Originally posted by Ghost147
TheEnlightenedOne. Yes, but what about the belief in destiny? isnt that caused by god? or is that completely different? if it is caused by god (seeing how god created everything), wouldnt that meen that technically he is our brains too?

GOD created everything yes, but this belief you have about God being our brain is absolutely wrong. GOD gave us a brain for us to use, we decide our own destiny.

Each one of us have a purpose on this Earth, what that purpose is? It's up to US to find that out. Destiny is in our hands for us to decide what we want in our future, you can't blame GOD (or any higher power that we all believe in....well, some of us) for whatever happens to us humans. He made us smart enough to differentiate between GOOD and BAD, unfortunately we are so stupid that we always pick the BAD side of things. Why? No idea, perhaps because it is the easiest thing we can do and decide in seconds.

DESTINY is in ourselves, what you decide to do with your life is what your destiny will be. If anybody wants to sit at home and do nothing then don't blame it on anybody else but yourself.

Perfect example, if GOD could tell you that you will win the lottery, do you think you will expect the money to come to you just because he said so? Don't you have to buy the lottery ticket yourself first? GOD will guide people, it is up to you to listen!

Originally posted by ghaleon12
God is responsible for the negitive things you see in the world, not man. God controls everything including ourselves. The world only exists for man and it doesn't matter what happens to it.

So you're saying that GOD is responsible for Nuclear Weapons, The Holocaust, WWI and WWII and possibly WWIII?

Did you ever listen to your parents when you were a little kid? When they told you NOT to go somewhere, didn't you end up going anyway? If you disobeyed your parents, what makes you think that we are not always disobeying what GOD wants us to do?

GOD does not make mistakes, WE DO!

Simply, yes. We attribute the negitivity to those things, not God. What mistakes do we make? I'm curious. I don't think we make mistakes personally. People are born into subjectivity. The things that they get pleasure from are "good" and the things that provide them with pain are "bad", but where's the truth in that? The experiences and perceptions change for each person then. Nature provides us with that, but on the other side is nurture. You are taught something like the 10 commandments, you follow them because you grew up with them and provide some comfort or something. Interesting discussion

[edit on 4-10-2008 by ghaleon12]

Very interesting thread!

Well, in a sense, God acknowledges making an error after the great flood -- if we are to accept that the whole of the Bible is composed of men who are divinely inspired. God says -- paraphrasing here -- that he will not do that again. A celestial boo-boo?

The notion that the Earth is 6,000 or even 60,000 years old is absolutely absurd. The arguement holds NO water and there is such a myriad of evidence to the contrary, that one hardly knows where to begin in presenting it. I remember as a boy, growing up on the edge of the Selway-Bitterroot primative area in Idaho, the local Native Americans would point to the sharp and rugged mountain peaks and say "they are very young, not rounded, not weathered, infants.." and then go on to declare them millions of years old.

I think there have been many extinctions...... several that we humans know of for certain, and the ecology adapts, changes, struggles to assert life in the face of horrific Earth changes, and will continue to do so, no matter what horrors humanity inflicts upon it. Humans have been here on this blue globe for just a flash in the great worldtime, and if we aren't careful, we will flash back out, to be replaced by the next adaptive species as the dominant ones. So it goes. Selah. Yes, we are the most intelligent species on the planet (I think)..... but we are also the most self-destructive, and we have the least clue about how to live within the strctures of our planetary balance and systems. So we will survive or not, as Nature requires.

The Earth will survive, and cover over our remains with its green tendrils until another rises to examine the clues and ponder if they were the first, or if these ancient artifacts herald a culture that existed before them.

I believe in an All-that-is, a collective conscious, and I choose to call that God. We were made, it is written, in His image. If that is so, He/She/It/They? are[is] not infallible. However, if an entity can see a longview that is beyond our ken, perhaps their goals are more nearly impeccable than our own -- we who are such irresponsible short-sighted little bugs. Perhaps we are on the cusp of a grande correction.

Enjoyable thread; I really liked all the responses...... this is the stuff I come to ATS for.

Cheers

Originally posted by Ripleykatzzzzz
Here is the picture,

I may be damned although I 'declared' a belief in Jesus and was saved. Imagine the hell of a person who failed to follow what a church leader said (all generally accepted dogmatic stuff) and is a backslider. I am a backslider who knows that their mental condition gives them an unbalanced view of guilt and evil yet I cannot help but hold high the qualities of love, compassion and honesty.
I will not lie in my heart to condemn the homosexual or those that have inter-faith marriages. It seems the truth is important to every man yet like a diamond there are many facets to the truth as there are so many valuable human beings in the world.
From Sxxxxxxx with love

... does that actually relate to this?

Originally posted by ghaleon12
I'm still a bit confused though, if all the sharks in the ocean died, how does that make God "wrong"?

by creating such a monstrosity that took their species and many others.

Originally posted by argentus

We were made, it is written, in His image. If that is so, He/She/It/They? are[is] not infallible.

Perhaps "He/She/It/They" is infallible and we were made to attain that level. Most would say that we aren't in our current form a good facsimile but maybe that's our purpose here. Of course, the goal is different according to each person. Some say you need to follow strict rules, others say one should lead an ascetic life ect. But contradictions sure seem to be abound.

Originally posted by Ghost147

Originally posted by ghaleon12
I'm still a bit confused though, if all the sharks in the ocean died, how does that make God "wrong"?

by creating such a monstrosity that took their species and many others.

