Heaven: Not so good??

[DavidM]

Let people believe what they want to believe as long as it doesn't interfere with others. You only ever hear about the extremists causing the problems, never mind the millions of peaceful Christians and Muslims that go about their every day business quietly.

Sounds good to me.

[TiG]

That was your response to "it's fake". Prove it exists then

In fact, there's a minimal amount of conceivable evidence that any kind of spiritual realm exists yet people are always still telling everyone else "prove it doesn't exist". That's a silly comeback imo

Its not silly at all, its called proof by contridiction and is a form of maths/logic.

There is little evidence to suggest the world is round on a localised basis, yet
we know that it is. I think we often forget how little we know about the world we live in. We only know what 25% of our brain function is. How can we possibly claim to know there is no greater power?....

If you can't prove it either way neither side can win the arguement. Status Quo is maintained.

TiG

[father smurf]

According to the story ... science proved the bee cannot fly.

Fortunately bee's cannot read.

[Stewart]

Status Quo is maintained.

So thats their secret...

[Kezzer]

If Jesus were real, he would love you

[Stewart]

If Jesus were real, he would love you

If Jesus were real, I'd love him. I know when to side with the people in power.

Jesus was real, by the way, he just probably made up the bit about being the son of God. Still, who hasn't done something foolish in their youth to impress a girl, huh?

EDIT: For anyone interested about the whole Jesus thing, it all ended in tears. These things usually do. Still, normally, your punishment is restricted to your mom walking in on you and saying 'Jason, stop arseing about, you do not own a Porche.' Jesus died on the cross for all our sins... harsh.

[Elmo]

According to the story ... science proved the bee cannot fly.

Fortunately bee's cannot read.

bet they can

[TiG]

Anyway, I believe you should have the right to be religious, you should just never use that right, because its obviously something people made up back in the day, to make sense of the world around them, and control the general populace. 'Behave, oik, or burn in Hell'.

We shouldn't follow religion as it controls us?, Vaul you sound like an arachist with that statement, and as i said before, Laws existed before Christianity was created. Human nature really hasn't changed that much in 2000 years.

TiG

[Stewart]

We shouldn't follow religion as it controls us?, Vaul you sound like an arachist with that statement, and as i said before, Laws existed before Christianity was created. Human nature really hasn't changed that much in 2000 years.

TiG

We should at least question the frankly hard to believe events and meanings the bible puts forward, and them dismiss them as utter pap.

Mate, seriously, Adam and Eve, talking Snakes, rising from the dead, the virgin birth. Do you not question this stuff?

If not, question it now, and get back to me.

[Kezzer]

We should at least question the frankly hard to believe events and meanings the bible puts forward, and them dismiss them as utter pap.

Mate, seriously, Adam and Eve, talking Snakes, rising from the dead, the virgin birth. Do you not question this stuff?

If not, question it now, and get back to me.

It was David Blaine, he's a magician right?

[mike_w]

Who says religion has to follow those events? Why cannot religion be simpler? For example, God created the universe and let things be. When we die, our spirits go to heaven/are put in another body/whatever (according to whatever you believe in). Who is to say what is beyond the material of this universe? We have no knowledge of what is beyond, such as God, death and the soul, and therefore cannot be certain of any point of view.

[Xaneden]

"Now, if you think for a minute and remember what you learnt in RE, they all told us that heaven is a wonderful place where everything you want is there and is a place reserved only for people...how can this work??

Ok heres what I'm on about, say for example, you have a g/f whom you love dearly but she is a murderer, she had ruthlessly killed douzens of people and showed no remorse, you still love her as its the sort of unconditional love thing.

So you're g/f gets convicted and is sentenced to death, she is executed, but because shes pure evil she goes to hell right??

But say that YOU are a very good person, you go to church every Sunday, you give money to charity you even give shelter to homeless people but you're killed in a tragic car accident.

Because you're such a good person, you'd go to heaven right??

But this is where the pickle is, because heaven has everything you can ever want etc etc and is only for good people. What if all wanted was to be with your g/f who is in hell?? Seems kind of mean to me to keep the two separated don't you think??"

I suppose the obvious answer would be, whatever you loved about that person would be there, however they as a soul (or whatever...), wouldn't.

[Spud1]

bleh far far too much to wade through here, but then I dont need to to be able to comment

Vaul is pretty much right here imho, i agree with him almost totally.

I used to be a christian, up until i was around 17 I attended church regularly, and a 'cell group' (ie a christian youth meeting for 16+) on a wednesday night. But then as I got older i realised what a load of bollox it all was. The very idea is preposterous, and harks back to the days when people belived in witches, magic, flat planets, the earth being the centre of the universe, the stars being dead relatives etc.

