Why did you choose the religion you follow?

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Thank you for your explanation as well. But what gets me is, if God is supposed to be an omnipotent being, why did He find it necessary to divide himself into three parts? Why couldn't there just be one RC car that does it all is what I'm saying.
Omnipotence is a poorly defined concept to begin with, but even so; the fact that he was capable of not dividing himself does not mean there was no reason for him not to.

Another way to think of it is that God didn't 'divide' himself into three parts, because God refers to the entity in completeness. His different aspects were not a separation of the whole; just as your whole body has a heart, a left arm, a right arm, a brain, a nervous system, etc., and yet is all still the same 'entity'.
 
If you're using this website to back your arguments, you should examine it properly.
I absolutely do not need that website to back up my arguments, I was just providing a link for someone. I've actually never read that website before I linked it but I knew it had a list of contradictions so I just linked that.

The website mentioned earlier is far too unreliable to source for evidence of the following, but I can see how a person could think that the Bible contradicts itself. One of my fundamental beliefs is that we don't understand God. I don't understand how you can classify something as "impossible", and expect it to be entirely logical. And so because we don't understand him, because he is impossible, he can be omnibenevolent despite the existence of strife. Understanding this eases the urge to have all of my religious ducks in a row, or to defend my religion from accusations of contradiction. God does not need to be rationalized.
Why is god inherently "impossible" to understand? Why would a god create people that cannot possibly understand him?

Generally, I wonder at the things some people seem to accept as fact, based on human efforts. Theories based upon theories upon theories seems to me more akin to a house of cards than a worldview. Always, Theists are reprimanded for denying the "concrete evidence" for different theories; theories that are way over our heads. But somehow, a general agreement that "it makes sense", and the blessing of some guy in a wheelchair constitutes irrefutable evidence. Human knowledge is so pitiful that, accordingly, I fail to understand this phenomenon.
First off, for clarification:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

Secondly, science never claims to be the end all be all of knowledge. What science is the best possible explanation for any given question based on empirical evidence. What basis do you have for the claim that "human knowledge is pitiful", because science has discovered some amazing things.

I don't think that one can disprove something impossible. Furthermore, I think that there's significant evidence for the impossible. The scientific theory falls in on itself where it lacks an initial impetus for the big bang (which, itself, might be described as the "initial impetus"). Therefore it is reasonable to believe that there exists, or once existed, something outside the bounds of possibility; i.e., impossible. Once you believe in something impossible, everything else is in question. Existence is impossible. Conclusions such as the one posed by Stephen Hawking ("it all just exists") depend more upon your individual mind, and what makes sense to you, that the universal truth. I am highly intrigued by God's self-description: "The Great I Am"; basically defining himself by his existence.
No, it's not reasonable to believe that, because there is no reason to believe that. There is no evidence for a god, and just because something "makes sense" doesn't make it true. And yes you cannot disprove a negative, but you can continually add evidence against it.

But ultimately, religion should not be a way to logically explain the world. That is little more than Agnostic Theism. Such explanatory religion is as Archaic as the Greek myth of Zeus as an explanation for lightning. Explanation should not be seen as the primary message of my religion, Christianity. We get too caught up in defending the specifics of our religion, or even bickering about them amongst ourselves. I think it's possible that the Bible entirely consists of metaphors; that perhaps there was never a literal week of creation, or Garden of Eden. But at the same time, I accept that the Bible could be a literal, word-for-word account of God's actions throughout history. I'm adamantly apathetic. I really don't think it matters.
The bible is presented as the word of god, and it is meant to explain the universe.

What matters is the message God has for us.

I was raised a Christian by my mother. I don't believe I was "brainwashed", though I suppose that's just what someone who was brainwashed would say. However, it remains the honest sentiment of someone who was not brainwashed. I have made my religion my own. When I was first a teenager, I was much too stuffy about the specifics of my religion, but that phase has passed. My "nothing matters but the message" theory was a product of the "ripe" age of seventeen. I have also recently taken up the daily reading of my Bible. I decided that my Sunday School knowledge of God's message was not enough. My initial readings have just served to solidify that I need to read my Bible more. Of course, I have many more opinions on, and questions of, my religion. But firstly, I am content with God.
I have no problems with this

tl;dr
we know nothing
not true
 
Omnipotence is a poorly defined concept to begin with, but even so; the fact that he was capable of not dividing himself does not mean there was no reason for him not to.

