|>Hey Lykus, still believe in your opening statement? "Most of you here are pretty smart... and it'd be interesting to hear your thoughts and opinions on religion."

yes, why wouldn't I?

obviously a majority of the posts here are garbage, but RvW and Aquaholic's posts were interesting.

One of the few times someone tries to be logical on the Christian side of the argument, and RvW gave some of the best counter arguments that I've ever seen.


I was more curious to hear about anything other than Christianity but this was ok.

The same book of the bible that talks about how homosexuality is a sin also suggests stoning unto death as a suitably holy punishment for female adultery..

St. Augustine was a disciple of the prophet Mani before becoming one of the most influential early christian thinkers, explaining why the cynical corruption of Manichaean beliefs (Earth and all that lives on it is inherently sinful, and women most of all) runs through christianity like a snake in the grass.

Literally unwashed masses (These early Christian luminaries considered bathing to be bad for the health) of ignorant crusaders spent centuries invading the holy land in a time when the greatest poets, mathematicians, astronomers, and architects in the world revolved around the court of Suleiman and other enlightened Muslim rulers, and yet today many who profess the Christian belief would point a finger of accusation at the entire religion of Islam and declare it to be inherently barbaric.

Christianity evolved in the full light of history as a mish-mash of concepts from other religions, such as the One God above with Hell below (Zoroastrianism, the state religion of Persia,) Christmas trees, holy wreaths, and the holy mother Mary (taken fully formed from the solstice rites of the pagan druids of the British Isles) and yet today Christians have the arrogance to act as if it was an immaculate conception, the one word of God, ever unchanging, dictated unto the prophets and disciples direct from the Holy Source.

Followers of Christianity cherry-pick from the parts of the bible that fit nicely with today's more humanist ideals, and conveniently ignore the God-smited babies of Sodom & Gammorah (they were sinners, you see) and the biblical facts (such as the ~7000 year old earth) that are completely at odds with every scrap of evidence we can find, but yet the parts of the bible that humans deem acceptable are taken as the literal truth, sacrosanct and inviolable. Maybe the earth IS older than 7000 years, but JESUS TURNED WATER INTO WINE IT SEZ SO RITE THERE!! Nowadays, of course, everyone cops out and says the age of miracles is past and we just have to have faith (aka unreasoned belief in things for which there are no evidence) and that it would be a sin of pride to expect God to perform tricks just to, you know, save our immortal souls. Even though supposedly he cares to do so and has divine power and could certainly make His presence clear enough if he so desired.

In a nutshell, I consider Christianity's version of the events of creation to be wildly improbable, and even if it were all exactly true, the Christian God would be a dark and hungry God that I could never worship - only fear and despise.

Agnostic++ :)

^VERY well written

Things like that are why i feel the way i do against Christians.

|> (..) stoning unto death as a suitably holy punishment for female adultery (..)
|> (..) immaculate conception (..)

A while ago (was it in the "How it should have ended" series??) someone concluded "If Joseph knew Maria was pregnant and he knew the child wasn't his, he would have had her stoned.".

|> Followers of Christianity cherry-pick from the parts of the bible that fit nicely with today's more humanist ideals, and conveniently ignore (..) the biblical facts (such as the ~7000 year old earth) that are completely at odds with every scrap of evidence we can find (..)

What makes you so sure the Earth is not in fact 7000 years old? If we allow for a supernatural being to create the universe in less than a week, then how does it make sense to assume that same being would be incapable of creating a planet with dinosaur bones already in the ground? Or to put it another way, what makes you think it's any more than a second old; how do you know the universe already existed when you made that post I'm replying to?
Surely an omnipotent being, in the process of whipping up an entire galaxy, would have no trouble creating one miserable little planet with ready-made life forms and technological devices in place? What's a message in some electronic memories, and your recollection of having typed it in your biological memory, compared to the whole, entire universe? (Of course, that creates the rather interesting question of which sins you have to do penance for and which sins you remember committing but are not your fault since they happened before the universe even existed?)

