quote:

The only witches I know are those annoying teenage Wiccans.

There is a difference between a witch and a wiccan.

quote:

Do you believe in witches? Ghosts? Vampires? Werewolfs? Worlocks? And if you don't.. then how could you believe in something that supposably lived with powers to heal and etc?

I only believe in what I see or what is proven to me via hard evidence. The only witches I know are those annoying teenage Wiccans. I have never seen a ghost, but I have seen sufficient evidence for them to not completely disregard them. Vampires? Werewolves? Don't make me laugh. The only vampires around are, as Ipperwash said, humans who drink blood. Disgusting, but there's no accounting for the oddities of some people.

So, you may ask, based on the above statement about believing, do I believe in a Creator? That is a foolish question to be certain. The Universe is proof enough for that. Now, being a deist, I think the Creator is just that: a being who created the Universe, set the ball rolling, and walked (floated, winked out of existence, what have you) away. The Universe's natural laws are enough to keep the Universe from collapsing in on itself or doing anything drastic.

And I just realized the above has nothing to do with organized religion. So I'll say something along the lines of "Organized religion blah blah blah yada yada" and be done with it.

Vampires are more individualistic rather than being in groups.

Vampires exist, not in the sense that they are immortal, but there are human cults that practice the drinking of human blood, and they are not demons, but they do call themselves vampires.

quote:

Originally posted by Jenos:

quote:

Vampires, um do you really think that there are things like humans that suck people's blood? I mean you are kidding right?

You doubt there are human-like creatures that drink human blood? I must disagree with you there. I fully believe in vampires.

O.K. that's fine. I haven't ever researched vampires so I personally doubt they exist unless they are like some sort of demon. I really don't know. but until I see proof of one I doubt God made vampires. but hey that's just me.

quote:

Vampires, um do you really think that there are things like humans that suck people's blood? I mean you are kidding right?

You doubt there are human-like creatures that drink human blood? I must disagree with you there. I fully believe in vampires.

quote:

Originally posted by DaysAfterNever:

quote:

Originally posted by peruchica:

quote:

Originally posted by DaysAfterNever:

quote:

Originally posted by Ipperwash:
I personally do not really believe int he bible. It was written by man, and as we all know, man is prone to over exagerate, lie, and so on. History is never really a for sure deal, unless you have many different accounts of the same thing from different people, and for this reason I do not rely on the bible to guide me in any religious aspect.

I completely agree, I don't believe in the bible either. And there's times when I question the fact that God is even real. There's is no actual proof, and I think that you shouldn't believe in anything unless the proof is right there. Infront of your eyes.
But you're right, man do lie, exagerate, etc. So are we even really sure that HE actually wrote this so called 'bible'? Maybe it was created by some man who was bored on a Friday night and thought he'd try to make a difference and conned us all into believe that this so called God wrote it. And notice there has been 'updates' to the bible, and things were added. How could you add something to past history?

Just a question but how can you see the world and look at nature and not believe there is a God. I mean seriously. If God didn't create it all who did? How does every thing work so perfectly? No big bang could have done this. The Bible is not something I can prove (though many things from it match history like when David killed the lion, etc) it takes faith. Maybe it sounds stupid or pointless to you but to the Lord is my shepherd. He has done so much for me. This is what i believe and know to be true. Sorry if iI have offended anyone.

Well I have a question for you. Do you believe in witches? Ghosts? Vampires? Werewolfs? Worlocks? And if you don't.. then how could you believe in something that supposably lived with powers to heal and etc?

I do believe in witches not in like the ones in alot of the cartoons but in like the ones that are from Satan and do things with Satan's power. Ghosts I don't really think so. Vampires, um do you really think that there are things like humans that suck people's blood? I mean you are kidding right? Werewolves, I doubt ppl turn into wolf ppl when the moon hits them. And I have no idea what worelocks are so I doubt I believe in them. It takes faith to believe in God (and I see him all through out nature) the Bible says,"blessed are those who believe without seeing me." Well I believe and though I can't just prove he exist it does make more sense someone healing ppl than someone or something sucking the life out of them.

I like filtering everything to form my own beliefs.

quote:

Originally posted by Jenos:

quote:

Well I have a question for you. Do you believe in witches? Ghosts? Vampires? Werewolfs? Worlocks? And if you don't.. then how could you believe in something that supposably lived with powers to heal and etc?

