not just fear from punishment. Then you create a powerful idea. Eventually this supplants the other ideas because it's easy to spread, is powerful cause it's easy to understand and 'god is everywhere' and because of it's mutual exclusiveness, it effectively completely eliminates the other religions (unlike the Greek and Roman traditions which just added more stuff and accepted local beliefs). In terms of rewards, everlasting life in a heaven is a damn good reward, and most other systems don't have this. The other things die out so to speak unless they too were powerful enough ideas to stand the test of time. In other words the better ideas stay alive by replacing the not so good ideas, thus natural selection is acting on religious ideas.
=============

(CONTINUED)

[Epinephrine]

See Christianity allows ANYONE to join. You don't need to be born to a particular tribe or geographical location (i.e. local god/spirit worship). It's simple to understand (only one god, not physical being on Earth, but is EVERYWHERE). And it also includes rampant evangelism. People actively spread this easy to understand idea which mutually excludes all other religions.

Thus it spreads, and thus it becomes a potent force in the world.

The point of my little story was to show you how powerful this idea really is. It still lingers because of the simple fact that the idea itself is just so powerful. Islam shares many of the same criteria of Christianity and thus is just as powerful and has almost just as many people in it although because of it's late start and because it isn't really any better than Christianity it doesn't really convert any Christians and vice versa it has slightly less people.


But let's go even more basic. Why is there religion? Why do people need religion anyway?

Everyone needs something to believe in. Religion started as a way to explain our natural world. Why do things happen? Where do we come from? Beliefs provided good ideas, religions formalized them. In our modern society where science has been so powerful, religion has in many ways sunk to it's secondary role in answering questions that science cannot answer.

When you try thinking about what happens to you AFTER you die, it's frightening. It's scary to basically anyone. No one knows what happens when you die. So what happens when you die? Well it's nice to think you go somewhere and that you have an eternal soul. But where does that soul go? Well that's where religion comes in.

Religion plays to our ignorance. Everyone needs something to believe in or else you would feel empty. The more intelligent you are, the more you probably question what to believe. This does not mean intelligent people are not religious, because in the end faith is not based on intelligence. Sure it's easier for 'stupid' people to be blindly religious because they don't question enough and are ready to just 'accept' but religion only works because the ideas really are so powerful that even extremely intelligent people can come to accept its ideas. For many of the very intelligent, they rationalize. Perhaps evolution really does occur, and the 'six days' god took to create the Earth, really summed up evolution over 4.5 billion years. Perhaps the bible isn't as much literally true as the message is true. Still, they accept (and everyone accepts) that science has no idea about what happens to your consciousness after you die, because science has not explained consciousness. Therefore religion can fill that hole even in the most arduent of scientists.


Finally, why the bible? I ask this all the time. The Bible was essentially written 100 years after the death of Christ by people who weren't even involved with the events that took place, except that they heard about it. Considering that even people in Trench Wars who WERE AROUND 5 years ago FORGET CRUTIAL THINGS THAT HAPPENED or at least majorly skew them (try talking to FieryFire about TW history he's completely off), then how the hell are people who never saw something going to accurately depict it 100 years later?

The best answer I've ever heard (which isn't completely satisfactory for me because I don't care enough to check his sources) was from my roommate who I argued with. Basically he told me that there are a bunch of Christian writings which were all written very near the time of Christ. They were all written independently, and about the same events. In fact he told me that some of the books of the New Testiment weren't written like 100 years after as I believe, but right away. They were written independently in different areas of the world by independent writers, so that there is no way they could have correlated their stories to fabercate in sync. The degree of accuracy between these texts is so high, that the events MUST have happened (basically what we base our knowledge of normal history on.. multiple sources, correlating evidence, independently recorded).

