Is God a Delusion?

i'm talking about most wars in the known history of man, not most wars in the past 300 years.

also, i'd like to clear something up. i am not against believing in something (even though i choose not to). i am against forcing those beliefs upon others, especially when those beliefs are based in perception rather than understanding.
oh, and one more thing, we need to stop looking at humans as a reputable source of evidence for evolution. if humans ever did evolve from something else, we have effectively stopped that evolution, now that we've eliminated the "survival of the fittest" aspect of humanity. we'll never evolve beyond the point we're at now unless we weed out the weaker and less intelligent members of humanity, which of course is completely unacceptable by the present global standards in rights and laws.

well as a christian i would say anything contraidictory to the bible. i guess you could say natural law, real law, and common sense. its common sense not to kill someone. i think?

He's gonna hit China any second now...then he can try this from the Confucianist side.

Doesn't change anything.

he said murder is bad haha.

then said like lotsa sex. liking dudes..

What do you mean by natural law? Real law doesn't apply, sense everybody knows half of the laws in any country are bullshit. And I wasn't talking about murder, if you even read my post...

common sense not to kill someone? so i suppose it's also common sense to watch where you walk so as not to step on a beetle right? why don't we have a law against squishing beetles? why don't beetles have rights? who the hell comes up with these laws anyways? i know if i was a beetle i wouldn't want to be stepped on, the same as the person who came with a law against murder didn't want to get killed.

ummmm yea. id say so. for all the immorality and sin going on. theres my cheap answer. sorry

im sorry, but i have to take issue with some of this, coming from a christian... (just a disclaimer) 


some things happen, and we will not see the good side of them until we get to heaven...

well 2 years ago, my best friends dad died from cancer, now this was a family man, mayor of 25,000 people, volunteer fire fighter,  hockey coach, the works, ok, the works... the perfect family, a perfect family, the nicest people you would have ever met...

now that was not free will IMO,

he was diagnosed, and 6 weeks later, he was dead.......

if there was ever anything in the whole world, that made me closely examine my faith, it was this...

+k for lulz. and a good point

dude for the record i am completely chill with u being bi. sure i dont want to believe it, but i respect u as a person, and that was not directed at you lol. cool?

yeah man, no worries.

Rowen i really like this thread! Its fun to talk about this shit trippen ballz or blazed and have a deep conversation
BUT
this is the internet so i'll just keep it short and give u what i think

I do think  the ultamite god(jesus) is in a way is.a delusion.A lot of people in this world look up to a god whether it's Jesus, Zeus, Mohammed ext. no one really has facts and proof of there so call god or religion. It's all a belief and hope that this good will lead u to a better world. Then there's some that don't be leave in much! There's me, i love my one and only life and want to live it up and when i die, i die, I certanily do believe in a sweet after life i don't no what that it is and i won't no till i find out. All i no is it'll be super tight!
If there's any type of god i like or believe in most it would have to be Dionysus son of Zeus. He is a major god of greek mythology certainly because he was in the zeus family tree.  Dionysus is the god of wine,the inspirer of ritual madness and ectacy! He was also known Liberator, freeing one from one's normal self, by madness, ecstasy, or wine. The divine mission of Dionysus was to mingle the music of the and to bring an end to care and worry. He also has the ability to preside over communication between the living and the dead.  Yes he is a myth but as is all the other gods!

wow.

well, im not the best at putting thoughts on paper, so i am prolly really easy to destroy, but that is terrible. and the only thing i can say is, faith. i know theres a god out there, and i can try to talk science and hamartiology, but i know there is one out there, and that is what i have to live for.

Bring me back a fortune cookie.

seriously though, the thing a we should really have scientists working on is a way to efficiently communicate with all life, so that we can get their opinion and they can make their own laws against getting killed. buddhism is definitely making the most sense out of all religions, they take the safety of other life into consideration when their making up their rules. not nearly as selfish as the buggers who simply forgot to include animals and plants in their United Nations meetings.

did i mention he left behind a wife (obviously,) and 4 children, my age 18, 15, 12, and 9....


it was also the last time i cried, seeing YOUR BEST FRIEND walking down the isle behind his dads body, looking his mom in the eye and saying "i am so sorry"  


but yeah, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

Hebrews 11:1


god is good, and i am not going to poor my family story into NSG, (no way in hell i would do that)  but god is good...

and it goes on to say that you will be rewarded. good passage. how r u doing now?

