Gah. Now I have two posts to tear at. And not enough time for either of them. rofl xD

Maybe tomorrow or sunday.

I'm sure a lot of what you're saying is rooted in the Christian Bible (as with your heaven/hell assertion). I'd just like to make it clear that nowhere in the new or old testament does it say anything about hell. I'd also like to state that very few religions sought to indoctrinate people through fear. Though this is not to say that people, churches/mosques/whatever, and a few healthy misinterpretations and unhealthy aspirations didn't lead to the chaos you describe now.

Everyone lives a different life and as such everyone has their own subconscious perceptions of life, and they usually adapt these around a religions that is suitable for them.

And nowhere in Scientology is hell mentioned. In fact, the belief system refutes the existence of both heaven and hell.


I'm neither an atheist nor an agnostic, but my beliefs are simple. I'm willing to admit that I don't know everything, and as such, when someone asks me if there is a God (in the typical metaphysical, all-powerful, world-creating stereotype), I can honestly say I don't know. But when it comes down to well-founded scriptures that blatantly spout nonsensical blather, I have no issue pointing out aforementioned blatancy and denouncing said God (this is one of many reasons I truly hate the title of this thread).

I think, more than anything, if I were to define who I am (as in the realms of atheism, theism, agnosticism, what-have-you), i'd say that I simply can not endorse anything that desires you substitute your own beliefs for its. Regardless of whether or not I can poke a hole in the practicality of [certain religions] (and I can), I see them as a form of harvesting, and i'd rather spend an eternity in a pit of flames than proclaim my love for, say, a God that created me solely for the purpose of worshipping him/her.

That doesn't make sense when you're talking about a God. Either there is a God (or whatever it is) or there isn't. There can't be a God for Jim and not be a God for Jack. That's just impossible.



You just described Agnosticism. There is no more of a neither category. Either you are Atheist (God doesn't exist), Agnostic (God might exist but I don't know), or Theist (God exists). There's nothing more to it.

And how is that at all relevant to what i'm saying? Please tell me. I'm not in any way talking about who's right or who gets a God. I'm talking about why there are so many belief systems.

I'm saying people have different beliefs and different interpretations of "truth." Therefore, they're likely to create or follow a branch of a certain religion, or even develop their own based on those ideals. When ideals conflict with one's religion, they may seek to adapt to them or convert to another religion that more or less adapts to them.

The definitions of all of those terms are rather biased and subject to a variety of interpretations. This is mostly because they're terms based off of words which are already hazy themselves. My views aren't so linear and simple-minded as atheism, agnosticism, or theism would prefer them be.

I am well familiar with the terminology, and my sentiment remains.


Last Edit: Aug 1, 2008 19:13:50 GMT by Aaron

There is nothing hazy. I just gave you the three options, and there can be no more options in the category. They equate to "yes", "no", and "I don't know". There are no other ways to answer the question. And the only "subject to interpretation" I have ever heard is whether or not to include Agnosticism as just a branch of Atheism.

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Edit: To give more backup to my sentiments, there is this thing called the Law of Non-Contradiction.

It basically states that for a given axiom A, either A can be true or A can be non-true.

The statement "God exists." is an axiomatic statement. So, either God exists, or God doesn't exist. Those are the two options.

Because we are talking about belief, there is also a third option. "God exists." can be true, or false, or it can have an unknown truth value.

True= Theist
False= Athiest
Unknown= Agnostic


Last Edit: Aug 1, 2008 19:39:46 GMT by webmaren

It's not the "options," but what they pertain to. I'll put it simply: if I ask you if you're in the mirror, you can respond to the literal or the sentiment. You could just as easily say you are as you aren't.

God has many meanings, those which most pertain to atheism, theism, and agnosticism can still be construed any number of ways. If atheism, as you say, is so simple as "there is no God," and my interpretation of God is (in general) whatever entity brought about conception of the universe, than the Atheist has suddenly proclaimed that he doesn't believe in the universe.

It really doesn't seem necessary for me to continue explaining this, 'cause I haven't nicked the surface yet. My apologies, but i'm gonna have to skip out on wherever this end of the debate takes me. I'm waitin' for Fredy.


Last Edit: Aug 1, 2008 19:43:46 GMT by Aaron

I feel like I'm the only person on my side of the debate. lol. It's going to be one hell of a long ass post when I finally do get time to get to this. PS: Its probably going to end up being Sunday night or monday.

*Shakes fist angrily

Curse you, other people's lives. Getting in the way of my good debately fun.

Long posts are fine. I couldn't possibly say you can't have a long post after authoring that Behemoth on page one.

I've started to write my reply, but I'm too tired tonight. lol. Tomorrow. =D

May your keyboarding be swift. At long last.

I was summarizing the basic 4 beleifs becuase I'm lazy like that. xD

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I don't think I can really debate this one beyond the fact that freewill is questionable in this, and I beleive strongly in freewill. However, I may have missed something and there IS freewill ni this, but it just doesn't seem like it the way you stated it.

