Would you still believe this about, say, Buddhism? This may be tangential to pc's point, but not all religion is about invisible people in the sky and earning your way to heaven. It seems like when people negatively talk about "religion" they are referring to Catholics and Middle-Eastern terrorists.
Honestly, I think people just overreact because Christianity's been shoved down their throats, and find the crazy right-wingers to be annoying. I can sympathize with both frustrations. I just don't see the point of making a target out of someone who's got their own approach to looking at God simply for the fact he's rejected religion without becoming an atheist. I consider myself a Christian, but I reject a lot of things other Christians consider essential to the religion, and enjoy reading Dawkins and Hitchens for many of the same reasons atheists do. Personally, what I find annoying is the black and white debate that you're either 100 percent Christian or atheist and there's no in-between. Most people have nuances to their beliefs and giving them the opportunity to speak about them before you've pidgeonholed them into a stock-character of the "opposing side" is generally much more enlightening for both discussion participants.
Somehow, Christians having nuanced opinions about their religion comes off to me as an attempt to make excuses and read things into their Book that aren't there.
religion |riˈlijən| noun the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods Still a religion, guy.
My knowledge of Buddhism is limited to what we learned in a world religions class I took years ago, so I'm not sure I'm familiar enough with it to form an opinion one way or another. IIRC the original teachings of the Buddha were diluted over the years with all sorts of ridiculous, supernatural concepts introduced by other people, so it also depends on what you mean when you say Buddhism. In any case, yeah, it's true that there exist religions that do not follow the classic 'magical man in the sky' template, but I think it's safe to say that people that subscribe to such belief systems are a minority on the global level.
Seems like we're mostly in the same boat. I think that, if there is a God, there's no way he has a checklist or karma system that measures qualitatively how you earn any sort of after life privileges. I also don't really believe that God directly intervenes in every single person's life, and that said intervention is directly proportional to each person's level of devotion. If there's a God, I think he caused the "big bang" and then let nature take its course. The issue of Jesus is trickier ... there was obviously a historical person, but it's hard for me to take a stance either way. If he was just some deranged dude, I think it's remarkable the following and affect on human history he was able to have. If he was truly the son of God or any type of supernatural being, I find it strange that it wouldn't be more definitive as far as eye-witness accounts, being easier to believe and follow, etc. In any case, my point here is that (for example) creationism and evolution are not mutually exclusive, nor are religion and science.
Invoking a deity in order to explain a natural phenomenon is a fundamental contradiction of the scientific method.
I said IF there is a God, he probably doesn't directly judge everyone the way most Christian sects state that he does. I'm not saying "God exists and here's proof", I'm just saying that the big bang theory (for example) doesn't rule out the existence of God.
Believe it or not, being aware (or, pretending to be aware) of scientific consensus does not make you a genius, or even any more intelligent than anyone else for that matter. I'm not saying you act that way, but the general condescension and belittlement many atheists act out (like TAA) is no better than the same coming from a Christian, and gives you all a bad name.
I'm just saying it's fundamentally incorrect to insert a god into a scientific explanation, and then claim "science and religion can work together." People can believe whatever the hell they want, but it's not scientific to have an untestable, unobservable, unfalsifiable entity hanging out in one's hypothesis.
Thousands of years ago, people didn't understand lightning and were frightened by it, and attributed it as a direct act of God. Nowadays, of course, we know that lightning is little more than a sudden release of electrons due to a potential difference that has built up in the atmosphere. Hundreds of years ago, people struggled to comprehend how life as complex and diverse as the one we observe around us could have possibly developed without the guiding hand of some sort of intelligent deity. Nowadays, we are aware of Darwin's theory of evolution by means of natural selection. Thus, as humanity learns more and more about our surroundings and the cosmos, God seems to be pushed further and further away, and is reduced from some force that directly intervenes in peoples lives, to some sort of vague supernatural concept conveniently defined in such a way that it isn't empircaly testable. Saying that God may have possibly been behind the big bang is nothing more than a classic example of the God-of-the-gaps fallacy (as was the case with lightning, diversity of life, and countless other phenomena), where any unknown in our universe still not fully understood immediately has God substituted as a potential explanation for it (only to be later potentially removed as we learn more about our universe). Also, saying that religion and science are compatible is only true under very specific circumstances where one chooses to try and define God in a very specific way that makes God not subject to scrutiny on the basis of evidence. As perpetual change is very keen to repeat in this thread, there exist many views on religion with many nuances, and many of these nuances are simply not compatible with science and contradict otherwise irrefutable evidence. Ultimately, though, science and religion are at odds because, while both make grand claims about the universe, only science uses a method to obtain knowledge that is actually proven to work. Science collects evidence, and then builds hypotheses and theories that explain this evidence. Religion works in direct contradiction by first establishing a hypothesis, and then desperately seeking to find evidence or justification for why this hypothesis may be true. You cannot possibly argue that these two completely opposite approaches are in any way compatible with one another.
