What a wonderful way to explain it.

A sick man turned to his doctor,as he was preparing to leave
the examination room and said, "Doctor, I am afraid to die. Tell me
what lies on the other side."

Very quietly, the doctor said, "I don't know."

"You don't know? You, a Christian man, do not know what is on
the other side?"

The doctor was holding the handle of the door; on the other
side came a sound of scratching and whining, and as he opened the door, a dog
sprang into the room and leaped on him with an eager show of
gladness.

Turning to the patient, the doctor said, "Did you notice my dog?

He's never been in this room before. He didn't know what was inside. He
knew nothing except that his master was here, and when the door opened,
he sprang in without fear.

I know little of what is on the other side of death, but I do know
one thing.

I know my Master is there and that is enough."

I"ve heard that story before, I really like it. It's simple and to the point. Thanks for sharing it.

The major difference is that we are going to have to "enter that room" whether there is a master in there or not, unlike the dog, we have no choice in the matter . The dog knew his master was in that room, his nose and ears told him...he had proof. We can only hope there is a master in there, we have no evidence and feelings are usually nothing more than hope and all to often hope is dashed!

I dont know about you, but I'm not much into slavery. I dont have a "master"

You are correct, that is why its better to get to know the master before you enter his house. The dog may use his ears and nose, we are able to use our ears, nose, heart, mind and reason.

Well, neither do I, but I wanted to speak on their level and explain the difference and uncertainy between some one dying and a dog going into the room that he knew his master (I dislike using that term inconnection with a dog) was.

Mind and reason will give no evidence of a god....just the opposite. It might give evidence of the possibility of a Creator, but not a god in the religious term.

If you have a job you have a master. Good or Bad bosses are the same as good and bad masters, its just the pay structure that is different!

I believe in love, with out supporting evidence.

I believe in the living soul of man with no supporting evidence.

I believe there is other life in our universe with no supporting evidence.

These three thing are all reasoned with my mind, Therefor it is possible to belive in a benevolent master and creator without having solid evidence.

I can see the effects of love, the goofy look in the eyes of the lovers, the caresses, the cuddlings, etc. There is plenty of evidence of the condition of love – physical, motherly, etc. There is no evidence of a living soul, while I agree with you that it exists and is the penultimate of us, but this is only belief and is far divorced from reason. I too believe in the probability of life other than ours in the universe, but again this is only a belief and is far divorced from reason and logic. I believe in the possibility of a Creator, but see no evidence that he considers himself more than just that, our loving Creator. I am not going to take the much edited word of men millennia dead that the Creator wants to be our master. When the Creator appears before me and reliable witnesses and tells me he wants to be my master, then and only then will I have a master!

Can a blind man experience love without sight? does a sleeping man concern himself about awakening.
The evidence of our surroundings speaks volumes of creation. The complexities of the human body could no more be an accident than a tornado in a junk yard assembling a 747.
The trees that die in the winter and return to life in the spring are all evidence for re-birth and original creation.
The mountains and seas even the beauty in woman and children express the true artist’s handwork. The work of an artist that loves his creation.
This here is reason!

Mate, I agree with what you are saying, as far as there being a Creator - you and I just disagree on who it is....but your examples (were I wanting to do so) are way to simple to logically disassemble. Rethink them and don't leave your posterior hanging out so. Love ya and don't want others trying to pick on you. I do think (from what I have seen of PP's postings that he sorta agrees with you too.

I like it very much.

God is good ain't he?

I agree to disagree on WHO, but I feel sometimes we look for complicated answers to seemingly complex questions. Many times in school I had racked my brains trying to find a mathematical equation that I felt was insurmountable and awoke the next morning and realized it was really very simple.
We assume as humans that answers to such questions could only come from elite humans that live on mountain tops. When we should be asking the child that points out the mountain to us.
The older I get the more I realize the answers are quite often right under our noses and we almost feel cheated to learn otherwise. I call it the expert syndrome. I always liked this definition of an expert. EX = has been and SPERT = a drip under pressure.
Maybe we just think to hard but not smart!
All the Best
Irish

I like the way you look at things. And yes, alot of people beleive in things with no hard evidence, but yet they still rule out God as fake.

