I am a christian, i and i strongly belive in my lord jesus christ, and i also belive that if you belive in him and except him as your savior, u will go to heaven. and i also believe that he created the world, not the big bang, or that we came from stupid apes.
if you were talking like that to my IS teacher, he would have stabbed you with words AND made you fail...
violent teacher...I would have stabbed back, because I am a self-respecting person who would not take such disrespect towards my opinion. I would have also convinced the teacher to grade me on my work, not my opinion. Sounds like a mean, Machiavellian teacher. =(
We Christians know there is no "evolution" or "big bang" because God had his disciples write down his words of the creation and our growth. He is coming back very soon. Atheists beware one day you shall stand before God alone to face the final judgment. Good deeds won't get into Heaven only knowing god shall let you in. Good deeds alone shall get you cast into the lake of fire to burn for all eternity.
doesn't that mean that God is not a pragmatic, intelligent deity? A good atheist is better than mean Christian (which there are, sadly, a lot of) but the mean Christian gets into heaven and the nice atheist doesn't? If God gave us free will, then why does he punish us by sending us to boil in a sea of burning excrement for all eternity because we exercised said free will? The Christian god sounds like a despicable being any way you slice it. By the way, have you heard anything about the holy ghost lately?
no
thought so.
Anyway, the Christian god is bound to the same psychological constraints as a human, so cannot possibly be divine in the way you are saying he is.
Is there actually such a thing as a selfless deed? Personally I don't believe in altruism, no matter how hard you try you always gain somehow.
You have a good point. When altruism is first explained to people, you "be nice to other so you can get that warm, fuzzy feeling inside. =D" The problem is that it's impossible to find out whether people are altruistic because of the benefits of altruism or just out of compassion.
[quote]You can look at it the other way as well. You spend 1/7th of your life learning about a religion. When you die and find nothing there, you just wasted about 12 to 15 years of your life you could have used to do something else.
No, because if there is no God, well, then you are dead and cannot think, so nothing lost. If there is a God, then you first find out at Judgement Day, and before that, you are... dead and cannot think. SO all that (sorry) crap about people knowing and so, that is bull.[/quote] I'm not sure I understand you, Cenere. If there is no God, then you would have wasted a 1/7 of your life, whether you realize it or not. If there is a God, then, well, he can hopefully forgive you for your ambition in whatever you spend that 1/7 of your life in. Right?
Good deeds alone shall get you cast into the lake of fire to burn for all eternity.
That's worse than Pascal's Wager... And Pascal's Wager was a fallacy.
However, have you noticed that atheists are usually very greedy and self-centered, while religious people are usually better and more selfless?
That's essentially what we're debating here. Which is better for the 'believer': atheism or theism?
I know its a figure of speech but still I laughed really hard. (patronising voice) were typing duhhh.
I laughed, too. We're breathing while we're typing though, right? RIGHT?! *dies*
No, because if there is no God, well, then you are dead and cannot think, so nothing lost. If there is a God, then you first find out at Judgement Day, and before that, you are... dead and cannot think. SO all that (sorry) crap about people knowing and so, that is bull.
I'm not talking about when you die, I'm talking about when you are alive. If you die and there is nothing, then you spent your life doing something without merit.
We Christians know there is no "evolution" or "big bang" because God had his disciples write down his words of the creation and our growth. He is coming back very soon. Atheists beware one day you shall stand before God alone to face the final judgment. Good deeds won't get into Heaven only knowing god shall let you in. Good deeds alone shall get you cast into the lake of fire to burn for all eternity.
You, unfortunately, are an example christian. You will burn in Buddha hell for your sins against Shiva.
I'm not sure I understand you, Cenere. If there is no God, then you would have wasted a 1/7 of your life, whether you realize it or not. If there is a God, then, well, he can hopefully forgive you for your ambition in whatever you spend that 1/7 of your life in. Right?
I'm not talking about when you die, I'm talking about when you are alive. If you die and there is nothing, then you spent your life doing something without merit.
And so what. I would rather waste my life believing in something I think is the right, and then magically find out at the rim of my life that "Hey, there is no God" than be a realist all my life and find out that there is a God and a afterlife. God is real to me, because I believe. So even if I waste my life, well, life is not worth living if you do not waste it a little. I drank my brain out last night, which was a waste, but hell no if I would undo it. Much of what we do is a waste, playing game, dating, being artistic. But would any of you live without fun? Imagination? Just a little faith in something, anything? I hope not. I hope that made it a little more clear. You cannot tell what you wasted you time on, before it is too late, and well, there is no way to undo it. I am blending the belief with the reality, and that is fine for me.
