Blue that sounds a bit righteous You will only be dogmatic and rigid and leave your self no options mentally it can get very scary when you are so sure you know everything, it cuts you off from life and growth is slow if at all, this is only a suggestion and you do as you see appropriate for yourself, But you only need to look around and see the effects of a My way is the only way concept, its been devastating to say the very least, if we are to grow as a humnaity a starting place would be in knowing the differnt beleif structures that make up your world you live in and the willingness to let go of those that aren't serving the whole. Wisdom isn't because you know everything wisdom is becasue of and made possible by what you don't know. One who is confident in his beleive structure is undaunted by anothers, beleifs can only be changed if you decide they are you are in error if you think otherwise. Namaste Sheri

again N O. I refuse to look into other religions. Knowing more about this world isn't going to stop us from dieing, so what use is it anyway?

This is to scary for many who already have convinced themselves of what religion is to them.
It is within each right to do as they please, but I do agree that one should at least look at others before making a final determination.

Bluefinger, does your religion come from your parents, or have you made this determination all on your own?

well, looking at any religion is not going to alleviate death so you might as well drop christianity.

on apples and oranges: they offer different health benefits, so exploring both would be a better choice.

Bluefinger - I suggest a book called "The Universe Next Door". It's a Christian book, so you should like that. But it also compares other religions and worldviews. It's a good starting block into this.

Try it sometime.

Regards, PA

blue, look at the facts: many different beleifs about life and death exist. It is not confusing to look at many of them, it is an eductational experience. If you were totally confident in your beleifs you would be willing to look at everything just for the sake of understanding others and better understanding your own. Your view of disrespect is only born from your own insecurities. I don't care what you do with christianity so long as it is your own private thing. Respect is something earned...

that is your own inferiority complex if you think that you are thought of as "inferior" merely because you have not earned respect.

my own inferiority complex? sir, do you have any understanding about haughty people? When I grew up, I grew up amongst haughty people that domineered over the common kid because his parents were rich while the kid's parents were poor. So all the poor kids want to be friends with the rich kid who happens to be a hateful person just so they don't get picked on. So the kids that refuse to submit to such a litte sh** as the rich person gets picked on because he accepts the life he was born into. The haughty have been known to destroy lives ya know. Take the french revolution for example. The french killed all who were considered noble or royal because of the way some of them treated the poor.

Sir, inferiority has nothing to do with my complaint about your pride. Injustice is why. And I will not prove myself to you to earn your respect because your respect means nothing to me if you think it must be earned. You are no better than I, so why should I shrink down so that you can demand my respect to be earned.

Respect is not earned and is a common thought amongst bullies and hypocrits. Sir, the more I see about your character the more I read through your hypocrisy and You are hateful for the fact that you see yourself better than the common man when you are as common as they come. Looking down on others supports the mind frame that the common man is only as good as he flatters.

Blue It is clear that you do not see the greatness that you are, religion is not big on celebrating who you are its more about denying ther is anything good about you, Hyper isn't haughty or belittling you he is reminding you of your worth, he is correct, you feel inferior he is saying you aren't. namaste Sheri

That's a cloudy answer in my life. My mom did go to Church, but mainly because the man she dated when I was a kid went to Church with his family. I know this because my mom was a Baptist and her b/f at the time was Pentacostol. I prayed every night, but still wondered if this was the right religion. I stuck with it and had what most people called, 'blind faith' to follow with out a legitimate reason. More and more though, God worked in my life. Not in Church, but through hardship and pain. People were mean and cruel to me when I was growing up and they had no compassion. My mom married a man who beat us and told us we had no right to live. she divorced him and then got into drugs and kicked my brother out of the house and then disowned him when she found out he was gay. A kid died in my highschool in car accident along with his whole family and a girl at school said he deserved it. one of my friends died of cancer, another from a car accident. All this made me realize how lucky I am to have all that I have now and I know I did nothing to earn it. It wasn't family influence of Church, it wasn't family involvement, and it wasn't friends that kept me close to God. It was God. When I was in a car that flew off the hill after school and by some miracle didn't kill us, I knew God wanted me there longer for some reason. I don't know what it is, but I do know I should have died in that accident.
When my mom disowned my brother because he wanted to be a girl, i accepted him into my home and to my friends. I didn't agree with it based on my beliefs, but I love him and that is my religion, to love. So, i have had a personal and life changing experience with the God that I believe in enough to not care to look into other religions. I hope that wasn't too long.

