I am still pondering what pain I get after liturgy is over and I grab a few bites of cut up bread on the way out.  I did get some discomfort from going around and telling people in the congregation I was sorry for what wrongs I did, or rights I failed to do, and have them do the same.  Maybe there is some merit to eliminating getting a congregation to ponder how they have not lived up to ideals by having them meet everyone else in the congregation and ask how they fell short of loving fully.

A neat thing about religious rituals is that they tend to usually be fairly harmless, but end up having a person face deeper issues, and if they fall short of doing the ritual, the harm is less than if they managed to address the issues face on.  Use of prayer beads, candles and incense, and diatary restrictions (like eating fairly close to Vegan during Lent), all fit into this.  In short, they are life training exercises that serve some value.  Even holidays cause people to think about key points in their lives, and think of them, even down to Holloween, which is about fear.  Thanksgiving is about giving thanks and doing an inventory of good things in your life.  My pet holiday, Festivus, is about whatever you want it to be, with the basic form of: The giving of the unwanted gifts, airing of grievances and the feats of strentgh (pick and choose what you want and adopt accordingly).  The aluminum pole is also so much easier than a tree.

I do think you should own up and say it is REALLY about your support for gay marriage, and then link this elmination of unjustified religious rituals to the fact they hinder society from fully supporting gay marriage.  Maybe you could get something constructive out of writing here if you do that.

Or maybe you should look aside from my signature and realize that this thread was made before Obama's outspoken support for gay marriage. It's like you're not listening at all. Homophobia and discrimination of homosexuals are even worse than not letting them marry each other, and getting rid of those thing to even the slightest extend is just as important.

If I say that this thread stopped only one religious person from mocking a homosexual (I know I'm sticking to that topic a lot, which is due to how widespread it is), would you say that this thread was not worth making? Would you not praise the existence of this thread?

Try to look on the bright side for just one single second.

Your ignorance makes me sick at this point. Try look at the contexts before making assumptions. Morals has nothing to do with sins and does not exclusively go through religious peoples' minds. This is a thread about religion, nothing else. Read the OP again if you are still confused about this thread's topic.

Jesus is God. Yet he was truly surprised when he was abandoned by God the Father on the cross. He cried "My Father, My Father, why hast thou forsaken me". That was the greatest agony he suffered on the cross. When God tested Abraham by asking for Isaac's life and Abraham was actually going to offer his son, God stopped him and said "NOW I know that you....". God's omniscience is limited by our free will. He doesn't know with 100% certainty what we will choose to do.
God sent a message to a King to notify him of his soon coming death. That King cried to God, reminded Him of how he had lived his life for Him and before the prophet could even get out of the castle, God sent him back to tell the King that he had an extra fifteen years to live.
God told Moses(while he was alone with God on the mountain) that the Israelites had built an idol. Moses went down to see it and was so angry with the Isrealites that he smashed the stone tablets that God had written the ten commandments on(with God's own hand)! God had to ask Moses to rewrite it. That wasn't the last time Moses did something like that out of anger (that God wasn't expecting him to do).
I can cite many more examples, even from my life and the lives of people around me. It saddens me to say things like this to atheists knowing fully well that they won't believe anything I say about my relationship with God. It's ironic too because over the veil of the internet, I have no proof that you are who you say you are, so I believe someone that has never lied to me, and has told me, and others around me as I said earlier, things we could never have known. Yes, including future events.
You fail to see God as a person. He has actually told us things that he wants to do sometimes that we actually plead with him to change. That's a fact. You as a father might tell your child "I'm doing so and so" or "Not doing so and so" and might eventually give in to his plead for you to change your mind. Trust me, the only person that has never lied to me is more real than anything else I see or hear anywhere. More real to me than my house which can be destroyed in a fire accident within a few hours.

"Do you realize the implications? Don't you see how radically it would change an atheist if he truly started to live as if everything is pre-determined.

You would stop thinking "Dammit, Person X why did you make Y decision", because Person X could only have made that decision and not anything else.

"Maybe I shouldn't condemn that racist, rapist or murderer and make him feel bad, his opinion is just as well based as mine is"."

Dear god slimebeast, how can you be so illogical? I'm an atheist who believes that everything is per-determined and as such, realize that if I were born under the exact same circumstances as a rapist, murderer, etc... I would turn out the same. That being said, how in the hell do you jump from a Tabula Rasa view of human development to your statement above? Please think before you type in order to avoid such asinine statements.

Ill just re-post since your actually online NOW.


But I will tell you what I currently understand. (Please dont mock me, I gave you my oppinion as you have asked. Lets respect one another)

We currently see in three dimentions. We smell,we feel, we sence all the dimentions up to the third. And can only get a little taste of the 4th dimention (Hyper cube skeleton). However, I do believe that God exists beyond the third dimention and becuse of this that he is able to have unimaginary abilities that we can never comprehend. This was proven in the bible when Jesus was able to Heal some one in a distance (As opposed to his deciples healing someone with touching them) And being able to travel distances outside of time (Teleportation).

This teleportation can be easily explained.

For example: Take a 2d drawing. Draw one wall with one box and one stick figure on each side of that wall. Now erase that one box on either side and draw it on the other side of the wall. Easy 2-d teleportation done by a higher dimentional being.

The stick figures that you have drawn can a representation of humans. They have no comprehension of what has just happened. Therefore they often doubt.

