Is there any point in arguing over the validity of your belief system and your idea of God? First off, those who associate themselves with a certain religion, why do you feel the need to argue the validity of that believe system and promote it? If you truly believe you belong to the right religious group, shouldn’t that be enough? Why are you wasting your time telling other people about your religion? If you believe your going to heaven and everybody else that doesn’t believe is going to hell, why is that of any concern to you? Your belief system becomes less credible, in my eyes, when you preach it and try to prove it’s the correct one. It’s as if your unsure of what you believe and you need to prove it to yourself as well.
Stop thinking of your religious beliefs as superior. If you truly believe in your ideas, then there’s no point in arguing over who’s right and who’s wrong. If you are so sure you believe in the right religion then according to you, you’re on the right path. So why concern yourself with other people’s ideologies, it’s none of your concern and it doesn’t affect or danger your belief system in anyway (that is if you truly believe in your ideas). (edited from another post I did)
Secondly, why waste your time talking about God of all things?! If it does exist, it is the most powerful thing that has every existed. Do you really think our tiny little brains can even begin to comprehend the power of God? Let me answer that one for you…NO! So stop wasting my time and yours, and just get on with your lives.
I think the proper response to this, and much of dorky’s stuff too is, why are atheist beliefs superior? Dorky would answer, “because they’re correct”, or, “because they’re right”, which is exactly what a theist does. He scares me sometimes, that dork.
First off, atheists don’t have beliefs. It’s a lack of a faith that makes them atheists. Second of all, I never said their beliefs are superior. But the difference is that they aren’t arguing and trying prove their beliefs are correct because they don’t have any.
The mind reacts much like quicksand. The more you struggle the more boned you are. People often times are not content to search and believe all that is. They would much rather gauge their beliefs against others to reinforce their position, thus shaking loose any disbelief. Since I have come to the forums I was once one who argued often against other belief. And now I come to simply place other ideas out there no longer fighting for what I am because I have become much more assured of it.
Nonetheless people will always “need” something to fight over.
Whether or not they have beliefs, it still applies. They believe that they are right and theists are wrong. Exactly the same way the theists believe the opposite. As for the second point, no you did not. I could argue that it was implied, but that relies solely on my interpretation so I won’t go there.
Spw, the reason religionist tell you about their religion is that they do believe it’s true, and because they do and ‘care’ they don’t want you to end up where they believe you will.
In my religion, Christianity, we tell others about Christ, we don’t force the issue, if someone doesn’t want Christ, they’ve already made up their mind. But they should give it a shot, look for some answers, see if Christianity works for them, and see what lies behind Christianity other than what the media and other people tell you its about.
People can truly believe in anything, the question is if it is right. You are drowning in a certain skepticism here, and because you are you also have no position on which to say it’s a waste of time, because to say that is to say some all religions are false, and to say that is to say you’ve already made up your mind about what you believe, and now you are proclaiming it as true, just as any other religionist would do. You see where trains of thought can take you? Ride them for a while before you post them.
But to the point, you ask for people not to care, and not to take their religion seriously, which isn’t a worthy religion at all if you ask me.
Forgot to add, we should never find joy in the destruction of others belief systems. We can discuss them if we desire. But for our inner peace we should not try to ‘break’ other people to the ‘glory’ of our ego. It is always good to inquire within us as to why we do things? Do we act out of an honest intent to help other find peace? Or do we act to destroy others peace and try and boost our self worth through ego and pride? No one does this evaluation perfectly, but we can still have it in mind when we come in contact with others.
Yes, a true atheists believes in nothing, case closed. When a so called atheists becomes skeptical or second guesses themselves, they have now become agnostic.
Club,
Well myself being an atheist, let me tell you…we don’t want to hear it. Don’t pull this “we’re trying to save you from yourself” crap. We don’t believe in hell so we’re not worried about it.
Isn’t that their decision and not yours? I think we’re all big kids now. We can figure out what’s out there without anybody else’s help. Media? Other people? So we shouldn’t listen to what the people who aren’t Christian have to say about your religion? But we should listen to what you have to say? Now that’s pretty biased. We should experience it for ourself and come to our own conclusion.
