The God/Jesus Thread.

[Rob.]

Danny, i have a new found respect for you.

Fuck it, here's my belief.

We exist in two planes, the astral and the physical, simultaneously. We can transverse to the astral with practice and training, however for a normal person the first mortal years of life are spent in the physical realm.

Our physical bodies don't exist in the astral plane, and our souls don't exist in this plane. We're attached by an astral tether. What happens when we die? The tether breaks and we stay in the astral realm.

What happens afterwards is unbeknownst to me.

Why do i believe in this? Don't know. it doesn't require having a personal relationship with a carpenter, having to waste sundays in a crappy building, or basically doing anything. However being a good person does have an affect on where you go in the astral realm

there are darker regions of the astral realm, however you're not going to burn for eternity, or chill out around the clouds. you'll just be seperated from the people who weren't as evil.

 

[Hep Greg]

... Bridgewater Astral League?


i believe in this:

 

[Rob.]

NO CATNAROK.

 

[briflip]

jesus himself hated religion

 

[Kyper]

My two cents?

Every church is a stone on the grave of a god-man: it does not want him to rise up again under any circumstances. In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point. In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.

What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man. The definition of Faith? Faith: not wanting to know what is true. Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you. Faith is merely a crutch for the weak, one who cannot accept that there might not be anything waiting for him or her after they die. Overcome that fear! I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage. I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think.

And your crap about a single being judging my soul? Judgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms - in themselves such judgments are stupidities. And how do you know what God thinks? Are you him? No, you're not. What if wants you to not believe in him? What if he rewards doubt? You can think that he won't but he just might. The "kingdom of Heaven" is a condition of the heart - not something that comes "upon the earth" or "after death." There is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. We humans are - more humane. And the Bible? The Bible is a book. Books are full of words. Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.

What do I believe in? I only have faith in what exists. I have faith in America and its people. I have faith in humanity. I have faith in my family and friends. I don't care at all for some "all powerful being" that hasnt done squat for us. If he does exist, why should we believe in him? What has he done for us to deserve our praise? Did he create the universe? If he did, good for him! But, he doesn't deserve our unwavering loyalty. I believe in the atom and the void, humanity and science. Death is the end of the electrical impulse in our brains. There is no Heaven, no Hell, no Purgatory, only life, humanity and what we make it.

I think Friedrich Nietzsche said it best when he said, "Even if God did exist I would not want to go to heaven. No one interesting is there anyway."

That's my two cents.

 

[Steezeman]

Greg, I believe in basement cat. Let's fight about it.

 

[dre]

Time for another one of my pointless long posts that no one ever reads.

Afterlife.

The belief based on the concept that human conscience and perception is something supernatural, while in fact it isn't. Research in modern neurology can prove that various parts of human brain are responsible for whatever sums up to our 'soul'...

... HOWEVER, some of the christian beliefs about afterlife are not as pointless as it would seem, even if we deny the existence of soul. Think about death - most people either can't imagine what happens in the moment of death, or think of it as an eternal sleep (a natural death occurs usually after becoming unconscious). To me, it's simply when the brain functions stop - every brain activity is shut down and no changes are made in the brain from that moment on. It's pretty much like unplugging a hard disk while a program is dynamically changing it's content, the current state persists.

Now imagine you're a believing Christian who lived a good life that is about to die. In the last seconds of his conscience, he knows that he has lived up to his morals and teachings, he is happy about how he lived and has no fear of dying because, according to his beliefs, he awaits the heavenly award for his good life. He passes away smiling, his brain stops in the 'happy' state and stays like that. Eternal happiness.

On the other hand, a dying christian who has done some wrong in his life, is not sure about his future. He realizes that his life was not good and there might be a great punishment awaiting him. In the moment of death, his mind is filled with the feelings of dissatisfaction, sadness, anger, fear and despair - and it stays like that. Eternal damnation. Dying this way is the ultimate punishment and the worst thing that can happen to man.

The Bible tells that hope and pity can lead the ones who have sinned to salvation. This is true, cause hope in God and pity for sins can fill a sinners mind with happiness and make his death such as the 'good' christian's one.

Simple.

I might just be interpreting this the wrong way, but if you say that "various parts of human brain are responsible for whatever sums up to our 'soul'... " and that the final emotional responses received by the brain upon death are preserved for 'eternity' - however, this would mean, if we are using the hard disk analogy, that the device would have to remain intact for this continuing process to be true. This leads me to my point that due to organic decay, cremation, etc. your body, including the brain, won't remain intact for very long after death therefore disrupting that process.

