A question to all non-Christians

Research? I have done it many, many times, and god being created, there has to be a beginning as Meee said and that means that God had a beginning, which means God was created by something. And by the way, if your not a Christian, are you going to go to hell? Because that is just stupid because most other religions say that you will go to hell if your another religion. And don_bocci, why won't you say the evidence that god exists? Is it because there isn't any? now, if you look outside of the Bible, nothing, nothing at all proves to God's existence, yet many things prove god is non-existent.

 

actually the existance of some nature laws can be seen as proof, like grafity, or g-forces, which allow life to live

 

What proof is there that there has to be a beginning? What makes you think God isn't the beginning?

And as I already explain if you aren't Christian it doesn't mean your going to hell. I already explained the conditions for that but I suppose I just gave a very general outline if you really want to know the full teaching look it up in the Catechism.

I already talked about the evidence of God's existence and to exclude the bible would be like excluding gravity as a reason an apple falls to the ground. The bible is the history of Christianity from the times of the prophets to the time
of Christ. And besides the bible there are the many modern miracles that go on today.

Let me ask you, what proof do you have God's non-existence? Because I am really sure that hundreds of thousands of people would like to know the "many" things that prove that God is non-existent.

 

You misunderstood, I said that God was the beginning and he created everything else according to Christian religion

 

I find it hard to believe that you studied more about other religions than you knew about the religion you were raised under. Even is it is purely subconsciously, there are several possibilities on why you would have chosen Catholicism again, whether it be because you're most familiar with it's practices (church, saying grace, etc.), or whether it's the one you feel the more secure with because you'd get the most support from your family, etc. I'm not saying that that's the only reason why you converted back to your family's religion, but I'm saying that it would have influenced your decision.

How can you say that? Do you think that the Ancient Egyptians, Romans or Greeks thought that their religion could die out in the next million year? Of course they didn't because they believed it was 100% true, just as modern day Christians do now. Religions may not be proven wrong, but they do die out.

 

Hahahaha, how vain it is to hope religion will survive. It is already dying out. When people start to realise that religion is not needed, we can look forward to a bright future.

 

It's not that it's not needed. It's more that there is no time for religion anymore. The hour you spend in church you can be earning money instead and that's an obvious choice nowadays...

 

I wasnt talking about that.

 

Do you mind if I ask where you get that quote from, GM_k? It looks like an interesting read.
Also, one way find the flaws in the old religion is to look at some of their old stories. For example, in Egyptian mythology, the Sun god, Ra, was chased across the sky by a daemon that tried to devour Ra and his light. The daemon would then chase Ra out of the sky and through a twelve chambered river (resembling the twelve hours of night) only to reemerge the next morning. This was the Egyptian way of explaining how the days and nights occur. Their explanation for an eclipse was that the daemon caught Ra, smothering his light, but Ra, with all the Egyptians praying for him, was about to escape again, (Three cheers for Year 7 History!). Nowadays we all know why day, night and eclipses occur, and it certainly isn't to do with a daemon and Ra. Nowadays, people could use this as evidence to say that the Egyptian religion was wrong, because its stories aren't true.
However, this applies to almost all other religions as well. A lot of religions have an 'explanation' for the rainbow, the ones that I'm most familiar with being Christianity and the Dreamtime. It is understandable that back when people did not know the reason for rainbows, that they would invent a reason in order to satisfy their curiosity. In Christianity, after Noah built his Ark, god flooded the Earth to kill all the unbelievers. After the floods stopped, god made a rainbow as a promise that he wouldn't flood the world again. But, believe it or not, god didn't suddenly decide to invent refraction there and then. Rainbows are made from refracting light off the water droplets in the air which are most common after rain but also common in misty areas, etc, etc.
In the Dreamtime, the Rainbow Serpent appears in the wet season to bring rain to the earth and after it has brought the rains, it retreats to the waterholes. The rainbow, seen after a storm, was the Rainbow Serpent returning to the waterholes. However, we also now know that a rainbow is not a gigantic snake stretched across the sky.
Thinking that a rainbow is a snake is just as silly as believing that god decided to invent refraction after he flooded the Earth. Now, I already know that you're going to respond with the same 'you're not supposed to take it literally' response, but you get my point.

