Do you believe in God? Simple question

[yojimbo]

You would have to become a student of history, philosophy, anthropology and sociology to be able to grasp what the real meanings are on the page.

To grasp the real meaning?? cmon, guy...
from what i have gathered the bible contains nothing more than morals and guidance to a 'better' way of life.





with messages like this it's kinda hard to take it serious... so are jesus' followers the only ones to get saved from evil? seems kinda selfish and immature of him. what kind of god leaves his children all alone in the back ally to die alone and suffer in a world of crime, murder, rape, ect ect...

I'll tell you... an asshole-god or a god who enjoys seeing human-kind suffer.
either way it's hard to really imagine a being of such greatness. his 'image' requires the admiration of others in order to keep existing because without faith and a believe in christ eventually the thoughts of memories will vanish... same with everything else ---


but people aren't dumb... the know that they have to keep updating and increasing their church sizes in order to bring in the crowd - which is working, but not as good as they expected. many people -- atheists, agnostics, and people who just don't give a damn are now coming out and expressing how they feel about the subject.
they are no longer keeping their mouths shut -- because i'm sure you know... that well, people like me(who doesn't believe in the lord jesus christ) aren't really accepted in society - atleast here in the united states.

kinda fucked up but this country is pretty big into religion...

If you are calling church activity "study" then there is no reason why you have a hard time with it. BTW, no church I have ever been to has said that I could maintain and evil free life. That is contrary to the very Gospel that establishes the Christian church under Christ.

so you spend time going to church that promises things and purifies you but you can never live an evil free life??!!! really?! never ever?!!
damn... seems like a huge waste of time to me then lol
oh, and i don't have a hard time with it -- it's just mind-boggling to me... i mean the stories and all the gibberish talk.

I will suggest two things to you that may spur some interest in the hopes that one day you will think that this is pretty important to our existence you know where to go to get a good idea.

First. Read :Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis, to find out what Christians believe at the core of their faith. basically it has nothing to do with denominations and its a pretty easy two or three day read.

Second. try to find a debate called "Has science killed God?" It is John Lennox and Richard Dawkins talking about science and God and the human existence. Basically John Lennox puts Richard Dawkins in the hot seat and uses logic to show where his POV on Darwinian Evolution superseding everything is less logical than that of a creator and a personal God. You can get the discussion here for free in MP3 audio. I have the DVD and its worth it because you get to see their body language especially Dawkins who gets stumped several times during the debate.

http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/2...ennox-has.html

I hope you check it out.

sorry, sport, but I have had a few near-death experiences the recent one being last wednesday, july 8th, and i still don't believe -- what makes you think reading up on an argument that lennox and dawkins had will change my mind? I am lucky and thankful that i am alive.

if some higer being was the reason that i am still here then i thank it, but I know that a lot of factors is the reason that i am still living.
funny that after that day i looked at things totally different. why was i lucky when i'm sure someone else that same exact day died. doesn't seem logical to think that God's choosing who lives and who dies. that's waaaayyy too much responsibility FOR ONE BEING TO HANDLE.

if your were so open minded you would not just take some reacher's word and look for truth in the religion yourself, im sure you will find it easier to believe then a gap filled evolution THEORY

... haha i think i'll stick beside the evolution theory instead of putting my life in an imaginary being's hand.

[btstone]

... haha i think i'll stick beside the evolution theory instead of putting my life in an imaginary being's hand.

i would rather think someone created me then follow a evolution theory filled with gaps and mokeys that throw pieces of thier own shit at each other.

but maybe i feel as though im better than that...

[yojimbo]

i would rather think someone created me then follow a evolution theory filled with gaps and mokeys that throw pieces of thier own shit at each other.

but maybe i feel as though im better than that...

how did God create you?
he snap his fingers? did he shit you out? please explain...

you need to be out killing aldulterers like the bible says. Dont forget the people who work on Sundays...gotta be killed as well. Dont forget the homos and the teenagers that dont obey their parents...gotta die too. You christians are some nice peeps.

LOL brb i gotta go stone some homosexuals to death...

[btstone]

how did God create you?
he snap his fingers? did he shit you out? please explain...

He spoke me into existence. when you get finished throwing shit at the other monkeys you should sit down and ask.

incontt---whats with all the stereotypes. we dont call you a Fag because you drive a T/A.

[yojimbo]

He spoke me into existence. when you get finished throwing shit at the other monkeys you should sit down and ask.

aaahhh... he spoke you into existence? you and i are different -- let me clear you in on something... we're actually apes, not monkeys. if we were monkeys then why are there still 'monkeys' living on earth today?? i know!
some monkeys stayed in the forest and that's where the dumb motherfuckers still are aka you...

and the clever ones moved to the city and adapted aka me. haha
i don't know if it should be considered evidence but I want to howl and throw shit at you. could this be de-evolution??!!!

/sarcasm

so... if we came from monkeys than why are their other chimps, apes... primates to be exact living on this planet?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GEh1u5fF4M - human evolution: the evidence
also, check this out: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sciencean...le-to-ape.html

I found this interesting...While there might only be a 1.6 per cent difference in the genome itself, the way it shapes our minds and bodies is radically different. "The key thing for me," says Taylor, "is that when you compare chimps and great apes with humans you notice how much more gene expression there is in humans."

Gene expression is when certain genes damp down or speed up chemical processes. A team from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology showed that in human brains, there is a five-fold increase in the rate of gene expression. Other research has shown that more than 90 per cent of the genes in human brains have been "up-regulated" – that is, they have higher levels of gene expression. Most of these genes are associated with the speed of transmission of nerve impulses or energy production to fuel the brain. As Taylor says, "Bigger, faster, greedier, longer-living – that's the evolutionary story of the human brain."

i wonder if that's the norm in speciation.... cause you can't just come up with new genes on the fly for new environments/demands, so regulatory genes are the first to advance, like scaffolding, until the rest of the genome can build itself up to standards.
which could be related to punctuated equilibrium(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium).. thoughts?

