This is an excerpt from a book I'm reading Power vs. Force by Richard Dawkins That i think is relevant to the discussion:


"A statement may be true at a high level of understanding, but be incomprehensible to the average mind. Its value may therefor be corrupted when the statement is distorted by the limitations of the listener. This has been the fate of religions through the ages, when pronouncements originating from high levels of awareness were later misinterpreted by followers vested with authority.
Such distortions can be seen in the fundamentalist sects of any religion. The fundamentalist's interpretation of religious teachings stresses negativity, and is removed from this negativity only by truth. The lowest depictions of deity are of a god who is jealous, vengeful, and angry, a god of death far removed from the god of and love. The god of righteous negativity represents a glorification of the negative, and provides for his followers a disavowal of responsibility through justification of human cruelty and mayhem. In general pain and suffering increase as one nears the bottom levels of consciousness.
The truth of each level of consciousness is self-verifying in that each level has its native range of perception, which confirms what's already believed to be true. Thus, everyone feels justified in the viewpoints that underlie his actions and beliefs. That's the inherent danger of all righteousness: Anyone can be righteous, from the killer who justifies his rage, to the ecclesiastic demagogues and political extremists of all persuasions. By distorting context, it's possible to rationalize and justify almost any human behavior. All wars are stated to be righteous by their perpetrators."

Could we just call this thread prove your faith?? Can you? Can I?

People determine how real Christianity is individually, let me know if you feel any different.

normally when i see you post in these kind of threads i end up shaking my head, this time i'm happy to be on the same page.

personal belief is exactly that, personal. it's not a matter of being able to 'prove' it, but a matter of accepting that you believe in something regardless of what other people think.

99% of religious discussions i've ever participated in have ended up the same way. with a bunch of cowards who don't have the guts to believe in anything calling out those who do in order to cover up their own insecurities. none of the religious people i know have ever tried to force me to adopt their views, they've never tried to bring me into the fold of their beliefs. yet, every single so-called atheist i've met has always challenged my views. they make the claim to not believe in anything but not a single one i've met has actually had the guts to believe in nothing.

as for the initial question of this thread, christianity is as real as the belief of the individual who choose to follow that religion. that's all.

I agree, it's all down to what an individual believes. And those who do have their own reasons for believing. As far as I'm concerned us many who do should not have to constantly justify our beliefs because somebody else demands it. The emotional and spiritual strength from I feel inside can not be described in words. But it can be shared if another person is willing to open their hearts. Many others are not ready to do that, which is absolutely fine.

I have no religious beliefs and I'm certainly not like that. I'm more concerned about practical issus then somebody's belief in God. I tend to take a more agnostic approach to the whole God thing. I think the idea of God makes for interesting discussion, but criticizing or getting angry at somebody just because of their belief in God is pointless to me. When I criticize religion, my arguement is not "Believing in God is silly! Thats stupid! You're Stupid!", the actual problems that have resulted from religion are what concern me most. I understand where you are coming from, I see many atheist who are like that as well as many theist that have a similar attitude.

The problem is that atheism is just as much of a religion as any spiritually based world view. Rhetorically speaking, it is a religion that worships at the altar of science and reason, and uses these, in a materialist sense, to justify its own paradigm of thought, just as all religions use whatever resources avail them to justify their own paradigms.
Anywhere we find the act or mindset of justification there is a defensive posture.
Because a spiritually based religion is a faith based paradigm it relies less heavily on justification of its validity. Which is why you there is more of a defensive posture among atheists, and to a much lesser extent agnostics, than you do with adherents of faith based religions. The reason why this does not appear to be so is that zealotry of any kind is an attempt to justify itself through logic and reason rather than not justify itself at all through faith. It is one of those strange ironies that the most outspoken representatives of any world view, the zealots, are most often the ones who model for others their understanding of the respective religion or worldview, yet most often the model that is provided through zealotry brings forth the most distorted version of that model which they seek to represent.

I know first hand that the supernatural exists. I have also seen apparitions of christ like figures in real photographs (straight from the developing place). Coincidence? very doubtful, I'm talking arms, robe, belt, head, feet in the sky (taken from a plane). Maybe it was just a spirit from 2000 + years ago and not Jesus himself. I believe energy goes on after death... not sure where it goes, but I don't think it just vanishes. These are the things that keep my faith strong... but then when I start over analyzing that which I can't understand to be true, then my faith starts to lessen. Stories written by man cause me to doubt... I believe there is something out there that we could never fully fathom and nobody truly knows what it is. It's universal to all... not just towards a particular religion.

Do you mind sharing?

Is'nt it amazing what we believe and how it runs our lives?

I'd rather not get all into the 'political' or 'religious' talks because they could last days, but im saying in the bible god made everything. Everything is man,women animal universe. He also says their are no other gods or religions. Well what im saying is if he made EVERYTHING why is their buddists and other religions? He had to make those. Also alogn with the subject of only 1 religion, why are their so many religions that worship the shristian god. I mean look at catholics.
What I am proving with this is not that god is real or fake I am proving that all of this religion stuff is corrupt i mean half of the hebrew language couldnt be translated in those times and when the roman empire fell alot of scrolls and artifacts were destroyed.
So do you believe that there was a "the end" page there or are you people goign to center yourselves around a corrupt empire of lonleyness?
And by the way Holy,religious people whatever you want to call them are some of the nastyest meanest peopel out there.
Thats why I choose to keep myself away from it.

after my grandmother died in 1985, my brother and I held a little seance in our bedroom. We sat there together with candles lit, lights out and just asked for some form of sign if my grandmother was listening or in the room with us. Sure enough within' 30 seconds or so we heard the cover to a chest we had in the room SLAM shut. This thing had hinges on it and was not easy to close, you had to put some force into it. Anyway... we both jumped up and ran out of the room. We did it again at my other grandmothers house and again, after we asked for a sign we heard something fall and start to move. It was our Verbot (a robot toy from the 80's) that suddenly switched on then fell off the table.

About 5 years later my grandfather fell ill with lung cancer and was dying in our home as being in a hospital wouldn't have done him any good by this point. Anyway, I was sleeping over a friends house (not really thinking about him passing away that weekend or anytime soon). That night I had a dream of my grandfather in a blue suit waving to me. He was in the distance with a bright white light behind him and he just stood there waving. I knew it was him but didn't know why I was dreaming this. When my father picked me up he told me that my grandfather had passed away the night before but they didn't want to tell me because they didn't see the point since I was having fun at my friends house. When I went to the wake my grandfather was in a blue suit... it freaked me out. Later my mother told me she had the very same dream, woke up... went to the bathroom, came out to check on my grandfather, he made a funny sound and died.

I've heard tons of other stories from people that wouldn't lie about that sorta thing... I know there are forces and spirits around us.