i have to agree that is a matter of sincerity. you can not just say oh God please forgive me i was an ***....God expects us to learn from our failures, in hopes of not repeating(however since he is a patient and loving God forgives when we repeat)our mistakes and sins. Two thoughts on this subject: 1. i have recently had several conversations with friends and have truly come to believe the problem in the world is we all lack faith and hope. it's sad and i understand why God might be angry with us....we all just judge and live without compassion...i suspect perhaps not the way God has intended us to live. 2. one who lives without belief in something...God???....love???...life???...will always lack fulfillment....too many folks have asked me what happens if there is no God....i say i believe there is and if at the end there isn't the belief i carry with me now helps me through each day and makes me a better a person...my point ...i'd rather walk through life believing there is a God then having nothing to believe in.

Hell Director: Hello, newcomers and welcome. Can everybody hear me? Hello?
[taps microphone] Can everybody... ok. Um, I am the Hell Director. Uh, it looks like we have 8,615 of you newbies today. And for those of you who were little confused: uh, you are dead; and this is Hell. So abandon all hope and yadda-yadda-yadda. Uh, we are now going to start the orientation PROcess which will last about...

Protestant: Hey, wait a minute. I shouldn't be here, I was a totally strict and devout Protestant. I thought we went to heaven.

Hell Director: Yes, well, I'm afraid you are wrong.

Soldier: I was a practicing Jehovah's Witness.

Hell Director: Uh, you picked the wrong religion as well.

Man from Crowd: Well who was right? Who gets in to Heaven?

Hell Director: I'm afraid it was the MORmons. Yes, the MORmons were the correct answer.
The Damned: Awwww...

This thread reminded me of that. I have nothing to add that hasn't already been said by someone here.

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We pointed and laughed.

That's not quite what I meant. If you even knew the bare minimum about Buddhism, you'd know that there is such thing as total fulfillment in this life. Duh.

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You're going to get eternal life whether you like it or not.

Yeah, right. You can go on believing that depressing thought, but I'm not going to believe I'm getting eternal life because a book says so.

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Because you do not want to face the fact that there is only correct answer

What now? Fact, did you say? Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't facts have proof backing them up? The idea of an afterlife is purely hypothetical, no proof whatsoever.

Besides, I'm no universalist. I'm a deist. And by its very nature, deism prohibits any sort of afterlife or "judgement day".

You stick to your religion, I'll stick to my non-religion. No amount of prosetylizing is going to change my mind, especially your brand of "all non-Christians are going to hell!" bullsh*t.

i agree wroxeter. It is all in us to do that. Now I'm drifting off subject...That's why I dont believe in the Catholic use of Reconciliation, telling a priest your sins so that they could be taken to God. I can tell God my own sins. It has to be a personal experience to be truly forgiven and feel that way too. I realize that the purpose of Reconciliation was to be able to brave the public eyes and step towards the priest with the sins you commited, and then be able to say, "I'm forgiven" and then some other reasons to which i have forgotten. But i think i can handle my affairs by myself.

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Originally posted by clpo13:
In my experience, it's worse to be a non-believer, popular culture notwithstanding.

Its getting very difficult for Christian organizations to recieve public funding, or even private funding anymore. Look at the Boy Scouts. After almost 90 years of producing many of America's leaders, they're being kicked off donations lists and expelled from public land. All because they believe in absolute morality.

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The words of a man who hasn't met a Buddhist.

Haha, I actually met one in Key West. 30 year old white guy in a robe. We pointed and laughed.

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It's an odd coincidence that I say this about devout Christians all the time. You could also use this argument against God himself. He claims to be omnipotent. Proof? Yeah, right.

This point is moot, because whatever I put forward, you will deny, and vise versa.

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Oh yes they do. Both are monotheistic, both have a Rapture event at the end of time, both have a vengeful God who judges all at the end of days, both have a holy book full of holes, both had a Prophet, and so on and so forth. You try so hard to convince others that Christianity and Islam are not the same, but they're more similar than you'll ever admit.

