Sri Lumpa said:
| Snow can be seen and felt on Earth, it has been witnessed by millions of people with thier eyes in this physical world, God cant, thats why your explnation fails. And kid from Sahara is likley to learn or at least hear about snow, so thats annotherreason why your debunking failed. |
My analogy includes him not being told about snow by people who have experienced it. He is not told and has never seen snow so while he can imagine snow he can't know through faith that snow exist. The same with us and god. The kid can know through experience that snow exists by traveling to a snowy place but until he does he can't know, just believe in it. Similarly we can know through experience if god exist, by dying, but before we do so we can't know that god exist, only believe it.
Again, God is different. The reason God doesnt show himself to people is so that people can keep free will. Also, even when you have faith, you cant ''see'' God in literal meaning of that word, rather you can FEEL his presence in your life and his existance. Thats not the case with snow.
Ok my bad, but I think you understand why I misinterpreted it and why another poster thought it stupid. We also probably have a different definition of rational and irrational as for me faith, not being based on evidence, cannot be rational. Now it doesn't mean that faith cannot use reason as once you take the bible's veracity on faith you can apply reason on its claim to construct religious arguments, but the foundation, being based on faith is irrational.
Going by that logic, you are also implying that love is irrational, and thus, stupid too. (because thats what irrational mean-stupid, only less harsh sound). Now why would you call love stupid when billions of people describe it as the best thing of mankind? I can see why you think belief in God is stupid, but love?
| Faith that shows loving God that promotes peace love, equality and respect? Than yes, they can see it too, as both of those religions promote the same things that God of Christianity and Christ does. Thats not a rebuttal, you almost confirmed my point. |
No because I am not restricting it to faiths that are compatible with yours but also those that are not, so that the faith of a muslim jihaddist in a warloving god would be just as valid a path to him knowing such a warlike god exists as your faith of a loving god is a valid path to you knowing that a loving god exists.
What? Oh hell no. Thats not how it works, its not that easy. See how I used 2 words ''true or correct'' faith? That means, one cannot simply believe in God, but do the exact opposite his God said and hope to find him or seek him. One has to have ortohodox faith and good heart, and of course NOT BE FOOLED BY FANATICS AND SEE THE TRUE POINT OF HIS/HERS RELIGION.Now, I cant speak for ALL, but huge majority of real religions do favour and teach the things I mentioned in my post above.
To go to the extreme, as you cannot disprove god being an atheist is an act of faith in the absence of a spiritual world so that according to you their faith leads atheists to know that there is no god and no spiritual world. How is it compatible with your faith letting you know that there is a god and a spiritual world?
Atheism isnt a belief, its a lack of belief. Note I said ''in THEISM, faith CAN (but not neccesarly does) lead to knowledge'' not atheism
On a related note are you aware of the Baha'i's faith teaching of the unity of religion?
I have not heard about that religion, but their idea doesnt sound too bad for me at all.
| Depends on the individual and his/hers faith. Spiritual world can bee seen trough faith. |
I do not deny that they can be seen through faith. But seeing them through faith does not make them real and given that you will not know if they are real until you die then your faith cannot give you knowledge of them, only a stronger faith in them.
This is where we part ways, like I said, if you have true faith in God, it can lead you to discover or feel them FOR REAL ( I knew knowledge was a bad word to use). But than again, I dont except you to understand that, we shouldnt argue about this anymore, as we do see thing from different perspectives, and we would only end up going in circles, and in large debates such as this, that can be very annoying
| Its true, I speak from experience. Just look at this web site for an example. |
And a lot of women dress in teasing ways but it does not provide an excuse if one cannot temper their lust.
Hoq does this have anything to do with my post? The fact remains, huge majority of internet atheists are more sacreligious than irreligious
We should make a new reality TV show: one insensitive atheist/antitheist (Hitchens?) and one hypersensitive theist in a room for a month. That would be fun (you might want to have bouncers available to separate them before they kill each other).
I do not understand the point of this post. Isnt Hitchens dead?
| But its not punishable by law, its only not welcome in some societies ( I already mentioned reasons for this), so they had no reason not to come out |
Homosexuality has not been punishable by law either for years yet there still are plenty of people in the closet because they are afraid to be rejected by their family. Legal pressure is not the only thing in play, peer pressure can be even more powerful as it can lead people to break the law.
