What does God mean to you?

[SciVille]

Here's what you've been waiting for, Yasha.

*takes deep breath*

We should all abandon this childishness of theism and decide there is no higher being, no reason for anything, and, while we're at it, let's ridicule the people who do believe in this God. If this God exists, where's my proof? Show me God exists! I'm an atheist now, and if you don't prove it to me, you're just an idiot following fairy tales about dividing seas and virgin births. Why should I believe the ambiguous ravings of some unknown prophets in some old, very fictional book? I'm smarter than you because I don't follow such nonsense. There is nothing after death. No souls. No higher purposes or spiritual rewards. No karma. No reason I couldn't steal from anyone or kill anyone I don't like. If the police don't catch me, hey, I'm fine! Nothing will happen to me. Those religious idiots use this evil talk to sway me around, but I'm not buying it. No way.

Hmmm...

Come to think of it, as an atheist, what possible reason could I have of bringing others into this belief? Why do I care one way or another if someone believes in God? Does it affect me? Instead, atheism seems to be completely devoid of spirituality and meaning, and it really isn't all that fulfilling and certainly not uplifting. Dark. Depressing. Believing in God and following Christianity promises a lot of nice things in exchange for being good. It's nice to know there's a higher being, actually, that, in a way, we're not just all alone here but there is some subtle guidance here and there. Bad things happen, but with God, you know there's a perfectly good reason. Faith gets tested, that's for sure. You hate God sometimes for letting horrible things happen to you, but, just like Job, you've got to keep your faith and soon enough it will all get better again. God, or at least the belief in Him, can keep you going even when everything has turned to shit. He's planning something. Ooh! What's He going to do next? Other times, He just seems to mess with you. Who says a deity can't have fun sometimes? How do you know God is somehow interacting with you? Because you know. It's not so much whether you recognize Him or not, because you will. It's whether or not you choose to ignore Him. Miracles occur all the time, whether or not they're readily noticeable. Look at Moses parting the Red Sea. There are some Russian scientists trying to say there's a perfectly logical reason the sea parted. Well, okay. Does God not exist then? Of course not! Look at the fact that, regardless of how it parted, it parted right when the Israelites had to get the hell out of Egypt. Look at the World Trade Center employee who caught a nasty cold the night of September 10, 2001, and had to miss work the next day. Look at a Jew hiding from the Nazis who happened to find a hiding place the Nazis completely overlooked. Look at the girls who heard a strange noise outside their house, stepped outside to investigate, and just after they left the house it exploded because some idiot dumped combustible materials down their drains (I sort of knew a family this happened to). It's not always that obvious, and usually isn't very obvious to more than a couple of people if not just one person. You could argue all of this was actually just lucky chance, and that may be true, but you could also argue that God controls lucky chance. He may make you go to the slot machine that will pay out the jackpot on the next coin. He may act through the creditor who decides to call off your debt or at least give you some more time to pay it up. A more classic example, He may act through the girl who decides to give the other half of her sandwich to the homeless man on the street who would otherwise not eat at all that day. Ever notice how good you feel after an act of kindness? That's how you know you did something right. Just like how rotten you feel when you're nasty to someone. That's how you know you did something wrong. Doing nothing at all can go either way, depends on the situation. There's also forgiveness. It feels great to forgive someone. Holding a grudge wastes so much energy. If you're sorry for what you've done if you've done something wrong, God will forgive and you're again on your way to a heavenly afterlife. Here it gets tricky. What are heaven and hell? Let's call them two hypothetical post-mortem planes. How they differ is a mystery. Is heaven an amusement park you get to go to and hell is a cage just outside where you have to watch others have fun for all eternity? Are heaven and hell both the amusement park, but only "heaven" is the most fun roller coaster in the place? Or are heaven and hell the same, that when you die, St. Peter lets you in saying "oh, come on, everyone in, you all gave it the old college try." Then there's the notion that heaven and hell do not exist and there is nothing after death or perhaps reincarnation. Maybe whatever happens in the afterlife is just whatever you expect during life. You expect to go to heaven, you'll go to heaven. You expect to spend eternity inside a gigantic mushroom with a talking squirrel, you got it. You expect nothing, nothingness forever for you. If you want to be reincarnated, you will. Take your pick, each option is as possible as the last. As far as we know, God says we get to go to heaven if we're good and hell if we're not. The Bible may be hard to rely on at times, but there are some pretty decent guidelines for "good". Take your pick which book(s) and/or testament(s). Seems pretty free-for-all. Some rules are a little hard to follow and at best ambiguous, but let's look at Jesus. Love thy neighbor, He said. Judge not lest ye be judged. Love thy God. He who is without sin shall cast the first stone. There are also rules against murder, infidelity, dishonesty, theft, and a few other tidbits. All in all, it's a pretty nice way to live, even if the rewards are beyond a conceivable future. There are other rewards, like the aforementioned good feelings when you make a right choice, and there may well be plenty of right choices. A married man denying an affair with another woman. A boy who steals his father's watch but then returns it of his own accord with an apology. A girl deciding against abortion, bears a healthy baby she loves with all her heart, works hard to support herself and the child, and many years later when he's grown and getting married and having children of his own, she realizes just how wonderfully he turned out, how it was all worth it. How about the guy who gets so very angry with someone that he gets as far as planning the disposal of this person's body and is hiding in the bushes with a knife, and, suddenly, realizes he could never go through with taking the life of a fellow human. I don't care if this all sounds really corny! It's not afterlife, but you feel good right then for a deed or lack thereof. Truth is, no, we don't know what happens after death. All we know is that we will die, and it doesn't hurt to die a good person. Nor does it hurt to be a good person until then. Don't let the "unholy" actions of those around you deter you from your own salvation or whatever. All in all, there are some personal rewards and penalties to some of the things we do in our day to day lives. Are we making the right choices? Well, we can hope. If you honestly mean to make right choices, God knows that. It counts for you. And finally, for the atheists, a group I would never want to be one of, why not add some meaning to your life? Doesn't have to be Christianity. There's plenty of perfectly good religions that work about the same way. Buddhism is good, too. By the way, the simple question of "why not add some meaning to your life" by which I meant via faith in God, is pretty much the only "requirement" of encouraging others to join. None of that Crusades, Gulag school, fundamentalist, separatist, coercion bullshit. Just a simple "door's still open if you're interested" sort of thing. Anyway, returning to the point, even if you're so sure there are no post-life rewards or penalties or anything, isn't it so much nicer to have people who do decide against murder or theft, those who would for whatever reason rather take your insults light-heartedly instead of punching you in the face? Isn't it nicer to at least believe there is so much more to the universe than what we see, that there may be some underlying entity watching over everything kindly? If you choose to be "realistic" and decide the belief in a loving God is silly and stupid and that believers in God are inherently insane, that is your business and your right. But, I'll tell you!, I wouldn't want to be sane!

