"Why do non-Christians come here?" Here's why -

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Well buzzy far be it from me to bate but I seem to have touched a raw point so sorry if I have, I speak from personal experience, my background was not a church going background and over here in the UK we are in the late stages of a very sad transitional period moving from a more Christian and human society and country into a more atheist/secularist and capitalist society.

Many of my peer's were simply anti Christian as it was in vogue and I hardly knew anyone that went to church and many of the more outspoken were so because they were seeking somewhere to place the blame as God was seen as the highest authority and even a father figure in there own personal rebellion against him so a lot of them seem to have sought to blame him for the ill's they suffered here on earth in there lives while others simply turned away from him under the pressures of the new capitalist and post baby boomer generation's whom often replaced religion and tradition with drug's and drink and empty short term sexual encounters at night club's, in back alleys and in strangers flat's.

It can work the other way though as most modern born again Christian's (the fastest growing Christian movement while traditional stale church's are diminishing in congregation size) for example came from non religious background's of post baby boomer generation family's.

But you are correct I can not see your history or reason, I can only say that I have had my arguments with god before realizing I need him far more then I need whatever I lost or have been robbed of and he is not to blame anyway, perhaps because for me is a father figure and always has been, my physical father is someone I would rather not know or be associated with and my reason's are genuine but there I fail in my religious duty of forgiveness as I can not bring myself forgive the wrong he has done and continues to do to other members of my family and myself even if they have though I know that as a Christian the ultimate judge he will have to face is Jesus and I know that god is not to blame for what he did to my mother and my sybling's.

Perhaps that fact stop's me from going and throttling him while laughing manically as I so dearly would love too even though I am by nature more even than religion a pacifist.

So I do empathize with those whom have suffered from a non religious stand point as well as from my religious view.

I do not know your history buzzy or your reason and only you and God even if you choose not to believe in him can know that but once again I am sorry if I rubbed you up the wrong way.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Well buzzy far be it from me to bate but I seem to have touched a raw point

nope.....

.....

It can work the other way though as most modern born again Christian's (the fastest growing Christian movement while traditional stale church's are diminishing in congregation size) for example came from non religious background's of post baby boomer generation family's.

The "post baby boomer" generation was non-religious? I'm a "Baby Boomer" - my kids are only in their twenties. They don't have kids. Or are you talking about the Gen Xs? Yeah, they're in their 40s now - I guess some of them do indeed have grown kids......

.............

But you are correct I can not see your history or reason, I can only say that I have had my arguments with god before realizing I need him far more then I need whatever I lost or have been robbed of and he is not to blame anyway, perhaps because for me is a father figure and always has been, my physical father is someone I would rather not know or be associated with and my reason's are genuine but there I fail in my religious duty of forgiveness as I can not bring myself forgive the wrong he has done and continues to do to other members of my family and myself even if they have though I know that as a Christian the ultimate judge he will have to face is Jesus and I know that god is not to blame for what he did to my mother and my sybling's.

Wow. Long sentence there......okay, hold on......

You've had your arguments with god (so you assume everyone else has, also?).

Your father failed you (very sorry to hear that), and God took his place. Every young person needs a father figure....
if one is not physically present, who better than God? I totally understand, I really do.

Forgiveness? You are angry and disappointed in your own biological father's behavior. Who wouldn't be? So, you have adopted God as the role model you never had. I get it. Of course I get it. ......... you think you need to forgive him rather than express and acknowledge your anger at him.

And so, it's easy for you to transfer that feeling (in opposite) to other members - to attribute to them what it is YOU are feeling about your physical father....only reversed. You think those who reject God as an adequate (or desirable) "father figure" are the ones who don't see straight.

.................

Wow, I'm very sorry to hear that your childhood was so unpleasant. My dad was there, and no one was being abused.....

Sad story, in all sincerity.

It helps me understand your pov, for sure. FWIW, I'd like to suggest that you might find a way to express yourself to your father - to tell him what hurt you and others, and hold him accountable. Write a letter or something (even if you never send it, you've gotten it off your chest). Send it, or burn it. But let it rest before you decide which.

You don't have to forgive a monster......and your feelings and understanding of what happened deserve to be heard.

I do not know your history buzzy or your reason and only you and God even if you choose not to believe in him can know that but once again I am sorry if I rubbed you up the wrong way.

