Religion, or lack of, open discussion/FRIENDLY debate.

CaptnJack

Active Member
I tend to agree. I'd like to think that we as a species have evolved sufficiently to no longer require the crutch that is religion.

It's time o move on...evolve if you like...past this and on to a higher plane of consciousness that will allow us to better the world we live in today. Not desperately cling on to the belief that a "higher power" is at work while we watch millions die in the name of religion in order to serve it's own agenda. An agenda I might add that has become unfathomably warped through time from it's original incarnation.

And yes, I've read the Bible and I like to believe that I understood the majority. I'm not a Christian but I'm open-minded enough to checkout something which has so many others convinced. I've also read the Koran for the same reasons.

For me personally, I base my beliefs on quantifiable facts, not the grandiose interpretation of what, at best, can only be described as a traditional story passed down through the generations. The fact that the Bible was not written for hundreds of years after the supposed time of Jesus would imply that a degree of "chinese whisper"-like loss of content and context is most likely to have taken place.

I for one cannot blindly follow the Bible's teachings....."just because".
i disagree, seeing as how the old disintegrating scripts and scrolls, now idc WHO you are, have an atheist scientist test em, i guarantee they arent faked, but i know that doesnt PROVE religion. and im sorry dude but i tend to not believe you read the entire bible and koran. of the manny ppl i know veryy few have read the entire bible. not sayin you havent, i just have a disbelief you have.
 

solistics

Active Member
. and im sorry dude but i tend to not believe you read the entire bible and koran. of the manny ppl i know veryy few have read the entire bible. not sayin you havent, i just have a disbelief you have.
Hey look...that's fair. Look we're all strangers here brought together by our interest in growing. I don't expect people here to "know" me, my ethics, views, morals etc. based on a couple of posts. So no offense taken.

That said, I'm married to an Irish Catholic and let's just say I like to know what I'm getting into ;) That's what lead me to read the Bible in the first place. That and having spent 6 years living in Ireland where I've seen first hand what religion can do to people I wanted to know what caused the fundamental divide between Catholics and Protestants .

As for the Koran, you hear so much about what it does and does not purport to teach in the popular media that when I took a year off work to travel a Muslim friend who knows my interest in religion as a whole gifted me a copy.

Now again, I don't "expect" you to believe everything I write here but how about you give me the same credit you give to your religious beliefs and grant me the benefit of the doubt.
 

CaptnJack

Active Member
im not sayin im not crediting you at all, if someone has sources and experiences i'll listen but i know personally how hard it is to read the whole bible, much less the koran as well, and i mean ALOT of ppl say they've read the bible, and i know they havent, especially if you bait them a little bit some will admit it, and others will be stubborn and look stupid.

again im not saying you havent, its just my personal experience with ppl. religious beliefs is one thing, saying you accomplished something and someones word is a totally different thing. ESPECIALLY today.
 

TheBrutalTruth

Well-Known Member
i disagree, seeing as how the old disintegrating scripts and scrolls, now idc WHO you are, have an atheist scientist test em, i guarantee they arent faked, but i know that doesnt PROVE religion. and im sorry dude but i tend to not believe you read the entire bible and koran. of the manny ppl i know veryy few have read the entire bible. not sayin you havent, i just have a disbelief you have.

Only, there's one slighty problem with holding that up as a test of religious knowledge, as the Bible is incomplete (both the Old and the New Testaments) and there are many books missing. Books that were removed at the Council of Nicea by the College of Bishops.

Some of these books of course are the Gnostic Texts, and others are other texts such as those that might be amidst the Dead Sea Scrolls.

In an effort to trick people into following Christianity the Priests routinely altered the information with in.

A giant case of Fraud, but that's just a problem with religion. Of course, when any group is preaching sacrifice it follows that they are going to be the ones collecting the sacrificial offerings. The ommissions by Organized Religion, or the actions that they commit, can not be held up as proof or lack of that there is a God.

