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Quote from Zubz313

@vinceasuma--->Then I guess you know what you need to do 🤣
Hey! You're the only other person on here that I've come across that lives in California too! Cool 😎

lol I'm from California too.

Anyway, just wanted to start off with a light comment, lol. I'll be honest and say I didn't read all 33 pages @.@, but I just wanted to get my opinion out there in case anyone cared.

I was raised Catholic and I know because of this, I will naturally be inclined to believe in God.

I forget which philosopher it is (it might have been Freud, I forget), but he said that humans believe in God because at one time, they had to. Religion had brought stability (yes, of course, it brought wars, but imagine the wars we had if we had 50 religions fighting against each other, or 50 sets of morals fighting against each other). In a way, the believe in a one god unified people. It also gave them something to look forward to, in their life of hardship and despair, a heaven that awaited them at the end. It was also a tool to control the masses, with it's threat of Hell (you wouldn't believe how different the early Christian God is compared to the modern Christian God).
But he believed that it was time for humans to grow up, that this belief in God is not needed anymore, in a time of science and reasoning.

I think that whether or God exists or not, it is up to you to find your own answer. God may or may not exist, but I do believe in a sort of non-Christian-exclusive Heaven (whether or not it may or may not be the Christian Heaven). Meaning, as long as you are a good person, you will be rewarded in the end, whether or not you believe in God, whether or not you are Christian.

But I think the most important part of this issue, is your search. I resent Christians who are mindless and believe in God for no other reason than they were raised that way and are scared of the consequences. Stand up for what you believe in. But I also resent the close-minded athiests who flame the Christians for their mindlessness, when they are the ones being mindless, not having done any research or reading up articles arguing both sides. They are only arguing for something they have no proof for, very unscientifical for one who believes so much in science.

Lastly, I'll end with this note. Lately, especially with the younger generation, I see athiesm beginning to rise. In the same way Asian-Americans slowly begin to lose their Asian culture out of laziness, some religious families have slowly begin to decay, leaving an athiest generation. I don't mind, but I also notice that more and more often Christians are the ones getting attacked (not saying that they're innocent) for believing in something so unscientific. And I see that most probably in the future, no longer with the athiests be flamed, but it will be the Christians.

That's all. 😀 Thank you for anyone who have read this far, lol.

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Quote from Lybi

Lastly, I'll end with this note. Lately, especially with the younger generation, I see athiesm beginning to rise. In the same way Asian-Americans slowly begin to lose their Asian culture out of laziness, some religious families have slowly begin to decay, leaving an athiest generation. I don't mind, but I also notice that more and more often Christians are the ones getting attacked (not saying that they're innocent) for believing in something so unscientific. And I see that most probably in the future, no longer with the athiests be flamed, but it will be the Christians.

That's all. 😀 Thank you for anyone who have read this far, lol.

Although i agree with you that the decay of religion as a common family practice has left many un-religious to some extent, i think that what it leaves is more of a generation of Agnostics than Atheists. Wikipedia says(^_^),"Atheism, as a philosophical view, is the position that either affirms the nonexistence of gods[1] or rejects theism." In short, people who say god 100% doesn't exist and religion is a bad thing.

On the other hand Agnosticism (still wikipedia ^_^) is," (from the Greek "a," meaning "without," and Gnosticism or "gnosis," meaning knowledge) is the philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims—particularly theological claims regarding metaphysics, afterlife or the existence of God, god(s), deities, or even ultimate reality—is unknown or, depending on the form of agnosticism, inherently unknowable due to the nature of subjective experience."

The most important part of that is the origins of the word meaning roughly without knowledge. Agnosticism is basically the Philosophy of Skepticism, saying either that proving with 100% certainty the existence of god is impossible, or what i think is more relevant for this younger generation, that although it may be possible, the person in question has no knowledge of it personally.