That's not what I was talking about. I was talking about the grouping of Jesus and Allah.

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This definitely doesn't apply to me. I choose not to be a Christian because being so would force me to spend eternity after I die in paradise. Why the hell would I want that? Eternal life--either in heaven or in hell--is not something I really want.

You're going to get eternal life whether you like it or not. The question is where.

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I can't believe in a god that wouldn't allow people to make their own choices without fear of retribution. The Christian version of God gives you two choices and one of them is wrong. What kind of free will is that? Answer: it's not. The God of the Christians is forcing all our hands. Which is why I choose to stay out of it completely. No God, no Satan, nothing.

This is where moral relavatism comes from. Because you do not want to face the fact that there is only correct answer, you've spun it around so that all answers are correct. I think that is Agnostic Universalism, correct me if I'm wrong, I kinda combined two terms.

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Religion is for those who aren't intellectual enough to have common sense; for those who are too frightened to think that perhaps our existence in this planet is really for nothing, that you are born and you die and nothing else, and that eventually... you cease from this Earth and your story ends, and for those who are dim enough to not be able to guide themselves into usefulness in life without some non-proven perhaps-ficticious entity approving them.

Hear . hear.

I'm amazed I haven't seen and ridiculed this thread already. Well, better late than never.

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we all just judge and live without compassion...i suspect perhaps not the way God has intended us to live

Damn straight. It makes me wonder if most Christians today ever read the New Testament.

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one who lives without belief in something...God???....love???...life???...will always lack fulfillment

True, perhaps, but that doesn't mean non-Christians will always be unfulfilled. I may not have a strong belief in religion, but that doesn't mean I'm a poor person. What keeps me going in life if not God? Simple, really. I haven't yet achieved what I want to achieve. There's no way I'm going down without doing at least that.

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when it is looked down upon in popular culture and public life to be a true believer,

Say what? Are you sheltered, reactionary? In my experience, it's worse to be a non-believer, popular culture notwithstanding.

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There is no fufillment in this life.

The words of a man who hasn't met a Buddhist.

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Beware those who claim to be omnipotent, yet other nothing as proof.

It's an odd coincidence that I say this about devout Christians all the time. You could also use this argument against God himself. He claims to be omnipotent. Proof? Yeah, right.

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When comparing the two religions, these do not fall into the same category.

Oh yes they do. Both are monotheistic, both have a Rapture event at the end of time, both have a vengeful God who judges all at the end of days, both have a holy book full of holes, both had a Prophet, and so on and so forth. You try so hard to convince others that Christianity and Islam are not the same, but they're more similar than you'll ever admit.

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No, you just don't want to be held accountable for your actions. You figure that if you can get rid of any higher power, you will be able to abide by your rules. The world's been trying it, pal, with not the greatest results.

This definitely doesn't apply to me. I choose not to be a Christian because being so would force me to spend eternity after I die in paradise. Why the hell would I want that? Eternal life--either in heaven or in hell--is not something I really want.

I can't believe in a god that wouldn't allow people to make their own choices without fear of retribution. The Christian version of God gives you two choices and one of them is wrong. What kind of free will is that? Answer: it's not. The God of the Christians is forcing all our hands. Which is why I choose to stay out of it completely. No God, no Satan, nothing.

But this is not to say I'm an atheist, which I'm not. I simply don't believe in theism.

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In this day and age, when it is looked down upon in popular culture and public life to be a true believer, the weak would surely fold under the pressure of God's decree, wanting nothing to do with religion. Unaccountability and defection is for the weak.

It is looked down? I'm sorry, has the US ever had a President admit to being an atheist? Religion isn't looked down, hell, people seek some sort of faith in the US all the time; whatever type it may be. It's common to find "spiritual but not religious" people. Don't tell me the US is atheistic because that's dire BS. If it was not religiously influenced, wars, abortion, and gay marriage wouldn't be questioned by its own society.

