Personally, I think that no more explanation is required than the current model proposed by science; however, a few people (and not just religious folks ) question that model and others think there might more be to it.

So, I would add that I accept the current cosmological model proposed by mainstream science which I guess is The Big Bang. However, I would like to add that many people (mainly people belonging to the Big Three Abrahamic religions) propose that God had a hand in making everything; what I would like to add is that even if there was a Grand or Intelligent design discovered in the Universe its mere existence would be a long, long way away from proving that that designer was the God that almost everybody means when they say God which is Yahweh The God of the Bible.

If there was a grand design in how the Universe formed or in how humans made the transition to the species they are today, then it would be just as plausible or even more so to assume that that god was a monolith like those envisioned by Arthur C. Clarke, or ancient astronauts like those envisioned by Zechariah Sitchin and Erich Von Daniken, or something like The Great Old Ones dreamed up by H. P. Lovecraft, or the deist Great Architecht of the Universe, or the jocular Flying Spaghetti Monster that many atheists venerate in a humorous fashion and many other types of gods that humans have and haven't dreamed up yet than to assume that the discovery of some kind of plan in the universe automatically meant that Yahweh was real and as a result everyone needed to follow The Laws of the Judeao-Christian faiths (including Islam) to the letter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E-_DdX8Ke0 -- Carl Sagan waxing poetic on god and gods.

But your claim goes beyond simple feeling into actual knowledge. I don't deny you can feel such a presence, I deny that faith alone gives you knowledge, as opposed to the feeling of knowledge.

Love is irrational, or rather, love and faith both have an irrational core that can't be gotten rid of as otherwise it would not be love or faith but a cold blooded calculation.

I also totally disagree with you equating irrationality with stupidity. I pretty much agree with this wikipedia definition of rationality: "Rationality is the manner in which people derive conclusions when considering things deliberately"

Irrationality is the opposite, deriving conclusions without deliberate consideration.

If you go and say "I decide to be in love with that person because of X, Y and Z" that is a rational decision but I wouldn't call it love.

Now you will ask how it applies to faith as you can have faith because of Jesus's miracles, Mohammed's divine inspiration or other supernatural occurrence but first you must accept these claims on faith as there is not enough evidence (if any) of those things being supernatural in nature. So at the base there is a foundation that is not based on reason.

The reason I don't see irrationality as being stupid is because both rationality and irrationality are tools and whether using them is stupid or not depends on the context.

Using rationality to decide who to fall in love is stupid IMO, using rationality to help you decide if you believe in god or not is not, but the last leap of faith between rational thought and belief/disbelief is not rational. So you could say that I think the only rational religious beliefs are agnosticism as it does not seek to answer the question that reason cannot answer and apatheism because it deems the question irrelevant.

I don't as I don't see irrationality as inherently stupid, only its application in the wrong domain.

My understanding of your claim was that faith alone was enough to gain knowledge (know through faith). If you add the requirement that it be correct or true faith then you still cannot gain knowledge that way as you would first need to know that your fait his true.

In other word, your claim is "my faith is true therefore I can know god". Seems like a pretty clear cut of begging the question as you assume the truth of your faith to support your ability to know through faith.

Sure it's a belief. Agnosticism is a lack of belief in both the existence of god(s) and in the non-existence of god(s) whereas atheism is the belief in the non-existence of god(s).

If you restate your claim to be "faith can make you feel god" then I agree. We will of course disagree on whether the feeling is of a real entity or purely in one's mind but faith certainly can give one such a feeling. So we only disagree about the "for real" part (as in, a real entity, not a real feeling).

Oh yeah, I was thinking of that before you posted.

The bottom line is, if you have faith, you believe such a feeling is a feeling of a real entity, if you don't have faith then you believe such a feeling is psychosomatic*.

* I don't want to imply that it is a disease by using this word but merely that it is a state of mind (faith) affecting the body (the feeling of beatitude permeating the body), in this case in a positive way.

We were talking about atheists (or those accused to sympathise with them) and their reception in society a few centuries ago and how you claimed they had it coming; my point was that this is no excuse.

It was a joke, and no, Hitchens isn't dead yet (if he is it is recent), though he is battling cancer.

Or come out as a deist?

Diderot was an atheist, and I am sure there are a few more, but by and large people were accused of atheism more than expressing themselves as atheists. That comes close to the point I was trying to make earlier and retracted (though I expressed it very poorly) .

