Forums → WEPR → The Religion Debate Thread
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So yeah, our threads on religion have long since died out, so I figured it would be time to start afresh here!
Do you believe God exists (I know almost all of you don't)? Do you feel religion is important today? Is it a force for good? Discuss everything related to that here!
I'm going to start the ball rolling:
We all know about the rise of ISIS and the terrible acts it perpetuates. Does that show that Islam and religion in general is an awful concept? Is it the people who twist it? Or is it fundamentally an evil force?
Roping in the WERP frequenters
@MageGrayWolf @Kasic @Hahiha @FishPreferred @Doombreed @09philj
- 704 Replies
If I'm understanding what you're trying to say here is that it's not a separation in an absolute sense. Rather it's a separation from certain aspect of God, which are localized in some sense. Would that be accurate?
Maybe that is where the concept of trinity could fit in? As in, we are separated from God (the father) but not from his spirit (the holy ghost) which is omnipresent?
@danwar123
Also, maybe it is to test whether you are actually faithful or just pretending.
Why test us, if he is omniscient?
Edited by nichodemus to tone down the aggression.
so just as christians and jews ascribe supreme importance to God and/or Jesus, and Muslims to Allah, so evolutionists do to evolution.Although that is correct, the important distinction here is that Christians, Jews, and Muslims are all real people. They are not fictitious straw men created for the sole purpose of discrediting the beliefs they supposedly hold and the actual people who they are standing in for.
evolutionists credit a lot of things to evolution. they make evolution an important thing. its like a god to them, but they dont worship it.they "believe" in it.
sure they dont worship it like a god (never said they did) but they do ascribe supreme importance to it. and BTW, evolutions believe in evolution. just like religious people believe in their religion.
so the atheist "religion" teaches there is no god and that the universe came about through the big bang. this is the atheist religion.Non-theistic religions are ordinary religions without any divine object of worship. These include Buddhism, Taoism, Jainism, and some other ones. The "Atheist religion" is a straw man.
does this make sense?
@danwar123
Incorrect for both of those. The big bang was pretty much a massive explosion which created our universe.
Not exactly. Imagine not actually being part of the universe, but still managing it at the same time.
God would’ve been created long before this universe was born, or maybe has been here forever and will be here forever. For all you know, there has been several universes before ours.The universe is the sum totality of everything. The 'big bang' is only a brief event in its history. Although some people have speculated that this event may have occurred at the beginning of that history, there isn't any actual need for the universe to have any beginning. It only helps people feel more comfortable with the notion that everything is finite. The problem with managing it from the outside, therefore, is that there is no outside. Being "outside" would mean being nonexistent.
Cool story bro, but not exactly. He'd probably be managing the universe and it's infinity with most of His omni-powers, and the rest of His attention would be on us. Also, maybe He doesn't want to interfere with us too much.1 It has nothing to do with interference. It's about properly engineering life and all the cosmos to fit His specifications in the first place instead of setting it up to fail and suffer.
2 If He's trying not to get involved, why does He appear to openly demand worship and servitude at the threat of eternal torment?
Souls are immortal, which is why they go to heaven as opposed to the body. Those who go to Hell are "spiritually dead" to God, so He put them in there because of a lack of other places to put them. Think of Hell as a trash can.That is, if anything, even worse. Is a god benevolent if He intentionally brings about the demise of His creations' souls and then discards them like a used tissue?
@Doombreed
Our purpose in life is to 'search' for God and through our actions attempt to protect that form of 'communication' with him, attempt to come closer to him.A highly dubious and unproductive purpose which is not clearly explained to us, or instinctively understood, or biologically driven, or in any way evidenced by anything in our expansive observations of the known world.
@nichodemus
I have spoken to my religious friends about it, and one of the answers they offered was that....God wants to test the faith of his followers.Which is preposterous, because the whole point of testing anything is to learn something from the results. If we go with the OMNI-power model of God, this test is nothing more than "If I cause this to happen in exactly this way (which I know it will), will it happen in exactly the way I know it will happen?" where what happens is the ****ation/destruction of a person's soul.