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I'm not saying its invalid, I'm saying it seems too stupid to even be a possiblity.


I suppose. But Am I making YOUR exsistance up, or are you making MINE up? And if our subconscious mind is making it up, shouldn't we be able to predict EXACTLY done to the smallest detail exactly what is going to happen at every second and every decision that a person is going to make? Since you know. We're making it up as we go. Like our own little storyboard.

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The problem with your argument is that the end resulted "hallucination" is still a distortion of things one has already experienced through their sences, or thought processes. A concept such as a divine being can't be created as a distortion of anything on earth because it is jsut too unique and complicated.

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So basically your saying that a system that si so complicated that we have yet to fully figure it out and understand it happened by chance?


This is just a stupid example, but you might find it humourous. How did these creatures go from using gills to lungs? And why did they even develop lungs in the first place if they were perfectly fine in the water? Maybe its just me, but Growing lungs and going up on land doesn't exactly sound like adapting to your suroundings.

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Didn't Darwin also say that he didn't actaully beleive in what he wrote, but rather just wrote it as an alternative to God ?

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So... where exactly did this energy come from and what caused it to cause the big bang? And quite honestly I think that even IF the bg bang happened, it would need some sort of intellgence behind it or some reason to happen. Spontaneous creation jsut doesn't work in my head.


Link is broken. XD So. First your saying that there IS a ball of matter, and tehny our saying there isn't? I'm confused.

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Thanks for the credit. rofl xD

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Sorry for my lack of debating and worthwhile reply. I'm just way too busy. And I've been donig tyhis over the course of DAYS. lol.

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... shut up. lol xD

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The bible was also written over thousands of years by people having absolutely no contact with each other and not reading the other books and somehow the books just so happened to mesh together.


Well honestly the thought that if your right and nothing I do matters kind of scares me.

But honestly you kind of put that in little kids terms. Its more like, live your life serving God and repenting of sins(which most things that are considered sins in the bible are quite reasonable) and oyu go to heaven to meet your creator. Or the alternative where you go to hell which is traditionally beleived to be eternal burning, but more modern beleifs state that you worst part is the issolation as apposed to the pain.


Same reason why I have different food tastes than you. Personal opinion. Some people just don't agree on certain things and go and make their own religion because it doesn't suit their likes and dislikes.


I don't consider scientology a religion. At all. It's a cult.

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But it does talk about a "lake of fire" as well as other references to a place that has been accepted as hell.

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Once again. Sorry for my late, and rather crappy, reply. Once again writing this at midnight. rofl xD

<3

Never really was interested in getting involved in this. Hopefully my last post?


We are sure this small booklet will not answer all questions. It should stir up many questions. One might say: "Whether a person is the 'lake of fire' for many ages, or forever, they are still being terribly tortured." But when we see that the word translated by KJV and Company as "tortured" is the Greek word "basanizo," its literally meaning being "touchstone," then one can bring perfect harmony to the Scriptures. A "touchstone" was a stone mined in Lydia use to test the quality of gold. Gold in Scriptures speaks of Divine nature. The "lake of fire" in Greek is "limnen tou puros tou kai theiou." "limnen" is lake; "puros" is fire; and "theiou" is sulfer. Sulfer "theiou" and God "theos" are related. In other words, looking for our Father's highest Glory, instead of bringing Him down to man's lowly ways, the lake of fire is a "Divine fire" to test, not torture, whether something be divine or not. The symbols in Revelation will always be grossly twisted by carnal men. The Book of Revelation, for example, is actually the "unveiling of Jesus Christ." One should be able to see the activity of Christ and His work in Creation. The carnal fundamentalist mindset will see "the Antichrist, 666, Judgement day, and world conspiracies," instead of what the title of the book states, the unveiling of our Savior. One day, all of our works will go into that lake of "divine" fire and will be tested. Works, not lead by the Holy Spirit will be shown for what they are, dead works. Many Christians will suffer much loss, but be saved so as through fire. (1 Cor. 3:15) May His fiery compassion melt you down.
- www.tentmaker.org/books/GatesOfHell.html

I could list specifics, but you might as well gain some insight from the article yourself.

The problem with organized religion is not that it exists, but that man created it. The root reason as to why we have so many religions is because of man, and his beliefs.

My problem with Christianity is the bible. I don't believe that anything in this book is accurate. I won't it out of question completely, but I feel that it isn't truthful in the least.

How, over a period of 2000s, have came up with so many different translations:

King James Bible
New International Version
Todays New International Version
New living Translation
New Standard American Bible
English Standard Version
Holman Christian Standard Bible
New Revised Standard Version
Good News Translation
Contemporary English Version
New Century Version
New King James Version
New American Bible
New Jerusalem Bible
NET
Revised Standard Version
The Message
Gods Word
Revised English Bible
Book of Mormon


Now how, do you explain why each one differs? The only way to explain it, would be that those who altered the original were of a different belief in how, or why things may have occurred.

For this reason, none of them can be trusted as accurate sources.

Worship the God, and his son, but don't worship the word of the books.