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I see it is only non believers like myself who will feel the wrath?
Which Bible by the way?
I understood the first one had a special reward for non believers like me?
Or do you mean the second one that clearly states the that nothing from the first was to be left undone?
hora, yes she is a real missionary (going to the far flung corenrs of the world spreadign the word of God). She is also the pastor of an evangelical church (in wales, so not quite so far flung). I'm not dreadfully comfortable with this but it's her life and, frankly, if it keeps her happy, fit and with a young outlook on life who am I to complain - the people she preaches to can always say 'no thanks').
she also does a lot of work in getting aid to people who need it for a variety of reasons (which I applaud her for).
I am certainly no more biggoted than the average christian. I've never stopped someone in the street to inform them I was righteous, and they were damned because of their beliefs. I dont think homosexuals are an abomination, I dont think Islam is a religion of hate, I believe that the theory of evolution should be taught in schools.............
The average Christian has probably never done any of those things either.
One religion (sect) that I do like is Sufism. It just seems so majestic, poetic, beautiful and full of love.
Your beliefs should be ranked alongside my belief in the tooth fairy and you should expect to be ridiculed for them as I would be.
Why does your invisible friend demand more respect than my fairy?
My sister is just going to train as a vicar BUT she doesn't try to hard to convert people and she can see both sdies of an argument so i reckon she'll make a great vicar.
The aspect of religion I dislike is the guilt and fear they try and lay on you if you don't believe.
I'll help raise an army to stand alongside Surfer in devotion to the tooth fairy
The average Christian has probably never done any of those things either.
Based on personal experience I strongly disagree. If the "average christian" has never done those things then the new breed is making up for them tenfold.
Your beliefs should be ranked alongside my belief in the tooth fairy and you should expect to be ridiculed for them as I would be.Why does your invisible friend demand more respect than my fairy?
Do you hold a deep conviction that the tooth fairy is real?
Hora, My Fairysist views should be respected.
I also agree that the Fairies exist surfer. I have seen them with my own god-given eyes (Allah be praised). I have seen many of them around the river that floweth through Manchester. Many many a fairy.
Mike do you mean do I hold a deluded conviction that cant be quantified and is supported by no evidence. No I dont my conviction to Fairysism is short lived.
However "what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence"
Hora their is only one true Wirral Fairy, You are worshiping a false fairy. This will end in tears
The irony of this thread is palpable - the amount of preaching going on, on both sides is ironic.
Think about it like this - it takes AS MUCH faith, to believe in the non-existence of God (and his/her prophets etc) as it does to believe in them.
There is as much anti-religous proselytization as there is religious proselytization going on here.
My vote is still up for grabs though so keep at it. I was an atheist, but now I'm not so sure.
Aaah I see the insults have started, thanks. Ok surfer, I'll do you a deal, I will listen to whatever you have to say about the tooth fairy, no problem. Go ahead, please enlighten me. And I'm not being sarcastic.
You can ridicule me too, no problem. Whatya got next?
What do you mean by the first and second bible by the way?
Based on personal experience I strongly disagree. If the "average christian" has never done those things then the new breed is making up for them tenfold.
Based on my experience of lions, their natural habitat is in a fenced in area of parkland. There may be loads of other lions that I've not seen, however.
Perhaps you need to widen your experience of Christians? The last vicar of the church closest to my work married his long-term partner Malcolm a years or two ago. I've never asked him his opinion of Islam or evolution, but he's never ranted about them.
Jeez.. organised religion winds me up!
It wound Jesus up too...is that what you meant? 🙄
GNARGNAR
Your view is based on personel experience, I thought there was more to it than you were letting on. Come on now tell us all what it is from your past that makes you hate Christians invading your space (should that be conscience) you'll feel better. And we can then feel empathy but not blaim those Christians not involved.
I'm not ridiculing you Rob.
We both know i dont believe in Fairies but my children did when they lost teeth. i am ridiculing religion however.
