What is your take on this theory?

Exactly, maybe it's all a test, and why should we have to go to hell for failing a test with nothing to really study from? Maybe god is just a bad teacher. lol.
Only kidding

 

That's what I used to think. I get really pissed when people get mad at "God" for thebad things that happen to this world and I tell them "How is it God's fault? Did he possess (insert person who caused action here) and force them to do it?"

 

If I found out it was all a waste, I would look back at my life, and I wouldn't feel sorrow for knowing it was a waste, I would feel happiness, because I would know that my actions were rewarding to myself, by not going to jail or having great punishments, by knowing I never took a life, by knowing that I made my life mean something to other people. I mean I would feel sad that it was a waste, but then again I wouldn't feel regret because I would know that it wasn't a waste to the people around me. I'm not offended by that.

 

But then why do bad things happen to people who barely screw up? And what about babies that get put in microwaves, or beaten. And what about people in africa and other third world countries starving? Why let those bad things happen?

 

According to Dredica, to teach us a lesson. I can really blame anyone but ourselves for the things that go wrong in this world.

G2g. Dinner.

 

Well think about it: Heaven = A, Hell = F, Bible = Teacher (it tells us what to do in life so that we don't get a F), and God = Principal.

 

Well what about the people who do very good things, and hardly mess up, but don't believe in god? Why should they go to hell? Cause that's what the bible entails.

 

It states that if you were given the chance to accept Christ and God and you do accept them, you go to heaven if you do what the Bible tells you to do. If you were given the chance to accept Christ and God and you don't, regardless of how you lived your life, you still go to hell. If you were never given the chance to accept Christ and God, when you die, you get the chance, if you accept it, you go to heaven, if not, you go to hell.

G2g too.

 

I just think that is very unfair considering the evidence, or lack of, supporting god's word.

Alright. Peace

 

its not that easy. then again, it is. all you really have to do is join the right church, obey the commandments that you are given, endure to the end, and follow the prophet. most churchs don't have a prophet. i can only thikn of one. the Mormon church. they're the only ones who have a doctrine in sinc with Christ's ancient Doctrine. ima mormon so i should know.

 

Okay...

Dredica, you have somewhat answered your own question. At the start, you asked why athiest's don't just decide to believe to cover their behinds in case of them being wrong. You just said that being a Christian requires sacrifice such as loss of your sundays. Atheists are confident enough in their assessment of the world that they choose to gamble that there is no god in exchange for their Sundays.

Another reason is simply because deep in their heart, they are unable to believe because their mind demands proof and is unable to accept something blindly.

My reasoning for not believing in a god is fairly simple, but first, tell me, how did we come to know about the existence of god? How did we get the concept of a supreme lord?

 

I'm guessing through the same way that the Greeks believed that their were Olympians (Greek Gods), by wondering why everything exist, and why things happen, and so they came up with the Gods, and gave each one their own element(s), to explain why things happen, but I'll just say it since I know someone would point it out, but now we have science to prove why elements are created. The thing with the Christian God is, why was everything created? For what purpose? Then again, in the Anciet Greek religon, titans ruled the world, and then the Gods overthrew them. So, maybe God created the universe and all life, and science explains how everything was created. Just because science states how things were made, God explains why things were made, and who created them. So, science explains HOW everything was made, while God explains WHY things were made, and WHO made it. I don't mean that God is explaining why he made everything through himself to us, but how he is the answer to the question why everything was created and who created it all, and science answers the question how was everything created. If you think about it in terms of that, science and God, just a little bit (even though I know someone will post the reason to why I am mistaken), go hand in hand with eachother.

 

But assuming that is true, where does my soul come into it? Just because some people decided that a good explanation for the universe would be a divine architect, it does not prove that this creator has a good/bad fate planned for my soul. Where do we get the idea of Christ?

On another note, why do we need to explain the world with a god? Why can't the universe itself have a purpose? From where I am standing, saying a god made everything does not explain away the purpose of us. Why make us in the way he did? Why did he come about to be the way he supposedly is? What explains him?

 

I just cannot like or respect some deity that expects me to worship it or I end up in a land of eternal suffering and damnation. Especially with the lack of proof that the being exists.

