So people without faith are cowards who don't love life is the moral of that story? Simple faith is required to get you through tough situations?


Is there any wonder why I argue so much against this kind of stuff?

I don't want to argue with you. But faith has given us arts, music and literature. Atheism gives only advertisements.
Tullio

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You don't want to argue, but you continue to take stabs without foundation.


Penn Jillette and Teller are both very successful magicians, which some consider a form of art. Both are Atheist.

Bill Maher has been a comedian and a host of a show that encourages discussion, which is also a form of art. He seems to be at least agnostic if not Atheist.

George Carlin was a very successful comedian, actor, and author who was quite Atheist. I do believe that covers literature too.

I've known several musicians that have no faith in any deity. There's music for you.


Any other false proclamations you wish to make about non-believers that you passive-aggressively don't want to argue with me on?

Just some observations:

Some people seem to gain great strength from holding onto a belief. A positive side effect of positive feedback? Or a defence through self-delusion? Or an unavoidable feature of the way our minds work?

For 'believers', I guess the multitude of religions and the tangled mess of politics and religions throughout the ages is irrelevant. The important aspect is for what you believe for yourself.


Meanwhile, I find it interesting for how various religious memes and the surrounding religions have evolved over the ages (despite some religious factions/sects claiming evolution does not happen). I also find the religious dogma and politics that often develops to be rather sad...

Perhaps for every rise, there has to be a fall into corruption whereupon something new rises from the ashes?... A periodic resurrection...


Also, you can reinterpret the bible to 'mean' anything you like. Also, is the 'official' bible all just the dreams of a madman called St Paul? Spruced up with a few political embellishments?

Keep searchin',
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

OK, so there appears to be some strong Christian believers here, and also some strong non-believers...

(Please red-x if too far off the flow of the thread.)

We have the central figure of "Jesus of Nazareth".

So what, where, or who was the "Nazareth"?

Was it:

• A place name;
  
• An area;
  
• A sect;
  
• A culture;
  
• A religion;
  
• A group;
  
• A person;
  
• Or?
  

The references in the 'official' bible can fit with any of those...


Keep searchin',
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

(Please red-x if too far off the flow of the thread.)

Please do not red-x if too far off the flow of the thread. Discussion of GOD is a very Wide-Open, far-flung subject. So is Cosmology and Death.

Since GOD/Jesus by some opinions, is someone made up Centuries after his Death, then 2000 years later, GOD/Jesus can be...whatever The Believer or Non-Believer wants GOD/Jesus to be.

Cite whomever and whatever for The Existence/Non-Existence of GOD/Jesus or completely make up your own version.

If GOD/Jesus has personally talked to you-Cool.

If you are a Scholar/Forensic Historian, cite/reference your goodies.

If you have a Great Imagination for The Existence/Non-Existence. Cool man, Cool.

It don't matter to me.

I prayed to GOD for The Simplest of Requests. No answer. Therefore, No GOD. So, No Faith/Believing for me.

However, The Efforts of Scholars/Historians/Forensic Historians/Archeologists, etc. is Highly Interesting.

I can Not Believe and still Dig The Works.

Dig it? I knew that you could.

Dull as a rusted 2000 year spear point.

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May we All have a METAMORPHOSIS. REASON. GOoD JUDGEMENT and LOVE and ORDER!!!!!

To believe or not to believe is a matter of faith and personnal experience.

My father always told me never to discuss 2 topics,

Religion

and Soccer/Sports

There are non believers here as they are believers like me, so what's the importance of it?

None, we are still good people who discuss and change ideas. However is useless effort to try to convert a non beliver or vice versa.

we are what we are, we believe in what we believem but at the end we are only dust.

None, we are still good people who discuss and change ideas. However is useless effort to try to convert a non beliver or vice versa.

we are what we are, we believe in what we believe

You are suggesting that no one ever changes their minds. Fact is people change their minds all the time. I see nothing wrong with challenging beliefs.

It also never ceases to amaze me the great lengths believers will go through to slam non-believers because they don't understand it. Some even fear it. Some try to insist that non-believers still have their own version of faith, which is funny because the very definition of Atheism is a lack of faith.