Lot of people expressed themselfes as atheists during the Age of Enlightment, if someone was really an athesit, it would probably come out as such, or at least as agnostic.And i sure if someone
| But you need to look at the main point and purpose of Christianity if you want to fully understand it. Dont focus on small unimportant stories that were given to Christianity by other pagan religions. |
I realise that you can perfectly consider christianity as a moral philosophy free from the baggage of its description of this world or of the spiritual world (see atheists for Jesus) and you seem to consider it free of its description of this world but with its description of the spiritual world. Not every christian agrees with you though (like padib who think that if the account of genesis is false then the whole edifice of biblical claims come crashing down) and they tend to be the most vocal minority.
Thats exactly how I view almost every religion. And Im not very educated on Genesis creation/evolution thing, so I cant argue about it. And Im sure hndreds of millions of Christians would disagree with me, but thats just how I see things. Also note that I am not whole pure christian, I am something like Christian-Deist, as I follow Christian teachings and moral principels but I dont follow Christian church.
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Yes, but the nature of the world isnt the religion's main purpose. For the long time religious institiutions were the only source of science and knowledge, and thats why church manipullated religion and used it to explain the world.
Yes, God commanded 10 commandments and Moses wrote it. Jesus however, coverd all 10 commandments by saying ''Love and accept your God as a saviour and never do anything to others that you dont wish to be done upon yourself'', hence why he accomplished law of Moses and promoted God's comands. But stuff like ''Book of Leviticus (part of the old testament)'' and similar hold no historical nor spirital place in Christianity.
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I disagree with your interpretation of the bible as I simply see it as a contradiction in the bible but since I have no intention of trying to convert you to a literal interpretation of the bible I think we will have to agree to disagree.
Bible was written by and translated by many different people who lived their lives during different periods of time, it is bound to be contradictionary somewhere. But all people who studied the Bible an agree on its main purpose
| They are contradictionary because they teach different things. Heck, go read the first 3 sentences of this article |
The reason why they are contradictory does not mean they are not. When the old testament holds some action as moral like stoning people to death for various infractions but Jesus says not to resist evil they are both teaching actions and those actions are contradictory (resist evil by stoning people to death vs do not resist evil).
Whatß There is a faous quote by Jesus that he said when a woman was about to get stoned to death: '#Let him who is without sin cast the first stone''
| Do you disagree with the morals God and Jesus Christ teached people upon? |
No tentirely. I agree with some of them like the golden rule (the spirit of it as read literally it would mean a masochist should inflict pain on others to follow it masochist isnt a sane human being and as such, not in position to make good moral choices) but I find the dogma that you cannot enter heaven but through belief in Jesus as a savior to be repugnant as it means that a person doing their best to be as moral as possible but not believing in the supernatural claims of the bible would not be accepted in heaven.I am sorry, but this is VERY WRONG. You dont have to see Jesus Christ as a son of God (we are all children of God) to be in heaven, what Bible says when ''accept Jesus as your saviour'' is that you accept him as a teacher of most important human morals not as a son of God. Muslims also accept Jesus Christ as a very important person, only not as the literal son of God. Jews hold simmilar belief. In other word you do not go to heaven because you are a good person but because of the arbitrary criteria of faith in a particular person.
John 7:24 Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.
This also mean that I find the whole concept of hell (which not all christians believe in though) immoral as being a moral person is not enough to spare you an eternity of torture (and since when is torture moral anyway?).
I already explained you the true meaning of ''Hell'. Do you want me to do it again? Hell isnt a place of torture, its a stae of soul in which the soul itself puts into. thats the short basic version
As for the old testament, I find most of it to be more an account of immorality than I find it to be a moral guide.
Agree.
| I beleive all morals given by God are good, not because they are from God, but because I agree with them |
Is there any teaching about moral in the bible (both testaments as they both come from god) with which you do not agree then?
Not really, no. At least, to my knowledge of their morals.
Do you see Leviticus as moral? I certainly don't. Note that seeing Leviticus as not applying to christians does not mean it is not moral as it is part of a moral code given by god.
Its a jewish book and the teachinf of Judism, it holds no importantce to me
| Not at all. person that is still sane knows that hes having hallucinations, in fact most people realize the things they see during hallucinations are not there. |
So are you claiming that you are not sane as you do not realise the hallucinatory nature of your faith derived "knowledge"?
What? that post had nothing to do with faith, I was just commenting about the person that is having hallucinations, probably knows the stuff he sees is due to his/hers sickness.
| No, they dont. Schizophrenia is mental illness, just because you can see things that arent there due to mental sickness doesnt mean its anything like seeing God trough true faith, and by ''seeing'# dont mean seeing with your own eyes like hallucinations, but rather know that He is there, feel his presence. |
Your argument was faith based. The origin of the faith (religious text or hallucination) is irrelevant; as long as they believe (i.e. have faith) in their hallucination your argument apply.
