Just because there is more than one religion, it does not mean that one of them cannot be the correct one. It is also possible that all, most, some, or none of the religions are correct. They all pretty much state the same thing anyway (except Buddhists who may as well commit suicide and stop contradicting themselves). Furthermore, you can't know anything. Empiricists are the most ignorant.

Also, you can't prove or disprove the existence of God.

This is one of the single most despicable, hateful, hurtful, elitist, misguided, foul statements I have ever read. The very notion makes me lose all respect for anyone who remotely professes it. If there is such a deity, I would gladly go to hell rather than condone such a warped policy by entering into heaven. The very thought of billions of people who've never even learned much of Christianity going to hell for no good reason makes me SICK. It leaves the most horrible taste in my mouth. This is the very reason I give religion a wide berth. Just sick. So sick. Please understand: I'm not blasting Christians, only ones who say and believe things like this. Ugh...... just.... fsdklya453ha8902ht ngfmjnnm,n zsg sd

I'd also like to point out one more thing. This is a two-way street, pal. Just because you believe 2/3 of everyone who ever walked the earth are going to hell doesn't make it so.

The theory that everything was created by god doesn't imply that god was created. It's illogical to assume that a creator must be created, just because it creates. The theory that most people of "faith" follow is that god has always existed. I fail to see why many athiests seem to incorrectly assume that scientific creation theories are in conflict with the belief in a creator. It seems to me that scientists are well on their way to discovering the methods in which god created the universe.



Not only outside of logic, but quite possibly outside of human understanding, period. Many athiests seem to be under the misconception that a creator must abide by the same natural laws that we as humans do. If a god exists, and has put in to motion, creation itself, why in the world would someone think that such an awesome being would suffer the same limitations as humans?

If you don't believe in Hell, then why are you so offended by someone saying you're going there? It's like one of those census-Jedis telling me I'm going to Hoth for not believing in the Force. It would roll off my back so easily. I don't know. Maybe I'm just thick-skinned like that. So I deduce these conclusions:

1) You're actually scared of the prospect of going to Hell, or:
2) You're just looking for attention and everyone listens to a victim.

I'm not trying to antagonize you or anything. Just thought I'd make you aware of something that jumped out at me. Seemed like for a person who doesn't believe in Hell, you were sure taking it pretty seriously. So if you're not going to believe in it, I want to make sure you do your best not to!

What a weak defense. Do me a favor. Read this. Then, refrain from your Red Herring arguments, and explain exactly how the belief is fair and compassionate.

For your information, I do believe in an afterlife which likely involves varying degrees of pleasantness. I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that I don't believe in a hell equivalent. Oh, wait. Yes I do. You assumed. Furthermore, whether I believe in hell has no relevance to the abhorrence of a particular belief. I'm asking you to help alleviate some of my reservations about the claim that all non-Christians go to hell. Perhaps I'm missing something?

Man... this thread really started to suck.... fast...

Maybe if you refrain from ad hominems, I will. Give me a break, dude. The only answer I have for why Hell is fair and compassionate is because we were created for something, screwed that up, and had to pay the consequences. Now, traditional definitions of justice would call that "fair." Is it really compassionate? Okay, well maybe I lied about that part. But what is compassionate is that, while we were still screwed and no one was obligated to provide us a way to get out, a way was provided anyway. Okay. Yeah, it sucks that in order for that to work, we have to believe that we aren't the captains of our own souls, but wouldn't it be worth doing if there was someway you could find out it was as good as it said it was?



The question still stands: why should you give rat's *** about a Christian saying you're going to Hell, if you don't believe in that version of it? If you've got your own version and they've got their own, why should you care what they think of you? If they'd rather know you as kindling and not as a person, then that's their loss, isn't it?

I think the whole "kill the infidel" thing in Islam's pretty bad, but it's BS to me. I'm not an infidel. I believe my fidelity belongs to the one true Father, Son, and Holy Ghost and the only person who will take my life for a good reason will be Him. (Don't you love trinitarian grammar?) All I'm saying is that if you don't like the idea that you're going to Hell, you can either try to find a way to save yourself from it or just chalk it up to BS. Either way, "sticks and stones..."

Here you go:




To sum up that paragraph in a word: magic.

Religious threads always suck.

No, they don't.

There have been good discussions here in the past.

I believe God has always been and exists beyond the limitations of time.

Do you believe that "the universe" has always been? Was earth originially a big rock, where did the rock come from? Wherever that came from, where did whatever that is come from?



Freelancer, what makes you believe in an afterlife?

So basically, you're saying we all should follow Christianity might be right? If I asked you to worship Satan because satanism has an evenly big chance of being right, wqould you do that? No, you wouldn't.

But it is a mainstream belief in Christianity. Thus, any mainstream Christian is going to believe this, and they make up a good percentage of the religion.



God is a supernatural being. Science is a tool used to define and observe natural phenomena. If God is supernatural, He exists outside of nature, and thus can not be directly described or directly observed scientifically.

So, I guess the fact that we don't have the proper tools to classify, label, describe, and observe supernatural phenomena can be described "magic," but I just say it's humanity's shortcomings.

See, Now you're at it too.

As you say, science ceases to be science when you explain things using supernatural forces.

Sciences gives answers to questions using all the data available and uses that to form the best explanation for the problem in question.

Religion takes old stories and tries to explain to the world things which back when the stories were written were inexplicable using these supernatural forces because at the time that was the best available explanation. Now though, we know that it's certainly not the case but people believe in religion because the like the idea of heaven.


The main problem with religion is that they all contradict each other...often even themselves. Then theres the times the religious leaders change the rules over time e.g. catholics now being able to eat meat on fridays when they diddnt used to be allowed. I mean did the people who ate meat on fridays back then go to hell and now it's fine?

