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Post by big_electron on May 13, 2010 19:05:15 GMT -5
Shortly after quitting Christianity, a part of me wanted to still believe. Sometimes I find myself thinking about going back, but how do I know any of that is true? When a prophet talked to God, there were never any witnesses. What's the difference between talking to God through a burning bush, and talking to God through a hole in the wall? The OT does have a story where God showed himself to all the wandering Israelites, not just the prophets, cloud by day, pillar of fire by night, but there is no archaeological evidence that the exodus and wilderness wandering ever happened. If a people spent 40 years wandering the wilderness, there should be millions of tons of evidence to back it up.
Then there's Pascal's wager! But what if the Hindus are right and the Christians wrong? What if we're all wrong and there really is a Flying Spaghetti Monster?
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Post by Mlle Antéchrist on May 13, 2010 19:29:45 GMT -5
I like the idea of reincarnation as well as a loving, benevolent higher power that watches out for us and/or divine justice (as opposed to divine vengeance), but despite my efforts when I was younger, I could never believe in anything supernatural. It would be nice to be able to pray to something and have that hope that something may come out of it.
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veca
New Member
Posts: 8
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Post by veca on May 13, 2010 20:50:16 GMT -5
I doubt any God in the form of a being/entity/person could ever live up to the wonders and divinity their is to explore in nature itself. Sure, religion promises eternal life - but science and medicine get the results of making human dreams real were religion never could.
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Post by Madame Scarlet on May 14, 2010 0:25:30 GMT -5
I don't.
When I was a believer, the only way I could get through life without severe mental discomfort was to automatically ignore all doubts. I got so good at it that I'm still trying to unlearn that behavior. Religion offers no comfort for me. I had to not think about the fact that pretty much all of my friends were hell bound. I'm not afraid of death. Dying horribly, yes, but being dead, no. I didn't ever really get that strong sense of community from church because I never quite fit in. The only thing I had in common with other Christians I knew was our Christianity. The only long term negative effect of losing my faith is the strain it put on my relationship with my parents and family in general, but after moving out on my own things got a lot better.
I'm far happier as an atheist than I ever was my entire life. Why on earth would I want to go back?
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Post by Vypernight on May 14, 2010 4:37:38 GMT -5
I don't want to believe. I just want to know. If I can't know, then I'm not believing either.
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Post by azolgar on May 14, 2010 5:54:04 GMT -5
I don't want to believe. I just want to know. If I can't know, then I'm not believing either. Careful with that. "We only know that we know nothing", as it says. At the very basic even the scientific method is based on one or two points of "belief" (since there is no knowing for a human mind). You 'believe' that the physical world is the way your senses tell you it is and that events are logically connected and don't just occur randomly and without reason. Practically this changes nothing, of course, but it's better to be aware what our perception is based on. One thing I often find frustrating when dealing with supernatural stories is causality. If the supernatural were to exist then all our efforts, all our discoveries were more or less for nothing. Our entire scientific world-view is based on logical connections. Things like magic are, by definition, 'unnatural' and illogical. It would make this entire, vast model of nature and reality we have so carefully constructed through research and discovery over centuries of progress wrong. True, it might open up new avenues of research, but that research would simply consist of cataloging these new phenomena. There would be no understanding of 'why', no logical connections between those phenomena, no deeper understanding behind the mechanism of nature. Things would just happen for no reason, with no science or understanding behind them.
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Post by Trillian on May 14, 2010 6:39:58 GMT -5
Just my opinion, not fact - please don't hate.
Believing and being part of an organised religion can be mutually exclusive.
I believe in a higher power (God, whatever). That relationship is deeply personal. It doesn't need to be explained, and will never go away.
I do not have any faith in organised religion. I believe the bible was, once, very long ago, a lovely, inspiring story of a very good man who once lived (Jesus), and his faith in God. Then the catholic church got hold of it, and through years of translations going back and forth, and some of the most evil men ever being 'in charge' of religion, the good book transformed into the hate filled book it is today. It was all about control, and the churchs overwhelming need for power.
I can't prove I'm right, but I don't feel the need to. Everyone is entitled to their own set of beliefs (or lack thereof).
I know one can believe without subscribing to one distinct set of ideologies. My only rules are that I will live my life treating those around me with dignity and respect. I will be happy, and try to create as much happiness as I can. I will take the tools I have been given and use them. I will take responsibility for my successes and my failures in equal measure.
Live, and let live. Basically.
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Post by m52nickerson on May 14, 2010 7:35:22 GMT -5
I want to believe. I think part of me still does. I have always like the story and message of Jesus. My problem has been with all the added nonsense that goes with it......like most things written by Paul.
