This part is more or less redundant.

Well, what I mean is, I take a little from A and a little from b, and they are the parts that don't overlap

I have it! Let's just ask Jon'C what omniscience is like. He can tell us what it's like to know everything and there won't even be an argument. Come on, man. How about an IMHO once in a while. It is, after all, only your opinion. Show some respect for what other people think.

Of course science has nothing to do with it, and of course there is no evidence. That wasn't what I was saying. I ask why we are here, and I think God is the answer. And I think I would have a very sad life if all I did was worry about my own survival.

What does only worrying about survival have to do with believing in god?

I think he would if he could find your opinion to be valid, which apparently he didn't.

Hmm. I was a little vague. I meant that if there was no God, then we would have only our own survival to consider. People that follow God (my Christian God in this case) seek to help other people as part of serving Him. I was thinking of this post when I wrote that:

It feels like you're dangling over a dark, cold pit by the tips of your fingers.

Why? I don't respect your opinion because, "IMHO", it wasn't formed with either thought or reason. It's your right, as a human being, to have an opinion. You are entitled to express your opinion. I am under absolutely no obligation to respect your opinion, give it any undue merit or otherwise imply that I believe you may possibly be correct. I do not believe what you do, and regardless of how fundamental it seems to your particular view of the world I will not sugarcoat it to make it seem otherwise.
I suggest you become a hermit if you can't handle that.

No, you stated that it is "within reason" to assume that there is a higher power, and you asked why atheists and agnostics don't agree with you. I stated why: Because there is no evidence that would lead an atheist or agnostic to believe otherwise. If you cannot understand the reason behind my statement you do not understand the basic definitions of "atheism" and "agnosticism".

Armenians? With lousy music? I hate those "praise teams" that basically consist of any bewildered 14 year olds with guitars that can wander onto the stage. This why praise music is often said to be "one word, two notes, and three hours". The last part is because the "lead singer" jumps all over the place and ends up making you sing the whole thing 12 times. Gahh! Then everyone gets all emo! I hate that.

I am offended that I am to be placed with "Other" and that Wiccan is not a poll choice.

Non-Denominational Christian. I voted 'Moderate Christian'.

ahhhh.... i voted other... , on a side note i will always leave "how", "what" and "when" to be explained by science, but never "why".

I'm Mormon. It should of been a poll option for the 3 or so we have on here :p

Why do you have to help people as part of serving god? Why don't you help people for the sake of HELPING PEOPLE? It's nothing that relates to God at all.

You couldn't have described it much better had you gone to my church.
Except that they're all wearing ripped jeans and sandals, or sometimes no shoes at all.

agnostic theist

It's funny that after misreading my post and replying so harshly, you can say that my opinions have no thought or reason behind them. If you can't learn to respect other peoples' opinions, then you have tolerance issues. And by "respect," I mean something less than saying, "You don't understand what you're talking about."



"Within reason" is not what I said, and I didn't ask why athiests don't agree. I said I didn't understand. I was actually admitting to not being able to understand their viewpoint, but yes, I am aware of what an athiest is.

And stop trying to tell people what they do or don't understand.

Why as part of serving God? Because that's what Jesus taught. Why not for the sake of helping people? Well, in your earlier post, you said our purpose is to survive. That sentiment doesn't impart a strong motive to help others. Christianity teaches selflessness and is about the opposite of just looking to continue the species.

Wrong. Totally wrong. (EDIT:Sorry, I mean wrong with that if there was no God, we would have only our own survival to consider. The second part is your belief and I respect that.)

I do not believe in God and my goals are to help people. You make it seem like you have to believe in God to help people.

What consitutes "respecting" an opinion, incidentally? I listen to a lot of people's opinions and I think they're stupid. I don't necessarily say so, but I'm still thinking it. Am I respecting their opinions? I don't think so. Incidentally, I could come up with a dozen stupid opinions, but I think I'll spare everyone for now.

I think a better way to be tolerant would be to respect the person's character and have moderate faith in their good intentions. That's a lot more realistic. Because while everyone has their right to an opinion, everyone else has the right to argue with it.

What I'm trying to say is that the will to help people is not a trait that is there jsut because you're religious. We help each other because of our society. Survival of the species does not mean looking out for oneself, it does not mean greed or selfishness. We help each other. Not sompletely and not risking our own skins to do it. There's nothing immoral about it though.

out side of looking out for yourself and those close to you, or essential to the survival of your community, what reason is there to help people. take someone who is crippled, homeless, and on the verge of losing sanity, what reason would there be to help that person, hes no good to the community, in fact hes even a potential threat, and yet for some reason some people still try to help him, in nature, say in a herd of some kind of animal, he probably would have been left behind if not killed off. is there really any scientific reason for wanting to help this person?

couldnt agree more! theres a huge difference in respecting someones opinion and tolerating it. if you want to be respected, you have to earn it.
granted it may be dificult to earn the respect of someone who is in fact the Admiral of Awesome :p

Not really.

There is a very good moral reason. And it is quite, quite possible to have a fully mature set of morals even if you are an atheist. Not everyone who doesn't believe in God has to be all 'arrrr science, naturalism, YARGH!' and only want to survive. I want to move past that to where we can all contribute to society on higher levels. To me, it's not okay for anyone to die from lack of food, or for some kid to die from not having a 15 cent immunization. It's absurd and not acceptable in the 21st century.

I don't want to do this this to help society survive, I want to do it because I feel the need to help people. Make that into whatever you want.

