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Misc All Things Religious

Downeastnc said:
now I understand why ( no such thing as god ) but back then I felt like I was doing something wrong, I was told all I had to do was open my heart and listen to the lord.....and well I never heard/felt anything.

A couple of pages back you acknowledged you don't "believe" God exists (remember when we talked about proof), now you're back to absolute claims. Ok, where's your proof of the bold?

I actually enjoyed church on a certain level as I had a crush on a few girls there and I only saw them at church....that was my sole motivation, well that and the food afterwards....and my best friend was a youth leader with the Catholics Youth Org and that group was chuck full of hot little Catholic girls and I did many many memorable and eventful lock ins with that group......?

This sheds a lot of light. Many, many people who deny or even turn away from God do so because they want to do their own thing, live how they want to live and, and in essence, be their own God.

As for the conditioning part its very real, and your example not withstanding if you waited till everyone was 18 years old to introduce them to religion in general and then gave them access to ALL religions with no bias towards any given one then I suspect the number of people that went on to become extremely religious would be rather low....but maybe I am wrong.

Yet this would be conditioning kids towards atheism, which our secular culture does anyway. You are right, the conditioning towards atheism is very strong indeed.
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Shaggy said:
So speaking of conditioning. My 4 yr old is learning the pledge of allegiance and he likes to say it at home alot. When I say it I leave out the "under god" part. It was never in the original first 8 versions of the pledge anyways.

Conditioning?

My wife also athiest says we cant do that because he has to say it correctly at school.

Why should I have to teach my son to say the pledge with reference to god? Why is my son being conditioned to believe in something that isn't real by a school system(next year when he starts K he is pre-K now) that is suppose to remain impartial?

Absolute claim. Proof?
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Downeastnc said:
I guess I am bias as I know that my beliefs were 100% driven by indoctrination and conditioning, I raised my son without religion, not because I want him to be a atheist but rather to not influence him as much as possible. We caught flak for not having a baptism etc.....my wife, my brother ( Shaggy on this forum for those that dont know ) both my brother in laws one of them is married and his wife are all atheist, all of us come from religious households and were all raised to be Christians.....so thats 6 people I know that all left the church, I know zero people that went from atheist to religious as adults.....to be fair though I know almost no one that was raised atheist etc...the few I do know are still atheist.....

You are not alone, as many people turn away for those reasons. Honestly, I think if I were raised in that environment I would have rebelled against religion too. And this is a big problem with Christians. Many people turn away from God, not because of God, but because of us. You are correct in that lots of teens and young adults leave the church, but the reasons are many. In general, I don't think parents and the Church is doing a very good job of allowing kids to make the choice themselves (as they eventually will have to anyway) or teaching them how to defend their faith. Kids get exposed to our hyper secular culture as they grow, often attend an institution of higher learning that is completely hostile to religion, and lose their way. I know people this has been true of (to add to your 6), but I also know lots of people who did the opposite too.

When we moved to where we live now my son became friends with the two boys next door.....they are now his two best friends and in a extremely religious household, they go to a Christian school etc...we however get along great with the parents and often sit outside at a firepit together etc, religion doesnt come up. His friends invited my son to go to their church several times and I told him it was up to him but he declined......ironically the youngest neighbor boy recently came out to my son as having become atheist and was asking questions etc....I told my son to tread carefully and just be a supportive friend....

I am glad to hear you are being respectful and allowing your son to make a choice!
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Didn't know you guys were brothers, very cool.
 
Iceagewhereartthou said:
Didn't know you guys were brothers, very cool.
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I didnt turn away from god, at least I dont see it like that because again there is no god, I turned away from the conditioning and indoctrination....determining that I didn't believe in god was easy, what was much harder was deprogramming myself from things I had been conditioned to do. Heck even today I still say "lord help me" or "god knows why" from time to time.....not because I mean it but because its burned into me habit wise....

As for proof there is no god, obviously I cant prove it....does not change the fact I am sure there is no god.....just like you are sure there is one. On the science side of things I think there is tons of solid evidence that the Christian mythos ( and all the other religion mythos for that matter) are not factual. Things like Noah's flood, creationism, the Earth is only 6,000 yrs old, people living hundreds of years, dinosaurs and man existing together at the same time etc....none of that is real......
 
Romans 1:28 English Standard Version (ESV)
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
 
Downeastnc said:
I didnt turn away from god, at least I dont see it like that because again there is no god, I turned away from the conditioning and indoctrination....determining that I didn't believe in god was easy, what was much harder was deprogramming myself from things I had been conditioned to do. Heck even today I still say "lord help me" or "god knows why" from time to time.....not because I mean it but because its burned into me habit wise....