---

Given your "Agnostic++", may I assume you are familiar with computer programming? :p The question is not just whether we live in the Matrix, the real question is whether we live in SimCity. And, the only answer possible is of course "unless the user (~= god) wants us to know, there's no possible way for us to find out". I mean, let's say we work out physics to the full extend it has been designed in the simulation, or we reach the edge of implemented space, what if we probe further? Quite simple, the user hits pause, does a little more designing and when he/she/it has worked it out, only then does our simulation continue. Of course, we'll never know about having been paused, since *within the simulation* (for us!) that's completely invisible.

If you really are a programmer, then you probably already know XKCD's [A Bunch of Rocks](http://xkcd.com/505/), but if you're anything like me, you just love being reminded about awesome XKCDs. ;)

@ Lykus

It's impossible for science to prove the existence of God, period. I believe purely based on faith. Let's assume the bible is false, at least I won't be harmed in anyway. However, if it is true, then I will be glad that I believed it, come judgement day.

@ Devilnis
Christianity evolved in the full light of history as a mish-mash of concepts from other religions, such as the One God above with Hell below (Zoroastrianism, the state religion of Persia,) Christmas trees, holy wreaths, and the holy mother Mary (taken fully formed from the solstice rites of the pagan druids of the British Isles)

Christianity did not "mish-mash" concepts from other religions, instead, it's purely the belief of Christ (that's why the name is christianity). Christians are followers of Christ, and the Bible is considered the words of Christ.

Literally unwashed masses (These early Christian luminaries considered bathing to be bad for the health) of ignorant crusaders spent centuries invading the holy land in a time when the greatest poets, mathematicians, astronomers, and architects in the world revolved around the court of Suleiman and other enlightened Muslim rulers, and yet today many who profess the Christian belief would point a finger of accusation at the entire religion of Islam and declare it to be inherently barbaric.

@AquaHolic, your "logic" on well there is no harm in believing, does not make sense. Lets say, an atheist adopts that belief and becomes a "New-Born Christain". Wont he always have that doubt in the back of his mind? it wont be as if he actually believes

Please, Islam and Christianity are similar in many ways, for example, same God (different names). In fact, the old tastament is the almost exactly the same (as with the Jewish). Christian do not declare Islam to be barbaric, we simply say that they got many details wrong, such as the death of Jesus (Islam believes the existance of Jesus, but denies his death, they believe Jesus is a man of God). Now the crusades is directly against the Bible: "love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew:5:44) The Catholic church was corupted, and I can not defend them, their actions were wrong, plain and simple (and they have admitted to this). However, I am a protestant Christian.

Followers of Christianity cherry-pick from the parts of the bible that fit nicely with today's more humanist ideals

What are you talking about? As a Christian, I read every single word in the bible, and believe that everyone of them is true for Jesus said, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but not even one of my words will pass away" (mark:13:31) Your pastors will likely tell you to read the bible, not just parts of the bible. Christians do not cherry pick parts of the bible! Many things in the bible are against science, for example, God created vegetations before he created the sun. However, as Christian, we still believe this is true, we do not neglect this, even though it's against science.

|> Christianity did not "mish-mash" concepts from other religions, instead, it's purely the belief of Christ (that's why the name is christianity). Christians are followers of Christ, and the Bible is considered the words of Christ.

That's not what I've heard... For instance, we don't have the vaguest clue at what date Jesus was born. The reason we celebrate it on December 25th (and the entire concept of a Christmas tree) started when the pagan (is that the word??) Germanic tribes were converted to Christianity. In order to make the transition easier (or in order to convince them to convert, I'm not really sure) the missionaries incorporated their existing beliefs and rituals into Christianity; December 25th is not the birth of Christ, it's the winter equinox; the (evergreen) pine tree symbolises the (coming) rebirth of nature.

Sure, the beliefs might be Christian, but many of the customs and traditions associated with Christianity are not of Christian origin.

|> It's impossible for science to prove the existence of God, period.

It's also impossible for science to **dis**prove the existence of God, which I was trying to explain in my previous post.

@KGB128, I didn't say I believe is because there is no harm, I'm simply stating there is no harm. That's not the reason of my belief, i'm only letting you know as a fact. Why I believe is hard to explain, I guess it's becaues God has been gracious to me.

