So, do you?
Yes. My family is Christian, but we're Assyrian so we are our own form of Christianity. At least my family isn't like those crazy catholics who go around yelling at people if they aren't Christian. We follow the old traditions of Christianity before there were different kinds of it since Assyrians were the first to start converting to Christianity. We still believe in science and all that, and many of us do believe that there are different kinds of life, but we do believe that God is always watching. A good example of this is that my mother wouldn't allow me to sign up for the MarsOne trip not because of religious reasons, but because she doesn't want me to go die like that even though I'm fine with it. She's iffy about humans going out to space because we don't really know what's out there and she understands that there is a lot of shit out there, but isn't all that "oh the lord would let us travel through space if we were suppose to!". Even my uncle who's a decan at our Assyrian church is the same way. We're realist christians, but we still follow the old ways of praying and what not because it's who we are. An example of this is that we don't have crosses with Jesus on them.
Now when it comes to other people I really don't care what you believe in as long as it isn't something fucked up like sacrificing people or you pushing your believes onto me or other people. A good chunk of my friends are atheist or egnostic and we all respect each others beliefs. I respect what other people believe, but it's really annoying when you tell someone you believe in God and some fedora wearing neck beard atheist says "kek ur dum".
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"...neck beard atheist says "kek ur dum""
XD At least you have humor!
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I know its a joke (albeit not very funny), but atheism is not a religion, neither does it have any belief system.
No divine meaning does not have to be meaningless, who decides what is anyway?
Big bang isnt just "le random happening".
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Shhhh! Don't tell them that. Their whole world might collapse.
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Why do you say there is no God and how did you come to that conclusion.
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@kybaig: I say there is no reason to belive in god since there isnt a single piece of evidence of said gods existance.
No, god not having been disproven does not equal a good reason, or you might as well start beliving in allah, shiva, the flying spagetthi monster, pokemon, unicorns, superman or any other fantasy being too.
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"there isnt a single piece of evidence of said gods existance"
I'm sure you will provide us the source of your claim.
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How am i supposed to show what does not exist?
Also: I am not the one claiming that a god exists, it is whoever claims a god exist's job to prove it.
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I was referring to your claim that " there isnt a single piece of evidence of said gods existance."
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Yes, i can't point towards any evidence because i know of no such evidence.
If you can show me even a single piece of evidence, at least the "there isnt a single piece" would obviously not be true anymore.
(Note that you will become world-famous if you can actually provide reliable evidence for the existance of a god. It would be kinda cool. I still wouldnt follow a god that could let so much go wrong in the world, but that is not really relevant to this discussion.)
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If you don't know of any evidence then how can you claim that your statement is true.
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Because i dont know of any evidence. You are either not understanding or you are just saying random crap just for the sake of arguing.
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Maybe you should stop making absolute statements then.
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Way to just ignore everything ive just said. I said that there isnt a single piece of good evidence (if even any at all) that a god exists. I've yet to see or hear about any such evidence. You and whoever else wants to are of course free to show me that evidence. I am not the one who claims a god exists, so i am not the one with the burden of proof. Otherwise you have no reason not to believe in unicorns, pokemon, superman or whatever either.
Are we done here or are you going to countinue to dodge the subject and act like you dont understand? (If you actually don't understand there is no reason to countinue either, because i have explained it the best i can, and i doubt it can even be explained better.)
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You made the statement "there isnt a single piece of evidence of said gods existance.", I was saying that since you are so sure maybe you should provide an example when making such absolute statements.
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Yes, i said that there isnt a single piece of evidence. How am i supposed to point to...hm.
Here is the amount of evidence that exists for a god existing:
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"I still wouldnt follow a god that could let so much go wrong in the world"
You are saying that your judgement and values are superior to those of an omnipotent being?
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Seeing how much suffering and such there is in the world today, if that god could do anything to stop it, but chose not to, then Yes, i would definately consider my judgement and values to be better than an omnipotent being.
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How can you say that you have superior judgement to that of God, considering that God created everything wouldn't God be a better judge than you?
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So if a god said it is right to rape young girls and murder their mothers, would you think that is right because of that?
(No, i am not saying any religion claims a god said that, at least not that i know of, this is a "what if" question.)
Would you not have a single question as to why an omnipotent god would not stop natural disasters or such suffering that is inflicted on people? Even if it was the most devout person ever, who never did a single thing wrong in their whole life?
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I would question, but it is hard to answer your first question because there is still a lot of vagueness in it.
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It is not vauge at all. Would you or would you not accept any wievs made by a supposed "omnipotent" being, even if those views said that it (for example) is not a bad thing to rape people just because that being is omnipotent?
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It is vague in the sense in what scenario is your first question happening, I mean to say is this taking place in a scenario where it's considered bad?