God bless

saying that respect is earned is the same as saying that he is better than most people and that they have to earn his respect for them to matter to him.
This is what I'm stirred up about, because the common man is constantly having to prove himself: to his parents, to his friends, to his teachers, to his bosses at work, to society that recieves him... only to be insulted by a man he doesn't even know on a forum where all are entitled to the same respect. Constantly proving himself to many people that are lesser than him, all because they demand respect when half of them even give it. Respect is a big deal to me, and for him to tell me i might as well drop Christianity is disrespectful to me as a person and the position I stand, for I have just as much right to post my opinions as hyper, yet I have to earn his respect while he stands above me with a frickin magnifying glass he uses to strategically belittle Christians because they believe in a concept such as God and religion. The man is not respectful even to the least of us, that even the greater of us will he show no regard. You are respectful because you listen and show respect even to the least of people that the greater stand in awe, but not hyper. Knowing that he has enough pride in his heart to insult my intelligence and tactically tempt me to drop my religion is disrespectful and I couldn't possibly see myself wanting his respect any longer. I want an apology and that is something I think hyper is too proud to give.

God bless

Blue i think you might have misunderstood hyper, he would not expect you to earn his respect he truly isn't about that , Why do you talk of yourself as less then?? That is just not true, Your beliefs are your own no one can take them from you Blue nor would Hyper be trying to do that, Really. Namaste Sheri

Did you read what he wrote? I'm not blowing it out of proportion, I'm just stating it for what it really is, not what it appears to be. After being rediculed enough, you learn all the methods people use to redicule you. saying that my belief won't aleviate death when he knows my belief well is the same as saying, "give up your religion because it is useless." I want an apology for him making an assault on my religion. Until then, he does not have my respect. I gave it to him and he cared nothing for it.

God bless

blue, you are blowing everything out of proportion.

an "assault on your religion"? If that is all it would take to launch an assault! Really, that was not an assault at all (at least from my intentions and standards). All i did was point out the obvious in your statements. If you don't like what is obvious in your statements....

so i don't have your respect? "telle est la vie"

it could be said your blustering is merely an effort to distract from what you don't want to be seen ("you didn't see how i did the trick?" said the illusionist. "that is because you were not looking in the right place, but rather where i was drawing your attention")

....I show them the respect I should be by leaving them alone.

....Should I read up on their religion and study their ways? No, I won't and don't have to. ....

....Same goes with religion, I HAVE NO OBLIGATION to pay my respects to other religions by getting involved with their practices. ....

Why should I care about their religion?

.... again N O. I refuse to look into other religions. Knowing more about this world isn't going to stop anyone from dieing, so what use is it anyway?

It sure is easier to believe God is made up. That way, we don't have any moral responsibility. We can do what ever we want. But really, if God was REALLY made up, then why wouldn't everyone just do whatever they want? Why does an Athiest still abide by a code of moral conduct? If the only thing in life is myself and my own pleasure, then why don't I step on every single toe I possibly can to get it?
I believe that God is completely made up. Throughout many thousands of years and civilizations all over the globe, societies have had a God or gods. This is because they have no better explanation for misunderstood things. "There was an earthquake!!! God is angry!" "Our crops grew tall this year!!! God is pleased!" "This lady woke up from a coma!!! It's a miracle, God saved her!" And so with the common belief that god controls everything we have accepted his rule and everything he does is right. "My grandma dies!!! God did that for a reason!" and so on.