Ok, I have no idea what you’re trying to say here. You’ve got a huge run-on sentence in the middle there.
I never said people shouldn’t care about their own religion. My point was that people shouldn’t care about other people’s religions.
So hearing what someone strongly believes every once in a while is a bother to you? You may want to get that checked out.
You should experience Christianity from Christian experts. My point is many people know about Christianity and such, but there idea of it is skewed, lies are all over the place, you need to learn the truth about Christianity.
I’m trying to say you pulled the rug right out from under you.
Why not? People should care about others religions because if other religions are false and misleading people, something needs to be said, critiqued, etc. Not caring about other peoples religions in turn is not caring about your own religion, at least in Christianity that is. Although, yes, I guess helping people isn’t the right thing to do on your terms.
No not at all. Hearing someone rant about how their beliefs are more right than somebody else’s bothers me.
My point is that “Christian experts” idea of Christianity is skewed. You should experience it for yourself without other people’s opinions affecting your decision.
You fail to see my point. What you consider “helping people” is considered annoying and biased by other people. I don’t want to hear what you have to say about your religion because you think it’s the correct one (nothing wrong with that). I want to experience it for myself and come to my own conclusion about your religion.
See that’s the point spw, you can’t always experience Christianity for yourself correctly. Many people do this, without previous knowledge of some of the things Christianity is about, and they wind up believing the wrong things, taking the bible differently than what it’s supposed to be taken as because they have not read the whole text, so on. Most biblical pastors dont’ have a skewed idea, and if you want men who are true experts on Christianity go here rzim.org
What if your ‘own’ conclusion is incorrect because you missed something? Because you don’t understand? Ever bother to think of that?
One of these days, Club, we will have to have a discussion about Protestantism vs. Catholicism.
But until then, “Those who are not against you are with you.”
Well of course. Yes we will have to do that, after all, this is a religious forum.
People who refuse to learn from experts about biblical meaning, terms, the logical outworkings, etc., do find themselves many times misunderstanding, and they find it makes no sense to them, of course, they haven’t had anyone explain it. Sure one can try to find meaning of the Bible or religions on their own, but their own needs to be tested for validity.
Throughout mankind’s history, man has made statements about what they believe, and at some point, we decided we needed a system that allowed these beliefs to cohere to some version of reality, so when somebody said that they were an alien from another planet, we didn’t have to give them the courtesy of believing them.
That system was the scientific method. Throughout history, there have been people who have argued that their worldview is the correct one, but simply because both parties argue these beliefs are “correct” or “right” doesn’t make them so. Atheists beliefs are only “superior” if you consider “superior” a better representation of reality and our worldview. If you consider one who’s belief is that we are born as opposed to being hatched out of eggs as “superior,” then you would do so because their representation and beliefs about the world are more accurate, and coincide, with data that we have collected in the form of our vision. We know what it is to hatch out of an egg, by definition, and humans obviously do not fit that. Although one person might argue that we do hatch out of eggs, and the other that we do not, I don’t see how both of them considering themselves “right” somehow implies they are playing the same ballgame, or even using the same methods to make conclusions.
That you miss this obvious, glaring point is what “scares” me.
Are you saying that there was a point in history before which, people who claimed ridiculous things like the above without any proof were just [i]believed[/i]? You have absolutely no context here, or maybe two or three contexts. You paint a picture of a bunch of ancient people sitting around saying, "Boy, I wish my beliefs were true." "Yeah, if only there was some way we could stop believing every crazy thing we hear." Something seems very wrong with that picture to me.
The point is, again and again, the 'religious person' you argue with is the mythical retarded religious person who believes everything he hears. If any given religion were half as absurd as 'people hatch from eggs', nobody would believe it anymore. If religious people were half as naive as you paint them, you could convert them all to atheism just by suggesting it with the right tone of voice.