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Ok, let me try to word it like this: Would you change your views if they where different from an omnipotent beings views, no matter the subject?
For example: If said omnipotent being said it is good to rape people, would you also accept and adopt that view no matter what, just because an omnipotent being said so? (I assume you do not think it is good to rape people.)
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If it was certain it was from God, then I suppose so.
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I have two answers for this:
And you see no problem with that? Seriously?
Am i right that you would hold the view that (for example) rape is a good thing, if a god told you so?
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I think I should elaborate further, the reason for me accepting it in your "what if" scenario is that our values and culture and way of life are constantly changing and evolving, what was considered good or bad before may not be the same today, and the same for the present in the case that it may not be so in the future.
So I think it would wiser to listen to God rather than your current slice of time (by slice of time I mean the current culture, values, way of life etc).
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Would you maybe tell me an example of a situation where rape would possibly not be a bad thing?
My current slice of life is what is affecting me, to think about how people may think in the future or how they might have thought in the past is meaningless and does not say anything about the validity of such thoughts either.
God or no god, i cant imagine any world where rape would be something positive, it doesn't matter if it is a governments law that says it is, or if it is an omnipotent being.
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I can't really say because it was your "what if" scenario.
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How am I supposed to answer your question exactly? You presented my with a "what if" scenario and followings its basis I told you what I thought of it. I don't know in which cases it could be good because said scenario has not happened and I have not been told.
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So if you cant see a way where rape would be a good thing, why would you accept that view just because an omnipotent being was the one to tell you to?
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Which is nonsensical. Just because a value was different in the past, doesnt mean it was ever a good value.
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Sorry if I was not clear, but that is what I was trying to say when I said that values change. That what is good before may not be good now.
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I know there is actually a church of the flying spaghetti monster, it's one of the funniest jokes ever! (Especially since most religious people don't seem to get it.)
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Simple, because there's no logical evidence that anyone can show me to make me believe there's an invisible man in the sky who hates me unless i believe in him and pray to him and who will send me to an eternity of pain and suffering no matter how much of a good person i'v been throughout my life simply because i did not believe in him. I'm sure you can relate to me ways in which you think he interferes with your everyday life and guides you but i'm not really interested. This all started with you trying to mock people who don't believe, despite the fact that as far as i can see in this thread things have been pretty civil and people have just expressed opinions.
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"who hates me unless i believe in him and pray to him and who will send me to an eternity of pain and suffering no matter how much of a good person i'v been throughout my life simply because i did not believe in him"
I'm sure you will cite sources that support your claim.
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Yes, christian beliefs, i'd quote the Bible but i'v never read it and have no intention to, i get the gist of it. Are you denying that Christians believe that atheists and people of any other religion but them will go to hell simply because they refuse to believe? Cuz i know i'v heard that in church most of my childhood. Hell they teach it in religion class in school as well over here.
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It would be helpful if you could cite the particular verses.
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@kinja: Eh, im sure their wall of delusions is big enough to handle it ;)
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There actually is another theory which states that there never was Big Bang, but instead the universe has always existed. Let me see if I can find a link to it. I found it very interesting and thought provoking.
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Good that you say that, because i want to clear up something else (not to you, to the others): The Big Bang is not fully proven yet, and might never be, but that doesnt mean beliving a god did it is a valid alternative. (It's not an alternative at all actually, since it creates more questions than it would answer, like who created god, or when did god come to be.)
The big bang theory (theory, not a hypothesis) is a good one, but it probably will change to a greater or lesser extent sometime.
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Can't find the link and I have to leave for now. I'll look into it more when I get back.
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You also said that atheism does not have a belief system, so does that mean atheists believe in God too?
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Atheism is only the lack of a belief in whatever god is up for question. A christian is most likely atheist to all the other religions gods.
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Since atheism is a total rejection of ALL Gods, a Christian can't be can't be an atheist since they believe in a God.
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No. Atheism is only a rejection of all gods if the question is "do you belive in all gods?".
A christian isnt a "total" atheist, but they are most likely atheist when it comes to for example allah.
It should be said though that the definitions sometimes differ a little bit, but that does not change what i just explained.
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Definition of ATHEISM
a : a disbelief in the existence of deity
b : the doctrine that there is no deity
atheism
noun
-
the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
-
disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
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"doctrine", wut? There is no doctrine in atheism.
This website explains a lot of different definitions of atheism and what atheism is (and what it is not), i think it will be helpful to clear up any misunderstandings you might have on the subject: http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Atheism
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You totally ignored my reply as usual i see. Do you even need me if you are just going to ignore everything i say anyway?
Write a book or something: "The story of a common man: The monolouge". Could be a hit.
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I don't know what you are talking about, you said that Christians are atheists too and i refuted by providing the definition of the word.