TAA makes some incredibly sound points, like him or not. Tristan, to be all like "IT'S JUST A POEM LOLZ" is retarded. You KNOW that he meant to stir up controversy with it all, and don't act like you don't. This whole video and the controversy surrounding it is fucking retarded. Fuck, I hate Christianity so fucking much.
If you aren't taking a shot at him, why quote him or even make this post at all? I would also be careful in assuming you know where people are coming from in terms of intelligence/involvement with science. I do think atheists are terrible at PR. At least a large subset of the vocal atheists is. It's a shame because being antagonizing is not conducive to changing someone's mind.
No truly intelligent atheist really ever says there isn't one. They're aware that there always exists the possibility of a higher dimensional being that has no cross section in the 3/4 that we perceive... However, it 100% absolutely is not and will not ever be the one of any religious or mythological text. Sorry though, the God of the bible literally has a zero % chance of existing.
The god of the bible, Yahweh, COULD exist, but I am absolutely certain that the bible is completely inaccurate as to the things he said/did
You need to read Dawkins' The God Delusion, if you haven't already. He clearly explains why you can only be one or the other.
Cannot. He cannot exist as described, nor would anything he "did" have happened. So if a god that created the world did exist, it still wouldn't be him.
idk there's people in ancient Greece who didn't know shit about the universe but thought that gods couldn't be interfering with it based on the nature of the gods. (eg Epicureans) I'm not an expert, but I have a feeling religion hasn't been this homogeneous, and that God-of-the-gaps is attacking a straw man. I am skeptical of people who boil down complex histories into broad trends!
Not sure what this has to do with anything, considering I was addressing Taco Tuesday's very specific point of 'we don't know how the big bang happened, so god maybe'.
oh ok. I should probably read better. Although I also think the "pre-big bang" gap is one that will never go away. It'll just get pushed back further and further. I'm not sure which side that's a problem for.
I don't agree with that at all. Creationists have a much bigger problem on their hands since they have to explain the existence of a hyper-complex, intelligent being (which then proceeded to create the universe). From a materialistic viewpoint, all we have to explain is the existence of the universe, which is a far simpler thing to explain, and there have been very great strides in doing this over the last decade or two.
There could be a god named Yahweh, who created the heavens and the earth. It's possible. You know I'm a hardcore atheist and even I believe that. Do I think he exists? Fuck no. Do I know for sure? Fuck no. Neither do you.
This is the same old argument we (and many other people) have ALL THE TIME. God is, by definition, super-natural. Let's say for argument's sake that the God of the Bible does in fact exist exactly as described. Several aspects of this God would contradict things that we know from science. What possible "proof" could be presented to you that you would willingly admit proves God versus hallucinations, improper observation, etc? I completely agree that science is provable and religion is not, and that this makes science 1000x more practical to guide our ethics, laws, and efforts of exploration. Maybe we're just in a semantic trap here, but I don't see what's wrong with postulating that a God caused the big bang. Is it practical or provable? No. But it's not "impossible" or ridiculous. Burden of proof much higher for this versus 100% natural explanations? Absolutely. If this had been posted in the "Female Facebook Statuses" thread and people said "lol", then whatever. The fact that someone felt the need to construct a 14-minute counter-argument is completely insane to me. It's like taking the famous "Footprints" poem and then breaking it down line-by-line like "why would the narrator not recognize that the sole pair of footprints are God-sized and not human-sized? How would a God with no physical body even leave footprints? This poem is fucking retarded, lol religion." Like I said earlier, the video guy and all of the people enjoying it should (in my opinion) be encouraged for starting to reject the tenants of organized religion, even though they're doing so in a specifically-marketed talking-point fashion. Honestly, people getting so angry about it seem like atheist hipsters, as if they need to prove that "these people aren't REALLY rejecting religion, look at how they're doing it wrong compare to us true atheists!" Who fucking cares?