Faith is sort of like trust. If you can't trust anyone, then boy are you in for a rough life.

My boss(es) dont have nearly enough control over me to call them masters.

ZeroShadow: Do you believe in aliens? Ghosts? The FSM?

I know about this saying that is posted on top of a pub, somewhere in the U.K. that says "Fear knocks on the door, Faith answered, and no one was there."

But if you trust too easily and with no reason to trust a thing or person, you will be in for a much rougher life!

Faith in my opinion is hoping what you think is true, thats the type of faith we are talking about with religon, You wouldn't put your faith into it if you actually objectively read the bible I'm not trying to be harsh, but not everyone is inspired by the words of the bible its a control system a buisness venture, Namaste sheri

Faith.. my dear.. is "Knowing" what you believe is true.. I know .. because I have a strong faith... and I know God exists.

Hard for non-faith...non-believers to understand.. but it is true!

Actually faith is hoping what you believe is true. Faith has no place in religion, if you are told that you have to have faith and no verifable evidence can be offered, then 100000000000000 to 1 the religion is just another set of mythology.

No it is not hard for non-faith, non-believers to understand, but it seems to be hard for beleivers to understand, else they wouldn't be believers.

Like I said.. you just don't get it....

Oh, I get it, but you don't seem to.....As a believer, I can see faith does more harm than good in this world. It was faith that launched the crusades, faith that burned the heretics, faith that burned the witches, faith that enslaved Africans in America, faith that destroyed the Native cultures of the lesser developed, leaving shattered lives behind. Faith is not necessary for a true religion!

How do you know? You dont have any evidence to back it up, hence its taken "on faith". You dont *know*, because that wouldnt be faith, it'd be knowledge.

There is a big difference between a master of slavery and a boss. A big difference.

Aside from abuse physical and sexual of cruel masters.
were the slaves of good moral masters not better cared for than say a kid out of high school slinging burgers for minimum wage for 10 hours a day?
Unable to survive financial they become trapped in a society that worships money and can barely afford food and shelter for themselves let alone a family.
At leased under a good master one was assured of food and shelter to survive as it would not benefit the master to have a sick slave.
All their needs were looked after in turn for there daily labour. How is this much different from todays society.
Chances of having a cruel boss today are probably about the same as having a cruel master then. The really only difference today is society is the watch dog for the slave drivers. Wich as we all know dose not always protect the down trodden.
You may have your meager earnings in hand every two weeks but it does not guarantee a quality of life.
All the Best
Irish

Aliens? Nah. Ghosts? Yeah. FSM? What the hell is that?

"Master" ... psh!

I'm not religious, but if I were, I'd never choose that word. Bit too strong. Kinda like saying that you're not you're own person - you're controlled.

Nah ... I don't buy that! But like I said, this is coming from a non-believer.

Then why are you asking



?

Asking what? O_o....

Those who say that God (what else can a divine Creator be?) cannot be proved, that love cannot be proved, that the ressurection of Jesu cannot be proved are merely uninformed or lazy.

God can be indirectly proved from a great deal of opposite theories. If you say that there is no God, you cannot explain how we came to be, conciousness (which is not a property of the brain), gravity, or the relationship of the 10 dimentions. The thesis that there is no God has been debunked and disproved in all variety of ways; thus, the inverse must be true according to the laws of logic.

Love is easy to prove. I know love exists because I love my God, I love my parents, I love my girlfriend, and I love life. It is just as simple as that.

The resurection of Jesu Cristo is one of the most doccumented events in all of history by any standards. People who say that there is no proof for the ressurection are ignorant and people who thrust the mountians of documentations and mounds of evidence aside are stupid.

There is simply no rational argument against either God, Love, or the ressurection.

that is simply untrue. to make such a claim is, to use your words, ignorant and stupid.

Do you have any proof other than, "that is simply untrue"? I gave a bit of proof about God, conclusive proof about Love, and there are MOUNTIANS of proof about the ressurection easily accessible to anybody with a comuter or access to Barnes & Nobel. Yet your proof is, "that is simply untrue".

"proof" is in the eye of the believer.

you have created and accepted certian constructs and within those imposed boundaries you have your own "world".