Yeh, agreed. You don't need to be religious to have a moral sense. There's natural morals. A better moral sense than what's in the bible... some things in there are just counteractive to our modern society. Like slavery and the stoning of prostitutes and homosexuals and teh roles of women.... Atheists have jsut as good a moral sense as Christians, perhaps better.

I have to admit, when the Religious Discussion forum was there I had no idea we had so many godbotherers... damn it should be back.

It was taken down because it was just a breeding ground for flames.

Well, atleast all the flames were in one, secluded area, not in numerous threads over here.

He has a point.

The flames over there were an order of magnitude worse.

As long as they don't spill over it's still better than what we've got now.

Unless the absence of these threads will cause the Discussion forum to collapse.

Yes, I remember it had awful flames, which is why everyone who would post there should be banned.

Damn that would be a good policy.

Or hell, just give me moderation rights for the forum! bwa ha ha ah aah ah aha

That's entrapment, that is!

Perhaps in some ways. I think it is simply that many of the laws in the bible are in fact not morals, but laws for the Jews because they have been collective *******s in the past. If you care to read the New Testament, the reason Jesus was so politically controversial was because he defied the previous laws. Yes, Jesus was Jewish, not Christian. He was a rebel, a punk, really, but less angsty and far more wise. He did away with the laws to keep neighbors from fighting (killing someone if their cow fell in a hole, for instance) and instituted a higher law, that of love. That SHOULD be the point of Christianity, but it often gets lost. Unfortunately the people who do follow it well, are, consequently, less vocal, as love is generally not as loud as rape. I mean hate.

The Morals in the Bible are quite universal, IMO, even 'Love Your God' because you can take that to mean 'love what you do'. For me, my god is music. But that is certainly an interpretation issue and almost certainly not what was intended.

It seems to me that while bad things are in the Bible, not all of them are condoned by Christianity. When Jesus comes in the New Testament, he does away with the stoning of prostitutes specifically and more than likely the stoning of homosexuals and slavery as the preferred moral law. What I'm saying is you're taking a cheap shot at the Bible.

Stoning of prostitutes and execution of homosexuals is Old Testament; that's the Jewish text. The New Testament labels sexual immorality as sinful, but doesn't call for the death of those who commit such acts.

Sure, you can help people without believing, but I meant that people who do believe are called to help others. I'm not saying that non-believers don't help anybody, but that they have less reason to because Christians believe this is something they have to do.



Yeah, you can think they're stupid and it's all good, but it's something else to actually tell them they're stupid. They could be stupid, and you might be right, but you should have enough respect for the average person to be courteous in what you say. And if not, you'll probably come off sounding like an arrogant know-it-all. There are exceptions, of course. If someone says the earth is flat, go ahead and ridicule them. But if someone is explaining why they believe in God, and it doesn't make sense to you, don't be so quick to judge them.



I can agree with that.

This rubs me the wrong way.

I, as a non-theist, can be (and am) called to help others in as noble a capacity as you. My calling is intrinsically derived whereas yours is extrinsically derived from God. I called and motivated myself to help other people for motives I derived myself on behalf of humanity. All of which I consider no less impressive than your calling.

My beef with you is that you are questioning peoples' motives for helping others. Your claim that you have more reason to help others than I do is a brusque slap to the face.

I'm mexican.

Yeh, I thought about including the whole topic about Jesus changing the prostitute stoning, but I must have forgotten to include anything when it came to writing down my thoughts. Yes, the stoning of prostitutes and homsexuals may have no longer been condoned, but that doesn't mean that it disappeared from Christianity. They're still persecuted, even if they're not killed. And I should make a point of saying that the message of Jesus of love and compassion for ones neighbors and fellow man is good and quite respectable. My beef is with the fundamentalists - at least with those around me here in Nebraska, there seems to be such a degree of literalism and intensity that does no good for us, and there is this agenda to push religion into the secular state and schools and undermine or discredit or at least ignore science. It seems like where I'm from, there's not this problem because mrst people are moderate or liberal Christians.
I agree alos that the good morals in the Bible are universal. But all that that means is that Chritisanity isn't the driving force behind these morals - they're seen in other cultures, other religions, in humanism - they're natural. I mean, you may view Christianity as the force that implants these ideas, but without Christianity, they would still exist in society. Except, of course, things like homosexuality which I don't view as immoral.
A problem I see, though, is that the Old Testament shows that god condones the acts of war and completely awful treatment of the conquered, condones slavery, stoning of rebellious children, prostitutes, and homosexuals. Even though Jesus goes and says that you don't have to do this, the message that it is (or at least was - so God is able to change his mind on these rules? Are we supposed to get a notice in the mail if they change?) alright with God is still there. Plus I have questions about the credibility of the gospels and think Paul has some issues.

But again, you're welcome to believe what you want, that's how this country is supposed to work.

I agree.



Sad, but true.

...




I always saw that as this.

If you were given a code of ethics that was on level with that of buddhist monks today, and required to live it from this very second, could you do it? I'm willing to be no. I always saw this as God supposedly slowly working with people to get them somewhere. Didn't always work. This is demonstrated by the story of Moses breaking commandments, and coming down with ten simpler ones because the people were stupid. That's where I formulated this hypothesis and I think that is the true meaning of that story, that of slowly working to a higher law.

It always confused me that there stopped being 'prophets' and proper revelation. I was raised LDS and they believe in latter day prophets and revelation, but I personally don't believe in any of this right now. But I like to think that if there is a God, he is somehow, trying to move us towards being able to live that highest law that is pure love and compassion. Long, long, long ways off. But even if it isn't true, if I work towards it, and it happens, who cares.