Religion

[TMA_1]

All that unbelievers can understand is the gospel. That christ died for our sins and was resurrected from death. Once you beleive that the rest of the Bible can be spiritually understood. that s what I meant.  and yes we are forgiven from all sins. the murderer that hung on the cross by jesus (He was one because you have to do something really bad to be put on the cross. It isnt that all non-romans were hung on the cross. usually it was a simpler punishment.) He asked the lord to remember him and he was saved. "You will be wtih me in paradise" christ said. Christ took all the judgment from god onto himself. Every sin ever committed. A man isnt punished by god for a sin but by laws that punish man. God set out that man should have laws to punish a person for crimes like murder. Sometimes it doesnt work because legal systems arent perfect. God punished christ in our stead. Any person can come to christ. Now if a christian does constant sin then he will be disconnect from the holy spirit and wont be able to ahve inner peace with the lord. That is it. Man's laws do the rest. God isnt going to do anything against our law breaking because he isnt our physical earthly king right now. Not till he comes again will he set it all up.

[Edric O]

Nema:

I could argue that destructive intent is good and constructive is evil. How can you know I'm wrong?

Well, if God is good by definition, then that pretty much clears everything up. If you wanna say that God is evil, then you need a reference system. For example: If Satan is good, then God is evil. You can't just say that God is evil... you need to define evil! And as I've shown you, there is no absolute definition. It's all relative. You have to accept SOMETHING as either good or evil and use it as a reference system... And if you're an atheist, your choice isn't any better or worse than Hitler's, for example. Because the only possible absolute reference system is a god (or something similar).

Abandon science? No, I didn't mean ABANDONING it, I only meant accepting that science has limitations, at least for now. And the biggest limit is our mind. We can never hope to study what we can't comprehend.

God is not a magician. He's a scientist.

I can imagine Jesus trying to teach Einstein how the Universe *really* works... ;)

[evilbaronatreides]

TMA, here's a hypothetical situation: A person in a Godless dimension, saves an old woman (a "good" old woman) from a car wreck. Now, does that qualitfy as an "evil" and "worthless" act. Is that man now a nefarious, depraved toad?

How can God punish Christ? God is Christ, just in human form. So did God punish himself for the acts that the men he supposedly created did?

[Edric O]

Did God punish Himself for the sins of man?

Yes, He did.

As for your hypotetical man, his act is either good, evil or anything in between, depending on your reference system. So in essence, his act is worthless.

[evilbaronatreides]

Somehow, I don't buy that. Edric, are you saying that man is completely helpless without advice from a diety? That man is unable to comprehend the difference between right and wrong? Thats sounds immensly ludacrous, something that right wing fundamentalists would tell their children so that when they (the children) are grown and kill someone because their ideals differed from their own, the children can say to the judge that their god willed them to do it (Say, sounds sorta familiar doesn't it). Man can discriminate from good and evil: all it takes is self-created morals to judge the two. The thought that it takes a god to decide for man what is "just" and "unjust", really does frighten me. All this time, I thought that I had the choice to do what is right/wrong and those deciscions were entirely my own.

Here's another hypothetical situation: An essentially good person (they lived their life as a "good Christian") dies and goes to Heaven, yet that person never believed that there was a God. What is the judgement of that person?

[Acriku]

Edric, you are saying that without God we cannot truly tell what is right or wrong. How do you know? Did the Bible say this or are you independantly speaking this? If the Bible said this, how do you know this is true? There have been things wrong before, who is to say this isn't one of them? If you are independantly speaking this, are you not speaking for God, possibly against him?

And yes our minds do have limits, but we will evolve into a more expanded mind and will begin to understand many other things. This process will continue if we survive, and under the right conditions (i.e. not living in a mind-retarding atmosphere).

[Edric O]

I don't believe it! You STILL don't get it! What I meant was that without God there is NO good and evil!! It's all relative!!!!

Tell me, how do you know YOUR definition of right and wrong is any more correct than Hitler's?

Edit: This was adressed to evilbaron

[Acriku]

What would it prove that our right or wrong definition is no more correct than Hitler's? It wouldn't mean we are as bad as Hitler if ours isn't. It wouldn't mean we are better if ours is. It proves nothing, therefore kapoot, moot, nadda.

