The great and all powerful religion thread!

V.V.V.V.V. said:
I agree with the above also.

TheInsane: is this the kind of stuff they teach you in Swedish univerisities...? wtf? What if this world isn't real? That takes more faith to believe than Christianity, and it's possibly even more irrational somehow.
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Yes and no on what swedish universities teach.

See I made a huge difference between two concepts of the world as an illusion. One is what modern sub-atomic physics tell us. That is there are no atoms. Atoms as in the original meaning (atom = smallest building block of materia) not what is actually refered to as an atom today (something consisting of other even smaller particles). Materia in itself is nothing - it has no core. It is however energy and remember Im not saying things dont exist. The stone outide your house do exist but what it is is illusotary (sp?). As merriam webster defines illusion "perception of something objectively existing in such a way as to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature". It exists but isnt what it seems to be. This is also what I believe.

This is pretty basic stuff today in modern physics so go and read up on it. Its very easy to obtain books about it. Im sure your local university has classes on this subject. This has been connected to eastern metaphysics by the likes of Fritiof Capra. Check out his "tao of physics" to learn more.

The second was a purely theoretical standpoint that the world may not exist objectively at all. This is not something I believe to be true but it can be important to have in mind. It raises the problem that whatever we think is real could quite possibly be unreal and maybe not exist objectively at all. This is why discussions can turn ugly when someone claims to have objective truth in regards to their religious ideas.
 
I already know that what we think is true could be proven wrong by science in the future, but I don't believe in ridiculous hypotheticals like that, so I can't logically turn my mind to thinking that. I just go from what I know.
 
V.V.V.V.V. said:
I already know that what we think is true could be proven wrong by science in the future, but I don't believe in ridiculous hypotheticals like that, so I can't logically turn my mind to thinking that. I just go from what I know.
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The thing is you dont know anything ;) Sorry just had to say that since that was what we were talking about.

The second thing I described is just a way to reduce idiotic claims that either me or the one I debate with have an absolute truth. In reality we dont know anything really.

However with this being said the scientific approach is the one I choose to take because it is the most logical and because it comes from an enviroment that isnt alien to testing their theories. In alot of religion and in the abrahametic religions in particular doubt is something that is looked down upon. To me doubt was always essential to gaining more knowledge. This has its roots in that I was heavily influenced by Anton LaVey in my teens. One of his core beliefs was that doubt was actually something good. And of course this doubt was applied to what I believed as well and its been a dynamic journey since then. I have rejected some parts of my past beliefs and developed others.

And my beliefs are rooted in sub-atimic physics but I also make the connection to certain religious ideas that mythologises the same kind of ideas but in a religious language (Kali, Sunyata, Chaos, Ginnungagap, The Void, Tao etc).
 
Heh, yeah...we all don't intrinsically KNOW anything, since anything is bound to be proven wrong, but I go off of what has been logically proven. Anyway it seems, oddly, that I currently agree with what you're saying.
 
Everyone keeps saying we don't know anything, which I don't really think is the right wording. Quantum physics tells us that there will always be things unknowable about the universe, and that the search for knowledge is an infinitely long journey, however I don't think it would be appropriate to say we don't know anything.

We observe events, like a stone falling, and based on observations we can build formulas to predict how long it takes a stone to fall. Then hundreds of years later quantum physics comes around and says no, it doesn't really work like that, there is no invisible force called gravity pulling the stone down, it's just the bending of space time, and objects do no fall continuously they fall in quantized amounts. And these new ideas better our equations and give us more accurate answers about how a stone falls, but the stone still falls in a very similar way than it did before.

You say we don't know anything, which is true in a sense, but if quantum physics tells us anything it's that universal truth is impossible and that you can't take the observer out of the equation, because all our experiments are based on our observations. So in the old classical physics way of thinking that we can figure out the universe, we don't know anything. But in the new way of thinking, we know a hell of a lot based on our observations and the things we will continue to observe. So our old formulas will continue to become useless and replaced with new ones, but it's all moving forward towards bettering our knowledge of how things work and how we will observe them.
 
I feel like Im misunderstood. If taken to absurdity we can always make a good case that we dont know anything. However in choosing a way of life, a philosophy if you will, I have come to accept quantum science. And it does not say that we dont know anything.

I made a division between a theory based on discussion and how to make them work and make both sides more open to understand the other. The second thing was the quantum physics one which I actually believe in. This is my belief, the label I could attach to myself in that discussion. So please seperate the two. One is only hypethetical, a way to understand and create a more fruitful discussion. The other is an actual cosmology. Big difference.

While on the subject Im pretty sure science will find new things in the future that may or may not contadict what is said now. Just look at how thing were 50 years ago or 100 years ago. Scientists were still exploring this worlds atomism and now it has largely been abandoned.
 
Thoth-Amon said:
...

For more information on the history of the church, her councils and the process of the canonization of the bible you should read the following books:

1. The Way: What Every Protestant Should Know About the Orthodox Church- Clark Carlton
2. The Orthodox Church- Timothy Ware
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I ordered #2 above. It got some good reviews at Amazon. Looking forward to reading it eventually.
 
Zephyrus said:
Roman Catholic, church-going.

Becoming a metalhead has certainly challenged my beliefs, but I see no harm in keeping a faith that promotes a positive lifestyle and good works. That and the Catholic Church has really cleaned up its act in recent history, gravitating toward the more liberal side of the religious spectrum, and not full of fundamentalists or extremists. The Catholic Church is the world's largest charitable organization, and even non-believers should acknowledge that.

That aside, being a metalhead and a practicing Christian at the same time gives me the thrill of leading a double-life of polar oppositions within my character.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Wow, I've really changed.

For the record, I'm a full-fledged atheist now.

Hail Satan.
 
I am agnostic now. I see a chance in something but I don't know what.

I tried debating about the bible with this fundamentalist on the debate team. When I would say the bible was edited over the years and you can't disprove Science he would argue back with bible verses and shit. Impossible.
 
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