Aquaholic, I'm afraid that just saying something doesn't make it true. The trajectory of history is clear. All of the pieces that comprised early Judaism and then early Christianity were already in place in various religions around the region, especially worship of the sun god Ra, and Mazdaism (also known as Zoroastrianism) which was the world's first major monotheistic religion. As time went by, pieces of other religions, such as the Christmas tree and the virgin mother (a direct parallel to the druidic earth mother) were incorporated in well-documented specific efforts by orthodox Christian churches (especially the Catholics) into the Christian Canon with the expressed purpose of making the religion more enticing to the pagans, thus easing their conversion to Christ. You can go ahead and dismiss thousands of years worth of carefully researched history with an ignorant statement if you want, but like I said, that doesn't make your statement true.

RvW, all of those things you said are exactly true - divinity is self-justifying, so God could certainly make a 7000 year old earth appear to us with our radiocarbon dating (among other methods) to be 4.6 billion years old. You'll notice that I said that I believe the story of Christianity to be "wildly improbable," not impossible :) That's the heart of agnosticism!

If you don't have a Chrismas tree or any other "mingled" customs and traditions, that doesn't make you any less Christian. For never in the bible, Jesus commanded us to buy a Chrismas tree, and at December 25th, be merry and joyful. You can do extra, but that doesn't mean it's obligated for all Christians. Christianity did not "mish-mash" concepts from other religions.

@Aqua

Where does your faith come from? Did your parents take you to church as a child and you just liked the idea? Thought it sounded plausible and decided to live your life by it?

Or did you have some kind of divine experience that makes you believe?

@ Devilnis. I'm sure there were other religions that stated the world is gonna end. Christian believes this too, but that doesn't mean we stole their religion. Other religions contain prophets, Christianity also contains prophets, doesn't mean we stole this concept. Same with other issues. As for virgin Mary, that accroding to the bible, was a historical fact. Chrismas tree is completely unrelated to Christianity. Jesus never said anything about it, if Catholics add excess customs and traditions, good for them. But Christianity itself did not mix factors from other religions. In fact, God specificly told us not to copy how other people worship their god (throughout the Old tastament).

@Lykus, When I was a child, my whole family are atheists. However, due to occasional invitations, I went to church occasionally, but thought church as boring. (i mean, listening to an old guy speak for hours without understanding a word he just said). However, as I grew up, somehow, my Mother got converted, and I was quite surprised, as she grew up atheist for 40 years. Thus, i returned to church due to pressure from my mother. As now i'm no longer a young boy, I can actually understand what the pastors are speaking. I guess my mother prays for me everyday, and God answered her prayers. I thought of the sermons, and eventually, I started accepting them, believing. I guess you can call this a divine experience. Yes, I like the idea, thought it sounded plausible, and so decided to live my life by it.

Aquaholic, check this site out:

http://pocm.info/getting_started_pocm.html

It has a wealth of information on what exactly Christianity borrowed from other religions. Does this mean that I can prove that Christ didn't turn water into wine and rise from the dead after martyring himself to expiate the sins of worldy men? No, it does not - Agnostics would never claim to be able to prove that one way or the other, and they would say the exact same thing about the Big Bang.

But the facts of religious concepts migrating from one religion to another, including to and from Christianity, are clear. Look at Rastafarianism, Voudun, and Mormonism for recent examples of cults that borrowed from and expanded upon older religions and then turned into relatively major religions in their own right. There are all sorts of ways to argue for and against the correctness of Christianity, and I've heard them all, but denying facts that are as clear-cut as "The earth is not flat" and "the earch circles the sun" is not the best way to start. :)

I agree with devilnis, Christianity was and is the most successful religion on the planet because of its ability to assimilate cultural customs. It is the religion of compromise. Even today you could ask 100 Irish Catholics the specific points of their beliefs and you would get close to if not 100 different answers. Catholicism seems to just leave people to figure out the details themselves except for a few notables i.e. abortion, contraception. And even when these things are brought up, they cause hassle for the church and many catholics disagree with the church's position on them.

@RvW: I think at this point your argument seems more suited to a conspiracy theories forum :P

@Aqua: The bible is not Christ's word, the new testament is. There is no Christ in the old testament.