In the end I honestly mean no disrespect to anyone or their beliefs, but I would like people to do the same toward non-believers, and break their notions that the world of non-believing is full of stark, angry, non-artistic, boring people. As I said earlier, non-believers are the fastest growing group in developed nations, but that hasn't changed the way people create.

The only way I can challenge this notion is to have colorful discussions about faith and beliefs, and inform people when they're wrong about non-believers and the world around them. I'm not necessarily trying to convert anyone, but I am trying to educate people so there's less fear and less inaccurate statements made about the faithless.

trying to educate people so there's less fear and less inaccurate statements made about the faithless.

I've read almost all of the books of Richard Dawkins, including The God Delusion.

Dawkins and other World Famous Atheists have educated many. Have they turned any Believer into a Non-Believer. Doubt it.

Also, many people have appeared Out of Nowhere to Fellowship/Evangilize. Like the other day. I was cleaning up some leaves in the street and a stranger approaches and viola, The Christian Believer starts speaking.....

So, Dr. Imaginnario, I agree The Importance is: None

Just so much Dust in The Keyboards. All it is, is Dust in The.....

Dull

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May we All have a METAMORPHOSIS. REASON. GOoD JUDGEMENT and LOVE and ORDER!!!!!

Dawkins and other World Famous Atheists have educated many. Have they turned any Believer into a Non-Believer. Doubt it.

I would largely disagree. As I said, people change their minds all the time. You stated you were once a believer until God didn't answer a prayer for you. I was once a believer until I learned to actually question and apply critical thinking to the subject. There's millions of people on this planet, it would be hard to doubt that no one has an affect on another person's thinking.

You stated you were once a believer

Not stated by me.

it would be hard to doubt that no one has an affect on another person's thinking.

So Frakking right there. Oblahblahblah, you know, Peace Prize Potus, got Everyone Believing. Now they are Believing something different.

Guess it depends how deep The Foxhole Is. And at what coordinates.

Ballistics are a Bitch.

Dull

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May we All have a METAMORPHOSIS. REASON. GOoD JUDGEMENT and LOVE and ORDER!!!!!

As an atheist, I have been successful in getting many people to think about what they are saying. When I was a small child, I was told about God, Santa Clause, the Tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, superman, and even the Great Pumpkin. One by one my belief in them began to fall. The reason was simple. There was not a single stick of evidence anywhere that any of it was true. Sure there was a Saint Nicholas, but the flying reindeer and going down the chimney that happened to contain a lit fire was just too much of a stretch.

As I have posted before, if you remove all knowledge of science, and remove all knowledge of any deity, you will eventually rediscover the science. The religion might be re-created, but it's stories and beliefs would be more like the person who invented it wanted. Even the Bible says it's OK for slavery, beatings, discrimination, etc. It was based on events 2000 years ago, with no concept of where we would be today. There is the killing of innocents, and of course the story of Jobe. In today’s world if we caught anyone killing the wife and children of another man, just to get a rise out of him, we would lock him up or give him the death penalty. I can't see worshipping someone like that.

There are way too many false assumptions in most of the religions of the world. Most have also been handed down through the ages, and have changed. One thing I learned is that when the bible was originally translated, the translators didn't really understand what it was saying, so they added their own interpretation.

In one part of a Bible, God was a man, and went into the Garden of Eden asking where Adam was. If there were only two people on the planet, and God couldn't keep track of them, then that doesn't say that much. It also said God was a spiritual being living in the heavens. Basically the Bible contradicts itself many, many times. I even recently learned that there are 50,000 versions of Christianity. What makes one version correct and the others not correct? Nothing that I am aware of.

Science follows a path of self correction. Being wrong is not a problem, as observation and math will demonstrate problems with an idea. The idea can be refined any number of times, as it gets closer and closer to reality. I have been wrong hundreds of times, but each time I learned, and self corrected. Even though, as I pointed out religion does change over the eons, its practitioners’ don't realize it, and think what they are following is exactly as it was laid out thousands of years ago. Modern times would never go for what was really happening all those years ago.

