77 replies to this topic

[randomizer]

Where in the bible did god create space?

"The heavens" is another term for space, stars, planets etc etc. Not really used in contemporary English though.

[Valerie Valens]

Also, the threat of going to hell defeats the purpose of free will, and the whole Jesus dying on a cross schtick? That defeats the incentive for believers to lead an altruistic life because it can very well lead a "well-intentioned" extremist to commit acts of immeasurable atrocity.

- "If I am wrong, God will forgive me. I am sure the people I have slain would too."

[Vlad Yvhv]

Also, the threat of going to hell defeats the purpose of free will, and the whole Jesus dying on a cross schtick? That defeats the incentive for believers to lead an altruistic life because it can very well lead a "well-intentioned" extremist to commit acts of immeasurable atrocity.

- "If I am wrong, God will forgive me. I am sure the people I have slain would too."

A common misconception... The crucifiction isn't a "get out of jail free" card that will magically let you do whatever you want without worry. There are rules. In order to be forgiven, one must truely regret what they've done and ask for forgiveness for it. God knows how to spot a faker...

[Ratty Randnums]

Also, the threat of going to hell defeats the purpose of free will, and the whole Jesus dying on a cross schtick? That defeats the incentive for believers to lead an altruistic life because it can very well lead a "well-intentioned" extremist to commit acts of immeasurable atrocity.

- "If I am wrong, God will forgive me. I am sure the people I have slain would too."

A common misconception... The crucifiction isn't a "get out of jail free" card that will magically let you do whatever you want without worry. There are rules. In order to be forgiven, one must truely regret what they've done and ask for forgiveness for it. God's knows how to spot a faker...

Or so they say. You really have no proof one way or the other.
It's like I said, if god has a "devine plan" and personally created all of us (in his own image no less, kinda funny how man has no especial physical attributes to give him an advantage over other animals besides an opposable thumb which again is pretty useless without the brain to use it) and orchastraits all of the events that happen around us, or at least has absolute knowlege of what will happen before it does as by definition he would. Then how is anything free, and how can anyone be blamed for "turning to sin" when God *knew* when he created this person that they would, and chose to create them and the circumstances that would shape them that way anyway. And then he punishes them? Sounds just a little sadistic to me to be honest.

The point is if any god wanted to be worshipped so absolutely he/she/it/they wouldn't have allowed any means which to challenge them.

So, in other words, you think that we shouldn't have to have free will? Seems pretty generous that the creator of all time and space would allow us to make up our own minds, rather than simply making us mindless drones. But if that's what makes you happy, it's a free internets lololol111!1

Actually, didn't he kind of curse us and banish us from the garden of Eden for gaining free will and the ability to think, observe and judge for ourselves? So they say, nice lesson.

Where in the bible did god create space?

"The heavens" is another term for space, stars, planets etc etc. Not really used in contemporary English though.

Oh yeah, he divided the waters that make Heaven and the waters that make the Ocean, which is of course why space is so wet. But don't take my word for it!

Genesis 1
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

Lol

[The Man]

The point is if any god wanted to be worshipped so absolutely he/she/it/they wouldn't have allowed any means which to challenge them.

So, in other words, you think that we shouldn't have to have free will? Seems pretty generous that the creator of all time and space would allow us to make up our own minds, rather than simply making us mindless drones. But if that's what makes you happy, it's a free internets lololol111!1

And who says 'you' are a better interpretator of a god anyway? It could be cruel, ruthless, nice, generous and/or none of the above? What did you mean?

And 'I' said nothing about free will. A precident I might be setting is that it's very dangerous to step up a situation you have no control over. Risky yes, generous/cruel maybe. The point is that by giving us free will god contradicted himself by risking the chance some will doubt him.

He/she/it/they created thier own problems as part of the plan of the universe. It leads(IRONICALLY) into an argument I had lately is that sometimes you don't play a position to win, but to lose. Because their are some positions that are not won, but lost.

For example I could bring a magic deck to a tournament that's sure to win. It's a top tier deck that everybody knows about. But the same thing over and over again gets boring, so next time I bring a different deck that could have different cards. I don't want to try the same thing again, I want to 'lose' because I like the difference and the risk.

It all sounds like a contradiction to set up to lose, but I don't know whose a better decider of all of this. Whatever this person's intentions people have used a god's name and it's religion to incite a lot of harm.

If you don't know what I said look up the word 'contradiction' in the dictionary. I don't want to have to keep explaining myself because you pretend not to understand it and don't take debates at FUS seriously.

Whoever created the universe is not all good, why would they create chaos, crime, and contradiction? Why a strong and weak nuclear force? Or a heaven and hell even? Why not all good or all bad, why a mixed bad, message, blessing?

Yes, I had to ask didn't I?

