Religion

My main purpose is share my idea I do not wish to offend anyone, or put down any religion! Could god ever think of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire, if Johnny Cash never existed? Unless God's wisdom is infinite (which it often is cited to be, however for the sake of this post we will say it is finite), it would be impossible for him to think of this song, or any piece of art created by man, without first observing it from the artist. This is because art can be created through infinitely many forms (sculptures, paintings, etc) with infinite possibilities in each form, and each work of art can serve an infinite amount of purposes. Now, you may think... "well everything can be …

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25088960 http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/087/ant0871104.htm

Self Explanatory( I think)

What is the point of religion? What is Religion trying to express, with or without God? This is not a discussion on whether God exists or not, but rather, what God means to the people who believe, and the meaning, to the interested indviduals, of religion. And I have more questions, but for the religious who believe in God, or even Atheist opinions: how do you know God? What have you done to verify your belief?

Atheists are fond of saying that atheism is no more a religion that baldness is a hair color. But, this isn't exactly true. Strictly speaking atheism is the absence of belief in deities, not the total absence of religion. While most atheists are secular, couldn't one be religious if they're religion doesn't have any deities?

I come to these forums every now and again for expertise on field-specific topics and help understanding various concepts, but I also really enjoy hearing what the science community has to say about deeper, more contemplative subjects. I'm curious to hear what ya'll have to say about pantheism in particular. In your opinion, is it different from atheism? If so, how? Are agnostics really separate from atheists? Or are they just "nicer" about their lack of belief? I have my own opinions, mainly pertaining to how the deity in question is explicitly defined, but I'm very curious to see what you think. Cheers!

Nature is greater than God; Nature exists. Nature is omnipotent and omniscient; it is all and knows all. Without Nature we wouldn’t exist—we are Nature, Nature is us. It is wise to respect Nature, Nature is Godly. The disrespected natural heaven, once full of greatness, turns into a diseased inhabitable hell. Human kind marches on, wasting finite resources, and polluting the planet’s healthy environment for their future generations, and other Earth-life, to inherit. In the present, Nature is foolishly overlooked by many.

Hi in my opinion the New Atheism preached all over the globe by Richard Dawking, Hitchens( Died this yer) and many others is a religion, because it is based on faith not fact, and just like other religions out there, their gospel simply cannot be proved Alan

Imagination is potentially infinite; but limits are imposed on human beings; humans can only imagine that which they have sensed, or things that correspond to their sensed data. You may think of imagination as a demi-God; it’s not quite God, but possess God-potential. When dreams occur, our thoughts are created; when dreams occur our imagination is closer to being God. They say that sleep is the cousin of death. Is energy infinite? Am I a demi-God because I am trapped energy? If I was free energy, would I be Godly? The universe is energy and matter, therefore everything in the universe relates to each other. We are all energy and matter family. Everything has special re…

Christian symbol- the cross represents the images of a distant star ancient peopl. I right or not?

I know i probably sound like a broken record but the way i see it god does exist..... in the form of a sun. Not our sun, Probably a number of supermassive stars that existed billions if not trillions of years ago. As for jesus and other other sun god's that have existed throughout time they are all to do with the winter solstice and the sun to appear motionless from dec 22-dec 25th on the in the center of the southern cross. Hence the sun dies on the cross for 3 days, then is resurrected.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that the Bible is God's word. "Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee."-1Kings 22:23 Ok, so, that's God making other people lie. Let's see what else we have. The Bible goes on to make this deceived prophet thing a bit more clear: "And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel."-Ezekiel 14:9 So, if God's word says God lies, then how can we trust anything else it says?…

http://www.ucg.org/commentary/11-known-facts-about-premarital-sex/

Of the Atheists I know they all share a common trait. The belief that when you die you just die. No afterlife, no anything. You are just dead. Now the reason I bring this up is a Atheist is basing that belief off of faith. There is no proof that when you die, you just die. Rather death is still scientifically a phenomena. The idea that a atheist uses a faith based belief(Which that assertion is) astounds me. From a scientific view, that is exactly what it is. A belief that is based on a phenomena. Which for all practical purposes would be the same as a religion. Basing a set belief on a phenomena. With no proof. The other issue which contradicts that particular Ath…