Of course I'm still a bit cynical. I've read recently that Jesus could have suffered from a type of coma/stroke while on the cross. Because he 'died' on the cross before his 3 days were up, the Romans just took him down instead of 'making sure' he was dead by slicing him up if he were still kicking. The theory goes that he had massive blood loss, went into a type of coma or shock which is seen nowadays in modern medicine, and then was on the brink of death so that to someone not really looking closely he seemed dead. Then a few days later he recovered from this (as can happen in modern cases) and was 'resurrected' from the dead. I forget the name of whatever disease he had, but I'm sure if you look on the net you could probably find reference to this.

Perhaps this really happened, and coupled with other events in his life triggered people to really believe in it and write it down. I can't say for sure, but there ARE arguments against it all even if the historical evidence seems correct, perhaps people did not see what REALLY happened and only what they WANTED to see, and everyone recorded that down correctly.

As to all the shitty things religious people do that seem contrary to their religion (some super christians in the US don't drink, even though Jesus clearly drank wine and it's clearly okay in the bible to drink alcohol) I think it's just human nature to change things to suit your own agenda instead of a specific failing of the religion or at least the idea behind the religion as a whole. Just because many Christians in the US accept captial punishment doesn't mean all Christians do. These are thoughts which IMO are seperate from religion and are more based on local cultural values and political agendas rather than on religion.

Anyway that's just my theory of it. It's not based on quoting the bible or anything, but just looking at it rationally. I hope it helped, I know it's a bit long so I apoligize for the length.

-Epi

[Bioture]

I don't even begin to buy the fact that searching for logic seperates you from a deity. In fact, I would venture to say that is ample reasoning behind not believing in said deity to begin with. Religions are for the most part not illogical as much as they are fundamentally flawed. They ask you to believe and deal in hearsay, rumors. You can't use that, to convict someone of so much as a traffic ticket, yet millions upon millions of people put their faith and blind trust behind it. Do you see the schism?

Its called "faith" for a reason - to believe in something that is seemingly illogical yet undeniable. I agree that there is reasoning in being non-religions/spiritual, however, if a person like me can come to Christ, I'm convinced that perhaps faith goes beyond logical reasoning. After all, you can't touch/taste/smell God. I also agree that most religions are flawed, but since spirituality and religion are seperate, I'm not really concerned with the imperfections of religion, rather, I'm concerned with my personal relationship with the almighty. And the "hearsay" and "rumors" part is untrue - the bible is a historical book, whether or not you believe the characters actually existed. That is, the locations, events, customs, units of measurement, etc. described in the bible are historically true.

I don't understand your need to generalize religion in to a single catagory as you see fit - who are you to judge the validity of another person's faith when you have no faith? And the trust isn't blind - its earned, for me at least.

You take Christianity and you apply your logic test, and it fails, so people say that you can't use logic. But at the same time, if you take Buddhism, they tell you straight out, that every benefit from the religion is personal and real for you. If it doesn't make sense or work, then they tell you striaght up, then go find something else if you want. So Religion isn't about logic or not, it's something very personal. I just happen to believe strongly that a LOT of people are being played for suckers, because they believe that a religion isn't supposed to make sense when it can't stand up to scrutiny. It's too eerily much like an abuse victim, too ready to justify the abusers actions all away as something else, when in reality the abuser is just a prick.
And Howdy, JT.

Again, something as "personal" as religion isn't yours to scrutinize in the first place. I've always thought the current fellowship that I'm in lacked realism - most of them didn't curse, prayed every day, etc. But then again, most of them lead happier, more meaningful lives than I do. And I can't even begin to describe how much my life has changed since I came to Christ - all of my arguments against religion/spirituality became completely inadequate to describe the experience.

Being a former athiest myself, I can relate to where you are coming from. But unless you actually experience God firsthand, there really is no point in anyone trying to convince you one way or the other.

[Ayano]

Epinephrine :thumbsup:

btw

bioture
"It makes sense. However when you seek your own "logical" answers, it tends to seperate you from God even more"

Science is the result of logic if your searching for your own answers. If god created everything as we know, wouldent science lead to a stronger belief in god?