We Christians know there is no "evolution" or "big bang" because God had his disciples write down his words of the creation and our growth. He is coming back very soon. Atheists beware one day you shall stand before God alone to face the final judgment. Good deeds won't get into Heaven only knowing god shall let you in. Good deeds alone shall get you cast into the lake of fire to burn for all eternity.
Please speek for yourself, will you? Oh, sorry, you speek for God? Since you know when Doom's day is? And those disciples were not very describtive when getting down on that freaking creation. I know there was a Big bang and Evolution. I am a Christian. So speak for yourself, then I will speak for me.
You, unfortunately, are an example christian. You will burn in Buddha hell for your sins against Shiva.
Uh, failure. Buddhist hell is earth, Shiva is a hinduistic God....
Uh, failure. Buddhist hell is earth, Shiva is a hinduistic God....
That comment is also not entirely true. Although there is no Buddha "hell", in the sense of the Abrahamic meaning, hell is not necessarily on or of earth unless you'd wish to speak of specific Buddhists sects. And there is no exact preclusion that would prevent a Buddhist from worshipping Shiva, not with the vast interpretations of Buddhism (and Hinduism) today.
In Chinese Buddhism, there are different levels of hell, as in a place you go after you die where you are severely punished for your sins on Earth. There are also gods and goddesses, unlike the original.
Now I have a few problems with Buddhism: 1. Where would a moral order and enlightenment come from without a higher order? If Buddhism in its original form is nontheistic, how is the moral order and enlightenment set? 2. Reincarnation is incoherent. I, Parsat, am a human being. But what if after I die, I become a rabbit? Am I still Parsat? What is essential to me now? Is it not essential that I, Parsat, am a human being, not a rabbit or a dog or a completely different human being? Furthermore, what about the first soul? What is it the reincarnation of? Where did it come into being?
Fluff. What I meant was what I have learned about Buddhismn: you reincarnate which is bad. And when you reach enlightenment, you will come into the state Nirvana, which is basically ending the circle of reincarnation. And Shiva is a hinduistic God, so just saying that Buddistic hell because of sinning towards Shiva seemed as nonsense, but I am not an expert, I am a 19 year old college student, who is studying Information Science, not religion.
Parsat, your questions should probably be somewhere else, so Choaz will not go OFFTOPIC at you.
But fascinating that people seem to either agree with me, or do not care to disagree and instead yells at me for simple "mistakes". Interesting indeed.
A last note:
you would have wasted a 1/7 of your life
Unless I only live for less than 7 years I would say it was wrong. I am not very religious, though I still believe in God. But I would estimate the amount of time used on learning about religion as a whole to about a year. And still, I do not think it would be wasted.
But fascinating that people seem to either agree with me, or do not care to disagree and instead yells at me for simple "mistakes". Interesting indeed.
You are aware that I don't talk about this stuff, not in detail anyway? New Agers pretty much ruined that, so I just tend to pick apart generalizations regarding Eastern religions. And I'd tackle Parsat's post if that weren't in the direction of off-topic. But enough of naught. Buddhism isn't worth discussing without a sectarian point but even that isn't enough to say anything worthwhile.
1. Where would a moral order and enlightenment come from without a higher order? If Buddhism in its original form is nontheistic, how is the moral order and enlightenment set?
Oh, if you want to go down that road then: 'The This' pointed at the nothing and said "This is boring", for wich 'The Other' replied "Yeah, let's make a new Something to which who will rule the whole Uniplex!" Ok, for those who don't understand what Im getting at, 'The This' and 'The Other' are my imaginary Somethings that made God. If God 'made' everything--who made God?
Sorry I took so long to reply Choazmachine. When you asked what 'made' God. If you look at the bible the name God gives the Hebrews is Yahweh. Which means "I am who am". I think the power in that name might not sink in till you think about it. He is the thing that always existed. The initial cause that created every effect. If He wasn't the first thing then He wasn't God. Asking what created God is like asking why a line is straight or why zero equals nothing. The only answer you can have is because that's the way it is.
Now I hope we can agree that the ball and the planet didn't decide to attract each other. It doesn't make sense since neither ball nor planet can decide anything. Which means who or what did? What we know is that whatever made gravity must be Intelligent and be able to Create. It must have existed before the laws of the universe were made; otherwise it couldn't have made the laws. This all leads to a God/gods. (its unfair for me to use this argument and assume a Christian God.)
zero equals nothing because that is the way it is invented by the human number system. the human number system is weird because there is an infinite amount of numbers in the form of a decimal in between each number, of which there are infinite ones both ways. So really it is irrelevant whether zero equals nothing in comparison to what created god, because zero was created, so was therefore a manufactured idea. That means that you are saying that it is irrelevant to ask that question because the idea of god was made that way.
