Controversy Thread part 2: Religious discussion (18 Viewers)

Zlatan · Sep 10, 2003

OK, I'm back from school, so hopefully I can successfuly join the discussion. I personaly dont believe in God (1) and I dont believe in religion (2), which is not the same, and I'll try to explain both.

1) I am pretty sceptical about God because of the human nature, because of the human need for leadership, because of their need to explain everything that happens to them, be it good or bad. In stead of feeling helpless to the things around him its easier to "blame", attribute them to a higher presence, one that noone can oppose and by whom everything is decided, hence the lack of control over ones destiny. Next, I dont believe that God could just exist. If we take, logically, that everything has to be made or created, like we are born, why shouldnt other logic apply to God? Who created him? If he can just exist, why couldnt the same be said for Earth, space or the universe??? Could it be in fact, that God is not a personlike omnipotent life form, but that he in fact exists in the form of a planet who decides the fate of us not by punishing us or miracles, but by natures selfregulations in the form of natural disasasters, and that he in fact has no more power over us than that? Also, why did God create us??? Why does the allmighty need us??? Is there a reason he created us, or did he just want to enjoy himself by watching us goint through the troubles of life? He doesnt need us to see how we'd behave. He's omnipotent, he can see the future and hence could know how we'd live our, lives and would we get into heaven or hell. And if life is a test, should there be equal conditions for all? Can you really expect an american and a west african with starving children to behave the same way? And what about children that die at birth? They are not responsible for their actions/sins and that means they would go to heaven automaticlly? Does that mean that babies who die have an unfair advantage over the rest of us? Shouldnt we have all been killed by our mothers to get into heaven??? :rolleyes:

2) I dont believe in the concept of religion. I dont believe you should have to go to churchs or mosques to be a real believer, and I also dont believe in the middle man, exactly what the church is. I think religions has more negative than positive sides, more cons than pros. It creates hatred between people, and almost every war was because of religion. We all remember the Crusaides, the christening of native americans, even the current war on terrorism and terrorism itself is founded in hatred between religions.

God just isnt worth it IMO

Hydde · Sep 10, 2003

hey but talk about religions was not permitted in the forums right?

gigi's twin · Sep 11, 2003

Hello gray! Thank you for starting this thread! It is nice to meet someone here who are thinking in the similar way as I am.

I'm also very religious. I'm a Christian, but not Catholic. I'm Kalvinist (Reformatic).

I was really happy, when I read your comments here, I also would like to give mines here, but I can't find the right words. For me to belive in God and in Jesus is more, than a simple thing, that you can talk about easily. It is a feeling deep in my mind in my soul, what is nearl impossible to be described. But I'll try to join this conversation later. Because it is bed time for me, I'm very tired. So, see you later! :angel:

gray · Sep 11, 2003

Thanks for your views Zlatan~

Firstly, let's not sit here and pretend that logic in any way applies to religion. Everyone's talking about faith vs. intellect. Christianity never claimed to have all the answers. Christians profess a God infinitely beyond our comprehension, since having neither parts nor limits he bears no relation to us. If Christians were to attempt to answer everything, they would not be keeping their own word. For evidence of God, what better place to look than the Bible!? It contains 66 books, written by an enormous variety of authors over a period of 2000 years in 3 languages. All the writers tell the same story. They all had the same view of God, the same understanding of human nature, the same view of Jesus Christ, and the same hope.

The Old Testament: The transmission of its text is extraordinarily reliable. The Dead Sea Scrolls, found in 1947, give the Hebrew text of a number of Old Testament books. Written between 150 BC and AD 70 they are 1000 years older than any other Hebrew manuscript of the Bible previously know. But the text is practically identical.

The Old Testament contains (for example's sake) the accounts of Moses leading the people of Israel out of Egypt, through the plagues that occured in the land of Egypt to the parting of the Red Sea. Now these texts were seen by many people, including Egyptians and Israelites alike. Now tell me, if these things hadn't truly happened, then how could these writings have possibly maintained their credibility and integrity to this day?