Think about it like this - it takes AS MUCH faith, to believe in the non-existence of God (and his/her prophets etc) as it does to believe in them
Does that mean i need a faith to NOT believe that Elvis lives, that the world is indeed flat and that it is only 6000 years old? Faith is belief with no evidence. I am a busy man considering all of the things that I dont believe in!
Surfer, everyone has a fairy within him (or her, usually him though). My fairy talks to me, gives me strong conviction when descending through rock gardens, allowing me to walk/lower my bike down confidently.
We share the same Fairism, beleive me. Only in some, Fairism is stronger.
There is as much anti-religous proselytization as there is religious proselytization going on here.
That's exactly the way it has to be.
I'll stop preaching atheism (and I'm not being ironic with the word 'preach' I'm more than comfortable wit it and I don't agree that it is an oxymoron to preach atheisism) when organised religion stops their preaching.
I'll stop my policy of actively seeking to convert the religious to atheism when they take a similar stance. But that's not going to happen unfortunately.
Does that mean i need a faith to NOT believe that Elvis lives, that the world is indeed flat and that it is only 6000 years old? Faith is belief with no evidence. I am a busy man considering all of the things that I dont believe in!
Have you personally verified the age of the world, or did you believe someone else who did so? You'd be a busy man finding evidence for all the things that you believe in.
we have a stair fairy in my house.
I place some items at the foot fo the stairs and they magically find their way upstairs to where I was going to put them.
the stair fairy only seems to work when my wife is in the house though.
I'll stop my policy of actively seeking to convert the religious to atheism when they take a similar stance.
How active are you being? May I suggest Tehran as a starting point? There are loads of theists there for you to convert to atheism.
😉
The sacred Bicycle is my religion. How many of us/you worship at the church of muddy singletrack of a sunday morning, and use it as a way to clear your head, or right a few wrongs of the day
that almost smacks of going into a mosque to convert people.
I'm very much for each to thier own, but please dont come and try and inflict it on me.
and the god-botherers are the worst offenders of this imo.
i now live in fear of jehovas :$, and have missed more than one bike related parcel because i go and check out the upstairs window who is at the door before answering (we were getting them everyday at one point :'( and im too nice to tell them to ROD OFF)
This thread can only end badly.
there's no mileage to be had by trying to convince each other of the "rightness" of each other's faith/lack of faith.
Jihad, it's the only way, nickc.
Mind you, I've seen more vitriol in a Marin thread...
i now live in fear of jehovas :$, and have missed more than one bike related parcel because i go and check out the upstairs window who is at the door before answering (we were getting them everyday at one point :'( and im too nice to tell them to ROD OFF)
MTFU and just say "no thank you" before closing the door. Jeez.
because we dont have explanations for everything doesnt mean we should believe in imaginary gods, your god is just a god of the gaps!
Have you personally verified the age of the world, or did you believe someone else who did so?
No, the best evidence to date is available in peer reviewed articles that get picked over and altered as new evidence becomes available.
The key difference is that science is our current best evaluaion and open to alteration as new facts / methods / understanding emerge. Religion is set and immutable and has to be accepted with out any qualification.
SSP
Faith is belief with no evidence.
Exactly - there is as little evidence for the existence of God (discounting of course the various anthropic principles, which are less religious in content and more philosophical) as there is evidence for the non-existence of God.
To illustrate the point - other than simply saying 'twas ever thus' or using Occam's Razor, give me proof that God does not exist.
If you spend some time thinking about it (I don't mean that as a jibe, I mean it as a serious suggestion), it does makes sense. Or then again, maybe it doesn't...
Oh and Mark - quite agree there should always be a debate. I was merely observing the irony.
In the old days Christians were hard ****s. Taking Crusades to foreign lands. Bringing freedom to Jerusalem. Now its a ****in football song.
Where did it all go wrong?
I start asking the JW's questions they can't possibly answer. Stops them bothering other people as I take up all their time. It's a service I provide for free. Thank you. 🙂
Religion is set and immutable and has to be accepted with out any qualification
Not true. I know two CofE vicars (both called David, but that's not really relevant) who have very different beliefs about the nature of God and the Bible.
Geetee
Its ironic that those that believe the most outrageous and unprovable tales are treated with the utmost respect. Faith is seen as a virtue!
