Christine the Lioness (3122)
Christopher the Pyro (1986)
ProphetJoe the Irreverent (1253)
Trouble the Pirate (601)
Keith the Director (573)
Mara the Peacemaker (533)
eric the Lil' Devil (351)
AJ the Zen Master (305)
Ben the Kingpin (213)
Haas the Addict (187)
Christine 2 the Mercenary (131) Lei the Mercenary (124) Katie the Mercenary (115)
John1040 the Soldier (59)
Geekthug the Groupie penned this
Do you have kids? I never really understood God until I had kids. Not that its a major miracle or anything, its just the relationship you have with them. You just want them to be happy and learn.
When they screw up, your pissed at them because they are hurting themselves in the long run. I think God is the same way.
You give them all you can then they whine when they don’t get what they wanted, and not what they needed. I think God is the same way.
My kids have free will, and do what ever they want. Sometimes its bad sometimes its good. I can’t control them, only give them pointers and rules with hope that they will follow them. I think God is the same way.
I tell my kids to eat their vegetables, go to bed early, go to school, and keep their rooms clean. For making them do that, they think I’m mean because they don’t understand what I’m trying to do for them. I think God is the same way.
I love my kids so much that I’m willing to die for them to save their life or protect their future. I know God is the same way.
We call God heavenly father for a reason. Yes he is powerful and wonderfully amazing … but God loves us. Therefore he has feelings (first time I thought of it that way, kinda weird). I don’t think we can severely piss him off, be he could be disappointed.
Christopher the Pyro spake, and sayeth
Geek,
I hear what your saying and no I don’t have kids at least none that I know about, and I do understand that miracle of kids does change alot about who we are as people.
Maybe we can disappoint God, I don’t know.. I wonder if he is paying attention, it is a bit arrogant to think he is… and also last time I check the Bible, Kuran, and every other holy book ever written was wrote by man.. so I’m not sure how much guidence your getting directly from god… so i wonder if it was just so guy telling me to eat my veggies 2k years ago and if God really cares if we eat our veggies.
Geekthug the Groupie mentioned
Believing in any type of religion is tough these days. We are so disconnected from the past and ourselves. I know that lots of people think that faith/religion is silly or man made but Christianity works great for me, and I?m gonna stick with it. I?m not big a church go?er, but I have faith.
By the way, the every religious book in existence was written by one person except for the Bible. If they Bible were fake, it would be the biggest historical joke in the history of mankind. Since the Koran, Book of Mormon, and others were written by one person, it is easy to fake them. And when they finished the books and gained followers they were put into a position of power and sexual prowl ness. The people that wrote the Bible (New Testament in particular) were killed for believing. Big difference.
Anyway, I?ve preached enough. I just wanted you to get a different perspective.
Christopher the Pyro uttered
I’m not sure the history of Koran, BoM but I do know that the bible is a collection of scriptures that the Catholic church hand picked from thousands of scriptures so in a way while the bible was not wrote by one person it was organized by an organization.. to fit that organizations needs. That isn’t to say anything back about Christianty in any way, I agree that we are very much out of touch with our past.. but I also think that many people are very uninformed about religion in general.
Rob the Soldier up'n wrote this
The bible is not the only multi-author religious text. Although Geek might be right about the two books that he mentioned, those are only two books, not every other religious text. There are so many traditions aside from the couple that were mentioned. I think that the real mistake is to look any religion in a literal sense. Geek’s comment about the bible not being able to be faked is indicative of the problems that can occur when we try to prove our religions. What Geek said first, that Christianity works for him, is far more important than whether of not every word in the bible is true. If following a faith helps make somebody a better person, then I think that is great. If I may regurgitate an idea prevalent among religious scholars, even many from the monotheistic religions, God is a metaphor for something that we here on Earth cannot understand. This makes the need to prove God’s existence irrelevant. Also, belief in something that is unprovable is central to the idea of faith in a divine being. Proof and evidence negate the need for faith. What we do have proof of, though, is the need to apply some of the principles contained in many religions right here on Earth. That is one thing that I appreciate about most of the religions that I have been exposed too, that most set some pretty good rules about how we should treat one another. We should remember at least that part of those books, no matter how many authors took part.
Christine the Lioness chimed in with
Rob makes an excellent point. While I do believe in God and consider myself Christian, I think “religion” was in essence, created by humans because we have an inherent need to explain the inexplicable and need some comfort in knowing we will go somewhere after we die. I think it also gives ground to the concept of morality… if I’m moral, I’ll go to Heaven, is a much simpler way to convince people to be moral (and hence, live together in a peaceful society that progresses) than the concept “If I’m moral, then I’ll live a more fulfilling life.” Morality and guilt are created by people because we believe it serves the greater good (and it does), but it wasn’t set forth by anything other than ourselves. Religion breaks down complicated things in life and makes simple rules that are easy to follow. Thou shalt not steal is an easy rule to understand and follow even though it is in man’s nature to be jealous and want to take things other people have. But if everyone went around stealing everyone else’s stuff, society would crumble, and that would not be for the greater good. Now, does that mean there’s no God. I don’t think so. I think that we would be complete egoists to believe that there is nothing greater out there than ourselves. Our human minds are so limited in what they can perceive and comprehend, we don’t even truly understand our own nature or time or physics or much else in the grand scheme of things. But this is all a matter of perception. I agree 100% with Rob when he says the nature of faith is to believe without proof. Proof negates faith, so if the basis of religion is “faith” then God can never allow us to witness proof. I, on the other hand, don’t believe it is about faith in God. I see things every day that prove to me there must be a God. I think the faith is about having faith that we will, as individuals, be okay without needing to know what will happen to us. Faith allows us to live life– to trust that when the chips are down, the world won’t fall apart. In terms of who wrote the Bible or Koran or any other religious text… it doesn’t matter how many authors there were. There could be one or a hundred. Three people can be in collusion to write the same thing… multiple people have testified in trials that they all witnessed the same thing, only to realize that they were all wrong in what they thought they saw. The point is… none were written by God. They were all written by people. And people, even if they try not to, are all limited by the extent of the language (language often isn’t effective enough to convey an experience or thought in its purest form); by the culture they grew up with; by their own agendas; by the political climate at the time they wrote… a myriad of things. It would be just as easy to fake the Bible in reality as it would be to fake a Watchtower pamphlet. My feeling on the whole thing is that if there really is a divine being, then we are inherently connected to him/her/it and we don’t need a book to explain that to us. We will feel it and know it without needing to be told the same thing by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And to believe that we need to take the Bible’s words as words of God, in all the limitations of language, demeans the words of God and reduces them to something as inferior as what the human mind can create. Anyway… that’s just my opinion.