Ha, yeah we should never analyze and dissect anything ever, man. I mean, what's the point? But seriously, TAA made a lot of amazing points in that video and regardless of how long it is, that point remains.[/quote] "Atheist hipsters" is the dumbest fucking term I've ever heard. And in fact, trying to say you can praise god without religion is like trying to say you can have sex without touching somebody. Literally.
I just watched video in the OP and my first thought was "define your terms" because I didn't really know what he meant by religion. The trendy editing and sort-of-rapping annoyed me. (What does "getting faded" mean? Kids these days!) I think he meant the political/organization/power struggley side, as opposed to the sincere personal relationship with Jesus side. In which case I agree with him to an extent. Churches/cathedrals are hella cool. I like them. I don't like how TAA guy swears. Also I don't think Jesus burned in hell.
Yahweh is the god of the bible, the god of Christianity. You're splitting hairs here. You knew what I meant.
Fair enough I can get behind most of this post. However, since there's so much that we can agree on, then I have to ask, why postulate or consider a God in the first place? It's completely unnecessary by Occam's razor and if you're going to draw up arbitrary supernatural explanations, you might as well also consider all sorts of other possibilities, like cosmic unicorns that secrete universes, alien intelligences from parallel worlds, etc. In other words, just because something isn't 'impossible' or can't be proven to be wrong outright doesn't mean that it should necessarily be given any serious consideration. As for your question, I think there was quite a bit of discussion on this exact topic in a thread started by Technetium a while back. In any case, I believe the general consensus amongst the board atheists (myself included) is that no personal experience or amount of evidence, however extraordinary, could be truly convincing. This is merely a consequence of the fact that atheism is nothing more than a position of skepticism. Of course, if an all-powerful, all-knowing God truly does exists, then he/she/it would hypothetically know exactly what to do to convince me and overcome my extreme skepticism (otherwise he/she/it wouldn't really be all-powerful), even though my mind is too feeble to come up with an example.
@ diss: yeah, TAA made a lot of "amazing" points ... about how the poem is not intellectually sound when viewed through a critical semantic lens. Good for him. @ Nikth: I fully admit that the duel biases of 1) being raised with religion and 2) being very depressed about the eventuality of dying lead me to seek a way for God or an afterlife or a "purpose" to exist despite a bevy of reasons to believe otherwise. Outside of having hope for life beyond what we know, I don't think there are many practical reasons to become concerned with religion. I think a lot of teachings in the Bible (and other religions texts) can lead to a positive life, but I don't think you need to succumb 100% to Christianity or any other religion in order to be a positive contributor to society or even just a "good person".
The only thing that would be the same would be its name. Nothing about it would make it the same god. Seriously, just stop. The "god of Christianity" is a spiteful dick, and cannot exist.
This is my biggest thing. Being raised Christian isn't even a reason. I was raised Christian and my entire family is Christian. But since there is nothing that points to any of this being true the mere fact that it "could" be true holds absolutely no weight whatsoever. There have been scores of religions and the same can be said for most of them. How is this any different in any way? Seems unbelievably silly.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46160046/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/#.TyK9Mvk8CSo take a guess which side is more Jesus-like...