Simple logic really. But would a divine creator of the universe abide by such a simple line of logic thought of and comprehended by a human being?

In scriptures, God says to the people, "My ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts."

The reason that civilization made God or gods was to keep everyone in line.

Ah, that's why the people in power allowed religion to exist. Infact, there has never been any society which has not allowed any form of worship whatsoever. The Romans used Chritianity to control their masses. The Arabs used Islam. North America uses Evolution, amongst other things. But can you provide any proof other than conjecture which civilization is THE first to "invent" the idea of God or Religion?

So many more people would resist stealing and murdering if they thought they would go to hell if they did so.

You speak as if Chritianity is the only religion. Strange. You know, Indian religions often believe in reincarnation. Which means, it doesn't matter what you do in this life. If it was truely wrong, you'll pay for it in the next, and everything will balance out.

Everyone would be a better person if they thought they would go to heaven for it.

So do you believe the only reason to do something good or "right" is if you get something good in return? Do you actually believe that the only reason Christians believe in Jesus Christ is to avoid Hell and get in to Heaven? Even the scummiest criminal on earth can practice acting good to avoid punishment, or to get reward. Christianity, speciffically, is learning what the true definition of Love actually is, and practicing it. And that is doing something good for someone without expecting or wanting anything in return. GENUINELY doing it. Love is rising above our animal instincts and coming in contact with our divinity through Jesus Christ.

God was created to help people stick together and prosper. And I don't think it was a bad thing! Society might not have advanced past what middle eastern poor people have now if they didn't make it, so it was a great idea to conjure that illusion up!

Racist, and unredeeming. As if wealth determines happiness or morality! Amazing...

And isn't it convenient that there is no way of proving any of this stuff.

Even shakespeare is quoted as saying, "I think, there for I am". As long as you keep telling your self that there is no possible proof, you will never see it. You have been programmed from day one by all popular media that truth is relative. You have been lied to about how many senses a person has. You want to talk about control, about REAL control over the masses? You better begin to understand what the Masons and the Illuminati have been doing for the past 200 years!

Is there a heaven, only the dead know. Is there a god, same answer.

Has your brain accumulated 100% of every bit of knowledge and facts in the entire world? No, of course not. To say so would be silly. Has it accumulated 50% of every bit of knowledge the entire world has to offer? Not even close. Now, lets say you are the smartest person who has ever lived, and hold 50% of every bit of data in your brain that the world has to offer. Is it still then possible that the TRUE knowledge of God and Heaven exists in the 50% that you do not, nor ever will have? What if that knowledge exists in 1%? Or even less? Does the fact that you have not found it negate it's existance? Or the possibility of it's existance?
How do I know there is a God? You just have to believe....... That last remark is what really bugs me about religion. You just have to believe. What are we believing in? are we believing the priest that there is a God? How does HE know?? He believed a different priest and here is how the telephone game starts. You start out saying "oh Ted has a funny face", and it ends up as "Green books taste like toe jam!" There is no credibility. Religion is worse! It has gone on for thousands of years!

Interestingly enough, Rabinnical Priests have been copying the scriptures for over 4000 years letter for letter. The text's have not changed at all. How do we know this? If you learn anything about Hebrew religion, you will understand how meticulous the process is. But what is MORE revealing is the fact that the dead sea scrolls, which contain the book of Isiah, have been dated to be thousands of years old, and are still grammatically and docterinely exactly the same as the modern day Old Testament. This is confirmed by the secular acheologists as well as the religious.

The ancient greeks would have sworn on their lives that there were really manticores, cyclopses and chimeras, but no we know they don't exist.

We have not even dug up 10% of the earths fossils. I'm not saying the Minotaur was a real animal, but if you consider the bizzare and downright outlandish creatures that genuinely existed eons ago, and HAVE been dug up, is it really so hard to believe that some dudes long ago had to deal with "dragons/dinosaurs" or Minotaurs/bullmen-like creatures?

And the same thing happens with christians and angels. maybe they don't see them as frequently, but they believe.