Yea, I have more stuff but i'm not really into long posts.

Anyway, I'm atheist in the sence that I believe god is this force thats a different form of matter, other than that is visible, like dark matter. (This would prove more that seaching deeper into science will either strengthen your faith towards god or pull you away from it)

The way I see it is that "there is no way you can control your own chemical reaction". As we all know, your body runs on Cause > Effect and static reactions to maintain homeostasis. Your conscience transends that, and typically, the natural laws of physics would consider that Impossible. Hence there is somthing beyond normal matter that controls this factor. Actaully I believe it dips into another dimentional plain of exisitance "heaven". My strange little theory also explains ghosts, (portals, electromagnetics and all that jazz).

As for religion, I tend to believe its a pre form of goverment and a way of controling a mass of people. This would date to nomadic tribes and how religion united people, forming a commen intrest. Then again, what made them believe in god in the first place? Weather and other natural laws of physics baffled man back in the day, nobody knew what caused it. Questions like what is the purpose of life, what are those dots in the sky, the list goes on and on. Without modern science, most of these questions were left un answered creating a void for phisophy. GOD, a supreme being that put everything in action, a figure that in essence can't be defined any other way besides being the "supreme being" that could answer all of your questions. Suddenly GOD was the answer to all those unknowns, an unexplainable factor to answer another unexplainable factor, man sure was smart. Today however, we have science to answer those questions. "Omg a tornado just killed my family, I preach god with all my faith WHY ME?", well apparently you desided to live in tornado alley hoping your faith would protect you, so much for that.
Science was a logical way to define the universe, using physics among other propertys to define and bring out "how things work".

Modern society is starting to look more on the atheist/agnowhatever side after witnessing religious warfare and terroism coupled with technology. Now with the internet, information can travel more freely unlike our pastime which limited the info you received. Overall I can see Religion on a downslope over the next few centrys, we'll have to see.

PS. why does it seem Religion is questioned more in civilized nations (Europe,usa ect) than in provety stricken countrys? A flash back to history is it, we must not repeat our mistakes.

My 2 cents

[Escalate]

trying to convince a christian there is no god is like trying to convince a 4 year old that there is no santa claus:

1. he wont listen to logic, he knows there is a santa because his mommy told him so...she would never lie, besides, everyone has read all of the books about santa which are of course, as good as gospel.

2. there is no point in doing it, if it makes the kid happy to believe in nonsense....then hey, ignorance is bliss. turn off that logic part of your brain if it ever bugs ya, thats the spirit.

3. for trying to do such an awful thing, convincing him there is no santa, you will surely be seen as a "very very bad person", no one likes that title.

[Hairygroin]

Without a God, what more do you have to live for?

Religion (and Christianity especially, if it is followed well) lead to a very good life, where there is a Heaven to look forward to, a shepherding God to look over all, and a very open and loving religious society to live in.

Christianity is one of the few religions that openly preaches loving and caring for others, loving the enemy as your neighbor, and other "good" things. It is all about love, basically.

Without religion, there is no bound to a person. Effectively, unless the person has a form of self control, there won't be much there except an animal. Christianity is more than religion, it is a way of life that promotes happiness.

Is there anything so wrong with that? I guarantee you that I am likely far more happy than many of the aetheists and religion haters out there.

[Sarien]

And the "hearsay" and "rumors" part is untrue - the bible is a historical book, whether or not you believe the characters actually existed. That is, the locations, events, customs, units of measurement, etc. described in the bible are historically true.

I don't understand your need to generalize religion in to a single catagory as you see fit - who are you to judge the validity of another person's faith when you have no faith? And the trust isn't blind - its earned, for me at least.

Again, something as "personal" as religion isn't yours to scrutinize in the first place.

But unless you actually experience God firsthand, there really is no point in anyone trying to convince you one way or the other.

I can see that I touched a wire, and it shouldn't be so. Don't believe that I'm saying it's wrong for you to believe, simply that I do not and will not believe it myself.