 

[Matt Ogle]

Okay, as several of you know. I am very passionate about this topic and quite into it, so here goes. Please note, I am not attacking any of you, all the kids I quoted I respect more than you know.

haha i was about to kill you "scooter rob". good job on inputting the joking text that matches the grey background.

Anyway, you can believe what you want. But really, there NOT being a divine creator is statistically untrue. There is NO other reasoning to not believe in there being a god, other than someones stupididity or pride. I have chosen to follow Jesus Christ for my own reasons, and i still struggle to find and believe what is true. I am in no way close minded about anything anymore which i think is convincing me even more that Jesus was son of god and that through him eternal life can be admitted. Etc.

Props to anyone who KNOWS why they believe it though. i would never put religion between a friend and i would expect the same treatment back

How is not believing in a God statistically untrue? And how is it stupid to not believe in a God? To me, I don't see how anyone can possibly believe in a God. I don't see how someone could believe in a God that kills millions of people in their holy book (Christianity), that is a proponent of martyrdom and tells you to fight and start wars over your religion in your holy book (Islam), I don't see how someone could believe in a God period. I understand the argument, "well where do we come from then if there's no God." This is where we need to be humble and work towards discovering that truth, when you're satisfied with the belief that God made humans and all living creatures in his own image, then that leaves no reason to pursue DNA study, to pursue projects like the Human Genome Project, it makes a mockery out of science and as a result will hinder our knowledge of the world around us. If Christianity bigotry and dogma was never around, we may have discovered the structure of DNA 500 years, we may have had a complete understanding of Darwinism in the year 1,000. Religion superstition hurts our progress in science and medicine, and it is dangerous.

Time for another one of my pointless long posts that no one ever reads.

Afterlife.

The belief based on the concept that human conscience and perception is something supernatural, while in fact it isn't. Research in modern neurology can prove that various parts of human brain are responsible for whatever sums up to our 'soul'...

... HOWEVER, some of the christian beliefs about afterlife are not as pointless as it would seem, even if we deny the existence of soul. Think about death - most people either can't imagine what happens in the moment of death, or think of it as an eternal sleep (a natural death occurs usually after becoming unconscious). To me, it's simply when the brain functions stop - every brain activity is shut down and no changes are made in the brain from that moment on. It's pretty much like unplugging a hard disk while a program is dynamically changing it's content, the current state persists.

Now imagine you're a believing Christian who lived a good life that is about to die. In the last seconds of his conscience, he knows that he has lived up to his morals and teachings, he is happy about how he lived and has no fear of dying because, according to his beliefs, he awaits the heavenly award for his good life. He passes away smiling, his brain stops in the 'happy' state and stays like that. Eternal happiness.

On the other hand, a dying christian who has done some wrong in his life, is not sure about his future. He realizes that his life was not good and there might be a great punishment awaiting him. In the moment of death, his mind is filled with the feelings of dissatisfaction, sadness, anger, fear and despair - and it stays like that. Eternal damnation. Dying this way is the ultimate punishment and the worst thing that can happen to man.

The Bible tells that hope and pity can lead the ones who have sinned to salvation. This is true, cause hope in God and pity for sins can fill a sinners mind with happiness and make his death such as the 'good' christian's one.

Simple.

I think that's an excellent theory. Yet, it would never satisfy Christians. The idea of an afterlife ultimately helps people cope with their present life in hopes of a perfect afterlife. For instance, a mother who loses her children has that hope of being reunited with her children in the afterlife. The rich business man who loses everything and is poor the rest of his life has that hope that he will have a perfect afterlife. However, this is false hope, just because something sounds good and comforts us does not make it even remotely true. There is absolutely no evidence for an afterlife.

I believe in the bible, I believe that Jesus, died on the cross for our sins and now his blood covers us.

When you people say that your Christian but you do what ever you want, doesn't make you Christian, because being Christian means "little Christ" or "to be like Christ" and Jesus didn't go around doing what ever he wanted, he went around caring for people and loving them. He died for OUR sins, so no one had to suffer. Now just because he died for our sins doesn't make it okay for us to go around doing what ever, its our duty has Christians to go around sharing the word of God, just has Jesus would want us to do.

Now I don't want to get into a huge argument over this, so for you that REALLY care and want to hear more, just talk to me over aim or myspace.

