Andir said: kenzomatic said: Kasz216 said: I don't know. Let's put it this way. Lets say you had a really strong feeling that if someone ate a cheeseburger for lunch today he would die by choking to death. If he doesn't eat the cheeseburger, you feel better, he hasn't choked to death. You don't know if he would have but at least he didn't. Now lets say you warn him, and he eats the cheezeburger anwyay. You feel bad. But at least you tried. So you feel less guilty. Now lets say you don't warn him, and he eats the cheezeburger anyway. He's dead... and you feel like a dick for not going with your instincts. That's pretty much why many christians argue about religion as such. Either they convince and convert someone, and either they go to heaven, or just die like the would as non christians. Don't but try, and can be a little consoled that they tried to save said person from Hell. Or feel like a jerk that they didn't do anything, even though they knew for a fact they were headed for eternal torment. That is the greatest explination ever!!!!! You get like thousand cool points for that and I only usually hand out in increments of 10. So, it's like being that annoying guy who will walk around to every table in a restaurant and warn everyone in the room that they might choke on a cheeseburger so they feel better if any one of them chokes? You better get started warning people then. It's going to be a LONG road to be able to talk to the billions of people in this world and warn them about cheeseburgers. That's a horrible analogy. For one, it's based on something tangible. You can see and hear someone choking. You base this on experience from the past. You can't see and hear someone going to heaven. If you could, you could record it on video and post it on youtube for everyone else to see and hear. Also, I've been hearing a lot of evidence that religion (organized and personal) is driven by guilt and fear more than happiness and love. Not a very healthy outlook on life or your so called greater being. I don't know about you, but I hate being a slave, or a pet who is afraid of getting smacked down by his master for barking or running off. Also, you're pointing out that it's based on feeling, which again... If you've ever been around women can be completely uncomprehensible. (...and I don't mean that as an attack toward women, but the fact is, the sexes have a hard time understanding each other because of "feelings")

First Paragraph) Yeah it's kinda like that, but hey at least you don't feel like a dick. Me i don't argue for or against the existance of god. I don't see the point. All the info is there so i'm not going to feel guilty one way or another. All the Athesits i've known personally grew up under strict religious teaching anyway and were always complaining about how much it sucks. I would however argue against the idea that science disproves god and attempt to convince people who think otherwise due to the fact it's just poor reasoning.

God is actually a fairly sceintific thing believe it or not, as all scientists come up with theories for things before they're discovered. I mean just look at the Idea of "Ether" or many other ideas. Sometiems they're right, sometimes they're not. It's all up for interpretation until you find proof one way or another.

Second Paragraph) It's not a horrible analogy, you could eat 100 cheeseburgers and not choke. In this case you feel someone will definitly choke if he eats a cheeseburger. If you want you could compare it to anything though. To wearing red the next day and feeling people will give you 10 dollars. So long as you have a strong feeling about something you are wearing. Or weaing blue and and alien from another planet is going to give you the power to fart yogurt. Either way, if the feeling is strong enough or consequences dire enough you are going to do something to avoid feeling like a dick.

Third Paragraph) i have no clue what your talking about when you say when you are saying that the sexes have a hard time understanding each other due to the sexes... explination would be helpful, I don't have any harder a time relating to women then men myself.

Kasz216 said: Andir said: kenzomatic said: Kasz216 said: I don't know. Let's put it this way. Lets say you had a really strong feeling that if someone ate a cheeseburger for lunch today he would die by choking to death. If he doesn't eat the cheeseburger, you feel better, he hasn't choked to death. You don't know if he would have but at least he didn't. Now lets say you warn him, and he eats the cheezeburger anwyay. You feel bad. But at least you tried. So you feel less guilty. Now lets say you don't warn him, and he eats the cheezeburger anyway. He's dead... and you feel like a dick for not going with your instincts. That's pretty much why many christians argue about religion as such. Either they convince and convert someone, and either they go to heaven, or just die like the would as non christians. Don't but try, and can be a little consoled that they tried to save said person from Hell. Or feel like a jerk that they didn't do anything, even though they knew for a fact they were headed for eternal torment. That is the greatest explination ever!!!!! You get like thousand cool points for that and I only usually hand out in increments of 10. So, it's like being that annoying guy who will walk around to every table in a restaurant and warn everyone in the room that they might choke on a cheeseburger so they feel better if any one of them chokes? You better get started warning people then. It's going to be a LONG road to be able to talk to the billions of people in this world and warn them about cheeseburgers. That's a horrible analogy. For one, it's based on something tangible. You can see and hear someone choking. You base this on experience from the past. You can't see and hear someone going to heaven. If you could, you could record it on video and post it on youtube for everyone else to see and hear. Also, I've been hearing a lot of evidence that religion (organized and personal) is driven by guilt and fear more than happiness and love. Not a very healthy outlook on life or your so called greater being. I don't know about you, but I hate being a slave, or a pet who is afraid of getting smacked down by his master for barking or running off. Also, you're pointing out that it's based on feeling, which again... If you've ever been around women can be completely uncomprehensible. (...and I don't mean that as an attack toward women, but the fact is, the sexes have a hard time understanding each other because of "feelings") First Paragraph) Yeah it's kinda like that, but hey at least you don't feel like a dick. Me i don't argue for or against the existance of god. I don't see the point. All the info is there so i'm not going to feel guilty one way or another. All the Athesits i've known personally grew up under strict religious teaching anyway and were always complaining about how much it sucks. I would however argue against the idea that science disproves god and attempt to convince people who think otherwise due to the fact it's just poor reasoning. God is actually a fairly sceintific thing believe it or not, as all scientists come up with theories for things before they're discovered. I mean just look at the Idea of "Ether" or many other ideas. Sometiems they're right, sometimes they're not. It's all up for interpretation until you find proof one way or another. Second Paragraph) It's not a horrible analogy, you could eat 100 cheeseburgers and not choke. In this case you feel someone will definitly choke if he eats a cheeseburger. If you want you could compare it to anything though. To wearing red the next day and feeling people will give you 10 dollars. So long as you have a strong feeling about something you are wearing. Or weaing blue and and alien from another planet is going to give you the power to fart yogurt. Either way, if the feeling is strong enough or consequences dire enough you are going to do something to avoid feeling like a dick. Third Paragraph) i have no clue what your talking about when you say when you are saying that the sexes have a hard time understanding each other due to the sexes... explination would be helpful, I don't have any harder a time relating to women then men myself.

