Sarn, I really do question that if you had been brought up completely neutral of religion, you would still have chosen to follow Christ? If you parents had taught you no religion, only OF religion, e.g. "this is what Christians believe, this is what Jews beliefs, this is what atheists (don't?) believe), and here are the criticisms of each," would you really have made the same choice? I have a very hard time believing that anyone brought up in an environment where they are taught logic and rationality could ever choose a religion on their own.

I was kinda brought up in that kind of environment My grandmother (Who is very religious) taught me about christianity and would often try to get my sister and I to go to church with her. My parents (Who aren't religious. Agnositc would probably describe them best) gave me the choice of going to church with my grandmother or not. I went a couple of times but i diddnt like it. It diddnt feel right. I could never take the stories as anything more than fiction so I diddnt go back.

Assumptions are never logical. You start with an assumption and then draw further conclusions based on the assumption. Assuming there is a submarine in space is exactly the same as assuming there is none.

How do you know what's possible? Just because something seems unlikely doesn't make it impossible. What is the probability that we would live in a universe in which a charged mass moving in a magnetic field experiences a force? Can you explain why this happens?

Again, there is no valid reasoning behind answering "No" as well.

i'm agnostic. basically, i grew up in the church. mom was a minister, was at church most sundays, excluding wen i was sick, learnd a lot of bible stuff. theres even a story about me when i was five, and recieving communion, and my mom said "this is the blood of christ, given for you." and i screamed "i dont want to drink jesus' blood!"

but anyway, even before my mom get kicked out of the church for mental and physical illnesses, i was losing my faith, learning about the history of the church, and the hypocracy involved every step of the way. i came to think that the foundations of the church were faulty, most of the practices/traditions were not things jesus would have wanted, and in general organized religion only breeds hatred of other religions/people etc.

i'm still a very spiritual person, i just dont think any one religion will ever do it for me, because i have yet to see one consistantly practice what they preach.

Hee, same thing happened to my sister when we were attending a Catholic mass for some reason.

That reminds me of the cannibal in Oz.

Precisely.

Yeah, there's quite a bit that's really just "pagan" beliefs that were conveniently absorbed to make converting easier.

No! You need to look up the definition of logic. The original question was not an assumption it was a statement. I was asking whether it was logically valid to say it's plasuable.

[quote=Chambers English Dictionary]logic noun 1 a philos the exploration of the validity or otherwise of arguments and reasoning[/quote]



It's true that: that a world war 2 submarine must have come from earth.
and: very few objects of that size have been lanuched into space from earth
and: none of these are submarines.
Therefore:
-Theres no possible way it could have got there
-Theres nothing to make anyone believe it is there

The logical answer to is it there is 'No'. Saying 'Yes' would contradict the reasoning that there is no possible way for it to get there. The only way to logically answer 'yes' is if: someone discovers it's possible that a submarine was launched into space or someone shows that there is infact a submarine in space.

your argument doesnt hold up to a truth table test.

and not only that, but there is no way to symbolically represent your argument, based on the language you used.

basically you have

A

B

C

therefore ~(not) A

which makes no sense.

in other words, you dont know much about logic, and how it really works.

Emon, it's really quite difficult to say either way. I wasn't raised in a completely neutral home, and quite frankly I don't believe that anyone ever is. However, having said that, I can say that there are people just like me who were raised in a Christian home that did not end up as Christians (from what you said, sounds like you're one of those people), and there are people who were not raised in Christian homes who have made a decision for Christ and have lived or are living healthy Christian lives. You can't use a cookie-cutter equasion here to say that people that grow up influenced by their family to be Christians will end up Christians and people who grow up otherwise will not. It's about a personal decision. You make the decision yourself, whether others around you want you to or not.

Also, even though I did choose to become a Christian, I can honestly say that most of my religious beliefs (the structures I base my life on and what I believe about God) are quite a bit different than those of my parents. Why? Because when my parents are talking to me about God, I calculate what they're saying against what resonantes personally with me. Some of it I agree with and so I take it, and some of it I don't agree with, so I don't.

Some of the posters in the thread will get a kick out of this, this seems as good a time as any to post it:

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/hank.php

I just discovered while looking for the link that there is a video, it's worth watching:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDp7pkEcJVQ

Also, for those who have not had the privilege of feeling the touch of His Noodly Appendage:

http://www.venganza.org/

But it wasn't like that was for me. It wasn't a feeling of looking back and saying God saved me. It was what occured before and during these incidents that has me taking the position that I do. In the second case, I had a really uneasy feeling and something telling me to move, so I did. Not more than a second later, a bullet whizzed by right where I had been standing. It would have hit me in the head. I'll never believe that was random chance. I've experienced random chance, as you put it, and it has always been completely different. Random chance is avoiding that accident on the road and so on.

And honestly, the "if it helps you sleep at night comment" is completely lame.

Actually, that's not what I said at all.

(A /\ B /\ C) => ¬D

Would be a better representation. However, expressing natural language as mathematical logic is rather pointless.

Hey hey, I'm not making judgments! I'm just talking here!

that argument still doesnt withstand a truth table test. meaning its not a valid argument.

and theres no way to prove it.

and this isnt mathmatical logic. its philosophical logic. not actually a part of math at all. certain parts of geometry borrow from logic, but its not the same.

from your representation of it, theres no way to get to D.

the best you could get would be AvD, BvD, or CvD.

for the hell of it, heres the truth table for it:



as you can see, because there is one instance where the premises are true and the conclusion is false, the argument is invalid.

You diddnt take into consideration the logical implication... But as I said, it's kinda pointless expressing it this way. You said it yourself: "but there is no way to symbolically represent your argument, based on the language you used."