Finally getting around to seeing the great posts everyone has made and wanted to add my 50 cents. I agree. There is a whole domain of study about this called the Philosophy of Science (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science). No matter what you are studying, there will always be a belief system behind it and associated with it and the people studying in their respective sciences will always approach the question/hypothesis, experiment and methods used in their research with a certain set of beliefs, assumptions and suppositions. Theories fall in the same category. Essentially, those who approach their scientific experiments and observations with the assumption that there is no God will generally put forth a hypothesis that supports that belief. Ditto for those that believe that there is one or more supreme being(s). If the results showed something other than what they believe to be factual, they will generally discard the evidence that does not support what they believe to be fact and will postulate another hypothesis that will fit with what they believe has already been proven as fact; however, if what has been believed to be factual is in fact false, the science devoted to solving the question will result in an endless cycle of repeated failures at wholly answering the question, kind of like a hamster running on a wheel. Question - do you believe that a research project devoted to seeing if it is possible to find geological evidence for a global flood account, as reported in the bible as well as other writings from various ancient cultures of the world, would be funded by any science foundation or university? Or would there be any funding for an archeological project devoted to locating the chariots of Egypt in the Red Sea? (http://www.arkdiscovery.com/red_sea_crossing.htm) I agree that there are many people from the “religious” community that approach their work in this manner of “establishing a hypothesis, and then desperately seeking to find evidence or justification for why the hypothesis may be true”, but I disagree that it is “Science that collects evidence, and then builds hypotheses and theories that explain this evidence”. In fact, it is men that do this, and the tools that all men use are found in scientific/mathematical principles. Therefore, all men whether “religious” or atheist/agnostic will fall into the same category when they do research. What it really boils down to is that humans are flawed. Sometimes we think we have it all figured out when in fact we don’t. It doesn’t matter whether your an atheist/agnostic doing research or a creationist doing research you will still fall under the category of a human trying to figure out a complex problem or question for which you will make certain assumptions and suppositions. In addition you will use certain methods or mathematical equations that are frequently based upon one or more assumptions. Also, your hypothesis will be based upon beliefs in things that are considered to be facts based upon your own beliefs about the world. If you obtain results that don’t seem to support your hypothesis, you will tend to approach the problem by revising the hypothesis to another that fits with the already assumed “facts”, or you will throw out the results because of some reason that you might find that could be a problem, or maybe you will tweak some aspect of the experiment/methodology to try and deal with the problem. In any case, if the supposed/assumed “facts” are incorrect or the assumptions and hypothesis are incorrect you still will find it difficult to really address the question/problem. To top it off, you might find that you will loose your funding or will get tossed out of the university if you try to publish something that goes against the “established facts”. I think the reason boils down to the issues that are discussed in the following link: http://www.toughquestionsanswered.org/2011/12/30/what-are-four-things-science-will-never-explain/ You might also want to check out this link as well: http://www.toughquestionsanswered.org/2012/01/19/why-dont-atheists-want-there-to-be-a-god/ Back to the OP video - relationship vs “religion”. I think that wobog hit the nail on the head when he posted the following in response to TacoTuesday about who should care about the OP video: I agree. In most instances it is organized religion that cares. These wicked “religious” leaders under the influence of fallen spirits proceed to define who and what God is and then they want to control people’s “relationship” with God by being the “mediator” between man and God and will many times collect indulgences for this service. Therefore, any rational man rejects this type of scenario and then many times rejects the God which that religious system is supposed to represent. This happens because most can’t seem to separate between the “religion” presented by those that claim to represent God and God himself based upon what he says about himself, especially as it relates to judaism and christianity, i.e. the God of the bible. Essentially, man always botches things up. The bible talks a lot about this subject of “religion” vs “relationship” and when the relationship with God is missing from the religion, God will eventually judge that system. For example, Jesus/Yeshua under the control of God/YHWH actually pronounces judgment upon the Jewish religious system and the temple in Jerusalem for representing God falsely before those that they were leading (Matthew 23-24:2). History reveals clearly the physical destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by the Romans. In addition, the destruction occurred just as prophesied by Yeshua in Matthew 24:1-2, not one stone was left upon the other because the Romans even dug up the foundation stones to get to the gold that had melted down the walls of the temple due to fire. Take note, there is another destruction of a religious system as well as a political system that is prophesied to occur. These prophecies are primarily found in the bible books of Daniel and Revelation. If you want to get the gist of these prophecies watch these two videos: Back to the OP video, it is this concept of a true relationship with God vs the “religion” that is supposed to represent him that the person in the video is trying to explain in a simple poetic manner. As a matter of fact the video is so simplified, that it sounds