In truth Organized Religion is a construct of man.

As far as God...

Insufficient Information to work with.

Though there are some interesting stories in the Bible that might lead one to believe that God is an Alien... or an extra-dimensional being...
 

Stoney McFried

Well-Known Member
Sorry, Tacitus was NOT a contemporary, and there was evidence that those writings were tampered with by the church.Every Christian brings him up, and the stuff they say he wrote about christ is fake.In any event, he was NOT alive at the time of Christ. http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/review_EVOCC.htm
http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/appe.html
Actually as i said, there IS historical documentation of it, check out cornelius tacitus's annals.
"Cornelius Tacitus in his Annals, xv. 44 Christus (Christ)...was executed at the hands of the procurator Pontious Pilate.

Lucian of Samosata: (Christ) the man who was crucified in Palestine"

I'm sorry, simply not a true account of it.The Romans were very meticulous about such things, and they don't mention him.
these men were professional historians. They researched their work before publishing it. They also documented Christ's crucifixion.


But that doesn't mesh with the Bible.God is supposed to be omnipotent.And it still doesn't answer the question...who created this god?If something cannot come from nothing,where did this god come from?If these rules are applied to evolution,then they must be applied to creation as well.If we are clones as you say, then there is no reason to worship him.It would be like worshipping ourselves.
Glad someone decided to ask that, was kinda waitin for it, this is where i say i do not know, because our "GOD" could just be another race, species, or somethin of a population we just have no conception of, that could mean just as we are on the brink of understanding genetics to the point of creating other people, the script created in his likeness" could be cloned, sounds gay i know, but think of it, if we could why couldnt anyone else.



I disagree.Not everyone is motivated by the same desires.Knowledge can also be used to better mankind.Even the knowledge of something terrible that has happened,like the holocaust.Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.
actually no, im not sayin we should remain ignorant, just that man is very much corruptable, and too much knowledge in the average persons hand, will result in them using that knowledge to gain better for themselves. so in THAT respect, yea knowledge will lead to danger innevitably but its somethin that cant be helped nor stopped.
 

CaptnJack

Active Member
I disagree.Not everyone is motivated by the same desires.Knowledge can also be used to better mankind.Even the knowledge of something terrible that has happened,like the holocaust.Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.

no one said everyone was motivated by the same selfish desires, (although im willin to bet you along with everyone else on this site, is selfish to a point, whether it be money on the street or manipulation, if situation was dire enough, you'd do what you can to save your own ass, or obtain money if necessary) i agree with the fact it can better mankind, there is a difference between knowledge and historical recognition, and i dont see why you are applying it here. My point was connected to historical recognance. im talking about knowledge in fision, or anything that CAN be used harmfully, i know it'll never stop, because wether or not EVERY body is selfish, but more how EVERYBODY is corruptable, just appeal to whats most important to them, "your mothers sick dying? we'll get her the best medical care if ...." deny if you wish, but if we are as you say a piece of evolution at most, then we all have the same basic instincts.

And as for historical documentation, or credibility. wikipedia (and i dont want to hear the argument that its an unstable source since anyone can create one, thats null and void seeing as how since around 06-07 they have been scrutinous to people being byast and partial in notations and started to verify citations) cites "That Jesus was crucified is a well-attested event of Roman history" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion_of_Jesus

as far as looking into history of even just A man named jesus being crucified, ctrl+f hist.
 