Organised Religion is basically a control method, and has been used as such for centuries. The best example I can come up with on the fly is Tudor/Stuart england, where kings/queens such as Henry VIII used their seat as the head of the church to control everything about peoples lives - far more than they could do as just a monarch. People believed that they had been appointed by god to rule them - so nothing the king/queen did was ever questioned. People were MADE to attend church every week else they were killed..thus ensuring that they never forgot their god/ruler.

Ok so this has changed in recent years, people are no longer made to go to church, and (thank goodness) the queen no longer has any real power (but my anti-monarchy arguement doesnt belong in this post). The remenants of this old system are still about to this day though. Especuially in some of the other religions where the equivalent of a priest can command something and it will be done...whatever it is.

The biggest thing is that no religion i have ever heard of makes ANY LOGICAL SENSE. If there was some kind of logic behind it then maybe it would be worth a look, but without logic...it makes no sense.

Of course you cannot ever argue with a true believer, as there is ALWAYS an answer. eg the time old question of why do bad things happen is answered by 'oh God gave us free will to do as we please'. Well that was nice of him wasn't it, convenient isn't it really as it means he can just bugger off and leave us to it..in which case there isn't really a God there then is there if he's off on holiday or whatever...

I don't dispute that someone called Jesus existed at one point, or that the disciples existed with him as their leader. We even have a name for that kind of group these days - a cult. All that happened imho is that it grew and grew, amazing people with simple party tricks (A.k.A miricles) which got exaggerated as with everything else when it was recorded into the current history/story books of the time (A.k.A the bible).

The truth is that we will never know, maybe the recent investigations into the ressurection of dogs thing will shed some light on it when they move into testing humans (if it is ever approved..or done in secret). Though even then, if people (clinically) die and come back to life and say nothing happened, true believers will just say 'oh they wer'nt really dead' or 'you cannot bring back memories from the afterlife' etc etc. There is always an answer, like I said, you cannot argue with a true believer.

Personally I have always had and still do have respect for those that TRUELY believe in their faith above anything else - the 'ned flanders' of this world who don't ever drink, swear etc etc, I may not agree with them and would happily attempt to argue about it many times, but the fact that they can do that with zero proof that it is true commands at least some respect. I can't be doing with these 'part time believers' though, those people that go to church, sing a few songs, and then head off down the pub friday night for a few too many pints and a quickie with the local slut - they are not true believers, infact, I don't know what to call them.

Maybe a god does exist, but I will take my chances and live my life as I see fit, which happens to take the form of many of the morales pushed by christianity. eg I rarely swear, don't really drink to exceess THAT much, Have respect for other people, try to help whenever I can etc etc, but that isnt the result of a religion, that is just me trying to be a good person in society (well my definition of good, that is another arguement)

oh and as for the meaning of life, that is simple, just like any other creature on this earth, it is to make more of us, to reproduce. How we accomplish that and what we do inbetween is irrelavent really, all we are here to do is ensure the survival of the human race, nothing more.

[Stoo]

bet they can

That's a bit of an urban legend now, at first using standard theory the analysis couldn't come up with enough lift to over-come the mass, obviously they knew this was incorrect, further analysis with high-speed cameras showed that the bumble bee has a wing stroke which generates lift on both the back and forward strokes, solving the problem

[mike_w]

Organised Religion is basically a control method, and has been used as such for centuries. The best example I can come up with on the fly is Tudor/Stuart england, where kings/queens such as Henry VIII used their seat as the head of the church to control everything about peoples lives - far more than they could do as just a monarch. People believed that they had been appointed by god to rule them - so nothing the king/queen did was ever questioned. People were MADE to attend church every week else they were killed..thus ensuring that they never forgot their god/ruler.

While religion, in that form, could be a control method, is it not also possible that there is some proof in that religion, that what was once true has been perverted and changed to suit the needs of the rulers? Just because there are examples of religion being wrong, or explanations of why religion came about, it does not disprove some of the religious ideas.

[TiG]

We should at least question the frankly hard to believe events and meanings the bible puts forward, and them dismiss them as utter pap.

Mate, seriously, Adam and Eve, talking Snakes, rising from the dead, the virgin birth. Do you not question this stuff?

If not, question it now, and get back to me.

Bible was written by humans, it wasn't written in english, its been translated to bring this to us. If you translate languages you distort and manipulate meaning. For me the essence is there tho. It still has the moral value to the story. Evil temptations will occur in your life.

Rising for the dead - well the simple fact that i believe in the afterlife means thats something thats fundemental. If there is indeed something more powerful than us, why is it not possible for someone to come back to life.

Certainly medicial science allows us to bring people back from the dead now.

But for me the reason I believe is because i'm one grain on sand on a planet which is a grain of sand in the beach of the universe. For something so vast and impressive, I believe there must be a creator.

The final thing however, is my spirit, I'd rather believe my conciousness that is writing this message is more than just chemicals working in my brain, and my brain is more than just the physical host.

Something that again I don't believe science can yet explain. One thing that we are doing however is evolving, who is to say that one day we'll shed the need for a physical form.

TiG