I feel really sad now. I'm so sorry that your parent was injurious. That's a lot for a kid to bear. Of course you're enraged!!!

You didn't rub me the wrong way, LABTECH. Don't be sorry....and, I'm not an atheist. I just don't believe the Bible.

a reply to: LABTECH767

But like I say most that attack Christianity have a psychological reason for doing so such as seeking to blame God or simply to hate Christianity itself despite often as they seek to pin the blame for there own personal or even all of society's woes on the one they think can not hit back.

god doesnt like being a scapegoat? maybe he should have a heart to heart with ol' scratch, see if they can work out a deal. hopefully they can come up with something more helpful than "screw this guy in particular for bragging rights" like they did to job.

a reply to: TzarChasm

Ha I had to log back on this morning, just woke up an hour ago, that comment made me laugh.

What you have to remember about ol' Scratch as you call the devil is that he not on the same level as God and never was.

Here is were most whom choose to hate god like to point out, since the devil is a creature is not god responsible but the answer is No, why well is a father responsible for the behaviour of an adult child to his other children, yes he is almighty but God did not create us to be robot's and to interfere would take away our free will.

Now here is a problem for many whom like to use philosophy or metaphysics as they will see this as a rebuttal of free will though in fact it is not.

God is both inside and outside of time, the creator side of God is outside of time he see's all of creation in all of it's multiplicity and multi universal nature as a single whole which he understands intimately but God as we know him in day to day belief though he is the same being is
more a second by second kind of Father or God whom though knows we will stumble has decided that if we are going to walk he has to let us stumble but always offers us his hand to get back up, not easy to see or even accept when your life has gone to S£$% but true nevertheless, he loves us all equally not with a divisiveness or favouritism though he does love us to be Good like any father would and also good to our siblings.

Lastly we all see God at a unique and individual level, though the personal God is a dangerous thing as it can lead religion to fragment it is also a very important level of our belief without which religion would not exist.

And we Christians are not the only one's to worship god, Though Islam for example may have been founded by a chauvinistic vengeful angry ex salesman whom was great at manipulating people including his first followers whom were bandits' and outlaw's (this is true) most of the people today though they may in the old testament sense be offering a strange fire before god are actually still looking to him and not Muhammad's personal god (with the exception of IS etc).

A recent and very intriguing thread on ATS was posted but then taken down as the thread only showed a video and no explanation so it broke the rules but nevertheless that video was showing an evangelical Chinese pastor whom was talking about Shang Di the original Chinese God whom was worshiped before they started to worship a pantheon and in his argument which included studying ancient Chinese calligraphy and symbols' he explained very convincingly his belief that Shang Di is actually El Shadai which as you may know is an ancient Hebrew title for god, it was interesting to see also that the Chinese were once monotheist though this may have only been one of there root cultures but nevertheless the point stands'.

From Rhama to Amun to El shadai to Shang Di monotheism in a creator god was once more widely accepted though pantheons often arose later, of course at the same time that creator god may have been worshiped as a female deity elsewhere.

What religion serves is a method by which to try to talk to the unfathomable intelligence behind the universe and above it, for me that intelligence was manifest as Jesus whom I do truly believe in (whom said I shall come unto each as one of there own).

We all know when we harm another and that it is wrong to do so, those that do not know are usually lacking empathy and fall into the catagorie of Psychopaths, Politicians, Lawyers etc (the second two are just my opinion).

But religion especially Christianity enshrines this respect of others with God our father as the head of the family and us being told to recognise them as our brothers and sisters, also though oft abused or misrepresented Christianity is the religion which stated that there is no difference between a man and a woman in the resurrection, no matter our differences here in the earth we receive a new "form" (Celestial/Spiritual/Angelic body) in the resurrection indicating that our growth is not done yet, we are neither given nor taken in marriage as those thing's of the flesh are past away and when in the bible it say's man was made to work it has another meaning as this angelic body mean's we are to work there too not lounge around drinking and feasting as so many have claimed especially in the Islamic religion whom think there so called martyr's are going to place full of pre pubescent virgin's with there wives staying subservient to there husbands even after death.

We will work as in that form we are made totally well, no tiredness, no sickness or injury or mental illness and of course we are extensions of the one (in the body of Christ in the Christian speech) though we are also still ourselves but a better version of ourselves with all our problem's fixed, people who pass over in near death or similar experiences and in dreams after a loved one has passed away often see them or even relatives they have never met tending a vast garden, this is how they see creation or rather how our mind's interpret what can not be translated easily into this lower dimension and they are working at keeping it beautiful is my interpretation of that.