Also, I'd love hear your Mother's reasons for joining the church. Genuinely, I would, that sort of thing doesn't seem to happen often and I'd love to gain an insight into it.

@Ace Windu:

It is not intended as conspiracy theory, it's intended as "science cannot either prove or disprove religion". The rather over-the-top comparison is just to illustrate the point.
While religion might seem rather at odds with science, technically they're pretty orthogonal [1] (well, from science to religion at least; it's not exactly rare for religion to intrude upon science's territory and get it wrong). For instance, science cannot proof evolution happened, it can only determine that's what it looks like (and, from here on out, that's how it will work). But it's possible to be an evolution researcher and still believe the Christian creation story (unlikely, but nevertheless possible), you just have to believe god created all the animals as though they evolved.

[1] Yes, I know that "orthogonal" cannot be a one-way relation, but I hope you get my point anyway. :)

You can call me stupid, but I am a christian. I have an explanation for my beliefs, (see second page on "Stop posting on other religion thread" if you even care). **If I am a christian what do I have to lose, I die and there is no haven and I didn't have sex with 100 people because of my religion. If I die and there is a heaven and I spent my life insulting and cursing God and Christians and didn't care, and I do go to Hell and have a miserable life there, I just messed up**.And I can't find an explanation against Judaism and Christianity, except some guy got bored and wrote a book, but there were actualy witnesses in the bible, unlike in Greek religion where some people created the world and all these great events happened before the world started and nothing happened after. And my opinion on Hindu is the Arians were trying to contain the Indians and give them hope so they wouldn't rebel. My explanation on Arab is that it was created much later than other religions, isn't it odd for one to spring out after most other explanations. **Not saying other religions are wrong, that's just my opinion.** And for death, everyone has to die some time, and if you already have excepted Christ, like many people in africa, then what is the difference going to heaven sooner. I wont *force* anyone to believe my beliefs, I just want to make sense out of my religion

@Tomahawk, We'll said. Thank you

CHRISTIANS ARE GIVEN A BAD REP. commonly, as you can see from lyukus . When you look at history, your grandparents x4 were most likely christians. But as other religions came and went, and in the 1950s people turned to object lust, Christianity went, mainly because when people prayed " GOD I NEED A NEW SOFA" it got unaswered. But lets think about this. A guy who is has some money says he will give you something if you need it for the greater good of the neighboorhood. You ask for cash to buy beer, should you get the beer just because you asked? No, and God works similarly, for the good of his people and to spread his religion. If he is the maker of people, and more supreme then people what makes you think we are entitled to get everything you want, otherwise the first person wouldve ask to rule the world and live for eternity, and we would still be under his rule. God will ANSWER to your prayers almost everytime, it may not be the way you wanted it, but he will answer. The SECOND WAY WE GET A BAD REP IS MEDIA. Whenever a muslim gets killed its on CNN, whenever there are gay rights problems, its on CNN, but CHRISTIANS get killed everyday ( but live in heaven)daily by muslims, and its never on CNN. The wars in the middle east are to EXTERMINATE JEWS AND CHRISTIANS, and the media covers it up by using them as wars for nations and angainst evil regimes. When a christian radicalist (WHO DONT KNOW CHRISTIANITY, and usually are fueled by thoughts of RACIAL SUPREMACY INSTEAD) commits a crime, somehow its a christian's fault.

THE THIRD WAY WE GET A BAD REP IS GOVERNMENT PROPOGANDA. You dont see signs saying Christians are evil and kill christians around your town, or a government trying to disprove Christianity in Senate meetings, do you? **bold** Schools are the hunting grounds of Christians **bold** Sciences goal is to disprove Christianity in school. In Earth and space class you learn that some how a clump of DUST made life. You learn all the nebulas are made by some explosion. In life science you learn the meaning of a species is to reproduce to create another generation DO WE LIVE TO DIE? In world cultures you learn of the many different religions and why they were made, as a "Symbol of hope" an "occupation" people compare christianity to other religions making people think they are actually similar. The three courses missions is to explain that religion is stupid and the evolution theory is fact.