Religion

[LaBlueGirl]

has anyone read the bible ?

Yes.

My mom went through her holy-roller phase, which lasted about 10 years.

I've won Bible verse memorization contests, been to Bible summer camps, an Awana member and attended church at least 3 times a week, as well as door to door witnessing.

I've read KJV Bible as well as the Catholic Bible.

Ok, so I guess all that shit I just wrotye equals a 'Yes', doesn't it..

[LaBlueGirl]

humans that were witnesses.Humans back then were too stupid to come up with something fake

While this could be true (all our opinions are equally valid, we have no proof otherwise), see if you can find anything on The 1st Council of Nicea, as held by Constantine.
Then, you can find also how Constantine needed control of the Church to control the Roman Empire.

The Bible text itself was written by man, albeit supposedly with Divine influence.

Personally, IMHO, humans have a tendency to corrupt things.
So if the Bible really is a divine work, I think (as history shows us) its message has been perverted through the ages.

[LaBlueGirl]

Proving that Jesus existed wouldn't prove much other than that..

Christianity started off as a cult...
Has no one else come to this conclusion?

That may be true....

I believe when the Jews were exiled by the Babylonians, and came into contact with Persian culture (i.e. Zoroastrianism), Christianity underwent a fairly radical shift...

There were religions way before Christianity(BC)...

You're right, but as soon as I read this, I thought:
Grr... Fire... Good....Rahhh...

And Christianity was a new thing. So..with this said..why is it that people would like to assume that Christianity is the "right" religion? People had their own beliefs before Christianity...and it wasn't accepted immediately.

And that's one of the many fundamental issues with Christianity.
Ppl assume it is the right religion b/c the Bible says so!!!!

Pagan deities had been around for *ages*.
They allowed you to drink, "fornicate", do what you wanted.
So what ancient person in their right-thinking mind wants a god who says to turn the other cheek with a list of 10 guidelines?

People have many interpretations of the bible. And, times have changed.
So..with new times, new religion?
Well..
At one time, Christianity didn't exist...then the times changed, and it did. I think now is the time where we should all be smart enough to know what's "right".

Well, what do you personally think is right?
I'm not trying to argue with you, I promise.
Just curious to hear your take on this....

Alien says that they were too stupid to make up something fake. Well..there's MUCH evidence of great intelligence Before Christ. Maybe those were just a few..so then, a few were smart..and the rest were too stupid to know right from wrong so a book had to be written to teach the people in a way they could understand.

Well, the Bible has been translated into text-msg speak, so who knows what the future may bring!

BTW:
Judaism preceeds Christianity...

Religion should fit you, not the other way around. It's your life, after all.
JuggaloMushroom is saying, basically, that things happened..and now we're here and we should just make the best of it...I agree with this.
I also agree with Neo130, also..
"Religion sucks imo.... =/

Why does people need to have an answer for everything? if they can't find a logical answer they make one up?"

Yeah..what people have turned religion into, sucks. And though truth and knowledge is an important part of life, we already have a foundation of knowledge and some truth to live off of..so why must people dwell on this question of "who created us"? People have used religion as an excuse to kill, and for war....

For some ppl, it gives them a meaning to their life and existence in general.
If I know I'll go to heaven when I die, all my sufferings here will be rewarded. So it makes enduring things like the loss of a child, tsunami's, hurricanes, plagues etc more bearable.

There is a Divine Creator "out there" who will listen to my fervent prayers.
I may not always get the answer I'd like, so there must be a lesson in it for me somewhere.

I am loved by God, even if no one on this earth gives a shit about me.

Religion as an excuse to kill (aside from historical facts, I mean) reminds me of our modern-day religion we kill for:
Oil/Money/Democracy.

I don't believe the religions themselves suck, I believe it is the people who interpret it who are doing the sucking, heh.

It's crap, and it's not moving forward. History is repeating itself because people are people, and the majority are still living by guidelines in a book written mannnyy years ago. If people don't believe in evolution as a beginning..then I think they could at least realize that it's the future.

Take it as you will...you will, anyway.


And..here's a question for Christians:
Honestly, why would it be so hard to believe that maybe God created the earth...which set things in motion for evolution? Why couldn't God have created evolution? Do you deny evolution as a fact, or just as a beginning?

Be. Grow.

S'what I proposed to one of my Phil prof's a long time ago:
What if God did create the world, but 7 days in God-time isn't 7 days in *our* time.

[Necrix]

@LBG:
I put "right' in quotation marks because everyone has their own view of what's right. And, I was saying that by now, we have enough viewpoints(from everyone as individuals and from religions) to decide by ourselves what's "right"...or at least..as a basis for what's right.

There are new issues coming up constantly, and this is where we evolve our beliefs and make decisions.

By religions way before Christianity, I was referring to the Pagan religions.

By smart people..I refer to all of the mathematicians, philosophers, and many many others of people who specialized in things. People weren't too dumb to lie or make up anything. Hell..look at how Rome flourished before Christianity? That wasn't because people during those times were stupid.

LaBlueGirl
For some ppl, it gives them a meaning to their life and existence in general.
If I know I'll go to heaven when I die, all my sufferings here will be rewarded. So it makes enduring things like the loss of a child, tsunami's, hurricanes, plagues etc more bearable.

There is a Divine Creator "out there" who will listen to my fervent prayers.
I may not always get the answer I'd like, so there must be a lesson in it for me somewhere.

I am loved by God, even if no one on this earth gives a shit about me.

Religion as an excuse to kill (aside from historical facts, I mean) reminds me of our modern-day religion we kill for:
Oil/Money/Democracy.

