I got a message from god

you know whats good man

This makes you a dumb ass. How could he not. Suppose god created evolution. What's to say god did not cause evolution to happen to make each individual person that believes in him have a stronger faith? If God created the world he just as easily could have made it look 5 billion years old.

just for shits and giggles. gotta love that guy.

Most legit response yet. My answer. Both require faith. But which would you rather put your faith in?

exactly, being an "atheist" or believing in evolution takes just as much faith as believing in a god

you base your entire viewpoint on the current model of the universe. more is possible than one human could ever imagine in a lifetime...chemistry and physics describe the ways that the forces of the universe are acted out but what triggered that?

I've recently been introduced to terrence mckenna, and that dude has some far out ideas about the nature of reality...but after some of my psychedelic experiences, I gotta agree with him to a point. I believe in a platonic sort of reality which is perhaps a different dimension of our own and I strongly believe there is a Godlike essence that contains the perfection of everything...I'm still trying to rationalize out my experiences and after meditation and a bit of a reality check, I realize that I can't delve into the spiritual too much because, honestly, we're going to find out what's up when we die. I believe that I have experienced a sort of "death", I've had a near death experience and I had revelations that were very similar to those that I've had on psychedelics. It prompts me to look at religions as a reflection of the human mind and the ultimate potential of our species. The human experience is the pinnacle of consciousness as far as we know...but some, including me, claim to have felt the highest form of whatever "it" or "God" is.

Believe me or don't believe me, it doesn't really matter, you're going to go on your own way thinking your own thoughts. I don't want to change who you are, I'm just sharing my perspective. My experiences inspire me to revere the physical world and society/culture as virtually equivalent in terms of importance:

1) Something gave birth to the universe/material world, which, whether by random chance or by fate/design... (I believe in fate and a timeline, personally)
2) ...created the Earth, which was able to create life somehow
3) ...which evolved into a species that was able to perceive the workings of the world around it and....
4)...was eventually able to reflect on higher order thinking such as aesthetics. This discovery within a tribal setting led to art and social sciences and organized education...
5) Society! And here we are, almost a blink of an eye away in geological time. We can create artificial life...engineer our own babies...we're basically gods in ourselves...
6) Where are we going from now?

If anything looking at the big picture, we are made in the image of a creator being and we are here in this human experience to appreciate it. Or maybe, looking at the fractal nature of the universe, we are on our way to creating our own universe to move on to, as if the Earth was a womb to give birth to us (Terence Mcknenna idea, he explains it in a much more articulate manner) Maybe this is all a sick joke and this guy up there in the clouds is a real bastard. Fuck it, I'm just going to live my life and experience it. When I find what I appreciate most about this universe, whether it be the physical sciences or the social, or even just art, I'm going to live it up unless I go broke during my endeavors and my survival instincts tell me to get a job that has more of a monetary reward. Hope you get something out of this...I try not to reflect on this too deeply anymore, this is about to the extent that I've figured myself out religiously and about the extent that I want to be.

I did the exact same thing! I go to a catholic school and every morning we say a prayer. During intentions I asked for a snow day. Next day, BAM!

I wish we were on reddit so i could upvote this

He didn't saw they all believed in God, he just said that they believed the universe was designed.

epic rant. +k

that can be explained with one simple, logical word, coincidence. and not to rip on anyone in particular, but if god creates everyone in his perfect image, than why am i and millions of others atheists? just ponder that for a while.

cause god doesn't believe in a higher power than himself

because he gave us the choice to chose to follow him or not? that could be the dumbest point ive heard in a while.. all that that means is that he created us in his likeness, not that he is controlling your decisions

see but thats the point, there would be no decision, in his perfect image we would all be christian, or catholic or whatever sort of sorcery you believe in. he would have created us all to believe in him just the same as the next guy.

how is a perfect society where everything you create believes in you any fun? How does that prove or show anything?

youre not getting the point, the point of the passage was to say that in a physical form we are all equal and he views us all the same and loves us, not that he created us all to be perfect.. why would he have the 10 commandments if he didnt expect sinning.. the point of the passage was to say that a lepper is the same as a prince in his eyes

no where does it say his "perfect" image, you dumb fuck.

except everyone else who doesn't believe in him... he hates them.

i get what your saying, the point of what i am trying to say is that, say your christian (i'm assuming), then your christian god would have created all of his children the same, not some jewish, some catholic, some christian etc. and in his perfect image does not mean that there won't be those who aren't perfect and thus sin, it means all of his creations would have been of "the divine creators" religion and beliefs. so now say that there is only christianity, why is every person living in the world not a christian?