I know, when pressed and called on it, you'll say "I grant that some religious people are intelligent!" but you need to actually [i]realize[/i] that's true, and incorporate it into how you view the situation, not just pay lip service to it.
Why? Because it's not about being cordial to the dumb religious people in the room. I mean yes, that's nice, but it's easily seen through and it doesn't do you any good. As long as you (even secretly) see religion as this obvious farce that any person with common-sense should be able to see through, you'll find yourself very confused and irritated by the state of the world, just like Sam Harris.
The world is never going to agree on which religion is the right one. Which in itself is a good argument for atheism but I won’t go there. I bet I can prove that I’m better at math than you are but I’m sure you don’t want to hear it. It’s the same thing. Just because you can prove (subjectively) that something is better than something else doesn’t make it univerisally right or correct.
They have a skewed opinion because they think they are correct. There’s nothing wrong with that, but their reasons may not be good enough for someone else.
Because I missed something or because you think I missed something? Because I mis-understood or because I interpreted something differently than you did? Ever bother to think of that? They ideas and reasons behind religious beliefs are so frickin’ subjective it’s unbelievable. For that reason, you shouldn’t let someone else make up your mind for you.
So because the world never will agree on religion, that’s a good argument for atheism? How? Either all religions are false, or one is true, possibly more than one way to achieve, but nothing that shows a good argument against religion. You could just believe many are deceived, that’s not a good argument. Many people think the word anxious means excited and ready.
You can view them as skewed, but you need to figure out why. All I’m saying is it’s very difficult for one to come to a conclusion about a religion on their own, it takes others and experts to help you understand.
Nobody should ever make up anyones mind, that’s ignorant.
No. I said I wouldn’t go there but you asked for it. Because there are so many conflicting ideas of who the “messiah” is yet they all seem to have the same twist to them. And all these “god’s” started appearing around the same time period. Why would god create 500 false religions and one real one? Why are their ideas and reasons always changing? Maybe it didn’t create any of them. Hmm…interesting.
Now you’re getting it…sorta. I need to figure out why, not you or anybody else. Experts that base their ideas and reasons on the assumption that you agree with them.
That’s what most religions do. They force all these ideas on you and when you ask why the answer is always faith. Faith? Psh…more like you can’t come up with a logical answer.
See, the problem is you look at it as why would God create, instead of why would man create. I’m not saying your idea is totally useless in this regard, but perhaps one cannot use this. It rests soley on the idea of whether God exists, or not. It would only be to assume he doesn’t because other false ones do, but as i’ve stated, it’s not God who decieves, it’s man. It’s Satan, satan is the evil of man. This is where Satanism derives from. Sure, it seems rather querky to look at it like that, but then again you can also look at is as why would people do this? So from one perspective, yeah… strange, but it doesn’t make for a good argument any more than me saying the bible is true because the writers wouldn’t have spoke about their failures if it wasn’t, and the strangeness, the coincidental aspects don’t make for a good argument, but do make for good ideas.
Not all experts do this. Many of them show reasons behind what they’re saying, and they track them down. They don’t just simply say, this is what I believe, thus you should to. You could probably careless but I highly recommend you listen to Ravi Zacharias, or read one of his books. He’s a great speaker, you can download some of his stuff at rzim.org or if you have itunes you can get free podcasts. He’s just one example of an expert who does not go based off assumptions or biases, but pure reason and logic, he’d have to in order to get crowds at Ivy league schools.
Hmm… I wouldn’t say that’s always the case. I have no example of what you’re talking about, but sometimes the question is unreasonable and therefore so is the answer. If you ask for proof of God’s existence, that’s an unreasonable question, religionist will show you reasons they believe, examples, but belief and faith comes from experience, reason, and logic. Faith is not just believing in what you can’t see, that’s madness. Faith is having great certainity. When you tell your freind I have good faith in you, how then do you use that term? Are you certain he will follow through? You are most likely. But when the word is misused, ideas like “blind” faith come into play, but of course when people say this they only mean religionist believe in the unseen, which is insanity, there must be more to it then that.