Hello I am 14 and I simply am asking for Atheists opinions on this and what I am about to say. Since I am only 14 you can expect me not to be very knowledgable. But remember a kind can still have good points. I do not want to put any of you on the spot or offend anyone in any way. I am a strong believer in Christ, so I don't want to win an argument, I want to win souls. So to start off with we need to have some presuppositions. First, everyone in the discussion has to agree that all people operate with a set of starting assumptions. Nothing can be proven in the end. It is either faith in naturalistic science or faith in the science God created. Until then we can't ha…

If God created the Universe,Who created God. And does God have a beginning or an end.

So, my first runthrough of this idea went like this: 1)An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion unless a force acts upon it. 2)The force exerted on an object is equal in magnitude and direction to its time rate of change of momentum. 3)When one object exerts a force on another object, the second object exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction upon the first object. Now, the others come from what "soul" means and from basic neurobiology. Souls have not only have no spatial extent (what's the volume of your soul?), but also have no spatial location. "But my soul is in my body!" Oh? Where? Does it hide i…

This is inspired by a post made in the Theistic Scientists thread. There's been many threads in this forum that, although unique in their beginning, eventually devolve to a battle between factions of those wanting to debate for the existence of God/god/deity and those in opposition. This has caused a great degradation in the quality and continuity of intellectual debates. Many times these debates over the existence of god cause members to be banned (whether permanently or temporary) or cause the thread to be locked by the moderators. These debates generally come down to the lack of physical evidence of any such deity (to say nothing of mythical creatures). But in this…

The cornerstone of the problem is the definitions. The problem most here have with religion is that people accept an idea on faith. Folks may have personal experiences that lead them to believe in a higher power... But this is not repeatable at will, falsifiable, verifiable, etc. Thus, a matter of "faith" which, by definition, is not reasonable. Because there is no objective evidence for it. That being said.... Almost everyone here puts faith in something supernatural for which they have no tangible evidence, but which they believe is perfectly rational. How could a singularity with literally infinite gravity (at the very least, the combined masses of all black ho…

Can you at least have some respect to theists who have a scientific mind? I may be a Christian/Catholic, but I base scientific conclusions on scientific observations. Have some leniency here. Moderator note (swansont) I have split this off from the science's purpose is to explain God's creations thread as it ended up being a pretty sharp break from the other discussion, but was not clear exactly where the best split point was. Further, this is moved to Religion, since the basis of the discussion is not a claim consistent with Speculations

I'm aware that many members of this forum are non-religious (and atheistic to a greater depth). Generally, this group regards religion as uncorroborated claims and silly rituals. However, I had a thought, and so I ask, is it possible (from the secularist view) for there to be a reasonable religion? And can / will people like us willingly take part in it? Let's say an alien species makes contact with us, one that is relatively advanced both biologically and technologically; they are incredibly capable beings. The species intends no hostility or invasive harm, but it does hold some desire of sovereignty. They give us advanced technology, essential resources, longevity, …

Christian values? So keeping slaves is ok? Do you follow the commandments of the bible? all 613 of them?

When I went to my youth convention (during Christmas break) I really grew a lot in my faith. The first night I dedicated my Life to God, and was overwhelmed with peace/love and clarity. I let down my defenses and really started to love people. I didn't have to put up a front, I was just myself. The last day of the convention I had been watching youtube parodies. That night I didn’t feel the same, I wasn’t connecting, and I couldn’t feel his presence like I did the other nights. I began to think “maybe I don’t even know God” Just as I had that thought the speakers blew up really loud. People around me jokingly said “it’s a sign from God”, but it was. The second I denie…

People often change one variable of our universe and then claim that since the resulting universe is different than our universe, a god must exist to "fine tune" the parameters. I've argued for ages that this is incredibly bad analysis even forgetting the unjustified jump to gods. Now, I've stumbled upon a paper that shows that we can eliminate an entire fundamental force and come up with a universe like ours. Fine Tuning is dead.

Agree? Disagree? Discuss.