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Post by rick1776 on Jul 28, 2003 3:20:10 GMT -5
eso,
I marvel at your religious historical knowledge. I suspect a great pivitol moment must have occured in your life at one stage, either that or you are genuinely interested in religious events for their own sake. I suspect the former to be true.
All of my biblical knowlege comes from my catholic primary school days. Im amazed I remember as much as I do considering it was a good 30+ years ago. Ive remembered the doctrine and applying rationale to it, I can see what the true agenda (well truth as I percieve it) must have been and how easily it can be twisted by fundimentalists to suit their own agenda. Actually it can be twisted by anyone to suit their needs.
I believe there was a great man by the name of Jesus about 2000 years ago. Probably someone of great leadership, wisdom and compasion (Ghandi is another that comes readily to mind). Was he the son of God. Personally I doubt it.
The irony is that if the same person existed today, the end result would be about the same. Trade the crucifiction for an assylum, but the result would be about the same.
As Jack Nicolson said: You want the truth? You cant handle the truth!
cheers rick1776
PS what do you do to earn a crust eso?
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Post by Danny Boy on Jul 28, 2003 6:26:59 GMT -5
The thing that links all religion; is some form of life after death, me, I’m an agnostic who believes the only thing to happen to me after death will be a feast for the bugs, or, if cremated, a dusting for the Millwall Garden of Remembrance. Fear of death = religion = promise of life after death = best selling/money making gimmick EVER .
PS Eso Yes I have read a lot on the Chinese way of life, Lin Yutang (The Importance of Living, My Country, My People and many more) was the best author I read. 30 moments for drinking tea/30 moments to be happy, classic.
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Post by Srrh on Jul 28, 2003 6:56:36 GMT -5
Let us look at it form a mathematical point of view...
Pascal wrote: "God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here....Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least....Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is... If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is."
The implication is that: The possibility that God exists is greater than zero. If you assume that God exists, and he does, then you have gained everything -- an eternity in Heaven. If God does not exist, then you have lost nothing. The Bible is in error. God, Heaven, Hell etc. don't exist. Therefore, the better bet is to assume that God does exist. The argument from expectation: He wrote: "Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life and happiness." He seems to be stating: The chance that God exists, and the chance that God does not exist are both one in two; i.e. the probability of God's existence is 0.5. This belief "apparently derives from the classical interpretation of probability, according to which all possibilities are given equal weight."
1 Many people will have difficulty accepting this belief: Most North American adults, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc., are absolutely and passionately certain that God exists. Some Agnostics believe that the possibility of there being a God is slim. Some Atheists assert with 100% confidence that God definitely does not exist.
Fortunately, the rest of his argument is not based on this assumption. If what was at stake in the wager was one or two extra lifetimes of living, then one would still be wise to believe in God in the hope that he did exist, and that one would be rewarded. But what is at stake is not one, two or three extra lifetimes. It is an infinite interval of living. The reward is infinite. This makes the stakes even greater, and the denial of God's existence even less wise.
The argument from generalized expectations: This is considered the most important quote in Pascal's writing: "But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. It is all divided; wherever the infinite is and there is not an infinity of chances of loss against that of gain, there is no time to hesitate, you must give all..."
This passage is somewhat obscure. However, he seems to imply that: The chance of God existing is not zero.
Even if the chance of God existing were vanishingly small, the reward in Heaven for believing in God is of infinite duration. Thus, a person would be stupid to believe that God does not exist, because they might possibly lose out on an infinitely large reward.
Do I buy this ? To be perfectly honnest; I used to.
Srrh
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Post by Henrik on Jul 28, 2003 9:31:40 GMT -5
Srrh,
Sorry, but to me that is still a bunch of nonsense. The whole theory is based on the fact that it is a requirement to believe in god in order to gain infinate duration in heaven, and that is where it falls down. What that means is that I can lead a good life, help people, be very generous, never hurt a soul, but I will not gain access to heaven because I don't believe in god. However, I can go around and be a not so very nice person, but if I believe in god, cool, I'll go to heaven.
I'll stick to my personal values and continue not believing, thank you very much!
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Post by Wycco on Jul 28, 2003 10:20:22 GMT -5
My main beef is this.
"God" is almost always portrayed as being loving of all people, he is perfect, omniscient, and knows exactly how the future will unravel.
If this is true:
If "God" created me and loves me. He created me knowing that I would "stray" (be a non-believer), and thus I would be hell bound.
I know christians believe God gives us all free will; but if God is perfect and knows all future events- he would know that I would go to hell if he made me- yet he made me anyway.
Why would a loving- all knowing God do such a thing? To me, it just doesn't add up. Doesn't mean God doesn't exist- it just means that the Christian equation doesn't make sense to me.
God is either not perfect, or not all-loving, or you do not get sent to hell for being a non-believer. The 3 above conditions can not exist together.
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Post by justan on Jul 28, 2003 11:42:44 GMT -5
Weren't the Greeks discussing this sort of thing thousands of years ago?
The only thing that has really changed is our technology and the definition of what a diety is and how it affects us and the universe
regards
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Post by rick1776 on Jul 28, 2003 18:58:37 GMT -5
Reminds me of the old joke. This nice person, non-religious, goes up to heaven. He is genuinely surprised at being invited in by StPeter at the pearly gates.
Look St Peter, I was actually a nonbeliever all my life, are you sure I deserve to be here?