As to why God, if he is all powerful, cannot solve this problem, I think the answer they gave was that God's power is in decline(?) or waning(?) or that it wasn't infinite, given that Mankind messed up or something. Something like that.Which is also preposterous, as an OMNI-powered being would not be making such mistakes or subject to such limitations.
@WolfGirl11
Hey, Got a question for u. EVERYONE should be able to say yes to it. Do u love God?No. I do not harbour any feelings for any real or ficticious entity going by that name or title.
@Moegreche
We might be able to make a similar move for ourselves and preserve our notion of free will in a deterministic universe. The events we cause are agent-events (rather than purely deterministic ones) but our agency itself is not an event and so can remain uncaused.Introducing indeterminism there would mean we would be doing things literally for no reason whatsoever.
@MageGrayWolf
[...] they pretty well destroyed this argument by pointing out that we do have examples in our universe of events without cause, or at least as far as we know.In which case, they are not valid examples.
@danwar123 again
We don't know the full powers of Satan- For all we know they could be of similar strength. Scince God has to manage the infinitely expanding universe we live in, he could only direct so much strength to fighting Satan.Also, maybe it is to test whether you are actually faithful or just pretending.Isn't Satan supposed to be another of His perfect creations, so if Satan is influencing things, it can only be because God wants him to. And what do you mean he could only direct so much strength if God is omnipotent?
In the second case, He should already know that. He should know before you're ever born, so why make you suffer through a test you're doomed to fail?
Goodness is a standard set by god. What he says is good is good.But if we replace the word "good" with "beneficial to all" or "not causing undue suffering", the problem remains.
God most definitely exists. As for the Trinity, that refers to God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are all one God but are different in what each does. God is our Father who is the creator of the world and everything in it. The Son is God in human form to be the perfect sacrifice to take away the sins of the world. Jesus shows us that God is personable to everyone that seek Him. The Holy Spirit is God indwelled in the heart of all believers that have accepted Him. We come to know the Father through faith in the Son and living a transformed Christian life by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in each believer.
Yes he tests us but not in the way you may think. We are given "Free Will" to accept Him or reject Him. He wants us to place all our trust in Him in all things. God is omniscient but He will never force us into loving Him even if He already knows who will accept Him.
God most definitely exists.As a theological construct, yes.
The Son is God in human form to be the perfect sacrifice to take away the sins of the world.It's all well and good to parrot that tired old phrase, but it really doesn't mean anything to me. How were the sins taken away? Why sacrifice himself to do it? Why does it not appear to have worked for most of the people in the world?
Jesus shows us that God is personable to everyone that seek Him.In what sense does he show this?
He wants us to place all our trust in Him in all things.Okay. Why?
God is omniscient but He will never force us into loving Him even if He already knows who will accept Him.Therefore, He is not the creator of the world and everything in it.
In which case, they are not valid examples.
No, that's simply being open to the possibility of new evidence.
God most definitely exists.
Based on what?
I have edited some of the posts to sound less provocative and aggressive. Remember, although non-explicit breaking of the rules and toeing the line is "okay", be nice when it comes to serious topics!
@FishPreferred They still have not given any really good replies yet...but I realise now that not all sub groups of Christianity believe in Predestination, or disagree over what it means. It's very interesting how even people who are extremely religious can come to blows over such terms. And it's also something that for me, pokes holes in the very foundation of religion if they can't agree.
Hey, Got a question for u. EVERYONE should be able to say yes to it. Do u love God?
To answer the question, me neither. I believe there is some form of god but I believe it takes a far more passive role. I don't harbor any feelings for such a being, I can't even know if it exists...
A highly dubious and unproductive purpose which is not clearly explained to us, or instinctively understood, or biologically driven, or in any way evidenced by anything in our expansive observations of the known world.