Lets compare Christianity to Athiesm.

For the Christian:
If you're right, you go to heaven. Yah! If the athiest is right, you won't know the difference anyway, cause you won't exist anymore. Yah!
God can't interfere with our world, because any interference would be a sin, and God cannot sin.

For the Athiest:
If you're right, well, you wouldn't be able to tell. Yah! If you're wrong, God forgivs you and you go to heaven. Yah!
God cannot interfere with our world because he does not exist.

In short, it doesn't much matter wether God exists or not. It has no effect on your life.

On the other hand, the human psychy does seem to have a need for a 'greater power' of some kind. For me, it is the Tao. For you, it might be God. Someone else might not have that need at all, and for them it might be nothing.

Of course, God is the Tao, and the Tao is nothing. But the Tao is everything, so it all works out in the end.

What about all those people who thought logic proved the existence of a God?

They preach in subways.

I don't follow your logic.

How do you equate interfering with the world as being sin?

To clarify things up on the first post, Buddhist can believe in a God. They just don't "force" you to praise one or declare that there is one. You can be Christian and Buddhist at the same time if you wanted.

Not all Christians believe this way.

In generic protestant tradition (which is more scripturally based) a believer cannot lose his/her salvation by being unrepentant. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." What this means is that salvation is a gift of God freely bestowed on us. In this way, Nothing you can do will cause you to lose your salvation because salvation is based on faith, not on works (or lack thereof). Also worth looking at is Romans 8:39 -- "Nor height nor depth nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord"

God will not allow a believer to go too deeply into sin without some sort of intervention. If a believer is living in sin and is unrepentant, then God may allow life for this believer to become very difficult as a way of getting that person's attention and to bring them back to where they should be. I know, I've been there.

Yeah, it was on the Simpson's afterall!

Trying to prove, or rather, convince other people one way or the other, there is or isn't a God is completely useless because it's completely up to each individual whether or not they believe or don't. The standard of proof is different for each person.

I suppose you're right, but Buddhism is generally an atheistic religion. I was just trying to help people understand which option to choose and how to interpret the results. For example, I didn't want the "Yes" answer to be a blanket for anyone who is religious, only those who believe in a god.

the largest branch of buddhism actually worships buddha as a deity, the "strict" branch of buddhism which teaches that he shouldn't be worshipped only makes up about 20% of buddhists.

Buddism is anything but an athiestic religion. Just because it does not advocate a diety does not mean it excludes one. The biggest sect of buddism reveres the buddha himself. Zen buddists follow the way of the Tao. Many hindu buddists retain their hindu beliefs.



The main failing westerners seem to have when addressing eastern religions is an over reliance on imperical logic. Just because something cannot be proven, does not mean it is not true. Likewise, just because something cannot be disproven, does not mean it is true. And when you cannot decide between two contradictory ideas, perhaps both are true.

First, we must agree that God cannot sin. What would is be for God to sin? God is everything. God is the process by which all things are done. Can everything sin against itself? Can a process sin?

God has given us free-will, because he could do nothing else. Can you even imagine a sentient being without free-will? Is such a thing possible?

If God could intercede on our behalf, would he not have? A man can commit a small sin to stop a larger. A man can kill a murderer, to prevent future murders. But the murder of the murderer is still sin - and God cannot sin.

Can God whisper in your ear? Perhaps. He can whisper 'Do not go there today.' But he cannot make you listen. It is your free-will that decided wether you heed him or not.



I never claimed to have arrived at that conclusion through logic.

Aye. Breed to fear/love God. But logic says IT doesn't exist.

Tiberium, shut up. You're just reciting what Emon and Sarn argued earlier. I'm trying to stop being as mean as I am, but PLEASE stop just repeating stuff!

And even if you're just reciting what Emon said, saying I'm BRED to fear and love God is a much harsher way of putting it than what Emon said, and it's not true at all. Yes, I am more or less forced into going to church, but I'm hardly surrounded by it all the time.

But you still haven't aswered my question.

Side note: I think by definition agnostics do not qualify as atheists.


Anyways, I chose atheist. If I did believe in some supernatural force, it wouldn't be in God or in gods. I'm chinese, so I have a tendency to sometimes think about tian (which means heavens but is more really like the influence of a "fate"). Which is not God. But generally I don't even believe in that.

Yeah, I suppose this is true.

What? Of course he can. He's the freaking God, for Christ's sake. The God. If he's all powerful he doesn't need to make rules for himself - it's the creation that needs control. And besides, you denying that God can't do something immediately contradicts with the assumption of him being all-powerful. Neh neh.

But anyways, although I voted yes, as someone here rightly put it, I don't think that God's a bearded old man who hates gays and maims people for working on Saturdays.

Um, what about: miracles? Jesus? stuff like that?
God interefered all the time back in bible days.

Hey, whatever, I'm no expert. I haven't studied religion in five years, I just looked it up on Wikipedia!

It is overwhelmingly statistically likely that you believe in the same religion as your parents.

Please tell me what it is, if it isn't brainwashing?

As St. Thomas said, "It is a sin to regard the fact that God cannot do the impossible, as a limitation on His powers."

I would use the term 'error', not sin. But the message is the same.

Two objects contradicting does not mean that one object must be false. God can be all powerful, and still not be capable of the impossible. It is no more logical to assume that he is not bound by the physical laws of the universe than to assume that he is.

Well I know that it isn't brainwashing, because brainwashing is the term for re-education, not initial education.

lmaopops

But you don't start off with a belief in god, you are changing someones belief.



the term 'Brainwashing' could definatly appy here.