silly to those that don’t understand the “relationship” with God part. Unfortunately, most believers in the bible that have found the “relationship” part with God are rarely ever given an opportunity to speak. They generally are shut out or ignored in the public forum being viewed as religious fanatics and they are typically told to shut up and get out of many religious forms (especially churches) because they don’t fit within the standard dogma of that “religion”. In either case, they are viewed as a strange bunch and typically shut out by the followers of the secular or religious “powers that be”. Some of you have expressed the opinion that there might be a God, but that it certainly would not be the God of the bible. I disagree with this and hope that you will allow me the opportunity to try and clarify some of the huge misconceptions about a relationship with the God of the bible, without appearing to be spammy. My response to you is that I completely understand what you are saying. This is exactly what I experienced. Just a bit about myself - I started out as an agnostic/atheist. What I mean by that is that I did not believe in God because I could not see any evidence for him, i.e. I did not have a “relationship” with him, and yet I was not sure whether there was a God or not. As a teen, I began to go to various christian churches. I found the people in these churches to be weird, mean, and illogical. I always felt like they were putting me down because I did not view things the way that they did (I was a great sinner), yet they could never seem to answer any of my questions. I suppose that they wanted me to sit in the pews for years and that at some point all of it would make sense to me, but I did not see any purpose in doing this year after year and I eventually left. Yet, I kept praying to the God of the bible, which at that time was only known to me as God and Jesus. I also noticed that the world was not making sense to me either, just like “religion” was not making any sense. I kept praying and asking God to help me with this confusion, which lead me to read the book of Revelation. This book did not make any sense to me either, so I started trying to understand it by doing research on the Internet. As time went on, I could see that what was being taught in all of the christian churches I had attended did not match what was in the bible. This discovery caused me to dig further into many topics, while always referring to the bible at the same time. Below I will discuss what God has taught me. First, I will discuss how to approach/view God and his “word” the Scriptures. Next, I will look at what it means to have a true “relationship” either with God or a person. Finally, I will look at what it means to have a “relationship” with other created things or beings, which God calls idolotry. Perhaps, you will find some answers in these discussions, which all have to do with “relationship” vs “religion”. What I have learned about the bible and the God of the bible: He (YHWH) expects to be taken serious since he sees himself as the “I AM” and he expects people to follow his commandments found in the Scriptures. For me, I have found that if I view the bible in as literal of an interpretation as I am able without spiritualizing too much that the Scriptures make sense. When I say literal, I also mean that I try to view the writing for what it was intended from the authors’ perspective. This means I try to see the purpose of the writing. Essentially, I try to take the bible’s historical writings as history, prophetical writings as prophecy (a fore-knowledge of events), poetical writings as poetry, testimonial accounts as testimony, genealogical recordings as a writing about genealogies, instructions about how to be wise as something like a catechism, the law as the law of God for man, etc. Also, I always try to distinguish between when the author is a man and when the author is YHWH who is using a man as his vessel to pass information. In most instances in the Tanakh (Old Testament) if YHWH is speaking the author will indicate that based upon his testimony about his experiences with YHWH. In the New Testament this information is also found by the authors when they describe their experiences with God before giving the message or explaining the understanding that they came to. Sometimes it takes a little work to understand these things because the bible is written by so many authors (men with different personalities and historical contexts) and yet they are all discussing something about YHWH and his son in relation to man and his existence. Taking this approach has lead me to study all sorts of topics and knowledge domains using both the bible and texts written by other men to verify what I believe I am understanding from the bible. I have found that when it comes to history and prophecy the bible seems to document historical events accurately and seems to document future events (from when the prophecies were written) accurately as far as those things that have now become history, although you generally won’t find this information presented in the textbooks designed to train the masses or the religious writings by the “religious” experts of today because the “powers that be” don’t want people to find out the truth. To me the Scriptures are like an instruction manual for man given by the creator to many people over a period of time, i.e. there is historical congruence. This is unlike many religions that base their doctrines upon one man’s teachings that pops up at some point in history and then dies or stagnates. This is why I look to the Scriptures to define most things, even when I don’t completely understand why or how. Some would call this circular reasoning (the bible validating the bible), but it is no different than when a designer creates a computer, lets say, and then writes the instruction manual on it. The person trying to understand how that specific computer works would not go to any other source of information about how that computer works except to the designer’s instruction manual. They might refer to other books on how computers generally work, but when it comes to that specific computer, they would go to the designer’s instruction manual. This is exactly what I have experienced with the Scriptures with regard to history and prophecies as well as for information to solve problems in my own life and