[Edric O]

Kapoot, moot, nada - EXACTLY! Without God, there is no good and evil!

As for the truth of my statement - I was discussing good and evil, not truth and falseness. Even without God, we can easily tell if something is true or false (well, it depends on what that "something" is).

[Acriku]

Edric just how do you know that you have to have God to distinguish between right or wrong? You haven't lived without God as a subject, or in a world without a God, so because of that, you cannot say that. If you were to say you CAN live without God to distinguish between the two then yes, I would agree because all you need is one example of that and it is proven. But you would have to go through everyone's lives to prove what you are saying.

[Edric O]

I used a simple deduction:

Good and evil are relative => They are meaningless without an absolute reference system

God is such a reference system. Atheism doesn't have anything similar => Good and evil are meaningless in atheism

[Acriku]

So, if you are to use God as a reference, killing everyone on the planet save for 2 people and a few animals is right? Ok, I'll keep that in mind when someone gets another person with him/her and some animals underground and unleashes a bioweapon that will exterminate everything above ground except for themselves and praise the man/woman for his righteous actions.

Or how about discovering a man who has been breeding millions of children and put them in a closed area and starve them to death, while watching them die and him knowing he could do anything to let them live, and then praise the oh HOLY Man for His RIGHTEOUS actions, oh save me oh Lord!

[Edric O]

If you happen to have a better ABSOLUTE reference system, I'm all ears...

1. The people killed by the flood deserved it.

2. God hasn't been breeding or starving anyone. We have. He is simply not getting involved in our world. Isn't that what atheists want, anyway? You got your wish...

[Acriku]

1.  If your God thinks they deserved it, why wouldn't he make a flood for us? You think we are better than the people before us, assuming this happened?

2. So God isn't what makes us? It is science? If it is science, then how do we have a so-called soul? And if science makes us, not God, is cloning not justified? We are playing God when we mate, by making a child through science, and in cloning it is all that except the mating. So if you ban cloning why don't we just ban sex? Good job with that. And who said athiests don't want God's involvement? I question his existence, not his involvement.

And it is not possible to have everyone in the world not hungry and not disease-ridden. Just not enough supplies. If we were to make food through genetically-enhanced production, possibly. But then again, many would be against that because our population is going to soar and will not stop going up till we  have no inch to move and the earth would have uncertain consquences. It would cause a chain reaction, possibly destroying our world.

[Guest Jeffrey Milliman]

Edric: What if there truly is no such thing as "good" or "evil" and we simply made it up?  And in the end, does it matter all that much?  It's sort of like "right" and "wrong"... extremely subjective to opinion.  

[Sardauker-Kirov]

Ummm? What has Nasa to do with the "Unexplainable"?

Yea Shooting an rocket in the sky with Men aboard? Pretty logic.

And as for Nema, Ghosts doesnt have a Solid Energy pattern that can be detected by Machine's It can only be detected by our own Energy and Aura.

Alot of Encounters has been reported in Area's of "Paranormal Activies"

People Shiver's, Feeling an strange presence that cant be explained by science.

I do agree that Science has no limits though, Maybe we all will be implanted by Brain Controll chips and become pawns of the Goverment. But Science cant prove all thing's. And as for love.. It has nothing to do with Hormones or whatever, Maybe smelling or something like that.

[Acriku]

Kirov, where do you get this stuff?

First off, NASA?

Second, who made you the ghost master? No one knows anything factual about ghosts, because nothing has been proven about them. For all we know, they don't exist!

Third, a shiver in the spine is caused by nervousness, coldness, among other things - a shiver can merely be a series of triggered nerves in the spine, caused by mental or physical dysfunction and/or state. It CAN be explained by science, as well as love CAN be explained by science. Get your head out of your hole and get into the world of science!

[Gunseng_Harkonnen]

Sardauker: Implanted by chips...preety good idea. Science hasn`t limits, but when they will put those things to our heads. But many things may happen in future. When I think

[Edric O]

Acriku:

1. After the flood, God promised to Noah that he'll never do that again.

2. When did I say that "science makes us"? All I said was that God isn't breeding (or starving) anyone. I don't see the connection.

Of course there is no such thing as good or evil, without God! Therefore we have no reason to condemn Hitler or Stalin. We have no right to say that the WTC attack was evil. For all we know, Bin Laden is goodness incarnate!