*steps off pulpit*

[Bongermann]

Instead, atheism seems to be completely devoid of spirituality and meaning, and it really isn't all that fulfilling and certainly not uplifting. Dark. Depressing. Believing in God and following Christianity promises a lot of nice things in exchange for being good.

Life is what you make of it. Aside from mental illness, you are the reason you are happy or sad. You want sadness, look at the deaths caused by religion and people who go into wars because people dont agree with them. Beleiving in god, well thats like believing in god promises that you will be horribly depressed and feel shame when you fulfill a natural human desire, that may in the end, benefit you and others. It ensures that, even though everyone will make a 'mistake' once, you will feel sadness and disgust at yourself. If you attempt to disprove the last remark, you, by the strictest sense of following your religion, are not a very good follower. And as for your remark of a loving god: I dont have the time right now, but I can pull a few verses from your bible and show you that your god does not, in fact, have all love for everyone. Then again, you can pull a remark as such saying that "everyone has their own interpretation". Which further supports me as saying that it is a fallacy. There are passages in your bible that go against each other, ones that preach hate, and assuredly ones that will go against some "morals" that many have. Even Christians.

[SciVille]

Are you talking Old Testament or New Testament? No offense to anyone, but even I think the OT is pretty friggin' scary. But, by all means, what are these passages? I'm curious.

[XavierAKadafi]

Hmmm...haven't noticed.

I'm sorry, I've been to several churches and seen it in all of them...