However as a being only limited to only three dimentions and simply trying to fully comprehend God who exists on higher dimentions is like limiting him to human knowledge. The human knowlegde which is LIMITED to the 3rd dimention which in fact God exists in more than that. Which therefore has the reasons that no human can either guess or answer.

_____________________________________________________

Ok as for your free will question.

Why give us free will if God already knows what our final fate is?

Think about this for a second. One man chooses to steal from a store. The shop keeper reacts violently. Does the man in turn reacts violently and accidentally kills him? Intentionally kills him? Severely injusres him? Lightly injures him? Or does the man simply runs away?

What about the shop keeper? If the man who stole runs away.. Whill the store keeper runs after him? Calls 911? Or sit in the corner trying to comprehend what has just happened? What if the man Severely injures him? Will the shop keeper try to further defend the shop? Will he Lay there as the man continues on with his business?

What I believe the answer is that Yes free will does do exist and yes God knows if we are to go in hell or not. However, this is where you should stop for a second and think. Knowing that God is almighty. He knows our fate. But how does our free will co-exists? Think about it. What if God knows every "Path". Man chooses to kill the shop keeper (more likely hell) one web, one path, one tangle Man chooses to run away (More likely heaven) one web, one path, one tangle. What if we have free will but it exists at a vast and unimaginable tangles of web. (Tangles which represents the inteferrence of other people in our lives).

These tangles do exists if our free will were co-exist with God's almghty ability of limitless knowledge. We choose to keep going straight and someone else interferes and turns us to the right.

Imagine this. The web is fibre optic. As photons each pass its very fibres. One string of fibre is a corridor of SET conseqnces of a descision already set in motion. However theres this photon refelctor at the end of this "fibre" . This reflectoris your "freewill". YOU get to choose. You chose path left which is path NO. 12874930 while you chose not to enter the path to the right which is coded NO.93745606. God then knows what your faith is gonna be. Then theres this other Photon that interferes with you. (Another human whose free will has set his or her fibre to fate to collide with you at the same time) And this other photon makes you turn 38 degrees to the left which is called the path NO.8757495. See where im going?

(The other photon colliding with the photon represents that Free will can exist on multiple players. THEIR free will descision has caused us to collide. If the other person has never chosen that path, I could have continued down the end of the tunnel.)

God already KNOWS our fate. But as soon as we take another free willed turn, our fates could possibly have changed, as God exists on all dimentions he practically knows our immedite change of faith in which didnt take him any "time" at all to realize. So technically He does know our fate ALL THE TIME as he exists out of time. There are potentially limitless "paths" out there. However, as you have said, God is almighty. This then means God has limitless knowlenge right?

Well, you seem to assume that present is not directly affected by the past, and that the future is not determined. Therefore God has (as you said) no idea of what will be your next meal, or when your next cough will take place.

Evidently, that means that he is not omniscient, unlike what the Bible propose. Despite having full control of the time flow, and despite having full knowledge of all chemical reactions on atomic level that may possibly occur, he cannot picture the world one second from now on.

Simply think about it like this. 

God knows EVERY path that we take with our free willed descision. Were in one path, then bounced off/or chosen to bounce of/or we CHOSE our selves to bounce off. 

The past has a direct contact to our present. 

As I have said, the linings that the photon is traveling in to  is a corridor of consequence which we have chosen/accidentally/intereferred/divinely intereferred to be bounced to that specific path. 

Future is determined because God ALREADY knows EVERY POSSIBLE PATH that we take. A possibly limitless tangle of webs has possibly limitless paths then this results on possibly limitless descisions.

 Thus, this means that God knows our fate (possibly because it is predetermined or he has limitless knowledge) despite us having free will. 

But if you agree that God can flawlessly predict which paths (out of the infinite possibilities) we will take throughout our lives, then that means that some are born to go to hell. God knows that person X will make some choices, resulting in him going to hell, yet He won't interfere.

Is it really fair then? A life started by God goes straight to hell because of the way God has created it.

Edit: Think about it this way: God even knew it was going to choose to go hell before He created it. So why create it in the first place?

First of all. I dont think humans have limitless possibilities just becuase Humans dont live forever in a three dimentional world and there will be a time where humans will cease to exist. However this tangle of web is infinitley complicated. but one can argue that God can interefere so it could be limitless? 

Anyway, back to the point lol. 

MAKE some choises. So this person X has given the ablity of free will. His mind ,which is capable of seperating right and wrong, has made descisions to go to hell. God has given US the chance whether we should do this or not. Potentially we control our fate as we go. Each turn will result in a change of fate (going to heaven) (Going to hell). 

It was OUR free willed choice to do whatever we want to do. It was Person X's free willed choice that has set him the path to hell. This "photon" was never born in to this yet he chose his own path at the end (including the potentially limitless variables).

Take this in to account.

We cannot be born in to going in to hell. Neither born in to going in to heaven itself. But as the intial circumstances your mother has bought you in to the world. has set a limited but potentially limitless amount of "end paths".

Person X brought in to the world by his/her mother. Initial circumstances: Born in to a christian home.

More Chance to going to heaven than hell

Heaven 79%

Hell 21%

Person Y brought in to the world by his/her mother. Initial circumstances: Born in to a non-christian home.

Heaven 20% 

Hell 80%

(The initial circumstances was the consequence of the free willed descision made by our ancestors)

_______

See what I mean? Each has a chance (However they may not be as equal). And its up to you what ever you want to do. Your not born in to going in to hell or heaven. hats why free will exists at the first place.