Another way to think of it is that God didn't 'divide' himself into three parts, because God refers to the entity in completeness. His different aspects were not a separation of the whole; just as your whole body has a heart, a left arm, a right arm, a brain, a nervous system, etc., and yet is all still the same 'entity'.
Yeah I'm confused again. I think I'm just going to give up now v__v thanks anyway.
 
popemobile said:
Why is god inherently "impossible" to understand? Why would a god create people that cannot possibly understand him?
I don't understand why, either. This is not detrimental to my point.

I say human knowledge is pitiful because it's what I believe. "The more you learn, the less you know." We know so little that we don't even know the scale on which to measure our knowledge.

popemobile said:
No, it's not reasonable to believe that, because there is no reason to believe that. [...] And yes you cannot disprove a negative, but you can continually add evidence against it.
I disagree with the former statement. The latter gives me platform for my beliefs.

I need to confirm that my aim is to explain my own beliefs. I have no delusions of arguing anyone into submission in a religious debate on the internet, especially one not expressly for that purpose. I don't believe that either theory is provable. So I choose to live by faith, and not by what can be proven.

popemobile said:
The bible [...] is meant to explain the universe.
What? I obviously disagree, given my previous explanation.
 

Hipmonlee

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Why is god inherently "impossible" to understand? Why would a god create people that cannot possibly understand him?
I get the feeling you didnt really think this question through..

Have a nice day.
 
I am Protestant, Christian. I have been since I was a 11, and my parents respect my choice of religion. Unlike the other forms of Christianity we don't worship Mother Mary, only Jesus Christ. I personally believe that Jesus exists, I mean come on, even the year you use is based on how many years has passed since he was born. Although I am not one of those over-obsessed Christians who try to persuade everyone to become Christians, because they believe only we can go to heaven, which I seriously doubt it's true.
 

vonFiedler

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The bible is presented as the word of god, and it is meant to explain the universe.
No, the first 11 Chapters are meant to explain the origins of the world, and personally the first two chapters feel like they were thrown in at the last minute as something the human compilers saw as a necessity. It reads far too much like the myths of creation of any other religion. I for one don't feel that God ever felt the need to explain himself or his workings to his creations.
 
I am Protestant, Christian. I have been since I was a 11, and my parents respect my choice of religion. Unlike the other forms of Christianity we don't worship Mother Mary, only Jesus Christ. I personally believe that Jesus exists, I mean come on, even the year you use is based on how many years has passed since he was born. Although I am not one of those over-obsessed Christians who try to persuade everyone to become Christians, because they believe only we can go to heaven, which I seriously doubt it's true.
The calendar was calculated in reverse; they didn't start counting from when Christ was born. The guy read through some texts and estimated the year, and redefined the one they were in.

I believe, but can't recall definitely, that modern scholars believe Jesus was born in 4BC.
 
I am an Athiest for many reasons. one, as mentioned earlier, is because I see the world of strife, and wonder, if there is a god, then why don't they intervene instead of watching this world fall apart? Two, I also base my beliefs on what makes sense and can be clarified, since there is nothing more than a book that was translated from a language that almost no one spoke about 1600 years ago, it is pretty hard to believe what you read. Three, before middle school, I believed in god, and I also loved life. Middle school happened, I chose to continue believing in god, and was tortured throughout (Not for my beliefs, but because I was never raised to defend myself, but to turn the other cheek, making me an easy target) Now, High School, I'm 18, don't believe in god, and I'm happy. this is how I am.

I also read an interesting quote that pertained to the argument earlier:
"A God who has the power to stop strife without doing so is Malicious, A God who allowed the strife to happen, but has no power to stop it, is not all-powerful."

This means, that your "Omnibenevolent god, though impossible to understand, is Either malicious, or not as all powerful as you think. "He" may love all of his children, but don't drunk dad's love the kids they beat when they aren't drunk?

And as Lady Gaga mentioned, is it possible for someone who doesn't believe, such as me, to make it to any type of heaven, even if we make the most out of our lives, and live with the good of others before the good of ourselves? EVEN IF we don't believe in a God? if you say that we couldn't, then you believe in a corrupt system.
 
popemobile said:
I absolutely do not need that website to back up my arguments, I was just providing a link for someone. I've actually never read that website before I linked it but I knew it had a list of contradictions so I just linked that.
Not having an actual stake in the discussion, what kind of response were you expecting if you addressed me only out of spite?