Gella, I'm not claiming that it's like that in all church parking lots.. I'm saying that it seems to be rather common. Just like I'll never claim that all christians are moronic fools who deserve shot in the face.. No, only the bad ones who run around screaming that we should kill this and that and we have to protect the children, so use the government..


----

Katrina, you really don't want me to counter-argue that, but tomorrow.. You will have a very long in depth picking apart of every word you wrote....

On another note, that card doesn't always work. If as Alex said, "Jesus also said to follow all the old rules as well" is true, then, guess what.. That completely justifies the old testament.. Whether it is old or new testament, it is still part of your religion. One of which you do support.. You may or may not follow the old testament, that is your choice, but that does not make it part of the religion, none-the-less.

Now, I'm going to shut up so tomorrow I can hammer into you on your post you made previously.

[SciVille]

Gella, I'm not claiming that it's like that in all church parking lots.. I'm saying that it seems to be rather common. Just like I'll never claim that all christians are moronic fools who deserve shot in the face.. No, only the bad ones who run around screaming that we should kill this and that and we have to protect the children, so use the government..

Yes! Thank you! Those are the misled jerk-offs I can't stand!

The following is in my Away Message rotation (used to be in my AIM profile):

Judge not lest ye be judged.
-Matthew 7:1 (That's right, it says in the Bible, said by Jesus Christ Himself at the Sermon on the Mount, that you should NOT judge others. Therefore, these people, especially those who might call themselves good Christians, who decide to ridicule or persecute you for your lifestyle or whatever else, are committing a sin themselves. God understands and forgives you. The jerk-off shoving ambiguous Old Testament passages down your throat ought to watch out for his own soul.)

[SciVille]

Now, I'm going to shut up so tomorrow I can hammer into you on your post you made previously.

Oh, my. How wonderful. I'm just leaping for joy in anticipation.

Ah, screw it. I grow weary of these religious threads. Too controversial for my tastes.

[XavierAKadafi]

Oh, my. How wonderful. I'm just leaping for joy in anticipation.

Ah, screw it. I grow weary of these religious threads. Too controversial for my tastes.

if you hadn't mocked atheism, I'd let your post be; however, you did.. So, now I point out every flaw to your logic.

[Azadi]

Katrina, do you think that someone has to believe in God in order to be motivated to live a good life?

[SciVille]

Azadi: No. I'm just saying if that's someone's reason for leading a good life is God, what's wrong with that?

[SciVille]

Oh, and don't waste your time, Xavier. I won't read it. Don't care. Let's just all agree to disagree. I seriously doubt we're trying to convert anybody here, and back and forth jabs at any impenetrable belief-system, regardless of how logical or illogical, are a waste of time and bandwidth.

[Anduwaithe]

Katrina: We should all renounce our respective faiths (or lack thereof) and follow the teachings of the dancing banana, anyway.

[XavierAKadafi]

I'm not replying to convert everybody..

You insulted me, now, I have to make you look like an idiot.. 7 hours until I jump on it..

[KPalicz]

Katrina:

Xav: I don't know what kind of bad experiences you've had, but you're a fool for letting it color your whole perception of a people. All my experiences with Christians (real Christians who take their faith seriously) is they are the most compassionate, loving, thoughtful people I've ever met. (honestly they get on my nerves they are so nice). And she insulted you? Gimmie a break. With how ever other post of yours you are saying how you want to kill Christians and how you hate Christians, etc etc. Well maybe its time you are insulted, because you are an anti-Christian bigot.

[Kev]

Katrina, how can you call yourself a Christian when you said in the last part of your post that any religion is O.K. and it doesn't have to be Christianity. Jesus himself said, "I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the father except by me." In this day and age of moral relativism it is sometimes difficult to defy the norm and stand up for what you believe in, but it's right. Being Buddist, Hindue, Wiccan, Satanist, or any other religion including Mormonism is just as bad as being an Athiest. It breaks my heart to see all the people who are pursuing thier own desires and ignoring God. You dont have to go to hell. By nature humans are sinful, it's our nature. When Adam and Eve sinned God could no longer look at us because we were sinful. Therefor he sent his son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins and take upon himself the burden of all wee'd done and all that we would do in order to rreinstate our communication with God. How can imperfect humans make thier own way to get to a perfect heaven? The answere is they can't. Christianity is the only way to heaven. And even if you are a Jew who is 8000000000000000000000000000000 times as good as mother teresa at helping people and doing good things you are still gooing to hell. Please don't let this happen to any of you because I would hate to have any of my friends rot in hell forever and I look forward to a heaven where YOuth do have rights and age is not important because weve got eternity in paradise.