What if you do?

IF you do, then I understand why you believe in God.

quote:

Well I have a question for you. Do you believe in witches? Ghosts? Vampires? Werewolfs? Worlocks? And if you don't.. then how could you believe in something that supposably lived with powers to heal and etc?

What if you do?

quote:

Originally posted by peruchica:

quote:

Originally posted by DaysAfterNever:

quote:

Originally posted by Ipperwash:
I personally do not really believe int he bible. It was written by man, and as we all know, man is prone to over exagerate, lie, and so on. History is never really a for sure deal, unless you have many different accounts of the same thing from different people, and for this reason I do not rely on the bible to guide me in any religious aspect.

I completely agree, I don't believe in the bible either. And there's times when I question the fact that God is even real. There's is no actual proof, and I think that you shouldn't believe in anything unless the proof is right there. Infront of your eyes.
But you're right, man do lie, exagerate, etc. So are we even really sure that HE actually wrote this so called 'bible'? Maybe it was created by some man who was bored on a Friday night and thought he'd try to make a difference and conned us all into believe that this so called God wrote it. And notice there has been 'updates' to the bible, and things were added. How could you add something to past history?

Just a question but how can you see the world and look at nature and not believe there is a God. I mean seriously. If God didn't create it all who did? How does every thing work so perfectly? No big bang could have done this. The Bible is not something I can prove (though many things from it match history like when David killed the lion, etc) it takes faith. Maybe it sounds stupid or pointless to you but to the Lord is my shepherd. He has done so much for me. This is what i believe and know to be true. Sorry if iI have offended anyone.

Well I have a question for you. Do you believe in witches? Ghosts? Vampires? Werewolfs? Worlocks? And if you don't.. then how could you believe in something that supposably lived with powers to heal and etc?

I'm not sure if it came across this way, but I am not trying to disprove the fact that there is a god, I believe in God whole heartedly, what I don't believe in is living my life by a book written by man, and based on their opinions, such as homosexuality being wrong.

in paganism, there isn't a set liturgy. we can incorporate buddhist, hindu, native american, etc. practices in our rituals and sabats. whatever feels good and fun and doesnt hurt anybody or anything is completely supported. i know that i'm pagan, i love the goddess and the god - i had never been able to "get into" religion before i became a witch - the freedoms it gives doesn't restrict worship to a certain way. we like to change it up sometimes. i'm not sure if that's considered "organized religion", haha, but i doubt it.
mmmm, karma.

"and it harm none, do as thou wilt"

I don't really follow, Brehon. I said that because some people *cough*jamaica*cough* really would condemn me to hell and yada yada blah blah blah. I profess to being a Christian, and I don't want to be called something I'm not. If you were a Muslim, wouldn't you take offense at being called a Jew?

To DaysAfterNever, it has actually been proven that the books of the Torah (or the first five books of the Old Testament) were written by four different authors and compiled together. Three completely independent people, one of them a minister, analyzed the writing styles and word usage in the first few books of the Bible and found that in Genesis, there is actually two separate accounts of the Creation. In Genesis chapter 1, God creates plants, animals, and then man and woman. However, in chapter 2, man is created first, with plants, animals, and woman following after. Furthermore, the first version always refers to the Creator as God (or Elohim in Hebrew), but never as Yahweh. In the second version, the Creator is always referred to as Yahweh, but never God. The God-using group was labled "E" and the Yahweh-group was labeled "J".

However, later, the matter was investigated further, and it was discovered that the E group was actually composed of two separate sources because of differences in writing styles. It was known as "P" for it's heavy use of priestly doings in the books. J, E, and P were used constantly throughout the first four books of the Torah. The fifth book, Deuteronomy, was completely different. The Ten Commandments were worded differently and there were blatant contradictions between it and the rest of the Torah. This group was called "D". So, in reality, at least four different people wrote the first five books of the Old Testament, although people had believed for a long time that they had all been written by Moses.

The main thing is, no where does the Bible state that it was written by God Himself. Rather, it may or may not have been written by people occupied by the Holy Spirit of God and writing what he told them to.