Its also ridiculous that beacause the existence of god cannot be proved or disproved the likelihood of his existence is 50:50.
Use the same analogy with fairies?
Posted this many times before, but to me. This talks to me:
[i]I tried to find Him on the Christian cross, but He was not there; I went to the Temple of the Hindus and to the old pagodas, but I could not find a trace of Him anywhere.
I searched on the mountains and in the valleys but neither in the heights nor in the depths was I able to find Him. I went to the Caaba in Mecca, but He was not there either.
I questioned the scholars and philosophers but He was beyond their understanding.
I then looked into my heart and it was there where He dwelled that I saw Him; He was nowhere else to be found.[/i]
__________________________________________________________________________
[i]Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, Sufi, or zen.
Not any religion or cultural system.
I am not from the East or the West,
not out of the ocean or up from the ground,
not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all.
I do not exist, am not an entity of this world or next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story.
My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless.
Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one
and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner,
only that breath breathing human being.[/i]
I'd kind of forgotten how IT forums are.
Hey you know what? I just thanked God for this discussion, you can thank someone else if you want. Why? Well, at least we CAN discuss this openly. I hear of too many places where this sort of discussion, and even more so the practice of my faith, could land me (and others) in jail/tortured/killed etc.
Did I mention my new bike arrives tomorrow? ;-D
Mike isnt that because the bible can interpreted by one person to detest homosexuals and by another to love everybody equally.
Not much of a moral instruction manual is it?
it takes AS MUCH faith, to believe in the non-existence of God (and his/her prophets etc) as it does to believe in them.
What complete b.......s!
My belief in the non-existence in god (note the lowercase 'g') is based entirely on the lack of evidence for the counter belief. And the use of the word 'belief' is not hypocritical in this debate from an atheist either.. That's another utterly rubbish argument from the religious that's frequently trotted out.
Atheism is not defined by lack of belief. I believe in lots of things. I also have faith in many things too. I just have no 'faith' in any kind of religion because I 'believe' there is no evidence for it.
I 'Believe' there is no god. I have 'faith' in my convictions in this as the evidence I have examined and that which has been presented to me does not support the theory of a 'god'. It appears that I can be thankful for my right to try and convince others of this, which I choose to do so only because religious types take up their right to try and convert me. If they stopped, so would I.
"Exactly - there is as little evidence for the existence of God (discounting of course the various anthropic principles, which are less religious in content and more philosophical) as there is evidence for the non-existence of God."
As Bertrand Russell pointed out, you can't prove that there isn't a teapot orbiting the earth right now...
even more so the practice of my faith, could land me (and others) in jail/tortured/killed etc.
...or the practice of the [b]wrong[/b] faith 🙁
As Bertrand Russell pointed out, you can't prove that there isn't a teapot orbiting the earth right now...
I wondered where my teapot had gone!
Oh, and Buddhism is not a religion as it lacks a god, creation story, do's and don't's etc... It is a philosophy and open to personal inspection and alteration according to the individual.
SSP
Exactly. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff that happens to Christians in other countries. Not just the obvious ones either, ones which you may have been on holiday too.
And then, one Tuesday, over two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change there was a big argument on STW.
Most if not all religions are based on being nice to each other but they always have and probably always will be used by unscrupulous people to further their own aims so much so that a lot of the general public want nothing to do with any of them.
I'm not a very religeous person but I have a CoE background, Mark has some noteable points other than that thers a lot of crap being talked which I'm not even going to try to contradict with one or two exceptions. Religeous groups DO help those in trouble like the homeless and alcholics, charitable acts (targeting the vulnerable the cynics will say) that try to help the helpless. Yes Catholic church tells people not to use condoms it could be argued that causes a lot of deaths (HIV infection etc) but they also say don't shag around. The 2 go hand in hand really dont they, both together (or neither) actually makes sense.
Religions not for everybody but it helps a lot of people with their lives and anyone with a passion for something likes company, I certainly try to spread the word of mountain biking.
Religion...good idea on the whole, not always well executed.
IMO