To the Question...How real is Christianity?

http://www.solarnavigator.net/images...rk_rainbow.jpg

THAT REAL

:laughing: Glad to see your wit around the boards again, JJJ.

Glad to see you moderating my attempts at wit.

Yep, I'm officially a believer now. . .

I think that it isn't a question of how real christianity is, just a question of how relevent it is...I can understand how in a pre-scientific society that it was a very relative and poignant source of hope for the unknown, all any religion seems to be, in essence, is a source of unrealistic hope for that which, fundamentally, is the one remaining unanswered question; where do we go when we die? Fear has created some beautiful and terrible aspects of our existance...unfortunately I believe religion of any description fills a big part of the latter category.

I for one look forward to the everlasting peace of turning to dust.

Since you're asking, I'll provide you with a possible answer. Maybe you didn't dream of that exact suit, but when you saw it in the casket, you wanted it to be the same as from your dream. It's likely you have a conscious or subconcious motive for wanting to think so and maybe that motive has meddled with what you think you remember from your dream. It could be that you're aware of this, but convince yourself the suit was the same whenever you think about it. However, it could also be that you've been through it so many times that you've suggested to yourself a full-blown and believable false memory.

I don't think I would remember that kind of detail myself.

i wasnt saying that i dont believe there are spirits out there im just saying that its not that common for someone to see something and half the time when you do hear these stories its a bunch of royal bull, well my parents have told me about how they played with ouija board and they asked it what it would do if they took it out back and burned it and it spelt out vampire killer, and they didnt do it, thats a little weird yes, all im saying is that it can be coincidence and if its not than what would be coming to you in a dream telling you this? are you saying spirits can go into your dreams and control what you dream? than if thats true how do you know that a spirit doesn't do that everytime you dream instead of when you just have dreams like that

How real is Chrisianity?

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Yeah that's about right.

I've thought about this and what you are saying makes sense. I do remember knowing the color of the suit after the dream though, I remember when I went home that day after finding out he died thinking back to that dream and the details of it. The power of suggestion is strong, I'm sure as the years went on the dream may have gotten clearer and clearer as I tell the story, but the main contents of the dream were always as I dreamed them. The overall picture itself may have gotten exaggerated a bit.

you're right, who's to say we aren't being talked to by spirits in our dreams. Maybe they are trying to tell us what we should or shouldn't be doing with our lives. Maybe they are showing us things to come? who knows.

maybe they are being pricks and just putting stupid **** in our head lol

maybe, just maybe.

i'm just curious now.

what do the faithless here actually believe in? how do they explain the unknown elements of their existence?

i think we can all agree bashing something because you don't believe in it is incredibly childish. so... what do the non-believers believe in? i don't want a list of what they 'don't' believe in, or what they think is stupid about other people's beliefs. i want to see if any of them have actually developed a unique personal belief.

seems to me if someone truly didn't believe in anything spiritual they would see other spiritual beliefs as a waste of time and energy; something worthless of attention, as opposed to a target for their criticisms (or are those cover ups for their own fears of a blind faith?)

Sorry but that's a little fail.

Yeah, I'm not getting the atom bomb connection in that one...

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&so...42307692307&l/

I don't care what other people believe in.
I just don't need anything to believe in.
Life itself is good enough for me.

What do I do with that?

Im not really sure what I believe in. I believe in coincidence mostly. I also believe in an odd sort of undefined spiritual guidance that did not create the universe or anything for that matter. I dont really know how to explain my beliefs. I mostly believe in facts and witness. Im a 'see it to believe it' kind of person, but I do believe things happen for a reason. Its extremely difficult for me to explain. I think most organized religion is a crock, although I like it because it has basic rules and a goal to be achieved, and the means provided to the end is basically good behavior. I think early religion instituted morals into humans, and this follows my belief that religion is a crock. I feel early on in time, people began to realize crime and sin, and this was a very intelligent mans idea to write a 'rule book'. I don't really follow the idea of 'repenting'. So you can go do whatever the hell you want then talk to 'God' and get it all squared away? I would like to know why dinosaurs arent mentioned in the Bible. I have alot more but I just finished cooking so Img going to eat. Feel free to tear me a new one.

