I've never felt comfortable in Churches. I guess it's because I've never really believed and I feel like a fraud in Church going through the motions, it just doesn't resonate with me.
I sort of wish it did, some religious communities are so wonderfully close and it must be great to have the level of support each member has in times of hardship.
Belief without proof is just insane. But Judah/Christian religions hold up an antique book copied, embellished, expunged of gospels that didn't toe the line and mistranslated numerous times, claim it as evidential proof and tell you that you have to have faith that every word is the gospel truth even in the face of scientific proof it's wrong.
Yes we have multiple independent contemporary accounts of Jesus but we can't verify his claims to being the son of God. Also for Herod the Great and many other biblical persons and places.
Oldest text on David and Goliath has him as being "four cubits and a span" (6 ft 9 in or 2.06 m). Just a tall man believably within current range of sizes for humans but he somehow in later texts grew to "six cubits and a span" (9 ft 9 in or 2.97m) about 9% more than any verified human (who was something around a 6 sigma outlier).
We have no collaborated evidence of miracles being performed by anyone EVER.
How about adding
Quantum entanglement?
And the fact we can actually ****ing use it to make Quantum computers.
Now that is spooky.
So if someone's belief gave them comfort in difficult times you would tell them they were insane?
Have you proven for and to yourself that the earth is round, or have you chosen to believe it?
I've flown over the North Pole to San Francisco and returned West to East and got back to the UK.
Its hard to see how that could happen if it wasn't reasonably spherical.
That's a whole different issue. No I wouldn't but that doesn't stop them being a fruit cake. The Romans didn't like being told by Christians that they were wrong to worship every god (including the emperor) or spirit at every shrine they came across.
I've been to the Shetland Isles for Simmer Dim rally and seen 24 hours of daylight. That can't happen unless the earth is a tilted sphere.
Some Greeks knew it was a sphere and measured it when they annexed Egypt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes
No one that flew on Concorde cried foul.
We would all be quite sick if we were on a flat earth that had to gyrate to make the stars follow the path they do.
That was the point I was making, even if we think someone is wrong to believe in god, we're going to have a hard time proving that they are a fruitcake.
However much "proof" you post you have still chosen to believe the evidence that the world is round.
Essentially you cannot prove a negative - generally speaking.
The other side of that coin is the burden of proof is on the one pushing their belief as fact.
To get out of this they say they do not need proof, as they have faith, and that's good enough for them.
This leads to the problem of proof being needed for a non-believer, but a believer is never going to offer any and doesn't need any. This gives us the impasse we have.
For me logic says that if you would like to change the point of view of somebody you ought to be able to provide them with an evidence based logical argument to do so, otherwise how can you reasonable expect change. If you present only anecdote then you cannot expect much movement.
The way of life I can see as an easier sell, as although some belief certainly will help, it's not essential to adopt an appealing way of life and become part of a community.
Proof of god exists in many peoples accounts of when they die and are brought back to life, many accounts on youtube. One particular guy was in a coma for a while and what he experienced is fascinating
Also many accounts of people recalling previous lives, i.e reincarnation.
Based on what I have seen and read I think there is an after life and a God, but no religion has got it right in my opinion, they use God and his name to further their agenda. Jesus said dont worship me and Budha said don't worship me, but what do they do, they worship the heck out of them. Religion has some good points but then idiots twist words in the bible or other religious texts to manipulate and control people.
We are here because we have choosen to be, we decide. In this reality we are oblivous of previous lives or memories in the most part so we can live a life a new, discover ourselves again, have relationships and experiment with who and what we want to be. There's no rules, no agenda, no fate.
When I meet religious people, I'm always interested to hear why they believe and I wouldn't dream of telling them they were wrong but equally I'm not interested in hearing why their religion is right, just why it's right for them.
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It is interesting you say that. We have 3 main religions with fundamentally different beliefs Christianity, Islam and Judaism but they all worship the same god.
The primary function of religion is social control. You don't have to be religious to believe in a higher order. On one hand you have religion. At opposite ends of the spectrum, you have simulation hypothesis, where reality is one big computer simulation. What would you call the programmer, if you didn't call it god? Was this planet seeded by Aliens of a far higher intelligence? Would they be called gods?
Maybe humanity is just a virus attacking a cell we call earth in a greater being that doesn't even know the humans are there except she feels a bit under the weather.
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How the f**k would I know ? It might be a giant hermaphrodite....then it could go f**k itself
A computer simulation would be cool, I suppose the programmer would be God if he/she could pull of an entire universe. I just don't buy the random big bang theory, its all circumstance and that's it, not sure.
could be true.
We are tiny small compared to some stuff.
Near death experiences are an interesting one, along with out of body experiences.
For example if you're a Christian and you have a near death experience, or come back from the dead, you almost certainly report a Christian experience.
If you are another religion, it's the same story - it tends to reflect and support your beliefs.
As these beliefs are different, and disagree, who is right?
Also all aspects of near death experience and out of body experience can and have been replicated with drugs... And blinded tests on out of body experience have shown then to be a figment of the imagination.
For example some playing cards sat on top of a cupboard next to beds in emergency rooms - when asked people who had the experience never knew they were there - or were able to say which card(s) were there.
This is a good listen / watch:
https://youtu.be/h0YtL5eiBYw
Last edited by Evilchap; 06-02-2017 at 21:35.
Apparently people have experiences that are a inline with their belief structures but all of that changes as your soul/spirit gets used to being away from physical world.
Religion has somethings right, love one another, dont hurt each other, but then to say "if you don't believe in my God you are going to hell" is just flat out wrong, I just can't get on board with that. No god would ever damn those who worshipped in the wrong way. Total b*llsh*t imo
Not heard of drugs to have out of body experiences unless you mean things like Ayahuasca or dmt? Don't know too much about the whole shaman thing...
I have NDEs all time time, mainly when on a major sesh or when there is a wummin bus driver.