my bad but you obviously got what i was saying. again though, how do you define the 'correct' answer?

why can't everything be nothing? how do you define existence?

i think the idea that one side has to be wrong so the other is right is one of the major failings of humans.

the easiest analogy i can think of is war. every single person who willingly fought in any war has always been on the same side - the one they believed was right. yet one side always goes down in the history books as having been 'wrong'. were they really wrong or is it just the easiest way of justifying the actions of the victor and their violently enforced view of what is 'right' into the collective psyche of the species?

@Skinny: You have the wrong idea. Religion for 99% of people is not about needing proof, or believing in something that is defiantly proven and true. It is about having a set of morals and code of ethics to follow.

Those archaic belief systems should have no place in the modern world, IMO. Just look at Israel and Palestine. It's regressive. Medieval even.
People used to be tortured and burned alive as a result of differing interpretations of the Bible; but that was back when you just didn't question the order of the Church, the Pope possessed more power than many world leaders do today.

I think it's all well and good to have a faith and belief system if it gets you through the day; but it's when I see the bonafide fanatics trying to force their beliefs on others that I start to get worried.
Christianity may have once had alot to offer (Milton's 'Paradise Lost' being one); but in this day and age people really should know better than to adopt it literally, word-for-word.

Either I've been listening to too much NOFX and Bad Religion, or that opinion is not unpopular.

And RezZ is right. That's how I look at religion. For me, the Bible just makes sense... I really have no reasons to not be religious. No amount of scientific theories or evidence (unless it's like, super-hardcore) can change that.

I don't think I'm a close-minded person though, like a lot of people percieve us to be.

Two different kinds of right and wrong. The former in the discussion is objective right and wrong, statements that are flasifiable. "God is real" is a statement where it can either be proven he does or doesn't exist. For instance 1+1=2. This is true. We can prove by physically putting one object next to another object and seeing there are two objects. The latter is subjective right and wrong/good and bad. Morals are intangibles and abstracts and are thus objectively immeasurable. You can deem them as being of quality, but not empirically true or false.

Interpretations of history are undeniably biased, but there are so many factors to take into account with war though; I mean Nazi Germany thought they were right - rampant patriotism and skewed philosophies gone postal rising from the ashes of a crippling economic depression etc etc...
But I think you can draw the moral line at a fundamental, instinctive level, the few wrongs and rights that were recorded common to all the ancient religions - thou shalt not kill and so forth.

To illustrate - it wasn't until the end of the war, I think I'm correct in saying, that the general public in Germany became aware of the mass genocide that had been occurring in the death camps. They were kept in the dark to avoid dissent. Unclouded by religion or politics or any ulterior motive, human death is not open to interpretation; so I think you can define what is right and what is wrong to a certain point. We exist or we do not exist.

As for defining existence surely it has always been self awareness, consciousness?

Also I think what Unfan says about religions that claim to have all the answers is a very good point. That's the danger. Trust yourself.

EDIT: Philosophy and Ethics was low on my agenda in college, Unfan has the terminology down, ignore my muddlings.

this is where i differ. when a person states 'god is real' i don't take it as anything besides a reflection of their own belief. not right or wrong or needing to be proven just their belief. i don't see why i should try to deny another person's belief simply because it runs counter to my own. arguing semantics seems like an even bigger waste of time.

molecules says it best - trust yourself.

i don't have a problem with people actively discussing their beliefs with me but i draw the line at people who actively try to alter my own beliefs to further reinforce their own to cover up their lack of belief in their own judgement.

as for existence does a rock cease to exist because it's not self aware?

Again I'm sure there are proper terms for all this but, short of being omnipresent, aren't the properties of existence defined by us humans? I see where you're going - how is blind faith in God any less valid than my firm belief that a rock exists because I can see it and touch it? Hmm. It's like the old 'what if all life is just somebody else's dream'? Conundrum...

Surely our conscious is all we have - whether we choose to only believe in the laws of physics or some sadomasochist Mover?

it's all a big paradox until you accept that you are the big paradox hehe

Blind faith is a choice that I made after deciding it was my way to get out of the systems that this world forces upon us. The point is that if you are a true skeptic (as in the way the Greeks started it) then believing in a God should be no less the same as believing that this forum has the color black on the template. I am a true skeptic in this matter and I find logical to be quite illogical (simply because you can't prove, using logic, why logic is the best method for me to deduce things.) Therefore, I accept the blind faith Christianity needs and now I find my self in a better stance. It is all personal choice, and no one can tell me why I shouldn't believe it because you are just going to bring faulty logic into the argument.

As for Christianity causing problems, you are wrong. Christians cause the problems, not Christianity. No Christian lives by the word fully because it is next to impossible so you end up having people who tell you you will go to hell and **** like that. I am a much more post-modernist when it comes to Christianity in that I believe it is up to the interpretation of the individual.

My interpretation is that Christianity is having a relationship with God, which exceeds everything else. Then others come before yourself, to the point where your life goal is to better others (these were principals Jesus practiced.) I am not a full pacifist, because I believe to harm in order to save another person is biblical, but I am against all other uses of violence. I believe violence to save yourself is wrong because it is the sacrifice of oneself for another. My Christianity is based off of Jesus's life, which (I believe) taught, the rejection of formalism, self-sacrifice, maximized faith (because no one can truly achieve 100% faith,) and the spreading of the gospel by showing others love (not showing a bible to a starving child if you know what I mean.) I have some major problems with the church these days, like the fact that I don't think tithing goes to the actual church building, but to people in need, and the fact that there shouldn't even be a church building because it costs money, which supports a system that we shouldn't be supporting.

This system is the idea that even the circulation of money is the cause of crime in the world. The reality is that a lot of the money you have touched in your lifetime is probably "dirty money." I believe that no Christian should strive to be rich because Jesus was poor as **** and depended on his faith to get him through. As you can see, I see no problem with self-expression, even if it could make someone feel bad. I believe that the person who interprets that comment makes it worse for themself, and it is not so much the person expressing that is causing the problem. I believe that Christian's should try to only strive for basic needs in life. While humans naturally need entertainment and other things of the sort, I believe the minimal amount is best.

It is a lot different than most Christian backgrounds, but that is my interpretation in a nutshell. A lot of other stuff though.