[Jason Ryan]

A little more on topic:
Muslim Group Condemns LBP “Censorship”

So yeah. In a nutshell [and in relation to LittleBigPlanet] M. Zuhdi Jasser, the president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy says it's counterproductive to censor freedom of expression, even if it's something he doesn't necessarily agree with.

A step in the right direction..?

Or, you know, more advertising for the game!

[chief]

Well no its a step in the right direction as well proves some people here who were ...are convinced that Muslims etc are all nut jobs who take offence to everything bla bla bla. I mean if this group is condoming it..hahaha Thats like the oposit of what everyone thought would happen.

[The Man]

A finally recap.

1. There are some people who believe in religion to the point they don't contradict it. They're so devout they could use extreme means to maintain it.

2. There are some people who believe in none of it or all of it. As in, they can not confirm nor deny religions validity because they find too many contradictory/correct aspects.

3. There are people who do not have a religion at all because they believe it was created by man and the stories of gods/religions/or any idea in general can be contradictory and/or made up.

It's because of these 'three' realities we have conflict. IMO I'm more inclined to believe 2 and 3 on a general basis because the law/science has already prosecuted people for their crimes religious or not.

I hope this clears up confusion. There could be a 4 or 5 or you could try and combined 2 and 3. I just felt the need to split them.

1. Yes, I believe.
2. I don't know.
3. No, I don't believe.

And finally people have to take religion so seriously among other things. It's your right to feel that way but don't let some idea get the best of you. IMO.

Forgot to add the truth. A human could believe and/or disbelieve any of those three options if the situation called for it. It takes wisdom/judgment to know when.

If there's any future debate about this I'd recomend you bookmark my post as a reference. If you don't understand something then it's possible you deliberately ignored/dismissed posts.

You could have simply said it was the law, Ratty or whomever else. Unless you did a long time ago but I didn't say this ahead of time at first. At least where I live I'm not forced to go to church yet willingly able to give my time/money donations when I feel like it.

[Ratty Randnums]

Ok, wtf? You just detailed the difference between religious fundamentalists, agnostics and atheists to...? Bookmark it, why? Are you trying to be cryptic? Also-

I think most Atheists would disagree that a person can "choose" what they want to believe and when, even if you want something to be true. Like if you really really wished the sky was made of chocolate, you couldn't *really* believe it, but if there was a whole group, hundreds and hundreds of other people in ancient majestic looking buildings holding candles reading from "huge ancient and wise tomes" all telling you the sky is in fact made of chocolate, you might rest a little easier on it.
I believe the main argument against religion is that it's holding us back, which in some ways it undeniably is, we can't do life saving experiments on already aborted fetuses because some sweaty guy at a pulpit tells people it's wrong, and we can't give equal rights to all our citizens in the US because of what some sweaty guy wrote on a piece of papyrus or somesuch thousands of years ago.
It’s also true that religion may have once served a purpose to keep people together into small communities and give them a common belief system (this is the basis for most conservative thought, and likewise it just doesn't work in a large multi-cultural environment) but even if that was the case at some point, in today's global community when vastly different cultures interact with each other ever day, and must do so, it just leads to clashes people are unwilling to even consider talking over. And just as important when we have the scientific method which has *proven* results to make our lives better, but which fundamentally contradict religious ideas having to struggle for the right to exist. Then religion is in fact a divisive and destructive force that hurts more than it helps.

[Vlad Yvhv]

It's not religion that's the destructive force. It's humans. We're violent, savage animals who pretend to be civilized... Religion is a rather convenient excuse for acting on pre-existing destructive tendencies... So are race, politics, and just about everything else... We have the tendency to try to destroy anyone and anything we don't like, don't agree with, and/or don't understand. That has existed before we understood the concept of religion (no offense to absolute creationists). As a species, we've even gone so far as to attemt to exterminate those who don't share our own violent tendencies, under the guise of them being "weaker" than us...

Attacking religion itself is just another example of this. It's no different than the anti-gun nuts trying to get rid of all guns. Even if they were to succeed, people would either to back to older, more brutal way of killing eachother, or develop new, more efficient ways of killing eachother... Thus, a whole new cycle of blame begins on the newly preferred weapons of choice, and so on...

The point of all of this (in case I lost anyone): Don't blame the tool for being misused (or even misusable). In the hands of psychos, anything can and will become a weapon, be it physical or conceptual. And in a species of psychos, that should not come as a surprise...

[randomizer]

Money often leads to corruption, but guess what, it buys food too!

[chief]

Money often leads to corruption, but guess what, it buys food too!

And SEX in Ratty's case


On a more serious note... Well... Ok to be honest I have no serious note on this. I just wanted to say that. But since people are suppose to post crap about the topic in the topic... ehhh


Hey it looks like the game may be out on the 29th... Yea! Seriousness...