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Post by Madame Scarlet on May 14, 2010 8:31:50 GMT -5
One thing I often find frustrating when dealing with supernatural stories is causality. If the supernatural were to exist then all our efforts, all our discoveries were more or less for nothing. Our entire scientific world-view is based on logical connections. Things like magic are, by definition, 'unnatural' and illogical. It would make this entire, vast model of nature and reality we have so carefully constructed through research and discovery over centuries of progress wrong. True, it might open up new avenues of research, but that research would simply consist of cataloging these new phenomena. There would be no understanding of 'why', no logical connections between those phenomena, no deeper understanding behind the mechanism of nature. Things would just happen for no reason, with no science or understanding behind them. I think you're wrong. If the things people consider supernatural were real, then we could study them in much the same way that we study everything else. We wouldn't abandon the scientific method just because there are ghosts or Bigfoot or werewolves or whatever. And scientists have been using the scientific method to determine if these things are real. The whole reason the scientific community has rejected these things is because the evidence doesn't support their existence. If they were real, we'd merely have to adjust our theories to fit the current knowledge.
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Post by azolgar on May 14, 2010 10:46:10 GMT -5
I see what you mean, but what I meant with 'supernatural' were obvious things which would deconstruct the laws of nature themselves (conservation of energy for example). If what is described as supernatural here were explainable and measurable it wouldn't be called supernatural. The online novel "The Salvation War" ( chapter 1, chapter 2 [unfinished]) for example simply introduces portals as a form of quantum entanglement and leaves everything else 'magical' explainable (lightning shot by the demons is bio-electricity; making 'fire rains from the sky' by opening a portal inside an active volcano etc.).
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Post by devilschaplain2 on May 14, 2010 10:56:05 GMT -5
I like how Christopher Hitchens describes things like Heaven: "And understand that the totalitarian idea, which is the main enemy that we all face, ultimately comes from the appeal to a supreme unchallengeable unchangeable total authority who can even pursue you after you’re dead. The celestial North Korea, as I call it. I’ve now finally been - it took me a long time - I used to wonder what it would be like to be, when I heard, when I was a kid, ‘Well, heaven will be everlasting praise of the Great Leader.’ I used to think, ‘Well, what would that be like?’ Now I know. I’ve seen it. My greatest failure as a journalist has been to try and describe to American readers what it would be like in North Korea. The utter misery, pointlessness and horror of that society. The article got a lot of praise. It makes me wince when people praise it, because I know, I know I utterly, utterly failed with all my powers of description, I couldn’t convey what it would be like to live in North Korea." So, no, I'm not sad that it's untrue
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Post by Dragon Zachski on May 14, 2010 14:20:12 GMT -5
I see what you mean, but what I meant with 'supernatural' were obvious things which would deconstruct the laws of nature themselves (conservation of energy for example). If what is described as supernatural here were explainable and measurable it wouldn't be called supernatural. The online novel "The Salvation War" ( chapter 1, chapter 2 [unfinished]) for example simply introduces portals as a form of quantum entanglement and leaves everything else 'magical' explainable (lightning shot by the demons is bio-electricity; making 'fire rains from the sky' by opening a portal inside an active volcano etc.). The scientific laws of nature are really just nature as we understand it, right? Many scientific laws we have now didn't "exist" back then, and many scientific "laws" back then have been replaced in favor of more accurate "laws". Who is to say we won't discover more about exactly how the universe around us works? Then again, who is to say we don't already understand it now?
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Post by Vene on May 14, 2010 14:39:23 GMT -5
Our entire scientific world-view is based on logical connections. As a scientist, no, it's not. It's based on observing things and testing to see if things act the way we think they do. It's more empirical than logical. I can't logic myself into understanding photosynthesis. Supernatural is not exactly unnatural, and again, what's with the illogical? Fuck logic, we're doing science! If something can be observed, it can be studied with science. And I don't necessarily mean the spell itself, we could even study the effects of the spell. Unless magic has no effect on the world it can be studied. And if it has no effect on the world, then who cares if it does exist? No, it really wouldn't. There are some aspects of science that are so close to proven (there's never 100% proof) that they're simply not going to be overturned. A couple easy examples are thermodynamics and Newton's laws of motion. You might find exceptions and places where they don't work (Newtonian physics falls apart when dealing with the quantum, for example), but you're not going to replace them. They've been confirmed too many times. After all, we used the fucking laws of motion to get to the moon. That would be impossible if they were wrong. No, thins would still happen for a reason, because there is a cause. We'd be able to find the source of the magic, and see how the spells were being cast. It wouldn't be any different than when radiation was discovered. Hell, things that were explained by "magic" in the past are now understood by science.
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Post by cagnazzo on May 14, 2010 14:47:08 GMT -5
Newton's laws of motion fall apart from relativity. What falls apart from quantum is everything that makes sense.
I just took a quiz on quantum tunneling. Shit be crazy, yo.
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Post by The_L on May 14, 2010 16:58:27 GMT -5
I wanted to believe in Christianity so hard. At first it was because it was the only thing I knew. Second because the church I was going to was nice and encouraged free thought... which was exactly why it became harder and harder for me to believe. Still don't know whether I'm an agnostic or a nature pagan of some sort. It's hard to tell. I should add, however, that I do sorta believe magic exists, but that it's nowhere close to what it is in fairy tales. No flinging fireballs, no making people love-stricken with you... and certainly nothing like healing people or raising the dead or any such nonsense. This, pretty much in its entirety.
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