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You are ignoring what i write AND you are putting words into my mouth. I said that christians are most likely atheist when it comes to for example allah.
I also explained that there are a lot of conflicting definitions of atheism, i also provided a link that explains most (if not all) of those definitions, but since you seem to ignore everything else i am saying, i'm not suprised.
Here is the link again: http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Atheism
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Except that you are wrong, Christians or Muslims would be "monotheists"
monotheism
oun mono·the·ism \ˈmä-nə-(ˌ)thē-ˌi-zəm\
: the belief that there is only one God
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And thus they are atheist when it comes to the other ones god, that is a christian would be atheist when it comes to allah and a muslim would be atheist when it comes to the christian god.
I have not said anything else.
Stop pointing out faults that do not exist.
(And i do know christians and muslims are monotheists, that is the point.)
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Then why did you not use that word in the first place? We have different words for different things.
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Because i was not talking about that. And words can and do have different definitions sometimes, in the case of the word atheism, i have informed you of this and provided a helpful link with multiple definitions, and ive done it more than once. Aside from the possibilty of there having been a misunderstanding in the beginning, if anyone is at fault here, it is you.
I have explained myself numerous times, and you have chosen to ignore it each and every time, that is why i say "if anyone is at fault here, it is you.".
(It seems you are trying to provoke me into starting with insults or something. If it is actually so, i can tell you it is not working very well. If that is actually not the case, i apologize, but have to note that it sure seems like you are trying to.)
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Then please try to to use concrete terms instead of being vague, there is already a word that describes what you were referring to and you still chose to not use the the word.
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Which is exactly what i did.
Someone who does not belive in any gods = Atheist towards all god claims.
Christian, who belives in the christian god, and only the christian god = Monotheistic and atheist towards all god claims except the christian one.
Muslim, who belives in allah, and only allah = Monotheistic and also atheist against all god claims except the muslim one.
Are you done with the straw men yet?
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"A christian isnt a "total" atheist, but they are most likely atheist when it comes to for example allah."
Except you were not saying that.
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That is exactly what i said. What is it that you do not understand?
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How is it possible to be both atheist and monotheist when their definitions are contradictory?
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One can not be atheist towards all god claims and a monotheist at the same time, but if one is a monotheist, one IS also an atheist towards all the other god claims, just not all. It does not get more simple than that.
There are more than one definition of atheism also, which i have already explained to you.
Please.Read.My.Comments.Before.Replying.
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I believe that is why we have different words, you are again using two contradictory terms together.
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In my youth I was a very dedicated Christian. For many years there was seldom a waking hour that I did not pray. As I entered into adulthood, I began to question things about my religion and beliefs that did not make sense to me, and I began to place more importance on critical thinking. I'll not bore you with the details, but my priorities and belief system have drastically changed in the past decade.
Personally, I have no god that I worship, but I do tend to believe in intelligent design, though I have no solid conclusions as to what all that means.
For me, the question isn't so much "Does 'God' exist?" as it is "If 'God' exists who/what is/are he/she/it/they, and why should I worship him/her/it/them?"
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(Yes, i know what you mean, lel.)
I do not agree, i am one of those who would always choose the horrible truth over the comfortable lie.
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Did you hear about the dyslexic, agnostic, insomniac?
He lay awake at night wondering if there really was a dog.
To believe in anything without evidence of it being so is illogical. In any other aspect of life, if one says they believe in something that there is no evidence of being true, it is considered foolish by almost everyone, except for religion. I don't understand the exception for religious beliefs.
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Everybody's entitled to their own opinion and the other side should respect it even if they disagree with it. I would actually enjoy a good discussion / civilized argument about it but a gaming forum is not the place for it. Even if it starts out well sooner or later a militant fundamentalist of either side will show up and start pouting their pseudo-intellectual bullcrap, I'm sure of it.
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This. We're going to get people making religious jokes and people are going to take offence to that (which is expected since you're just mocking their beliefs).
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Civilized is good. Ignorant is bad. I love that I know of a place where I actually can discuss this in a civilized manner (on the internet :O).
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I think that there is no God, BUT he has been made by Jesus as a theory, as a something that we should be keep going for. He is just for us to behave good and maybe Jesus wanted to say that, but it would take too long, and it wouldn't be spreaded that much. You know, I'd like to change the world as much as Jesus wanted, and he has been perfectly nice with what he done, but he couldn't predict how people gonna react. Most of them surely listened to him, but there always gonna be people that will take it as an argument for wars or something, because that's how people do. I hate it when people take me as a bad guy for being atheist, some of people just think that it's a waste of time and prefer to do something more important and interesting. For example I'm trying to make money through internet for family, because I cannot make it physically irl. I once counted that average christian spends in church about 100 days in his life - wouldn't it be nicer to help someone? or take care of some homeless animals? or just hug girlfriend/wife/anyone?
