Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

Just to remind you, this thread is about Christianity. Actually not even that, it's simply about church.


I was encouraged, but not forced, to go to church when I was very young. I went along with it, it was ok, I had friends there, I believed in God etc etc, but that all stopped for some reason. I never stopped having a smidgeon of faith in God but it didn't go anywhere. Then my mum suggested we started going again, but I didn't enjoy it. We moved to a different church which was ok for a bit, but I didn't really like it there either. She still goes to this day, but I took well over a year to find a church that was suited to my views and practices.

To sum it all up, not every Christian is the best example of Christianity.

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

I for one don't believe in God period. But to those whom do I respect that you are going along with your lives as you wish to do so. Before I stop bealieveing I went to a lutheren church and it was moderatly entertaining. We have one heck of a piano player and choior that I respect dearly because I grew up knowing a lot of them. Then my Granda would take us out for lunch and then I would go home.

BTW: We need more threads to flow like this one with these kind of questions.

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

But you see Izzy, that diagram only shows the different denominations of churches; the principle of Occam's Razor is that the explanation of a phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible. I don't see how the different kind of denominations make any kind of impact on the explanation of how God created the universe.

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

Did you just say there's no solid evidence for evolution?

BOOKS? DO YOU READ THEM?

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

BOOKS? DO YOU BELIEVE THEM?

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?

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

It's everyones opinion. Nobody can prove anything.
Evolution is a theory. It is your choice whether you believe it or not.

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

I remember going to Church so I can have a hot meal and sleep under a roof o wait I was homeless back then before my ******ory. :<
I met some really nice Jews that whoop my ass at Battleship though. >>;

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

That's right, but take a look at what most of these folks are saying. They're not debating the value or effect of religion in society, they're going "omg god is a lie lol" and "wtf no way gtfo ***".

_______________________

Christians have done plenty of terrible things. Don't pretend that they didn't because I'm sure a quick search of things like "inquisition" or "crusade" could set you straight, to say nothing of modern atrocities like child molestation.

What does this mean? Scientology is perhaps the scammiest of all religions, but all organized religion has a bit of the features which one might attribute to being a scam. Things like being promised a prize of some kind for giving the organization a good or service. Things like asking for money and not giving any good or service in return. Another thing that people are easily displeased over is that if this life isn't the real life, then why have value in it, and thus, why should a person feel obligated to pay for religious materials or give money to religious organizations.

No. Science has verified that evolution is real to as much degree as anything such as that can be considered proven. For example, by similar rights, gravity and basic physical laws are essentially proven, yet not technically.

In other words, on the question of evolution, there is an answer, and that answer is "yes". This alone doesn't mean religion is false, it just means that you may need to change interpretations to accommodate fact into your belief system.

I am really considering just calling you stupid at this point. To hear you say that really makes me not even want to show a bit of respect towards you. Please, O mighty knower of knowings, tell me this "evidence" against evolution.

Please, point me to something that is evidence that the fantastical elements appearing in the Christian bible are fact. And also, take notice that you cannot use the Bible itself as evidence of the Bible's proof. Not only would that be monumentally stupid, but that again is one of the fallacies identified in the link from earlier in the thread.

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

Having hope doesn't make something true. This is a logical fallacy, and in fact, this fallacy is detailed in the thread linked to earlier in this thread.

You are seriously underestimating human creativity. There are thousands of years of Star Wars expanded universe history. It is most definitely all fictional. However, based on the concept that because it would be difficult to "fake", does that mean it must be true?

It's not that matter just appeared out of nowhere and exploded and "created planets". Furthermore, if you can think it is reasonable to believe God has simply always existed, why can't you also think it reasonable to believe that the matter in the Universe has also simply always existed? You think it is more reasonable to believe God magicked the matter out of "thin air"?

Both sides of this make the assumption that it is possible for something to have always existed. One side identifies this as matter, and matter is something which is known to be constant in our everyday life. The other side identifies God, an entity which is not even known to truly exist, and if he is real, he most certainly exists on some other plain of reality that is unmeasurable from this plain.

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The scientific community is entirely more likely to be truthful than a book compiled of ancient Jewish writings and more "modern" Christian writings of only about 2000 years old. Furthermore, the authors of the Bible are largely unknown, while scientific principles are put forth in respected publications and the sources are clearly identified.

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It is a theory like special relativity is a theory.

Some of you guys don't understand the difference between a simple theory and a scientific one. Please, you guys, read the wikipedia article and stop proving your ignorance. Here's a short section that especially relates to this as I am referring to it:

"For the scientist, "theory" is not in any way an antonym of "fact". For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and the theories commonly used to describe and explain this behavior are Newton's theory of universal gravitation (see also gravitation), and the general theory of relativity."

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

Well, heaven is said to be an immaterial world. But I don't think people go to heaven or hell when they die, they just rot and time goes on. (Although that sounds harsh, that's the reality of it.)

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.)

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. Plus, even if a Jew did kill the christian god, do you think ALL Jews did that?

