Questions Ignorant People Ask About God

[Coda]

This is not a good argument at all. The atheistic countries are intolerant nations simply due to political means, their religion does not influence their political motives.

As for the west, that is true that religion exists but religion was not the one that developed human justice and rights. The evolution of the political laws of the west is not controlled by religion during the large social revolutions. The dark ages is the time when religion played a major role in shaping the political system. That didn't get us very far now did it?

[Coda]

i did not assert that tolerance is the property of non believers i said that that people like myself who have no specific beliefs are far more tolerant of other people's beliefs than people who have a strong faith in their beliefs .your use of the word enemy several times in your posts speaks volumes on how you feel about others who do not share your views and/or beliefs . i do not consider any one my enemy , there are things i hate like poverty , racism ,greed and our species inability to get it's collective act together ,and part of the reason for that is religion which in it's worst manifestations is very divisive and controlling. but i do not hate any one particular person , life has taught me not to judge others , in most cases i do not know the series of events that have led to any given person turning out the way they have , i have not walked in their shoes .

and i did not say i was an atheist , i have stated in previous posts that i do not know what to believe , and any one who claims they know for certain that god exists or does not exist is deluding themselves , this is something that we will only find out when we die .

i heard the other day that the archbishop of Seattle was put in charge of a group of "radical nuns " by the holy see . these nuns were putting forward such extremist l ideas like contraception , gay marriage and the ordination of women . and i can go on and on and on and on .

man i would like to meet a radical nun .

[Coda]

double post

[Buddhas Hand]

Really? Look at the way some people in this thread, the God thread, and in other non religious based threads.

We're not treating people any better at all.

When did you go to say junior high?

It's appalling how kids are treating each other today.

Yes, there also were issues - but no where near what happens today.

For example, one of my daughters, in her circle of friends, from grade 9-12, had 3 people die - one by suicide.

Some of her friends also knew the boy who got his head split open by an axe at a party - why? Because someone didn't like him.

[Buddhas Hand]

I don't think you're comprehending what I'm saying very well. I said that in a certain sense Scorpio Ego was my enemy...which is very true given the definition of the word enemy. My major point is that we should not treat other people like enemies.

[Heretic]

well observing my society lets go back to the 50 's which in another thread you suggested were a much better time , australia had a stated policy called "white australia" which the government insituted because we did not want to be" over'run by asians . women were struggling to find jobs and when they did experienced predjudice [my mother} in the workplace and in general were not considered the "equal" of men . there was the stolen generation both black and white , and i was a victim of this , between 1958 and 1972 nearly 50,000 white , unwed teenage mothers had their babies taken from them by the catholic church , in a lot of cases these girls were drugged for months on end until they signed the adoption papers .homosexuality was illegal and you could be jailed for it ,rascism was rampant and the indigenous members of our society suffered greatly because of this . while some of thes things still exist we are light years ahead of how we used to treat each other .

high school was over 30 years ago for me , i first witnessed death first hand at 14 when a kid i grew up with died on the football field due to the actions of another kid whose only intent was to injure , i lost the ability to have children at 17 , again on the football field due to the actions of a kid who was trying to hurt me , by the age of 20 i had lost 4 friends to suicide and had attempted it myself , even though i do not have kids many of my friends do and they have opportunities i could only dream of , though education is becoming very expensive and even in that regard some one like me would now be diagnosed correctly and put in an accelerated learning enviroment not thrown in with all the rest of the troublemakers because of my hyperactivity .

these are my personal experiences so in my opinion things are a lot better today than they were back then

[Onions]

I think it's quite unfair to blame violence in religious countries on their religion while giving atheists free reign. If you excuse the influence of the atheist's world view on their actions and blame them on politics, why not do the same for religious people.

I think you're quite wrong about religion in Europe, at least Christianity. Yes, religion played a big part in the middle ages, but you couldn't say it was a bible-based religion. Almost no one besides a few scribes and priests read the bible before the Reformation and Counter reformation of the 16th century and the invention of the printing press. Catholic Masses were given in Latin not the vernacular. The majority of people had no idea what Christianity was about. A lot of priests were very corrupt and got rich by telling people they had to pay money to get to heaven out of "purgatory". Really, Christianity of the Middle Ages was a strange mixture of Biblical teaching and pagan spirituality and supersitition.