Enjoy. :D

I believe there was a universe with stuff flying about, that stuff got together here and there because of attraction, that formed large stars where gravity was so strong it compressed matter into the elements we have today like iron which go together to make up molecules.

On the early earth, such molecules got together over and over again by chance and with lightning strikes and other interesting physical phenomenons, you got amino acids and other organic molecules such as the building blocks for nucleic acids. This works in a lab setting, so we "know" theoretically that this could happen and likely did happen back then (see the Miller/Urey experiment). Nucleic acids and amino acids are what make up ribonucleic acids (RNAs), deoxyribonucleic acids (DNA) and proteins respectively.

In order for people to grasp my next point, one has to understand something simple about evolution. Many things (f.ex growing salt crystals) are able to replicate themselves. If you have something which replicates itself and it needs a limited resource to do so, then it will necessarily compete with it's copies for those resources. It's simple cause and consequence. You can imagine that if resources are plenty, these would keep replicating themselves until there were a lot of them. If these replicators are then susceptible to change in a way that either makes them better at this competition or worse, then they are subject to what we call evolution. Those who are better at competing - for example because they utilize resources and replicate more efficiently - will do better in the competition and outcompete those who do worse. Evolution is just a natural cause and consequence that leads to an ongoing "improvement" or adaptation.

Although I'm not sure exactly how they got together (they likely did many times over), the building blocks were there to make both RNAs and DNAs which are both replicators. Sometimes these molecules change or "mutate" because of random chance such as by simple background radiation from space or because of errors in replication. In other words, they could improve. Also, they were competing for limited resources and as such became subject to an ongoing evolution.

At first, they were probably naked and would "live" in tiny cracks or something else to shelter their chemical processes from the outside. At some point, a cellular wall have appeared in some (bacterias) while others developed a protein capsule (viruses). Bacteria engulfing other bacteria (endosymbiosis) led to the first eukaryotes which would then give rise to algae, fungi, plants and eventually animals.

The endosymbiosis theory has a lot of weight because there's a lot of evidence for it such as the existence of remnants of cellular nucleuses inside organelles such as algae chloroplasts.


Sorry if I'm a bit technical, but this is roughly how I believe we came to be .. millions and millions of years down the line :D I think it's wrong to conclude that people who believe this or other scientific ideas are not capable of spiritualism, though. That seems a little arrogant.

i do believe there could be an after life but what does it consist of and does god exist i dont know. but i do believe in ghosts and aliens.

Science. Evolution. It pretty much explains everything with tangible evidence, legitimate methods and widely-accepted facts. All in logical manner which is practically indisputable. I still fail to understand how creationists claim to believe in this illusory God, of which no evidence exists. Sure you can say faith, but you need something to base your faith off of. The Bible is what I often hear, but in various sections is proves to be quite contradictory. How can you believe in something so strongly, but have no solid basis?

how does science and evolution explain anything besides the known world? what does it explain about the unknown, the everything else.

did the electron not exist prior to being proven scientifically? even though the man who's credited at first theorizing about their existence died 18 years before his belief was proven true.

i understand atheist place their belief of what they see and feel in the hands of science. my question was in regards to explaining the unknown. does it just not matter until there's a laboratory experiment to tell you it does?

I believe in what I think relates most reliably with what I know. If you put a cat in a box and close the lid, is there a cat in the box? Yes, I believe so because in my usual experience, if I open the box, there's the cat. Did the electron exist prior to people knowing about it? Yes, I believe so. I believe they are rather crucial now so I don't see why they shouldn't have been before we discovered them.

About ghosts and such, I have more experiences with suggestion and people being gullible than I have with ghosts. As for religious experiences, well - I feel pretty much the same.

I'm perhaps fortunate in that stuff that we'll never know doesn't really bother me. Thoughts like "is my life just a dream?" or "do things come into existence by us "discovering" them?" I find are easily dismissable. I feel quite confident in my beliefs.

