Sorry man we are not trying to argue with you. I for one am just simply statin what I feel to be the truth. I guess realistically you could have all the evidence in the world to support either side of this discussion. But. Kinda like deafence# said. I guess the only truth anyone person is going to believe is their own. what they precieve to be the truth. Despite any scientific findings or lack therof. that after all is what faith is all about. and for those who truly believe in god faith is all they need. and they are not willing to listen to anything else.

Originally posted by DeltaChaos
The only way to know for sure, I guess, is to die and see what happens. But when nothingness happens, you surely won't be dissapointed. You won't exist to know any better.

listen carefully;

-if you are right, and there is no afterlife, then the believers will loose nothing that you wont. (both the unbeliever and the believer will end up the same; nothingness)

-if you are wrong, and there is an afterlife, you will fry in hell with pharisees forever, while the believers will be in heaven

you are a clown who went to the horseraces, and you bet your money on a horse that pays 0 to 1. (even if your horse wins you will get nothing you fool)

Gods plan? hmmm ok. Have you ever played "sim city" or "the sims"? Did you have a precise plan for them? Didn't you ocassionally get bored and throw in an alien, earthquake, fire, deliberately get the guy to flirt with his wife's best mate just for kicks? Or if you've ever played Black & White, slapped your "pet" around a few times cos it's cute? hehe

I'm just thankfull so far he hasn't decided to make me randomly throw up and develop an inability to eat without being led by the hand

His original idea was "I'm bored, I want something to entertain me", hence he made the world. Then thought, "Bugger managing all this, I'll just make a couple of humans to look after the place."

The ufos were an add-on pack he added later

Originally posted by Ashlar
-if you are right, and there is no afterlife, then the believers will loose nothing that you wont. (both the unbeliever and the believer will end up the same; nothingness)

This is not true. The true believers, who walk the line daily for God, and keep to a strict regimen of set ideas truly misses out on life. To purposefully limit our options while we're on this planet due to a faith in the silly stories we tell ourselves is rediculous. What people of faith lose, or rather give up to nothing intentionally, is their sense of self when they experience life and accomplish things. If 'all praises are due to Allah', then I'm afraid we're just cutting ourselves out of the deal by a large percentage, when in actuality, we owe 100% of the credit to ourselves and the guy next to us. We would be better off to acknowledge the probability that there is no Great Cosmic Helper making all we do possible. It's really all us. You and me. Good and bad.

Religion really creates an atmosphere that is not conduscive to harmony among men. Rather it creates animosity and division between us. Maybe not between two Christians, or two Muslims, or two Jews, but look, the Muslims want to kill everybody right now, and it's because of their religion. The Christian and Judaic brands of faith are simply unacceptable to them. There was a time when Christians weren't particularly fond of the Jews, and some say that time is ongoing. We're all supposedly sons and daughters of Abraham, and therefore we all essentially believe in the same God as each other, yet we have created dogma to intentionally set us at each other. I guess this is where a Religionist would insert the 'Satan, King of the World' argument. And God is bad enough, don't get me started on Satan. There's so many holes in that guy's story that one would have to had double-blindfolded himself to believe it.

Something bothersome about this faith is that it always leads to religion. Religion always leads to some elite group of elders that use the 'Fear of God' to manipulate and dictate peoples thoughts and actions to meet their own selfish ends. Every time. Every time there's religion, there's corruption almost immediately. Faith is fine, religion is problematic. The trouble is that the dogma that promotes the faith has built into it the very construct by which this corruption takes its hold. God, faith, heaven, hell... all a contrivance for the purpose of the strong staying strong and the weak making themselves weak, so the strong don't have to work at it.

There are 'religions' that have no set dogma, and no Grand Writ dictating the conduct and mindframe which must be adhered to in order to avoid eternal punishment. They seek control over nothing and no one, while the religions to which most of the worlds population adhere, creates war machines and disseminates hatred.

Jesus, the man, was sorely misunderstood. Had we listened to him, and heeded his word, we would act more like Buddhists, not to mention rational people.

But no, Constantine had to swoop in and use Jesus' good name to form the largest and most corrupt religious system the world has ever seen, next to the Mormons. But that's another thread....


[edit on 4-10-2004 by DeltaChaos]

Furthermore, any deep religionist would automatically presume to label me an apostate, or a blasphemer, or maybe even an anti-Christ. (I assure you I am not an anti-Christ). But they would only do so because anything or anyone who subjects their faith to question offends them. That's how it works. Anything that opposes the respective dogma for a particular religion has it programmed into the mind of the faithful to resist with all means. And the harsher and deeper the questioning, the greater the resistance to it.

The whole paradigm is so formulaic and repetitive over time that I can't believe that more haven't caught on to the BS. It's only a matter of time until we drop this counter-productive and divisive system of thought for one that allows us to assume all of our potential as a people.

Your friendly neighborhood nihilist,
Ike