When you are defining your world you make it such that your definitions work for the desired outcome.

You have provided circular arguments. Whatever makes you happy though.

What on earth is that supposed to mean? Documentation in hard proof. Sicence is hard proof. Love is not hard proof but a corollary. Whatever subjective realitivistic hoo-ha you want to blabber about (still without proving anything), documented historical fact is not subjective, scientific observation and the laws of logic are not subjective, and the human conciousness is a fact.

documentation is hard proof? really? you buy that? fair enough! so which documentation do you prefer, the documentation that proves there is no gods at all, the documentation that proves the earth is flat, the documentation that proves aether exists.....

all you are doing is accepting what you want to accept without any evidence to support it. Sorry, all your supposed facts are greatly lacking. "Love exists becuase you feel love". Well, you feel something and call it love, but you CREATED it! Just like men created gods and all the rest.

But this is not the prove-it section, but the feel-good section so lets just leave this alone less the mods become bothered.

I am talking about historical doccumentation, nothing else. How do we know that Columbus set sail in 1492? Documentation. How do we know the fall of Constantinople was in A.D. 70? Documentation. How do we know Jesu of Nazereth rose from the grave? Documentation.

As for love, I am incapable of inventing love. I know there is water because I am thirsty. I know there is air because I am breathing. I know there is love because I am loving. Can I be any more concise?

Furthermore, how can you say that I am accepting a belief without proof when I am basing my belief ON objective proof?

You are realy just ignoring everything that I am saying and spitting out talking points. Please respect the time I take to dress my thought by not replying with a generic amorphous post that takes little my words into consideration.

you are basing all on subjective proof.

you are very capable of inventing love. "thirst" does not make you know there is water, but having consumed water before and having it remove the sensation of thirst allows you to connect one to the other. The more often you replicate the results, the more certian you become of the relationship between the two.

"documentation" is merely writen words. Do you accept all the "scientific" documentation that perported a flat earth and an earth centred universe or do you prefer more current views? Remember that views and accepted "truths" are relative and probablistic. "Accounts" of an event are not proof of alone.

The jesus from the grave comes from very biased and subjective sources. THere is no solid evidence to support it when viewed without bias. Stories are stories. Some accept the tales of the undead, some don't. In a few hundered years perhaps harry potter will become taken as an historical figure as well. It is all probablistic.

Knowing there is water means knowing there must be something that will sate thirst. While I do not know that it is water untill I have experianced it, I knew that there was "water" before I ever drank it. I am no more capable of inventing love than any other emotion or action. I challenge you to sit down and come up with (and feel) a new emotion. It cannot be done.

With regards to documentation, you are equating two kinds of documentation that have no real relationship. Documentation of historical events has no relation whatsoever to documentation of scientific beliefs of a given time. Documentation of Ptolemy's ideas about the universe are false but documentation that there was a historical figure named Ptolemy who had these ideas is fact. There is no unbiased speech, so dismissing THE most documented event in all of history with THE most credible and very objective (Josephus was not a Christian, but an orthodox Jew to whom the ressurection of Jesu would be considered blastphemy. Who would have more bias AGAINST recording the event?) historical documentation (more established than Empire or Oddesy or Beowulf put together) on the point of bias is not only incorrect (as shown, the natural bias would be AGAINST the event) but also based on a false assumption: that there can be speech without bias.

ok, to make this simple enough: look at the source! sheesh! of course the fictions of jesus are well documented because the creators of the fiction and their progeny have been pumping it where ever they could for 2000 years! They who control the masses control thought. You demonstrate this quite well.

knowing there is water on its own says absolutely nothing about thirst.

i can make up any emotion i want to right now. i can also redefine any current emotion. THink about it, just think about it.

enjoy whatever gives you happiness, but don't make false conclusions to their universal truthfullness.

Theres a number of beliefs that can explain how we came to be without a god...

We could have always existed. Or you can just follow the BBT.



Conciousness had to be created, you say?



How do you know that?



You dont know how to explain gravity without the use of god?



How does that need god anymore than the relationship of the first 3?