Stoney McFried

Well-Known Member
I've been pretty low.Never hurt anyone else to get by.Not everyone is corruptable.Because not everyone is motivated by the same things.
I'm sorry that source is not reliable..and I'm not talking about wiki,I'm talking tacitus.But it's the same argument over and over with Christian types, it feels like an endless loop to me.NONE of these sources were contemporaries of jesus.There is NOBODY from his lifetime that speaks of him.It all comes after.That's not proof to me, sorry.But in my last post I gave two very good links which explain why The testimonium flavium is suspect.And even your own wiki article explains that they are disputed.Here's an excerpt from the article...it's numbered 11, right next to the "That Jesus was crucified is a well-attested event of Roman history" which cites tacitus and josephus as a reference TO this "fact",even though both are disputed, and once again, NOT contemporaries of Jesus.(^ Crossan, John Dominic (1995). Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. HarperOne. p. 145. ISBN 0060616628. "That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus...agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact.")
no one said everyone was motivated by the same selfish desires, (although im willin to bet you along with everyone else on this site, is selfish to a point, whether it be money on the street or manipulation, if situation was dire enough, you'd do what you can to save your own ass, or obtain money if necessary) i agree with the fact it can better mankind, there is a difference between knowledge and historical recognition, and i dont see why you are applying it here. My point was connected to historical recognance. im talking about knowledge in fision, or anything that CAN be used harmfully, i know it'll never stop, because wether or not EVERY body is selfish, but more how EVERYBODY is corruptable, just appeal to whats most important to them, "your mothers sick dying? we'll get her the best medical care if ...." deny if you wish, but if we are as you say a piece of evolution at most, then we all have the same basic instincts.

And as for historical documentation, or credibility. wikipedia (and i dont want to hear the argument that its an unstable source since anyone can create one, thats null and void seeing as how since around 06-07 they have been scrutinous to people being byast and partial in notations and started to verify citations) cites "That Jesus was crucified is a well-attested event of Roman history" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion_of_Jesus

as far as looking into history of even just A man named jesus being crucified, ctrl+f hist.
 

CaptnJack

Active Member
I've been pretty low.Never hurt anyone else to get by.Not everyone is corruptable.Because not everyone is motivated by the same things.
I'm sorry that source is not reliable..and I'm not talking about wiki,I'm talking tacitus.But it's the same argument over and over with Christian types, it feels like an endless loop to me.NONE of these sources were contemporaries of jesus.There is NOBODY from his lifetime that speaks of him.It all comes after.That's not proof to me, sorry.But in my last post I gave two very good links which explain why The testimonium flavium is suspect.And even your own wiki article explains that they are disputed.Here's an excerpt from the article...it's numbered 11, right next to the "That Jesus was crucified is a well-attested event of Roman history" which cites tacitus and josephus as a reference TO this "fact",even though both are disputed, and once again, NOT contemporaries of Jesus.(^ Crossan, John Dominic (1995). Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. HarperOne. p. 145. ISBN 0060616628. "That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus...agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact.")
t

the fact its disputed doesnt mean that its been discredited, much less proven otherwise some ppl tend to lean towards thinkin it has based on thier personal belief, "christian types" lean towards a positive while atheist types lean towards negatives, the fact that archeoligists have uncovered crusified bodies in the same fashion as christ, and a big debate of the actual crucifixtion was that nobody's body could withstand the stakes nailed where they were, and the body weight, but finding another in the fashion closely similar to that of the bibles description is a step.

and another thing, are we saying that christ never existed, or christ was no messiah nor son of god?
 

BakedinBC

Active Member
Now, i dont want to offend anyone here, just voicing my opinion on religions.

I believe that thousands of years ago, when religions were started, people looked around and only saw a dark and greed filled future. Religions were created to keep everyone in line. Also, these beliefs could explain all the things that sciences (or lack of!) never could. However, today, i think it's about time we dropped it. I don't believe in god, heaven or hell. Although i believe in the happy and loving lifestyle the bible tells people to live, I think we should stop "praying" to these make belief beings that were imagined so long ago to explain natural phenomenon. Is it really too hard for the human race to exist as a kind, loving world without having to fear of a mighty being smiting us for not doing so? Besides, as an adult of the 21st century, can you honestly believe, with all the knowledge of sciences, that there is a hell, heaven and god?