I don't believe the religions themselves suck, I believe it is the people who interpret it who are doing the sucking, heh.

Well then..isn't there the thought of life after yours? I mean..for me, the possibility that the only life after yours is your kid's...would give me plenty enough reason.
I don't plan on having kids but I care about the earth and future generations...and I plan to make as big of an impact on this world as I can...such a goal is plenty enough for me.
Some people would rather look to God for all of their troubles..I would rather learn as much as I can to fix them without a divine intervention. I like to know things, and I don't like to rely on others and HOPE things go well. I prefer to work with others for a purpose and do my best to help things.

When it comes to existing religions..I do prefer the Pagan ones over the Christian religions. I haven't chosen one because I don't feel a need to. Yeah..I believe in a Goddess and a God but that doesn't necessarily mean that I think of them as physical beings. But..honestly, I'd rather not get into this ^__^

[sherlock]

Athiest are ignorants

[shamir]

I'am a Athiest what say about Athiest

[bad_brain]

I'm an atheist too.....
judging people by religion is ignorance....

[Stavros]

shellshock
-1 on your Troll-Fu.

There are two kinds of atheists.

1) The kind that reject religion because the believe it to be hip (which seems to be the case in most teenagers).

2) The kind that have thought through and reasoned that it is not possible for a god or gods to logically exist.

The people I despise are the theists and atheists that wear their belief (or non-belief) on their sleeve and believe everyone should believe what they believe.

Personally, religion (or lack there of) is a personal choice and should be kept to oneself. Even the Bible states that:

Matthew 5:6
5"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Found these verses through www.biblegateway.com.
It's the New International Version, by the way.

Also: Please take note of the date the last post was posted.

[shamir]

man create god in there own image
all the gods are the same there is no god

[computathug]

when i was at school (ahem ...quite sometime ago) i took religion and history as some of my subjects (the reason i mention history will become apparent shortly) and had to read the scripts from different religions( the bible, the koran etc) and found most religions disregarding voodoo more or less tell the same stories but in different words and different ideals but similar never the less. Agood example of this would be say 2 different television channels running soap operahs usually have basically the same story lines but with different people.

i was brought up church of england but was born catholic which from a young age made me question WHY or HOW can things views change over time, which is where i question again how has religion been used and and how it has been passed to others to make it probably so far away from truth.

this i believe is where history comes into it!

religion is at the top of a list along with laws which were introduced from the earliest days of civillisation which have been used to control man for as long as we have been able to prove for dating back to the first civillization that we know of which at the time was called mesopatamia which i think is now changed with borders etc and is iraq syria and maybe other neighbouring areas.

as time has passed dictatators or leaders as they might be known have manipulated and used religion to get what they want for there own gains. which is why laws were written - so only the rich and powerful could break them.

so now i dont question religion or even other people's religion or beliefs as i believe we live in a society where we are brainwashed into beliefs and this goes through all religions. religion is a form of power.

now im not saying i dont believe in any religion just not in any particular one but im also not saying that there is no higher entity as somethings are never explainable and never will be probably for e.g the bermuda triangle.so really i wouldnt like to say what i am religiously labelled as.

because of this reason i generally wont get into these subjects as we are all arguing over what we have been told with no real evidence except that maybe someone or some people (i say some as there is no reason that there wernt more than one person sent to prepare mankind and direct us on the way of life as it is now through stages of time).

when and only when religion and politics are put aside then mankind can sit at a table and decide and work out what is best for people, communities and then can we help make the world a better place all together.

[shamir]

Numbers 31:1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

31:2 Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people.

Reason
31:16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.
(They were Pagans & also God had created the plague)

31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

31:18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

[bubzuru]

the Bible has been translated into text-msg speak

id love to see that

[BluePass]

Ah, the bible, my favorite topic. Did I ever read the bible? No. Did I ever start to? Yes. I stopped at about the first chapter of Genesis...

"And God said, 'Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.' So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse 'sky.'"

I'm sorry but there's a little too much evidence that beyond the sky is not water. In fact if you get outside of the Earth's atmosphere there's pretty much... nothing. The reason the people who wrote the bible thought it was so, is because the sky is blue during the day (unless it's cloudy, of course), which resembles water. But science has proven long time ago why the sky is blue, and videos taken outside the Earth's atmopshere also prove that the bible is wrong.

I think that people are always in look for answers as to why certain things happen and become very creative. Look at Greek mythology for example. Doesn't that look at all similar to the bible? The idea that whenever there's a thunderstorm outside it's not an electric discharge that takes place, but it's an angry god looking to punish people by throwing lightning at them. And that the sound that you hear after seeing the lightning is his chariot riding through the sky. Come on!

I'm not an atheist, don't get me wrong. I don't walk around trying to convince people that religion is nothing but a load of crap. It's their problem what they believe. But I like to believe in something that has been proven, rather than in someone's imagination. Most people simply can't accept that when you die you just simply die and there's no second life. Maybe if they did they'd make the best out of this life, but let's not get into that. I celebrate Christmas and Easter like any Christian, but not because of its religious meaning, just because it's a holiday like all the others.

I have my own little theory, which is that religion -- the whole variety of them -- is nothing more than present day mythology. It's just that it seemed to have been able to run much longer than Greek mythology, possibly, because it has spread all around the world. I'm wondering, if ever, how long will it take for people to realize that they believe in a fictional character?

[rambo]

Im atheist, and believe in some aspects of buddhism as its a belief not a religion.

[BluePass]

I'm aware of Buddhism and I don't consider it a religion either.