Of course you do. Did you not lead a good life and did you not treat others as you would have liked to be treated.
Err yes I suppose I did.
We have all sorts up here says StPeter. Jews, agnostics, buddists, hindus, you name it we have them.
What about christians? I dont seem to see any about?
Oh we keep them behind that big wall. They think the're the only ones up here!
cheers rick1776 l
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Post by justin on Jul 29, 2003 10:01:52 GMT -5
To sum up my feelings on all of this, in the words of the person who used to be known as Cat Stevens,
I don’t want no God on my lawn
Just a flower I can help along
regards
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Post by pabs on Jul 29, 2003 10:47:56 GMT -5
Wycco,
I don't know about God knowing the future for the future is really not set for anybody. Your question makes the fundamental assumption that such a thing as "pre-destination" exists. I rather think that God gaves free will so that we choose what we make of our lives, and in fact what he sees is the possible outcome of one's life based on the choices we make.
I think that line of reasoning assumes that God thinks and acts like we humans do and again, I don't think that's the case. Also, assuming that God knows that you will go astray, and therefore, lets you do it seems like a simplistic argument to me. To me that's like saying "well, God knows I'm not going to believe so what's the point?" That argument lies all responsability for your life actions in God and not in yourself, which I don't buy because I think we are all responsible for each one of our choices.
Or at least that's the way I see it. Anyways, I almost feel like I'm preaching here again.
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Post by Wycco on Jul 29, 2003 11:48:34 GMT -5
1) I don't know about God knowing the future for the future is really not set for anybody. Your question makes the fundamental assumption that such a thing as "pre-destination" exists. 2) That argument lies all responsability for your life actions in God and not in yourself, which I don't buy because I think we are all responsible for each one of our choices. My point was, he couldn't be: a) Omniscient b) an all-loving, good god AND c) send people to hell all at the same time. He may be 1 or 2 of the above- but it is impossible for him to be all 3. 1) If God is truly all-knowing and omniscient- he would have the knowledge of everything, and everything that WILL be. - hence the meaning of Omniscient. Stating God does not necessarily know the future, and does not know if we are hell or heaven bound means God is not Omniscient. An omniscient god WOULD know where we are bound. 2) If God created us, and knew exactly what he was doing, he would know exactly what choices we would make with our "free-will". Thus, if he created someone- and their "free-will" led them on a collision course with Satan- how could he be "All-Loving"? A sentence of eternal damnation for someone who only acted in the way that he was created doesn't sound "All-Loving" to me... An intrinsicly good God, who loved his subjects, would only create people that would go to heaven. To not do so would be- evil; I don't know any current religion that makes the argument that God is evil. Using deductive reasoning the only way I can see God existing is: a) He is NOT omniscient: he really doesn't know everything- therefore- earth is just a seperation stage where he can see which of his creations are worth moving to the afterlife- and which to throw in the "Reject" bin b) He doesn't love ALL of creation- and/or is not an intrinsicly good god: Creation is just entertainment to him. Just like a novelist can create evil characters who die grisly deaths for entertainment value- God creates hell-bound humans for "entertainment" value. Or c) Hell is a myth perpetuated by humans- and God doesn't really send anyone there.
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Post by justin on Jul 29, 2003 13:45:30 GMT -5
Why do you limit god to just being all good, why can't he be all evil at the same time? Surely god as an omipotent being is capable of such a duality from our point of view perhaps not, but from his being omniscient maybe it isn't. Since I'm far from being omiscient I can be quite confident that I don't see him from his point of view,
what does omipotent mean, all powerful so why can't this encompass what we interpet as good and evil. After all in this scenario who created the devil. The all good god, the all evil god or the all powerful god.
Fate predestination and free will to me seem like our feeble attempts to understand or put into concepts that we can grasp how this omipotent, omiscient being goes about his business. Some thing I'm sure nomatter how hard we try with our concepts and word twisting we can never do.
By our defenition of god we have effectively shut ourselves out from every understanding god. A catch 22, because if we do understand god then god will no longer be god.
As for today's definition of hell isn't that a creation of the "Dark Ages" or Middle Ages if you like, just like the blonde blued(as if) paintings of the Jewish Rabbi we have come to know as Jesus Christ.
At this moment my view regards
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Post by justin on Jul 29, 2003 13:47:58 GMT -5
That of course should be blonde and blue eyed paintings of the Jewish Rabbi
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Post by Wycco1 on Jul 29, 2003 14:12:14 GMT -5
Justin, Logic doesn't exclude the possibility of a God that is capable of both Good AND Evil- A God that is both Good AND Evil- brakes "assumption B" from my above example- and thus is theoretically possible.
However, In the western religions:
Christians believe God is responsible for all good- and that God is all-loving and good- and Satan is responsible for all evil.
Muslims believe God (Allah) is responsible for all good- and that God is all-loving and good- and Shaitan (sometimes Iblis) is responsible for all evil.
I don't think most Jews believe in Satan or hell.
So according to my statement of illogicality in the previous post- only Christianity and Islam are excluded from being logically possible.
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Post by DeadCat on Jul 29, 2003 14:20:14 GMT -5
justin,
omipotent?
Are you sure you didn’t mean impotent?
Well he’s only had one child in 2000 odd years….
- As a joke people, purely a joke…..
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Post by daSilva on Jul 29, 2003 17:34:51 GMT -5
Why do non-religious people think religious people are stupid?
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