those I interact with. For example, I can see that the bible gives certain historical information both through documented historical books as well as written prophecies and then I can see that history (written by men) and archeology (discovered by men) backs up most of the information found in the bible. The haze of confusion always seems to lift as I unravel the lies that are put forth by the “powers that be”. I also have found this pattern to be true in other areas that I have studied, like biblical economics (how to deal with money in a good way or a bad way as defined in the Scriptures) vs the economical precepts put forth today, which violate biblical economic principles in most cases (maybe why we are in such a mess) and issues about man’s nature and existence (how to live right and how to believe about oneself in relation to God and others as defined in the bible) vs the psychological/philosophical concepts of today, which are sometimes correct and sometimes flawed according to biblical principles. All of the things I have studied in depth always seem to demonstrate to me that the bible is true when read at face value. This is why I now feel that the bible is like an instruction manual for mankind about every topic under the sun and my relationship with the God of the bible has grown stronger as I have come to this conclusion. What I have learned about true relationships: To have a true healthy relationship with someone (referring to God or man) requires two components. First, you must “know” them. When I say know them I am talking about in a very intimate way, like a husband and wife are supposed to know each other. When I use the term “know” I mean know what they like and what they don’t like, know what they look like and feel like, and know what they would do and not do. This means “knowing” their mind (what they think), knowing their will (what they would want to do or not do), and knowing their emotions (what they feel or would feel if something happened). Essentially, this means knowing them in spirit (the invisible part of a person that makes that person unique), in soul (their mind, will and emotions), and in body (their physical body that you can physically touch - in human terms). The second thing required to have a true healthy relationship with a person or with God requires love. To experience true love the relationship must be built upon trust by knowing one another and by putting the other person ahead of yourself. Trust is a difficult thing to find in our modern world, because so many relationships are not built upon trust, but rather on an exchange of goods and services. Many men are known for wanting sex, cooking and cleaning from their wives or girlfriends in exchange for money and things, while many women are know for being gold diggers by men in exchange for sex and company. In these relationships, the couples mutually use one another to get what each of them wants. In some relationships only one person is the user while the other person finds himself/herself being used by the other person. This usually results in the used person being continually hurt by the user. These sort of relationships do not demonstrate true love, rather it is a business relationship, not much different than the way that prostitution works. Maybe the best description about what I am trying to say could be seen when a woman functions like a courtesan and the man that pays for the courtesan typically says to himself “she makes me feel good and has what I need, so I am willing to buy her things as long as she gives me what I want”. Unfortunately, many wives “play” this role with their husbands and relationships like this are generally lacking in fulfillment and almost always fail in the long run, because the relationship is built upon selfishness and one or both parties using the other, which kills trust and love. When this concept is applied to “religion”, as defined by the OP video, we have a person trying to have a “relationship” with “God” to see what s/he can get from God. In reality, religion sets up an “image of god” and says it is God and so the true relationship between God and man is killed. “Religion” is about jumping through hoops to get something in return, like going to heaven/being saved/obtaining an afterlife/thinking of oneself as a good person, etc. In reality it is a “pretend” relationship with God sort of like a courtesan is to a wealthy man. In all “pretend” relationships the parties never really get to know one another because the relationship is viewed by one or both parties as an exchange. Of course, since it is an exchange of good and/or services if one or both don’t fulfill the expected exchange then the relationship will usually end. So, if the woman is a gold digger and the man does not fulfill everything she expects, she will usually drop him. On the other hand, if the man sees his woman simply for his use (to meet all of his needs), then the man will usually drop the woman if she does not meet his expectations. In either case, trust and love are violated. God feels this way too, when we don’t want to “know” him we just want to use him for what we can get. He says in Proverbs 8:17 "I love those who love me; And those who diligently seek me will find me. What does it take to “know” God? Jesus/Yeshua tells us in John 14:21 "He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him." And what are his commandments? They can be found in numerous places such as Exodus 20:1-17. The gist of all this is that if we follow the commandments of God, then we will have a healthy relationship with God. In addition, because we have a healthy relationship with God and follow his commandment we then will also have a healthy relationship with all people, especially if they reciprocate, many of his commandments have to do with how we treat other people. This discussion is summed up in Mark 12:28-34 as Jesus answers a question put to him by a “religious” scribe. One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, "What commandment is the foremost of all?" Jesus answered, "The foremost is, 'HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.' "The second is this, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' There is no other commandment greater than these." The scribe said to Him, "Right, Teacher; You have truly stated that HE IS ONE, AND THERE IS NO ONE ELSE BESIDES HIM; AND TO LOVE HIM