Originally posted by an3rkist

I don't believe in God, yet I believe in love, peace, and respect. Atheists can be good people, too, believe it or not.

[edit on 7/3/08 by an3rkist]

Yes, athiests can be good people too. I would like to ask you a question. Do you believe that we are born with an inborn conscience that guides us as we grow?

If not, how would you explain adults who are excessively abused as children, yet still grow to be lovely human beings who have the ability to give love and respect others. I admit, many who are abused as children grow up to be horrible people with many problems, but there are many who seem to live by a conscience they didn't learn from a role model.

Honest question here.

To the Mods, I really don't think this is off-topic, but if you think it is, please advise.

Fair enough. I'd like to talke more about that but I think it's getting past my bedtime and I think my thoughts are under the bed so to speak right now. So, I'm going to think about this one tomorrow, and give you my answer then. K?

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
I see a lot of threads in the CIR forum that are basically Christians this! Christians that! without much of a real conspiracy angle. What's my conspiracy angle?

The greatest conspiracy of all time. : The battle for your immortal soul.

The only conspiracy I see here is you conspiring to preach an off-topic religious message in the CIR forum for the sake of the message and attempting to make it on-topic by tagging on the word "conspiracy". Why should anyone take you seriously when you can so easily display such legerdemain of words? And to be fair it isn't just you. Nearly all of the threads in this forum posted in favor of some christian message or viewpoint are just the same. Tagging on the word conspiracy doesn't make it so.

Originally posted by NewWorldOver

Originally posted by SaadAdam
have any of u guys seen this quote?

"Religion Has Actually Convinced People That Theres An Invisible Man Living In The Sky Who Watches Everything ... blah blah nonsense.

No I've never seen that quote. I don't hang out on atheist blahblah websites.

The man in the cloud idea is not something taught by true spiritualists... it's a cartoonish idea that simpletons subscribe to. And yes, there are alot of simpletons both on the religious and the atheist side...

Actually that is not from an atheist website. It is from a George Carlin stand up routine. If you are interested just search youtube for "george carlin religion."

If the Bible is true then I'll be fine. I love my wife, I love my daughter. I love my neighbors, all of them. I work as hard as I can to provide for my family. I Give food to the homeless and volunteer at a shelter once in a while. I used to work in an ER, and I know most recitful prayers from most major religions. And when people are scared and confused they often recite those religious tomes that mean so much to them, and so little to me. But rather than Say nothing, I'd say it with them, and hope that it gave them comfort.

I don't believe in the god of the bible, or any other god created by the hand of man. In the military I saw people at there absolute worst, drawing on the power of their more primitive survival instincts. But I believe in myself, and I believe in another persons ability to fend for themselves. The greatest achievement of man is self sufficiency. The ability to be free and independent is partially what Jesus preached. "Teach a man to fish". I think if Christ came back today he would be hopelessly ashamed of a lot of his followers.

[edit on 8-3-2008 by aravoth]

[edit on 8-3-2008 by aravoth]

// edit : double post sorry, my computer burped or something....

[edit on 8-3-2008 by aravoth]

I believe in the Bible as the inspired word of God, but I am not what the word Christian defines. First off, the Bible was NOT meant for all men. Second, a person can not become a believer by his own choice. God chose in Himself His people, predestined to the ressurrection into Heaven by Jesus according to His own purposes. Third, you know what in the Bible is literal and what is simplified explanation of occurrences by understanding who the author was, who he was writing to, and the occurrence he writes about. Fourth, the Jews were not chosen by God as His people because they had more faith or were better believers, in fact, the opposite is the truth. God saw that everytime the Jews were left unguided they made a total mockery of God by resorting to idle worship and losing faith in God. The only exceptions to this were Abraham and Moses. God took the Jewish people under His proverbial wing because He knew that, if left to their own desires without His constant guidance, they would be destroyed as a people. Think of this as taking in a stray puppy because you can't bear the thought of it having to face the world by itself. Fifth, nowhere in the Bible is the concept of Hell ever taught as the punishment for non-believers. The word SHAOL is the word most often translated as HELL. Shaol is the Hebrew word for GRAVE. The wages of sin is death without ressurection, not eternity in a place of torture and damnation. God is jealous but HE is not cruel. Sixth, the Catholic Church was founded on a false belief that Christ appointed Peter the first pope when He said, "Thou art Peter, upon this Rock I shall build my church". Christ had just told His followers that anything built on sand could not stand long. Peter asked what Jesus considered he, Peter, to be. Chrisat answered, "Thou art Peter." He then said, "Upon this Rock shall I build my church". Notice the capitalization of the word Rock, a consistant indication of a word pertaining to Jesus. Jesus, not Peter, is the Rock.
The Bible has no contradictions if the Cause/effect of Belief/Salvation is understood correctly. This means that it was written to be the owner's manual of life on Earth for the reborn believer and NOT a roadmap to Heaven for all who want it. When a person feels within himself that something higher and more powerful than himself is acting upon his life, and believes that it is God Himself causing that belief, that is the cause. This is the voice of the Creator speaking to His own chosen. If the person believes and follows the voice a change takes place. He sees himself as powerless to change his own sinfulness and understands that only through forgiveness of his sin by God can he be saved from an eternity without God. He is, thereby, made to be immensely greatful and relieved, actually incapable of any action that could cause eternal redemption. Feeling that he has been treated, quite undeservedly, to a commutation of sentence as a sinner, he lives his life in a more caring, tolerant, and amiable way. Essentially, the old man dies and a new man is born, hence, born again. NOTE: The grace of God was the cause and being a new person was the effect, NOT vice versa as is taught exclusively as the Christian belief.

You might have noticed mine is not the traditional Christian theme. My belief came from Christ Himself. My group that you would call a religion are not protestants or reformists. When Christ had the last supper, He told His followers to "Do this in remembrance of Me". It was the only ritualistic rule or trasitional obligation He ever required of His followers. What He meant was they were to have a "supper" with wine and unleavened bread on the eve of passover. They were to act as a servant to their fellow believers and, as Christ did, wash the feet of the those who also did this in His remebrance. Since that day, the group I belong to have called themselves Baptists (the first to do so) and have never been a part of the Christian or Catholic movements.

Believing as I have related above, this entire thread is useless for its original intent because no one truly reads the Bible as it was written.

BUT, to each their own.

I'm not a christian,and I have a few rather conflicting ideas about christianity. Firstly,the story is way more than 2000 years old,it's been repeated throughout time,as far as 6000 years ago. (same stories,just name changes) Now,some belive that Jesus is a personification of the sun,which kind of makes sense to me. But I kind of also half believe,that if he really existed as a walking talking being,then he wasn't human,he was an alien. (I've been saying that since i was about 10 years old) The stories of the bible,may well be steeped in truth,based on real events. But they've been so twisted and mistranslated,that the origional stories are long gone.

The bible is a good place to read stories that have some great morals in them.I'm not willing to live my life to the rules of something that probably isn't true. I'm a good person,I don't get into fights,I don't steal and I've never killed anyone (that I can remember) I am a big gayer though,so I'm probably doomed anyway

I don't even know if I've anwered the origional post. I'm a little dazed and hungover and rambling.