... haha i can keep this up --- all fuckin day son!!
so, answer me this. what's your theory on how humans came to be?

[sport_122]

aaahhh... he spoke you into existence? you and i are different -- let me clear you in on something... we're actually apes, not monkeys. if we were monkeys then why are there still 'monkeys' living on earth today?? i know!

There are STILL Apes too!!! Why are there still apes? You don't know a damn thing about evolution do you? I am a christian who believes that evolution is partially true, but i know that you don't know a damn thing about it and what it speaks about our existence.

[sport_122]

i wonder if that's the norm in speciation.... cause you can't just come up with new genes on the fly for new environments/demands, so regulatory genes are the first to advance, like scaffolding, until the rest of the genome can build itself up to standards.
which could be related to punctuated equilibrium(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium).. thoughts?

... haha i can keep this up --- all fuckin day son!!
so, answer me this. what's your theory on how humans came to be?

First off, I can't believe you are using Wiki to get information...I could make a wiki post saying we are all birds...or we are rabbits.


You actually choose to use wikipedia over books written by scholars and people who actually study this stuff...That may be why you said there are no more Apes...

You need to look up Steven Jay Gould and learn something about it before you want to argue it....BTW...just so you know, there are many versions of evolution as well but NONE of them relate to Cosmology, or Ontology. So where does this validate any sort of evolution vs Creationism debate.

Creationism focuses on the catalyst of life, evolution focuses on the process of life. Please, connect the dots for me because I know for a fact that the Bible only give ONE specific with regards to the process of creation and that is that men come from the dust of the earth. (Abiogenesis. Life from non-life)

You wanna talk Biology bring it, but you better be ready to go back further than evolution because I have studied evolution and I know that the philosophical answers on life are NOT met by evolutionary theory. That is what people mean when they say it is not proven, they are saying that the process is not proven to have been the origin of life and rightly so because it does not account for the origins of life.

[sport_122]

To grasp the real meaning?? cmon, guy...
from what i have gathered the bible contains nothing more than morals and guidance to a 'better' way of life.

...shortened for space.

Yolimbo,

you seem to be the ONLY "smart" person who thinks that Evolution answered the question of human origin, logic and moral code. No major evolutionists believes that. If evolution is your final answer to everything then fine, you can only say that after ignoring billions of years of development that happened before that, and just about every scientist who has ever published something about human origins and life origins. But I am sure you have already done this because you talked about the adaptation and breeding of Dogs, which is NOT evolution.

In your evolution post, I actually agreed with the statement of the modern church often fails to maintain the teachings as written in the Bible. This is partially true. Evolution is partially true (but you also mixed it with adaptation which isn't the same thing and that tells me you don't know what evolution is), then you said "that some of these churches either mis-interpret the Bible or ignore it completely" This is where you should have stopped. You completely showed us that you are just like these people. You don't want to get your information from the Bible about what Christianity is, yet you obviously don't know what it is based on your comments about God and suffering, and then you reject a statement were someone encourages you to actually listen to good scholarly conversation on the topic. How is that supposed to support your previously grounded stance...it doesn't. So are you wanting to have an informed opinion or just one based off of rhetoric and hypothesized statements.

You ask foolish general questions about the christian faith and then you try to answer them with your nonsensical statements and uninformed viewpoints. You are not a person who really cares to know demonstrated by your response to my post. My post has NOTHING to do with your NDE. My post was to say that if you are going to study in the Bible, you can't just read it and you can't just sit in front of a pastor and let him tell you what it means. its not harry potter. It is a book written in a different time, culture, and language. Nothing secular or religious that meets those criteria can simply be read or dictated in pieces and understood. It has historical value, not because the church says it, but because secular historians say it, it has sociological, philosophical, and anthropological value not because Christians say it, but because sociologists, philosophers, and anthropologists say it. These are the very people that wrote your history books and your social studies books.

Do you even realize that the only way any science is valid is if we can link the findings together somehow, and if our universe is just an explosion gone made then there is NO link unless there is more.

Also, atheists and agnostics have been around for a long time. This is not a new movement. There is a NEO-atheistic movement going on, but it is just the same thing with a different coat, but you didn't know that did you...you know why? because you ignore the very evidence of things in history that people would present to you. The true sign of a fool is one who claims to have knowledge yet refused to do what is necessary to acquire the things required for understanding. I find it pretty damn retarded that you would post all this stuff when you obviously don't know a damn thing about the other viewpoint. And I really doubt you feel bummed out because you are an atheist...its probably more related to your lack of good arguments for being one. And if you don't have good sound arguments for your belief (this goes to Christians as well) then you are doing yourself an injustice by not throwing yourself into as much understanding about all viewpoints as you can.


So to sort it out:

Tell me what church has told you that they will make you evil-free or that you will live an evil free life? And how did you know that this was BS? I have NEVER heard a church say this.

What tells you that God ENJOYS the suffering of men? I have never seen this in the Bible either, nor have I heard it from anyone except atheistic fundamentalists who have to force themselves to ignore parts of the Bible to even come close to making this statement.

What causes the suffering of men?

What would make you say that the Bible has morals and guidelines to a better way of life, when it is very clear that we are to follow the same God that you claim enjoys to watch us suffer?

What morals come from the Bible?

Does the Bible say that God leaves his chilrden?

What makes you think this country is Big into religion?

If you believe in God, and you partially act as though you don't completely doubt his existence, then how would you define him and how is it accurate?