EDIT: Added paragraphs, making it easier to read.

 

Why do you find it so hard to believe that spent a lot of time actually learning about other religions? My family may have been Catholic but they weren't hardcore in anyway. In fact they would also have cared less if I became Jewish or part of any other religion, as i already said they weren't that strict. And in all honesty the only practice I would be familiar with would have been mass, we never said grace or did much else religiously. But it doesn't matter really because I'm Catholic and thats just the way it turned out.

I suppose your are partially correct, but as far as Christianity goes compared to the ancient beliefs it has lasted a great deal longer.


I have something to ask about the rainbow thing. Now if God is all-powerful then creating rainbows is a possibility. What if the reason rainbows come to be (through the refraction of light through water and whatnot) is because God made them happen that way. He made them happen that way so we could find a scientific way to understand them. God being all-powerful and all-seeing he could do that.

 

Being raised as a certain religion is different to studying others. Even if your family isn't hardcore about it and wouldn't care what religion you were, being raised that way is different to studying another.

Partially? Why am I only partially correct?
Also, just because Christianity has lasted longer that polytheism it doesn't mean that it won't die out. As I said before, the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans 'knew' that their religion wouldn't die out. Guess what? It died out. Now everyone thinks that they 'know' that their religion will not die out because, after all, it's the 'correct' religion, otherwise, why would they believe in it?
If a god is somehow proved to exist, then I'm more than happy to believe in it. You'd be an idiot not to. However, until then, there is no proof that any god exists, so why would you pick one to believe in?

Or, conversely, refraction could be a law of physics that has always existed since the beginning of light. Why would god create scientific ways for us to understand things if it does stuff like bring people back from the dead? Giving everything scientific explanations is extremely subtle, raising the dead isn't. Also, I don't see how you can believe that there is something in existence that is all powerful. It completely destroys any logic you have behind your beliefs. Instead of questioning whether it could be so, you say either 'it's not meant to be taken literally' or 'god is all-powerful'. To me they're just excuses to stop people questioning them.

 

Yes its different but it doesn't necessarily mean that I would fall back on Catholicism. I'm just saying that I could have gone a bunch of different ways but I chose to be Catholic.

Your partially correct because yes those religions died out but that is only a few specific cases. The fact that Christianity has lasted so long is important regardless of how you see it. And just because its a religion it doesn't mean it will die out. Where is the law and the logic that says all religions must eventually die out?

To say that something can't be true because its to subtle compared to God's other methods is a little bit weak. I don't see any logical reason why God couldn't have created everything in a way that we could understand it. He having existence in all time would have known the need for us to have something tangible for us to understand everything with. If God created everything I am pretty sure he could do it in any way he wanted to so for us to be able to understand it would be because God made it understandable.

What logic does an all-powerful being destroy? What beliefs would such an entity destroy? Can everything be explained scientifically? No, and much less could when the faith came to be in the first place so many stories were used to explain and settle the peoples worries, so to take those literally would be bad. And God being all-powerful is essential to the faith because even now science can't completely explain how everything came into existence, all we have from science are theories. Creation is not something that could happen in as some random twist of fate, it is a design how else would the world be as it is interconnected so full of life.

 

I never said that there is a law. The logic is in GM_k's post: http://www.starcraft2forum.org/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=47&topic=5964.msg151620#msg151620

My point was that if goes does exist, why not make his existence known? Instead he's making these tiny little scientific things for us to find. He's already supposedly sent his son down to Earth, gotten him killed after he caused a whole lot of ruckus, and brought him back to life. After god's done something like that, why does he need to give us scientific things to discover?

It destroys the logic in the discussion. You're just saying 'it shouldn't be taken literally' or 'he's all powerful, so nyah'. The only reason you should have to use those excuses is if you cannot properly defend yourself.

'...and much less could [be scientifically proved] when the faith came to be...'. I was waiting for someone to say that. Religion is just a way to satisfy human curiosity for things we cannot understand. Humans do not like the unknown, and are scared of it. This is why most religions have a way to explain the rainbow. No-one knew what it was and why it was there, so because they weren't able to explain it, they invented a reason. Same with the Sun. Before everyone knew what it was and how it worked, they were inventing reasons for the days, nights, eclipses, etc, etc. Now, we can explain them, and the excuse that you come up with to defend the story of Noah's Ark is, once again, 'it's not supposed to be taken literally.