For example, if I were to post in these forums "Juventus won the 02/03 champions league with goals from Del Piero and Nedved", and I looked back on my comments in 3000 years, is it possible that my comment would have maintained its credibility? Certainly not! There'd be cries of "LIAR!" "CRAZY", and everyone who read my post would quickly learn that what I said isn't true. The result of a football match isn't as big as the parting of a Sea, so if these things weren't true, how would the writings possibly be standing, the documents would be burned by now! If the accounts in the bible weren't true, surely they would have lost their credibility by now, but the fact is that many atheistic scholars have no choice but to accept the Bible as an accurate historical document (if not the Word of God).

The New Testament also: the text of the New Testament is so sure nobody makes hypothetical alterations for fear of being laughed out of court. We have so many manuscripts of the New Testament, written so near the events themselves that we can be sure of having the correct text. The interval between the date of the original composition and the earliest extent evidence becomes so small as to be negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed.

Can we trust what the Bible contains? Although the subject in the Bible is complex, it is true that no books in the world have been so minutely examined as the Bible, over two and a half centuries of scholarly criticism, and yet their credit stands today as high as ever.

The key words here are "if we take logically". But what value does human logic truly have? Isn't it true that humans get confused at the smallest thing?

The day that I was thinking about yesterday was two days after the thursday in the week before last friday's following day.

The thing I wrote above took about 10 seconds for me to type, and I'm just a mere human...but i'm sure most of you were confused by that... now if that stupid sentence defies human logic, how much more would the ways and nature of God?

Now God is definitely not small, His presence and intelligence are way beyond our understanding, so the argument that God can't exist simply because the human mind cannot understand it is undermining the infinite wisdom of God.

He's God, and He created the universe, so why would he be bound by His own creation. If a programmer makes a game for example, wouldn't he know exactly how it works, and in so doing, be able to manipulate it, even to the extent that he is outside the rules and can 'cheat'? God isn't bound by the limits of physical presence and the dimension of time. He didn't need to be created,

please clarify what you mean by the this, i'll reply when I get home...

This i'll answer later, time to go to class

Same as above, i'll answer when I get home.

Febrina · Sep 11, 2003

Comeback soon, Gray

Wings · Sep 11, 2003

To be religious you have to forfeit some logical thinking. You have to bind yourself to a doctrine and abide by it. The choice of religion largely depends upon what your parents ascribed to. Nobody knows who God is per se and this is what is referred to as faith and whether you like it or not religion exists and you ascribe to one or the other or none at all.
To sit & try to logically analyse God with believers of the same religion/believers of different religions or none believers is mostly a task that ends up in fulfilment or frustrations.

Zlatan · Sep 11, 2003

ah, I dont know if I can simplify it, I thought it was pretty clear :undecide:

Zlatan · Sep 11, 2003

You know what? You all have your reasons to believe in God. I have mine, and one of the most obvious is life itself. When I look at world I cant but not believe in God. When I see innocent children dying from starvation in Africa, or black men being killed becouse of their skin, or the wars and the evil in the world... If there is a God, I blame him for this.

The world's atoo ****ed up place for a God to exist.

gray · Sep 11, 2003

You know how I feel about logical thinking by now... I'm glad about this fact, because the more logical thinking you throw out, the greater your understanding of the shortcomings of the human mind becomes, and the closer you come to God.

I don't think that's true... I guess in my case, I was raised in the church since i was born, but I only accepted Jesus as my Lord and Saviour at the age of about 14, when I had asked all my questions and accepted the Bible as the truth.

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see". - Hebrews 11, 1

When we accept that the human mind isn't nearly great enough to understand the workings of God, all that's left to do is believe that people will never hold the answers, look around yourself and realise that all this couldn't have come about by chance, and finally, realise the only remaining explanation for why we're here.

gray · Sep 11, 2003

It is well and good to say "God is in control" in the sense of God's ultimate power to judge all peoples and to set things right in the end. But, so long as God allows humans the freedom of choice, there is a voluntarily limitation of God's control in the human sphere. Even God cannot grant us true freedom of choice and maintain control of our choices at the same time. We cannot blame human evil on God.