  **So at the end of the day what I'm saying is that i don't think that the younger generations hate religion and 100% don't believe in God (at least not all of them), but that because the (common) practice of religion has sort of decayed in recent years, they just don't have enough of a base of knowledge to make a decision on the matter.(i.e. they're agnostics Q.E.D. ^_^)** 

Thats just my little bit, if you took the time to read all of it i appreciate it. 😀

Can't read >_<

lol you're right UberZombie, my choice of words was wrong there. What I meant probably was an indifference, or as you described it a lack of "enough of a base of knowledge to make a decision on the matter.(i.e. they're agnostics Q.E.D. ^_^)"
(Question, what's Q.E.D?)
But I do believe that athiesm is a lot more accepted (and sometimes encouraged) nowadays and causes scorn onto religious fanatics. But I suppose anything compared to what it was like a long time ago (like if you were found to be athiest, you were burned on the spot kinda thing O.O)

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yah, i definitely agree with you there. there is a lot of atheism today, but even more so than just the atheism, there is a lot of Bashing of Christians and really all religions in general, and its really too bad. I'm not a terribly religious person myself, but i can and do respect people who are very devout to their religion of choice, whatever that may be. And although i respect peoples choices to be atheist also, i think some of the bashing of noble actions and devotion to ones beliefs that gets carried out in the name of atheism is kind of sad. But yes your observations are definitely correct.

(p.s. Q.E.D = "quod erat demonstrandum", Latin for "which was to be demonstrated" . Basically, its a geometry term put after proofs to signify that above is the reasoning used to prove the initial statement. at least i think, because i didn't look at wikipedia yet XD.)

Can't read >_<

I can never remember what q.e.d. stands for, but nothing makes a post look better than adding that to the end of a long post 🙂

Anyway, just mentioning the bashing of christians that many seem to believe will rise.

There always has been a lot of bashing about religion and non religion. Protestants and Catholics have been cutting each other up and i think Irland still has some tensions there. Hell, all the christian churches have been having arguments for a long time, and before that with the romans, and the romans with the greeks, and the jews beeing bashed on by everybody, and the jews bashing on everybody ...........

 I am not trying to say that christian bashing won't rise, I am just saying that people have been busy bashing other people for beliefs for a long time and it won't stop. If you have more atheists/agnostics you have more christian bashing, if you have more christians you have more agnostic bashing. It's a give and take, like a good relationship. Sometimes you give, and sometimes you get gived.

P.S. somebody mentioned atheists being narrowminded and accused them of not having studied the other side of the arguement. Many, ( such as moritana and me ) have had religious teachings and have heard a lot of what the "other side" has to say. Probably a lot more than we have told others of our view. As long as children don't go to sunday school to learn why a god doesn't exist, i say the believers hold the high ground. Anyway, got sidetracked, just wanted to say i think many atheists have spent significant time studying and thinking about religion.

raises atheist hand

ahem

:] I really do hope I'm not as ignorant as people believe I am because of the atheist label. ;]

-Max

(PS: Bfor I start, I just wantd to say: "a b c d _ f g h..." That missing lttr is brokn on my kyboard, so I apologiz ahad of tim for any inconvinc)

Anyway, sorry I didnt' man to say that all athists ar ignorant and closmindd. I wantd to point out that thr xists such popl. I intndd to mak a point, which was to at last ducat yourslf bfor making an argumnt without anything to back it up.

(>.< omg nvr knw that lttr was so common!!)

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My main problem with religions is that while they have very nice central beliefs, there are also a bunch of random things in them that make no sense.

Take Sikhism for example (they are the ones with the turbans). It has a good central message that says that all people are equal, that God is an all powerful yet formless entity and that by living good lives a person can become part of God. But then they have some random stuff like never cutting your hair and having to always have five things that begin with the letter K with you at all times. (I hope I did not offend anybody by saying that. I just learned this stuff in my Social Studies class's religion unit.)

I do not know a whole lot about many religions beyond Christianity (and I only know much about that because my grandmother is very religious) but I am interested in learning more.

You're unique, just like everyone else.

God is basically impossible. He can't exist and at the same time he can, however in my personal view of things. I'd rather believe that he does not exist at all. Religion hinders scientific progress.

Lastly, three words. Man Made God.

Do Sikhistes (or whatever the plural is) use a roman alphabet wherever they are from? I thought they were Indian or from some south west Asian region. Whatever nevermind that...