Hearsay: It is absolutely 100% hearsay. When Moses went up on the mountain he is asking everyone at the bottom and you, and the whole world to believe that god told him the ten commandments and etc. That is absolutely hearsay. You were not there, there is no evidence whatsoever that a God told Moses commandments for anything, except him saying it happened. That is to say: hearsay.
Jesus. All of the people that witnessed Jesus' healing and miracle power (mind you I don't believe at all there was ever a real Jesus, but that's just me), you rely on their word that they saw so and so, or in some cases that it was told to them that he did so and so.
As to the Locations, Customs, Units of Measurement, etc?
Allow me to make a proper demonstration:

The day before the November 2004 Election, I was speaking with George Bush. I told him "Mister President, I'd like to anally copulate you with a 12 inch rubber dildo sometime soon, hopefully at your ranch in Crawford Texas." He replied that he would enjoy it, but only if we shook hands first.

Of course it didn't happen, but it just goes to show you, that the validity of the content is only as good as the author, not the person or persons referenced in the text.

I don't understand what you and well, people at large have against "judging". It seems a disgusting lack of spine to go your whole life without ever "judging" one thing or another. It is an utter falsehood and dodge of responsibility to say "You shouldn't judge anyone". A human being lives and their sum of knowledge is nothing but judgements of results based on input data. The Stove is Hot, you touch it and you get burned. You judge that an extreme in heat can cause you pain if you are not careful. You learn about a religion, you find things that make no sense to you, and you decide it's not for you. You just have judged that said religion is not to your liking for X reasons. I did, and will continue to do so judge the validity of a religion to me. At no time do I say to you, Bioture you're an incompetent fool because you're a Christian. I don't even begin to believe that, so please, we can stop that line here and now.

Whatever you want to believe, so long as it hurts nobody I care about, or an innocent person right in front me for me to see: I couldn't possibly care less. It is none of my business.

Something as personal as religion is very much mine to scrutinize, in every single detail, when somebody is trying to sell said religion to me. You gave your input about a specific religion, and I gave mine. Everything on earth that is in public domain is open to scrutiny. Religion included. It's out there, they want followers, and it's for all the public to see, and learn about.

Lastly, about experiencing god firsthand:
This isn't an insult, it's intended to hopefully make you think.
How many burning bushes have you spoken to recently?
You might want to re-think your notion of what "firsthand" really means.

[Sarien]

Sorry for the Double Post, but I wanted to reply to Bioture, and this one is just a short collection of thoughts.

Without a God, what more do you have to live for?

Why is it you feel the need to have more than a life and existence you have?
Doesn't that make your time alive inherently more special to know it will (in cosmic terms) be gone forever? Do something as grand as you can manage, perhaps your name and you do will outlive you for a while.

Religion (and Christianity especially, if it is followed well) lead to a very good life, where there is a Heaven to look forward to, a shepherding God to look over all, and a very open and loving religious society to live in.

Biased and perhaps most false of all, though you will surely use the "followed well" bit as an escape. Because by "followed well" you must inherently mean disobeying several chunks of the bible.
Such as:
Killing your children for disobeying you.
Stoning a man to death if he sleeps with a woman who is another man's wife.
Stoning a man to death if he wears a woman's clothing.
Stoning a woman to death if she sleeps with her husband within seven days of her period and doesn't tell him.
Some open and loving society, chief.

Without religion, there is no bound to a person. Effectively, unless the person has a form of self control, there won't be much there except an animal.

I thought that was the confines of law, and the duty of a person's own moral compass to tell them what they believe to be right and wrong?
Even with religion there are no bounds to several people in the past, just look at any and all heavily religious thieves. Some Popes of the past, included. You could teach a person the same and in many cases better about a moral compass with a course in Moral Philosophy.

When you try thinking about what happens to you AFTER you die, it's frightening. It's scary to basically anyone. No one knows what happens when you die. So what happens when you die? Well it's nice to think you go somewhere and that you have an eternal soul. But where does that soul go? Well that's where religion comes in.

