religion

[Iamdan]

...

 

1. Metaphor

 

2. Hygiene issue

 

3. Masturbation > wanting the real thing > sex before marriage > std

[Da_Latios]

...

 

1. Metaphor

 

2. Hygiene issue

 

3. Masturbation > wanting the real thing > sex before marriage > std

You, not God, gave those reasons.

 

Also:

If God told everyone, "You shall worship no idols," then people think "That's a stupid rule, why?" When God tells everyone that He won't like it because He's jealous and He'll punish you, your children, and generations to come, people won't be so keen to break that rule.

WTF?! I don't even know where to... just... what the [bleep]?! That's the most sanctimonious, [developmentally delayed]ed piece of [cabbage] I have read in... at least the last few hours.

[sees_all1]

Second of all, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that there are three types of baptism - baptism by sacrament (All Christians fall under this category), baptism by desire (wanting to lead a good and moral life - other religious beliefs fall under this category), and baptism by blood (martyrdom, being killed for beliefs of a just cause, not necessarily religious).

So what? What are you trying to say? Just because the Catholic church has these doctrines doesn't mean other religions/churches do. And where did they get the idea from?

You specifically pointed out Christians, and the majority population of Christians are Catholic. Catholics believe in three types of baptisms, so when you said that Christians believe that other religions most likely go to hell, you were misinformed.

Read it again. Where did they get the idea from? Certainly not the Bible.

No, from the bible.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a1.htm

Scroll to the bottom and you can see every reference to the Bible and other religious works used.

[Iamdan]

I think it was written by man, for but the sake of argument:

 

How do you know? The stories were passed along by word of mouth for thousands of years and even then not all are in the bible.

 

In any case it doesn't matter if god said so or not. That's the logical answer for why it was in there.

[Da_Latios]

I think it was written by man, for but the sake of argument:

 

How do you know? The stories were passed along by word of mouth for thousands of years and even then not all are in the bible.

 

In any case it doesn't matter if god said so or not. That's the logical answer for why it was in there.

1. It's claimed to have happened. There's the problem with it.

 

2. My point was; why would a god give us a foreskin and then command to cut it off?

 

3. Then why give us the ability to masturbate?

[sees_all1]

3. Then why give us the ability to masturbate?

God loved us so much that He gave us free will, and the ability to choose something other than Him.

[Iamdan]

You can close your eyes, throw a dart at the bible and hit a flaw. For every flaw a Christian will have an answer for that you probably won't be satisfied with. What I'm saying is that there is more to it.

 

God doesn't need to exist for religion to fill it's purpose.

[Da_Latios]

Second of all, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that there are three types of baptism - baptism by sacrament (All Christians fall under this category), baptism by desire (wanting to lead a good and moral life - other religious beliefs fall under this category), and baptism by blood (martyrdom, being killed for beliefs of a just cause, not necessarily religious).

So what? What are you trying to say? Just because the Catholic church has these doctrines doesn't mean other religions/churches do. And where did they get the idea from?

You specifically pointed out Christians, and the majority population of Christians are Catholic. Catholics believe in three types of baptisms, so when you said that Christians believe that other religions most likely go to hell, you were misinformed.

Read it again. Where did they get the idea from? Certainly not the Bible.

No, from the bible.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a1.htm

Scroll to the bottom and you can see every reference to the Bible and other religious works used.

WTF? Where am I supposed to look? I'm not reading all of that.

 

Instead, I will just post counter-texts:

John 3:36 - He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

Romans 6:23 - For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

I John 5:11 - ...God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

I John 5:12 - He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

[Da_Latios]

3. Then why give us the ability to masturbate?

God loved us so much that He gave us free will, and the ability to choose something other than Him.

 

 

You can close your eyes, throw a dart at the bible and hit a flaw. For every flaw a Christian will have an answer for that you probably won't be satisfied with. What I'm saying is that there is more to it.

 

God doesn't need to exist for religion to fill it's purpose.

I agree with you. However, religion has been used to justify mass murder, war and genocide countless times throughout history.

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."-- Steven Weinberg

 

Religious martyrs often have good intentions, but they are throwing away their lives and potentially the lives of many others for a cause that will never be fulfilled.

[sees_all1]

The Catechism of the Catholic Church

WTF? Where am I supposed to look? I'm not reading all of that.

 

The Holy Bible

WTF? Where am I supposed to look? I'm not reading all of that.

 

This thread

WTF? Where am I supposed to look? I'm not reading all of that.

 

:thumbdown: poor form.

[Da_Latios]

That's it. I'm officially calling troll.

