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#1
05-04-2008, 11:35 PM
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Does God Exist?
A simple set of questions and a few followups which may or may not be applicable depending on your answers.
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#2
05-04-2008, 11:37 PM
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To answer the first two questions:
1. No, because it is just a book. 2. No. 
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#3
05-04-2008, 11:40 PM
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"God" is, among other things, a term some people use to label a certain kind of experience or experiencing. Thus, in the same sense that any experience can be said to exist, "god" can be said to exist.
Whether or not god exists ontologically, however, is another question -- a question that, I firmly believe, is boring.
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Then I came back from where I'd been. My room, it looked the same - but there was nothing left between The Nameless and the name. - Leonard Cohen.
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#4
05-04-2008, 11:43 PM
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In my opinion God does not exist, for i have never felt as though i have been influenced by higher powers, only common sense and morality i inherited from my elders. The earth is significantly older than 6000-7000 years, that was around the last Ice age. Bassalt rocks contain evidence we are at least 600,000 years old due to their metallic properties. I believe muesems on Christianity should be allowed, i believe in free speech, but i disagree with anyone (especially children) being forced to visit, no one has the right to make decisions for another, it is immoral. However, should someone open a muesem of satan, could you imagine the response to that? If christians are allowed to preach than if we are truely free then so should other forms of religion, regardless of the dominant religion of the country. However, restrictions apply to what you can say in public, so as the system stands i think its inappropriate for Christianity to be allowed to do such a thing. I would also have a problem if they preached their message as a fact, rather than a theory, thats misinforming the public.
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#5
05-04-2008, 11:51 PM
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In some places the Bible is historically accurate, in others it may not be...
God exists... The God I believe in is the Triune Diety of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I have heard the story of Ra. Never seen all of Zeitegist(though I have seen some parts). Saw Jesus Camp, but I can't really remember that much... sorry. Christmas, The celebration of the birth of Jesus, could hardly have been celebrated before Jesus. However, certain groups did have a religious holy day around the date we celebrate Christmas which may have had an effect on when the Church decided to place our celebration. Quote:
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Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.
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#6
05-05-2008, 05:43 AM
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You know one thing I have noted over the years is people grow up to be whatever they want and can have radically different views of the world but those brought up religious are usually always religious. They didn't choose their religion, their parents and grandparents did and if not them it was whatever was around at the time. Many were taken to church as babies, toddlers, young adults and then just kept going. They may be deluded into thinking that they did INDEED choose their faith but the only person they are able too fool are themselves. I mean do these people seriously believe they had the understanding of every other religion and the opportunity to pick any religion they wanted? Like in a family of 5 the oldest grows up baptist, the middle child Buddhist and the youngest is all about Islam. Are they that deluded? No... they just think their religion is good and their content with it enough to not look at any others. Had they grown up somewhere else they would have adopted that religion. The fact that they will argue against that or tell you that they choose their religion is a sign of brain washing. Indoctrination.
Saying religion doesn't cause any harm is just ignorant. Their are myriads of real studies that have been or are still being done that essentially puts religion as one of the core problems of many social disorders. They're not making up this stuff. Just because you haven't heard it you respond without acceptance but its true. By true I mean facts backed up by research, science and evidence. The harm religious fanaticism does is easy to see. Those people stoned that girl because of their religious beliefs. People do harm every day because of their religious beliefs. There is racism, but oppression, repression, homophobia etc etc. When the KKK sets something aflame in your yard invariably it was or will be a cross. Now don't get me wrong. Evil doesn't need religion. Morality can stand entirely seperate from religion. But consider: With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. Steven Weinberg (1933 - ) So Who's right and who's wrong? Well I guess that's all a matter of what you believe and how you practice it. I know people who call themselves religious, be it catholic, baptist, protestant or whatever yet they know almost nothing about the bible or what they believe in. Then you have people who claim to be religious, have some basic understanding and militantly defend their choice. You can spot these guys a mile a way but usually not in a church save a few times a year. They normally give a passing nod to religious values and will judge other people based on their values but rarely do they apply the teachings of the bible to their lives. These people like to Bark a lot but generally can't win an argument because they simply don't have the capacity or focus to actually know what their talking about. Then you have the Pascal Wager Sheep who believe in God because its better, in their view, to worship god then to not. After all if you believe and follow the religion and there turns out to be no god, no harm done. However if there is a god and you accept it then the rewards are eternal life. These people I call Irrational. (After all what if god is Allah, Ra, Zeus or Odin? Are you following all their doctrines as well?) Next up are the people who believe in all the good religion can bring, things like spiritual well-being, charitable works, a sense of meaning and purpose, the bringing together of communities, comfort in times of distress and the (unconfirmed) promise of eternal life after death. As if these things are owned by religion somehow. As was stated earlier you can have all these benefits without religion.(Maybe not eternal life... but who knows.) Fundamentalists... these guys are hard core but generally fall into one of the other sheep categories. The difference being they are far more emotional and usually know their **** when it comes to the bible. These guys are easy to cast aside simply because of the outlandish things they state to back up their beliefs. You can almost see the twinkle of madness behind their eyes and strongly disagreeing with them could get you killed. So there are other types but if you just look at this group you could honestly wonder what harm could come from religion. I guess you could wonder and wonder for days because most people ignore that it was religious fanaticism that brought down our towers. Religion is as much today about the mother beating her child to death to exorcise the demons as it is about casually following the crowd.
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#7
05-05-2008, 06:53 AM
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Heya BalanceFX,
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a) Smaller than statistically demanded sample sizes b) Non-randomly selected samples Quote:
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So with that in mind, which specific studies are you referring to? Quote:
1) Is there actually a correlation between violence and religious belief? 2) Is this correlation causal? 3) Are there different kinds of religious belief and, if so, are all of these kinds causally correlated in this way? The first question clearly can't be answered through anecdotal evidence because there are more believers than non-believers and so we should expect (without a correlation) to see a higher proportion of violence amongst believers than non-believers. This requires a study. The second requires more than a study, it requires a theory that explains the mechanism which causes a believer to be more prone to violence than the non-believer. The third is suitably answered with anecdotal evidence. If I can put forward an example of a believer who is not susceptible to the mechanism asserted by the theory then the theory falls apart and the generalisation is not applicable to all believers. What do you think?
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#8
05-05-2008, 07:02 AM
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Illusion means being deluded about enlightenment; enlightenment is being enlightened about illusion. - from 'The Heart of Dogen's Shobogenzo' Brad Chat Last edited by Willamena; 05-05-2008 at 07:10 AM.
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#9
05-05-2008, 07:13 AM
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