This is my religion. First of all, you have to worship me. You never see me or hear from me ever, but you have to worship me anyway. You have to make prayers to me everyday and at every meal. You have to be faithful to me or else you will be put in cage with Chuck Norris. If you are faithful by the time you die, I will take you to an island paradise and strand you there for eternity.
This is what Christianity feels like to me. People say that its irrational not to believe or pray to God, yet we never see him or hear from him. If not, people say you will burn in hell. But how do we know that even exists? I could say that you would be put in a cage with Chuck Norris when you die, but you probably wouldn't believe me because I have no proof. Hell is the same, you have no proof of its existence.
As far as Heaven, we have no proof of it either. No one knows what it is like to die period. That's why I don't believe in Christianity or any other religion for that matter.
That's it. Noticing you've committed a sin and feeling bad for it to me is almost as much as God forgiving you. He knows you felt bad so in the end he forgives you. As for Catholics, psh.
Kirby's post pretty much sums up my thoughts. But I'd like to point out that Catholics just have a more ritualistic way of dealing with sin. We pretty much believe the same as you do in that regard.
Feeling bad about something is not the same as asking forgiveness and repenting of it. I wish Protestant's wouldn't have gotten rid of so many of the sacraments, but some of them were unnecessary.
Feeling bad about something is not the same as asking forgiveness and repenting of it. I wish Protestant's wouldn't have gotten rid of so many of the sacraments, but some of them were unnecessary.
I think the point is that God knows if you really regret it, whereas sacraments, I feel, push you into regretting it (in a good way so you won't do it anymore). But either way, God knows whether it is just you feeling sorry for yourself or sorry for who you hurt.
I don't need a counter attack. I'm done with this crap. I can't except forgiveness from someone I don't believe in, so there. I don't want God's forgiveness. In my mind he does not exist, so I don't want any part of him. Call me a sinner or whatever, but I could care less. Religion is nothing compared to science in my opinion. Anyway, end of discussion, I'm locking this thread.
Hey Valk, don't give up on evidence too fast. It may just be possible that God does have the evidence on his side, but that you just do not know it, right? I am not saying these two are knockdown arguments, but just check out these two: 1. Historicity of the resurrection. There have been books with thousands of pages written on this, so I can't argue the whole thing in one post, but just consider the possibility: We have hard evidence that some people around 50-80 AD believed that there was an empty tomb, and a resurrected person, and that a guy that died whom they had personally met was actually God himself. I am not saying "believe the Bible because it is the Bible." I am saying, we have evidence, historical record, that people believed this. That means we have to come up with a historical explanation WHY they believed this. And if we investigate all the possible reasons, one of them is that it actually happened the way they told (you can't rule that our up front) And this is where the big study of history starts, but I think its worth giving it a shot. I'll recommend books (not some wacky fundamentalist stuff, but published by major University Publishers and Oxford Professors, a.k.a real historians) if you're honestly willing to follow the evidence.
2. Just a basic argument for God's existence: 1. Everything that HAS A BEGINNING has a cause. 2. The Universe had a beginning. 3. Therefore, the universe had a cause.
Number 1. is pretty much foundational if you want to good science. Without causation, you cannot predict anything. 2. That is, right now, where the evidence leads. Among cosmologists, big bang, a few billion years ago, is right now the best model. Not that that has to be it, could be false, but right now that is what science tells us. Also, it is not big bang from anything preexistence. There was "NO NOTHING" before the big bang. 3. Therefore, something WITHOUT a beginning must have caused the universe. And causing universes is a pretty big deal, as far as big deals go. And, it must have been something outside of time and space, since that all started with the Big Bang. So we have something eternal outside of time and space that is really powerful that caused the universe. I wouldn't say it's definitely the Christian God, but He sure does fir the description.
Ok, just noticed I have to add something to 2. in the second argument. The NO NOTHING is speaking of the kind of stuff science observes: Matter and Energy. Science obviously can't measure God, and as far as calculating the universe back, the singularity came out of no energy, no matter, it just appeared, and that, according to the rules of science, must have had a cause. Only problem, none of the stuff science can measure could have been it, so it must have been something else. I hope that clarifies some.