Religion has no accountability.

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Beware those who claim to be omnipotent, yet other nothing as proof

Show me proof he exists. Oh crap, you have none.

And don't use the Bible on me, because in that case you're enough of an idiot to believe Harry Potter is the next Messiah if J.K. Rowling declared she was a prophet in 2500 years.

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Imagine you have a child. You want to raise him to be healthy, so you give him the best food there is to offer. But he refuses, wanting instead, to eat candies and cakes for every meal, every day. You refuse, but he's insistance grows on you, and eventually, you allow it to teach him a lesson. He then begins this diet of junk food for every meal of every day. He becomes fat, sluggish, and slow. His face breaks out in pimples, and becomes sick easily. Such is the state of the world.

The world is in its idiot state, because half of the human population is composed by ignorant people.

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Why not? Temptation was not formed by God, but by Satan. Two forces are at war at all times... good and evil, right and wrong. It is an eternal war, but it will be settled very soon, in the valley of Armaggedeon in Israel.

BS.

Lucifer was a an angel, am I right? Clearly God created him, and therefore created evil. So God made a mistake, he created his own little counterpart, which is a mistake because if "God knows everything" he would clearly know Lucifer would be evil.

And how can God be at war? Is war not immoral?

And the Armaggedon won't happen. The world ends when you die. You die, your world ends. Your body rots, your relatives and friends die, and your whole memory vanishes from this Earth unless you did such great or such damage to this world like Hitler or Mother Teresa did.

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When comparing the two religions, these do not fall into the same category.

ACtually they do. They're both works of extremely creative imaginations made to brainwash society into a complacent stupidity which will forever half their own way of thinking.

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No, it means you're a fraud. Its impossible to be an atheist.

Oh, so claiming to be a Christian, which by nature you are then supposed to "love thy brother", yet being utterly racist and xenophobic, is not being a fraud? It'd be worse, because not only are you a fraud, but a liar, and a hypocrite, and an embarrasement to your faith.

Religion is for those who aren't intellectual enough to have common sense; for those who are too frightened to think that perhaps our existence in this planet is really for nothing, that you are born and you die and nothing else, and that eventually... you cease from this Earth and your story ends, and for those who are dim enough to not be able to guide themselves into usefulness in life without some non-proven perhaps-ficticious entity approving them.

I don't need to believe in God to be calm about my soul. I already know I'm better than half of religious people who believe they are saints because they spend 2 hours in church every Sunday.

If your (or anyone's) religion would be the correct/perfect one, then all the planet would follow it and none would question, and it would not contradict itself. But, throughout history, great thinkers have disproven, questioned, and rejected religion as a whole, making it seem like merely a little controlling décor in society.

What it really means to be an atheist is that you are truly independent.


No, it means you're a fraud. Its impossible to be an atheist.




It is knowing that you are responsible for any win or loss,


So am I. Its called personal responsibility.

hey same thing different name .

It means you are not answerable to anybody.


That's the goal, isn't it? Why is there such a fear of accountability?

Oh its not fear its old fashioned bias against authority of any kind


It also means that you are not a child anymore , You cant go do wrong stuff like kids do just because they know there is somebody to protect and correct if anything goes really wrong . It also means that you cant depend on anybody .


Wow, aren't you the rugged individualist. When was the last time a Christian did something wrong, and God stepped in and made it right?

He did make it by clearing their conscience . Im not talking about miracles . Just perceptions .


It means im not saying I dont believe in GOD , Im saying I choose not to .


No, you just don't want to be held accountable for your actions. You figure that if you can get rid of any higher power, you will be able to abide by your rules. The world's been trying it, pal, with not the greatest results.

I agree with you there . But morals and values dont necassarily have to be religious . Theres something called tradition or parampara (Hindi) which lays down pretty good rules . The way of life is not necassarily dictated by religion . How do you explain theories like Dialektical materialism ?


http://www.god-and-country.blogspot.com

If a person can truly believe that Jesus decided to speak to them through a grilled cheese sandwich, I can truly not believe in God.