Zero_X54321 said:
I am an Athiest for many reasons. one, as mentioned earlier, is because I see the world of strife, and wonder, if there is a god, then why don't they intervene instead of watching this world fall apart?
I just want to clarify the nature of the God I believe in.

The world is in the state it's in because of the decisions we make. For God to set everything right, He would have to override our free will to force us all to make the perfect choice. Being puppets on a string would be of little value to us or to Him.

In addition to God being loving, He is also holy. Holy in the sense that He cannot tolerate imperfection any more than we could withstand His perfection. His loving nature is demonstrated in His taking our condemnation for us through the Son, Jesus, making us appear righteous in His eyes despite whatever we may have done.

His intervention, Jesus, was done in the context of our eternal existence. Without this context, you and I are not talking about the same God.

That said, we're not to give up on this world. I don't think anyone actually expects we'll ever achieve a perfect and just society, but it's something to aspire to. Not through political means, but in your personal life, serving the poor and being kind to everyone. You don't need Jesus to have an altruistic nature, but all the love you can give doesn't change your still not being good enough, which is why God made it so easy to come to Him by counting on Jesus to have done all that will ever be necessary.
 
The world is in the state it's in because of the decisions we make. For God to set everything right, He would have to override our free will to force us all to make the perfect choice. Being puppets on a string would be of little value to us or to Him.

In addition to God being loving, He is also holy. Holy in the sense that He cannot tolerate imperfection any more than we could withstand His perfection.
The god you believe in makes no sense at all by what you just laid out. He cannot tolerate imperfection, yet made really, really flawed creatures that he knew, since he is such a perfectly all knowing, all powerful dude, knew would be this awful in so many different ways. No, a god that makes sense is one that despises imperfection, thus creating creatures with nothing but capacity for good. They could still have free will and live independent lives, still have arguments, disagreements, taste, and a variety of tasks and jobs. Instead you have a god that set up a creature to fail and then punished them for it with strife, disease, pain, and eventually eternal damnation.
 
My entire family was Christian, parents, grandmother etc. Even at five I was always iffy about it. I was always pestering them with questions, and the answers always danced around the questions and simply boiled down to "Religion is all about faith". So, to be straightforward, I was never given a reason to believe. I wanted something I could touch, something I could feel, something I could absolutely say with no second-guess or persistent twitch in the bowels of my stomach, that God was real. I never got that.

So, eventually I stopped believing. As I got older I came up with more and more reasons to deter myself from it and here I am as an Atheist. Woo.
 

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popemobile said:
First off, for clarification:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

Secondly, science never claims to be the end all be all of knowledge. What science is the best possible explanation for any given question based on empirical evidence. What basis do you have for the claim that "human knowledge is pitiful", because science has discovered some amazing things.
This really can't be repeated enough. Please do not misunderstand what a scientific theory is.
 

Great Sage

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All right, let's not get too off-topic. This is primarily a personal thread and not a debate thread (we know where the latter leads). Besides, if you seriously think that it's worth your time to try to convince someone else over the Internet of the value or lack thereof of religion...
 
As far as agnostic atheism, I can see little difference between 'I don't believe God exists, but prove me wrong if you can' and 'God may or may not exist' besides implying that one option is more likely than the other.
It's that the label "agnostic", unqualified, is general taken as meaning undecided. By contrast "atheist" implies a much firmer position, though it need not be a dogmatic one. If I in future see a reason to change my own position then I will have no problem doing so, but presently, I am reasonably confident God does not exist.

Generally, I wonder at the things some people seem to accept as fact, based on human efforts. Theories based upon theories upon theories seems to me more akin to a house of cards than a worldview. Always, Theists are reprimanded for denying the "concrete evidence" for different theories; theories that are way over our heads. But somehow, a general agreement that "it makes sense", and the blessing of some guy in a wheelchair constitutes irrefutable evidence. Human knowledge is so pitiful that, accordingly, I fail to understand this phenomenon.
The ability to predict the behaviour of physical system to the highest accuracy we can measure is what constitutes the immensely strong evidence the theories are correct.

To give an example:

In 1915 Einstein published his theory of general relativity. His work was based entirely on theory. Yet immediately, it precisely described the behaviour of Mercury's orbit, something Newtonian mechanics failed to do.