In Luke 13:1-3, there were some who asked Jesus to comment on a case of state-sponsored terrorism in which Roman soldiers slaughtered a group of Galilean worshipers in the temple. Jesus offered no explanation of divine purpose for the carnage, but reminded His hearers that all people are responsible to God for the choices they make.

God could have created humans as nothing more than pre-programmed robots who could do only good to each other. The Bible teaches, however, that God chose to create humans as free people who may choose right or wrong. When people misuse God's gift of freedom to choose evil, we cannot attribute their wickedness to God.

The power and sovereignty of God is evident in the remarkable way God is able to work in and through the lives of Christians to bring something good from all circumstances, including evil. As Paul reminded us, "We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose" - Romans 8:28. Paul does not say, however, that all things are good - or that all things happen according to God's purpose.

God works for good in spite of evil because God's purpose is for good: "For I know the plans I have for you," the Lord said through Jeremiah, "plans for good and not for evil" - Jeremiah 29:11 . As I celebrate God's marvelous and loving ability to work with us in redeeming human darkness and bringing good even from the deepest of tragedies, I affirm that God is the enemy of evil, and not its author.

Zlatan · Sep 11, 2003

Ok, lets swithc topics for a minute:

Do you mind helping me with something?

gray · Sep 11, 2003

Ummm sure, if I can...wassup?

Zlatan · Sep 11, 2003

It has nothing to do with religion. Since you live in Australia, I take it you're good at English. I as wondering if you coud help me do some english homework

It's actually not for me but for a friend, but I have 3 more to do so I dont have enogh time. Since I'm the best at English in my class (actually in primary school I won the state english competition, so one could argue that I'm the best in the country among teenagers of my age

) a lot of friends ask me to help them with homeworks. When we have tests and literarry assignments I often do more than 8 of them, and when it comes to mine I'm all out of ideas.

So I was wondering if you could help me by writing a description of a hitchiker, physical and, mental description. I have to do 4 in total, so I was wondering if you could help me with one. Nothing too long nor too complicated, just some easy stuff.

If its a problem, than never mind. No biggie.

gray · Sep 11, 2003

Hehe well I'm korean, but yeah born and raised in Australia

I got 94/100 for my university entrance exam

Hmmm okay, that sounds alright... how long does it have to be and when do u need it by? And what do you mean by a mental description?

Zlatan · Sep 11, 2003

Not long at all. Like 3/4 of an A4 page if you were wrighting it by hand. And by mental I mean: "he's funny, smart, hones, reliable, :blah:

"

Any time in the next 2 hours wouldbe good if its not a problem.

Nothing to extravagant, I thohgt it wont take more than a few minutes for you

Thank you a lot man

If you ever need anything, just ask

gray · Sep 11, 2003

No worries :thumb:

Listen to the media file I posted before... my pastor's the most amazing speaker, I just want you guys to hear it, even if not for the content, but just the way he speaks.. it could be useful to your english

Zlatan · Sep 11, 2003

Is it big? If yes, than I'll listen to it tonight, I'm on a 56k

Wings · Sep 11, 2003

That's a no brainer actually

Notice the word largely in bold? I meant the chances of someone being the same religion as their parents are very high. You could also include whatever form of childhood one has as an influence.

Pretty much what I said up there

Oh I forgot to add I do believe in God (I am a Muslim) and have had numerous of these conversations hence my first post.

Zlatan · Sep 11, 2003

@gray: Komapsumnida

gray · Sep 11, 2003

Oh, you poor boy :down: It's 5.51 MB (I record and upload them every week

)

i'm impressed :thumb:

Controversy Thread part 2: Religious discussion (18 Viewers)

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