As for proof there is no god, obviously I cant prove it....does not change the fact I am sure there is no god.....just like you are sure there is one. On the science side of things I think there is tons of solid evidence that the Christian mythos ( and all the other religion mythos for that matter) are not factual. Things like Noah's flood, creationism, the Earth is only 6,000 yrs old, people living hundreds of years, dinosaurs and man existing together at the same time etc....none of that is real......
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The bolded is neither logical nor rational. If you cannot prove it then you cannot present it as fact, only as your opinion or belief. The bold indicates both. The red is a belief statement which seems to contradict other statements. For the blue, are you saying this is fact or opinion? Can you prove it? All of your statements about there being no God are your opinions. You are free to hold them of course, but you are presenting them as factual (both to us and to yourself) without one shred of proof. One cannot use opinions for proof.

BTW, some of these points are not matters that are essential to faith and salvation. While age of the Earth is interesting, it doesn't matter at all for faith and salvation. Whether the Earth is 6000 years or 14.6 Billion years old it does not affect the possibility of God at all.
 
Iceagewhereartthou said:
The bolded is neither logical nor rational. If you cannot prove it then you cannot present it as fact, only as your opinion or belief. The bold indicates both. The red is a belief statement which seems to contradict other statements. For the blue, are you saying this is fact or opinion? Can you prove it? All of your statements about there being no God are your opinions. You are free to hold them of course, but you are presenting them as factual (both to us and to yourself) without one shred of proof. One cannot use opinions for proof.

BTW, some of these points are not matters that are essential to faith and salvation. While age of the Earth is interesting, it doesn't matter at all for faith and salvation. Whether the Earth is 6000 years or 14.6 Billion years old it does not affect the possibility of God at all.
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I see very few Christians going around saying I know there is a god but then quantify that with saying "its only my opinion and not a fact and therefor god may not be real"......so if we hold Christians to the same criteria you are holding me too then essentially you are saying that every single Christian on this planet must admit that they might be wrong and there is no god since they have not one shred of proof god is real. If not then when they say god is real its neither logical or rational.....

It does matter if people literally believe the bible on things like Noah flood and how old Earth is etc....because we know what is factual there and that matters.....
 
Downeastnc said:
I see very few Christians going around saying I know there is a god but then quantify that with saying "its only my opinion and not a fact and therefor god may not be real"......so if we hold Christians to the same criteria you are holding me too then essentially you are saying that every single Christian on this planet must admit that they might be wrong and there is no god since they have not one shred of proof god is real. If not then when they say god is real its neither logical or rational.....

It does matter if people literally believe the bible on things like Noah flood and how old Earth is etc....because we know what is factual there and that matters.....
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I have no issue with saying myself as fallible man could be wrong and could be deranged. That said if there is no God and my life and all it’s divinely inspired steps were just a very long series of coincidences, by your rule I will never know it. Not that I would change my life regardless.
 
Shaggy said:
@Iceagewhereartthou if there is so much proof god is real then why does religion require so much faith?
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It doesn’t. To the person who is seeking with an open heart, the faith needed is very small. To the person with the closed heart who is not seeking, there isn’t enough faith in the world to save him.
 
We all have faith just in different things, when you sit down in a chair you have faith it will hold you up. When you drop a ball, you have faith gravity will make it fall. Having said that, not every place has gravity but every place has God
 
Shaggy said:
@Iceagewhereartthou if there is so much proof god is real then why does religion require so much faith?
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The proof is in the Bible. Here we have a history Book which proves that God did all the things that are in question. What you are really doubting is whether or not the Bible is the truth. Correct me if I am wrong.....
 
Downeastnc said:
I see very few Christians going around saying I know there is a god but then quantify that with saying "its only my opinion and not a fact and therefor god may not be real"......so if we hold Christians to the same criteria you are holding me too then essentially you are saying that every single Christian on this planet must admit that they might be wrong and there is no god since they have not one shred of proof god is real. If not then when they say god is real its neither logical or rational.....

It does matter if people literally believe the bible on things like Noah flood and how old Earth is etc....because we know what is factual there and that matters.....
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If there is no God and I live my entire life in a delusional world, then that's ok. I will die and return to the dirt and that will be that. Same as you. However, if I am right and there is a God, then your in big trouble when the death angel comes calling for you. You are essentially betting your soul that God is not real. Big mistake....
 
