So I went to church tonight....

[Izzy]

Re: So I went to church tonight....

"Doesnt the Big Band Theory Disprove the Genesis account of Creation?
Try to think of any explosion that has produced order. Does a terrorist bomb create harmony? Bo, they cause chaos. How could a big bang produce apple trees, a rose, sunsets, the nose, and mouth? There is obviously creation involved. Evolutionists seem to me like theyre purposefully ignoring all the evidence that points towards it, like a detective who see's all the evidence for a murder yet still calls it a suicide.

A play on words does not get anyone anywhere.

Also i am pretty sure the big bang didn't produce order, it would have produced mass chaos and disorder.

[who_cares973]

Re: So I went to church tonight....

"Doesnt the Big Band Theory Disprove the Genesis account of Creation?
Try to think of any explosion that has produced order. Does a terrorist bomb create harmony? no, they cause chaos. How could a big bang produce apple trees, a rose, sunsets, the nose, and mouth? There is obviously creation involved. Evolutionists seem to me like theyre purposefully ignoring all the evidence that points towards it, like a detective who see's all the evidence for a murder yet still calls it a suicide.

wait, are you saying evolution is wrong



Feeeeeear is hooooooooow i fallllllllllllllllllllllllll

[NeONKIDPrincess]

Re: So I went to church tonight....



I would recommended joining scientology mockingly, but I'm scared of getting fair gamed.

[devonin]

Re: So I went to church tonight....

So I guess instead, you get the gigantic response of doom.

Ask yourself this. What if somehow you KNEW FOR SURE, 100%, that there WAS a god, and he DID love you, but you were still going to hell regardless.

That is a meaningless question within the bounds of christianity, because nobody "is going to hell regardless"

but it's not about believing in God, or caring about him, it's about being scared of dying.

It's about living your life on Earth according to the guidelines set down by the creator of that earth. You just aren't a believer, so you don't believe. Your misunderstanding is poor grounds to base an arguement on.

Not to mention its USED TO PURSUADE PEOPLE TO FIGHT WARS!

So are a whole host of things that you do (presumably) believe in. Democracy, economy, there've been wars fought over all kinds of things. Just because religion has historically been one of the big ones doesn't automatically make it bad and wrong, just misapplied.

but what do you think is the reasoning behind suicide bomber attacks? They think they're DYING FOR THEIR GOD! S-T-U-P-I-D

They think that their religion compels them to defend their faith in the face of a concerted attack against followers of their religion. They also think that martyrdom is a perfectly good way to end ones life, since they, like many other followers of the Judeo-Christian traditions, view life as the test of their soul before going on to their eternal afterlife, so what they do here, and how they act here is important only insofar as it determines the course of their eternal afterlife. You appear to not believe in such an afterlife, so clearly you don't have the same motivations as they do, that doesn't necessarily make them wrong or you correct.

because they're scared to question their own faith.

I know many people who are faithful, and who question, and who still conclude that they believe. Try telling Guido that he's a moronic sheep who is too afraid to question his faith and see how far that gets you.

Well, this dude on the video says that's wrong, and that you need to do more than just say it. Earn your way into heaven, not continue "sinning". Those "christians" are going to Hell, if the video is to be believed

Actually, this issue is one of the ones that caused some of the splits in christian faiths. Some of them believe that good works are necessary to go to heaven, others believe that you get into heaven by faith alone. So the truthfullness of the statements in that video basically depend on which denomination you adhere to.

You don't really need to physically go to a place to worship, but rather mentally go to a place of worship.

This one is one of the issues that sparked the protestant reformation. Again, depending on your denomination, you either believe that ones relationship with God is personal, or that one's relationship with God is done through an intermediary such as a Priest.

Oh i guess he's right and the bibles wrong then. But wait there's literally thousands of contradictions in the bible.

Your ignorance is showing. As mentioned above, you're just misdefining 'believeth' to mean 'believe in the existance of' and nothing else, when believeing in the existance of God and believing -in- God necessarily includes following the strictures set down BY God.

Wait, does that mean people are PROFITING off of RELIGION?! Who would have thought!

Some people are not all people. All generalizations are wrong.

A lot of people confuse "church" with "what the Catholic church used to do and some branches of still do," because that happens to be the most convenient anti-Christian misinformation that they can spew.

This is very true. More tellingly is that people like to take shots at events that happened centuries or more ago as proof of the horribleness of the church. Try telling a teenaged German that they are horrible because of the Holocaust, or a farm owner in georgia because there was slavery there a hundred years ago, see what they tell you.

Religion literally brings in BILLIONS of COMPLETELY, UN-TAXED DOLLARS each year. Billions. Put 2 and 2 together.