As God as my witness, I have actually witnessed what could only be described as an Angel. I was not asleep, I was not on drugs, and I was not alone. I was in my parents room, kneeling on top of my sleeping bag. I felt a touch on my back from hands. I turned around and saw a being which shone like the sun, in a pure white light, though it cast no light in the room I was in. It had visable robes around it. I couldn't make out facial features, though it did have a head, and over all was shaped like a human. The light, though extremely bright, did not hurt my eyes. It was kneeling at the foot of my sleeping bag. I stared at it for at least 20 seconds trying to figure out what I was seeing. Strangely enough, as a young person plagued with nightmares, I felt no fear whatsoever at what I saw. Infact, the lack of fear I felt was perhaps the stangest thing of the entire experience. I turned aside to grab my mother and tell her what I was seeing, and in that instant, this "being" was gone. This experience was as real as me sitting here typing this post. And how am I meant to explain this? Am I meant to lie to myself and say I didn't see it? Should I tell myself I was dreaming? Should I tell myself I was hallucinating? All I know is that at a young age, I witnessed a being that I cannot explain by any conventional means. Infact, if you can provide evidence of some widely known phenomena of this sort that I am unaware of, please do so. I'll hear you out. But here's how I put it together:

I felt physical touch.

I saw a being which had the body of a human, but glowed with an unexplainable light.

I felt no fear whatsoever.

It eventually vanished.

If you can think of a better explination than "It was an Angel", I'd be willing to hear you out.

If there really is a god, then the bibles MUST be false. This is a quote I got off of comedy central (tv) and i think it is true while funny.

Of course, popular media has never done anything to influence the minds of the masses. It's never tried to cloak it's agenda in humor and fun. And everything on TV is true and makes sense.


"The bible says God doesn't want me to do my sister, but it also says that adam and eve created all humanity and if they had kids, there would be no one else for them to do! Someone had to bang their sister."

Actually, you will not find anywhere in the Bible where God instructs us not to do our sisters. He does tell us not to have sex outside of marriage. He also tells us to have common sense. If thousands of years ago genetics were pure enough that breeding within families would actually PREVENT outside abnormalities, then I'm sure people of that time decided inter-family marriage was the way to go. But if over time, people began to see mutations forming from interfamily breeding, than naturally, people would probably steer clear of it.

I might have forgotten some stuff, but I am tired and it's like midnight here so if you Christians want to attack me now, go ahead, I'm sure there is plenty of stuff in there for you to find holes in, but once you point them out to me, I WILL fill hem in.


I really hope you do not see my post here as any sort of an attack. I will not preach to you. I will however, discuss the subject/topic at hand with you. I'm sorry if Christians have attacked you before regarding this sort of thing. But you know, the Muslims have been getting a bad rap for suicide boimbings lately. But If you go to a mosque and talk to one, you'll find nothing but peace in them. Of course, all that we ever hear about are the extremists.....kinda like Christianity eh? I guess a few bad apples do spoil the bunch. And that's a very sad thing that we all can't just leave our prejudices behind. But I want you to know I do not wish to attack you in any way. All I want to do is to provide explinations or ideas that you may habe not considered, and of course, tell my side of things, and the way I see it.

Anyways, I had a good time responding to your post. I look forward to see how this topic develops in the days to come!

Welcome Benazir to the UM forum.

I am not sure of what you are trying to say with that post.

Even when the knowledge might benefit you in your belief in the Christian God?

Ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is power and it will set you free.

Ok, before any of you religious people come in here and start saying how I'm going to go to hell, and turned into salt or whatever, read this WHOLE thing.
(Some of the things I say here may have been posted in replies to other topics)

I believe that God is completely made up. Throughout many thousands of years and civilizations all over the globe, societies have had a God or gods. This is because they have no better explanation for misunderstood things. "There was an earthquake!!! God is angry!" "Our crops grew tall this year!!! God is pleased!" "This lady woke up from a coma!!! It's a miracle, God saved her!" And so with the common belief that god controls everything we have accepted his rule and everything he does is right. "My grandma dies!!! God did that for a reason!" and so on.