For some of us, in life, we choose to not live in fear of the unknown or judge a book by its cover. By your definition of your God, Dredica, people who are given a chance to accept God and Jesus and do go to Heaven. Those who do not, go to Hell. I don't accept that sort of being. Why? Because that being has given me no reason to.

I spent a life living amongst two sides of Christianity. Catholic and Protestant. Perhaps I was too intuitive for my own good and researched and wanted to know things such as:
- Why even though I was a 'good Christian' follower, that it was okay for my mom who was also very Christian Protestant to beat the hell out of me for nothing I could discern and tell me repeatedly how worthless I was.
- Why I had to make it on my own, ostracized from my family because my mother was nuts.
- Why was it acceptable that my sister was born cerebral palsic and she has suffered a lot or why was my nephew born with heart problems that threaten to kill him whenever.
- Why we were often hungry and not doing well and why people could lay off my dad who had a family to support just like that and he'd have a ton of stress.
- Why others outside of my family suffered. Why a friend at school died of cancer and he was 10 years old. Why another friend died of AIDS from a blood transfusion at 15. Why a neighbor down the street came out to watch a drunk driver ram into her caravan and murder her children and he only had 10 years for it.
- Why catastrophes happened etc and people would yell out that God was punishing us for being heathens and not believing. That's sure a lot of heathens in one area like where Katrina struck. What about all the Christians?
- Why God would back such atrocities in the Bible as destroying places just because people weren't Jews and of course why atrocities such as the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the Witch Trials etc all happened.
- Why Jesus's story pretty well mirrors Horus's and why the Bible of the Old Testament takes parts of Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Babylonian beliefs and spots and the tales are turned around but quite similar.
- Why is 'witchcraft' bad and yet the miracles of God are not.

I could go on and on as to why God and Jesus make no sense to me and why I find the entire monotheistic faith to be nothing more than a collection of myths, just as I enjoy reading Egyptian, Norse, Celtic etc mythos.

If God really is so unloving as to say that we have our 'choice' whether to believe or not but if you do not, you go to Hell, and he doesn't provide enough information about himself to make his existence actually concrete, I do not -like- the God and would rather burn if there is even such a thing as Hell. The Jews in their writings didn't even believe in Hell, but more a place like Limbo/Purgatory.

I cannot answer for sure that there is no superior force out there but I believe I can say with clear enough confidence that humans have got it all wrong if there is one or if there are many of these 'Gods' out there. I prefer to wait for proof and books, scrolls etc just are not enough proof as I can write a darn good believable yarn too and sell it as the next religion. It means nothing.

As to the actual beginning post on the thread, I feel the religion was created back when for a few reasons. For control, for answers to make a group who wanted control to seem intelligent and far knowing, for personal answers and hope where explanations for events was quite wanting, and to draw people in to form a society separate from the Egyptians and Mesopotamian/Babylonian cultures that were predominant because their religions were already well established but left some people as slaves. Later the religion had to alter for some again as viewpoints and societies separated and changed. Still, Christianity, Judaism and Islam change because of the views of societies and we now have several branches from each that exist and spurn one another's views. Religion can draw people in and has been used to maintain an ethics status, laws and guideline that people are expected to live by. Who better to punish wrongdoers that disrupt a society but a deity or a few? The monotheistic religions though were different from Roman, Greek and Egyptian etc Mythos where the Gods were considered to also have human flaws and lively passionate stories. This God is perfect in every way as is his son, if you consider that a selfish, dominating deity that has omniscient and omnipotent powers but lets people suffer whether they believe or not and even tests people's faiths on it perfect. The prophets are not but they change to become men of the finest quality, which could be debated, of the times.

Of course there will be some people who will say that we humans make our beds, but again, what child asks to be abused or what person asks to have mental illness that impairs judgment? To be born with disabilities? To have a drunk driver kill 3 kids while a mom watches helplessly from her door? etc. If I were a deity, I would certainly try to stop such travesties. The monotheistic deity is cruel to me and yet it is felt that he should merit worship? So, I guess I am not Job and could never take my kid out and even imagine I would give him/her up for sacrifice to prove my loyalty.