Do you know why religion was created? To keep people in line. "Do as I say or you will go to hell". If religion diddnt exist and someone tried to create it they would be locked up for believing in such absurd things. The reason why people believe in god today is because of their parents teaching them from an early age that god exists. Much like santa or the easter bunny kids will believe things their parents tell them.

No, the earth was originally made of lots of little bits of material left over from what we (scientists of varying degrees) call the big bang. These coallesced (sp?) into our planet, as did various other bits and bats into other ones. I'll spare the details, as I quite frankly can't be arsed to dig them up from my notes :p

In all, current scientific understanding is that all mass in the universe was at one time 13.7 billion years ago compacted into what's called a 'singularity' or a point of (near? actual? Can't remember) infinite mass, which 'exploded' creating both spacetime and mass.

That's about the size of things, but read up on it if you're still confused (I would probably be, re-reading what I just typed!)

But yeah, er.. carry on

Even though he is somewhat making a valid point in his whole post, this remark kinda falls under my "Second Man" category in my metaphor.

people have been arguing about this crap for thousands of years.... give it a rest :p

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Your metaphor is flawed though.

Gravity is a natural force which can be tested. God is not, the people in the metaphor can all learn about gravity from observations and tests, it's not a question of believing it in, it's a question of understanding it. God is the other way around.

I guess my biggest problem with religion is along the lines of what Freelancer said. If there is one true religion, why hasnt it been made available to every person throughout history? Think about the years Native Americans spent worshiping their deities before the Europeans showed up with Christianity. Like Freelancer said, have they all been damned to hell because they didnt worship God? If so, that would royally suck because it would mean they never even had a chance.

I'm fairly certain the Bible addresses that, DSettahr. The people who have never heard the gospel are exmept. I'll see if I can find a verse for that.

(I'm not entirely sure what my personal stance on this particular theological concept is, however)

.. Exactly. Which is why I can't believe the Christians who actually believe that 2/3 of the history of the world is going to hell. If I have to believe that to be a Christian, count me out. I always figured Christianity was about being fair and compassionate. And Wolfy, I highly doubt that particular belief is as widespread as you think. Maybe in the Bible belt, but most of the Christians where I live in the northwest are a little more rational than that. Sure I was aware that some people believed it, but I figured they were the wackos, like the people who hold signs up that say "fags are going to hell." The majority of Christians I've known are NOT like that at all. It was shocking to hear you say those types of beliefs are common in Christianity. It seems very intolerant to me.

It's odd that all of God's various chosen prophets originated in the Middle-East.

Thats because that's where all the holy books were written in the middle east. Generally people write about where they are.

Hollywood films are set in the US, writers write about places they know about.

What Mort's getting at is if Christianity was the true religion, why haven't there been prophets from Asia, or South America, or northern Europe? Doesn't god love them?

It is. Its just that people who follow it arent always fair and compassionate. Again, I think you should judge a religion by the religion itself, not by its followers, who are often mis-informed, or half-***ed at following it.

I never really liked going to church as a kid... now I realize its because people go to church, and recite psalms and hymns without ever really thinking about what they mean. They say the Lord's Prayer so much, it becomes ingrained into their minds. They can recite it just by forming the syllables, without even thinking about the individual words, never mind what those words mean collectively. Religion/Christianity is a fad for far too many people. But that doesnt really make me respect the religion itself any less.

Doesn't the Church of Latter Day Saints believe that Jesus visited the Americas in one form or another? I found the concept to be very interesting.

Yes, it does, but don't even get me started on the validity of the Book of Mormon. Not to mention that still leaves out a majority of the world's population.

The other thing that always bothered me as a kid was sitting through Sunday School and hearing the phrase "Jesus died for our sins" repeated over and over and over again, without ever hearing it explained. I'm guessing that most of the people I heard it from had no idea what it meant themselves. I gave up asking my teachers questions after they kept side-stepping the issues and not really providing definitive answers. I mean, they could've at least said "It's all about faith" but I dont think they even considered that to be the answer themselves.

As a side note, the best explanation I've heard was that God became a man so that he could suffer pain and death. As a God, he was imune to these things. By becoming human, and having human experiences, he was better able to emphasize with us and we suffer pain and death in our lives.

The way it was taught to me was that he suffered for our sins so that we would not have to suffer for them later if we would repent. So repentence is like drawing from the power of christ's atonement. But that if we didn't repent, it would not apply to us and we would suffer for our sins ourselves.

Yeah, I was always curious as to whether Jesus went to Hell since he took on mankind's sins. I guess it's possible to be in Heaven and Hell at the same time since they are not physical places. Hmmm... this has piqued my interest.

He was the ultimate sacrifice, to put an end to purgatory. And he resides in Heaven these days.

Or so goes the story :p

I wonder what happened to the people that died during Jesus' lifetime, when God was busy on Earth being Jesus. Was there a big sign on heaven saying 'brb'?

That's easy to explain away if you believe in Jesus and God as two separate entities... as in, Jesus is the literal son of God.

To quote CS Lewis (again) "Now on the face of it that is a very silly theory. If God was prepared to let us off, why on earth did He not do so? And what possible point could there be in punishing an innocent person instead? None at all that I can see."

If God is forgiving, and Christians believe that he is, he would have simply just forgiven us. He wouldnt have punished someone innocent (Jesus) instead.

Jesus said it was what came out of your mouth, rather than what went into them that made you a good or a bad person. In other words, all of the Old Testament rules about what to eat when was a bunch of balogne.

TQ choice of words.

Haha, that wasnt even intentional. :p

I don't get atheists. No one knows for sure why we are here, so why not believe in some religion just so in the case there is a God you don't screw yourself over? You have nothing better to believe, really.

Believing in God simply as a safety net is not faith at all.