MMO Christian Ministy (was forum=10) (was forum=28)Follow

Hmmm.

I'm intrigued by what you're trying to say in this thread, but I'm not sure I am quite getting it.

I'm not entirely sure why it should matter that no religion can prove without a doubt the existence of a god. The essence of faith as I understand it is belief without the need for verification through scientific or other means. I don't think you acquire faith through proof. You either have it or you don't. Once proof is presented one way or another (on the question of the existence of God, for example,) there is no more need for faith if the proof is accepted as fact/truth. The blindness is essential to faith.

Let me put it this way. I'm not religious, but I am spiritual. I try to live my life following certain Taoist teachings and values. It is not easy by any means and I am only beginning that path. I do not know if there is a god. There may be. There may not be. I have never seen any evidence to either way. And, it does not matter. The question of the existence of god is irrelevant to me. For me, there is no need for a divine being. All living things are connected. If I want to pray, which I rarely do, it would be to that natural order/chaos of life. All things are of me, and I am of all things. And yet, in a sense, in a larger sense, there is no me.

That may be flawed to you. You may disintegrate it into something you want to call "religion" or "faith" because there is no scientific evidence behind it. But I do not see it as being either. I do not go to any church. There are no priests or reverends for me. And as far as faith goes, well... I don't need evidence to support the existence of God, because that is irrelevant to me. I don't believe any certain set of conditions, as much as I simply agree with them. I agree with the lack of supposition.

The only thing I have noticed you say that I disagree with, or at least find a dubious thing to say, is that all religions are fundamentally flawed because they do not have a real connection with God.

I find this sentence difficult to understand, because as far as I know, no one has proven without a doubt the existence of God, and that to my knowledge every religion is based on the concept of taking the existence of God as face value, as a core component of the religion.

If there would not be a religion without blind faith, then how can you say that blind faith is precisely the one flaw with any such religion?

I'm not arguing you, because so far I am having a hard time deciphering what you are trying to say, unless it's just about semantics.

Confirmation bias.

(In b4 how dare you, you're not a soldier, no YOU have confirmation bias, etc.)

Science is not subject to personal bias. You may lose all your senses, but that doesn't alter reality, that alters your perception of reality. Perceptions can (and we know this from studying the brain) be wrong.

I do believe you missed my point. In a nutshell, I'm speaking of my belief can't be altered by what others think because I have felt God's presence. You see, I'm not one of those people that force religion on people because it's a waste of time. I believe God does his own work and gives everyone a chance to prove themselves. If you are in denial of this, that's fine. Go on Oprah and jump on a few couches. You see, it doesn't matter. All that does matter is what you personally believe, not what's forced on you. My late grandma pushed me away from God because of all the talk about going to hell for everything. I was like damn I'm screwed anyway so might as well enjoy myself. It wasn't til years later where I realized I was wrong. But the moral of the story is that God is forgiving. I don't care what your beliefs are nor do I believe in changing anyone. Time will change people over the years and you'd be surprised how your beliefs differ as you grow older and wiser. I'm a huge Star Trek buff and I love the way Trek does it without discounting religion. If you had to compare God to a character on Star Trek, I'd say he would be close to the Q. The ability of being able to exist outside time and space. The part that always gives me a chuckle is that in the eyes of God, the world is already over. It's like fast-forwarding a DVD to the last chapter. That must come in handing sorting out all the non-believers lol.

double

Edited, Sep 20th 2008 4:55pm by bsphil

There is absolutely nothing wrong with what you are saying. You do not in my opinion follow a faith based religion. So you are following something far more simple. You are not following the type of religion I am targeting.

I am tired of the "Sinners shave beards and eat pork" kind of stuff. You have to take these kinds of things seriously if you are religious by doing so you are taking it into faith that if a woman shows her face it is ok to stone her to death. If you drink or buy alcoholic beverages on Sunday or eat non cosher foods YOUR GOING TO HELL.

IF YOU PLAY WOW OR FFXI YOU SHOULD PLAY WITH YOUR FELLOW CHRISTIANS.. O.O' WTF... Lets preach gospel in FFXI its absolutely retarded.. Pretending to not be gay because it is a choice kind of mental retardation and lies that harm people everyday and all of it is being done on faith based religions.

I don't think that you are following a blind faith in your description. In fact I see you as being sensible from your description. You are not following a faith based religion in my eyes.



You know I am wrong I am in grouping simple spirituality as a religion like Christianity. There is a fundamental difference.

Really its when your religion has a "Marketing department" of some sort is when I think my words ring most true.



I see it like this. Its easy to make a potent argument that we are here for some reason. One could also add on to that one of the many possibilities is that we were created by a god of some sort. Well its hard to argue against that because nobody really knows for sure. Ok that all makes sense right. You do not require faith for this.