I find it comical that you say 'all science has is theories'. You have a go at science for not being 100% sure, yet the only 'proof' you have of what happens in the Bible comes from in the Bible! It's obvious that they aren't going to write 'by the way, if you haven't figured it out now, this story is fake'.
The only reason that science has theories is that they aren't 100% positive that it's correct. You see, scientists admit when they might be wrong. However once they do prove something, then it becomes a law. However even theories have calculations, etc, behind them. You may just think of the Big Bang theory as a 'well, maybe it happened like this' kinda thing, but it is a heck of a lot more complicated than that. I admit that science can't explain everything that's going on at the moment, but it's knowledge base and resources are always increasing.

 

I don't see logic. I see an idea or a statement, not something that is logically reasoned out.

So religion isn't a way to make His existence known? Or perhaps miracles of healing and other such events don't count as making his presence known? Why should God make a fanfare of his presence? If you don't believe you don't have to, but He makes his presence know every day all the time is just a lot of people don't pay attention is all. He gives us the scientific part of life so that we can quench our curiosity. And he did so because:

Here you are just twisting my words, in my post I was pointing out that there are stories in the bible that aren't true literal happenings but are just teachings. Parables are stories that are hypothetical in nature but are meant to teach a point and those are the non-literal situations I am referring to. And He being all powerful is the backbone of the religion, how else could He not be? If he wasn't then the faith wouldn't exist, why should I have to explain things I don't know about? I believe in the explanations that God gives us. If that means to believe in his all-powerful nature then so be it.

Ironically enough Noah's Ark isn't one of those stories that is supposed to be taken literally. You'll want proof I know but the best I can tell you is that Noah's Ark is no made up story, same as Moss's parting of the Red Sea and calling down of the pillar of flames. Those are true as far as Christians are concerned, if you can't believe that whatever I'm not here to make you a believer anyway. Just here to defend my faith. But I believe I had heard proof somewhere of hundreds of chariots and such things of the Egyptian army being embedded in the 'Red Sea' some distance down from the crossing. But I can't recall from where so I suppose as far as your concerned this doesn't prove anything.

As I already said the bible isn't my only proof I already named the others. I was talking about creation when I said all science has are theories. I have no problem with science and it's theories and proofs. And believe me I know the Big Bang theory is more complicated than 'everything went extremely dense and then it all exploded'. I respect your competence, so respect mine please.

 

Religion is a way to spread make god known, but there are so many religions. Miracle healings also aren't much to go by. If they haven't been set up in the first place, then there are usually other explanations. It is commonly known that optimism increases life expectancy, and pessimism decreases it. If an optimist has a terminal disease and they truly believe that they're going to fight it off, they have a much greater chance of doing so than a pessimist who gives up because they're certain that they're going to die. A similar thing can happen with 'miracle healings'. The patient who has the miracle heal performed on them will blindly believe that they have actually been healed, which increases their chance of beating the illness.

If god proved his existence then that would satisfy human curiosity. We would no longer be curious as to why things are the way they are.

The stories that you're saying aren't supposed to be taken literally are the ones that science has proved wrong. We know that a god didn't just instantly create the Earth or instantly invent refraction, so you say that those are the metaphorical ones. If scientists were to one day prove that the creation of life was due to evolution or that everything started from a singularity you'd say that the story of creation was also supposed to be taken metaphorically. Which leads me to wonder whether anything in the Bible is supposed to be true.

I'm not trying to turn you into an Atheist or anything. I might be questioning your religion, but I'm not trying to convert you. I couldn't care less if you believed in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (I didn't just make that up by the way, it actually exists).
It's not that you cannot cite where you heard about the chariots that makes me not believe it's true. It's that it doesn't prove that it happened because Moses parted the Red Sea. There are all sorts of ways that it could have happened. Perhaps they were dumped there, perhaps it flooded and washed the chariots in, perhaps there was a battle near the shore, and yes, perhaps Egyptians were chasing Jews across the sea bed, surrounded by walls of vertical water, which proceeded to collapse on them once the Jews reached the other side. Who knows?

