Rabbie
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As it says in the book. It all depends on what the question is
Questions to God.
- Thread starter ColinEssex
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Lil' Rascal
y = x
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I would like to point out that the character corresponding to the number 42 (ASCII Decimal) is the Asterisk. Wild card. Interesting
Matthew 22: 36-38 (Most Important Commandments - Love)
Matthew 6: 14-15 (Seriousness of Forgiveness)
Matthew 6: 14 drastically changed my life about 4 years ago. I never knew that about forgiveness.
Love and forgiveness...
Matthew 6: 14-15 (Seriousness of Forgiveness)
Matthew 6: 14 drastically changed my life about 4 years ago. I never knew that about forgiveness.
Love and forgiveness...
I heard a great line yesterday, I may be paraphrasing a bit:
"Religion is like a great big dog - If it's your own, you think it's great and find it very comforting, but everyone else finds it, at best, annoying or, at worst unnerving. The least you can do is keep it away from kids."
"Religion is like a great big dog - If it's your own, you think it's great and find it very comforting, but everyone else finds it, at best, annoying or, at worst unnerving. The least you can do is keep it away from kids."
Equally, many people seem to believe that they are able to interpet the will of God and so follow it.
If he existed and his way was that clear cut, there wouldn't be so many wars between people who all swear blind that theirs is the one true way.
oumahexi
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Maybe it's a bit like placing a group of blind men in the centre of a maze and telling them there may be an exit, it's up to them to find out if there is and where it is if it exists. Each may go different ways and bump into others but they will each be convinced that the others arrived there either through cheating or some other sinister means because they didn't follow the same route!
Personally, I think I have actually met God, he opens at our local comedy club on a regular basis - he's the one with the really radical sense of humour
He can't be amused by all those grumpy ministers preaching 'his word', then?Personally, I think I have actually met God, he opens at our local comedy club on a regular basis - he's the one with the really radical sense of humour
There was a great Craig Ferguson routine from years back where he mentions 'a grumpy wee Presbyterian minister'. Doesn't sound half as good without the accent.Why ever not, he made everything in the world perfect! Even the grumpy ministers are "perfectly grumpy"
I generally don’t defend religion; I am more concerned with obtaining grace and spreading love, however…
If you are really seeking the energy of God, then look to love,
For at the core of all religions, is Love, and most religions had their start with someone, or a group of someones, seeking answers to the nature of the Universe.
If you are dissuaded by angry bible thumpers, seek to find out why they are angry, if you are sensing something is missing, seek answers, look at people, look for the beauty, and try to love them. Your energy will flow unto them and the energy of God will flow into you.
It’s quite exhilarating.
Give it a try, you may find that love is actually the energy of God.
Rich
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There's more to the Universe than you can see Rich.
I would love to be able to see what either the atheist or fundamentalist religious person sees.
After many many years of thinking about and investigating the whole issue I am still stuck at agnostic.
I sway around in the breeze. I have times where I am atheist but not for very long. I have times where I am at the Bible/Jesus deal but that is also short lived, although it holds up for longer than me being atheist.
The major thing that limits the time I am an atheist is that to be an atheist you have to deny the possibility of a higher life form than the human. A soon as you acknowledge a being or beings that are above the human then atheism is gone and it is very difficult to believe the human is the cheif intelligence of all beings in the universe. I just can't see it.
I do have some envy for the people who have arrived at a total belief in either extreme.
The Bible/Jesus deal has its big conflict in that nothing adds up....unless we assume God is not all powerful and all knowing.
After many many years of thinking about and investigating the whole issue I am still stuck at agnostic.
I sway around in the breeze. I have times where I am atheist but not for very long. I have times where I am at the Bible/Jesus deal but that is also short lived, although it holds up for longer than me being atheist.
The major thing that limits the time I am an atheist is that to be an atheist you have to deny the possibility of a higher life form than the human. A soon as you acknowledge a being or beings that are above the human then atheism is gone and it is very difficult to believe the human is the cheif intelligence of all beings in the universe. I just can't see it.
I do have some envy for the people who have arrived at a total belief in either extreme.
The Bible/Jesus deal has its big conflict in that nothing adds up....unless we assume God is not all powerful and all knowing.
Try reading The Celestine Prophecy
As far has I have got
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celestine_Prophecy
There are three possible beliefs:
1) Atheism. Basically meaning there is no superior being or beings that exert influence on us either directly or indirectly.
2) There is a being or beings that do exert influence on us either directly or indirectly and the being or beings are not all powerful and all knowing. I think this is where agnostics spend most of their time..
3) A specific religious belief such as the Bible/Christianity. My guess is that most people who call themselves atheist do so because of a lack of belief in this area but in reality they are probably agnostic.
In its most elemental form, matter doesn’t exist. It is best described in a non mathematical way as inertia, or even more simply, energy.
Going back, however many billions it takes to recompress the universe, we find only a small ball of pure energy. And in that ball, not even the size of a human brain, all of the elements that would eventually form the heavens existed. Can you imagine the life form that could dwell there?
And neither can anyone else.
So we invented religion to try to get a grip on something so fantastical, so absurd, so omnipotent, it denies description. We can’t get it, end of story.
Along comes a little knowledge; maybe in the order of billions of times the amount practiced by the ancients. We question the relevance of those ignorant people and loose faith.
But to those that seek, the power of God is very relevant. It comes into our lives and gives us strength to fight cancer, endure hardship and find joy in the simplest things. My life has always been blessed, but its because I have faith. That seems to be a paradox but in reality it is very simple.
Reed the book Mike I’ve known for many years the process spoken of in this book, and when I read it I knew finally, that others feel the same as I do, about the role God plays in the universe. I’m not saying that it has a better message than any other but it is in modern language and it really fits.
In the bible it talks about faith, love and hope, with Love being the strongest. I think the love of
God is the energy that Einstein and people like him discovered at the core of matter. And as an individual grows in his faith he becomes more and more able to let the flow of energy into his being.
I know I have.
I no longer think of God creating the universe, I think of God as the energy that bind the universe. And we are a small part of it. Think of it this way, Love is the energy that binds the universe and faith is the valve that lets it flow into us. Hope comes to us when we can’t find the valve but we know its there.
Once you start to look at it that way, many of the seemingly contradictive aspect of the study of God disappear.
One last thing on religion: A modern religion believes that random events given enough time can produce highly complex life. The absurdity of that is nearly unbearable to any thinking person; yet millions aspire to it.
Start asking the questions, see what you learn, or better yet see how you feel.
I wish you peace.
Joe
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It is amusing to me that you still cling to this argument, even though it has been explained many times on this forum that this is not true. I think "stuck" accurately describes your state of mind. To recap the many many many many posts on this subject, and to add just one more for the heck of it:
1. What is "higher" life form? Without a definition, this argument is meaningless. I wouldn't necessarily agree that humans are the most intelligent creatures even on this planet. Again, without definitions, adjectives like "highest" and "chief intelligence" are completely meaningless.
2. None of the atheists I know deny the possibility of life on other planets that would probably be very different than us if they existed.
3. The question of whether different life forms exist on other planets is completely irrelevant to the question of whether there is a god or not, unless your religion is scientology. If your religion is scientology, you have much bigger problems.
4. To be an atheist, all you have to do is acknowledge that we don't know. We don't know how everything came to be or what happened in "the begining" or even whether there was a begining at all.