[Ratty Randnums]

And SEX in Ratty's case

I told you Chief, a hundred, five hundred, I don't care how much you offer, NO. (I bet you don't even snuggle.)

It's not religion that's the destructive force. It's humans. We're violent, savage animals who pretend to be civilized... Religion is a rather convenient excuse for acting on pre-existing destructive tendencies... So are race, politics, and just about everything else... We have the tendency to try to destroy anyone and anything we don't like, don't agree with, and/or don't understand. That has existed before we understood the concept of religion (no offense to absolute creationists). As a species, we've even gone so far as to attemt to exterminate those who don't share our own violent tendencies, under the guise of them being "weaker" than us...

Attacking religion itself is just another example of this. It's no different than the anti-gun nuts trying to get rid of all guns. Even if they were to succeed, people would either to back to older, more brutal way of killing eachother, or develop new, more efficient ways of killing eachother... Thus, a whole new cycle of blame begins on the newly preferred weapons of choice, and so on...

The point of all of this (in case I lost anyone): Don't blame the tool for being misused (or even misusable). In the hands of psychos, anything can and will become a weapon, be it physical or conceptual. And in a species of psychos, that should not come as a surprise...

Yes but when a tool has outlived it's usefulness until it's counterproductive, like an incredibly rusty and corrosive cog (and that's COG Chief coG X3 )?

Money often leads to corruption, but guess what, it buys food too!

Eh, the effectiveness of the capitalist system is a whole other can of wormmehs.

[chief]

And SEX in Ratty's case

I told you Chief, a hundred, five hundred, I don't care how much you offer, NO. (I bet you don't even snuggle.)

Nah, I'm just in there to get my job done and get out. Thats why I got a kid 19 month dollar already

[Vlad Yvhv]

Yes but when a tool has outlived it's usefulness until it's counterproductive, like an incredibly rusty and corrosive cog (and that's COG Chief coG X3 )?

One must make sure that the correct cog is to blame before you set out to repair the machine. Religion itself is a concept which fills a need. It's timeless and crorrosion proof, if not indestructable. However, its surrounding cogs (individual religions and their branches/splinters) are not. They're the ones that can become corroded and broken. They're the ones that sometimes need to be replaced.

[The Man]

We would know if we could ask everyone. But we don't require proof from everyone. If someone could claim omniscience we wouldn't need this debate. You can not point to the 'whatever' I've mentioned because he/she/it/they refuse to identify themselves properly.

I'm not going to believe any of you are him/her/it/ because of your spelling errors, typos, etc., and if you did manage to post it grammatically chances are it was a human/hacker/someone with enough knowledge of technology and language to appear perfect. But no one is always that careful. And I wouldn't need to point that out.

Sorry for the long post, but I'm more likely to believe Rocky or Chief could really alter a topic, but I trust them to do the right thing so I don't mind visiting this forum.

That's not to say someone misses a certain big bad ultra serious, m'kay.

If you're still not convinced then I simply say it's the law/rule. At some point believing in what you want became the law(freedom of speech possibly). Some people don't have to believe in religion because it's the law. At least on one front somehow, somewhere I don't need an argument.

I thank you ahead of time if you do a better job of being specific with your posts and I hope you get the gist of what I'm saying.

In case not, why doesn't a god/goddess participate in these debates. I'd like to know why they threw us the contradiction bone for whatever reason? If someone really wants to take a stab at the question at least once. I was going to ask Rocky or Chief(someone you have to take more seriously)if 'anyone' here truly answered my question instead of citing examples but I guess it's all good in the end. (Please ignore that last one.)

I could also be ignant.

1. Why did God throw us the contradiction bone?
2. What is the purpose of contradiction?

[Ratty Randnums]

Yes but when a tool has outlived it's usefulness until it's counterproductive, like an incredibly rusty and corrosive cog (and that's COG Chief coG X3 )?

One must make sure that the correct cog is to blame before you set out to repair the machine. Religion itself is a concept which fills a need. It's timeless and crorrosion proof, if not indestructable. However, its surrounding cogs (individual religions and their branches/splinters) are not. They're the ones that can become corroded and broken. They're the ones that sometimes need to be replaced.

Lol and I suppose the "one true religion" is the one that doesn't get old? You say it's "timeless" and "corrosion proof" but why? What proof is there? The religions that were around before Christianity or Judaism (and we have physical evidence they were around before) have mostly died out or shrank to shadows of themselves. The argument you see is that religion is not timeless, it has served a very specific need throughout human history with much the same results. But the application of the scientific method, which religion typically and systematically apposes for it's (the scientific method's) findings being quite different from what it (religion) teaches. But Science has given us *results* results that we know and can observe. It is because of this and the general antagonism religion causes (between religious people themselves as much or more than between the religious and non-believers) that there is the argument that not only is religion not "timeless" or "indestructible" but that the time of it's iron grip on the way people think feel and act is over. And that it's (religion's) primary function is now so outdated that it's counterproductive. As prosperity through inquiry and subjective thinking (and the knowledge gained thereby) increases, the need for the belief in (and subsequent practices asserting) prosperity on some other future form of existence slowly declines.
It's basically a less adaptive and beneficial form being replaced by a stronger one, if slowly so.