Religion plays to our ignorance. Everyone needs something to believe in or else you would feel empty.

After I die, I am gone forever. This doesn't frighten me. Perhaps most people need something to believe in to stave off feeling empty, but not all. As to the concept of an eternal soul, that very thought frightens me more than all the hellfire and brimstone combined.

What would you do with eternity? The only real answer is to say that eventually you'd go stark raving mad. Imagine John Lennon in heaven. His popularity precedes him. Imagine every single day for forever, a new person coming up to you and going "Hey!, You're John Lennon! Why did you let Yoko break up the Beatles?" Any huge celebrity really. Even if you're just a normal guy, with forever, all the coffee, fucking, ice cream, singing, dancing, everything, will get old after a while, it won't be fun, and you will go absolutely nuts.

The Christian God is a very very childish God. I mean just try to imagine any parental type figure (as god surely is, Christian moreso than others), laying down a rule such as not taking his name in vain. Then if you break that rule, you will be punished for it, not for a while, not even harshly for a long time. But instead, you will be punished -FOREVER-. That is the epitome of childish behavior to me.

[Bioture]

I meant to say that another person's experience with religion/spirituality isn't yours to scrutinize - sorry for the confusion.

And by your definition of "hearsay" how can we be sure that any historical figure existed? How can you prove to me scientifically that King Arthur or Robin Hood were historical characters? Yet these people are more readily accepted as having existed because their "hearsay" does not involve magical powers such as raising the dead, etc etc. And how many witnesses or "hearsayers" of King Arthur or Robin Hood died martyrs? How many people ask the question of "what would Robin Hood do?" (wwrhd)?

If we apply your argument of hearsay to more recent historical events, how can we prove scientifically that Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the united states? Was he really assasinated or did he just have a heart attack and die? Isn't the "proof" of his assasination completely hearsay as well? (I.E. some bystander sees a guy who is later identified as Burr shoot the president and decides to write a newspaper article about it) And yet none of these figures even comes CLOSE to the influence of Jesus on history. Logically speaking, if something as illogical as the son of God walked the earth, shouldn't that branch of religion died off by now? And shouldn't it be pretty easy to produce the body of Jesus so christianity would have been wiped out entirely?

[Sarien]

Wow, I'm not sure if it's your intent but you're coming off to me at least as being really threatened by what I'm saying. But let me delve in.

King Arthur and Robin Hood are both thought to be very much fables. Mythological. Robin Hood is thought mostly to come from court entries in England where certain criminals were listed more as insults or descriptions rather than by name. Robin Hood? A Robbing Hood. Hood as in Hoodlum. Look it up, there are many many many entries in court records of that time period just like that.

How can we prove scientifically that Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president? That's kind of easy seeing as how there's probably only about 7500 lbs of official and objective documentation and empircal evidence (such as official correspondece signed by him) dedicated to just such a small fact in the Library of Congress. How we know he was shot? Well, just to venture a guess but I would suppose that you could look at the photo of him dead with a bigass hole in his head on the surgeon's table. Seen it myself, and I can say with utmost certainty without being a medical professional that the hole in his head did not come from a heart attack. And by the way, it was John Wilkes Booth that shot him, not Aaron Burr.

Can you just as easily produce for me the body of Steve from Bethlehem from the same period in time? Perhaps, a couple of years after Steve died, it would be fairly easy. But a couple thousand years later? That's even supposing that I believe Jesus existed in the first place, which I don't. And before you toss up all the other varigated ways that proves Christ lived and ran around and rode some nice ass on his travels, save it. I've heard it, I don't buy it. It has always and I mean ALWAYS coming back to relying on some other person that also wrote for the bible, or some other such religious fucking fruitcake.