[XavierAKadafi]

You're right, Alex.. I hate the common christian, and I would love to kill off the religion.. However, I've always said that I have the utmost respect for those of you who are christian and don't force your views on others and don't act like the rest of the world is sinful beings of hell because they aren't christian, which includes Katrina, and yourself... How, may I ask, is thtat an insult? Now, she feels my wrath:

We should all abandon this childishness of theism and decide there is no higher being, no reason for anything, and, while we're at it, let's ridicule the people who do believe in this God. If this God exists, where's my proof? Show me God exists! I'm an atheist now, and if you don't prove it to me, you're just an idiot following fairy tales about dividing seas and virgin births. Why should I believe the ambiguous ravings of some unknown prophets in some old, very fictional book? I'm smarter than you because I don't follow such nonsense. There is nothing after death. No souls. No higher purposes or spiritual rewards. No karma. No reason I couldn't steal from anyone or kill anyone I don't like. If the police don't catch me, hey, I'm fine! Nothing will happen to me. Those religious idiots use this evil talk to sway me around, but I'm not buying it. No way.

I'm going to ignore your blatant and ignorant mockery of my religion.. However, Please hope that if you ever think of insulting it again, I will go uber christian mockery on you.. And, as I treated Sufferagist.. I'm not pretty when I'm mad..

Hmmm...

Come to think of it, as an atheist, what possible reason could I have of bringing others into this belief? Why do I care one way or another if someone believes in God? Does it affect me?

Nobody here is trying to get you to not believe in god. We are simply arguing our religions, why we believe in them, and the reasoning behind it...

Instead, atheism seems to be completely devoid of spirituality and meaning, and it really isn't all that fulfilling and certainly not uplifting. Dark. Depressing.

Possibly, to you.. But I know this. I have one life.. It ends after my life ends.. It's gone, and over.. Why not live it to its fullest? Oh wait, because there's a chance that a god might exist and I'll be punished if I don't act the way the bible tells me to. So, I have too options, Live and enjoy my life to the fullest extent I can, or restrict myself to not commiting 'sins' so that if your god exists, then I don't burn in hell for the rest of eternity.. Atheism is devoud spirituality, but it is far from dark, depressing, and void of meaning. It has plenty of meaning, Why the hell do you want to live your life restricted? All I see in the bible is restrictions.. If you do this, you burn in hell. If you do that, you burn in hell. If you don't act this way, you burn in hell..Yeah, that's one great religion there.. Answer me this, Katrina... Why would I want to restrict my life and live in fear of doing bad things and burning in hell because of them?

Believing in God and following Christianity promises a lot of nice things in exchange for being good.

Being good? Oh, I'm sorry, taking the life of men who do not follow your religion is very good, right? Thats not christianity, thats the old testament, right? Crusades? Who did the crusades? It surely wasn't the jews.

It's nice to know there's a higher being, actually, that, in a way, we're not just all alone here but there is some subtle guidance here and there. Bad things happen, but with God, you know there's a perfectly good reason.

Good to know that there's a higher being, that doesn't exist. Oh wait, I can't prove he/she/is doesn't exist.. And you can't prove that he/she/it does. Well then, if you say that because you can't disprove something's existance, then it does exist; think about this:

There is an invisible purple monkey flying around my room right now. Only I can see it. Do you believe in the existance of this purple monkey? Prove it doesn't exist. This invisible purple flying monkey speaks profecies to me and is telling me how to live a happy and joyous life. You can't prove he isn't.. Now, I'm going to write a boook and try to get people to follow me and this invisible purple flying monkey...

And, then, I'll get thrown in the nut-house.

We're not all alone here.. We have other people, and very few of them.. Thats all you get.. What subtle guidance? There's perfectly good reason to all bad things happening, and it's all just a message sent by god? It's all just a test of faith, right? Well, you said that, so it must be.. Well, if your all trusting, and all forgiving god must test my faith, then I guess that makes plenty of sense.. I mean, all you have to do is say that you're sorry for your sins and mean it and he's to forgive you, yet he still has to test the faith of those who've never commited serious sins.