So if we destroyed a species, we'd be monsters? I wouldn't agree with that. If I said that we'd be saintly for destroying sharks, would I be wrong? Or lets say another species somehow managed to destroy all sharks, would that species be evil? Probably not, but then why are humans evil for doing it?

[edit on 4-10-2008 by ghaleon12]

You are doing what all religious people do nothing more than making assumptions there is no evidence to prove that we all have a holy soul

You could take the flood to mean something deeper than just a history lesson, similar to the exodus story. What good does a history lesson do in a book pertaining to religion/spirituality? Leave it to the historians as far as I'm concerned.

I think after God flooded the world, it does say God would never do it again. I'll see if I can find it.

[edit on 4-10-2008 by ghaleon12]

[I]Originally posted by challenge[/I]
So if we destroyed a species, we'd be monsters? I wouldn't agree with that. If I said that we'd be saintly for destroying sharks, would I be wrong? Or lets say another species somehow managed to destroy all sharks, would that species be evil? Probably not, but then why are humans evil for doing it?

[edit on 4-10-2008 by challenge]

yes... We would. We have wiped an entire kind off this planet caused by greed and ignorance. How is that [I]not[/I] evil?

Do you know the reasons for the slaughter of sharks? Besides food, which is understandable. An estimate states that, every year, 26 to 73 million (median value is at 38 million) sharks are killed by people in commercial and recreational fishing. In the past, sharks were killed simply for the sport of landing a good fighting fish. Shark skin is covered with dermal denticles, which are similar to tiny teeth, and was used for purposes similar to sandpaper. Sharks are often killed for shark fin soup: the finning process involves the removal of the fin with a hot metal blade. Fishermen will capture live sharks, fin them, and release the finless animal back into the water. The immobile shark soon dies from suffocation or predators.

If there is a god, Man should never be his hand. For man is, as said before, simply close minded, short sighted bugs. If anything, we are similar to the Cane Toad, also mentioned before. Introduced into a new environment, and took over completely. Practically nothing able to stop it. Human = Decease on Earth

In the past, species have obviously eliminated others over a long period of time. And in that long period of time, evolution was able to aid with additional food sources. Humans, unfortunately, don't take any time at all to wipe out a species.

Originally posted by TheEnlightenedOne

Originally posted by Ghost147
TheEnlightenedOne. Yes, but what about the belief in destiny? isnt that caused by god? or is that completely different? if it is caused by god (seeing how god created everything), wouldnt that meen that technically he is our brains too?

GOD created everything yes, but this belief you have about God being our brain is absolutely wrong. GOD gave us a brain for us to use, we decide our own destiny.

Each one of us have a purpose on this Earth, what that purpose is? It's up to US to find that out. Destiny is in our hands for us to decide what we want in our future, you can't blame GOD (or any higher power that we all believe in....well, some of us) for whatever happens to us humans. He made us smart enough to differentiate between GOOD and BAD, unfortunately we are so stupid that we always pick the BAD side of things. Why? No idea, perhaps because it is the easiest thing we can do and decide in seconds.

DESTINY is in ourselves, what you decide to do with your life is what your destiny will be. If anybody wants to sit at home and do nothing then don't blame it on anybody else but yourself.

Perfect example, if GOD could tell you that you will win the lottery, do you think you will expect the money to come to you just because he said so? Don't you have to buy the lottery ticket yourself first? GOD will guide people, it is up to you to listen!

God isn't our brain (which is a receiving force), but he makes up our perception. I've said this before, but what exactly is good and what exactly is bad because it is different for everyone. This dichotomy seems important for every religion but how can something or someone say this is "bad" therefor you must all follow what it/I dictate when that "bad" thing for someone else is good? What it comes down to is what is sometimes called the "will to receive". Our whole impression of things is based on what will give us maximum benefit. But this is a total subjective experience, objectivity is needed to determine truth. This is why good and bad are really unimportant (could possibly say they don't exist), because they are only based on an individual experience of pleasure and pain. Truth (or religion you could say) needs to be uniform for all people.

About the lottery ticket, I would expect the money to come to me just because he said so. If I didn't get the money, he would be lying

Did God create us and send us here for the sole purpose of taking care of some fish? I don't think so. Evil really means opposite to the nature of good (or God which is goodness). Speaking of the flood, didn't he destroy all the other creatures that weren't on the ark? He isn't evil last I heard. And if another animal killed off all the sharks, that animal wouldn't be considered evil because it is a part of nature. So why would we be evil? I still want to know why I am wrong in thinking we'd be saintly for killing sharks. I am not wrong, thats the thing, because it is a totally subjective experience. The fishers in japan and the consumers of shark fin soup would likely agree with me.



[edit on 4-10-2008 by ghaleon12]

Perhaps an empirical and deductive approach to a rather abstract and profound entity would only prove to be rather perplexing than enlightening. Just because we think and reason the way we do, doesn't necessarily mean everything else that has intelligence has to think like us. What more an omnipotent being?

It's like trying to figure out women. People will just end up scratching their heads. That's just what I think of course.

I personaly think how fantastic is a Topic about "God", and his posible "errors", but nobody talks about "The Devil"...how weird it's this?!
If we will talk about whatever related to God, and the chaos in the world, we can't put "The Devil" in a void, and forget it!