"I think what the Bible REALLY say is..."
"Maybe God REALLY meant..."

And I thought questioning the Bible and God was a bad thing for christians. What wonderful confidence!

[djskrimp]

"I think what the Bible REALLY say is..."
"Maybe God REALLY meant..."

And I thought questioning the Bible and God was a bad thing for christians. What wonderful confidence!

Questioning and interpreting are different.

Too bad people can't err on the side of being nice to each other, huh?

I don't question God... although God *did* give us free will and the choice to think how we wish. Everyone who has faith questions it at times... "Why me God? Why did that occur that way God?".

Interpretations of God *do* vary, look at all the variants of Christianity and how they view God and what he says or the Bible says!

And I justified why I question the Bible. (Written by people, not God) I don't think one of the commandments was "Thou shalt worship thy Bible"

And yes, it would be nice if everyone was nice to everyone else but as I said, common sense unfortunately isn't that common

I guess people can ask "What's common sense?" and we could have some freaking big discussion about that but seriously people, don't we ALL have some kind of common beliefs, logic and thought patterns that we don't go against???

Maybe it's human nature for us to kill, main and rob each other I dunno... I'm too young I suppose to know the answer to that and I don't really get people that well anyway

Are you a Christian, Acrid? I don't claim myself to be "God's representative" nor am I an authority on the religion or any religion. Heck, organised religion annoys me... religion is a personal thing but I suppose I do believe that at the core of it all there is something that all religious people believe.

And besides... what does your comment add to the discussion exactly? You misunderstood what I was trying to say as well. And what do you mean by this:

And I thought questioning the Bible and God was a bad thing for christians. What wonderful confidence!

Hmmm? Confidence in what? Confidence in my beliefs? What, do you just expect me to just put all my faith in what I read and leave it at that? Honestly... that's not what we're here for. Does God want us to put faith in him? Of course he does! But I doubt he expects us to be total sheep either... (Yet another analogy I don't like from the Bible...)

Are you just trying to say:

haha, look at that christian who questions his own beliefs and doesn't believe what he says! what a hypocrite!

Of course I could have misinterpreted your comment too... I hope I have.

And again, I state my point - I may not be a Christian as such, but I do believe in a God. It so happens I use Christianity as an example because I don't know as much about other religions. But yes, it is easy to attack Christianity...

Edit: I feel like I've repeated what I wrote on page 7 >.< Go check that post too if you want...

[Keeker]

As a result, many of us unknowingly follow the 10 commandments even if we're NOT Christian

Well, humans are mostly programmed to have some built in 'do nots' to aid social cohesion, although as we see every day, they can be over-ridden. Nearly all of us have a knowledge of what's 'right' and 'wrong' from an early age. And I expect nearly all religions list most of those basic 'do nots', the 'do not kill or steal' ones anyway.

Although I have to question the value of not coveting my neighbour's ass.

I don't believe in heaven or hell. I expect we make that for ourselves in your own minds.

Although we are admittedly an 'interesting' race in some ways in that we have evolved amazingly differently from the rest of this planet's life forms.

We have evolved amazingly *similarly* to the rest of this planet's lifeforms. And we haven't stopped evolving, we have a good few design problems left over from our quadripedal past that will hopefully be corrected in another million years or so, e.g. we need larger foramina in our vertebrae, better pelvic floor structure and sinuses built to suit our flat faces instead of the longer muzzles that we once had, etc.

Too bad people can't err on the side of being nice to each other, huh?

That depends on the motives behind "being nice". Those who are nice to other people just because they don't want to go to hell are all assholes. Genuine good moral behaviour does not require any divine reward or promise of eternal salvation.

Sirius: No, I'm not a christian. My comment was not directed at you. I just think it's VERY weird how many/most christians think the Bible is the word of God, and then they change it and interpret it way beyond all recognition. And free will and an omnipotent god can not exist together. Those two consepts cancel each other out.

"I think what the Bible REALLY say is..."
"Maybe God REALLY meant..."

And I thought questioning the Bible and God was a bad thing for christians. What wonderful confidence!

I can smell Bill miles away Oh, and you forgot the keyword: Fundamentalism.

I can smell Bill miles away Oh, and you forgot the keyword: Fundamentalism.

Smell this!

[youtube]-qmglGWMsdk[/youtube]

LOL...

Nice video

He raises scary points about the American presidents too >.< "I started WW3 cause God told me to!"

I be nice to people cause I like people being nice back, and the reason why I didn't like religion at school is because of what Acrid said... people were assholes yet claimed to be Christians.

We have free will because God gave us the freedom to sin, but then again... what sins do I want to do anyway? I don't want to murder, rape, rob or lie... again, many of those things are simply 'social rules' and hence to me make sense to follow.

By doing what I believe is best and by living a good life, why would God want to change that?

Keeker:
I stand corrected o.o *should not make silly posts late at night*

I personally have Christian beliefs, but I don't believe in religion, as I feel that there is no religion that is not in any vulnerable to human evils such as greed and other things.

I believe in most of the Bible, but I understand that there were flaws in the writing of it, and I believe that there are entire books that shouldn't even be in there (Job, for instance). It's weird, because my girlfriend is Mormon, and she really seems perplexed by my beliefs, but I feel that's really what's inside of me and what God has told me.

[djskrimp]

Too bad people can't err on the side of being nice to each other, huh?

That depends on the motives behind "being nice". Those who are nice to other people just because they don't want to go to hell are all assholes. Genuine good moral behaviour does not require any divine reward or promise of eternal salvation.

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."

both quotes by Albert Einstein

So, yeah, I agree. What I tried to say simply was; no matter how much one human agrees/disagrees with another, wouldn't it be nice if it was left at that, instead of killing each other and hating each other for our thoughts?

Damn straight djskrimp And that's where common sense comes in! Respect others, no matter how nuts their beliefs are

So many problems are caused simply because we can't just simply respect each other. Everything from school yard bullying to wars (OK, maybe an exaggeration ) can all come back to respect and people wanting to impose their beliefs on others or not allowing people to have their own free thoughts.

Big deal if people want to believe in something different to someone else... I don't disrespect someone because they don't share my thoughts or opinions. It is hard to manage at times however, especially with music >.< But I hope to become more tolerant and open as time goes on I suppose.

psychotic:
I like your way of thinking

God/spirituality ftw!

What do you all think about people who try to turn religious people into atheists?

So many problems are caused simply because we can't just simply respect each other.

So, what do you do about, for example, muslim immigrants living in our western societies who still practice genital mutilation on young girls? Can we respect something like that? Can we westerners accept these forms of multiculturalism in our enlightened societies? What about genital mutilation in other countries? Does relativism of values work?

These are some of the current burning issues of our societies.

[Keeker]

What do you all think about people who try to turn religious people into atheists?

Well it would make an interesting change finding them on my doorstep instead of the folks that visited yesterday.

I've never met any travelling proselytizing atheists. Maybe there ought to be some!

[EphelDuath666]

hah...I don't think anyone would let me in anyways!

and I guess atheists don't really do that anyways...at least I don't. I can't say that I ever tried to 'convert' someone to atheisim because I think there's certainly more important things than that. I never really understood the whole 'door to door conversion' thing. I don't really get why there are religions that seem to believe that they have to save everybody and that everybody wants to be saved by them. I know that I don't want to so why not just leave me be? When someone knocks at my door and wants to 'advertise' for his religion then I consider that to be as annoying as spam....unfortunatly there's not really a software against it though, heh.