The great and all powerful religion thread!

[Thoth-Amon]

All of this lends credence to my original point

essentially the church selected the new testament books on the basis of:
1. was this book something that had been used in the churche's liturgy and teaching? i.e. not just a couple of churches... but was it something that by and large was at use in the churches and had been for centuries?
2. did it jive with church doctrine

there was of course debate about some books by the time the issue was 'settled' (councils of hippo and carthage in 397 and 407 i think) but by that time most of the NT canon was agreed upon for some time

 

[cookiecutter]

kewl

 

[Thoth-Amon]

kewl

mmmk

 

[~Derek~]

But these people did really shitty jobs considering they can't even provide non-contradictory ideas withing their own teachings much less between each other. Clearly this hypothetical god has the power to set out guidelines without infringing upon free will as people could still disobey them after all. Instead he opts to have a few people tell contradictory stories then stays silent for thousands of years.

Also all religions and religious people have atrributed things that are unexplainable in life to their religious beliefs, which is why it's impossible to clarify one miracle over the other, unless you want to believe in a Universalist concept of religion, that everyone goes to Paradise, if Near Death Experiences are in fact true they prove that not all atheists go to Hell and not all good fundamentalist Christians go to Heaven, that there's no right religion and it doesn't matter what you believed in this life. Of course NDE's have been performed under lab conditions so there's no reason to believe them so it seems, they are just oxygen escaping the brain.
Another point is what will death be like? I've wondered myself, I've basically concluded that I wil either be asleep forever or I'll be doing the same things I do today in the afterlife.
I'm an atheist but am open to an afterlife but think there probably isn't one.

 

[swizzlenuts]

My source is the History Channel. A documentary I saw a couple years ago. It's only natural that my knowledge degnerated a bit since then, but Josephus did write historical accounts of a man named Jesus existing.

I'm pretty sure they just use apologist answers for this show, if they stated that Josephus was a contemporary.

I thought you may've been a Christian because you often had Bible verses as your AIM status.

wtf, they're always the very evil bible quotes.

 

[AchrisK]

Ok, I can accept the limits of causality. But the things that this God might do, he would be doing in the current time-space continuum, where cause is seemingly necessary.

So, any ideas on how this God's creation can test and prove him?

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

No.

 

[skeptik]

"So, hypothetically, if there's a being who created the world who has the characteristics by which it would be impossible for its creation to test for and prove its existence in any way, could its creation test for and prove its existence?"

No. That simply means that it's not outside the realm of pure logic, just as the possibility of there being a unicorn somewhere out in the world is a logical possibility, or that the sun will not rise tomorrow, or a myriad of other examples.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

My friend made a good point about the sun rising thing when I related it to him: "it's impossible that the sun will rise tomorrow, because the sun doesn't actually rise at all." I think there's a certain depth to this seemingly silly answer, too.

 

[~Derek~]

I also wonder whether ghosts prove there is an afterlife, I'm agnostic on the subject of ghosts, but it just seems if they are in fact real wouldn't it come close to proving there is an afterlife?

 

[skeptik]

There is no such thing as ghosts, fyi. No such things as spirits, 'forces', 'energies', or any of that ridiculous bullshit either.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

First you'd need hard scientific evidence that they exist, which is impossible because they do not.

 

[entanglement]

Why does scientific proof have to be such a solid ground? Even it does not have answers to every observation. There is still a plethora of elementary theory yet to be brought to light.. then why rely on it so heavily? Because it is the most accessible (well accessible to the technical brain, if you may) 'reason-set'? Wouldn't a power beyond our normal vision be just another similar reason-set that could explain the power and mechanisms in our systems, or just tries to answer those same questions in just a different way.. just reaches out for that SAME universal truth (that sciences try to[.]).. only following a different road?

 

[skeptik]

Was that a joke?

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Uh, if it's a power beyond us, it's not valid in explaining how things work or how they came to be. wat

 

[entanglement]

It's called an open mind. Try ebay.

@ nec

 

[entanglement]

Uh, if it's a power beyond us, it's not valid in explaining how things work or how they came to be. wat

Actually, every faith does have its own theory of origin. And once again, you are basing 'validity' of something on the basis of common science.

 

[Rabid Headbanger]

We trust science because so far it has a track record for working. Last time I checked, Jesus does a terrible job with transplants.

Science is maluable and based on observation. Religion is rigid and based on faith.

 

[seedofvengeance]

We trust science because it's true. It's right in front of your face, you can clearly and plainly see that it is a fact. There's no question of blind faith or trusting works written 2000 years ago, it can be done and proven right in front of you.
Also to V5 and Nec... while I agree with your views, you can't prove that God doesn't exist because you can't prove it with science. How exactly would you propose that to be possible? The concept of a deity that modern religions depend on cannot be used to make a physical sample of proof. There is absolutely no way to prove it one way or the other, there can be evidence to make you lean towards one opinion or the other, but you can not concretely say that there is no God with evidence to back it up.

Once again, I agree with V5 and Nec, I am too an Atheist, I just take a more Agnostic and open minded approach to it.

 

[entanglement]

We trust science because so far it has a track record for working. Last time I checked, Jesus does a terrible job with transplants.

Science is maluable and based on observation. Religion is rigid and based on faith.

I didn't target Christianity when referring to faith, nor any other specific religion.. or religion at all actually..

Science is based on observation, but not every observation tastes good when put on the science plate. There are still things unexplained.. not even our elementary physics theories come together all that well. We limit ourselves when we measure things with scales. Not everything can be quantised.. you're gonna keep getting further fractions. One shouldnt 'pray to a god' or any of that, but it would not hurt to plant a foot in the waters of there being a POSSIBILITY of something potentially unmeasurable that basically makes it all tick.