Maybe all religions combined all over the world. But do some more research there pal, see how many charitable organizations have been founded and funded by churches. I can name you a half dozen just based locally around the town I grew up in, to say nothing for worldwide. Yes religion generates a lot of money in tithing and donations, but it also does an awful lot of good with that money.

If you really want to criticize religion on the basis of money, the true cash cow for the church is the huge volume of land that christian denomonations own in Europe. If they sold all of that at market rates, they'd be making more like Trillions of dollars on it. Collections at mass are a drop in that bucket.

Anyways, lets go over some fun fast facts quick.

(1) An UNKNOWN BUT LARGE amount of untaxed money is brought in by religion
(2) Wars have been fought with religion playing a large role in it. If God created us, why would he ever want us to kill each other?
(3) Nearly everyone religion states that OTHER RELIGIONS ARE WRONG. So which one is right? They can't all be. But logically this means the majority of everyone is wrong!

1) the value is not known by you, that doesn't make it unknown
2) God gave us free will to do with as we wanted, God presumably -doesn't- want us to kill each other, but He agreed to not interfere with our bad decisions.
3) Actually, it's primarily the Judeo-Christian religions that tend to state that only followers of their denomination will be saved. Eastern religions are generally more along the lines of "We feel this is a -better- path towards enlightenment, but there are many paths"

If you ignore everything else i right, read this. I challenge one person to answer me the following loophole.

write.

Okay so Christianity states that God loves us all, and that we will go to heaven if we only choose to believe. In fact thats the ONLY way to go to heaven, we MUST believe.

So what if 3 year old child is killed in an accident? Having not yet reached an age where he is capable of making the decision to believe in God or not, does this mean he goes to hell? He spends 3 insignificant years on earth and now he's going to burn in hell for more then 100000000000000000000 years? Infinitys pretty long.

Children are an exception. Before they've been baptized especially, and in many denominations, before they've had confirmation, this is ismply not an issue. Dead babies go to heaven.

More realisticly, what about people born across the globe, in third-world countries? Millions of these people simply will not have the chance to ever be exposed to christanity. Its not part of their inherent culture, many people simply don't know what it is. This means they're all going to hell? I thought God loved them? He didn't even give them a choice! They simply were not born under circumstances where Christanity was ever exposed to them, so how should they know better? This doesn't make them bad people.

People who've never been exposed to catholicism and die having still led good moral lives go to purgatory for a time, and then to heaven. I'm not positive about the stance of other christian denominations that don't have a concept of purgatory, but generally speaking, you can only be punished for not being a christian if you were exposed to the concept and made the free choice to turn away from it. Ignorance of the "truth" isn't held against you.

Talking about religion makes babies cry

But if they aggravate their parents so much that they get shaken to death, they get to go to heaven.

There are MANY passages of the bible, saying AGAIN and AGAIN you should not worship false idols. Well, these people have not heard of Jesus or the Bible, so they certainly can't be worshiping him, so wouldn't that make their statue a false idol? Yet they're still good people, and believe in the concept of a greater, almighty presence.

As I said, you have to have -chosen- to not follow in order for that choice to be held against you.

One extra thing, why is only Christianity under the magnifying glass. If you say religion is a scam, why not bring all the other religions into it. It seems as if you are only finding "flaws" in the Christian, preferably Catholic Church.

For one, I think it's the only religion he knows enough about to feel secure in his statements, and for two, the anti-christian rhetoric in north america is so widespread that just about anybody can parrot it whether they understand it or not.

I can't specifically single out other religions, cause i don't know anything about them. With that being said, i believe most religions are manipulative and bullsh*t.

So...are you taking it on FAITH that they are? Or are you just ignorantly assuming?

Oh god would me posting in this thread destroying everything be bad

Post in CT more bby, we <3 u

I know this because the bible never contradicts itself. Enlighten yourself a bit more on what is supposedly contradicting itself

Portions of the bible, if read as directly referring to the same things, most certainly do contradict themselves. Grandia provided a link showing a number of things. A fairly large branch of christian apologetics deals with analyzingf the apparant inconsistancies in the text. Bear in mind also, that while the christian bible is "generally" defined as having been divinely inspired, it is not (as is a document like the Koran) claimed to actually be the direct word of God. It is still text written by men, who can admittedly make errors. Doctrine in the church has been changed many times based on new analysis and translation of texts.

There also thousands of religion related deaths every year, and those billions come from churchs ripping people off in the name of "god".