Also, you must remember that the Bible was written at a time when people had no clue about science and the like. Take the parting of the Red Sea in Exodus, for instance. There is a known natural occurence in that area where the sea seems to part near a shallow strip of land across the Red Sea. Of course, people of that era would have had no idea what was going on, so they took it as a result of some sort of divine intervention. Eventually the bit about Moses causing the waves to part would have crept in there by way of someone wanting it to seem more "holy". And to prove that the Red Sea crossing actually happened, there are chariot wheels half-buried in the sand and silt along that strip of shallow sea-bottom that match Roman chariot wheels of the time of Moses.

quote:

Originally posted by DaysAfterNever:

quote:

Originally posted by Ipperwash:
I personally do not really believe int he bible. It was written by man, and as we all know, man is prone to over exagerate, lie, and so on. History is never really a for sure deal, unless you have many different accounts of the same thing from different people, and for this reason I do not rely on the bible to guide me in any religious aspect.

I completely agree, I don't believe in the bible either. And there's times when I question the fact that God is even real. There's is no actual proof, and I think that you shouldn't believe in anything unless the proof is right there. Infront of your eyes.
But you're right, man do lie, exagerate, etc. So are we even really sure that HE actually wrote this so called 'bible'? Maybe it was created by some man who was bored on a Friday night and thought he'd try to make a difference and conned us all into believe that this so called God wrote it. And notice there has been 'updates' to the bible, and things were added. How could you add something to past history?

Just a question but how can you see the world and look at nature and not believe there is a God. I mean seriously. If God didn't create it all who did? How does every thing work so perfectly? No big bang could have done this. The Bible is not something I can prove (though many things from it match history like when David killed the lion, etc) it takes faith. Maybe it sounds stupid or pointless to you but to the Lord is my shepherd. He has done so much for me. This is what i believe and know to be true. Sorry if iI have offended anyone.

quote:

Originally posted by Ipperwash:
I personally do not really believe int he bible. It was written by man, and as we all know, man is prone to over exagerate, lie, and so on. History is never really a for sure deal, unless you have many different accounts of the same thing from different people, and for this reason I do not rely on the bible to guide me in any religious aspect.

I completely agree, I don't believe in the bible either. And there's times when I question the fact that God is even real. There's is no actual proof, and I think that you shouldn't believe in anything unless the proof is right there. Infront of your eyes.
But you're right, man do lie, exagerate, etc. So are we even really sure that HE actually wrote this so called 'bible'? Maybe it was created by some man who was bored on a Friday night and thought he'd try to make a difference and conned us all into believe that this so called God wrote it. And notice there has been 'updates' to the bible, and things were added. How could you add something to past history?

clpo13, you say atheist like its a bad thing. Atheism is like any other spiritul path, except you don't follow a book, you wirte your own.

Organized religion has its flaws, I'll be the first to admit that. But it's a way to gather many people who have the same beliefs. It's a sort of cycle. A man joins a church, but has some of the same beliefs and some different ones. So he leaves and forms his own church. People join. Some lady has some of the same beliefs and some different. So she leaves and forms her own church. And so on and so forth. No one has the same beliefs, so organized religion is very broad. I don't quite know the reason for it, but I don't really care. Sure, I have my own little "version" of Christianity, but it's close enough to the real deal that no one is going to hang me as a heretic.

People may call me an atheist for this, but I really don't need a "god" to tell me what to do. I know in my heart what is right and wrong. Perhaps that is God. Perhaps it's just me. But that's my way of thinking. If it turns out to be God, cool, I have nothing to worry about. If there really isn't a god out there, then I don't need to worry about having put my faith into a fairy tale. So I'm actually leaning more towards being an agnostic. I don't quite know.

This probably didn't answer what you were asking DaysAfterNever. I don't even think I can answer that question.

I was brought up as a catholic, but really since i have been able to form my own opinions I have been piecing certain aspects together so that they make sense to me. I personally do not really believe int he bible. It was written by man, and as we all know, man is prone to over exagerate, lie, and so on. History is never really a for sure deal, unless you have many different accounts of the same thing from different people, and for this reason I do not rely on the bible to guide me in any religious aspect.
As for church, I don't need some guy to preach to me about a book that I don't believe in in the first place.