Alrght well im signin out for now. with all do respect, i like this thread, and hope i havent made a fool of myself. ill hit it up tommorow and see some of your views

it was 2 years ago, right after my buddy had his JR prom....


o, here is a doozy....  from that week...

so my buddy and i are at my house playing X box(what ever, i dont remember) my home phone rings....

his mom......... "tyler,come home now"   (he moved when we were in 5th grade, and lives about 20 miles away)

and his parents are the super easy going, yeah, you want to stay another hour, thats fine, just super super nice people.... always food if you are hungry, mtn dew in the fridge... ect... 

back on topic, "tyler come home now"



so my friend goes home, my phone rings 2 hours later...




tyler,   "they just gave my dad 2 days tops to live"  "i am going to see him right now"


now what do you say?   i probably butchered it, but i somehow got, "i am sooooooooo sorry" "call any time if you need anything in the world"  

next morning, dad dies, 920am...

i can reply that whole week down to every detail...




time is a good healer.... i just hung out with tyler last week (after not seeing each other scienc my grad party) and found out his mom has a BF,  i asked some questions, but im not going to get in his face while at taco bell and say "so what do you think about your mom dateing"?  

but we hung out for the day, had an AWESOME TIME, and even though we dont get the chance to see each other very often, i know i can count on tyler for ANYTHING.... we are the type of friends that even though we hadnt seen each other all summer, (working, sports, ect) we are able to pick it up right were we left off the last time we hung out.....

innocent human beings are punished because that is the way of life. Since God let us choose, things happen. choices of one person can affect others, not just the guilty. you hear the saying, nice guys finish last. that has truth, because their reward wont come until later. it doesnt all happen at once. God says in the Bible that a fathers sin can have an affect wayy down the line.

When talking about God's omnipotence, He knows all things, and He has a plan, and at the same time he lets us choose. This is one of the hardest topics for me: Predestination VS. Free Will.  and I can honestly say that I dont even know how this works. So you win. I personally never uinderstood that.

oh and that guy was hatin on my icon. that was for the peace coast cult i thought it looked cool and im too lazy to change it. there u go.

not hatin' on it, i actually kinda like it. i was just wondering why your icon would represent peace when you believe in something that advocates changing the world for its own purposes.

sorry for the extra post, but i'd just like to point out that scientific evidence shows that the Christian God likes to throw big huge rocks at Earth from time to time. I suggest all you Christians continue saying grace before you dig in to your dinner, and tell your boss you can't work on Sundays because God would rather you chilled in your hammock and watched the grass grow.

i havent watched it, but that was a mega ignorant stereotypical post. dont even post if your gonna flame on christians

and when did i say this?

^
^
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O SNAP

i wasn't flaming on christians! that's what christians are supposed to do! besides the fact that it was sarcastic, NS seriously needs to get the meter back up.

you didn't. everyone who believed in a Christian God before you did.

ha sorry. i was gettin kinda serious my bad. anyways, its 11 ocklock and i have school tmrw. ill hit it up in the morning. out

I am a false prophet, God is a superstition! I am a false prophet!!!  God is a superstition!!!

i feel you on this.
also i like to think about it as whatever you think God or life is, then thats it, theres no right or wrong answer.

Thoughtful post. Made me think a lot.

NS is more than a skiing site i realize now.

It's a way of life,
But really that was a good post.

Pascals Wager then? That its better to believe in a creator because you face no consequences if you believe and there happens to be no afterlife, rather than not believing and there being one, in which you therefore would burn in hell?

I think I can speak for a lot of atheists out there. Respectfully, we turn down your offer. In turn, for your own sake, give life without god a chance, and you'll find the answers by yourself. You may not believe its possible at first, but you'll listen to yourself eventually.

Sure man, I'll look into that movie, Ben Stein alright.