Citation needed? If you want to do something like define the war in Iraq as being "religion related" and do so for every other conflict where both sides generally adhere to differing faiths, your numbers may represent something like reality, but I think it would be foolish and inaccurate to try claiming that there are actually as grandia suggested tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths per year that are BECAUSE of religion and religious belief.

Pretty sure that disease is still the leading killer of people by far.

As for the money, my family went to church for a number of years, and while collections happened, nobody ever once even insinuated in anything ever that donation was mandatory, that you were sinning by not giving money, that there would be any negative consequences whatsoever to not giving, or that you were going to get anything out of giving besides the feeling that you'd done good by giving money to a group that funds many charitable organizations. I wouldn't call that 'ripping off' anybody.

Religions are quite simply impossible to debate, so anyone taking a stance in a debate other than neutrality has already lost.

Depends what specifically you're debating. In a debate between "religion X is true" and "no it isn't" you're absolutely correct. But in a debate between "Statement X about religion is valid for that religion" and "no it isn't" you can absolutely debate, and most of the objected-to statements in this thread from ryanisadouche have been of the latter kind.

When was there a suicide bomber for Christianity? You realize that the terrorists in the Middle East are islamic extremists, right?

There are extremist factions of christian religions too. I direct you to the KKK as a perfect analogue to the islamic fundamentalists and their relation to the rest of islam.

There is evidence against evolution and evidence for it. Same with Christianity.

Pretty much all evidence for christianity is circumstantial, or else relies on logical leaps that don't have much by way of proof to justify making them. Whereas evolution, while a lot less precise than religion at this stage in terms of what it claims, is generally stronger logically because the things it -does- claim, it also claims it has verifiable, repeatable tests and evidence to back up the claims.

Religion claims that it answers more questions than evolution does, which is true, but evolution has also never claimed to answer things it couldn't back up if pressed, which religions do all the time.

Occam's Razor chart

For one, the concepts of atheism have changed a LOT since the idea that there simply was nothing beyond the natural came up. So that end of the chart is pretty much bunk anyway. For two, each of those branches of christianity will draw their chart looking exactly like the atheist one. Pretty much all of them hold that they are still the true interpretation of the original faith and the other splinter groups might as well not even be drawn in. For three...Occam's razor doesn't even apply to the subject in the chart...

Are you saying you will believe every word you read in a book, a newspaper, an article posted on the internet, etc. But if the Bible says it, you immediately pounce and start questioning it?

No, he's saying that there are many sources claiming to have evidence for evolution which also claim that anybody who took the time and effort could individually test and confirm the evidence as presented, and that the bible does not do that.

Please, point me to something that is evidence that the fantastical elements appearing in the Christian bible are fact.

The vast majority of the fantastical elements appearing inthe bible occur in the Old testament. Many sects of christianity have suggested that the Old testament is better viewed as a series of stories teaching moral lessons than as a literal factual account. The number of christians who believe in the pure factual accuracy of the Old testament is small and getting smaller every year.

No, people have a fundamental problem with people not looking at things logically and basing their actions on feelings that often go against logic.

Anti-religion people either can't or won't understand the concept of not needing to apply scientific logic to something that has never pretended to stand up to scientific logic. Faith is faith, obviously faith doesn't stand up to proof, but it's never said it could, so slamming it for not living up to something it never said it had is a little logically ridiculous.

Plus, I think religion is something that should have never been invented because earlier at the time of Martin Luther, the Pope would sell indulgences that would "make people go to heaven." But obviously Martin Luther knew this was ridiculous and had to rebel with his 95 theses. The fact that the church was dishonestly trying to convince people to pay money for something that didn't even do anything shows that religion is really useless (in my opinion.)

Relgiion predates Luther by a LONG time...I think you may have misphrased that. As for indulgences, the catholic belief at the time that forgivness for sins was granted through a priest absolving you made something like an indulgence perfectly reasonable. Donations were simply another means of showing that you'd repented for your sins. Clearly it was excessive at the time, and it was a serious problem for the church that many viewed the clergy as excessive decadant and corrupt. That was a large part of why the reformation happened, though the major issues for Luther were mroe about one's relationship with God, and one's interpretation of the bible, but the point is taken.

And another thing, religions also caused very horrible events (like the Holocaust for example.) Since the Nazis believe they would purify their religion by annihilating all Jewish people on site, that excuse caused the death of a LOT of innocent people.

For one, Godwin. For two, the Nazi entity as a party was political and social not religious. Many Nazis were christians (including Hitler) but that had very VERY little to do with the issues of the holocaust. The prime mover of the holocaust was Aryanism, and many non-christians (including middle easterns, the chinese, to a lesser extent the japanese) were sufficiently aryan to avoid the various purges of the Nazi regime.