I should not have said that a lot of deists were closeted atheists as it implies they were atheists and did not say it. I should have said that I felt a lot of deists at that time show (IMO) signs of going toward atheism but could not make the final mental leap towards it so instead of denying the existence of the god of the bible they replaced it with an even more abstract divinity. I still can't prove it so I am just putting it here to try to better explain what I was trying to say back then (though in your sentence you seem to hold a view similar to my own).

Anyway, I don't disagree that it shows in their writing, hence why they were accused of atheism, but by and large they defended themselves of such accusation and as such cannot be counted as openly expressing themselves as such. The 'openly' part is important as atheism then was viewed as something morally disreputable and to be hidden, which is my point: its legality is not enough .

So you would be in between me and padib as you probably accept more christian moral precept than me and also accept some of their spiritual claims but don't accept all of them.

underlined: yeah, I kinda noticed over the last few posts . A few centuries ago you would probably have been labelled an atheist.

Not if it was divinely inspired. And if it was not then it holds no more inherent moral value than other books reflecting on morality.

I would agree if you replaced "all" with "most" as I would disagree with what most claim is its main purpose.

He holds that only one without sin can cast the first stone but why didn't he cast it himself (Jesus is without sin, isn't he?) if he doesn't contradict the old testament?

Anyway, it seems more like a classical case of a lawyer getting his client off on a technicality than anything else to me.

I think it is quite a leap to say that masochists are not sane as you would be including everybody that enjoy being spanked during sex (a mild form of masochism).

Anyway, my point was that not everybody would enjoy me doing to them what I would enjoy them doing to me so what is important is the spirit of the golden rule, not the exact wording.

I am afraid that you are wrong. If you were right that one merely needed to accept Jesus' teachings to be saved then there would have been ZERO need for him to die on the cross. That act was him paying for our sins in christian belief but it is not enough as otherwise even those not accepting him (like me) would be saved. The other part was specifically believing in him as savior, not merely in his teachings (though if you believe in him you will believe his teachings too).

But if moral persons go in there simply due to their lack of belief then it does not make it any more moral.

Glad there is something we agree on.

Off the top of my head I disagree with the part of the new testament that says that slaves should be obedient to their master. I can understand why a slave would be obedient from a practical perspective (to avoid getting beaten) but I cannot see how it would be a moral precept.

Fair enough, it goes back to you being mostly a deist with a christian flavour rather than a christian.

We agreed to somewhat agree, somewhat disagree on what led to that (at least I did earlier in this post) so let's not go back in there. A schizophrenic person probably wouldn't know these were hallucinations before being diagnosed though.

Chasira in my example is NOT real. For the rest, see above about agreeing to disagree.

Souls are generally taken to be the essence of one's being so atheists believe that their "soul", that is their being, is destroyed wehn they die. You might see it as terrifying but even if it is what happen to my "soul" after death then it does not terrify me any more than it terrified Mark Twain:

"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."

First, it is not the case as most of Leviticus is God giving laws directly to the people (the 10 commandments are simply the most important ones), and part of deuteronomy is god giveing laws through Moses (see Deuteronomy 11:27 were Moses specifically state that the commands he is about to give come from god).

Second, even some of the ten commandments' infractions are punishable by death. For example see Leviticus 24:13-16 for the punishment against breaking the 3rd commandment (blasphemy):

"13 Then the LORD said to Moses: 14 “Take the blasphemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him. 15 Say to the Israelites: ‘Anyone who curses their God will be held responsible; 16 anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme the Name they are to be put to death."

And where do they cite extra-biblical sources of either eyewitness accounts or records of jesus? Using the bible's claim that there was a man called Jesus as proof that there was a man called Jesus is like using the Wizard of Oz to prove that Kansas or Dorothy existed; it might be true or not but it provides no proof.

Well, there is also Mark 16:16:

¹⁶He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

If belief in his teachings was enough then why the need for baptism?

In the end we will have to agree to disagree on those points too as they are different interpretations of the bible. I much prefer your interpretation to that of mainstream christianity even though I am not convinced by it.

If i might add something - not about the scientifical debate - i`ll just say this:

Hell really is a place. A place where souls and demons burn in fire. If you want to know more read this http://www.marypages.com/fatimaEng.htm

Jesus didn`t threw rocks at the prostitute because He was showing her and them forgiveness and Love. He showed a new way to all people. Why were His teachings so different? In this passage you will see a reason: Mark 10:2-12.
I`d just like to point something out: How God Himself bends He`s whishes for us.

Why baptism? Well, even Jesus was baptized so that his human nature would be free from the original sin and to be one with God (Matthew 3:13-17 and John 3:1-5) - or in the case of the apostles with the Holy Spirit.