I think I sometimes tend to apply occam's razor to a lot of what I believe in. What explanation requires the least assumptions? For example, a door suddenly closed in the dark and spooky house. What's the simplest explanation, that it got closed by the wind (assumes that the wind can get in and is capable of closing open doors) or that it was closed by a ghost (assumes there's an existence after death and that we're still able to manipulate doors from this existence) .. ?

I know from experience that wind can get into houses and close doors - it's a simpler explanation, so that's the one I'm going for.

:clap::clap::clap:Great post.
We have an old abandoned insane asylum in my town. Ive gone in and explored around alot. It very creepy. The idea of suggestion is soooo prevelant in such an atmosphere because that is what you expect. There are old underground tunnels that connect buildings with stalagtites (sp and might be mites) hanging from the ceiling. One time I thought I saw a small girl standing in the passage after a quick glance with my light. I can still see the image fresh in my mind, but about 5 seconds after it happened, I quickly dismissed the issue and thought logically about it. I dont believe there was anything standing there. :jailed:

So weird. I grew up in a town w/ an abandoned (partially) insane asylum that people thought was haunted. It had underground tunnels and we also used to explore it when we were kids to scare theshit out of ourselves.

I saw the one in my town on the top ten haunted places on history channel or something and had to go. They have full time security there, so it makes it much more fun. The security cant really do anything other than call the cops. We have had to run/hide in the woods from cops for hours many a time. Its always a great time filled with beer, graffiti and girls.

Mine got turned into a shock camp prison.

Our are in a huge debate between town and state over who owns the land. They want to demolish the land and build 'Utopia' which is much like the East Coast vegas.

the closest insane asylum i have to me is like a hour and a half away

what if no windows or other doors are open (no wind) and the item that is being slammed shut requires more force then a gust of wind in the first place? the safe/logical way can't always explain things. If I experience something that you don't, I wouldn't expect you, or anybody else, to have the same understanding. It takes experience (in anything) for a person to expand their mind... the same applies here.

yes! exactly :thumb: the electron most definitely existed prior to being scientifically proven. i don't consider god to be this spiritual puppet master pulling the strings of the individuals across the planet or anything of the sort. i just don't see why the idea of god and spirituality should be dismissed as bollocks simply because it can't be proven in a laboratory yet.

shouldn't the answer to 'everything' take a lot longer to discover than the discovery of a basic building block of our atomic structure? and how long did it take us to just get to that point?

an electron is just a name for a variable in certain types of experiments so no, that variable did not exist before those experiments started taking place

What do mean by the unknown world? I am not exactly clear on what you mean by this. Please provide some examples of this.

To address your second point about electrons, your statement is not entirely accurate. Scientists discovered the fundamental fact that objects could be charged, not the presence of electrons. And since they realized that this energy was quantized, meaning it that charge occurs in certain discrete amounts, they decided to represent this elementary charge as e. And then to in order to have a uniform convention they allowed this particle an electron to represent -1 (e). And like cardboard adolescent stated it is simply a "variable".

religion is for the weak. The chances are god is not real, get over it. Christians try to hard to prove god exists and they have no proof whatsoever. I don't even care what the bible says, and science doesn't answer the supernatural or the unknown world, so i just say i don't know.

Is this supposed to be a reference to the Schrodinger's cat experiment?

"I just say I don't know but I also say god is for the weak and doesn't exist."

what would you do if it was proven god wasn't real? What do you think will happen when you die? Cuz i'm pretty sure this man isn't real.

i think what he's suggesting is that your inability to ascribe to any particular ethos is inconsistent with your cursory and superficial criticism of a religion which you obviously know nothing about.

uh, his words, not mine.

The Bible held a macabre fascination to me, because I was reading Robert E. Howard, and Lovecraft around the same time I attended church on a daily basis. There was an obvious influence which held the latter two within the reach of boys sitting apathetic yet daydreaming in a cold, hard bench listening to a man in black's slithering incantations of wrath and righteous sex.

So essentially what you're saying is that these are prime examples of weak humans:
Mahatma Ghandi
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Mother Theresa