You need to learn a little more about that war, I suspect.

Because they did the one thing He told them not to do. Therefore mankind lost direct "access" to God, which is why people nowadays find it so easy to dismiss the possibility of the existence of some higher being.

Of course, depending on your denomination, mankind is not being blamed for original sin anymore, so it is largely irellevant to think about why God forbade them to eat from the tree of knowledge. Presumably He simply wanted mankind to live a happy and worry free life, and once they understood the difference between good and evil, they would need to start -thinking about- whether things were good or evil, which generally just makes life more complicated and worrisome.

It is entirely more likely for a higher being to create the universe than for a spontaneous explosion of gases to cause everything and everyone to suddenly come into existence by itself.

As someone said below this post, and I'm going to respond to it as well, more likely doesn't mean happened, less likely doesn't mean impossible. That said, the lure of Deism is that it provides a simpler explanation for the exiatsnce of the universe "God did it" and also doesn't have to get bogged down into questions of where God is now, what God's plan is etc etc.

Intelligent Design via Watchmaker's argument is compelling, but again, compelling isn't proven.

It's not our fault if your god made the universe in such a way that a person thinking with only logic would come to believe that he doesn't exist.

Good thing faith doesn't require logic, and that having faith is one of the things that redeems you in the eyes of God then isn't it.

Don't try that **** on me. Regardless of the complications of things, the fact is that it exists. We know it exists, because here we are. Therefore, the small probability that would result in this naturally is irrelevant.

Not true though Afro. It exists, yes, in spite of the absurd odds that it wouldn't. If anything that's a MORE compelling argument for ID. Because if there was no ID, odds are, there would be nothing, but there's something.

Also am I the only one who finds it odd that the universe has to have a creator but god just can exist all over the place uncaused defying supposed creationist logic because they've built an invincible imaginary friend?

You need to read up more on some of the deeper theories of intelligent design then. The universe has to have a creator, but God can simply have existed outside the bounds of this universe.

I have no problem with the idea that there are alternate and multiple universes, where for all we know, the fundamental rules aren't the same as they are here. Our universe functions pretty clearly on cause->effect, thus it makes sense to me that the effect "the creation of the universe" had a cause, but it is also a fallacy to suppose that in order to create something, you have to be bound by the same rules/characteristics as it, otherwise, we coudln't really make things that can fly, or that are transparent.

[devonin]

Re: So I went to church tonight....

Whoa, this thread went to **** while I was typing the response. Does this mean I'm actually going to have to lock it and have wasted all that time and effort?

[robertsona]

Re: So I went to church tonight....

probably

[devonin]

Re: So I went to church tonight....

Man, you're just all up in my rhetorical questions today aren't you Robertsona.

[FaulkApsargs]

Re: So I went to church tonight....

People, understand that the big bang wasn't a huge explosion that caused the universe. It's an expansion of mass from a singularity.

[MalReynolds]

Re: So I went to church tonight....

Ninja'd too far to even count.

[robertsona]

Re: So I went to church tonight....

Man, you're just all up in my rhetorical questions today aren't you Robertsona.

I don't know am I? o snap

[Mecha_Maniac]

Re: So I went to church tonight....

I don't go because I don't believe there's God.

[who_cares973]

Re: So I went to church tonight....

i actually read all that

sounds pretty much like a discussion we had in astronomy during finals my senior year

[danny53x]

Re: So I went to church tonight....

I'm glad I was raised as a Christian and that I have knowledge of Christianity and the bible, and I guess it couldn't really hurt to revisit church, but I gave up on God and a lot of things. People have said that all I have to do is accept him for him to save me. I'm not going to get on my knees every Sunday to contemplate on my one true holy God. I'm going to do homework because every other day I've got school or a marching band competition. I'll accept God even though I don't feel or know him, but I just can't enjoy being with people who are ignorant to my beliefs yet expect me to believe in something they believe in.

EDIT: I realize that religion is the same as it was 400 years ago.

[GG_Guru]

Re: So I went to church tonight....

Let your spirits ring.

The Lord is your Savior.

[argo15]

Re: So I went to church tonight....

I went to church when was younger, it was BOOOOOOORRRIIIIINNNNNGGGGG. I would sit there counting in my head, and trying to read the bible. (When was in 1st grade it was pretty dificult) Honestly I always thought they were fiction bedtime stories for parents to read to there kids.

I was FORCED to sing the the church courus by my parents. I hated it, it was a waist of my weekend.

When I got older, and realized people actually BELIEVE this stuff, I totally became anti-religion. People should stop beliving this crap. And luckily I think people have become less religious, though still believe in god and certain things.