Cad Wedge NC said:
If there is no God and I live my entire life in a delusional world, then that's ok. I will die and return to the dirt and that will be that. Same as you. However, if I am right and there is a God, then your in big trouble when the death angel comes calling for you. You are essentially betting your soul that God is not real. Big mistake....
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Its not a delusional world.....also it seems to me you live your life in fear of what might happen, and if you want to waste part of your life going to church and worrying about gods wrath have at it.....

The fear you Christians have I understand as I use to have it too......
 
Cad Wedge NC said:
The proof is in the Bible. Here we have a history Book which proves that God did all the things that are in question. What you are really doubting is whether or not the Bible is the truth. Correct me if I am wrong.....
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Well there are things the bible says happen we KNOW are not true, and there are lots of Christians that believe everything in the bible literally happened even though we know it did not happen. So how do you square that, well other than denouncing the science as wrong and then replacing it with very unscientific "facts" that are anything but....
 
Downeastnc said:
Well there are things the bible says happen we KNOW are not true, and there are lots of Christians that believe everything in the bible literally happened even though we know it did not happen. So how do you square that, well other than denouncing the science as wrong and then replacing it with very unscientific "facts" that are anything but....
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What exactly would those things be?...... Even though I find some parts of the Bible hard to wrap my head around, I will never say that It's not true.
 
Cad Wedge NC said:
What exactly would those things be?...... Even though I find some parts of the Bible hard to wrap my head around, I will never say that It's not true.
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Well the normal stuff like Noah's flood/ark, parting the Red Sea, people living to be hundreds of years old, dinosaurs and man living at the same time etc etc etc...
 
Downeastnc said:
Its not a delusional world.....also it seems to me you live your life in fear of what might happen, and if you want to waste part of your life going to church and worrying about gods wrath have at it.....

The fear you Christians have I understand as I use to have it too......
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I actually don’t fear that.

I fear bringing shame to the name of Christ.
 
Downeastnc said:
I see very few Christians going around saying I know there is a god but then quantify that with saying "its only my opinion and not a fact and therefor god may not be real"......so if we hold Christians to the same criteria you are holding me too then essentially you are saying that every single Christian on this planet must admit that they might be wrong and there is no god since they have not one shred of proof god is real. If not then when they say god is real its neither logical or rational.....

It does matter if people literally believe the bible on things like Noah flood and how old Earth is etc....because we know what is factual there and that matters.....
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Sorry I'm just getting around to responding Downeast. I certainly can't speak for other Christians, but I think it is certainly fair to apply that standard to Christians as well, and I don't think it would cause a problem. While it's true you'll hear some Christians say "I know there is a God," most readily admit their philosophy requires a bit of faith, which is a necessary foundation for a Christian. In fact, I don't remember specifically ever hearing a Christian say they could prove that God exists (though I am sure it happens). One of the big differences between the thought processes of theists and atheists is that theists admit (and even celebrate) that their worldview incorporates a bit of faith, whereas atheists almost always put themselves as far away from the word "faith" as they can get. "Atheism is a lack of faith" is a common line. Yet logically, we see that is not true, as the atheism worldview also takes faith. This idea that atheists don't have faith allows them to think they deal in "fact" while theists deal in "opinion," but that is not the case.

As for the flood, Earth age, and dinosaurs; I personally would not be confident enough to say "we know what is factual." I think we could have whole degree programs on all those topics so we will not solve them here and I certainly don't have all the answers on all those topics. We could quibble from now about how many animals Noah would have needed, how the ark could have been built soundly enough, fossils and carbon dating, etc. As I stated earlier, I think they are interesting topics to discuss but they are not essential for belief in God or Jesus or salvation. I seriously do not think (I may be wrong) God will ask us how old we thought the Earth was or if we thought dinosaurs and man lived together as a qualification test. John 3:16 gives a good summary of the essential tenets of Christianity. "God, love, begotten Son, belief, everlasting life."
 
Shaggy said:
@Iceagewhereartthou if there is so much proof god is real then why does religion require so much faith?
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I don't think I ever said there was "proof" and if did I shouldn't have (in fact, I've been pointing out the opposite to be intellectually honest). I think I have said I see a lot of evidence. Yes, it does require faith, but NOT blind faith. I consider myself a thinking person and have questioned and talked and researched and read and questioned again; heck it takes me weeks to decide what pillow or appliance to buy! We all have to decide what we believe when it comes to God. He either exists or He does not. I believe He exists as I see far more evidence that He does than that He does not.
 
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