As far as why evolution is "shakey", and how the bible is true... whats the evidence you're referring to? From what I've heard, the Bible is a document thats been translated in and out of languages many many times, often by people with alternative motives. Furthermore, the four Gospels, where a lot of people draw their faith, were arbitrarily chosen out of the many that were floating around at the time. In some of the others, Jesus performed acts of magic, turning people into animals and lengthening his fathers boards so that he could finish building a house. I'm not disagreeing with that 'feeling you get inside', as I obviously cannot debate such matters, but an open invitation to anyone - evidence in support or disagreement of what you and I have stated?

Much respect for your friend, first off, and before saying anything more, though we disagree highly on politics, let that not enter here and may this precede without any of the hostility you and I may reserve for  each other from other threads.

This made you re-examine your faith. What and why did you conclude what you did?

this discussion is damn sensative so im pretty impressed with the discussions being had.

but i am a christian, hate it or not, i dont remember the last time ive read the bible or gone to church, my parents arent rediculously strict or anything, but im very glad im a christian, i couldnt imagine having no faith, mine just happens to be christian, but having faith gives you something that nothing else can. it helps set your morals, i do break many rules and do bad things just like everyone else but i know my own personal boundries, and if i have a shitty day i can lay in my bed and if i really need to get something off my chest ill tell god because he always listens and sometimes you just need to know that someones listening, not always saying something back. 

and to those of you who are wondering why god would let tragic events like katrina and what not happen no one can really give you an answer, but then again you cant really give an answer about the big bang, sometimes life can get real shitty but i think in the end it brings people together even if others were lost in the process. im not gonna go door to door and give you a bible and a hug but if your feelin down and no one else seems up to listening, think again, cuz he's there

I dont know if faith helps you set morals. Take me for example. I dont have have faith, but I seem to have morals.

A common question Atheists get is "If you dont have anything to look forwards to, isnt life terrible?" Not true at all. In response (and taking a leaf from Douglas Adams), I'm looking forwards to having a good lunch from the hospital cafeteria in an hour.

i came to the conclusion, that when i get to heaven (dont hate) i will have the whole picture....

and while so far, only pain and suffering has come of this, GOD IS GOOD.....

after talking to my former pastor on the subject for extensive amounts of time.... god did not kill him, cancer did, god could have stopped it, but he chose not to.... and we will get the whole story in heaven...


wow, that sounds really cheesy, dont hate, because if i see hate, ill just block out NSG out, and you wont see one more post from me....

peep this website, it has some powerful powerful bible verses about faith, and god working for the good of people who follow him... http://www.whereisgod.net/stress.htm

o yeah, my pastor did a much better job of explaining this, in a logical manner...

guess ill throw out a few more thoughts.
i consider myself a christian, but i think all beliefs are equal, including atheism. i dont buy into the whole "if you do not accept jesus as yer savior, yer going straight to hell" bit. dont really even believe in hell, unless as a place for the true evil fuckers of the world, ie hitler. seems a bit far fetched though.
also, i strongly believe in evolution.
i think its fairly silly to take too literal a reading of the bible.

Isnt it a much simpler conclusion to come to that he just died from cancer? What your pastor said, at least to me, was just consolation to make you understand the loss. I think its just more truthful to say that life sometimes sucks. Sometimes deserving people get nothing and sometimes worthless people get everything.

I kinda get from what you've said that you feel that your less of an organized religion person and more of 'spiritualist'. You've talked about all the reasons you arent strongly christian, but why do you still consider yourself christian?

I wish I had seen this thread earlier. Hopefully my two cents are worthwhile, as I have spent lots of time thinking about these questions and discussing them with people I consider to be very open-minded and intelligent.

Going back to the original question, if you look at the word religion then you can see where the need for a good arises. Etymologically, religion means to re-bind. We seek in religion to reconnect with deeper things, with sacred experiences, with a meaning of life beyond simply surviving. It depends on the religion, but usually religion seeks to reconnect us with others, with nature, and with our own true self beyond our superficial ego that is formed by other people's and society's expectations. Given that the meaning is rebinding, there is an inherent suggestion that we are broken, which I believe is pretty easy to see. Huge numbers of people seek meaning through power, image, money, and other material things. In my experience, people who seem to be happy by achieving those things are actually pretty empty and miserable.