How can your all mighty being create man and ask man to be faithful no matter what and not question his existence when he questions your faith? If your god exists, how is it that he/she is so great, then..

Let bush fuck shit up for everybody while he's president... Guess what happens.. He's impeached, and people hate him. But according to your thinking, your god fucks shit up and you're to put more faith in him for help? Smart...

Faith gets tested, that's for sure. You hate God sometimes for letting horrible things happen to you, but, just like Job, you've got to keep your faith and soon enough it will all get better again. God, or at least the belief in Him, can keep you going even when everything has turned to shit.

What about the people whose jobs are going to the shitter then they get laid off? You're right, the belief in god can keep you going even when everything has turned to shit.. Well, this dark and depressing atheist can keep going because of his own confidence in himself.. Seems to me that you're all dependant and leaning on this great holy diety for supprt.. Why can't you stand on your own two feet?

He's planning something. Ooh! What's He going to do next? Other times, He just seems to mess with you. Who says a deity can't have fun sometimes? How do you know God is somehow interacting with you? Because you know. It's not so much whether you recognize Him or not, because you will. It's whether or not you choose to ignore Him. Miracles occur all the time, whether or not they're readily noticeable.

Why does everything have to be explained as a miracle and an act of god? Why can't it just be pure chance that things fell the way they do.

I'm a strong believer in free-will, but I also have a belief of destiny.

If I use my free-will to choose to go to school on a day that another kid uses his/her free will to choose to come to school with a gun and shoot at people. Then it's destiny that I'm going to be involved in a school shooting. If I'm in the hall where he starts shooting and I get hit.. Through free will of his choice and my choice, destiny occurs that I get shot. I'm sorry, I'm a very logical person; logic would say that my interpretation of destiny being designated by the enviorment around you and the choices of others, not a great diety. Of course, it's your choice of what you believe.. But, don't you dare make my religious beliefs out to be stupid because mine makes far greater sense than some all powerful holy being..

Look at Moses parting the Red Sea. There are some Russian scientists trying to say there's a perfectly logical reason the sea parted. Well, okay. Does God not exist then? Of course not! Look at the fact that, regardless of how it parted, it parted right when the Israelites had to get the hell out of Egypt.

Prove that moses parted the red sea? Hell, Shit gets changed when it's passed from person to person.. Moses could have blown in a bowl of red soup and it parted partially while the israelites found a way to cross it. Whose to say there wasn't a drought and the waters weren't parted, but dried up.. Then, when they finished crossing, the water came back down.

Look at the World Trade Center employee who caught a nasty cold the night of September 10, 2001, and had to miss work the next day.

Okay, if that's some act of god, then you're insane.. She came in contact with the virus that caused that cold which made her sick. Viruses, and germs are all around us.. Just because she got sick from one the day before 9/11 doesn't make it some miracle.

Look at a Jew hiding from the Nazis who happened to find a hiding place the Nazis completely overlooked.

The nazi's chose to overlook that place, and that jew happened to be hiding there... Question, why does that have to be an act of god, why can't it be an act of stupidity on the nazis, whom didn't thouroughly search the area?

Look at the girls who heard a strange noise outside their house, stepped outside to investigate, and just after they left the house it exploded because some idiot dumped combustible materials down their drains (I sort of knew a family this happened to).

An animal couldn't have knocked down something in the woods which they heard, and just by coincidence they were outside when the house blew up? Why does it always have to be some act of a great holy diety?

[XavierAKadafi]

It's not always that obvious, and usually isn't very obvious to more than a couple of people if not just one person. You could argue all of this was actually just lucky chance, and that may be true, but you could also argue that God controls lucky chance.

Sure, if you want to believe in god, then you can think that god controls lucky chance, but why does it have to be a miracle?

He may make you go to the slot machine that will pay out the jackpot on the next coin.

Whatever happened to free will?

He may act through the creditor who decides to call off your debt or at least give you some more time to pay it up.

Why does the kind-heartedness of another person have to suddenly be an act of god? The free will of that person chose to do that, not your all mighty god.