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No, it means you're a fraud. Its impossible to be an atheist.

Id say its impossible to completely believe in GOD . Absolution is impossible - not GOD or atheism .

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Originally posted by nikky2rock:
What it really means to be an atheist is that you are truly independent.

No, it means you're a fraud. Its impossible to be an atheist.

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It is knowing that you are responsible for any win or loss,

So am I. Its called personal responsibility.

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It means you are not answerable to anybody.

That's the goal, isn't it? Why is there such a fear of accountability?

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It also means that you are not a child anymore , You cant go do wrong stuff like kids do just because they know there is somebody to protect and correct if anything goes really wrong . It also means that you cant depend on anybody .

Wow, aren't you the rugged individualist. When was the last time a Christian did something wrong, and God stepped in and made it right?

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It means im not saying I dont believe in GOD , Im saying I choose not to .

No, you just don't want to be held accountable for your actions. You figure that if you can get rid of any higher power, you will be able to abide by your rules. The world's been trying it, pal, with not the greatest results.

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Believing in god is parallel to believing in the Tooth Fairy.

but i do believe in tooth fairy and santa claus and ghosts and ghouls and cupboard monssters .

What it really means to be an atheist is that you are truly independent . It is knowing that you are responsible for any win or loss , for anything that goes incredibly right or totally wrong . Its knowing that your completely alone and that there is nobody watching over you . It means you are not answerable to anybody . It also means that you are not a child anymore , You cant go do wrong stuff like kids do just because they know there is somebody to protect and correct if anything goes really wrong . It also means that you cant depend on anybody .
It means im not saying I dont believe in GOD , Im saying I choose not to .

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Originally posted by CelticNewAger:
If you fear having nothing to believe in, you're weak.

In this day and age, when it is looked down upon in popular culture and public life to be a true believer, the weak would surely fold under the pressure of God's decree, wanting nothing to do with religion. Unaccountability and defection is for the weak.

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I believe in nothing and am very fulfillled. Thank you.

For someone to be fufilled, they would no longer be human, but would have had to tapped into a higher consciousness. There is no fufillment in this life.

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There isn't a God.

Beware those who claim to be omnipotent, yet other nothing as proof.

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And if he does exist, he doesn't give a single **** about humans because if so, we wouldn't have cancer, war, natural disasters, etc.

Imagine you have a child. You want to raise him to be healthy, so you give him the best food there is to offer. But he refuses, wanting instead, to eat candies and cakes for every meal, every day. You refuse, but he's insistance grows on you, and eventually, you allow it to teach him a lesson. He then begins this diet of junk food for every meal of every day. He becomes fat, sluggish, and slow. His face breaks out in pimples, and becomes sick easily. Such is the state of the world.

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And don't give me the "He gave us free will and we chose the wrong" crap because if God was so perfect and knew we would screw up, he wouldn't have created free will.

Why not? Temptation was not formed by God, but by Satan. Two forces are at war at all times... good and evil, right and wrong. It is an eternal war, but it will be settled very soon, in the valley of Armaggedeon in Israel.

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Another Allah, another Christ,

When comparing the two religions, these do not fall into the same category.

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Believing in god is parallel to believing in the Tooth Fairy.

No ****.

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Celtic, you're a very pessimistic person. Not because you don't believe in a God, but because you think God doesn't exist because of all the sucky parts of life

I had a boyfriend who almost showered in church. He was the most pessimistic person I've ever met.

Believing in god is parallel to believing in the Tooth Fairy.

I agree with Celtic.

The occurence of various human travesties isn't why I don't believe in God. I don't believe in God because I have no logical reason to.

Celtic, you're a very pessimistic person. Not because you don't believe in a God, but because you think God doesn't exist because of all the sucky parts of life. The "He gave us free will and we chose the wrong" idea I'd have to disagree with also because I can't imagine that a creator would punish thousands of generations