Its like butterfly wings.. Once touched by human hands its ruined.
At this point the SECOND you take it one step further. The very moment some IDIOT adds on his extra little clauses that he found some magical plates in new jersey with the words of god on it that explain how people flew in from outer space and black people are descendants of Lucifer. THAT IS WHEN IT BECOMES A FAITH BASED RELIGION. THAT'S WHEN IT GOES TOO FAR.. FAITH IS BEING PLACED ON THE ONE WHO FOUND THE RELIGION NOT ON A GOD. It has always been that way. Faith and god ARE NOT RELATED because your faith is in another HUMAN BEING who carries the message not on god.

Blind faith in some fool who made stuff up and fooling people into believing it true. Causing all kinds of terrible events just so they can have 5 minutes of fame.

ALL OF THESE THINGS .. ALL OF THESE STUPID WALLS THAT PEOPLE HAVE BUILT FOR NO REASON COULD NEVER STAND IF A TRUE GOD WERE TO EVER EMERGE. A RELIGION BASED ON FAITH TAKES ITS WORDS FROM A HUMAN NOT A GOD.

None of these faith based religions have any true connections to the real god who has yet to emerge.

So for now keep your religion simple.. Shave your @#%^ing beards, eat some @#%^ing pork chops and stop bringing this sh*t into a FFXI forum. ( not aimed at Lady Jella )

edit: Oh and lock the ******* thread XD so I can stop posting..

Edited, Sep 20th 2008 6:25pm by thorazinekizzez

Took me a few to get back here I just had a 200gb drive on my main PC die for no apparent reason.. >:( And somehow I still have a 2gb seagate from the days of win95 still perfectly healthy zero bad sectors..



I'm not talking 1 person makes a claim and poof it exists. More a general thing. You know the sky is blue and the sun rises* in the east and it would take something BIG to convince you otherwise. And people generally do not like their beliefs challenged (as we can see right here in this thread).

Familiar with Old D&D planescape setting by chance? In that work of fiction they use a much exaggerated version of the concept. Get handful of people believing in trees and poof you have a growing tree. I'm not intending to say we could accomplish that with any number of people no matter how large. But I'm pretty sure we all know what a tree is and so did people who lived before us. We have a massive framework of existence in place before we are born and no amount of questioning it could tear it down.

Take quantum mechanics and wave–particle duality...

I forgot where I was going with that. The classic misuse of Schrödinger's cat comes to mind but I forgot what I was typing out the 1st time when that HDD died..Might be a bit before I remember. >.<

[edit]I think I remember now. Particle state not fixed until its been observed...I think.[/edit]

*its been accepted possible that our sun will eventually kick the bucket, and that door may or may not have been opened the second we considered it might be a ball of burning gas - gas burning suggests eventually using up said gas.

Edited, Sep 20th 2008 6:49pm by thatdamnelf

Edited, Sep 20th 2008 10:21pm by thatdamnelf

Shouldn't like these last five pages be cut and moved to the Asylum or something?

Someone uncomfortable with their beliefs being questioned is someone uncomfortable with their beliefs.

I don't know my Star Trek, but reading that, it didn't sound like they said "there is no god"; just that "Picard is not god".

During the episode Picard tells the guy his people used to believe in such things to. Multiple instances of that sorta thing in the various spin offs. Deep space nine had an episode where some people were angry that the federation schools were telling their children that "the prophets" (basically their deities, but thats what they were called) were "worm hole aliens". Voyager has an episode where SevenOfNine asks Janeway why her holodeck program has Christian symbolism in it and the conversation implies few if any are part of any religion in their time period.

I suppose I've been coming off anti religion or atheist in my posts here. I'm actually not I just refuse to take the thread seriously - the last thing anyone wants to hear about in a video game is "worship". Religion and politics = bad LS chat topics, let alone forum threads. And thats true no matter what your personal beliefs are.

The chance to pop a Kirk quote was to much though. And I'm surprised nobody else noticed how atheist star trek humans got by the generations series.

People are taking this thread way to seriously, arguing over what they think people should believe. Nobody is changing anybodies mind here. Its not going to happen. So why do people persist in continuing to argue with each other?

I have beliefs and I feel zero need to share them here in this thread.

you'd have to boil down to one god anyways, to create the whole shebang, or you'd be incoherent because of the problem that you can't have independent beings without a medium greater for them to all exist in. Like we as separate humans can be such cause we exist in the universe, which we didn't create and predates us. If you bump it up to god level it gets worse, because having equal omnipotent gods would need a medium for them to exist that predate them and wasn't made by them.

It's not one sided, it affects religion as much as not. That's why polytheistic religions now are rare.



Oh no, i didnt mean to imply you were doing so, just that people don't need smokescreens or anything. The specific practices of any religion can trend to the nuts as well as the sublime, even in something as established as christianity.



well part of the reaction in this thread is that no one likes having them challenged when they aren't looking for it. That's why ministries like this will always fail, things like this are really best suited for friendly bull sessions. The net can be hideous in the extreme otherwise.



What i think people really need to get over is the stigma that talking about religion is something to get angry over, will always be a shouting match or an argument. So what if no one changes their belief, its not harmful just to talk and see others points of view.

Not talking really leads to demonization and the perpetuation of stereotypes.