Yes, it was childish for me to call you uneducated. Certainly not moreso than you calling those who believe in God "ignorant", but that doesn't justify it. Sorry. Your arguments just suggest a limited understanding of Christianity.

The point is and always has been that religion (like everything else in this world) gets abused -- when people kill in the name of God, or use it to gain power over other people -- then of course it is wrong. Roman Catholicism exhibits abuse of religion as it profits enormously while prescribing new teachings to its adherents as those in power see fit. That, however, puts them in a bad light as it's easy to look past the likelihood that they aren't really seeking to be manipulative.

The Reformation was actually a big deal, recognising these abuses, and putting God's Word -- for your sake: "The Bible" -- first. The result is Protestant churches that generally put The Bible's teaching first, even if they have varying attachments to some traditions (hence most of the difference between denominations, which are ultimately of little importance). People aren't in power over others; God is. The reason I'm a "Baptist" is that there is no hierarchy -- each church has its own "Pastor", and the congregation can elect for him/her to leave if they want. The main differences between most denominations are church structure and adherence to symbolic traditions.

This isn't about me saying everything about Christianity that is obviously wrong is not the way I do it and thus not important. I have moved around a lot, been through many different Protestant churches of all sorts of denominations, and if I've ever left one it wasn't because it didn't fit with my ideals, but because of issues such as me moving, or the leadership there being boring. These are all places where I see a community that is not only under no financial obligation, but is also not under the control of any human being, nor each other.

I can't recall anything about TV priests -- I can't imagine I ever had much to say on them, since I've never been one to watch televangelists.

I am by no means "ignoring what is happening" -- I have never dodged around the negative parts of generalised "religion" that result from abuse, gross misinterpretation, baseless superstition, and the flawed nature of humanity. Yet you say there is no God, partly on the basis of the aforementioned abuses evident in the world ("the last thing a God would have demanded"), ignoring that some actually follow him outside the influence of such abuses.

I never suggested that the general consensus is that it is an illusion. I suggested that some like the idea that time (not time-space) as a simple chain of one thing causing another is an illusion. Allow me to expand:
If time is simply a chain reaction of events where one thing causes another -- time works just as we see it and is not an illusion -- then time needs a beginning. Why? Because nothing could happen without being caused first, and if this chain goes back eternally -- every effect waiting for the cause before it to occur first -- then nothing will have happened. Time appears to be absolute, but the relativistic view is that this isn't true -- hence describing time as "an illusion" (not whether or not time had a beginning -- the finite/infinite nature of time-space is debatable in other threads -- simply that time is "absolute"). Perhaps "illusion" wasn't the best word to use. I've already forgotten my intention in attempting to explain MMike's description (which is a little difficult to understand -- not his fault, but English is not his first language); I remember someone asking about it, but looking back I can't find anyone seeking a clarification.
And I explained what I meant to say: all examples of self-proclaimed agnosticism I've seen are of similar logical grounds to Joozey's (I say "self-proclaimed", since many people who call themselves "atheist" just because they are unsure are actually "agnostic" without knowing it -- not referring to anyone here). I find it interesting that you find his situation unusual, and perhaps you can elaborate on that. I don't think I gave any reason for you to believe that I thought you were being aggressive in your statement -- sorry if I did.

In regards to your last post: my statement (which Joozey agreed with) doesn't attempt to suggest that we can't believe that something will always hold true even if it is only on the basis that it has always worked that way. Personally, my point was actually that God's existence has not been disproved. Many claim (though this isn't directed at you at all) that their disbelief in God is scientific; but that doesn't fit with a scientific perspective. Disbelief in God comes from other reasons.

Sorry for the very long and still-offtopic post!

Jibb

i agree..
Well the time explanation things.. i have nothing to say, i was typing fast, and had no effort to make it sound very logical to everbody...

in Suma:

Time is not always equal, because time is a product of space existing somewhere.

Without time there is no space.. otherwise you couldn't use this:
on time = 0; mass=100 and assuming e=mc2 ..

We got m(mass of object)= e/c2 so..
100kg=e / c2 -> where light speed is measured with time (1s to move from 0 to 300 000 km) and if there is no time, you can't say its 300 000 km/1s since time =0s this would mean 300 000 m / 0 units which is not possible under "logical" means. because to even measure 1 sec, you need time, otherwise its stuck on 0s.. since time is a flux of a changing rate of energy or something "really hard to understand" its like the wave-particle paradox..

thats why lightspeed object "probably" will become into energy and loose their mass?? (converted right from e=mc2)

Check this.. because if im not doing wrong maths..
e=mc2 then, m=e/c2 so , keeping energy constant lets say 100 units

mass(m) of a object running at half the speed of light:
m=e/ 150 000 which is higher than m=e/ 300 000
Weird because its against someone i heard that told super speed gives massive mass, and makes thing heavier

As far as I know, the speed of light is constant relative to the observer. This means c2 will always be the same -- we can't change m = e / c2 to m = e / (something else).