A more classic example, He may act through the girl who decides to give the other half of her sandwich to the homeless man on the street who would otherwise not eat at all that day. Ever notice how good you feel after an act of kindness? That's how you know you did something right.

It's common in human emotion to be happy from making others happy.. It's how many describe love and claim it's falsitity. It's not because you did something right. It's because you saw that person smile because of what you did. It's an ego boost. Or, it could just be self-righteousness. Whatever it may be, it's not that way so that you'll follow the way god wants you to be. Of course, you can feel free to believe it.

Just like how rotten you feel when you're nasty to someone. That's how you know you did something wrong.

II feel very good some times when I do nasty things to people.. It makes me feel very good to see them suffer.. Maybe, I just don't like their character and them being miserable makes me happy. I sometimes enjoy seeing predominantly happy hyper people with that always cheerful voice to be in a bad mood. It reminds me that they're human, and that everybody has problems.. I love pissing off people who piss me off.. It makes me very happy. It felt incredibly good to make Sufferagist feel like an idiot on "IT'S AN OUTRAGE" thread in voting. That was something nasty, why did it feel good?

Doing nothing at all can go either way, depends on the situation. There's also forgiveness. It feels great to forgive someone. Holding a grudge wastes so much energy.

It feels better for me to hold a grudge on times.. Then I can rub shit in their face without a care when they fuck up.

If you're sorry for what you've done if you've done something wrong, God will forgive and you're again on your way to a heavenly afterlife.

If your god believes that you're truly sorry when you say it, why does he have to test to see if you truly believe in him when you say it?

Here it gets tricky. What are heaven and hell? Let's call them two hypothetical post-mortem planes. How they differ is a mystery. Is heaven an amusement park you get to go to and hell is a cage just outside where you have to watch others have fun for all eternity? Are heaven and hell both the amusement park, but only "heaven" is the most fun roller coaster in the place? Or are heaven and hell the same, that when you die, St. Peter lets you in saying "oh, come on, everyone in, you all gave it the old college try." Then there's the notion that heaven and hell do not exist and there is nothing after death or perhaps reincarnation.

Okay, heaven and hell.. Lets look at this for just one moment.. Lucifer was condemned to hell for attempting to overthrow god, and he is to burn for an eternity. Now, if Lucifer is so against god, why would he punish those who commit sins rather than glorify them and attempt to use the condemned souls to try and overthrow god again? If I'm not mistaken, Lucifer is in control of hell; however, I may be wrong.

Maybe whatever happens in the afterlife is just whatever you expect during life. You expect to go to heaven, you'll go to heaven. You expect to spend eternity inside a gigantic mushroom with a talking squirrel, you got it. You expect nothing, nothingness forever for you. If you want to be reincarnated, you will. Take your pick, each option is as possible as the last. As far as we know, God says we get to go to heaven if we're good and hell if we're not. The Bible may be hard to rely on at times, but there are some pretty decent guidelines for "good". Take your pick which book(s) and/or testament(s).

You mean like the punishment for rape is you have to marry the woman and you're not permitted sex for 2 weeks? Seems to me like religion is indefinitly the original form of government and we're using the scriptures of these early governments to follow a god.. Could a king be called a god? Why not? Yes, that punishment does come from the bible, I heard it from a reliable source who read the bible 2x in his spare time. Why? He's uber christian.. Of course, you can't hold that into account, but hey, what if peopple follow it? Are they fucked up? yes.. Well, they shouldn't be according to you because they're following guidelines of goodness. Or wait, condeming those of different religion and/or race is a guideline of goodness in your bible.. Does that make it right? Well, are you going to punish those who kill negros, and druids/wiccans for being different.. Why? They're following a guideline to goodness. Guidelines of goodness come from the emotions you feel as natural instinct, not some scriptures written in a book.

Seems pretty free-for-all. Some rules are a little hard to follow and at best ambiguous, but let's look at Jesus. Love thy neighbor, He said. Judge not lest ye be judged. Love thy God. He who is without sin shall cast the first stone. There are also rules against murder, infidelity, dishonesty, theft, and a few other tidbits. All in all, it's a pretty nice way to live, even if the rewards are beyond a conceivable future.

