Religion, I dont buy it, anyone else? And your vieuws

well let's see, is religion real. let's put an eternity's worth of responsibility on the tops of humanity's heads. the same ones that couldn't resist eating from a particular tree because a snake told 'em to. the same ones that sniff their fingers after they scratch their $*%$ and lose their car keys on a regular basis.

we can't manage an economy, we don't recover from addictions, we believe everything we're told and we like watching grown men get paid to play kids games.

hmm, let's see. would god come and give us an ultimatum like that? would god REALLY care about 6 billion greedy perverts?

why didn't jesus tell us about the cavemen from a million years ago? what about dogs? do they get nullified while us humans take a few relaxing billion years singing the same song of praise to our creator while he's sitting on his toilet, er, throne?

believe in music, believe in art. *&$# religion.

Originally posted by megabyte
i strongly disagree with this assertion

I arrived at what I think because in my house I was allowed to read freely anything I wanted to read and my parents did not have particularly strong religious convictions and neither did the community in general

I do not believe in religion because when you line up all the religions and see what they are all saying and they all claim to be the one true religion and the one true god and then you add some books from other sources written at the same time as the holy books you just cannot help but see it all as an attempt to manipulate people

as lenin said - religion is the opium of the ignorant

Same for me.
Religions baffle me.

Same for me.
Religions baffle me.


I dont know of any religions that dont tell believers to agree to shut their minds to some parts of knowledge - do you?


all religions have forbidden books that you are not supposed to read, or new discoveries that disagree with the religions view point are discredited and believers are told to reject it no matter what or it will pollute their minds

for me - I dont think any knowledge should be forbidden to me - I believe I can read any book I want to - no one can tell me what I can or cannot read whatever i want to read

What amazes me is the egotistical viewpoint of religious people. To them the Earth is the centre of the universe, like some Americans believe America is the world.

If the universe is as truely big as we are led to believe, then this Earth is but a tiny spec of dust in it. So how come "god" would make people in his own image on something so tiny and irrelevant of a place as Earth in the grand scale of the universe?

The universe is vast and largely unknown, dont be so small minded to believe we are the be all and end all of it.


[edit on 25-11-2008 by Horus12]

Originally posted by Horus12
What amazes me is the egotistical viewpoint of religious people. To them the Earth is the centre of the universe, like some Americans believe America is the world.

If the universe is as truely big as we are led to believe, then this Earth is but a tiny spec of dust in it. So how come "god" would make people in his own image on something so tiny and irrelevant of a place as Earth in the grand scale of the universe?

The universe is vast and largely unknown, dont be so small minded to believe we are the be all and end all of it.


[edit on 25-11-2008 by Horus12]

indeed

when you look at the big picture - being a chosen or somehow special people to a god seems so inprobable

i say once again - religions were used to help a tribe of people have common moral values because a society functions best if people in that society all choose to follow the same rules

I do not believe there was anything divine about that - just the patriarch of the tribe said it was a message from god to get more people to adopt common rules so that all could conduct day to day lives in some well ordered way

Originally posted by megabyte


Same for me.
Religions baffle me.

I dont know of any religions that dont tell believers to agree to shut their minds to some parts of knowledge - do you?


all religions have forbidden books that you are not supposed to read, or new discoveries that disagree with the religions view point are discredited and believers are told to reject it no matter what or it will pollute their minds

for me - I dont think any knowledge should be forbidden to me - I believe I can read any book I want to - no one can tell me what I can or cannot read whatever i want to read

You can read it, you're just not allowed to believe it.
This seems to cover it:
www.answersingenesis.org...
No apparent, perceived, or claimed interpretation of evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record.
From the The AiG Statement of Faith.

Don't think. Don't question.

reply to post by lucidclouds


To answer your question, how we all got here.

Well lets look at the entire human race for a moment.

First of all, look at the diversity of the human race. All of the variances clustered onto one single planet.

Ok if there was a single creator who created man in his own image, how can there be such diversity in the creation based on his own image when there is so much difference between each individual human being?

Now as far as we know, or as I prefer to think of it, as far as they have told us...recorded history goes back only so far. Well I tend to think that it goes alot farther back and they are simply keeping the rest of it from us.

Also everyone knows the bible is not complete, and has been "ripped" to shreads of chapters, and other books that no doubt ARE and WERE a part of the human history. Why is that? Why would the truth be taken out of the book of truth????

As to it being too late to change things and fix up this messed up planet, well how much longer will the suffering have to wait, and how many more new helpless individuals must come into this messed up world before the creator of this mess cleans up the mess??? How can such a devine entity that is all about love, forgiveness and rightiousness allow for such meyhem and suffering to continue, much less continue to allow newborns who have no choice in the matter, come into such a messed up world????