The formula for relative mass is something like: m1 = m0 / sqrt(1 - v2/c2)
As v approaches c, v2 -> c2, (1 - v2/c2) -> 0, sqrt(0) = 0, m1 -> positive infinity (that is, approaches, but never reaches, because it would require an infinite amount of energy to accelerate an object to the speed of light, since its mass is increasing as it accelerates, so we never have to try divide by zero in this case).

"Time dilation" is similar -- t1 = t0 / sqrt(1 - v2/c2). So, like you said, time is not always equal -- it's not always experienced the same way from different observers. In fact it generally isn't as long as we're moving relative to each other, but at such a low speed the difference is impossible to tell.

Well, I just about exhausted my high-school relativity Goodnight!

Jibb

eheh.. but anyway.. when somone says per second.. the velocit of light.. we must understand that in 1 sec 300 000km reached, but the 1 second had to be measured in a time existing environment, which can be different from different places (near the sun, or near a black-hole..) where light cant escape ( because its not fast enough when passing the curved space...) so time there 1 sec passed, but thats very relative and you told...


There is this thing that i cant stop thinking...
when the universe had its " bigbang.." time was created as space did expand too

And, since space was being created, there was no mass yet formed ( because mass occupy space with no space there cant be mass to be placed ( i think), so everything was energy in a tiny dot (big bang Theory)... so can we say? e=mc2
that... e= 0 * c2 ??? which means no energy at all? then no bigbang, there must be mass already... but where? if it starts on a tiny dot of energy

and how can energy be transformed to a proton or something that will give hydrogen and stars and all that matter...

One of the newest theory states that every big bang occurs from a black hole in another universe. A black hole gathers mass over an infinite* amount of time in one universe, and blasts all of that out in an instant as another universe. So one instant of time in that universe is an eternity* in ours.

But these are just speculations.

So, here an example of how the big bang did not occur out of nothing. I'm sure there are other clarifications of what happened before that first 10^-15 second the universe existed. God, aliens and time travelling monkeys are not excluded, but one is more unlikely than the other, and all more unlikely than the more scientific methods. This statistic of likeliness is derived from past revelations in physics: by science instead of God or aliens (by our current knowledge founded on facts, and not believe**). But in the ultimate end, it´s all 50/50 as all of them have a chance to be truth.

Out of all three I somewhere would hope God existed, as I would like someone to be able to take care over us, as we seem not capable of watching over ourselves. But I do not like to believe in lies and dream dreams. If science was founded by mankind alone, then great! Life is amazing indeed. If aliens gave us technology, then great as well! We're not alone after all, and they were so close all the time. Just to declare my neutrality and show that whatever is truth, all solutions have their good sides.


Of course one does not need to stop the pursue in the meaning of life and the universe. I like to read all stories, but I do not like senseless forum wars in threads that are not even meant to start one. You get no more an answer posting in this thread than making your own relevant thread.

Why indoctrinate everyone by your alien theory, MMike? You will create your own lies eventually, and belie everyone you drag into your believe by saying you state facts. This is no science.


*Close to eternity in our humble perspective.

**If one was to say aliens gave us the science to reveal what we know, and evidence would be the messages they left us in crop circles or Baghdad batteries or whatever, then it's solely founded on believe and desire in aliens rather than rational thinking. Here too chances are 50/50 that either aliens gave technology or mankind found out themselves. It's foolish to think humans can not think of these ingenious devices by themselves. You better dive into human societies first before talking, and figure how smart some of us really are. Not all of us are bleating dummies not able to think of something ingenious without the help of aliens or God.

I think you might not have understood why I brought up the "stone that's too heavy for even God to lift" argument, as it's basically the same grade, same kind of argument, but against God.

You're convinced of your belief and therefore your 'it's not disproven' argument has a lot of value for you, but as the Spaghetti Monster God and equivalents show, that really holds no true value at all.

It might be fact that your God (whatever the literal definition of that 'being' would be) isn't disproved, but that doesn't make the contrary true or even likely!



No, it doesn't at all. It merely suggest you are a follower of a special kind of Christianity, that in your idealized view doesn't share any connections with Christianity as a world-religion that's spread all over the world. You're convinced your religion is without a dark history, but that's really where you are the ignorant one.

Whenever I am talking about how religious people in my opinion are ignorant, I'm talking about their belief in creationism and all the scientific evidence that points in an entirely different direction. I'm also thinking about how history and mankind itself, and not God, determined the content of the allegedly divine inspired Bible texts. Last but not least, I'm thinking about the 'divine intervention' for which there's really no evidence at all. If it's not proven by solid facts, why assume it is??

look i understand the god fellows, because they were educated to act like that.. exaclty!

Imagine if nobody told you about it.. you would grow in a free-mode... now you were told to believe in such...