See the problem?

As for the chemistry of love: Actually the only thing that science has explained is sexual attraction. That's not love. Several physical "side-effects" of love have been documented, but simply seeing some of the effects isn't an explanation.

[Asdrubaal]

There is ambigiouity in science? Makes sense...

Its funny Asdrubaal that you are insulted by what Edric O said (and he says lots of stuff that can upset people) about you, yet didn't you insult all those who had religions by calling them "morons"...

Ordos45, true we are all hypocrites. We turn our opinons around every day, but I think its the sincerity that we turn those ideals around. If we do it because we saw a different point of view and found that as reasonable and acceptable, then that change has sincerity. If we change an ideal for the sake of someone else or for personal gain (not enlightenment), thats a bit hypocrtical.

I took no offence!

[evilbaronatreides]

my bad, Asdrubaal.

Edric, so you are saying that without an abosulte defination or "Good" or "Evil" through the word of a diety, the difference between right and wrong is non-existent? If so, I still don't buy it. True, good and evil are relative; what one person sees also pious and divine, another may see it as blasphemy and unholy. But there is a line between the two, as Nema pointed out earlier: Good is mainly contructive and evil is mainly destructive. Raping and sodomizing twevle year old children then murdering them is something that I think we can all agree is evil, right? Maybe this good and evil thing is being defined by the wrong end, evil is something that can be defined more easily than good.

And why is it that everyone keeps bringing up Hitler in their debates? True his ideologies were terrible (in my eyes), but the guy resurrected a dying nation, and formed it into a super-power.

[Edric O]

I think that if you look hard enough you'll find a few twisted maniacs who say that raping and sodomizing twevle year old children then murdering them is good. And who are you to challenge their "moral" system?

I keep bringing up Hitler because I think he was the embodiement of Evil. And considering his strange hypnotic power, he might have been posessed... by Satan himself, not just any ol' fallen angel. Anyway, I think Hitler descended into hell and is now sitting on the right side of Satan, if you know what I mean...

Hitler brought Germany out of chaos and made it a superpower by installing an oppresive evil regime that didn't give a damn about human life and denied some people even the right to live. He got away too easily. He should have suffered a slow, painful death. There wasn't enough humanity left in him to consider it murder, anyway.

[Acriku]

1. Who said God keeps his words?

2. You said God didn't make me and you Edric, so what else could? Science. There is the connection. And God is neglecting us, because he could end everyone's suffering and make everyone happy, but he just sits back and watches. And don't make up anything, because I want it from the Bible, because if it isn't - it can't be proven, not that Bible can be proven, but it does have more liability than your own concoction.

And Bin Laden's actions were evil because it destroyed thousands of people's chance to survive, our core instinct. Everything has the instincts to survive, some more than others, and when that is destroyed that act is considered evil.

And Hitler was nothing more than a ruler with too much power. With the power Hitler had, after a while it would get into your mind, and I gaurantee that millions would do the same. Just like Genghis Khan. More would probably arise. And Edric, are you trying to prove that people mentioned above were righteous?

[nemafakei]

Edric, you're twisting words out of all proportion. It's like arguing that a dog is a car. Remember that the word good means beneficial, and therefore of constructive and destructive, you can only have the former; evil must be the latter.

That is absolute enough without god.

"Tell me, how do you know YOUR definition of right and wrong is any more correct than Hitler's? "

Hitler's was based on killing (or the threat of, etc). By definition, that is destructive, and ergo, evil.

It really is quite simple.

[Edric O]

Nema:

Good means beneficial... but beneficial to WHO? Hitler's killings were beneficial to the nazis, ergo, by your definition, good. One man's constructive action can be another man's doom.

Good and evil are abstract notions, unlike "dog" and "car". They are not linked to physical objects.

Acriku:

1. Show me one time when He didn't.

2. I said God didn't BREED us. As in He didn't tell our parents to have children together.

What is there to make up?

Another core instinct is to kill your competitors for food. Is that good too?

Hitler was more than power-drunk. He sistematically butchered millions. No conscience, no remorse. He even enjoyed it, he loved misery and suffering. He considered it good. He wanted to do that long before he got any power. After all, Mein Kampf was written in prison.

I know Satan when I see him.