I'll never claim Jesus was a bad man; I believe he saw the evil in the old testament and tried to correct upon it. I don't believe he was the son of your holy diety, but more so a wise man.

There are other rewards, like the aforementioned good feelings when you make a right choice, and there may well be plenty of right choices. A married man denying an affair with another woman. A boy who steals his father's watch but then returns it of his own accord with an apology. A girl deciding against abortion, bears a healthy baby she loves with all her heart, works hard to support herself and the child, and many years later when he's grown and getting married and having children of his own, she realizes just how wonderfully he turned out, how it was all worth it. How about the guy who gets so very angry with someone that he gets as far as planning the disposal of this person's body and is hiding in the bushes with a knife, and, suddenly, realizes he could never go through with taking the life of a fellow human. I don't care if this all sounds really corny!

And why does all of this have to be this way because of your god rather than just natural human emotion and instinct?

It's not afterlife, but you feel good right then for a deed or lack thereof. Truth is, no, we don't know what happens after death. All we know is that we will die, and it doesn't hurt to die a good person. Nor does it hurt to be a good person until then. Don't let the "unholy" actions of those around you deter you from your own salvation or whatever.

But wait, the actions of others when it causes good is a miracle, but when it's negative, it's the person's free will choice? It does hurt to die before you believe that you've fullfilled your life.. Why restrict it because of religion?

All in all, there are some personal rewards and penalties to some of the things we do in our day to day lives. Are we making the right choices? Well, we can hope. If you honestly mean to make right choices, God knows that. It counts for you. And finally, for the atheists, a group I would never want to be one of, why not add some meaning to your life? Doesn't have to be Christianity. There's plenty of perfectly good religions that work about the same way. Buddhism is good, too. By the way, the simple question of "why not add some meaning to your life" by which I meant via faith in God, is pretty much the only "requirement" of encouraging others to join.

Why do we have to follow some god or a religion to have meaning in our lives? This is rather insulting and demeaning.. How would you like it if I said you have no meaning in your life because you're just being carried along by a false hope? Wouldn't like it much, would you?

None of that Crusades, Gulag school, fundamentalist, separatist, coercion bullshit. Just a simple "door's still open if you're interested" sort of thing. Anyway, returning to the point, even if you're so sure there are no post-life rewards or penalties or anything, isn't it so much nicer to have people who do decide against murder or theft, those who would for whatever reason rather take your insults light-heartedly instead of punching you in the face? Isn't it nicer to at least believe there is so much more to the universe than what we see, that there may be some underlying entity watching over everything kindly?

[Yasha]

They may have been the most compassionate people you've personally ever met, but I've met plenty of Buddhists, Jews, and others who are equally compassionate. I think it has more to do with the personal interpretation that these people lend themselves to than to the religion itself. Although to ignore that there is a wealth of substantive tradition pointing in that direction embedded within those religions is to ignore reality. I do understand those who somewhat harshly (and sometimes blindly) reject the value of Christianity or Judaism or whatever just because they correctly recognize that the whole of its history, heritage, theology, and practice may not be as rosy as some of us would focus on.

Too many people are too simplistic in their reductionist tendancies toward religious thought of any kind. It would be better to recognize that the way someone practices something is just as much a part of the religion as is the variety of possible interprations of its holy writ.

[XavierAKadafi]

I'll give the religions one thing... They do make murder to be bad... that's all you'll get from me.. Punch me in the face, and I'll punch you back.. Why does that have to be because of religion that they take it light-heartedly? Why does there have to be more? Why do you need to believe that there is more to make yourself feel better?

If you choose to be "realistic" and decide the belief in a loving God is silly and stupid and that believers in God are inherently insane, that is your business and your right. But, I'll tell you!, I wouldn't want to be sane!

Good for you, that's your choice, but never again will you insult my religion and get this kind-hearted non-insulting reply.

[Yasha]

It would be nice if we could get back to asking what the question of God means, rather than having the discussion about whether religion has value here. That's what the other thread about Which Religion Embrace, Blah, Blah, Blah is for.

[Azadi]

That was very convincing Kev.

Actually, no it wasn't.

I'm very sorry that this is your belief system Kev, and I have to be honest... I'm very glad that I do not subscribe to anything similar.

Now why don't we try to bring this thread back on-0topic, as Jason suggested?