When will this devine God live up to the word? 2012? 100 more years? 1000 more? 2000 more? What is the point???? What is the point in having billions pour so much faith into a belief that it will all get better, when history has clearly shown, nothing has gotten better for the innocent and helpless?!!!!

Now as to where we came from.


I believe we have been here for a very very long time, and more than likely, came from out there, that once was a diverse community in the Sol system, and perhaps byond that, and for some reason unkown to us, all that diversity ended up clustered onto this planet. Perhaps as refugees of some distant and obviously highly advanced conflict that brought about a mass scale devistation, perhaps even to a point where one world blew up completely (asteroid belt/debris flies/Valles Marinaris on Mars) and we all ended up here...on little ol Earth a long time ago in a solar system not so far away.

I believe that the human race is far more than just sheep needing to be led by the hearder wearing robes and walking around with a cane carrying stone tablets saying "the commandments of God". I think we are capable of much more than that, and always have been. We have just been supressed by this religion, all religions as to the true nature of our exsistance and being, and it is preventing the diverse human race from re-claiming its rightfull place in the universal community.

It is just wating for the diverse human race to grow out of its infancy, its tribal warfare habbits, its babyish differences, its need to be led instead of leading itself to where it needs to be.



Cheers!!!!




Mod Edit: Advertising removed. Please see Terms and Conditions of Use section 4) Advertising. Thank you - Jak



[edit on 26/11/08 by JAK]

Religion is a stepping stone in the evolution of human consciousness, it's making it's way out believe it or not....

Here let me help you guys out....
Put down the bible and read the following books...
The Celestine Prophecy
Power vs Force

Then watch...
Zeitgeist
What the Bleep do We Know
The Law of Attraction
and any interview with Michio Kaku

That should get you started.

Consciousness came before the material world. That explains the watch factory analogy, and everything else. Now let's put this ancient discussion on religion to rest please, and start trying to figure out how we ended up in a place that is subject to space and time.

reply to post by RFBurns



The diversity your talking about is just appearances and customs. Everyone of us has the same qualities, they may be more than the other or directed to something different than the other, but the qualities remain. For example love. Everyone loves someone or something. That is a quality everyone has.

Also as to how you think we got here. Do you have any evidence for that?
Wouldn't some evidence trickle down from an event as big as that?

Now as to why there is suffering. Image a class room. The teacher has a mathimatical equation on the board. As he is going through this equation, a student says he has a better way of doing it. The teacher know his way is the best, he knows this. Nothing the student can do will be better than the teachers.

So what does the teacher do?

A: Kicks the student out of the class, with all the other students thinking "well maybe he did have a better way, and that is why the teacher kicked him out."

B: Let the student prove himself wrong. Showing everyone else that the teachers way is the best, once and for all.

Which would make more sence?

Same situation with God and satan.

Originally posted by TheFearless
I understand what you mean.
But I dont agree, its just very hard too belief, that theres one powerfull being, that made us.
How did that powerfull being (god) get there then?

Life`s hardest questions.

We made the universe.

I once thought the same way you thought, parts of me still do. I don't buy aal that stuff and what people preach. I even get a sick gut feeling when I think about it as I am now. There was something not connecting, so I read books. What I learned form all my books that mostly have to do with the more ancient cultures is that everything in Bible was nothing but a rip off of other religions and most are actual historic events but the people were given names.
I also read, and this makes sense today, that when Constantine came to power in Rome he was such a bible thumper that he gave power to the Christian church and you know what they did. They destroyed the history of everything else (i.e. The Alexandrian Library which held the true roots of Christianity) in order to use this new found religion as more as a manipulating control system. Couldn't you say that is even true of today?

So from that point, I believed that Christianity was a mind control mechanism, the Bible is propbably one of the best HISTORY books out there, and that there is a higher power but I hate referring to it as "God". Oh, and Jesus never existed.

But you also have to imagine what this world would be like if there was no such thing as like the ten commendments. The Bible also does offer a moral code to live by and has never changed throughout the history of the entire world. The bible was only a device that was used to carry it on.

Read more about ancient history in other books and then can you really decide.

Ill tell you my view as this is your topic question.

I am a believer in understanding and the level of understanding I am at is that man is the image of the god yet to be.

There are an absolute tonne of things all throughout everyone’s life to support this.

Well known sayings "There is a difference in knowing the path and walking the path"

"I think therefore I am"

"Ying Yang"

"What goes around comes around"

"Know thy self"

"Know your enemy"

"Walk the line"

"Reality is an illusion all be it a persistent one"

"Alpha and Omega"

"The human race"

Take the last quote I have just listed above for example and imagine literally what it says in that this is a race to the finish line.

