kergeten said: @Final-fan Your resoning is clearer,but, what I have to say is that all the good things that can be done with religion can be done without it, and that is most often the case. You're sayng that ist okay to impose stalinist comunism in order to get free healthcare and plenty of jobs, ignoring the fact that a moderate socialist system will get the job done without any of comunism's catastrophical side effects.

I'm afraid you missed a central point of my argument. 

Your assertion may be true NOW, but it wasn't true back more than just a few centuries.  You say religion was a great sin perpetrated upon mankind.  I say it is a worldview past its prime.  Let's compromise and say religion passed ripe a while ago and is starting to stink a little. 

kergeten said: fkusumot said: What does religion have to do with the existence of god? Next thing someone is going to prove the existence of Obi-Wan. O ye of little faith. Do you know anyone who has a firm convition in God and doesn't belong to any religion? BTW I belive in God, just that i Don't believe anything the church or the bible or any religios text has to say. Better said I belive in a Universal order that most mere mortals could only define as God.

Um, well, I guess I know at least one person who believes in God and not any religion.

That was easy.  [edit:  oops, fkusumot beat me to it.  Oh well.]

Final-Fan said: kergeten said: @Final-fan Your resoning is clearer,but, what I have to say is that all the good things that can be done with religion can be done without it, and that is most often the case. You're sayng that ist okay to impose stalinist comunism in order to get free healthcare and plenty of jobs, ignoring the fact that a moderate socialist system will get the job done without any of comunism's catastrophical side effects. I'm afraid you missed a central point of my argument.  Your assertion may be true NOW, but it wasn't true back more than just a few centuries.  You say religion was a great sin perpetrated upon mankind.  I say it is a worldview past its prime.  Let's compromise and say religion passed ripe a while ago and is starting to stink a little.

By far the best analogy I have ever seen.

CrashMan said: So all law prior to the new Testament should be thrown out? Gotcha, goodbye 10 commandments *brushes hands* What else can we toss out here to make this book more convenient

Didn't you read what i said? Go read the new testament... geezz Mark 10:19

I just don't understand why do most atheist believe thier smarter than people who belive in God.

 

Dude I see your just trying to argue, so I'm going to stop. If you where actually interested you would go research on your own.

Being brought up by two very religious parents(spanish/irish) i didn't know any better than what they told me about god/bible...until i reached my mid-teens and started asking questions that they a)had no answers to and b)didn't want to even hear the questions...Blind faith made absolutely no sense to me so I decided it wasn't for me. In closing:

God/The bible is a fad!!!

I did do my research. If you read back I used to be fairly religeous, I have read the whole bible, but I was young and believed what I was told.

And that was my whole POINT. Christians love to toss out tons of stuff in the old testament because it isn't convenient for them. Yet when they wanted to take the 10 commandments (OLD TESTAMENT) out of a court house in Alabama, the Christians freaked out. That makes no sense.

What parts of the old testament do you keep following and what parts do you forget?

CrashMan you are leaving out one very important thing. Those three things you just said are confronted and dealt with by the fulfillment of the old law by Christ. The New Testament is the fulfillment of all prophesies and laws from the Old Testament.

The Old Law (10 Commandments) showed how absolute the rules of God were and that no man was able to meet God's standard of morality and purity. Jesus later clarified the law in two ways. He told the religious leaders of his day that if you even look lustfully at a woman, you have committed adultery with her in your heart, and that if you hate (the Hebrew word is probably a very strong word, along the lines of spite and wishing they were dead, etc.) your brother you have killed him in your heart.

These new interpretations of the Old Law shows for sure that everyone falls short. The Old Law was only meant to show humanity how inadequate it is. But Jesus Christ fulfilled the Old Law and now we can fail in every way (except blaspheming the spirit, but I do not have an exact interpretation of that) and still be in good standing with God. This is made possible by the sacrifice of the only perfect man who did not fail in any way in meeting the Old Law. Jesus Christ the Son of God died and defeated the spirit of death by coming back from death. Now all who believe in Him can likewise defeat Death.

The reason that Death has a hold of humanity is because we submitted to Death at the beginning through rebelling against God. Once man sinned and fell from God, we are under the foot of Death. This is why the perfect man was not conceived normally. He was born from a woman who was a virgin still. The sin nature of man is passed down from the father. Since Jesus was not the son of an earthly man, he was sinless when he was born and therefore could fulfill the Old Law.

