I know the answer to this one.
Its something about humans beeing batteries.
I may be confusing it witha movie I once saw though.
I dont understand whats with all this heaping crap on the religious guys really… Im an ateist but Im quite happy with people being religious.
It provides security, community and support for people, wheres the harm?
Allthough Id prefer if the guy with a thumb on “the Button” wasnt thinking he might be doing the world a favour… but I do realise not beeing american I have no say.
I sure wouldn’t want to be someone close to someone who needs a spiritual growth challenge. :eek:
And if God is not concerned with what is good for you in your life on Earth, then that’s not very consistent with what a lot of religious people say about the power of prayer.
Where’s the harm? First, (IMO) it’s self-delusional, but beyond that, look no further than televangelists. James Randi did a scathing expose several years ago on Peter Popoff. Popoff claimed to have heard god’s voice telling him audience member’s names, and their ailments. As it turns out, Popoff had a radio earpiece, and got his information from his wife backstage, who in turn got the information from stooges and ushers.
There’s more, but that’s a start to “where’s the harm”.
I dont get it. someone defrauded christians hence religion does harm?
and well yes its self delusional but so is most of the human secondary activities.
theres really no point in watching tv or any of the other things we do to amuse ourselves either.
I never said anything about that. One of the tenets of the Christian church in general is that God loves everyone, even those who don’t believe in him. I’m just trying to answer your questions. My own personal belief, which does conflict with some of the teachings of my church, is that God will not punish those who are truly beings of good. Yes, everyone sins every day, but there is a big difference between someone who genuinely tries to be a good person, and a person who has no feelings for others and lives only for self advancement or for the destruction of others. I believe God will reward the good, regardless of religious belief. I just can’t see eternal damnation for people in another part of the world just because they didn’t get the word of Christ. Likewise, I can’t see a serial rapist and murderer who repents at the last second being let into heaven, while an atheist who genuinely strives to do good his whole life is damned to hell. Doesn’t jive with me.
Just so you know where I’m coming from: I am a Christian who is also quite skeptical. I do not take the Bible as 100% word of God…it’s a book written by fallible men in a time 2000 years ago, with some level of divine inspiration. But still, they were men who knew nothing of science and were living in a very different time…a very large filter needs to be applied to the message, IMO. However, the basics…God, Jesus, be nice to people, I think I can take out of that.
I’m also a scientist and engineer…I believe in scientific discovery, evolution, the big bang theory, etc… I just think God put into motion our laws of physics and lets everything else happen. I’m not so sure how I feel about predestination, or that people are directly influenced by God in order to make things happen…as that goes against free will. I do think that you can find reasons for everything to happen in your life. I’ve had a lot of very good things happen to me, and some not so good things happen, and I wouldn’t change any of them, because they’ve helped make me who I am, for better or worse.
I thought it was quite relevant considering the lengths he went to in his attempt to show that he was rational in his beliefs. If you can perform the mental backflips necessary to believe in the God of the bible (by selectively interpreting the bible) and fitting in such things as evolution and “all good people go to heaven” (totally contradicting what the bible actually says) then you should be able to rationalise why you don’t believe in one of the other million gods. I just picked Zeus.
If you can’t answer why you believe in Yaweh over Zeus, then what kind of believer are you?
One who’s not going to dance for you, in this instance. Yet another thread in which as soon as religion’s mentioned in the OP, the standard anti-Christian diatribes get trotted out. I must get my watch checked out, though - it’s running fast, I guess, 'cos I was expecting the Invisible Pink Unicorn to have turned up by now.
And, while a scattergun approach may not be appropriate, this thread is indeed about a question which is an attack on the soft, fleshy underbelly that forms the entirety of Christianity. It’s a religion about a benevolent, all-powerful god who is mysteriously unhelpful when the chips are down, and this thread is an attack at that weakness. So if you can’t stand heat…what are you doing in the frying pan?
This is why prayer should be unnecessary for an all knowing being, and a person should just leave it up to God. It doesn’t make sense to me to say God is only interested in after your death. If God knew ahead of time how a (as an example) Hitler would turn out why would he let him be born?Did he want him to burn in Hell? It is like saying Education isn’t necessary because a child may not live to use it.
I know people who have lived and died with an impediment and never knew the reason why they had to suffer. If this life doesn’t count then it should be unnecessary.