If i may had something to the why don`t good people go to heaven just because they don`t believe in God.
The question is not if people do right or wrong, per se. It`s why they do it, too.
If heaven and God are connected, how can one who doesn`t "accept" God in his heart, still want to go to heaven? Everyone can do good. It`s part of our nature, but to be given the grace of salvation you need more then just be good, you have to share yourself with Jesus, be one with Him. And there`s a whole life for that.
God gaves us free will, a heart and mind to understand Him, feel Him and follow Him. No one is forced to anything, good or bad. You follow the path what you want to follow. It`s your call.
It`s something like someone coming to you and saying: I love you and i want to give myself to you body and soul, but for you to have this, i need to see the same love from you. Some will give the same love back and will become one, others won`t and that unity won`t happen because true love wants true love, nothing more, nothing less.

The reason i wrote this was only to help people understand some things. Doesn`t mean i understand them fully - which i never will since i`m not God - but i felt it to be important to say.

This only means it is real in catholic belief, not necessarily in other christian beliefs that interpret the bible differently as they may not accept those apparitions any more than you would accept apparitions from other religions.

I wasn't so much asking why he didn't do it as much as how is it not contradictory of the old testament.

So how can we use god's laws as moral precept if he will give us immoral laws to satisfy our wishes? Shouldn't he give only moral laws and punish those who disobey? 

That's strange, earlier you were using the lady of fatima apparition, pointing to you being catholic, which is only reinforced by your profile saying you are in portugal which is mostly catholic. Don't you know that Mary, according to catholic belief, was born in an immaculate conception, that is she was free from the original sin and thus could not have passed it on to Jesus (and neither could Joseph as he was not the father).

The catholic doctrine of the immaculate conception is to justify claiming Jesus as free from the original sin so why would he need to be purified from something that he was never tainted with?

Note that I do not disagree with your interpretation as it is the same i was taught as a kid, but I am surprised that you would advance it. It is also possible that my understanding of the immaculate conception and its consequence in catholic belief is faulty. If so could you explain where I err?

But my point was that if believing in Jesus's teachings as opposed to his divinity was enough then the addition of the baptism condition in the passage I quoted would be unnecessary. We agree on that interpretation but player1x3 disagrees.

I actually touched on that in an earlier post. If that was the case then there still would be no need for a belief in Jesus's divinity or god's existence because god, being omnipotent, could not only know if we did good but also why we did the good things we did.

But doing good for good's sake is not dependent on believing in Jesus' divinity. If you really believe that it is then you believe that every non-christian (atheists, muslims, hindus, buddhists, shintoists...) cannot do good for good's sake as they do not believe in the divinity of Jesus.

If find both heaven and hell as seen in mainstream christianity (so not player1x3's view) to be two forms of hell. The hell named Hell through "physical" torture (physical put in scare quotes due to not having a body so not physical but yet described as a torment of the body with flames... that you wouldn't care about if you didn't have a body to feel them). The hell named Heaven as a mental torture by lack of mental stimulation, i.e. boring you to death except you don't die and it lasts for eternity.

I find it rather telling that christian imagery is so replete with detailed descriptions of what happens in hell but scant description of what happens in heaven and is more likely due to them being created by humans more expert in inflicting pain on others than in causing bliss.

Besides, if depictions of hell were from god he would have been better of saying people would be cast in the Sun, a nuclear fire hotter than any hell conceived by man and with a pressure magnitudes worse than any clamp ever devised.

Well, no. It is literally "love me or burn in hell". How do you think girls would react if I tried that pick-up line? Would they interpret it as my unbounded love for them?

Both! The Big Bang created God as well as the rest of the Universe. Living the life as a dual evolution-creationist.

Dinosaurs never flew...

"Why do we exist,GOD or BIG BANG theory?"

Well I can't speak for all of you, but I know I exist because my parents fucked, which is more than I needed or wanted to know.

Honestly, I'm not sure why this needs to be debated anymore. I mean, I've done my fair share of arguing against the church, against religion, and against divine creation of any sorts, but in the end does it matter if we were birthed by a galactic being or exploded into existence? does that have ANY effect on your life at all?

If you're religious and believe in God or Gods or Gaia or whatever, then you have every right to believe in that. It doesn't matter if you want to go to heaven or return to the earth, what's going to happen is going to happen regardless of what you believe.

If you're not religious and are instead actually looking for REAL truth, then why in the world would you care what other people think? If you know the truth, or are searching for it, facts are all that matters, not myth or mass delusions.