He doesn't create with our preset religions. That is our choice.

i felt the same way. we see threads all the time about religion, that have the potential to spark intelligent "arguments" (words are escaping me at the moment), but they get ruined when people bash others beliefs. I've been raised in a very Catholic family, been to Catholic schools almost all my life. For me, faith is a crutch, when you feel like everything is out of your control and you're in need of help that a person can't give you.

this made me smile :)

lol the fact that people still believe in god makes me laugh.. people made up god to explain the unexplained. science has proved why all things happen that people used "god" as an excuse for now he is pointless.. people are gonna hate me for it but god is irrelevant at this point

all things, eh? ok, explain to me black holes or why/how the big bang happened

did i claim to be a scientist? im not gonna pretend i know everything like every 12 year old kid on this site, all im saying is gods pretty much an excuse for what people 2000 years ago couldnt understand.

POINTLESS FUCKING THREAD ON TEH INTERNET

THANK YOU

Lots of people take comfort in lots of things. While I know that (and understand how) someone may take comfort in the notion of God, that there's someone looking out for you even when you can't do anything... I personally take comfort in quite the opposite.

Whenever something troubles me, or I feel cornered, or lost, I think to myself, "We're all dead men in the end," and carry on. I have literally never been more comforted by any other phrase than that. Many people are afraid of death's ability to rob their entire lives of meaning, and therefore choose to believe that they are part of a god's plan, or that they will live on in an afterlife, or that they will be reincarnated, or any number of other explanations. Conversely, I am so relieved to remember that my life is completely meaningless; so comforted by the fact that death is all that awaits me.

Black holes are formed when supermassive stars collapse. They are so dense that not even light can escape their gravitational pull, hence the blackness.

Nobody knows how/why the big bang happened. Not knowing something does not mean that God did it.

POINTLESS FUCKING COMMENT IN AN ACTUAL EDUCATED DISCUSSION, ASSHOLE

This is the first debating the existence of God thread that has not turned into a bash fest on the first page.
Good job and I hope it stays this way.

yup agreed. your last sentence especially. and if it can help somebody in that way...hey that's great. but that's all it should be. it should not govern cultures and spark wars.

the point is that not even scientists know everything, as you stupidly claimed. to think people will understand everything is a complete disregard of... let's just say you're a dumb bitch, ok?

The "wrong" as well as the "right" are based on innate preferences derived from evolution that are influenced by conscious thought processes influenced by environment.  All of that developed over billions of years. There was no jump from basic survival instinct to conscious thought. It was and is an ongoing process. I would be inclined to say that innate preference for group survival came before conscious judgment.  It's observed in many modern primates that lack our cognitive capabilities.

Your hunting kid felt bad because he shares something with the rest of his species: empathy. Empathy was derived from the same social influences (being able to judge others' feelings and intentions) and humans tend to apply it to the world around them. We are able to recognize other life as similar to us and equate their death to human death to varying degrees. The more human like, the more empathy we have for an animal generally speaking. Most people would catch and cook up a fish before they would do the same to a chimpanzee because we're able to empathize more with the chimp.

LOL

have you read a single page of the bible? I can understand if someone has investigated christianity and decided that it is not for them, but try not to make arguments about something you know nothing about (obviously). People (in the physical form) are created in his image and were originally exactly like him, however once that was broken we were pretty much on our own to make our own decissions. The point of that passage, as I said before, was to give people confidence that he does not favor one of us over another, not that he made us all perfect little christian minions.

great post

equal treatment in bible = heterosexual jewish/christ cult males = to heterosexual jewish/christ cult males

ugh can't we all just get along? religion threads are nothing but a cesspool of ignorance..coming much moreso from the "rational" and "educated" athiests around here.

http://www.universalconsciousness.com.au/

!

You are the biggest piece of shit on this website. Congrats, baby boo ;)

"When the Great Pyramid was excavated by the Egyptians (who were NOT the first culture to live there, just moved in from elsewhere (Phoenicians?) and did NOT build the pyramids with manpower and log rollers... to do so would have taken 3-4 lifetimes of the respective pharaohs they were "built for" and more food/resources/people than were available in all of Egypt at the time) there was actually a layer of sea salt inches thick coating the floors and some blocks almost 3/4 of the way up the pyramid had watermarks which were removed to preserve the Egyptian claim to pyramid culture (I know people will want the source for this, but it's something I read months ago and can't seem to find again)" LOL

or rather "'m peaceful and not preaching to anyone, I'm not trying to fight with anyone. Fight with someone who actually will care and pursue it. Sorry." LOL

trololololololo

to everyone who is in debate: go to college and take a philosophy of religion class.

just to let you know i treat homosexuals the same as I treat anyone else, along with any race.. i dont know when christianity=racism to you but it just isnt true.. its like saying all muslims are terrorists

just to let you know i specifically said "in the bible". The bible is full of bigotry. I wasn't accusing you of anything.

fair enough