[Zygimantas]

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."-- Steven Weinberg

Not even religion. In general, believed ideas can make a person do different things. An idea is nothing unless one puts belief behind it. Same with religion. You want to get rid of religion that is formed from ideas? Get rid of ideas, or at least any belief in them.

[sees_all1]

That's it. I'm officially calling troll.

 

"You Christians believe such and such and that's wrong"

No, we believe this

"I DEMAND PROOF BECAUSE ITS NOT IN THE BIBLE"

Here's the proof, and the Bible is cited

"THAT PROOF IS TOO LONG I DONT KNOW WHERE TO LOOK IM NOT READING THAT"

 

And that makes me a troll. :wall:

[Myweponsg00d]

You can close your eyes, throw a dart at the bible and hit a flaw. For every flaw a Christian will have an answer for that you probably won't be satisfied with. What I'm saying is that there is more to it.

 

God doesn't need to exist for religion to fill it's purpose.

 

If people actually interpreted religion in this way, and if most religious people didn't really think that a god actually EXISTS in the physical sense, then I wouldn't have much to say about religion. However, people largely take their religions completely literally and think that if they don't believe that a giant man in the sky is muddling in their daily affairs, then they will go to hell for rejecting their god.

 

People are allowed to have beliefs about what is right and wrong; it is a rather arbitrary personal decision to decide whether you think something is moral or immoral. If religions JUST served to align people with moralities, thats fine. But people start to hold BELIEFS about the physical world...thats just silly and pointless. What does it give us to say that a god is behind some natural phenomenon?

[Grogthurk]

Latios,

 

I admire your search for answers. I do believe you are being sincere.

 

I would recommend that you look a little more objectively towards the topic. Your posts come off as "A-hah! I gotcha!" I have no idea, and almost doubt, that that is what you truly mean. However, it is how the posts come off.

 

I've been a Christian my entire life. However, it wasn't until five years ago that I actually gave my life to God. I am no Biblical scholar, but I believe whole heartedly in faith.

 

Latios, you will find that no matter the evidence brought forth, believing takes faith. It is something that takes time and no one, other than you, can decide for you whether or not God or gods exist.

 

 

 

I found my faith because I found the teachings of Jesus to be perfect. Most Eastern religions (I'm not trying to be a know-it-all or critical) usually focus on self-actualization (Nirvana, in some). While the intentions are good, it is about focusing on yourself. Christianity --in my opinion-- is about giving yourself to others. It is about other people. Treating others how you want to be treated. I've found the less I am worried about myself, the more stress-free my life is. I am a happier person putting other people before me.

 

That's not to say I neglect myself. I sure do spend a lot of time to myself and doing things I want to do. But I put myself last almost always in group situations.

 

Family dinners? I'm the youngest of four. My brothers are married and have kids. I serve everyone their food before I take my own. I don't complain if we run out of something I really like.

 

That's the most clear example I can find, without going into MASSIVE detail, that I can show. Knowing that the world is so much larger than me, it's easy to take a back seat.

 

So my overall advice is to truly understand the fruits of Christianity (or any religion you look into) you need to lay yourself down. Understand you're 1 in over 6,000,000,000.

[obfuscator]

Well then, of course, we get into the debate of what religion is vs. what it can be.

 

In fact, if anyone's read Hitchen's book, God is Not great, that's basically one of his main points - that religion is often used for ill and in many ways the world would be better off without it.

 

However, the fatal flaw in his logic is that without exception, the examples used by him(and many atheists) are those that only serve to show the moral authority of the church has been corrupted to the advantage of someone who can gain from it. Unfortunately, that corruption has sometimes been from the church itself, and sometimes even at the highest level. It doesn't mean the church is inherently bad.

 

And @Latios: It's hardly fair to expect someone to engage in a civilized debate with you when you refuse to even read the material they're attempting to use to prove their point ;)

[Zygimantas]

 

 

 

I found my faith because I found the teachings of Jesus to be perfect. Most Eastern religions (I'm not trying to be a know-it-all or critical) usually focus on self-actualization (Nirvana, in some). While the intentions are good, it is about focusing on yourself. Christianity --in my opinion-- is about giving yourself to others. It is about other people. Treating others how you want to be treated. I've found the less I am worried about myself, the more stress-free my life is. I am a happier person putting other people before me.

 

That's not to say I neglect myself. I sure do spend a lot of time to myself and doing things I want to do. But I put myself last almost always in group situations.

 

Family dinners? I'm the youngest of four. My brothers are married and have kids. I serve everyone their food before I take my own. I don't complain if we run out of something I really like.