I was just quoting what my religion teacher told me back at school. Working through distant memory mostly here.
In the first case, Satan is supposed to be another of His perfect creations, so if Satan is influencing things, it can only be because God wants him to.
Maybe this has something to do with the matter of choice here. Remember, God supposedly leaves his followers with the choice whether to follow him or not.
If He's trying not to get involved, why does He appear to openly demand worship and servitude at the threat of eternal torment?
This is discussed even amongst Christians. Hell is not necessary a place of eternal torment. It's called Hell apparently because the people going there have achieved the total opposite of Unity with god. They have severed all ties and connections. So what technically would happen in Hell is that people remain human, they remain what they are now. WIth their feelings, their weaknesses, everything. According to Christianity God offers 'salvation' from it. Some interpreters even believe that 'Hell' is our world now, or the closest equivalent.
Paradise = Unity (Man, becomes one with god and God himself. Literally back to what the First Men were before eating the Fruit)
Hell = Separation (Man severs ties with God at his own choice, remains a flawed being)
That all of course being, according to Religion.
To answer the question, me neither. I believe there is some form of god but I believe it takes a far more passive role. I don't harbor any feelings for such a being, I can't even know if it exists...
On what basis is this belief founded on?
On what basis is this belief founded on?
No basis to be honest. Just an unfounded belief that stems from (lack of a better term) emotions, mostly. I admit it has no base on reason or logic whatsoever, hence why it doesn't really affect me and my everyday life.
I think of it this way because I sometimes feel this way to sum it up Not saying it necessarily means anything, I am not even saying it is based on logic or is in any way, definitely true. Just a...belief.
lol this is exactly what religious people should not do
i cant bear to talk about this any more. people who dont love god should NOT be on here. I love him but im sorry some of the world doesnt cause they should. goodbye. .........I'm leaving this topic. maybe forever.
seriously? because you love god, and we dont, you are going to say we are bad people and shouldnt be on a website just enjoying talking to others and playing games?
forcing god on people is always a very bad thing to do!
No basis to be honest. Just an unfounded belief that stems from (lack of a better term) emotions, mostly. I admit it has no base on reason or logic whatsoever, hence why it doesn't really affect me and my everyday life.I think of it this way because I sometimes feel this way to sum it up Not saying it necessarily means anything, I am not even saying it is based on logic or is in any way, definitely true. Just a...belief.
Do you think this is a good basis to believe something?
I have edited some of the posts to sound less provocative and aggressive. Remember, although non-explicit breaking of the rules and toeing the line is "okay", be nice when it comes to serious topics!I must address the following misattributions, @nichodemus:
1 "You would, I feel be wrong."
What, and indeed, whether I "feel" about this is irrelevant. I do not use personal feelings to judge the veracity of a statement. If he would call atheism a religion, he would in fact be wrong.
2 "I think you are misusing the term in blatant disregard of the very definition that you have cited."
It must be thought to be asserted; that much is true. However, your wording implies that the thought or belief is the basis for the assertion, which is not the case. His use of false equivalence demonstrates a blatant disregard for the definition he stated outright in the same post.
On another note:
"Isn't Satan supposed to be another of His perfect creations, so if Satan is influencing things, it can only be because God wants him to."
Comma splice.
Maybe this has something to do with the matter of choice here. Remember, God supposedly leaves his followers with the choice whether to follow him or not.If we start with the premise that God created us and combine it with the premise that God is omniscient, we have to conclude that our choice is either stochastic, and therefore out of our control, or already made for us due to preexisting conditions, and therefore still out of our control. The same applies to Satan.
I think your general ideas/points have been conveyed well enough even with the edits. I have edited it to tone down the aggression.
Do you think this is a good basis to believe something?
No, I don't think I said that. What does it matter though?
No, I don't think I said that. What does it matter though?
I didn't say you said either way, that's why I asked what you thought. It matters because that's leads in two different discussions on the subject.
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