I pray for my haters, so for you guys that make fun of me, I love you guys and Pray for you, just like Jesus would of done.

haha

its better to believe in something than die for nothing.

if you dont respect others opinions you dont deserve any yourself.

But why believe? Why do you have to believe? There is no basis, no evidence, and no reason in religion whatsoever. As the two famous quotes say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, therefore what can be asserted without proof can be dismissed with proof.

a rabbi? i dont think that would be an accurate depiction of Jesus. But i know what your getting at.

Im not a fan of organized religion much anymore, and i hate classifying them. The bible CLEARLY tells us two things: 1) Following Jesus Christ, therefore repenting from sin and having a personal relationship with christ. 2) Loving our neighbor as ourselves. This is pretty much all i have taken from Jesus's miracles and parables. That is the religion i follow.

Doesn't the Bible also tell us to stone adulterers to death? To stone disobedient children to death? That the punishment for working on the Sabbath is death? Why don't we just eliminate the bible and all aspects of religion as a whole and use our common sense to make decisions about the world around us. If you want to use the bible as a tool to justify something, you can use to justify anything, particularly murder. Science is proving now that you are born with a sense of right and wrong, that it is not something you pick up through any superstition or book. Imagine a four year old child in Church reading passages like this, " "But Rabshakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?" What moral lesson do we take from this? When we look at the world without any sort of dogma or superstition we are better able to make fair judgments and decisions that will benefit humanity as a whole.

Religion, to me, is false and not needed.

First bold- I may not be able to, on my lifetime here on earth, be able to prove the correct path to god, but there is no way that the earth was created by chance. Former PHD athiest Robin Collins quotes "The chances of life spontaneously forming and becoming so fine tuned to meet our needs is 1x10^53." Thats like picking one atom out of the entire universe by selective chance. Experiements such as the Miller experiment is all false and have been disproven COUNTLESS times. There is just no way that single celled organisms could randomly be created under our universe's atmosphere without there being a divine creator. This IS science bro, its just completely improbable. I know you wont change your mind and im sure scientists will find ways to come up with a way that matter was produced through nothing, but until they can be proved I think an intelligent designer is the more likely choice.

Second bold- God was NOT a senseless murder'er. Every death had an initial cause, a reason, a disobedient act, a purpose. The world has changed DRASTICALLY with this pacifist movement, the past was not like this at all. You have to think about this- man killed man relentlessly, evil and corruption was written throughout every city! Man killed man for no reason, wickedness roamed the lands. IE- the flood. There's your purpose; corruption among the land (sexual immorality, deception, murder especially). The only difference in comparing this day in age, and that day in age, is that God doesn't take interfere with mankind anymore. I wish i knew why, and i wish he would make an appearance. With your stoning to death examples, that is not taken literally from the text. Even Jesus, son of God, at one point commends a man for doing good on the Sabbath. Text from the bible is VERY hard to interpret and understand, but you have to remember that each writer writes from a different perspective and style of writing. Etc. I agree with you in several ways Dan, i dont think man needs Jesus to be good people, or to become successful and great. But i DO believe Jesus is the way to eternity.

I LOVE YOU<3

 

[Domsicle]

I have no problem with religion but I have to say there getting ridiculous and this is why...

fun fact: If they're trying to portray jesus as such a great man then why would he be in front of the deathstar which was a MAN MADE planet bent on destroying and controlling the rebel ships.

IN B4 MOAR CATNAROK

 

[conordavidson]

Religion is the most skewed thing I've EVER seen. For real, it makes lives and it ruins them. It makes people happy and it kills them. Seriously, Religion is something I will NEVER have anything to do with. Well, atleast I hope not. I can not stand people who devote there lives for something that they have no idea the origins of. People who make themselves unhappy for religion, that's pathetic.

 

[chadsterr]

The Matrix is more believable than the bible...
imo

 

[JDBen]

an old classic of mine:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=B4OcQW-r934

 

[Shelby Grimnes]

When people say the can't believe in God because of all the bad crap that happens on the earth. God doesn't cause that, we live in a broken and sinful world that causes all these bad things to happen.

 

[danielwarwick]

When people say the can't believe in God because of all the bad crap that happens on the earth. God doesn't cause that, we live in a broken and sinful world that causes all these bad things to happen.

Yet from what I see you also believe that God made us all in his own image, therefore he made murderers, he made rapists, he made criminals all in his own image.