It also predicted the exact amount light from a star would be affected by gravity. The prediction differed from that of Newton's theory. In 1919, observations were taken during a solar eclipse - the stars near the sun, made visible due to the eclipse, were seen as shifted from their usual predictions. The shifts matched General Relativity. (The data from 1919 was not very good, but more recent data has been more precise).

By the 50s, it had been established the Universe was expanding, and two rival theories had arose - Big Bang and Steady State. In 1948, Gamow, Alper, and Herman made a key prediction - that the Universe should be permeated by the 'afterglow' of the Big Bang, now redshifted to wavelengths of about a millimetre, and that said afterglow would show a so-called black body spectrum.

In 1963-64, Gamow, Alpher, and Herman's work had been mostly forgotten, when Penzias and Wilson were attempting to track down a vexatious source of interference received by a radio antenna. This radiation turned out to be the Big Bang's afterglow - the Cosmic Microwave Background. Combined with other existing data (notably that the only quasars are all far away and thus billions of years ago in time) the Big Bang was proven - the Steady State, refuted.

It was also predicted that there should be variations in the CMB. Astronmers searched, and found nothing. They searched some more, and eventually, in 1991, the COBE satellite found the variations - 1 part in a hundred thousand. They also measured the spectrum, and found it to be the most perfect black body spectrum ever found in nature, in perfect agreement with theory. Draw the theoretical line on a page and the errors bars on the data are smaller than the width of the pencil line.




If you ever use a satnav, the GPS system depends on general relativity. Use Newtonian mechanics and your position will be miles wrong.

As for the other great theory of physics - quantum mechanics: the now omnipresent USB flash drives rely on quantum mechanical behaviour to store their data. As do nuclear bombs, lasers, and many other things.

Accurate description after accurate description, and fulfilled prediction after fulfilled prediction. That is why I am confident the scientific worldview is correct.

PS: I started work on this post before the Great Sage had made the one above.
 

vonFiedler

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This means, that your "Omnibenevolent god, though impossible to understand, is Either malicious, or not as all powerful as you think. "He" may love all of his children, but don't drunk dad's love the kids they beat when they aren't drunk?
So do you not believe in God, or do you simply feel like he doesn't deserve your worship?

I used to have a fairly facetious relationship with God. My life was filled with too many difficult tests for me to want to look up to a creator when I was being groomed to create myself, in a different manner. But as much I felt entitled to success and happiness, I never received either until I submitted myself to God. Explaining how to do that to you would probably be like explaining how to do that to me a year ago. I don't think I could. To men of logic (such as myself), faith seems to have no place. You convince yourself that you cannot have logic and faith. But in the words of Voltaire, "It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason." I don't need faith to know there is a God. But I need faith. I was lost for years without it and I wasn't even aware of the fact.
 
Saying something is reason, and then not actually showing reason, is in fact faith. (He says it is perfectly evident, when in fact we have no evidence of the existence of any god. He says this because he has already subconsciously made the assumption that he exists, and then views everything as evidence of that assumption.)

Voltaire came from an era where religion was indoctrinated from an early age. By the time of adulthood, most people were already entirely assured of God's existence that He existed axiomatically.

You can be otherwise a man of logic, otherwise completely rational. But most religions, Christianity certainly, has large sections of irrationality and illogicality in them, so one cannot be entirely a man of logic by accepting a doctrine such as a religious faith.
 

vonFiedler

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Voltaire came from an era where religion was indoctrinated from an early age. By the time of adulthood, most people were already entirely assured of God's existence that He existed axiomatically.
You don't seem to have a very good grasp of Deism. Voltaire, like most Deists, was very much against the organized church and their indoctrination. Now I've given my reasons for my logical belief of the existence of a higher power.

To reiterate, where you see the world as a separation of "nature" and "man-made", I see only patterns and programs. Since one set of patterns and programs must be crafted, so must the other. It is the simplest of logic.

Being a Deist AND being Christian doesn't make as much sense, from the standpoint of an outsider, but only by having faith have I reached true potential in life. It's the same concept as Karma. You do a good deed, and when it doesn't instantly come back around you become discouraged. But you made someone else's life better, and that's good enough.

EDIT: Oh, you mean Christianity is illogical. Well, I never said I accepted the Bible as anything more than man's attempt at understanding a God who most likely never wished to be fully understood.
 
I don't understand why, either. This is not detrimental to my point.