So in a nutshell Christianity is this, we are sick and poisoned by a parasite (the devil) a higher being came to try to salvage and heal us, if we are healed through him 'and' he will heal us no matter how sick we are so long as we come to him (give him full permission and give ourselves into his care totally), we then return to or mature into our tru civilization/nature healed of the corruption and deloused of the devil (higher state of being) and take up our place as productive members of our true society under our true government (god from whom our soul came and to whom if cleansed it shall return - spirit to spirit) but have to leave the egg (Ashes and dust) behind as we have hatched so to speak, we have a higher dimension to ascend (mature) to but being ill and parasite infested without his help we can not leave this diseased and quaranteened world as to do so would spread the Devil far and wide.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Ok buzzy, you don't believe YOUR interpretation of the bible or other's interpretation, if the sprit chooses not to speak to you through that then maybe you have another path.

Don't feel sorry about my dad, he was/is a scheister
of the lowest calibre, a real dirt bag and a nasty sack of futile putrid waist (that makes me feel better ha), I will probably be punished for saying it but it is the truth even if a tree tearing at it's own root's says something must be wrong with the tree as well?.

And I am quite possibly old enough to be your or at least elder brother, I made a point so that other's would understand I do know where many of them are coming from but hey it's alright or at least it is going to be just not on this plane of existence.

I respect your view but must disagree, take another look at it, ignore the old testament for now it is almost incomprehensible anyway and explore the new testament again.

Now I am in a unique perspective as whether you think me crazy or accept I may be a translocated soul or a being from another cycle of creation (I think the universe may have been repeated with minor differences many time's a bit like a refining process with good stuff removed each time and the waste worked over again though this is not in the bible or any religion I know of).

I had an experience which I will relay to you for the sake of argument, you may feel free to regard it as a mental episode and nothing more but I feel for me it was genuine and real.

Back during a time of intense paranormal activity around me back in the early 1990's about early 94 I was under what I can only call demonic attack and witness what I can only call fighing in the spirit world around me (Ok looney tunes but bare with me and listen to what I am typing as I am going to skip over it mostly), anyway I had an experience, I had done nothing wrong to anyone so why was I under attack but then I was under such intense pain that seemed to come form my soul not my body like being burned in acid and slowly digested while alive I had what many would regard as a nervous break down, I screamed at god and he did not answer me, I called but no one was there yet I knew he was real and had to be just ignoring me or letting this happen to me.

This mental pain which I can not explain except like fever, there were too many disparate experiences to document and my mind could not contain or understand them but among them I experienced seeing other faces in the mirror and feeling and experiencing the death's of other's often whom were being murdered including the first hand experience of a young woman or girl though the imagery was fragmentary and I could not see her attacker, both in her body and after her death outside as if it was floating about two feet off the ground and though I could not see the car I felt her body was in the trunk of a car leaving on a dirt track somewhere in the Yorkshire dales, I felt this was before my birth but at the time it was as if it was happening to me there and then and I tried to find the house I had seen in the waking vision's.

I fell out with god as a result and grew enraged that I had done nothing so why was I suffering this, I turned and raged at him, even blasphemed but I was definetely not in my right mind.

One experience waking as I sat in a car driven by a member of my family (I do not drive), I saw a dry desert like place under an unsual reddish sky, the sand was red sandstone like and sand and rock's with what looked like a dry river bed between were I was seeing from and what I could see on the other side of this valley, I was seeing both physicaly and as if through another set of eye's into this place, I Say a multitude, hundreds and hundreds of young men standing on the other side as if they could not cross this dry river that split valley, then I heard waking a voice saying simply "Will you accept being a medium", being a Christian I said NO, not the first time I have said such to spiritual entitys but that is another story.

One night as I lay there I was angry with god and felt betrayed by him as if all my belief had been in vain, I saw in the same way another place I knew it was long ago and somewhere else but it was as if part of me was outside of time and I was there then, I was in intense pain and lying face down on a grassy hillock, behind me though I did not see it I felt a massive tree and before me was a moon to the right of my field of view many time's larger than the moon or much closer with different crators and no large mares, below it slightly to the left of it was a flower like a blue bell violet in colour illuminated by the moonlight of the huge moon with a single dew drop falling from it refracting the light of the moon like a star, above in the sky were many stars but it was like I had seen this place so many time's and I looked and notice one important star was missing, I screamed and reached, I left that body as I was in two places here and there at the same time, I seemed to stretch far beyond that world and reached what I can only call the edge of the universe and shouted a single name, the true name of that star.