In the Christian tradition, we cannot rebind to deeper meaning without the help of a higher power (Christ). We admit and realize our dependence on him to help us become whole again. Ultimately we are aiming to let go of our worldly desires and live for a higher purpose. This is where all the examples of Christ encouraging others to leave all their possessions and follow him come from. In the Eastern tradition, especially Buddhism, the rebinding comes from the self, no other power is necessary. One seeks to withdraw and disconnect from one's worldly self solely through your own power.

So far this is all stuff that factual and historical, not my personal beliefs. I have been raised as a Catholic but struggle with many questions, some similar to those other people have posed. Seeing genocide, disease, murder, and the unbelievable apathy of humanity leads me to question how a supposedly all-powerful yet all-loving God can allow such horror. The only conclusion that I can satisfy myself with is that contrary to just about every Church's teaching, God does not intervene in the Earth. Our prayers for a sick person to get well or war to stop are basicallly pointless. I cannot picture a God who would answer one prayer and miraculously cure someone's cancer while allowing millions to starve. It paints a bleak picture for some to think of God as distant and unanswering, but he does give us tools to do something about all the injustice of the world: Us. A quote that I personally like goes something like: "Sometimes I want to ask God why he doesn't do somthing about all the hatred and injustice in the world, but I'm afraid he'll ask me the same question." We are the only hands Jesus has in the world, and we are his tools to act out his message of love and justice.

And as to people who say they cannot believe in God because it doesn't make sense or something like that, I offer this quote by Paul Tillich: "Faith is not a theoretical confirmation of something uncertain, it is an existential acceptance of something transcending ordinary experience." I realize this goes beyond the average 14 year old NSer's understanding, so let me try and put it in simpler terms. When you have faith, you are not simply saying, "Ya, I think there's a God out there. Ya, I think there is." You are accepting that God goes beyond our understanding and comprehension. Hopefully at least one person can find some meaning in that, as I know I did.

I could go on, but I think that is probably enough for one post. I still have many questions about God and religion, but I have learned to accept those and use the struggle for answers as growth. If anyone wants to discuss anything about religion, I would love to.

just a means to an end, really.
and i am definately more of a "spiritualist." (i was actually going to use that term before, but didnt know if it was really a word).
its hard for me to explain, but something about the quiet contemplative feeling i get when im in a really old ornate church, it feels holy. i feel like i can sense god. of course, i also sense him/her/it when im out in the mountains.
i sometimes feel like im cheating, in that i dont even really know if i believe, literally, in christianity. its kind of just a nice little something i carry around with me.
shits hard to explain.

Here is a pretty fascinating debate on the subject.

http://www.tkc.edu/debate/

I thought is was pretty insightful on both sides of the argument.

Good post. Question for you with your belief system;

God seems to have retreated more and more from humans as science has explained more and more mysteries once ascribed to 'only within gods power'. If science one day explains everything (hypotheticall, I'm not foretelling any future here), then god it seems must reside where you put him, removed from all and just an observer to our fate. If god is removed from interactions in this world and instead just sits back and watches the fine clock he has created run, then isnt it just as likely that there is no watchmaker?

you all should combine the best out of all of these posts and make a religion called nsism

Eh... its hard to blend atheism with islam.

Agreed
In my opinion (and many, many people I know) the bible isnt meant to be taken literally, but more of a guide to point you generally in the right direction.

What I believe: Evolution did in fact occur. I dont know if we stared as single celled organisms or if we stared as more complex beings, but God most likely didnt just plop fully developed humans down on the earth.

What the scientific community has shown us is evidence that evolution occured. Scientists havent "disproved" God, nor do I think this was their intension. Scientists just want to gather knowledge using what methods they can, and that is respectable and commendable.

What science has not shown us is the purpose of evolution. It is completly plausable that God "sparked" evolution and either let it run its course or controlled it in some manner that we can not comprehend. This idea has been suggested before and fits in with how many scientists and theologeons view creation.

*If you chose not to believe in evolution, or you believe in evolution and not God, i mean no hate. Just my thoughts. and sorry for the length but this is a topic ive put alot of thought into