[fishtheimpaler]

Here's another interesting fact: The Islamic religion also claims that art itself is an affront to Allah. That's right, if you draw a PERSON, for instance, then Allah thinks you're trying to directly challenge his ability to create life, but without a soul.

You can say what you want about Christianity, but nowhere in the Bible does it say that you can't draw something. [...]

This is actually fascinating stuff: the ban on depiction is in Judaism as well as Islam. It skipped a generation. Hardcore Hasidim won't tolerate pictures in their houses (although the less hardcore ones trade rabbi cards).

The ban on depiction is right there in the ten commandments: "Thou shall not make graven images." If you were raised Christian, like myself, you were taught there was an implied ". . . of divine objects" or ". . . and then worship them" on the end of that. But you'll note that there's not, and originally the rule was against pictures of any kind.

People also throw out explanations for this, like the "creation belongs to God" thing, but it's a lot weirder and uncanny then that. There's something very deep about the prohibition, and I've always found it difficult to put my finger on. My best attempt to defuse it is that all three religions highly privilege the written word as authority for government and morality, and that literacy wasn't nearly as common back in the day. A ban on depiction is in effect a way to give the educated (priestly) class a monopoly on recorded information.

In other news, more religious fun from the most exciting political race of 2008 other than Ted Stevens trying to follow the Dan Rostenkowski plan of: (1) Get convicted of felony, (2) get reelected to Congress, (3) profit, (4) go to prison:

"There is no God!" "Yeah, we're down with that!"

[Vlad Yvhv]

Lol and I suppose the "one true religion" is the one that doesn't get old? You say it's "timeless" and "corrosion proof" but why? What proof is there? The religions that were around before Christianity or Judaism (and we have physical evidence they were around before) have mostly died out or shrank to shadows of themselves. The argument you see is that religion is not timeless, it has served a very specific need throughout human history with much the same results. But the application of the scientific method, which religion typically and systematically apposes for it's (the scientific method's) findings being quite different from what it (religion) teaches. But Science has given us *results* results that we know and can observe. It is because of this and the general antagonism religion causes (between religious people themselves as much or more than between the religious and non-believers) that there is the argument that not only is religion not "timeless" or "indestructible" but that the time of it's iron grip on the way people think feel and act is over. And that it's (religion's) primary function is now so outdated that it's counterproductive. As prosperity through inquiry and subjective thinking (and the knowledge gained thereby) increases, the need for the belief in (and subsequent practices asserting) prosperity on some other future form of existence slowly declines.
It's basically a less adaptive and beneficial form being replaced by a stronger one, if slowly so.

No. You missed my point entirely. We're speaking of the term "religion" in 2 seperate contexts.

You're still hung up on the "surrounding cogs" I mentioned. Individual religions. Set systems of belief. I agree with you on the idea that belief systems can become outdated and must evolve or be gotten rid of.

The "central cog" that I referred to is the very concept of religion, rather than any actual religion. It has no inherant philosopy, no definitve structure, and no special name. It fills the inherant need that people have to believe something (what exactly is delegated to the "surrounding cogs"). That's all it does. That's all it can do. And that's what makes it timeless and indestrucable. Everyone needs to believe something, even if it's simply the idea that what they believe is right. Belief in science and facts, an individual religion, multiple religions, no religion, the voices in one's head, people, one's self, the idea that everything won't just up and cease to exist before I finish this paragraph, or even in disbelief of everything... All of them require the concept of religion, even if they don't require any actual religous affiliation. They require the ability to believe in the fist place. The concept of religion gives us that ability.

[Valerie Valens]

The "central cog" that I referred to is the very concept of religion, rather than any actual religion. It has no inherant philosopy, no definitve structure, and no special name. It fills the inherant need that people have to believe something (what exactly is delegated to the "surrounding cogs"). That's all it does. That's all it can do. And that's what makes it timeless and indestrucable. Everyone needs to believe something, even if it's simply the idea that what they believe is right. Belief in science and facts, an individual religion, multiple religions, no religion, the voices in one's head, people, one's self, the idea that everything won't just up and cease to exist before I finish this paragraph, or even in disbelief of everything... All of them require the concept of religion, even if they don't require any actual religous affiliation. They require the ability to believe in the fist place. The concept of religion gives us that ability.

Also, facts and theories discovered by the scientific method aren't believed in, they are accepted. There's a big difference.