The reason that civilization made God or gods was to keep everyone in line. So many more people would resist stealing and murdering if they thought they would go to hell if they did so. Everyone would be a better person if they thought they would go to heaven for it. God was created to help people stick together and prosper. And I don't think it was a bad thing! Society might not have advanced past what middle eastern poor people have now if they didn't make it, so it was a great idea to conjure that illusion up!

And isn't it convenient that there is no way of proving any of this stuff. Is there a heaven, only the dead know. Is there a god, same answer. How do I know there is a God? You just have to believe....... That last remark is what really bugs me about religion. You just have to believe. What are we believing in? are we believing the priest that there is a God? How does HE know?? He believed a different priest and here is how the telephone game starts. You start out saying "oh Ted has a funny face", and it ends up as "Green books taste like toe jam!" There is no credibility. Religion is worse! It has gone on for thousands of years!

The ancient greeks would have sworn on their lives that there were really manticores, cyclopses and chimeras, but no we know they don't exist. And the same thing happens with christians and angels. maybe they don't see them as frequently, but they believe. If there really is a god, then the bibles MUST be false. This is a quote I got off of comedy central (tv) and i think it is true while funny. I'm not sure it is really a quote though because I don't remember it word for word. "The bible says God doesn't want me to do my sister, but it also says that adam and eve created all humanity and if they had kids, there would be no one else for them to do! Someone had to bang their sister."

I might have forgotten some stuff, but I am tired and it's like midnight here so if you Christians want to attack me now, go ahead, I'm sure there is plenty of stuff in there for you to find holes in, but once you point them out to me, I WILL fill them in.

Yes, because its something I'm not comfortable getting involved with.

Knowledge is power, but I don't like those who are in power too much these days. The act of decieving those who don't know any better is poor responsibility of power. The muslims are being fooled and America is being fooled. The clerics pay money to families if their fathers or children go out and blow someone up along with themselves. They say this is for the will of allah, but its really for more power. America is being fooled by gas prices, in my opinion. Bad things happen, wars and hurricanes. You mean to tell me the U.S. government wasn't prepared for those kind of circumstances. We knew there was oil in Iraq and we knew Hurricanes hit the Gulf of Mexico. So why are the prices so high? And then they lower the prices by say thirty cents and everybody is happy again, paying $30.00 for a tank of gas instead of $35.00. I bet the oil companies are making quite a lot of money, I wonder who is in charge??? Boy, were we fooled. I guess that goes with the everyday life of the common man.

God bless

WE get our Bible from the original Bible that was written by VERY Holy men of God

Maybe you're right, maybe I got steamed. What if I told you that you should stop being athiest because it seems that your belief has holes in it, wouldn't you take that as an advance on ones position of belief. In this forum we are all free to stand on whatever side of belief as we want without the pressure to change because of our posts.
I apologize for getting steamed, its just that I am so used to people taking gut shots at my position of belief that anytime some tells me that, "perhaps I should drop Christianity," I can get a little edgy. That is borderline for me, because its not saying that Christianity has flaws, its saying you should drop it because it has flaws. I saw no error in my beliefs and hope I have clarified my position.

As far as respect goes, you have mine. So that you know where I stand on respect, when a man starts treating other men with less respect than is expected of any man; out of the prideness of his heart, that man is less than a man to me. I don't think you would care, but the only way to get respect is to give it.

again I apologize for the fireworks, it was a little out of season. Just please watch it when it comes to telling me what I should maybe do with my religion. I know what I should do and I do. I stand by my God through everything, even death.

God bless

ah becky's mom,

now there is no good, no bad, no, evil. these are all value judgements and are a matter of perspective. perhaps the best def of a god is it is a value judgement based on perspective. for just like good, evil, right, wrong, et al, they do not exist outside of the thoughts of those that utilize such constructs.