I say human knowledge is pitiful because it's what I believe. "The more you learn, the less you know." We know so little that we don't even know the scale on which to measure our knowledge.
knowledge is on a scale of what everyone (everyone being the human race) knows. whether our knowledge is objectively nothing (that is, if we have only scratched the surface of all the knowledge in the universe, which could be infinite) means, well, nothing.

basically, when you say someone is smart, you are saying they know a lot within the bounds of what we as humans have already learned. it's contextual. I suppose you could look at it as a percentage. say 100% is what we as humans have collectively learned and knowing 75% of that sum is considered smart. as that sum increases (discovering more things i.e. time travel, long distance space flights etc), the margin increases as well (assuming the smart person isn't learning anything new). so then what would be considered smart would be something like, say, 60% (the number obviously being irrelevant).

in short, knowledge is relative.

this probably makes no sense to anyone and I apologize if it doesn't. I'm just kinda rambling here. it makes sense in my head, though :P

additionally, if this is a complete straw man then I apologize deeply. just going by what I think you're saying. chances are this is utterly irrelevant but hey whatever haha.

anyway, to be relevant, I don't believe in religion. I believe religion causes nothing but conflict (although this wasn't my original reason for abandoning my beliefs I had as a child). you see extremists in the middle east killing people for religion. in fact, the whole war in Uganda was started because the leader (forget his name) of that rebel army thinks this was god's intention (or something along those lines. correct me if I'm wrong). even on a small scale, people get upset and get into arguments/fights over religion (especially those which conflict with each other). so who is right? I don't feel there's any credibility with the Bible. a lot of morals, values and beliefs of the younger world have been discredited, disproved and just overridden with more logical and modern ideas. I'm contradicting myself to a degree here (note I said "a lot", not all in the previous sentence), but I think the only use of the Bible is to teach people life lessons and morals/values. in that case it does a good job.

retrospectively, my original reasoning for abandoning religion is simply because I need proof. the burden of proof lies with those making a claim of existence. however, I don't think it's impossible a god exists so I firmly believe in agnosticism. I feel like keeping an open mind is the best way to go. ultimately, as long as religious people stop pushing their beliefs on me and trying to get me to convert, I'm okay with it. but this ideology goes with almost anything to me. vegetarians (which I think is total bullshit unless you just plain don't like the taste of meat. FUCK PETA) and so forth. mind your own business and I'll mind mine.

tl;dr: agnosticism all the way.
 
Since one set of patterns and programs must be crafted, so must the other. It is the simplest of logic.
Actually it is the simplest fallacy. your argument is of the form
all nature is patterns and programs
all technology is patterns and programs
all technology is crafted
therefore all nature is crafted

It is well known that all-all-all logic statements are not necessarily true. To see this consider this argument which takes the same form but comes to an absurd conclusion
all dogs are animals
all fish are animals
all fish breathe underwater
therefore all dogs breathe under water
 
in addition, I'd like to quote one of my favorite quotes of all time. it's by Epicurus:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
while the quote reeks of blatant atheism and I myself am not atheist, I agree with him.
 

vonFiedler

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Actually it is the simplest fallacy. your argument is of the form
all nature is patterns and programs
all technology is patterns and programs
all technology is crafted
therefore all nature is crafted

It is well known that all-all-all logic statements are not necessarily true. To see this consider this argument which takes the same form but comes to an absurd conclusion
all dogs are animals
all fish are animals
all fish breathe underwater
therefore all dogs breathe under water
Fish breath underwater because they have adapted to live in an aquatic environment, not because they are animals.

The patterns and programs inherent in technology exist because someone created them.

Try harder next time.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
The crew of the starship Enterprise are able to prevent evil on a regular basis, but not willing because of the Prime Directive. Are they malevolent?
 
if I spoke Trek lingo then maybe I could understand your question.

that being said

Fish breath underwater because they have adapted to live in an aquatic environment, not because they are animals.
that's uhh... kinda what lati0s was saying.
 
The crew of the starship Enterprise are able to prevent evil on a regular basis, but not willing because of the Prime Directive. Are they malevolent?
Yes, they are. Though that is just a personal opinion. I think that people that witness evil acts taking place, and have the power to easily prevent those acts from taking place are malevolent if they choose not to intervene.

If you had the power to easily stop a young girl from getting gangraped and instead sat and watched her get raped, I would label you as evil and sociopathic.
 
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