I always hear that from people and they say it's all mankind's fault, well is it the fault of millions of people that they were born into poverty only to starve to death? No, it's not, to believe in a God you would have to believe in a cruel, careless God, and that's not a God I'd ever believe in.

First bold- I may not be able to, on my lifetime here on earth, be able to prove the correct path to god, but there is no way that the earth was created by chance. Former PHD athiest Robin Collins quotes "The chances of life spontaneously forming and becoming so fine tuned to meet our needs is 1x10^53." Thats like picking one atom out of the entire universe by selective chance. Experiements such as the Miller experiment is all false and have been disproven COUNTLESS times. There is just no way that single celled organisms could randomly be created under our universe's atmosphere without there being a divine creator. This IS science bro, its just completely improbable. I know you wont change your mind and im sure scientists will find ways to come up with a way that matter was produced through nothing, but until they can be proved I think an intelligent designer is the more likely choice.

Second bold- God was NOT a senseless murder'er. Every death had an initial cause, a reason, a disobedient act, a purpose. The world has changed DRASTICALLY with this pacifist movement, the past was not like this at all. You have to think about this- man killed man relentlessly, evil and corruption was written throughout every city! Man killed man for no reason, wickedness roamed the lands. IE- the flood. There's your purpose; corruption among the land (sexual immorality, deception, murder especially). The only difference in comparing this day in age, and that day in age, is that God doesn't take interfere with mankind anymore. I wish i knew why, and i wish he would make an appearance. With your stoning to death examples, that is not taken literally from the text. Even Jesus, son of God, at one point commends a man for doing good on the Sabbath. Text from the bible is VERY hard to interpret and understand, but you have to remember that each writer writes from a different perspective and style of writing. Etc. I agree with you in several ways Dan, i dont think man needs Jesus to be good people, or to become successful and great. But i DO believe Jesus is the way to eternity.

I LOVE YOU<3

1st bold - I didn't find that quote anywhere.

2nd bold - If God is science, why are SO many scientists Atheists? Yes you have Christian scientists, but the vast majority are Atheists, Agnostics, and Skeptics. You cannot have one improbability explain millions more improbabilities. When you go and say that something HAD to put us here, then what put that something here? I always hear Christians say "God was always here." How does no one else realize how totally asinine this is? When you say something like this, your whole argument about "something had to put us here" is completely invalid, Atheists realize that "No, something DIDN"T have to put us here, yet we'd rather work towards finding answers then be satisfied with religious superstition".

Each murder is justified? So when God kills the firstborn of an entire land because of ONE evil King, that is justified? Why not just kill the King? No, he kills tons of innocent people instead.

 

[Pete Pachota]

wall of text

I might just be interpreting this the wrong way, but if you say that "various parts of human brain are responsible for whatever sums up to our 'soul'... " and that the final emotional responses received by the brain upon death are preserved for 'eternity' - however, this would mean, if we are using the hard disk analogy, that the device would have to remain intact for this continuing process to be true. This leads me to my point that due to organic decay, cremation, etc. your body, including the brain, won't remain intact for very long after death therefore disrupting that process.

Good point, and Ive thought about it. Well, the thing is about what you perceive. When you die, your perception of time flow stops, so no matter what happens to the brain next. If there's any physical change done to the brain (decay, destruction) it doesn't really matter because it's 99.99% sure that this change wouldn't rearrange the cells in such way that living process did. This reasoning is kind of flimsy, I also have omitted the fact of cells dying etc, but Im not really keen on neurology to figure everything out.

Another important conclusion out of this, and a part of my beliefs is that I don't really think that people with no advanced brain functions, that can't live a human life in neurological terms (sick, or accident survivors, pretty much like that Terri Schiavo case) should be kept alive at all costs. This also applies to abortion at early stage of pregnancy. Human death is when brain functions are terminated (and I guess that's the actual medical definition). Therefore, you can't kill something that has no brain.

 

[Matt_Porter]

well if there was a jesus he'd ride a scooter

 

[dre]

Each murder is justified? So when God kills the firstborn of an entire land because of ONE evil King, that is justified? Why not just kill the King? No, he kills tons of innocent people instead.

Yeah, doesn't seem like a very rational god to me, and I always thought that god thought things through, breaking my balls god, breaking my balls..

 

[Steve Moore]

well if there was a jesus he'd ride a scooter

fail

 

[Matt Ogle]

When people say the can't believe in God because of all the bad crap that happens on the earth. God doesn't cause that, we live in a broken and sinful world that causes all these bad things to happen.