Also, all the effort that goes into religion could be going towards sciences to further our knowledge about the world around us, and BEYOND! ( example, probably not a great one :P : instead of praying for someone with cancer, help find the cure)

that is my belief. by saying that im sure there are a lot of people hating me right now, but i feel its necessary to explain to people WHY i believe religion should end.

thank you, and peace :)
 

Stoney McFried

Well-Known Member
I say he never existed.He's a ripoff of earlier "avatars".One you've probably heard of is Mithras.But I'm planning on hitting the hay soon.....you can see in those earlier links I posted that not only are they disputed, they're picked apart completely.I have an interesting link as well to leave you with...the link to this book...points out that the gospel of Mark is just really a plagiarism of the homeric epics.http://books.google.com/books?id=8JkFqMXX6WAC&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq=gospel+of+mark++really+jason+and+the+argonauts&source=bl&ots=L7VOhUTqKu&sig=qJb10ii4kk89TJylp13FIWX7zoo&hl=en&ei=UZ4cSuykN5XMMfXe6ZsP&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPP1,M1 IMO, it's all just stories.But Christians seem to need to believe, they simply must have a purpose to keep them going.I prefer to rely on me.:peace:
t

the fact its disputed doesnt mean that its been discredited, much less proven otherwise some ppl tend to lean towards thinkin it has based on thier personal belief, "christian types" lean towards a positive while atheist types lean towards negatives, the fact that archeoligists have uncovered crusified bodies in the same fashion as christ, and a big debate of the actual crucifixtion was that nobody's body could withstand the stakes nailed where they were, and the body weight, but finding another in the fashion closely similar to that of the bibles description is a step.

and another thing, are we saying that christ never existed, or christ was no messiah nor son of god?
 

Stoney McFried

Well-Known Member
One more point to make: This is a big glaring example of why religion is dying.Anyone who believes in this stuff should NOT breed.
[youtube]IiSta--f_Lc[/youtube]
 

jfgordon1

Well-Known Member
i agree stoney. i dont know why people have so much belief in religion. Are they that scared to die? they scared of what happens?or doesn't happen? it really wouldn't matter to me what people believed if it didn't influence politics.. but sadly.. it does. :(
 

CaptnJack

Active Member
One more point to make: This is a big glaring example of why religion is dying.Anyone who believes in this stuff should NOT breed.
[youtube]IiSta--f_Lc[/youtube]

that is a completely low blow to the christian religion, seeing as how only a a small percentage of christians believe in "speaking in tongues" in modern day. you know i read your post and as they are composed in a civil manner you cut quite a bit, which im sorry is bull shit, and im not gettin worked up, nor angry, but its not necessary, logic should tell you what it tells most all christians, gifts cannot be taught, but way to take a stab.

just as there are ppl who can pick apart christianity that are respected, there are so in the opposite, both discredit each other, and both lead by personal opinion, as it will be for quite sometime, however there are some non believers who still research to find an un biased truth, i mean i could sit here and google for my argument, but i choose to go based off of what i've gathered and learned. and to be quite honest, yea i was a self proclaimed christian for quite sometime in my life, however the past year or so, ive been more so inquisitive of god, and have my own personal theory of life, one without a particular god, but i still believe there was a man named jesus and spoke of good morals, check out a book called "the real jesus" because there are discoveries that are brushed aside, by media, and colleges. discoveries that could say there was a possible true person, a man named jesus. and your comments that the bible was written 100 yrs after "supposed" christ lived, well is just as common of an argument from "atheist" types. and its untrue, think about how long it would take to write the bible, ok? i mean really that large of a book, in that time, would have taken quite some time? no? i mean, first you have to have materials to write with, and i mean its not like they had ink pens or pencils and sharpeners on hand, but yet people are notably quoting the new testament as early as 100 a.d., do the math involved with that. 1198 pages on a larger sized book with average sized font, so that would take some considerable time to write. and to already to have been quoted and being read, doesnt add up, its one of the most common comments that atheists use. and in its way discredited as well.
 