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What no giveaway!?
Eternity in hell for you mister! =p
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Just want to share a little story, just need to give some background facts. I live in Guatemala, and as you may know already, it is a very poor country, but it's also a very religious one. Where 95% of the population are Christians, of which 60% are Catholics and 40% are Protestants.
One of the reason why we are poor is due to lack of education, so you can say we are ignorants of some sort. And of course many people take advantage of this. Specially, Protestant preachers. You can open a Protestant church if you like, as they are classified as bussiness, you even need a license like any other establishment. And of course, there are plenty of them. I have 5 of them on my same street only.
So, as in many other countries you have to do tithe (Donate 10% of your salary to the church). But get this, you even have to submit your Bank Account History, to make sure you are not liying about your income. They profit millions of dollars, the churches are getting bigger and bigger with time. You could start doing this inside your garage and if you are good you can have your own building in a couple of years.
There is this one guy, who even built what he calls "City of God" It's a huge place, it has an auditorium for 12,000 people, two buildings for Sunday classes, theaters, tennis courts, football fields and a parking lot for nearly 4,000 cars.
So, now you know. If you don't have a job and have the power to convince people. You might have a great opportunity here.
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That is the same here in my country but with the evangelist religions, they scam people for their money in exchange for a place in heaven. Even the criminals and delinquents chose this religion just because the god help him kill better his enemies, help them dodge bullets and let them escape easily when they rob or kidnap people... religion just sucks D:
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Think we are talking about the same religion, just that I named it differently.
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Don't worry it's not only protestants who do this. All Christian branches do it in some form or another. I live in a poor eastern-european country, poor by western standards anyway, there's 4 Orthodox churches within 10 minutes walking distance of me, they're also building a cathedral now. The Orthodox church is tax exempt here, they get shitloads of donations, priests have their salaries paid by the government and unless i'm mistaken they get free healthcare, i'v seen many priests driving very expensive cars to church and the head of the church in my country gets paid double the salary of the president. This in a country where there's still many rural areas that don't have running water or electricity, a country that had the highest percentage of illiterate people in the EU last year. But hey, they may be living in the dark, drawing water from wells and don't know how to read or write, but at least you know there's at least 1 church and a very well paid priest in every village no matter how small or poor.
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Hard to wrap my head around the fact that in the XXI century millions of people still have an imaginary friend that, in their heads, is pulling the strings of the universe.
kek
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If people cannot simply discuss a topic in a civilized manner they should buzz off.
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Think you are right, until we start showing respect and understanding for others' beliefs, maybe then people could stop using religion as an excuse to kill each other, we've been doing this since forever. And probably when we reach that point, we will find another reason to do it. But at least, real religious people could do their things in peace.
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And maybe if people could learn to listen and think they could learn something from everyone.
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I don't believe in god/allah/buddha or other deities.
But i'm fine if others believe in something as long as they don't try to "enroll" me. Coz i don't try to convince religious people that the way i think is the right way.
i had a korean friend, he believed in god like crazy and tried to tell me to go to church with him, go to his prayer groups, pray with him before eating in a restaurant and all that crap. When i'd ask him question about his family future (he was still a student who got married and had a baby on the way) he told me he was waiting for god's plan........... I really feel like he was brainwashed and all this religion thing is more like a sect than something else. Since in France we don't have that much of god lovers it was kind of the first time i knew someone who really was a religious type. It's kind of scary when you think about it actually.
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Nope, but i respect other people believes :) that doesn't bother me that much, if you are a good person with me , i will be a good person with you, no matter in what you believe :P
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religions are shit, islam is a cancer. (my opinion)
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As much as you success, as much as you believe in God !
Sorry for my bad English !
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if God exists, then he is an asshole who ignored me for 14 years
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I don't believe in what I can't see and know. Heck, there are some things that are proven to exist and I still don't believe them.
Basically, no, I'm not religious in any way. I believe that life is a thing that we control by ourselves, mistakes we do are our own fault, and greatness we achieve is thanks to us. In no way do I believe that anything else affects our lives than our very own selves.
I have nothing against religious people, mind you. Some people only tend to take it a bit too far, to the point where they blame their God for their mistakes. As an example, I remember seeing an article on the accidental death of a child. The mother claimed she was sad, but if it died, it was God's doing... To be honest, the blame was on the mother for not taking good care of her child and leaving it unattended.
Believe in what you must, if it makes you feel better. Just keep in mind that God isn't responsible for everything that happens in this world.
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This is how my family works. If you fuck up that's your problem. Ask God to help, but never blame him. Now that's not to say another human is at fault, but at the same time never blame him if you mess up.
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