Yet from what I see you also believe that God made us all in his own image, therefore he made murderers, he made rapists, he made criminals all in his own image.

I always hear that from people and they say it's all mankind's fault, well is it the fault of millions of people that they were born into poverty only to starve to death? No, it's not, to believe in a God you would have to believe in a cruel, careless God, and that's not a God I'd ever believe in.

First bold- I may not be able to, on my lifetime here on earth, be able to prove the correct path to god, but there is no way that the earth was created by chance. Former PHD athiest Robin Collins quotes "The chances of life spontaneously forming and becoming so fine tuned to meet our needs is 1x10^53." Thats like picking one atom out of the entire universe by selective chance. Experiements such as the Miller experiment is all false and have been disproven COUNTLESS times. There is just no way that single celled organisms could randomly be created under our universe's atmosphere without there being a divine creator. This IS science bro, its just completely improbable. I know you wont change your mind and im sure scientists will find ways to come up with a way that matter was produced through nothing, but until they can be proved I think an intelligent designer is the more likely choice.

Second bold- God was NOT a senseless murder'er. Every death had an initial cause, a reason, a disobedient act, a purpose. The world has changed DRASTICALLY with this pacifist movement, the past was not like this at all. You have to think about this- man killed man relentlessly, evil and corruption was written throughout every city! Man killed man for no reason, wickedness roamed the lands. IE- the flood. There's your purpose; corruption among the land (sexual immorality, deception, murder especially). The only difference in comparing this day in age, and that day in age, is that God doesn't take interfere with mankind anymore. I wish i knew why, and i wish he would make an appearance. With your stoning to death examples, that is not taken literally from the text. Even Jesus, son of God, at one point commends a man for doing good on the Sabbath. Text from the bible is VERY hard to interpret and understand, but you have to remember that each writer writes from a different perspective and style of writing. Etc. I agree with you in several ways Dan, i dont think man needs Jesus to be good people, or to become successful and great. But i DO believe Jesus is the way to eternity.

I LOVE YOU<3

1st bold - I didn't find that quote anywhere.

2nd bold - If God is science, why are SO many scientists Atheists? Yes you have Christian scientists, but the vast majority are Atheists, Agnostics, and Skeptics. You cannot have one improbability explain millions more improbabilities. When you go and say that something HAD to put us here, then what put that something here? I always hear Christians say "God was always here." How does no one else realize how totally asinine this is? When you say something like this, your whole argument about "something had to put us here" is completely invalid, Atheists realize that "No, something DIDN"T have to put us here, yet we'd rather work towards finding answers then be satisfied with religious superstition".

Each murder is justified? So when God kills the firstborn of an entire land because of ONE evil King, that is justified? Why not just kill the King? No, he kills tons of innocent people instead.

1st bold- "The Science of God(had a different analogy to describe it, but same thing)", and the actual quote is from Lee Strobel's "The Case for a Creator".

2nd bold- I dont see where your getting at with the scientists, im trying to explain this from an unbiased point of view. Your athiest scientists have been looking and searching which is great, if they somehow could produce life without any controlled variables, any human produced catalysts, or any substance tampering with natural conditions, than i would totally be skeptical again about God and its legitmacy. I haven't heard of a thing like that though. About the deaths/pacifist attitudes, he is GOD. If 9 plagues does nothing to pharoah, than there is no reason why the god of the universe would not kill everty firstborn in town. This is a bad representation of God's wrath, because quite frankly God was MERCIFUL on Egypt. If i were god i would have blown that place up after the first 3 rebellious acts of pharoah! God is merciful to those who fear him, and he brings wrath upon those who do not. Some things cannot be explained; yes god didnt have to kill every firstborn, who knows why he did. If god truely is god, than he is omnipresent and he should have just killed pharoah on plague 2. I dont understand why god would kill innocent(i assume innocent) children, but apparently what he did worked- Pharoah set free his the slaves for however long. He could have just killed pharoah, but that wouldn't have made an impact to anyone at all. His creations would not have learned any lesson. God's plan in that situation just proved to anyone how sinful and corrupted man was at that time, using pharoah as the example. 9 plagues and he still wouldnt repent.

Etc.

 

[Chris_Bartnicki]

Part one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNzXsDvvFyk
Part two
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R1usMsYU3Q
Part three
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RDjd3XtRzA