A good magician can make you think things are happening, when they really aren’t. There is always a trick, always. In a world where everything may not be understood, but we see no evidence of true magic anywhere. There is always an explanation whether we realize it or not. Think about when the Greeks and the Romans had a different God for just about everything. The sun was a God pulling a fiery chariot across the sky. If a person would deny any of the old Gods, they could be put to death in an instant. Today, we know the sun is a star, and that there are trillions and trillions of them. We still keep one God, for the things we still don't know, and so that man doesn't think he is alone, and con get comfort from the thought.

Suppose you take a bowling ball, and a perfectly level rifle, and line them up exactly. Then you fire the rifle so that the bullet exits the table at exactly the same time the bowling ball is pushed over the edge. I realize that you would have to embed the rifle in the table so that the falling height is identical. both the bullet, and the bowling ball will hit at exactly the same time, no matter how many times you repeat the experiment without changing the conditions. You can have every person alive praying for a different result and it will never happen. If you can't influence a controlled experiment, even a tiny bit, then why would you be able to influence other events where you were not certain of all the conditions.

I will stop here, but I could go on and on for weeks. I have not seen a single piece of evidence that anything was created or controlled by a conscious being, but I have seen a great deal of evidence that things have evolved naturally.

Steve

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

You stated you were once a believer

Not stated by me.

I do believe your words, copy & pasted from this thread were:

I prayed to GOD for The Simplest of Requests. No answer. Therefore, No GOD. So, No Faith/Believing for me

I read that as you once believed, hence you prayed. God didn't answer your prayer so you stopped believing. If I misinterpreted your statement, I'm sorry.

I do believe your words

If I said I AM GOD, would You Believe those Words? The Word of GOD?

Anyways, a Non-Believer and A Believer are The Same In The Eyes(?) Of GOD, if there is a GOD.

So, being a Non-Believer, my prayer should carry Equal Weight with HIM.

Therefore, as an Experiment, and Wishing With All My Heart it would Come True, I prayed a Little, Simple Prayer. I had it Thought Out Beautifully and if Any Prayer should Be Answered, it would be My Simple Prayer.

It was Not Answered. Therefore, the comment of No Faith/Belief in GOD.

Scientific Method. Dig it? I'm sure I am not The First Atheist, nor The Last to try it. It has been Scientifically Falsified by The Scientific Method by many other Atheists and Non-Atheists Praying and getting The Same Result.

Although many have said.....their Prayers Were Answered.

Oh Well. Deep Subject.

Otay Spanky?

Good

Dull as The Spear of Destiny.

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May we All have a METAMORPHOSIS. REASON. GOoD JUDGEMENT and LOVE and ORDER!!!!!

God/ALA/JEOVA or other name you want to give it, is a question of faith.

Many of you, don't believe in it, as there is no scientific ot historical evidence of his/it existence.

I undertand that, and I don't want to change your believes, in fact the importance is like I said: NONE

We are all humans, and I can state, humans with heart, feelings, and interests with more or less passion regarding the sorrounding universe.

from my personal experience, I believe in God/superior conscience, something very different from the holly books, bible, coran, Tora, whatever.....

I could share my experiences, but is something that there is always an rational explanation for what happened.

My message is very simple, as humans, we are all equal. if you want and example, stupidity is universal, does not have race or religion.... :D

But no matter if its science, religion, or some other thing, the message is simple:

"There is always room for improvement in fact is the largest room in our house"

PS:
Personnal thought: I think the pope and lot of people that sourround him at the vatican, are assholes (polite way to call them). Vatican is one of the richest states in the world and what they say to the poor... Pray to God.... (give me a break) Not the message of the new testament/jesus....(He existed, as his Law process was recorded by the romans. Pilatus, washed is hands at it was a local issue.)

Igreja comes from the latin Iglesia that means assembly/gathering of people.... Does not have anything to do with statues of gold or marble halls.

At the end we are all dust, star dust....

I undertand that, and I don't want to change your believes, in fact the importance is like I said: NONE

But it must be important if we keep getting drawn to the discussion. ;-D