GeekThug the Groupie penned this
We live in a different time. People are more knowledgeable now than ever before. Therefore we question more, and believe little. This makes faith difficult. Yes, you are all right every religious book was written by man. If they are true historical records it should not be an issue. But are they true?
As a Christian who seeks the truth, I do have some conflicting issues. I know that Easter did not start as the resurrection of Christ, I know Christmas is not on December 25, I know the Constantine canonized the Bible, and I know there is no mention of popes, monks, or nuns in the Bible (that’s way I’m not Catholic). Does this change what the Bible means to me? No. Does it change my faith? No. What it does do is make me what the truth. The strange thing is, the more I learn the stronger my faith gets. Not faith in the church or in the religion, those things are buildings and organizations, but my faith in God.
Look, we can talk about this all day, I really have no point to prove, and I’m not trying to prove any of you wrong. You all seem to be intelligent and open minded folks, (thanks by the way) I just hope you find out what works for you by searching for the truth. Because when I did it, Christianity was what worked for me, and I’m stinking to it.
Christine the Lioness hunt n' pecked this
I agree with you, GeekThug and see Christianity in the same way you do (I think). My faith is also in God, not in any one book or building or organization or figure head (hence my problem with Catholocism as well). And like Rob mentioned before, it’s entirely about ‘faith.’ Two people could witness a thug robbing an old lady. They could both see some strapping young lad jump to her rescue and retrieve her purse from the thug. One witness would see that event as something terrible– that poor old lady victimized by that evil thug! The other witness could see that as something wonderful– a higher power made sure that the sweet old woman was protected by the strapping young lad. It’s all about how we choose to perceive the exact same things. One witness could say there must be no God because God would never allow a thug to do this to an old woman. The other witness could say there must be a God because God is all-knowing and intentionally made sure the young man was there at the right time to help her. Perception. We choose how we want to perceive things and we make them fit into our belief systems. And yes, we also form our beliefs on what we perceive (sometimes) but in my opinion, more often, it works the other way around. Once we’ve committed to our beliefs, we categorize everything to coincide and support them. Everything else, we dismiss. We do this in relationships, in politics, in pretty much everything. I think it is part of human nature. My feeling is… if Chritianity works for you for whatever reason you’ve chosen to believe it, then great. If Judaism works, great. Buddhism, great. But if you subscribe to any religion that doesn’t want you to question or choose, therein lies a big problem. And whether or not you’re being a good person on earth because you think it will get you to heaven or you’re doing it for some other reason, doesn’t matter. If it turns out that the only purpose religion ever served was for that, then that’s good enough.
Lei the Mercenary spake, and sayeth
I, too, believe that there is a Supreme Being out there. and we’re all free to choose and stay in whatever religion that works for us. what just irks me is the way people from a different religion try to convert others by questioning or discreding these people’s own religion or beliefs. for example, there’s this particular religion whose members believe that they’re “the only ones who will be saved” when “the end of the world” comes. and that if you’re not “enlightened” enough to join them, then, they’d tell you, you’ll burn in hell. i say they’re fools, and irritating when you listen to them. maybe we can’t blame them for doing their part in preaching, but not to the extent that they offend other people’s beliefs and sensibilities. there’s no one binding religion in this world. it’s all based on faith. and faith, or the lack of it, is a personal choice. and we all have to respect that.
Lei the Mercenary stated
make that “discrediting” 
Peter the Virgin penned this
Very mature discussion for such a topic, and I appreciate that. Like Geek I once was on a quest for truth, but I’m having hard time defining that word, since so many have their versions. I believe and this is just working for me, not sayng it’s the thing to do, but my advice would be to search for knowledge. If you just accept things or a book as truth, it very likely precludes you or keeps from knowing the things you may ultimately see. Remember knowledge used to be a dirty word, think of Galieo and others who sought knowledge but couldn’t tell anybody at the risk of being jailed or worse. So think about you can seek now, like the classic line from Men in Black “Imagine what you”ll know tomorrow”. With knowledge comes wisdom and that leads you on the path to morals, your morals at least, just like the topics on this blog,(should you lie to your mate,should you tip your waitress,etc.) Like all tasks it helps to have a guide or guide book. Another good resource is The Jefferson Bible, you can do a google search and you can find it. Thomas Jefferson (a pretty knowledable fellow) put together his version of the Bible, by taking out the Old Testament, and anything that he thought was more myth than anything else. What he came up with is a story of man who was knowledgable and helped a lot of people and died. Now is that the truth? Who knows, but knowing a little more shouldn’t hurt.
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