WITH ALL THE HEART AND WITH ALL THE UNDERSTANDING AND WITH ALL THE STRENGTH, AND TO LOVE ONE'S NEIGHBOR AS HIMSELF, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, He said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." Notice that the “religious” leader understood the commandments, but was unable to apply them in real life because he did not have “relationship” with God. What I have learned about idolatry: According to the bible a false “religion” is created and set up in a person’s mind any time that they have a false view of God’s nature or character and then make that “image” become God in their mind, i.e. they think they “know” God or know the way to God or perfection, but they don’t. For those that don’t want to believe in a God at all, the god “image” set up in their minds becomes man himself and/or man’s wisdom, i.e. that man and man’s logic, science, technology, etc. will answer all questions about life if given enough time. In other words, man becomes like god - the sin of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:5). This is why many christians say that atheism is a religion, because the biblical way to define the word “God” and/or Lord in the generic sense, is to view it from the perspective of what one considers supreme and/or serves and what one worships (sets his thoughts/meditations on and devotes his time and/or energy toward). The Scriptures also talk about other spiritual beings that God created. Some of these spirit beings rebelled against God and his order of things. Specifically, the leader of the rebellion against God was satan (a perfectly created being that fell), who is also found in the Eden story and called the serpent (Genesis 3). These fallen spirit beings work to create idolatry in man’s mind by perverting man’s understanding about God and his character so that the “relationship” with God will be destroyed. They also like to act in place of God (a false idol of God), so that man ends up worshipping satan and his fallen spirits instead of the true God/Creator of the universe, whether those people know it or not. In all cases, “religion” in the sense of the OP video is idolatry created as a result of man being deceived (willingly or unwillingly) by these fallen spirits, since God only desires a true “relationship” and “religion” as discussed earlier imposes a false relationship with a false God and a false path to God and to perfection/eternal life. Most religions in existence today have actually been created through a union between fallen spirits and man. The relationship created between these fallen spirits and man is similar to the user type of relationship described above except it is between man and these spirits rather than two people. In this case, man typically wants something like wealth, control, power, knowledge, or spiritual gifts, while satan and his fallen spirits want to gain control over man and the earth in rebellion towards God. Those who are deeply in the occult have many times completely sold their souls to satan in exchange for one or more of theses worldly gifts. Others end up in the occult because they are deceived into thinking that these fallen spirits are good/helpful spirits. In either case those that are involved are taken further from the true God through their idolatry with these fallen spirits and ultimately they receive condemnation and death, according to the Scriptures. Some religions teach that man is reaching perfection through an evolutionary process, but I see no evidence of that idea at all. To me the real test as to whether or not man is becoming more perfected or “like God” has to do with whether he dies or not. So far I have not seen any one miss out on physical death, not even Jesus/Yeshua, although according to the Scriptures he then rose from death to become the first of those that will receive everlasting life. There is a great example in the bible about a king that thought he was god. It is found in Ezekiel 28. In this story you find that the king of Tyre, the man, (Ezekiel 28:1-10) is condemned to die by God through the hand of strangers. At this time the king of Tyre will realize that he is not god as his enemies kill him and show him that he must suffer death as all men do. Incidentally, this prophecy (when it was spoken by Ezekiel) is now history and actually happened as recorded in the prophecy. Then, in Ezekiel 28:11-19, we see another judgment against the “king of Tyre” by God, but in this case you will see that these words are being spoken to the serpent found in Eden although he is called the “king of Tyre”. This sort of thing in the bible can be explained when a man becomes possessed by one or more fallen spirits, which can happen in an instance of time and last for a short or long period of time. (Note: Ever wonder why many serial killers and people with multiple personality disorders seem to have gaps of missing time, time that they can’t remember - demonic possession may be why). In the case we are discussing the king of Tyre was possessed by the serpent, which is satan himself, and as the king of Tyre died (the man) so will the serpent (satan) be brought down by God, although the second part of the prophecy, that part to satan, has not come to pass yet. We see this theme carried forward into the New Testament when Jesus says to Peter “Get behind Me Satan!”, in Matthew 16:23, in response to Peter’s attempts to convince Jesus that he must not suffer all of the things that Jesus was telling his disciples he must suffer, i.e. he must not die on the cross. We also see this in relation to Judas Iscariot in John 13:27, when Judas betrays Jesus. I think my explanations above are quite sufficient as to why, but it is my personal feeling that if you don’t want to have a “relationship” with God, then don’t bother considering about it at all because you will never truly find him if you don’t want him. I would not want to be around anyone that didn’t like me either. As for those that do want a relationship with him, I hope that you will respect their position to do so and not attack those that want to have an intelligent discussion about the topic. Finally, this section is for those that struggle with the bible not fitting in with the current scientific views on cosmology and other such topics. I personally have chosen to wait and see what information will be coming forth. Even though I don’t have all of my