(1)  God is NOT scientific at all.  Those theories you mentioned were theories about the way the universe is or functions that were testable and verifiable/falsifiable.  In the case of "Ether" and in many other cases the theories were proven wrong.  God is also a theory about the way the universe is and functions, but it is NOT testable or falsifiable.  Science is built on the foundation of doing stuff, seeing if it came out the way you thought it would, and trying to explain discrepancies if it doesn't.  You can't do that with God. 

(2)  @ Andir:  told ya so. 

(3)  You're probably the exception to the rule, then.  But I think that's getting off topic. 

Just have to touch on something. "The bible says to obey the laws of the government."

So, in Saudi Arabia, when a school burned down and dozens of young girls died because the police would not let them out due to a law where young girls could not be allowed in public dressed as they were, that is what should have been done?

That is one of the biggest problems with the bible, and one of the biggest indications it was made by man to try to temper, and maybe to the most extreme control people. If the bible was really the word of god, wouldn't it tell you to rebel against all laws that contradict god's laws?

The problem with that Crashman is that Muslims do not follow the teachings of the Bible except where they overlap with the Koran. So you can't compare Islam to Christianity in this.

Jesus said to "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's" when talking about taxes. Yes you are supposed to obey the laws of the land, but looking at his followers after he ascended to heaven you cannot say they were following every law of the land, but instead were following what God had instructed them to do. Many of the early believers were put in prison and killed because they would not stop spreading the message about Jesus.

So in retrospect Jesus told his followers to make every attempt to follow the law, but if it does contradict God's law, the choice is clear: you follow God.

There are tons of stories about followers disobeying the law of the land and God saves them for it because they followed His law instead, look at Shadrak, Meshak, and Abendigo. They would not bow to a golden idol when commanded and they were thrown into a fiery furnance for it, yet they came out unscathed by the fire. There wasn't even a hint of smoke on their clothes. So you say something that is not exactly true.

I have to agree with luinil on this one, except for the first paragraph, which is irrelevant (Crashman's example was presumably of a Christian witnessing that event). But luinil, your example sounds like it's from the Old Testament (although I don't actually know). Do you have something from the New Testament, since the Caesar quote is from the New Testament?

Also, Crashman, I notice that your example is kind of interesting, considering that that law is a result of religious views.

The Ghost of RubangB said: I'd support a class on creationism ONLY if it equally covered as many creation stories as possible within the semester and didn't say "Well Jesus is the truth, but.... there are all these other myths as well." They'd have to be equally represented. We're talking the great Coyote of many western American tribes, the Japanese story of Izanagi and Izanami, and everything else in between. Not just... the monotheistic religions. I want Zeus and Thor all up in that shit. Man, if somebody converted my (future) kids behind my back, I don't even know what I'd do. Luckily, a friend of mine already promised me he'd kill my kids for me so my brain wouldn't explode.

 As much as I'd love to get involved into this debate, I'm trying to steer clear as I suspect I would spend too much time on this thread. Needless to say, I believe Finalfan summed up most of my views on the topic.