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

Please, I'm not trying to boast, but I study the bible from my own part, and I can safely say that it does not contradict itself. Also, you're link says,

Quote:

IMPORTANT: Please keep in mind that by "inconsistencies" I do not necessarily mean "contradictions."

The bible is consistent with it's meaning, it's just being interpreted wrong. You have to take into account which profet wrote what, when, and to whom the message was directed, and why it was directed to them. Lets take for example this:

GE 2:15-17, 3:4-6 It is wrong to want to be able to tell good from evil.
HE 5:13-14 It is immature to be unable to tell good from evil.

Genesis never says that being able to tell good from evil is bad. Simply, Jehovah (God) put boundaries to the first human couple (I forget why).

Acts referrs to one being able to tell what's good and bad. Luke wrote this in Rome (31 B.C. - 61 C.E.), in order to continue the history of primitive christian faith in order to have the fundamentels for a congregations.

You guys don't dig deep at all. Just because you're against religions, doesn't mean you should be against the bible. Just because you're mad the bible doesn't mean you should read everything that talks against it and automatically accept it. Get your facts straight first.

Sorry, but that site is wrong. I see multiple of texts that are implied the wrong way. There are some that I can't say off the top of my head what they meant, which means researching them. I just used the one above as an example. Once again, investigate!

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

yeah that site was pretty ****ty lol

Somebody has very biased critical reading skills.

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

Everyone of you can see the sky above. If you are Christian, it's not bad. Everyone does what feels best. Christianity gives hope for some people, and they don't blame their selfs for the things they may have wrong. Someones doesn't believe in nothing, someones wants to be Christian, someones wants to believe in evolution, someones wants to destroy a whole world. What's the difference except that who wants to destroy a whole world? If people wants, then they believe. That's their own opinion and they can keep them for their selfs, it's different thing if guys wants to talk about it.
My opinion is more philosophical, than this Christian thing. But i still, there is nothing wrong in that. People doens't change that much if they are Christians or not.

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

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.

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

Hey baby! <3

No, I forget why he put boundaries to the human couple, but you're right. I'll find out later just in case. *Takes shower.*

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

It is entirely more likely for someone to compile, print and bind a dictionary than for a print shop to explode and for all the contents to fall back to earth as a printed, bound dictionary.

It is entirely more likely for someone to construct an orrery than for all the model planets, gears and motors to fly together and make a working orrery by themselves.

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.

That's what I was talking about.

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

I grew up being a "pk" (pastor's kid) - and my dad always taught me that we aren't supposed to judge. Nor are you supposed to be oppressive about sharing your faith. It sounds like you went to a youth group night, but they seem to have a good grasp on how to act, according to what you said.

Do you know what kind of church it was you went to recently, and what kind of church you went to when you had your bad experience?



-Merky

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

http://www.comparativereligion.com/neverheard.html

Also, I sigh at the amount of ignorance in this thread. If anyone cares for my two cents', I think a "god," if you will, does exist. Theories of the origin of the universe, specifically Hawking's (when the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics are applied), even point to it. I can elaborate if anyone would like.

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

The world as it is causes these things to be illogical. 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.

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.

For example, a person might have a 1 in 1,000,000,000 chance of winning the lottery. But if you meet a person and they say "I won the lottery look at how much money I won", you can't say "NO YOU DIDN'T, DON'T YOU KNOW HOW UNLIKELY THAT IS?!"

It's not that there was an explosion and matter came into existence from nowhere. The idea is that all the matter of the Universe was once contained in an intensely small point. Something triggered an expansion (this is where you godfreaks can fill in your own answer, because we really don't know), and all of the matter spread out, wherein elements and compounds showed themselves. Over time, a very very long period of time, on a tiny little insignificant speck rock in an insignificant solar system in an insignificant galaxy, the elements fell into line and something happened (hi godfreaks) in just the right way and simple single cell organisms developed. These single celled life forms lived simply for a long period of time until they somehow (hi godfreaks) developed into multi-cellular organisms. Microevolution leads to macroevolution, eventually these orgasnisms reached outside the microscopic world. Over time, many different plants and animals branched off over a very long period of time. After a very long time, the animal life became so developed that they came up with what is now recognized as intelligence, potentially through microevolution thanks to differences in diet. Over time, these intelligent animals developed culture and standardized language.

So we are a success in this. But we are but a single instance of such a chance occurrence. Yes the chances of this success may be incredibly minimal, so by these same rights, there must certainly be failures across the Universe. In fact, we can look to our own solar system and see planets like ours who failed to develop life, even in the case of Mars that was potentially favorable to the process at one point. It is even potentially possible that the success we developed may be unique across the entire Universe.

ps again let me point out that I don't have a problem with beliefs and such as that. I only have a problem with people who deny SCIENCE. And FaulkApsargs, go ahead and elaborate- I'm always interested to hear more about holes in science where a Creator can fit in, even if I don't even believe in it myself.

Re: So I went to church tonight....
 

your one poor example (once again dying because eating fruit of knowledge = inconsistent with other verses)

How about actual verses that say contradicting things?

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/by_name.html