You seriously need to study the history of your bible, the bible you study is based on a very poor translation of the Greek that is a translation of the Hebrew. Your bible was originally written by YHWHist priests either while in the Babylonian Exile or after the return from the Exile. Moses did not write any of the books of the OT...Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were probably not the authors of the gospels, Daniel is an pseudepigrapha, etc. It was not inspired Holy men that wrote your bible, but men desperately trying to please the Persian King in order to have a modicum of freedom.

Yes, because its something I'm not comfortable getting involved with.

Knowledge is power, but I don't like those who are in power too much these days. The act of decieving those who don't know any better is poor responsibility of power. The muslims are being fooled and America is being fooled. The clerics pay money to families if their fathers or children go out and blow someone up along with themselves. They say this is for the will of allah, but its really for more power. America is being fooled by gas prices, in my opinion. Bad things happen, wars and hurricanes. You mean to tell me the U.S. government wasn't prepared for those kind of circumstances. We knew there was oil in Iraq and we knew Hurricanes hit the Gulf of Mexico. So why are the prices so high? And then they lower the prices by say thirty cents and everybody is happy again, paying $30.00 for a tank of gas instead of $35.00. I bet the oil companies are making quite a lot of money, I wonder who is in charge??? Boy, were we fooled. I guess that goes with the everyday life of the common man.

God bless

Then you can never be found....I feel sad for you.

blue.

On challenging me: fire away! I welcome anything anybody has to throw at me. For me, if it can not withstand scrutiny, how strong is it? (but be certian you know what my perspective is first. it is a little more complicated than saying just "atheist").

On respect: i understand your perspective. for me, respect is something you recieve as a product of your efforts. However, there is also a basic level of respect granted to everything for just being "what it is".

The limitations of the forum allow for misunderstandings to occur rather easily. I never mean anything to be personal unless explicitly stated. We are discussing ideas, afterall. Unfortunately, sometimes ideas are too closely tied to our sense of self that we take it as personal.

On changining people's beliefs: that is not my intention. My intention is to spark thought. I have said before on the forum that to truly find what is your beliefs you have to first abandon everything you hold true and then search for what is true to you. If you end up back where you started then you know it that it is true to you and you will have a fuller understanding of it. No matter where you end up, your belief will be rounded by the understanding of it from other perspectives. Diversity is the key to everything. Perhaps a couple of my old signature quotes best explain this.

No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.
--John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

When all the world recognizes beauty as beauty, this in itself is ugliness.
When all the world recognizes good as good, this in itself is evil.
- Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching -

Knowledge is power, but I don't like those who are in power too much these days. The act of decieving those who don't know any better is poor responsibility of power. The muslims are being fooled and America is being fooled. The clerics pay money to families if their fathers or children go out and blow someone up along with themselves. They say this is for the will of allah, but its really for more power. America is being fooled by gas prices, in my opinion. Bad things happen, wars and hurricanes. You mean to tell me the U.S. government wasn't prepared for those kind of circumstances. We knew there was oil in Iraq and we knew Hurricanes hit the Gulf of Mexico. So why are the prices so high? And then they lower the prices by say thirty cents and everybody is happy again, paying $30.00 for a tank of gas instead of $35.00. I bet the oil companies are making quite a lot of money, I wonder who is in charge??? Boy, were we fooled. I guess that goes with the everyday life of the common man.

God bless

is this the same bluefinger that said he was not interested in learning about any belief structures other than christianity?

Paganism doesn't make sense to me, because if there were so many gods, wouldn't we have seen them by now.

Pride is the killer of men. Feel sad for yourself.

You've seen god?
Really?
You know what he looks like and everything?
Holy crap!

Pharoahs believed they were gods or of gods and the people believed them.
Kings have said they rule by divine right, however wrongly...
And as to Achilles, well, stories are told of heroes and heroes are often considered god-chosen and the like...

yeah?

No i havn't seen God, but when has anyone seen him directly?