Exhausted I fell back into this body here in this world were I was lying on the couch feverish and then a voice spoke, Female she said she was one with all woman and all woman were one with here, she had created God and God had created her, I was to tell the Angels on Judgement day that she was alive, she seemed intensely angry but also slow to act a bit like God himself then a voice said "What was that you said" as if desperate, innocently I repeated her name and it was snatched from my mind, I can still not recall it but it was something like Eiliutheira, that was not her name but something like that.

On another entity's said (Call it clair audience or audio hallucination it makes no difference to me) "let's turn him off", I was conscious but in that same state of feverish dislocation, I was suddenly formeless and void, no body, no mind but there was something in that oblivion which remained, I was conscious and aware, I started to form into something and it was like I was detected, I was suddenly with someone whom seemed to have found me out there outside creation or reality if you like, before me was a dark almost black grey sphereoid and the entity with me which was quite different to the once here that had said "Let's turn him off" said in a completely emotionless voice, "Main aggressor" indicating the sphere, then I was put back into my body but here is the strange part, I think this is a different universe to my own because?.

Here there are differenced in the bible, I remember no such passage as "Give the immoral brother to satan" which invalidates the blood of Christ in the new testament so is obviously a demonic insertion, there was a passage about Seven threescore and seven man whom was to overcome the beast and his kingdom not kill the beast that was for the lamb to do when he return's etc and many other differences, here in this reality the entire bible is far darker and god far less nice than in my reality or as I felt strange sense of endless time compressed into an instant while I was outside (turned off as they called it), in my cycle of creation or former creation of origin, I may potentially be the most alien entitiy within this universe if what I am saying is true and may be though time is not a relative here very old.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Thank you ever so much for those two posts.
Very interesting.

a reply to: LABTECH767

you are welcome to your opinion and i respect your right to express it. at the same time, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. until such a time as that evidence is reviewed and appoved by a board of certified professionals, "santa skeptics" will continue to meet you and other theologically inclined posters on the field of debate.

a reply to: TzarChasm

Well believe me I am a santa sceptic myself just not a anti religious one, as for Santa of course like most little boy's I used to find the present no matter where they were hid and would peek inside the packaging without opening them, still loved Christmas time though however the whole concept of Christmas has been turned upon it's head, the gift from a Christian point of view was in the form of the son of God even if Christmas time is not the exact date and was used in order to eclipse pagan ceremonie's (Pagan actually mean's country dweller or country bumpkin if you like and heathen is a more accurate term).

But hey never let decent moral instilling Christian virtue get in the way of corporate brainwashing and retail sales eh!.

The truth is that scuzz buckets had hijacked both Christmas and Easter in order to drum up sales and make a profit for themselves at the cost of decent culture and social morality in most country's in the west with an ensuing social break down which effect's even family life in a detrimental way.

Yes you have heard these arguments before but that is because they happen to be the truth, as a child and a young man I still remember going down the high street with my friend's and my girlfriend and the shops of course were closed, now this was not the inconvenience they want to you believe as it served as a day for mowing the lawn, window shopping and family's to get together even if they were not church goers.

Another misconception of most secularists and atheists is that religious people and spiritual people in general are of a lower intellectualy capability when in fact if anything the opposite of this is the truth, take the majority of the scientists during the Apollo mission's, they were believers in a variety of faith's as were the the astronauts whom went to the moon, not all I will warrant but the majority of them and even if you think looking for noah's ark is wacked out as most people would since they think it was a fairy tale (I disagree and do believe it happened) take James Irwin, walked on the moon and a scientist whom I will also warrant was more intelligent than your's truly yet he truly believed to the point he searched for noah's ark almost to his dying day and died believing it was there.