But I'd especially like to comment on the teaching of religions in classrooms. As a teacher, who has some experience with the religion curriculum, I can say that there are so many factors that prevent teaching classes such as the one you suggest, Rubang, as well as one that would focus solely on Christianity's 'truths'. Firstly, it is often to cover all topics in all courses let alone to be able to squeeze more time to be spent on religion classes. Secondly, and perhaps most sadly, many teachers, like their students, view religion class as a flake class and spend very little time and resources preparing for it. Thirdly, so much trouble comes with the parents no matter the situaation. The way I teach the class (and I believe we are given more autonomy in Canada than the US... not sure about other countries) is that I offer equal times teaching all major religions. We make plans to visit temples, churches, mosques and there will always be, usually christian, parents who object to visiting any other religious sites that do not match their own. So, needless to say it can be quite the headache and is the reason why many teachers do not often take it too seriously. Forth(ly?), it's really difficult to seperate from our biasedness. Now, by no means am I a christian, nor am I of any particular faith, but I grew up in a town of 8000, with 60 percent of them catholic, 39 percent protestant. I've seen very little of the Islamic or Judiac faiths. I've studied them quite thoroughly, but have not lived in a society where law and social norms are guided by these faiths, so it may be difficult for some teachers to fully provide equal treatment all faiths.

 I apologize for the large block of text, but often these conversations and debates go on without any input from the teachers themselves.  As for converting kids... I'd hope no teacher in the pulic system would ever attempt to do that. Simply not our place, nor business.

Grey Acumen said: Okay, here's my view on the matter: There are three problems with how we observe the universe we exist in, namely, we have to use light to see, our methods of evaluation can ultimately only be done on a comparative scale, and our methods of observation must be done with time as a unidirectional vector. If we see a house next to us, we'd say the house is big, but if you put it next to the empire state building, we'd say its small. Even if we use measurements, like "this building is 10 stories tall" the increments of measurement are entirely arbitrary. As for the light issue, we cannot observe the location and velocity of a photon at the same time, because we use light in order to see. The only way we can tell where a photon is would be by hitting it with another photon so we could see the results, but the moment one photon would hit another, we would change it's velocity. Then finally, the issue of time. Our lifespan is limited, and during it we can only observe the barest glimmer of a fraction of a percent of how the universe operates. We don't have save points to go back to that exact circumstance and check what other possibilities could have happened instead of what did. We can develop similar situations and see how they unfold, but ultimately it is impossible to create the exact same circumstances. When we die, those limitations to our observation become null and void. Because we no longer have a physical manifestation within the universe, we no longer influence the universe by observing it. Thus we can learn completely unhindered and gain knowledge that would be impossible while still alive, which will let us come closer to the ultimate truth of the universe. (come closer to God, however with God being infinite, there will always be something more to achieve in the effort to come closer to it) However, there are important lessons that we must learn from being alive. If someone told you that 2 + 2 = 4, without you ever seeing the physical process of 2 + 2 and then seeing them both together so that you could see 4, it would have no real meaning to you, and your ability to conceptualize it would be hindered. That is why we need to continue to live as long as possible, even though dying ultimately will allow us to learn far more than we could alive. Unless we develop a strong foundation during our life, we'll be handicapped when we die. At the same time though, death is not something that we need to fear, as long as we used our life effectively. However, when I say "learning" I don't just mean scientifically. There are also matters of Right and Wrong, Existence of God and of ourselves, Love, Sorrow, Hatred, All emotions, Creation and Destruction, Peace and War, Balance and Discord, Growth and Stagnation, Logic and Faith. If during life, we haven't come to understand these issues properly, it will cause problems after death. It is from this that I feel the concepts of Heaven and Hell stem: If you have learned properly, you will be able to recognize the truth of what you learn after you die, and it will be a heavenly place to you, but if everything you had learned during life is wrong, and you are not able to accept that you are wrong and make the effort to learn what is right (repentance) before death, then everything you learn after death will conflict and you will be stuck unable to learn anything. Which will essentially be an eternity of torture.

I had posted this in the what happens when we die thread, but figured I'd repost it here since I've yet to post in this thread and this one is applicable in both questions.

The Ghost of RubangB said: I'd support a class on creationism ONLY if it equally covered as many creation stories as possible within the semester and didn't say "Well Jesus is the truth, but.... there are all these other myths as well." They'd have to be equally represented. We're talking the great Coyote of many western American tribes, the Japanese story of Izanagi and Izanami, and everything else in between. Not just... the monotheistic religions. I want Zeus and Thor all up in that shit. Man, if somebody converted my (future) kids behind my back, I don't even know what I'd do. Luckily, a friend of mine already promised me he'd kill my kids for me so my brain wouldn't explode.

 Strangely enough back in the 70's my school did have a class on "other" religiions, but it was called mythology. But I suppose, depending on your point of view, a lot of this is mythology.

I do have examples from History, not necessarily from the Bible though. In the time after Jesus ascended to heaven there were countless martyrs for the Christian faith. Just ask yourself this question, Why were they killed for their faith? Well... that would be because Christianity was outlawed in the Roman Empire until about the time of the Nicaea Convention whence came the Nicene Creed.

Christians were thrown alive into pits with ravenous lions, burned alive, had their skin flayed and they were then put into a bag and tossed around and gored by bulls, and numerous other heinous tortures.

These people were killed in these ways because of one thing: they would not refuse their faith. This alone refutes Crashman's arguments. I haven't gotten into the Bible for verses because I don't have to. These examples are more than enough.

maybe were in heaven and terrorist are attacking it and god and jesus and all the other people left and went to heaven 2 so when we die we go there =)