scientific questions answered at this time, I am not going to reject the God of the bible. The reason why I feel this way has to do with the fact that everything else that I have researched thus far using biblical and non-biblical sources, like history, prophecy, economics, philosophy and psychology (things that tend to be more measurable and obvious) the biblical perspective seems to be correct and reasonable to me. For example, I have repeatedly found during my historical research while using non-biblical sources that there will generally be information pushed forth by the religious “powers that be” as well as information that is pushed forth by the political “powers that be” thus reflecting differing opinions and positions. When this happens I believe that these “powers that be” are protecting their positions of control. Generally, somewhere in between both positions lies the truth and the truth generally lines up with biblical history, prophecies and/or precepts and many times the bible even documents these political and religious power struggles and/or secret motives. It is in digging through the lies found in some secular as well as some religious writings that one usually finds the truth, but this can take some time. Because of this consistent pattern that I have found, I have decided that even though I don’t understand all of the scientific aspects of Genesis, for example, the other knowledge domains line up so clearly to me that I will wait and see what comes out as more discussion between the conflicting camps is revealed. In addition, one should consider that most of the artifacts of human history are under the control of the religious and political “powers that be”. For example, many religious and historical records are stored at the Vatican for which there is limited access, many archeological artifacts are stored at the Smithsonian Institute (??http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread144899/pg7), and much of our scientific equipment is stored in universities and government institutions (do a search on NASA and Project Paperclip to see where many of the NASA scientists came from). It is my belief that both the religious “powers that be” and the political “powers that be” know more of the truth than we do, but that they don’t generally release the information (except strategically) because if they did they would loose their control over the non-illuminated or the uninitiated. I believe that when these wicked systems are finally brought down by God (using men), as prophesied, we will probably find out a lot that has been kept hidden for thousands of years. Also, I have learned that man is quite limited in his ability to truly research the origins of the universe. As was stated earlier by NikTh, most of our research is being done on the physical/material world for which only about 10% of our existence is based. The rest of the 90% has not even been touched upon by the scientists. I am sure that researching the other 90% could take eons. As for God, he has all eternity to complete his plans (as documented in the Scriptures) while we only have a small snippet of existence in time (in our current state) to see and experience his great work. This means that man is quite limited on all fronts. Finally, the most important reason of all why I don’t reject the bible and the God of the bible over scientific debates against the Scriptures is because I fundamentally accept that there is no way that I can know or prove all that the universe contains. I can’t even begin to know even a small fraction of what is contained in the universe through out time. To attempt to do so would mean that I myself am setting myself up as if I am the judge and final authority over all knowledge as to whether it is right or wrong - a mini god of knowledge. I would be expecting God to prove himself to me, just because I say so and if he doesn’t, then I won’t believe in him. This is kind of like a criminal that goes before a judge and demands that the judge prove to him that he has the right to judge him and that if he doesn’t prove that he can be judge then the criminal won’t believe that the judge or sentence that he gave is real. The criminal can demand that the judge prove that he is qualified to be the judge and that the sentence he obtained from the judge was correct all day long, but that does not change the fact that he is the judge and was placed there by some authority and can, therefore, determine the sentence of the criminal. This is how it is with the TRUE GOD. He won’t prove himself to anyone unless he chooses to and generally he only shows himself to those he has relationship with or those that he judges. Having this attitude has allowed me to follow him and as I have followed him I have learned to trust him. It has taken me some time to build this intimate relationship that I have with God as I try to “know” him, but I have found that in spite of the fact that I don’t “know” him perfectly he has never let me down during the most difficult times in my life. Best of wishes to all truth seekers. For additional information concerning the connections between the “powers that be”, see the following links which document some connections between the political, religious and spiritual “powers that be”: http://one-evil.org/acts_holocaust/acts_vatican_holocaust.htm. http://www.cuttingedge.org/n1040.html http://www.cuttingedge.org/News/n1538.cfm
in other slightly older news http://richarddawkins.net/articles/641891-lab-yeast-make-evolutionary-leap-to-multicellularity And yes, i know, that the foreskin craving god could have put in place the rules for "dead matter" to become proteins, and for proteins to associate with each other, and for unicellular to evolve into multicellular life forms, and so on.
Glad you all are enjoying the interesting read. Clarification on idolatry. Idolatry can happen with things and beings (both in the physical and spiritual realms). Also, idolatry occurs in various places within our being including our physical body, soul (mind, will, and emotions) and our spirit (conscience, sub-conscience, and un-conscience) aspects of our being. Idolatry with a fallen spirit being can result in super-natural occurrences such as astral projection, sex magick, clairvoyance and levitation.
That was the worst, most bullshit post I've ever read on this forum. Fucking A. Also, Argument by verbosity much?