Here is a metaphysical question for you, what is the difference between perceived reality and actual reality and what makes one person's perception even if it follow's a consensus any more valid than any other person's perception of reality, is reality even independent of perception.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs


Well humour me as it did happen from my perspective and many far worse thing's, I would not wish it on anyone, there are wack job's trying to contact spirits and even self proclaimed witches whom do not have a clue how bad it can get, the best was when one night I was wearing a medallion with a maddona and child
on my neck, I saw something, most spirit's did not appear human to me they looked like mist of shadow though I also saw ball's of light and feint but almost solid images a bit like an afterimage that fades, some people repulsed me as I could sense a cloud or darkness around them and it seemed to sicken me but to get back to my recollection, on this night I was in my bed room when I sensed something malign, the hair's on the back of my neck stood up and so I grabbed my trusty bible (I can not quote passage and verse I do not have an eidetic memory like some) and walked toward it as I now saw it in the form of a shimmering black column of shadow that rippled like the effect of heat waves rippling the air, it was though transparent black and in the form of a colume reaching from the the floor to the ceiling and about as wide as a man, I told it to get out in the name of Jesus and it seemed to immediately vanish so I walked over holding my bible in front of me praying as I did.

As I passed over were it had been I felt it suddenly seem to leap into me, what a miscalculation for a demon as instead of eating me I felt like I had been forced to eat something unsavoury to say the least, I felt a very uncomfortable warmth and my skin itched but as the room was cold, the window's single glazed with ice on the inside were the condensation had frozen as it was mid winter I actually almost liked it, it felt cozy in spite of myself but I think I went a little odd as I sat there laughing at it to myself unless that was a nervous reaction or the shock of the experience and as it had jumped into me I had heard a voice screaming "I am going to get you, you bast£QD" and seeming to fall straight away from me, later as I looked at the silver Madonna and child on my neck I found the silver had turned jet black, for about 5 of 6 years after that all metal would tarnish on me except the one gold ring I owned of course gold and that seemed to get a dull grey sheen on it's surface as well.

I know from personal experience that there is such a thing as Evil and not only in humans which we all know ourselves but at another level in what we often refer to as the spirit but I actually think there are several spirit planes and types as well.

One thing I do know is that it is not something to be played with by fool's whom think it is all a game and even ordained priests are not immune to these thing's though they can definitely be overcome and sent packing.

As for the entity's having a reason, well I have never robbed anyone, never defrauded anyone, never harmed anyone and can think of no reason at all for there action's except perhaps when they find a chink in anyone's armour they exploit it and are hateful of us all if they can not use us or occupy us and if we resist them in any way so they are in essence slavers if you like and I was and am not willing to be some other dimensional scum bag's beast of burden or broken in horse.

"Why do non-Christians come here?"

Forum heading is:

Religion, Faith and theology

...any other questions?

Forum heading is not:

Christianity, christianity and christianity

Å99

a reply to: LABTECH767

Here is a metaphysical question for you, what is the difference between perceived reality and actual reality and what makes one person's perception even if it follow's a consensus any more valid than any other person's perception of reality, is reality even independent of perception.

It is an excellent question.
What does make one person's perception more valid?

And in my opinion, yes.....reality is independent of perception.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
a reply to: LABTECH767

Here is a metaphysical question for you, what is the difference between perceived reality and actual reality and what makes one person's perception even if it follow's a consensus any more valid than any other person's perception of reality, is reality even independent of perception.

It is an excellent question.
What does make one person's perception more valid?

And in my opinion, yes.....reality is independent of perception.

It's much more rational to accept a perceived reality that's validated by a consensus rather than one that hasn't had any validation whatsoever.

Everyone has an imagination but they're all wildley different, and a good way to distinguish between reality and imagination is to ask others whether or not they can validate your reality/imagination.

a reply to: Prezbo369

a good way to distinguish between reality and imagination is to ask others whether or not they can validate your reality/imagination.

Yep!!!

That's part of why I come here.

Maybe.... Or Not... Xtians Find It Much More Suitable To Believe We Have Never, Ever Hard Of Christendom....

a reply to: Prezbo369

Ahh but what is a consensus, take the human eye and the link between the eye and the way we think.

The eye see's only a tiny fraction of the light bounced into it that it can then absorb and is of course blind to the vast majority of the electromagnetic spectrum, the peripheral vison surrounding that pin point of your focus is only really good for movement and the further out of the point of focus the less detail it and your mind can discern
.