Hearsay? Absolutely, yet again. You're attacking my definition of hearsay and you're not succeeding by a long shot. You're trying to tear down logic and facts and I can tell you right now, that's not gonna happen. You're better served just saying that yes it's hearsay, but it makes sense to you and makes you happy so you believe it anyway. But again:
Moses goes up the mountain, does whatever he does, and comes down and tells the whole world that he talked to god an god told him these commandments to live by. You are supposed to believe this, not based on any substantial evidence other than the person's WORD that he says that is what happened, and those are the words God told him.

Passing along the words of others, gossip, hearsay.
Bio, if it makes you happy, more power to you. But the same way that you cannot possibly refute what is happening right now between me and you, is the very reason why I will not cast what faith I do manage to have in things onto something faulty and shaky at even the very foundations.

[Epinephrine]

hear·say ( P ) Pronunciation Key (hîrs)
n.

1. Unverified information heard or received from another; rumor.
2. Law. Evidence based on the reports of others rather than the personal knowledge of a witness and therefore generally not admissible as testimony.

You are wrong. Moses coming down telling people what happened isn't heresay. It's a first hand account. In a court of law, it would be readily admissible as evidence.

People seeing Jesus resurected and then writing it down isn't heresay. They were THERE.

The question on the truth of this matter is HOW legitimate the historical evidence was. Abraham Lincoln is easier to prove to you because it was recent. But how about other historical figures? We have 8000 years of human history, many of it based on loose facts supported by either what was written by others, or by archaelogical evidence. Julius Caesar has a lot of statues dedicated to him, but how about Plato? Aristotle? Did they exist? The thing is if I didn't want to believe in something then I could always deny it. How do I know the world actually existed before I was born? Maybe it was created for me and me alone. Nothing existed before me. Everyone who is 'alive' is lying to me as part of this 'world' created FOR ME ONLY. All the 'evidence' has been made up to convince me, but it's not working. I'm the only one that's right.

See the kinds of problems we can get into really quickly if we start on the road of thinking that something is wrong before we critically think about all the evidence at hand and try to find a reasonable explaination of it all?

The Bible is set somewhat historically accurately. The question is, is it a work of fiction? If it is fiction, why do so many people believe in it? Did someone just write a book one day, and convinced a lot of people it all happened? I mean if I just make up stuff now and tell you about the lives of 12 aspotles and so on, maybe you'll believe it ALL existed if I was convincing enough. But would that have been good enough to convince so many people to at least convert to Christianity in the early years?

Or perhaps maybe the events did happen but not in the way people thought it did. Maybe Jesus was an advanced robot sent back from the future, or a space alien. Maybe he was just some guy who was raised to think he really was the Messiah and then he had a coma and was 'ressurected'. What sounds more likely to you? The idea that someone created the greatest hoax of all time, or that there is some truth to the written story, and that perhaps it was either completely true or was just misintrepted or misrepresented?

I would say that both of us do not know enough about the available historical record to make an accurate argument so we can stop here.

After I die, I am gone forever. This doesn't frighten me. Perhaps most people need something to believe in to stave off feeling empty, but not all. As to the concept of an eternal soul, that very thought frightens me more than all the hellfire and brimstone combined.

This is an assertion. It is your own belief. You will never be able to prove it, just as religion will never be able to prove itself until you die. You just don't know. You believe you will cease to exist, but can you prove it more than just 'I'm right, you're wrong?". By saying such a statement, you are no better than those who spread religious dogma.


...
*not directed at Sarien*

I think it's funny that in this thread a lot of people will flatly talk about how bad religion and how bad Christianity is, but in the same vein ask why they aren't tolerant of other beliefs. If you're like that yourself, perhaps it's time to look in the mirror, otherwise take the moral highgroud, and accept that no one knows who's correct until you die, and whatever you think happens, it's just your belief... it's a matter of your own personal faith if it were.

Are there a lot of bad people in Christianity? Yes. Are there a lot of people weird things in the religion? Sure. But there's bad people in anything, and weird ideas and things everywhere else. It's up to interpretation. The idea is to find out what the truth is for you and accept it.

-Epi