CaptnJack

Active Member
oh and one other thing, watch this, and actually take some time to watch, even if you have discrepencies cuz it'll show and explain some things



[youtube]JC_ofs5jC7U&hl=en&fs=1[/youtube]
 

jfgordon1

Well-Known Member
that is a completely low blow to the christian religion, seeing as how only a a small percentage of christians believe in "speaking in tongues" in modern day. you know i read your post and as they are composed in a civil manner you cut quite a bit, which im sorry is bull shit, and im not gettin worked up, nor angry, but its not necessary, logic should tell you what it tells most all christians, gifts cannot be taught, but way to take a stab.

just as there are ppl who can pick apart christianity that are respected, there are so in the opposite, both discredit each other, and both lead by personal opinion, as it will be for quite sometime, however there are some non believers who still research to find an un biased truth, i mean i could sit here and google for my argument, but i choose to go based off of what i've gathered and learned. and to be quite honest, yea i was a self proclaimed christian for quite sometime in my life, however the past year or so, ive been more so inquisitive of god, and have my own personal theory of life, one without a particular god, but i still believe there was a man named jesus and spoke of good morals, check out a book called "the real jesus" because there are discoveries that are brushed aside, by media, and colleges. discoveries that could say there was a possible true person, a man named jesus. and your comments that the bible was written 100 yrs after "supposed" christ lived, well is just as common of an argument from "atheist" types. and its untrue, think about how long it would take to write the bible, ok? i mean really that large of a book, in that time, would have taken quite some time? no? i mean, first you have to have materials to write with, and i mean its not like they had ink pens or pencils and sharpeners on hand, but yet people are notably quoting the new testament as early as 100 a.d., do the math involved with that. 1198 pages on a larger binded book with average sized font, so that would take some considerable time to write. and to already to have been quoted and being read, doesnt add up, its one of the most common comments that atheists use. and in its way discredited as well.
ur right... the gospels were writen at least a hundred years after jesus lived. according to my recent religion class.. it was 2-3 centuries afterwards. it's just amazing to me that the main historians that actually lived during "jesus's" time didn't write anything about him. i mean.. if the son of god walked the earth while you were alive, i would probably mention it in my notes... but thats just me. never existed n my book
 

CaptnJack

Active Member
ur right... the gospels were writen at least a hundred years after jesus lived. according to my recent religion class.. it was 2-3 centuries afterwards. it's just amazing to me that the main historians that actually lived during "jesus's" time didn't write anything about him. i mean.. if the son of god walked the earth while you were alive, i would probably mention it in my notes... but thats just me. never existed n my book

no that wasnt my point what so ever greenhorn, nor what i said, and if you watch that vid i posted, if i can get it to work, then you'll see what im talkin about, the fact is, jesus was crucified and "he arose from the dead" i know thats in question, but the fact is there was no need in their mind to write of his account because to them he was a crazy, a liar, which was somewhat common in those days, why write of him, do we write and make a big deal out of every person who calls themselves god? no, why? no need. we assume they're nutty. im not sayin this video will make anyone believe, but it will argue what stoney and most religion classes have to say about it.
 

jfgordon1

Well-Known Member
no that wasnt my point what so ever greenhorn, nor what i said, and if you watch that vid i posted, if i can get it to work, then you'll see what im talkin about, the fact is, jesus was crucified and "he arose from the dead" i know thats in question, but the fact is there was no need in their mind to write of his account because to them he was a crazy, a liar, which was somewhat common in those days, why write of him, do we write and make a big deal out of every person who calls themselves god? no, why? no need. we assume they're nutty. im not sayin this video will make anyone believe, but it will argue what stoney and most religion classes have to say about it.
we do if they kill someone "in the name of god". and i'm sure we have a lot of written material on people who have thought they are god. i'm sure i could google and get a long long list. if jesus did indeed arose from the dead... that would convince a lot of people.. he would be thought of a magician similar to david blain to say the least. he would definitely be written about.
 
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