 

That's the most clear example I can find, without going into MASSIVE detail, that I can show. Knowing that the world is so much larger than me, it's easy to take a back seat.

 

So my overall advice is to truly understand the fruits of Christianity (or any religion you look into) you need to lay yourself down. Understand you're 1 in over 6,000,000,000.

Just to clarify. Eastern religions focus on finding who you really are, and as you see the truth of yourself you see the truth in everyone and everything else. Thus, by looking in you're looking out becomes clearer and you are able to help existence in a better way.

[sees_all1]

Heres an idea, state your opinions without trying to prove to the other guy you are right and he is wrong, this goes for atheists as well as christians.

Works for me, but if you have earnest (read this as legitimate, curious, etc. and not prefacing the question with "this is why you're wrong") questions about Catholicism, I'd be happy to answer them to the best of my ability.

 

I have a personal question for you atheists - When did you decide there was no higher being, and why?

[Zygimantas]

When did you decide there was no higher being, and why?

Didn't feel it. Didn't see it. Didn't find a reason for there to be one.

[sees_all1]

When did you decide there was no higher being, and why?

Didn't feel it. Didn't see it. Didn't find a reason for there to be one.

Is that to say that if some radical event took place in your life, with no understandable explanation, that you would start to believe in something supernatural / higher being?

[meol]

Big post is huge.

 

@sees_all: Is this what you were talking about?

63 Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly [not my emphasis] if they had known its necessity.

Note it requires ignorance of the Gospel and the Church, because it assumes desire, not to be a good person, but desire to be baptised.

 

To the stuff about the axioms, as much as I hate to bring it back, there's something you might have not understood. First, when you take the existence of God as an axiom to a religious debate, you are just screaming close-mindedness. Second, the difference between physical/mathematical axioms and "God exists" is that the former seem to be self consistent, yet I'm not the first that has claimed to see inconsistencies in f.e. Christianity. Third, if you as a scientist found a contradiction to, let's say, Newton's Axioms (inside its accepted bounds), or the laws of Thermodynamics, you'd probably get a Nobel Prize, not excommunicated.

 

On an unrelated note, there's something about Genesis I never understood. Adam and Eve knew it was wrong to take the fruit from the tree, they just didn't know why. They failed to comply, and so started man's fall. Is the meaning of the story that for Christians, the worst sin is not in harming others but in not being blindly obedient?

 

I posted the reasons I lost faith somewhere back in the thread. I'd actually love it to see one of my points addressed (even if I'm not really trying to convince anyone).

------------

 

@Gorgthurk:

I could easily understand that Christianity made you a better person, and that's actually great. But you surely understand that while that means Matthew was a wise moralist, it still says nothing about the existence of God himself. Atheists can be good people too, so it seems you don't need religion to be good, either. Agree?

------------

 

@Y_Guy: No wonder you think (many) atheists are arrogant if you read Hitchens. :P I personally find the guy to be an ass.

----------

 

@Zygimantas: It's quite interesting to hear a non-christian for a change. What do you actually believe in?

[sees_all1]

@sees_all: Is this what you were talking about?

63 Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly [not my emphasis] if they had known its necessity.

Note it requires ignorance of the Gospel and the Church, because it assumes desire, not to be a good person, but desire to be baptised.

Not necessarily total ignorance, just they don't understand the importance of it. Say someone decides their morality at a young age, they're going to live their life by a code. They keep that code throughout their life, because they believe that code is good. They desire good. They might read somewhere something about baptism, but brush it off because they don't understand the importance. Do I believe that person will go to Heaven when they die? Yes, I do. As a Catholic though, I understand that it is impossible to know what the "bare minimum" required to get into heaven is, as that would be knowing more the nature of God.

 

To the stuff about the axioms, as much as I hate to bring it back, there's something you might have not understood. First, when you take the existence of God as an axiom to a religious debate, you are just screaming close-mindedness. Second, the difference between physical/mathematical axioms and "God exists" is that the former seem to be self consistent, yet I'm not the first that has claimed to see inconsistencies in f.e. Christianity. Third, if you as a scientist found a contradiction to, let's say, Newton's Axioms (inside its accepted bounds), or the laws of Thermodynamics, you'd probably get a Nobel Prize, not excommunicated.

In relating religion to science, I wouldn't necessarily put the existence of God as an axiom, much like how 0 * a = 0 isn't an axiom, it is a result of those axioms.

Or rather, religion in a general sense would have more general axioms - something existed before the Universe, and something will exist after the Universe.

Also, consequences of axioms may not be the same for different religions, much how in linear algebra the circle dot operation and circle plus operation can change from vector space to vector space so long as it fits the characteristics of axioms.