You start at the starting line as we all do but somewhere along the line we collide with another’s path and if you can envision this properly, in terms of lines in a race to keep it simple, you begin with a few that collide and create different routes that do not finish properly and go back to the start like reincarnation for example.

This creates new starters in the race as the consequences of not finishing could be numerous and effect all or many of the racers and this should make sense if you get my wavelength because for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction in terms of possibility in turn creating more life on the planet to balance it out.

Imagine we are the one person in this race experiencing all the different possibilities here in this race of life and this makes it easier to see what goes around comes around and many of the other examples I gave previously in quotes. For example if you were to harm someone you are only harming yourself because you have either experienced this or you are yet to in their (your) lifetime (race to the finish).

This is a massive topic that got zero attention before (which I hope is due to misunderstanding rather than disinterest) when I posted it so ill keep it short.
Let’s assume that this is just a human race of experience and after a while with all the different paths to the finish line you will get the one that is a consistent straight line from start to finish and this is what god is (perfection in every possible way). God is the all knowing, the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end combined and the almighty because after we have created every single possibility then we are god and that is our destiny.

This is the path of "the one".

I hope you understand this. It also ties into any religion if you pay attention to and understand the meanings within.

Religion is just an interpretation of events that have and are yet to happen and we create many religions to create as much experience and understanding as possible.

You are not a believer in nothing, you just do not know what you believe in yet and you know you will make a choice sooner or later for the choice is the maker of your question.

Have you ever taken all the sayings that seem to circulate and linked them with one another to make sense?? Big task but very revealing and worthwhile.

If there was one saying I could create from my knowledge for others to think upon it would be,

"Everything is a paradox and the paradox is everything"



[edit on 27-11-2008 by XXXN3O]

[edit on 27-11-2008 by XXXN3O]

The more we learn about our world (by use of science) we will start to see that all this is in fact a creation.

I have no religion, you do not need one to believe in God. God exists, he/she is everything. Even you. Religion is the need to control beliefs.

Nice topic.

its a shame (perhaps blessing) that at this stage of development, the human brain just cant comprehend the "begining of the universe" no matter how many hours we ponder all we have are theories.

SPECULATION AT BEST!

so long as we have different belief systems we will have an ongoing battle.

where half the populace who "believe" will be thinking the non believers are foolish, and should prove "non existence"

the other half of the population go the other way,

the "believers" are foolish and required to prove the "existance"





There is but one religion that an educated man can subscribe to...

NOT-SURE-ISM

the sooner we all admit we have no idea and get on with saving our brothers [and sisters] around the world the better

[edit on 29/11/2008 by Zeus187]

Originally posted by lucidclouds
reply to post by TheFearless

 

How do you think we got here?

I have a real hard time thinking there was a big bang or something. Everything we have we made, buildings, cars, computers, and none are as complicated as humans. But some how we came by chance?

Have you ever seen the inside of a pocket watch? Very complicated, with all these gears and things inside. Now if you went to a factory where these are made, it had all the parts to make one, and you blew it up, how many working watches would you have? Its simple...none. You could blow it up millions of times and never get a working watch.

You have a hard time believing in the Big Bang, but you find it easy to believe in an all mighty sentient God?

Originally posted by Zeus187
Nice topic.

its a shame (perhaps blessing) that at this stage of development, the human brain just cant comprehend the "begining of the universe" no matter how many hours we ponder all we have are theories.

SPECULATION AT BEST!

so long as we have different belief systems we will have an ongoing battle.

where half the populace who "believe" will be thinking the non believers are foolish, and should prove "non existence"

the other half of the population go the other way,

the "believers" are foolish and required to prove the "existance"





There is but one religion that an educated man can subscribe to...

NOT-SURE-ISM

the sooner we all admit we have no idea and get on with saving our brothers [and sisters] around the world the better

[edit on 29/11/2008 by Zeus187]

Scientific theories are a collection of facts. They are not something people just pull out of their asses; they have backing. This is why people who disregard the thoery of evolution because it has the word "theory" in it are seriously misinformed.

I desire not to offend another's religion but, if its not evident in your every day life
read this and know, He is God, the Only God, YOUR God. Like it or not.



Jewish Holy Days: The Making of a Baby

By J. R. Church

Zola Levitt discovered an amazing correlation between Jewish Holy Days
and the gestation of a human baby, from conception to birth. While
preparing for writing a book for new parents, Zola contacted a
gynecologist for some help in understanding gestation. During that
session, the gynecologist showed him a series of pictures, pointed to
the first one (an egg and a sperm) and said, "On the fourteenth day of
the first month, the egg appears." The statement struck a chord in his
Jewish mind because that was the date of Passover. He remembered the
roasted egg on his family table every Passover. Now, for the first time,
he knew what it meant! Not wanting to lead the gynecologist off from the
subject at hand, he didn’t say anything, but continued to listen.