The conscious mind is capable of multi tasking but not perfectly and we perform single tasks far more efficiently by and large as a general rule of thumb so we can perceive the link between our senses and our mental structure, our ability to plan and if you like imagine being the root of our sentience to a small degree at least on the physical scale of the body though we are also acutely aware of our own blind nature and try to see beyond the boundary's of our senses using our faculty's and reason.

Still the reality of consensus however remains and construct of the observer and in consensus of shared information passed between the group.

We are so blind we can see but the most minute detail of the world around us, we are so deaf we hear only a fraction of the world around us and we are so lacking in higher intellect that we understand only the smallest fraction of the universe around us.


I can not really pass to you my experience, what I experienced and what happens from your perspective or even your attempt to rationalise an otherwise irrational event away will flavour how you interpret the world around you and also how you interpret other people and there view's.

I stand by my point that reality in consensus is in fact no more real than reality taken from an individual perspective, in fact it is more centered especially as a consensus reality is if you think about it fuzzy in the middle and at the edges with multiple overlapping perspectives, the shared area of the consensus however is argumentatively however more real that and it is also likely to encompass the bulk of any given individual's perspective anyway.

But once again what is reality and even then given the fact that the very law's of physic's may not be the immutable structures of scientific reality they were thought to be when taking into account membrane theory and the fact the structure of the universe may be in flux then is reality even a solid or a constant even if it is a given and provable fact which I posit it is not even when established by consensus.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Ah but is it independent of perception, take the aperture slit test and the photon interference pattern, it can only be explained by suggesting that the photon exists in more than one parallel reality at the same time and that it can somehow slip between those reality so is able to skip the blockage in one passage and so still form the full interference patter on the photographic paper.

Then take the concept that a photon when observed behaves as a particle but when not observed behaves as a waveform.

This is linked to ol' Schroedinger (probably spelt that wrong) and his cat in the box analogy about the structure of reality, it goes a cat is in a box with a vial of cyanide but you do not know the state of the cat, alive or dead until you open the box so since you do not know the cat is both alive and dead until you do open the box and so force your perception of reality down one or the other pathway as if the mind is a quantum band pass filter of some kind which screen's out or can only follow one pathway in reality, reality that may be constructed not just of the here and now but an infinite number of potential here and now's that cross, merge with and deviate from one another.

So if the mind has such power over reality or rather reality and the mind may be the same thing then what exactly is reality.

Don't get me wrong I know what you might say, Put a guy in a cage with a hungry lion and he can wish and will that he is not there or that the lion is a vegetarian all he want's but he will probably still be eaten, but then I would point out the fact probably is not definitely so even his reality is not a fixed equation with immutable parameters.

a reply to: LABTECH767

We are so blind we can see but the most minute detail of the world around us, we are so deaf we hear only a fraction of the world around us and we are so lacking in higher intellect that we understand only the smallest fraction of the universe around us.

This I agree with....(except, did you mean "we can't see"?)
But yes, we (humans) have a very limited awareness of 'reality' - I agree with that totally.
So, why do so many think that some other human had "the truth"?

Don't get me wrong I know what you might say, Put a guy in a cage with a hungry lion and he can wish and will that he is not there

Well, I myself would not say that..... but I suppose others might.

Still goes back to the original issue - we don't know what "truth" is. In my mind, that means (being true that we don't know what 'truth' is) that we ought not listen to any person's version and take it as truth. Your experiences as described are certainly noteworthy.
But they fail to convince me that "Christianity" is the be-all and end-all answer.

As I've said - I am an agnostic. I believe we just don't know.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs


As for my experience's whether the root cause was some kind of mental episode lasting from my childhood up to the present day but at it's very life shattering worst during the 1990's well I only elaborated as an example and it could have affected anyone of any faith or any religion, it just so happened that I was an remain a believer in Christ though perhaps not a good one as I should be in church about now but seldom attend, then again attending church is not the measure of a Christian his actions and lack of them are so by that measure I would also find myself substandard and hardly saintly.


All that aside to return to our discourse on the more philosophical nature of the universe and our perception of it I can actually quote a somewhat universal passage from the book of proverb's which always lingers there at the back of my mind.
"The Beginning of Wisdom is understanding that you have none".

And by that we come to the root of all religion, Faith, now you or I or anyone may try to attest to you but in my religion I have faith in a being that care's however distant he may seem from our day to day tragedy's and woes but we believe in then promise of this man whom we believe lived and died for us and then returned to god having risen from death, Christians also do not think they are better than anyone but rather then believe in recognising there own sin and understanding that Christ paid for them by his suffering in our place and that through him we can come to be remade perfect.