Really? If it has been debunked and disproved in so many ways, care to show us? Better yet, I challenge you to present it to me personally. Anything. I challenge you to prove to me that a god exists.



Care to present documentation of it from 1. people who were around during that resurrection and 2. secular documents which account for it aswell?



Who says that its proven god doesnt exist? I sure dont. I clearly admit that it could go either way, but IMO god does not exist, and I can argue my point fairly well.



No, you have said that proof of god exists, but you have failed to provide it.





A "feeling" doesnt constitute proof.



Care to present it?



So I take it you believe in the laws of logic?



No, you know there is water because you came in contact with it. Your thirst does not prove that water exists.



Present it then! Lets start out with proof of the christian god. Please... go ahead.



Well, personally, I'm reading what you're writing, but after I've read it, I do ignore it because I realise that its crap and has no substance. All it has is you chanting "theres proof! Theres proof!" yet you fail to present it.

It's really excellent that you consider one your "Master."

We definitely need more people like you. Non-egotistical, submissive, obedient. . . .

Yep, don't question anything. Just do what your Master says.

Lol.

You know what? This is a horrible example of trying to use logic.

I'm done here. I'm surprised to find so many followers. . . . . I hoped that I'd see more individualists.

Get use to disappointment!!

How can you speak so MATTER OF FACT about it?

I don't have a problem with other peoples' religions, but to slate someone or call them blind stupid, lazy, uninformed and ignorant is IGNORANT in itself. I'd never tell someone who believes in God that they are wrong, same as I don't KNOW I'm right, but what you said really bites me.

If God is a FACT, then people would have no problem believing it.

Damn! You sure do talk some bollocks!

In response to Nx2Hvn, what kind of scale would this be if God was on a higher level than a human being, due to there being angels, and 'below' that angel is a fallen one. So there being that if a dog had a master, being well behaved, it's an angel? Or that it's a rabid wild beast of a dog that will attack you at will being like a 'fallen angel' in search of a master?

I had just thought that in the past- it really can't all be considered 'master' if it was God, when there are more 'primitive' beings who can't and won't consider themselves 'obedient' to God. Not to say it was 'slavery' and I know people are talking about it, but out of it being a moral understanding of this, it is about -

OBEDIENCE-

Obey Gods wishes, and slavery or if anything 'sin' won't be a problem, right???
Sin really is kind of a metaphoric synoniminity to slavery isn't it???

....Just a few words to think about....I was a Catholic once...

I'm sure if it was some other pet that would respond to you, it would be a strange and broad spectrum of how we see the human race, of course....
Or the angels we would like to take after....

I know that sounds a bit serious though..sorry..
It is a wonderful way to explain it, but I am still perplexed...

You think you don't have a master.
You ever hear that song by Chris Christofferson, you gotta serve somebody.
"you may serve the devil, or you may serve the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody."

Those words are biblical. If you are not serving God, through a belief in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour and repentance toward sin, then Satan and his devils have deceived you in to serving them.

[Devils, --spirit beings or disemboidied spirits that exist in a spiritual realm occupying the same space as the earth but not a physical existence, --they have telepathic contact to the minds of men and can deceive or tempt men to do evil. There motive is to cause as many people to go to hell as they can. They are totally evil. God is allowing them the power to test men to see if they will do evil or not, to see who is worthy to become an angel in the afterlife.]

2 Corinthians 4:3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
2 Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

[god of this world in that passage is referring to Satan. Everyone that is not a real Christian, that is above the age of reason, is deceived by him.]

God is referred to with a capital "G" in that verse.

We all have a Master, whether we acknowledge him or not. Only Lord Mithra, through his grace, came, lived, taught and gave his life on the cross that we may join the great God Ahura Mazda and his son Mithra in heaven. Those worhipping the gods of the copycat religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam will spend their time in Hell until the End of Time and after the fiery cleansing will join Ahura Mazda, Lord Mithra and the true believers in Heaven for all eternity! It is not too late to join with Lord Mithra.

I am sorry PFlack... but I can't understand your logic... .. or question... I guess it is because I have such strong faith...

I don't question God... at all

And to me... God IS on a higher level than a human... he is my Master and Savior.... end of story.... I have no other way to explain it to you ... sorry.