The gynecologist continued: "The egg must be fertilized within 24 hours,
or it will pass on." This reminded Zola of the Feast of Unleavened Bread
and the seed or grain that "fell into the ground and died" in order to
produce a harvest, the firstfruits of which was presented to God. Next,
the gynecologist said, "Within two to six days, the fertilized egg
attaches itself to the wall of the womb and begins to grow." And, sure
enough, the Jewish evangelist thought, "The Feast of Firstfruits is
observed anywhere from two to six days after Passover!"

Next, he was shown a photo of an embryo showing arms, hands, fingers,
legs, feet, toes, a head, eyes, etc. The caption said, "Fifty days." The
gynecologist continued, "Around the fiftieth day, the embryo takes on
the form of a human being. Until then, we don’t know if we have a duck
or a tadpole." Zola thought, "That’s Pentecost!"

The next picture showed the embryo at seven months. The
gynecologistsaid, "On the first day of the seventh month, the baby’s
hearing is developed. For the first time, it can hear and distinguish
sounds outside the womb." Zola knew that was the date for the Jewish
Festival of Trumpets.

The gynecologist continued, "On the tenth day of the seventh month, the
hemoglobin of the blood changes from that of the mother, to a
self-sustaining baby." Zola thought, "That’s the Day of Atonement, when
the blood was taken into the Holy of holies!"

Next, the gynecologist said, "On the fifteenth day of the seventh month,
the lungs become fully developed. If born before then, the baby would
have a hard time breathing." And Zola thought, "That’s the festival of
Tabernacles, a time of celebrating the Temple, home of the Shekinah
glory or Spirit of God." In the New Testament, the Greek term pneuma,
normally translated as "breath," is applied to the "Holy Spirit."

Birth takes place on the tenth day of the ninth month. Eight days after
birth, in Jewish families, a son is circumcised. Zola noted that the
eight days of Hanukkah are celebrated right on schedule, nine months and
ten days after Passover.

No human being could have understood the gestation period 3,500 years
ago. The establishment of the Jewish Holy Days was given to Moses by
Jehovah, Himself. Its correlation with the human gestation period is not
only remarkable; it proves "Intelligent Design." It proves the existence
of an intelligence beyond this world. It proves that there is a Creator
God that guides the affairs of man.

Originally posted by Syntax123

Originally posted by lucidclouds
reply to post by TheFearless

 

How do you think we got here?

I have a real hard time thinking there was a big bang or something. Everything we have we made, buildings, cars, computers, and none are as complicated as humans. But some how we came by chance?

Have you ever seen the inside of a pocket watch? Very complicated, with all these gears and things inside. Now if you went to a factory where these are made, it had all the parts to make one, and you blew it up, how many working watches would you have? Its simple...none. You could blow it up millions of times and never get a working watch.

You have a hard time believing in the Big Bang, but you find it easy to believe in an all mighty sentient God?

Yes. Yes I do.

I believe a controlled big bang could have created the universe. But as for humans, no I can't find that logical.

Look at the history of humans, constantly searching for and worshiping a higher being(s). The idea of a complexed creature, humans, getting here by chance is just not logical.

So far only one person that I have replied to has said how he believes we got here.

So once again how do you believe we got here??????????

Originally posted by Syntax123

Scientific theories are a collection of facts. They are not something people just pull out of their asses; they have backing. This is why people who disregard the thoery of evolution because it has the word "theory" in it are seriously misinformed.

I couldnt agree more.
evolution is not a theory anymore,
However the "big bang" i think you will agree, deserves the word "theory" alongside it, as it remains unascertainable.

just as one must not immediately dismiss something based soley on the word "theory".

one must also not accept something immediately based soley on the word "scientific".


[edit on 3/12/2008 by Zeus187]

Originally posted by lucidclouds
reply to post by TheFearless

 

How do you think we got here?

I have a real hard time thinking there was a big bang or something. Everything we have we made, buildings, cars, computers, and none are as complicated as humans. But some how we came by chance?

Have you ever seen the inside of a pocket watch? Very complicated, with all these gears and things inside. Now if you went to a factory where these are made, it had all the parts to make one, and you blew it up, how many working watches would you have? Its simple...none. You could blow it up millions of times and never get a working watch.

Heres a copy of something i posted last week....

"without putting words in your mouth.
you demonstrate something i think is part of the problem...

the idea that: everything just seems to work too perfectly to have come together by chance. It must be designed.


life isnt perfect
its just our own lack of imagination, which makes nature seem perfect, as we are unable to fathom anything beyond that which we know.
everything doesnt need to be perfect in order to work.
things just need to be sufficient.

the sooner we realise our own lack of imagination being the cause of so much confusion the better. "