A million people can say the earth is flat, it still doesn't make it true, and you should be able to enjoy life with the smug satisfaction of knowing that you're smarter than them.

The apparition wasn`t made in the name of a single religion. I think it`s better said as open for anyone to believe. That being, it may or may not clash with some interpretations of the Bible. In the end it`s a question of you believe them or not.
About the stoning, yes it does contradict the Old Testament. Like i said, Jesus showed a new way. What God did, was give us moral or rules that we could "understand", so to speak. He knew that at that time - or until Christ - men couldn`t "understand" He`s ways, so He actually did something that went agains He`s will.
This is way i made a special remark on this part. I don`t know much of religions but i don`t remember reading anything like this. More, it goes to show how He doesn`t subject people to He`s wishes. He cares to the point of letting us reach a point where we can begin to understand.

Mary was born in an immaculate conception, yes. Because she needed to be pure of heart and body to receive (lack of better word) the Son of God. Who was born, in that way, free from  the original sin - i`m sorry i explained it wrongly in the first post!
Jesus teachings aren`t independent of His divinity, it´s part of Him as He always taught and lived what He was. You quoted above, and well, that only faith in Him will bring salvation. Therefore, being baptized was to show the way of salvation for everyone. To be born anew!

When i spoke of "the reason why" in regards to being good, i should had explained better. The reason that matters is that the good you do is seen as a reflexion of God in you. You do good deeds because you, believing in God, follow His heart and wishes. There could be lots of reasons to do good, even for good`s sake (as our human nature is good), but in the end this is the one that matters.

About the heaven and hell part, i don`t why you think it`s going to be boring! :D I have heard and read something about heaven and what i know is that it`s a place of never ending bliss or joy.
I don`t think that the being more quotes towards Hell is reason enough to think of it being a creation by someone. Honestly, only a person who really has read the Bible will be able to answer which part is more present in the Bible. I`ll admit i heavn`t read much of the Bible! :D

I didn`t said that love part to be read literally, it`s the message that i was trying to pass that was important. You always want people to love you for who you are and what you are.
You could say it`s heaven or hell, but it would just be "untrue" given what lies between both fates. It`s not like God doesn`t care about us, otherwise there would be no heaven in the first place.

Someone clicked the create button..

So what? The point is not whether the one supposedly giving the apparition restricted it to other religions/branches but whether people following other religions/branches would accept them as genuine. If your point was that hell is a genuine place in catholicism then having that apparition accepted by the catholic church supports it; if your point was that hell is a genuine place in christianity then you need to support it with something accepted by most branches of christianity, not with a catholic miracle.

Which was my point.

It is not an excuse for the immorality of the old testament as both humans and the law he subjected them to were created by him. If he did not want to go against his will he should have created us with the ability to understand his law. 

This is my understanding of that part of the bible but player1x3 had a different interpretation.

But that's the thing. Believing in god shouldn't matter either way, what should matter is if you do good for its own sake. That doing good for goodness' sake isn't enough but you have the additional arbitrary requirement of believing makes this system IMO immoral as it is not about being moral but about believing.

Mostly because of the lack of imagination of those describing heaven. When artists and preachers describe hell it is full of fire and brimstone and a multitude of very imaginative activities to make you pass the time but when they try to describe heaven it is all playing a harp on a cloud and... and... and I am sure there are more to the descriptions but that it is the only activity that is impressed in our cultural mind is rather telling. If heaven is merely bliss with nothing to do then what is the point? If it is like a continuous religious service then count me out as I find those way too boring and pandering.

I also find the idea of neverending bliss (and neverending pain) strange as our minds are very adept at acclimatising to continuous sensations. It is because we both have moments of happiness and moments of sadness that we know how to really appreciate the happy times. It is because we have moments where we work hard and moments where we rest that we can appreciate the difference.

Variety is the spice of life but all descriptions of heaven I have ever encountered are the epitome of blandness. 

And I took it that way, but the message i get from christianity is one of a powerful being wanting us to be in an abusive relationship with him where we have to serve and worship him and if we don't we get abuse part.

I respect much more those sects of christianity that believe that those not accepted in heaven have their soul destroyed as you then have a gift (life on earth) and if you are deemed worthy you get a bigger gift (heaven) but if not you simply do not get the bigger gift and thus your being ceases to exist. It is simply the non-granting of a second gift instead of punishing for having the wrong belief. A punishment that is disproportionate to the crime as the punishment has no end. It is even worse than getting waterboarded for the rest of your life as a punishment for jaywalking.