If I were Sikh I would eat a banana every day to be full of Potassium (K) Then learn to knit and practice Karate. Then I would (K)now how to (K)nit and have the (K)nowledge of (K)arate. Done and done.

but seriously, I would say that 99% of religions start out with: Be good to everyone, honor your elders, be honest, show respect, yadda yadda. But by the end of the day they add a bunch of stuff like,: Weara funny hat on Tuesday, turn to the right by 290 degrees at 5:00 PM every day, eat only clams and brussels sprouts on the 8th of January, and always always always try to get more people in your religion (and if you ahve a whole bunch of people who don't speak you language, and they don't wanna give each other lincoln logs on October 8th, you have to kill them)

Life is tough......but it's tougher if you're stupid.
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Quote from twxm

My main problem with religions is that while they have very nice central beliefs, there are also a bunch of random things in them that make no sense.

I'm sure there's a reason behind these nonsensical random things, but honestly, I believe that these are superstitions that humans make up, whether or not God exists.

Quote from ShadwsofArchonia

God is basically impossible. He can't exist and at the same time he can, however in my personal view of things. I'd rather believe that he does not exist at all. Religion hinders scientific progress.

Lastly, three words. Man Made God.

In what way is God impossible? His existence is definitely a possibility, so far as I see. I do agree with you, however, that religion tends to hinder scientific progress, but that's the fault of the humans, not the religion.
And in a way, science is also a religion, it's belief. One can never prove anything. Just because the light bulb lights up the fifty times you click the switch, it doesn't mean that the switch causes the light bulb to light up. (This is the idea behind scientific experiments and statistics)

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Actually, I very much disagree with you when you say science is a religion. O_O;

Science is all about skepticism.

Nothing is a fact. A law only holds until someone can disprove it. Theories are just that... theories. Nothing is absolute. When Newtonian laws were challenged, people were like, omgwtfbbq!? But... when they saw that it was right... Newtonian laws were broken from their absolute status.

So, although we're saying the same thing, I disagree. Something works, someone gives me an explanation, I think it makes sense... but in some specific place, there may be something that disproves that. It may be belief, but in Christianity or other religion, they say that what they're saying is absolute... not just faith.

...Scientists say that their science could possibly be only belief... and could be overturned anyday. :[

-Max

God is real. GOD ROCKS.

I believe in God definitely. I know this because I experienced some weird stuff like out of the normal freaky stuff.

If you don't think He's real one day you'll know.

For now though, we're just teenage manga/anime freaks. w00t

Hi

Quote from DeLtA_IjK

Actually, I very much disagree with you when you say science is a religion. O_O;

Science is all about skepticism.

Nothing is a fact. A law only holds until someone can disprove it. Theories are just that... theories. Nothing is absolute. When Newtonian laws were challenged, people were like, omgwtfbbq!? But... when they saw that it was right... Newtonian laws were broken from their absolute status.

So, although we're saying the same thing, I disagree. Something works, someone gives me an explanation, I think it makes sense... but in some specific place, there may be something that disproves that. It may be belief, but in Christianity or other religion, they say that what they're saying is absolute... not just faith.

...Scientists say that their science could possibly be only belief... and could be overturned anyday. 🙁

very much true, all the scientists i know ( a few by now ) very much understand the limits of our understanding. Science is a lot like many things, if it works, its good. Einstein Theory of Relativity is great because using it we can calculate things like time diffrences with satalittes. If you think time drag has is gods work, fine, but give us a method to calculate it.

       An important fact about science that seperates it from religion and cults is this. The greatest scientist can be consiederd the biggest Asshole. I can say and nobody will think bad off me, that Gauss was the best Mathematician of the World whose work is amazing, but the guy was a huge pain in the ass scumbucket arrogant piece of shit.

Now, in a religion it sort of doesn't work that way. This is nor welcome: "Christianity is a great religion, lots of cool things to help you along the way, great traditions, ........., but man Jesus had his head up his ass and that God sure thinks he is better than everybody else. What a prick."

I meant that science is a belief in that it requires an faith to a certain degree. For example, the engineer, who has faith in the laws of relativity and physics as he builds his rocket. Or faith that that light bulb will light up when you press the switch. However, I do agree that science differs in flexibility, that Christianity tends to preach absolution.

But you can't say that any religion preaches absolutely absolute. lol I mean that religion, like science, changes, just not as quickly. The Christian God of early Christianity differs tremendously from the God that Christians preach about now. Even Christians (and other religions for that matter) have learned in one way or another and change their ways slightly. If that weren't the case, we wouldn't have the hundreds of sects of Christianity that exist today.

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