Its funny to read Beowulf and examine how the different cultures were mixing at the time.

The Bible is undoubtedly the single biggest influence on Western morality and ethics since the reformation. I posted this before, but I will again:

The bible has been used to justify bad things too...but I think the good certainly outweighs the bad.

[Heretic]

Because religion is based on faith. And faith is by definition an irrational stand.

[Super19]

I believe the original poster was trying to make the point that to make an unfalsifiable claim and then ask for people to prove it wrong is ludicrous. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim. My point with my post was that just because the claim goes against one or more religions, it's certainly not falsified by any stretch of the imagination.

[Lockhart]

I would have thought in 2012 people wouldn't be dumb enough to still be talking about god.

[Onions]

Huh? Maybe your definition....

http://dictionary.re...om/browse/faith

[VICanucksfan5551]

Yup.

Muslims have a definitive concept of Tawhid or "the Oneness of God".The SIkhs holy book was written by Sikh Guru + other devotees who claimed to have attained salvation. The Qur'an claims to be the verbatim word of God - not authored by man.

Christians also believe in the Oneness of God but some believe in the Trinity which I to be honest, cannot comprehend.

Even the Hindus in their Sanskrits have their own concept of monotheism.

So many religions have had concepts of One God but I think Islam is best + looking at the history of other religions one should be able prove that they have been tampered with or that they aren't really divine. This is not to discredit that they have taught good because they have. Also many of these religions share the ideas, I just think Islam is the perfect and complete one.

I really don't want to cause offense to other peoples beliefs with this reply to your question.

[Heretic]

"2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact."

Is that not by definition irrational?

[Heretic]

I would have thought in 2012 people wouldn't be dumb enough to still be talking about god.

[Onions]

Nope. But you calling faith irrational can be.

ir·ra·tion·al

   [ih-rash-uh-nl] reason; deprived of reason.

2.

without or deprived of normal mental clarity or sound judgment.

3.

not in accordance with reason; utterly illogical: irrational arguments.

4.

not endowed with the faculty of reason: irrational animals.

5.

Mathematics .

a.

(of a number) not capable of being expressed exactly as a ratio of two integers.

b.

(of a function) not capable of being expressed exactly as a ratio of two polynomials.

[Lockhart]

Thanks for proving the OP.

[Buddhas Hand]

Sorry to hear what happened to you but thanks for sharing that.

So is it really better today (as far as how people treat each other) then 30 years ago?

Is it worse?

Maybe it's the same.

I see unwed mothers at 16, I see people getting beat up for either their race, sexuality, beliefs.

Bullying is still going on. Physical and sexual abuse.

In my opinion, we aren't any better. Which is sad considering all we have learned - yet we can't seem to learn from our mistakes...

[Super19]

Even if you take Muhammad's word that the ayat are the verbatim word of Allah, the Quran was still pieced together by men after his death. When you've got such a huge book compiled from the memories and written fragments of many different people, mistakes can easily creep in, so you can't say that it is the direct word of God, even if its writing is a lot less prone to alteration than that of the Bible or Talmud. Personally, I don't see any difference at all in believability between a book authored by men claiming to have attained salvation and a book of the revelations of a man claiming to be a prophet, but obviously you see differently

Thanks for answering my question.

[Heretic]

Since when is the truth ignorant?

[Heretic]

maybe we do not learn from our mistakes because a lot of people do not even think and/or want to admit that we/they have made mistakes , it is hard to admit to oneself and others you have screwed up , but it is the only way i know to start the process of trying not to make the same mistake again .

i have quoted him before and i will do it again

when we look at modern man we have to face the fact that modern man suffers from a kind of poverty of the spirit , which stands in glaring contrast with a scientific and technological abundance.we've learned to fly the air as birds,we've learned to swim the seasas fish, yet we have'nt learned to walk the earth as brothers and sisters . martin luther king

for the roughly 2000 years christianity has been going it has not managed to encourage us to be able to do the what should be the simplest thing of all treat each other the way we want to be treated ourselves .