Buddhists believe they have to come back again and again until they are perfect and can then leave this level of creation to get closer to there idea of god but this world does not refine you it destroys you so how can then ever attain perfection?.

Muslim's believe that if they die for there god in holy war all there sin's will be forgiven and they will go to a paradise were they will lounge around drinking wine (forbidden to them on earth) and marry fair skinned golden haired voluptuous virgins with full breast's and hairless genital's, also it say's there manhood will remain eternally erect (Talk about some spicy wine eh? Viagra done eastern style but oh the pain), and many of them actually believe these passages from there hadith's.

So Buddhists whom have rejected the pantheon of Hinduism and gone straight to the top of the hindu pantheon rejecting even the ego of the ultimate deity as a lesser being and seeing all less deity's as merely ascended or illusory soul's have a believe that through purification or refinement brought about by lesson's and karmic balance achieved through many life time's will bring them into unity with the pure true highest being and so at that point they shall cease to be as only that being shall remain.

Christian's believe we sill be made new and perfect, we are imperfect but have had our debt or karmic imbalance paid for in an act of utter selfless sacrifice by our god whom will bring us back unto himself by making us perfect and have a new form and new heart as well as intelligence so a far higher sate of being though in that state we still have work yet to do as children and helpers of the creator like the angels whom are one with God (the ark angels are taken into the creator in some aspects though retain there self unlike the Buddhist concept.

Muslim's believe they will go to a garden paradise full of pretty buxom virgins' and sit around with permanent hard on's having sex and drinking all day and are devoted to a guy they believe to have been the ultimate prophet with the sexual strength of 30 men whom married a six year of little girl called Aisha.

Agnostic's believe that they simply do not know and whether or not there is a god many of them do not care as if he is there great and if he is not well no problem.

Atheists think the rest of us are crack pot's and while they may have a point they really should take a look in the mirror and that they are somehow more rational though admittedly they do sometimes admit they are just as crazy as the rest of us.

There is a saying live and let live or in Christianity "Turn the other cheek" which is also a call to pacifism as we have to accept that this world is not our true home if we are saved and our true home is the existence Christ has brought us too.

That last bit show's how hard it is to be a Christian, a little like when the guy whom was rich but had abided by his religious teachings with fervour came to speak to Jesus whom he believed to be a prophet, "What more must I do to be saved" was his question, the man was very rich indeed and Jesus replied "Sell all you own and give it to the poor then come and follow me", the man was upset and walked away feeling crest fallen because he was very rich and could not bring himself to part with his material possession's but Jesus had compassion as he was nevertheless a man whom had loved God so he said to his disciples "It is harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle but for God all thing's are possible" meaning that there was still hope for this man, now how many evangelical multi millionare pastors in the US and elsewhere do you know about whom obviously have not taken the very message they claim to preach to there heart's.

That said I shall not persuade you and you shall not persuade me but it has been an interesting discussion I think we shall likely both agree and a good thread to have brought us into it, my thank's to the moderators and to yours truly for tolerating us when we may have drifted off thread somewhat in order to illuminate our thought's be they right or wrong.

I hope this thread goes on for some time and other's find interesting viewpoints' on the subject to discuss.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

I'm just answering the OP.
And I don't believe it's only Christians that would refuse to welcome
the dishonesty of such a flimsy strawman argument Buzzy. How is it
you"ve determined that the reason you haven't seen God is the same
reason you haven't seen Santa Claus? You haven't seen me either does
that make me like Santa Claus? How is absence evidence of anything?

Furthermore why wouldn't any Christian want atheists in their thread or
on their site anyway? I love to point out how the unbeliever looks
ridiculing and mocking everything others believe. When they haven't
got any explanation for existence what so ever. And when they try
they all end up at some point that is just far more perposterous then
anything they were ridiculing in the first place. Looks really childish
to me. And to see most of them strut around as if they have it all
figured out. Now how sick is that? It doesn't look intelligent, in
fact it doesn't even resemble anything adult. Maybe atheists get
bent cause believers have no interest in their threads?

a reply to: randyvs

I love to point out how the unbeliever looks ridiculing and mocking everything others believe.

And you think that comment makes you appear smart?