But most persons that have hallucinations know that the stuff they are seing is not there and that they are ill, as PROVEN by medicine. Not the same case with the faith in higher power (God)
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I mean when a person is convinced that a higher power (God) exists due to his spiritual experince in life and faith.
it really depends on what exactly are you trying to realise or discover trough meditation. Now, I've personally never done anything like meditation myself, so I dont know weather or not you can discover the existance of higher being with meditation . I am not very educated on that stuff
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Then I will go back to my example of the atheist's faith. Can an atheist know through his faith that god does not exist?
Atheist person has no faith, that is obvious. An atheist, by definition, doesnt beleive in God, and as such, probably would never find or see God, even after he dies.
| But the snow would still exist, and thats the main point. Its not important how you ''imagine'' God on his visual appereance, what matters is that you have faith in him and that faith is later on proven |
But the snow's existence would be totally independent from the boy's faith in it. If I had replaced snow with chasira, a completely fictional substance that i just made up, your argument is that the boy would know through his faith that chasira exists.
His faith in snow or chasira does not mean they exist and does not cause them to exist so it cannot allow him to have the knowledge of their existence.
They do not cause them to exist, but given that chasira or snow are real, the boy can feel their existance and presence with the true orthodox faith.
| Except that those Christians are wrong and your view on Hell is very wrong as well. Hell isnt a place , its a state of soul where a person PUT HIMSELF INTO. Its a state of soul in after life where soul is without god, but the soul putted it self there not God, for Gods love towards man is too big for Him to torture and burn his people.Stuff like fire, demons and torture are used as symbolics to present the afterlife without God. |
It may be wrong but it seems to be the view of hell offered by most of christianity. for reference my christian parents do not believe in an everlasting hell where people are tortured but believe in what they call gehenna, where souls not accepted by god are destroyed (i.e. a one time event instead of everlasting torture).
Souls that do not accept God, are pretty much destroyed. Maybe destroyed is too big or too ugly word, but they sure are lost in thier own darkness of afterlife, which is quite terrifying, in my opinnion.
| You example fails, God would never hurt a person. |
Then why all the laws punishable by death in the old testament?
The only ''laws'' God gave to people were 10 commandments
| And Jesus really did exist, its a historical proven fact. |
As far as I know the only eyewitness accounts are found in the bible which cannot be used as a source of its own historicity and there is no Roman record of his crucifixion. While it doesn't disprove his existence it certainly mean that it is not historically proven.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
However I was not claiming that he did not exist, I said "like the deity of Jesus". Are you saying that Jesus's status as a deity is an historically proven fact and not a subjective belief?
| You dont have to beleive Jesus Christ was son of God, just beleive in his teachings. |
That's not what the bible says:
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. John 3:36
Believes in him, not believe in his teachings.
If you interpret the bible differently that is your right but I do not find it supported by the bible itself.
The problem lots of people have with the Bible today is that its too symbolic for some people to follow. Also, define ''believe in Son'' did he mean beleive in him as a person, beleive in what he said or beleive that he is actuall deity of a son God. I dont know, but I know this: in Christianity, NO ONE is good enough for heaven, not even the christians themsleves.Even if you do believe in Jesus, you are still not good enough for heaven, I am not good enough for heaven either.There is no reason why should St. Peter let me trough the gates of heaven EXCEPT for the sacriface Jesus Christ made for the sake of mankind and its salvation.
| If it has huge amount of evidence supporting it why dont you beleive in it and why is it still considerd a theory? |
Newton's theory of Universal Gravitation is still a theory. So is Einstein's theory of General Relativity that proved Newton's theory incorrect because of its incompleteness.
You do not seem to understand that scientific theories are not proven, merely supported by facts.
And I do not believe in it because it is not an act of faith. I don't believe in gravity either but I accept Newton's theory as a very good explanation and Einstein's theory as an even better one though less practical as it is more complicated (for example NASA uses Newton's theory to launch rockets as the relativistic effects are monimal enough to ignore them for that purpose).
I don't believe in evolution but I do believe that it represents the best scientific explanation of the multitude of facts that supports it.
It is a subtle distinction but it means that if somebody came up with a theory that better explained those facts I would not have difficulty accepting that theory as the best explanation.
Yeah, sure, I was just under impression that they were all proven, seeing as how many people are so vocal about it.
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