 

On an unrelated note, there's something about Genesis I never understood. Adam and Eve knew it was wrong to take the fruit from the tree, they just didn't know why. They failed to comply, and so started man's fall. Is the meaning of the story that for Christians, the worst sin is not in harming others but in not being blindly obedient?

That story defines what sin is. Sin is anything that separates you from God. After eating the fruit, they realized they were no longer in God's grace, so they hid. There are other ideas you can take away from the story, but only in the context of the entire Bible.

[meb]

 

This sums up why I don't believe God (as the "big 3" believe in) exists.

 

Why I don't think a divine being exists is my cynical nature.

[Zygimantas]

When did you decide there was no higher being, and why?

Didn't feel it. Didn't see it. Didn't find a reason for there to be one.

Is that to say that if some radical event took place in your life, with no understandable explanation, that you would start to believe in something supernatural / higher being?

It tough to say unless I actually have it happen. Sometimes for some people this feeling arises, that a god is there. It simply has not for me.

[Da_Latios]

Latios, you will find that no matter the evidence brought forth, believing takes faith. It is something that takes time and no one, other than you, can decide for you whether or not God or gods exist.

 

 

 

I found my faith because I found the teachings of Jesus to be perfect. Most Eastern religions (I'm not trying to be a know-it-all or critical) usually focus on self-actualization (Nirvana, in some). While the intentions are good, it is about focusing on yourself. Christianity --in my opinion-- is about giving yourself to others. It is about other people. Treating others how you want to be treated. I've found the less I am worried about myself, the more stress-free my life is. I am a happier person putting other people before me.

 

That's not to say I neglect myself. I sure do spend a lot of time to myself and doing things I want to do. But I put myself last almost always in group situations.

 

Family dinners? I'm the youngest of four. My brothers are married and have kids. I serve everyone their food before I take my own. I don't complain if we run out of something I really like.

 

That's the most clear example I can find, without going into MASSIVE detail, that I can show. Knowing that the world is so much larger than me, it's easy to take a back seat.

 

So my overall advice is to truly understand the fruits of Christianity (or any religion you look into) you need to lay yourself down. Understand you're 1 in over 6,000,000,000.

The argument of faith is an invalid argument as it applies to you alone. You may have faith but then again, why not have faith that the Hindu gods exist? Or that there is a celestial teapot orbiting Jupiter whose alignment to the sun determines everyday life? Again, there is no reason to choose one god over another, other than "I have faith" which again is an invalid argument since there are so many gods to put your faith in, in the great lottery of religion.

 

Since people keep complaining that I won't read sees_all1's link, here we go;

 

1254 For all the baptized, children or adults, faith must grow after Baptism. For this reason the Church celebrates each year at the Easter Vigil the renewal of baptismal promises. Preparation for Baptism leads only to the threshold of new life. Baptism is the source of that new life in Christ from which the entire Christian life springs forth.

 

1275 Christian initiation is accomplished by three sacraments together: Baptism which is the beginning of new life; Confirmation which is its strengthening; and the Eucharist which nourishes the disciple with Christ's Body and Blood for his transformation in Christ.

 

1281 Those who die for the faith, those who are catechumens, and all those who, without knowing of the Church but acting under the inspiration of grace, seek God sincerely and strive to fulfill his will, can be saved even if they have not been baptized (cf. LG 16).

"acting under the inspiration of grace" this is assuming the Christian god exists, of course.

 

1284 In case of necessity, any person can baptize provided that he have the intention of doing that which the Church does and provided that he pours water on the candidate's head while saying: "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

 

Again, this is all irrelevant in giving a reason to believe in a god. The above, taken from what I can see is one of the Vatican's websites, contradicts itself. But even then, it is irrelevant to this argument. A church's doctrines have nothing to do with the existence of a god; they merely create laws on the assumption that one exists, for which the matter is what we are discussing, NOT the doctrines of a particular church.

 

EDIT: I'm going to the city now, so since I won't be able to make another reply for at least a few hours (unless I decide to hop on via my phone) I'll leave y'all with an example:

 

If I told you I could fly, would you believe me? No? Why not?

I've given you a first-hand account that I can fly, which is more evidence than anyone can give for the miracles of Christ.

You would tell me to prove that I can fly. This is merely what I am asking of you; to prove that there is a god. After all, theists make the claim that there is a god. Atheists make no claim. (Atheism: a lack of belief in gods, NOT a "belief that there are no gods")

The onus is on you.

Please don't bring up the faith argument. Why not just have faith that I can fly?