There are some things out there that are not answered yet for me but I am confident someday those things may be answered and if not in my lifetime, I am content to live a life without fear hovering over me and expecting me to do things. I also find that people can be decent to one another without Christianity or the fear of being sent to Hell and I find it to be a brainwashing factor to have to believe in such fear tactics.

Is it more authentic to help someone because that person is in trouble and to do so with no expectations of thank yous OR
Is it more authentic to help someone because you are a Christian that is taught that if you do not help others you will be sent to Hell?

There are just some things that certain groups of Christianity fight over such as this. Some Christians will also not follow the ideal that some others have which states that if you do not believe in God and Jesus, you will go to Hell. They feel that if you lead a good life and do positive things of your own will, that you are not barred from Heaven. I tend to enjoy talking to these Christians more and can accept their faith as much as they can accept my faithlessness. After all, believing or not believing is a thing that is personal to each person. We relate in other ways and just because someone does not wish to follow a path of beliefs does not mean the person has no ethics or heart. I hold nothing against people who choose to believe in God and Jesus even if I do not, a majority of the time. However, I do have something against people who decide to tell me where I am going after this life is over because my viewpoint is different. This is why Atheists and others of different religions or different views even in Christianity will say things and discuss matters. As long as some feel they can judge others and it -has- to affect their lives, there will be some of us who will not just sit idly by and listen to people who stupidly tell others 'you are going to be condemned to torment because you don't feel as we do'.

 

In my opinion, higher powers were created by honest, but ignorant, people who just wanted to try and make sense of the world around them. Why things happen, is it possible to make life better, is it all worth it in the end etc.

But, the rich and powerful cottoned on the the idea and used it to control the people (i.e. the Catholic Church for most of its history, if not still now). The priesthood were really the only educated people in the community. They used threats and the promise of intangible rewards to keep the people in line.

I believe that all religion is man made and has no supernatural base whatsoever (especially considering that supernatural means outside the laws of physics and therefore physically impossible).

 

I'm just going to say this, I didn't want to argue about this whole religion thing anyway. It seems that no one else is backing me up, but there's so many atheist in this thread, and I really can't keep up. I'm only in 8th grade, I'm fourteen, I'm not really expected to know about every little detail about life. I'm not trying to ***** or anything, even though I know that my post would read like I am, but it's not in my capabilities to know all of the answers. I just believe in God, and have faith that I will be rewarded if I choose to accept God and Jesus Christ, and live a good life. I'm not going to post in this thread anymore, because it's really not getting anywhere, because every time I post something, someone has to come along with something to disprove what I just posted. So, yeah I won't post anymore in this thread. I don't care what any of you think anyway, your probably going to say that I am like a coward for choosing to not mess up any relationships I have with the members on this site, because an argument about religion.

 

Umm, just because people disprove your points doesn't mean you leave an argument. You take on board what they say and either discard your points or adapt them to fit with what they have said.

No-one is trying to force you out of this section. We are just trying to answer the question, but with an opposing ideological position.

 

Well, looks like my simple theory turned into a blown out argument.

This wasn't what I wanted in this thread...but even I fell into the trap...

 

It isn't a fight really. It's a debate. No one was really disrespectful but the theories of many people come into play and so they play out. I would not worry about it.

As for Dredica, I can see why you would not want to post anymore, but the point of debating in the first place is to open your mind and make good arguments and standpoints. People will ask questions and make statements and as a debater, you respond with the same. When we cannot anymore, perhaps it is wise to concede and leave the thread alone for a while. We all run into debates where we feel it's time to step back and step out of them. Don't worry about it either. However, if you don't -care- what others say really, you are walking into a debate with a closed mind and that doesn't help either.

 

If you ask me, your just a bunch of spam in a can. where do you come up with this stuff. look at it this way, your in a plan its headed toward eath at 885 miles per hour, what do you do.
A. Yell GOD HELP ME
B. Yell JESUS
C. Say im gonna be a tree when i die
D. God doesnt exist im just gonna die.
Well resarch does show it between the top two not the bottom two, so think. If god doesnt exit why is it that is it that there is proff Jesus existed. Vist the Tower of Hands in Texas and you see a reprica of the sheet found, that contains Jesus face.