Do You Believe in God?

Pretty much what you get sans an atheist. Plus a subscription to the Watchtower.

 

In my experience many Christians, Muslims, Jews also demonize all other religions. In every religion/non-religion there are many people who are close minded, and try to convince other people that their believe is the only correct one. Every now and then i get some annoying person at my door trying to teach me about the way of Christ. I always politely decline and tell them to go away. But it is annoying that they are bothering me with their believe system, let me enjoy my own believe system (or lack thereof).

From what you describe you just had discussions with the wrong Atheists. I have had many conversations with a good friend of mine who is a devout christian. we can have great conversations, based on the fact that we respect the others believe system and not try to ocnvince them that our system is the correct one. That being said I seldom have discussions about religion, since IMHO it is just a topic to close to the heart for many people, which causes problems.

The problem is that there is to much difference between Atheist to label them as one group. It is like saying you have people who do not believe in a god and people who believe in a god (and they can all be grouped in 2 group), there is to much difference between all the different religions to group them all together as 1 group. The only thing Atheist have in common is that they do not believe in a deity, besides that you cannot say anything about an atheist.

I disagree that atheists are materialists. I expect that you are American? Many Americans are materialists. So when you meet an American atheist, chances are they are also materialistic. For me the most important thing is that I’m happy with my choices, and that I’m happy with the person i have become. I have a clear view of what i believe to be good and not good. And I only life by my standards. I understand that might be scary for a religious person since you cannot read a holy book to see what i think is right and wrong behaviour. Most atheist i know are not more materialistic than the christians that i know.

 

There's a newer better version on Youtube taken from last year's Doobie tour (supporting a new album), but it won't embed.

Thought you would like the Midnight Special reference anyway ( I assume you are old enough to have watched in 1975)

 

Nothing, really. I am surprised this thread has stayed active this long.

 

Not unless the laws of nature change. Bad things happening to decent people would happen less if everyone was about love all the time and trying their best to make earth like it is in heaven.

Why would natural disasters ever completely disappear? I don't follow that as having anything to do with the bible.

 

Yes, the belief in a literal hell is a hard one to accept, but I don't believe that's ever what the bible is talking about. I know that one of the most prevalent words used which has been translated as hell refers to an actual place which was a refuse dump back in the time and place where the bible was written.

There's an interesting book which looks at the all the mentions of hell in the bible and studies them. It's called Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. It's written by someone with much more knowledge and study than I have and who's better explaining these ideas which are very similar to my own.

Basically I believe Hell is the separation from God (love). Not a place under the earth with the fire and brimstone.

You can also research about when Cotton Mathers made the fire and brimstone version of hell popular and why he did it. It wasn't really that big a part of anything the early Christians were too concerned about.

 

Which is fine. You don't have to believe in love if you don't want to. It's all up to you. I'm not someone who tries to beat people or threaten them with burning for eternity if they don't do certain things.

 

There is an implicit assumption in some of the responses that "thinking" creates "reality." To an extent that is true, but ultimately reality is outside of our mental constructions. In other words, God exists or doesn't exist despite what we think. It is not like if we all believe in Him, we create Him. He either is or He isn't.

 

Yep, best part of turning 60 this year is being 22 in 1975.

 

Happy birthday Rhester, don't see you on the board much any more. I took a big hit in 2011, but I came back and I am doing fairly well. How about you?

 

Here we go again, to say I don't believe in love is utterly bull crap. I don't believe in your God therefore I don't believe he's all that loving and caring, not even one bit. You are simply using your own religious beliefs to judge my morality, you know what its called? Asinine.

I'm pretty sure you wont try to beat/threaten anyone, but your God do. Your space daddy has threatened and murdered millions of people since the very first day he made the appearance to the holy story book --- and you are certainly better than the God you believe in as a person.

 

For some of things you just stated, I think it would be enormously better that it's up to interpretation and that it changes (my assumption is the newer interpretation is progress toward something better). And to some, it's clearly that. And to the institution of the church, it's doing some of that too.

I'm not a believer in the Bible or in the God of the other books / stories. I'm a believer of people. I'm a believer that Faith is not going to go away. So, I'm hanging onto a viewpoint that things will evolve for the better and the fundamentalists views will die off.

Side point - i actually don't know what the Bible said about Homosexuality and it sounds pretty bad from what you said. But I would like to think, it really doesn't matter if Religious folks will eventually "evolve" away from that viewpoint. Most sure have dropped the "stone" you to death. What's left when all the "silliness", "craziness", "bad" things are removed is... the GOOD STUFF that helps.

 

Thanks for your reply. I have a better understand, but it really doesn't address my thinking of how illogical it is (seems the mainstream view is hell exists - no problem and it's a final destination - yick)... I'm not sure if any answer other than either no, hell doesn't exists or ok, hell does exists but it's temporary would satisfy me. So let's just leave it.

 

So you would agree that the constant changing interpretation of God's word is more a reflection of an evolving sense of morality and justice than any actual adherence to God's word? There is a convenience to an evolving interpretation of God's word rather than a strict adherence.

 

No, it's not utter bull crap, since the God I believe in is love. That is the God I believe in, and you claimed you don't believe in the God I believe in.

Judge your morality? I never once said a thing about your morality one way or the other. Nor would I based on anything we've discussed. What I've said is that it doesn't bother me if don't believe what I believe. I don't think it makes you a bad person to believe differently than I do.

You are correct that I wouldn't try and beat or threaten anyone, and my God which is love wouldn't do that either.

What I've said all along is that I don't believe in God as a person or humanoid type being at all. What I've said is that I believe that God is Love. I've specifically said that I don't believe God is a space daddy, or person, or humanoid type being at all.

Either you believe in love or you don't. If you do, then you believe in the God I believe in. Sorry if that bothers you.

 

Yeah that's cool. There's actually a story in the bible where someone goes to hell and yet there's still talk about him communicating with God and how he can be redeemed etc.

I fully understand that my beliefs are not necessarily those of the mainstream. It's why I usually stay out of the atheist vs. Christianity threads as much as possible, because the arguments being made against Christianity don't reflect anything I believe as a Christian.

 

Franchise, I don't agree with you on many things but you are correct that God is love. That is why he sent his son to die for all the sins of mankind so that whoever shall believe in him shall not die but have everlasting life.

John 3:16-21

Ephesians 2:8-9