From the old ages AC(after christ), someone assumed sun is to god, its rainning its god.. its a lightning stroke, its god intention... Because were ways of persons to make logic (assuming its someone intention) when humanity could not explain what the hell was that for...

1:
Do you think ants thinks about GOD?
Do you think your Dog believes in GOD, so what the hell you have to believe? thats like.. lies chain spread from time to time.. you are you and thats it...

Because if you want facts... i tell you some:

First, before Christ, there were humans already, the first ppl were i think Sumerian, they were giant.. thats why sumerians and egipts were painted giant .. and their monuments were gient too..

2

ANd also, its known to paleontologists that Humans and Dinosaurs lived together.. yes thats truth, but.. you dont learn that at school and wont come in books otherwise.. teachers would have to explain alot hell of things.

And if Dinosaurs died from an Meteor, why humans not? So there was a previous Existance...

3:

NOW : Sumerians had SPACESHIPS painted on their walls, how do you explain that?? they were spacetravelers already??.. SO THERE IS LIFE OUT THERE, and do you want more proofs than the history that is Written in the stones of nature? ..
you can believe in Church and that you are alone, in the cosmos.. but thats up to you... Egipt had electricity, and we just discovered (ups re-invented) by Nikola Tesla we are really late in technology! something that was discovered thousand years ago. Just now we checked that MAxwell is right, and SCALAR WAVES, and ANTIGRAVITY really exists.. and its explained how it can be reversed...

Cosmos is bigger than we can imagine, the world is not how we see it, from this tiny planet we live in, there is always an other side...

All this is kept in secrecy by our GOV and Church and Schools (which is like a school) because if you would like to go out-there to know more, people start revolting against GOV and they dont want that for sure.. so they need to shut up...

Anyway life it to great to be life this we live.. because there is more, but they are closing our mind to it.

Free energy exists, but USA wants petrol, because imagine a world where electricity water and everything else was free.. Well there would be no money for GOV at All..

The "stone that's too heavy for even God to lift" argument doesn't hold water. That's like an "unstoppable force" hitting an "unmovable wall" -> one or the other has to be a false definition. Is God limited by weight or mass? No. So describing a stone "too heavy for God to lift" makes just as much sense as "spaghetti too green for God to eat" -- none.
No, and please don't be so presumptuous. The "it's not disproved" argument has nothing to do with my faith. It's just a logical counter-argument to those who purport to suggest their belief that there specifically is no God is strictly scientific.
With possibly as many Protestants as Buddhists in the world, my "special kind of Christianity" is not that special. I don't think I've suggested anywhere that there are no links, or that it doesn't have a dark history. Those are mistakes, like we all make. Do all the dark deeds some of your ancestors may have committed have any bearing on your actions in your life? Why should Christianity's history have any affect on what it is today? If anything we learn from it. It's still based on the same book it was based on back then, yet those past mistakes are not justified in the Bible!

Whether or not it is really the same book as it was before (if I recall correctly you strongly believe that the Bible has changed too much over time) is debatable elsewhere.

I'm not evangelising here; I'm simply defending my faith while you attempt to evangelise Atheism -- especially in response to your issues with Christianity that are actually quite specific to a distinct subset of Christians. It's like saying rock music is bad just because most popular music that comes under the "rock" genre is bad, but if you actually look for yourself at what constitutes "rock", you'll find that there's actually a lot of creative music in there.

When a mathematician and a historian disagree on a fundamentally mathematical issue, it suggests (not proves, but definitely suggests) that the historian's understanding of maths is limited. Similarly, when a Christian and an Atheist disagree on what is representative of Christianity as a whole, it suggests that the Atheist's understanding of Christianity is limited much more strongly than it suggests the Christian is ignorant.

If you must evangelise your Atheism, at least don't be rude about it, nor hijack a thread that is completely unrelated for it.

And please recall that this forum in general is usually not very receptive to people trying to force their views on other people

I don't attempt to generalise Atheism in front of all the actual Atheists here -- I'd just embarrass myself. You need to realise that some of the people you're generalising Christianity in front of are actual Christians -- and that my version of Christianity isn't as unique or rare as you might think.

Jibb

i think humans are the only one believing GOD. because thinking to much leads to stupidness... and believing in something that I never had FACTS i mean, did i see something? that force , beneath my eyes? I remember sometimes asking GODs help, i saw nothing.. I was just a fool. But I still have hope that something exists, but i think i never felt it...

UFO are more probably to exist then that GOD thing.. Because we see UFO sometimes, and GOD never appear



ANd imagine a world made of robots life and cyborgs, whom there is no soul, and they were totally autonomous.. would they believe in SIN and GOD, and Would they care?

Out of curiosity, MMike, what do you believe about souls? What makes a "soulless" machine that is equally complex as the human body (and all that's in it), any different from a natural organic "machine" (an actual human) with a soul?

Jibb