Now that the fulfillment of the Old Law has taken place we no longer live in the "Age of the Law" but we now live in the "Age of Grace." If someone sins they can be forgiven by God through the blood of Christ who was and is and will always be perfect.

There are two Commandments that we are to live by under the New Law of Grace. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength," and "To love your neighbor as yourself." These two commands from God are straight from the mouth of God's Son, Jesus (the book of Matthew 22:37-40 -- 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.")

There is so much more framework I could lay out to backup my post, but in the in effort to not be long winded and preachy I will stop here.

Final-Fan said: kergeten said: fkusumot said: What does religion have to do with the existence of god? Next thing someone is going to prove the existence of Obi-Wan. O ye of little faith. Do you know anyone who has a firm convition in God and doesn't belong to any religion? BTW I belive in God, just that i Don't believe anything the church or the bible or any religios text has to say. Better said I belive in a Universal order that most mere mortals could only define as God. Um, well, I guess I know at least one person who believes in God and not any religion. That was easy.  [edit:  oops, fkusumot beat me to it.  Oh well.]

Well I do have a church but it doesn't have a creed. I don't even have to believe in the divinity of christ and can also take spirtual guidance from other sources like Buddhism. Being a quaker puts a spin on my religous viewpoints as I have to decide my own moral standing the only required moral is that other viewpoints have to be respected. It is quite weird but since I started going to meeting in SF there are quite a few Lesbian, gay and transgendered quakers here in a way that wouldn't seem to fit in many churches in the country. I guess I just come from a very liberal church, although my parents did send me to Hebrew and Catholic schools.

 

This is destined to not end well.

I personally don't know. There are so many amazing things that the world has to offer and so many shitty things (like the Xbox dude from my city philly, usa that beat his toddler to death because she knocked his xbox over).

It's really overwhelming to take in. I mean I start to think that it's all programming. Meaning the way I view right and wrong, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, is just a conditioning. So in that sense it's scary, it's like you can take someone from infancy and literally program them. I don't know, I like to thinkl that there is something out there because so many races and cultures have alluded to a greater power. But then I think what if that was just everyone trying to justify or give reason to everything? What if there really is no reason?

I don't know. Just my 2cents

Eomund said: CrashMan you are leaving out one very important thing. Those three things you just said are confronted and dealt with by the fulfillment of the old law by Christ. The New Testament is the fulfillment of all prophesies and laws from the Old Testament. The Old Law (10 Commandments) showed how absolute the rules of God were and that no man was able to meet God's standard of morality and purity. Jesus later clarified the law in two ways. He told the religious leaders of his day that if you even look lustfully at a woman, you have committed adultery with her in your heart, and that if you hate (the Hebrew word is probably a very strong word, along the lines of spite and wishing they were dead, etc.) your brother you have killed him in your heart. These new interpretations of the Old Law shows for sure that everyone falls short. The Old Law was only meant to show humanity how inadequate it is. But Jesus Christ fulfilled the Old Law and now we can fail in every way (except blaspheming the spirit, but I do not have an exact interpretation of that) and still be in good standing with God. This is made possible by the sacrifice of the only perfect man who did not fail in any way in meeting the Old Law. Jesus Christ the Son of God died and defeated the spirit of death by coming back from death. Now all who believe in Him can likewise defeat Death. The reason that Death has a hold of humanity is because we submitted to Death at the beginning through rebelling against God. Once man sinned and fell from God, we are under the foot of Death. This is why the perfect man was not conceived normally. He was born from a woman who was a virgin still. The sin nature of man is passed down from the father. Since Jesus was not the son of an earthly man, he was sinless when he was born and therefore could fulfill the Old Law. Now that the fulfillment of the Old Law has taken place we no longer live in the "Age of the Law" but we now live in the "Age of Grace." If someone sins they can be forgiven by God through the blood of Christ who was and is and will always be perfect. There are two Commandments that we are to live by under the New Law of Grace. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength," and "To love your neighbor as yourself." These two commands from God are straight from the mouth of God's Son, Jesus (the book of Matthew 22:37-40 -- 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.") There is so much more framework I could lay out to backup my post, but in the in effort to not be long winded and preachy I will stop here.

 I just wanted to comment and say I really loved what you wrote.