Pad, Your belief that your mother loves you is the direction I was trying to nudge you in.How would you propose I do that?
Define 'love', first.
I know what you're getting at. "if you can't prove love, and you believe in it, why not God?"
The answer is, a whole host of tangible reasons.
all religions are dysfunctional,and have been for thousand of years. take christainty for example there is no where in old testament thats speaks of some one name jesus coming to save the world...also something else thats kinda of strange is the lie that satan said to eve, which was ..Gen 3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: Gen 3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.All I see is a bunch of God-bashing, monkey-metamorphisis, space alien, crazy-ass beliefs, on here, and being a minister of the Universal Life Church, I'm almost tempted to roll up shop and go elsewhere... Just wondering... Little bit of a check here.... I am tolerant of anyones beliefs, but there is a great in-tolerance of anything Christian I ever say when people talk about their far-fetched, man-made, dreamed up concoctions of science and sci-fi, and whatever... Whatever happenned to just believing that Christ died for our sins, and that God created everything, including cannabis, which is clearly pointed out, and spoken HIGHLY of many times in The Bible? Anyone? Seriously, anyone?
all religions are dysfunctional,and have been for thousand of years. take christainty for example there is no where in old testament thats speaks of some one name jesus coming to save the world...also something else thats kinda of strange is the lie that satan said to eve, which was ..Gen 3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: Gen 3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
Gen 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
Joh 11:26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? this person called jesus said this one
But, there is something in the brain that can experience what seems to me to be unvarnished Joy. Unvarnished in that it exists outside causality somehow. It's not "I feel joy, because.." of some event in the "objective." But rather it seems to nautrally be present when I can let the mind cloud drift off and talk on. But, it's no longer is talking to me and I'm not listening. So, just saying, without woo, I wish that word, Joy, was not taken by religion.Love is a chemical reaction in the brain. It has absolutely nothing to do with Religion/Christianity.
Of course there are christians on RIU, some of my favs are Eye Exaggerate, Hep, Oly and another new guy with a monkey as an avatar who I think is also christian. They are all intelligent and participate in good debates. We have no problem with their faith, because they do not present it as fact, merely their belief. Any claims posted as reality that cannot stand up to simple logic and scrutiny, or has no empirical evidence, does get bashed here and that's a beautiful thing. It indicates that we are making progress as a species. Belief without evidence is fine, but it won't be taken seriously in this sub-forum...
don't take this as me being mean to christians, take this as a challenge to your beliefs, as beliefs unchallenged are weak beliefs.
so, a talking snake gives a magic apple to a rib woman, a floating ether impregnates a human female, who then gives birth to a zombie that can defy physics, and this seems like not only an appealing story to believe in, but infallible as it is the word of god?
wow, just wow.
Maybe God is not so candy coated. Maybe we assume God cares. Maybe this is all a illusionary construct and only men are good and evil. Religion does not define God.reliegion is belief of something with no scientific evidence. love is a feeling you have for someone.
i have always wondered why christians do not eccept the evidence of evolution. and if god creates everything why would he create bad things. like terrorists and people who have the will power to create killing machines or people who lie to the whole united states to take them to war.
God has never said anything to anybody. I, sometimes, wish IT would. Most times, not.God believer, Christ saved, and Marijuana smoker...
And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. (Genesis 1:29, KJV)
Wrong Monkey, I think my monkey's name was mudminer. All you monkeys look alike to meHEY! If you're referring to this monkey, I'm a card carrying atheist!
I feel insulted, Tyler!
...Christian communities do not represent Christian community. Think like the sun - Feel like the earth <---there's communityI believe in God, Jesus, the Bible, etc. I'm afraid I don't identify as a "Christian" only because I know my behavior doesn't always represent the Christian community very well so I don't think I necessarily deserve the title. But i'm a believer if that makes sense. I try to behave best I can.
...what is magic?i think if santa is fake, god has to be as well.. magic just doesn't happen.
Paraphrasing Aurthur C. Clarke, it's sufficiently advanced technology. We really have to give Self more credit. We are sitting here in the most advanced technology, the human body. It is tech beyond understanding or belief. New discoveries are made constantly, the epi-genome, for example., It is still as mysterious as it ever was. And we sit, not as meat, but consciousness riding meat. If we strip out all belief, we have sufficiently advanced technology called consciousness. And if we strip out all belief many of us still have a consciousness of more to it than the 5 senses tell us....what is magic?