I respect your, and everyone's, competence as well. I don't mean any disrespect to you or anyone else. I'm just stating my views on the current topic, just as you're stating yours.

 

hmm... seems like theres a heated arguement here, since when did a christian stumble here to preach.

more over, i believe in evolutionism because its more logical and creation of the world in 6 days is a stretch.

1) *at the musuem* omg, do i see a t-rex? or is that a highly evolved ultralisk.

2) if the world is so perfect, why does "god" betray you with diseases and viruses, does he want you in heaven faster and to stop you from enjoying your life with your family and friends? thats a bit of being selfish of him/her right?

3) did god also want hitler to kill jews? what happen to "all men/(women) are created equal"

*please excuse me from my humor added in as well

 

Shouldn't this be intigrated with the religion thread we already have going?

Again...no flaring or incessant forms of retardation and spouts of zealousness on both sides of the spectrum.

 

Itsmyship, the reason I havn't integrated it is because most of it consists of Itza and don_bocci going at it. Btw this is a reminder I am still watching this thread keep it civil please.

 

Thanks mod, will do
it wouldn't be as fun if we didn't. Though this topic is starting to tire we gotta find something else to have controversial views about Itz

@gtx75 I am going to try and say this in the nicest way possible :
Your position is very poorly argued. When in a conversation like this one it would be more appropriate to display your views first before trying to find holes in the opposition's argument. Normally I would just leave you with that but I think I'll unravel this anyway.

First I am not a preacher thank you, I am merely arguing in favor of my views. Second, nowhere in all of Christianity does it say the world was made perfect or anything on it. According to the faith the only perfect being is God. It's our fault that there are so many viruses and such things out and about anyway, they aren't things that God made just so He could brings us to him faster. If we were good that is. For the six days bit read the rest of the thread its in there somewhere. Finally, of course God didn't want to see his children suffer, at most it was just a hardship for people to endure and grow through. You can't really blame God for the death of others because who is it that is doing the killing? We are, we humans who have free-will are, if there is any inequality in this world it is because we created it.

Ah true enough a positive mind does help. But people going to be healed by sacred artifacts and whatnot get that positive attitude because they actually believe that the item or whatever it is has actual healing powers. To my point of view that would still be a miracle even if I didn't believe in it.

Are you so sure? If Jesus came down to you and said "I am God" would you suddenly lose all your curiosity in everything? Sure if you were enlightened then yes I suppose you would but otherwise wouldn't you still want to ask him for some kind of proof or justification as to why He decided to pay you a visit? So basically I am just wondering if you would lose interest in everything or would you perhaps only ask more questions?

The fact that light refracts to make a rainbow doesn't prove that God didn't make it suddenly do so. Your not gonna like this but God being all-powerful could do anything he wants so why not just BAM create refraction on the spot? As I've said a few times now I don't think Noe's Ark is a story, rather it was a historical happening. While I'm on that note why couldn't God make the earth in 6 days and then make it age a couple million years in an instant before he started to put us on it.

Well there were bones and armor from that would have been from around the time of the Exodus, but I suppose thats still fair enough reasoning, so well spoken.

Thanks I just don't like assumed ignorance.

 

Obviously not if it was just someone who said it, but if god actually showed himself in the skies, visibly performed otherwise impossible miracles, etc, etc, and proved that he/she/it/they were truly the divine deity, why would people question it?

Refraction has been scientifically proven. It cannot not happen. If something is traveling through a denser medium it will move slower than something moving through a sparser medium. Refraction can't not exist. However you can still retaliate by saying 'but god is omnipotent', so it's basically my word against yours.

God supposedly created Adam and Eve on the sixth day, then rested on the seventh, meaning that even though the whole world being created in the six days, human beings were created in one.

It could have still been the remnants of a battle washed into the Red Sea or something. However the armor could have been washed in with the chariots, and the bones could have been from people who either accidentally drowned or people who were executed that way.

Maybe ignorance wasn't the term I should have used earlier. I just think that as each day passes, I personally find it harder and harder to believe.