more nonesense...

Creation and evolution always crop up in these kind of discussions and I always think it wrong how either side try to poke holes in the other to add credence to their own standpoint.

Belief in creation doesn't mean you can't believe that evolution occurs, disbelief of evolution causing the creation of man doesn't mean that you have to believe in God and belief that evolution occurs doesn't mean that evolution caused the creation of man.

As mortals though we can't conceive that time is infinite in both directions, we naturally ask as a first question "How did it all start?" and follow it up with "What happened before that?"

I love quote "It's not god I have a problem with, I just hate his fanclub.", what's been clear to me in my experience the way that modern Christians "worship" has little to do with the bible and bears more similarity to a cross between Karaoke, stage hypnotism and and Jakanory (old brit children's story telling program).

I hate how some religious groups use a few small passages out of context from the bible to base their whole outlook on Christianity.

Why do Christians go to church anyway?, as far as biblical teaching is concerned the average Christian would learn a hell of a lot more actually just reading the bible than listening to someone else's imaginative use of a few passages to convey whatever it was that they wanted to convey that day. These guys study how to do this and build up collections of these services over the years many of which they don't even write themselves.

Having said all of those nasty things I have read my fair share of the bible (up to about Isaiah and a fair bit after that). In the luxury of not having other people's second hand interpretations rammed down my throat I believe that whoever (plural) wrote it and for whatever reasons, wrote the early old testament as factual documents, you honestly wouldn't write page after page of Flem begat Snot and the various rules regarding hygiene, pimples with white hairs and stuff. No colourful metaphors spring to mind there, not very good service material or the key passages to base a religion on.

It also reads to me that the 'character' of God in the Old Testament bears no resemblance whatsoever to Jesus in the new. Reading it like a normal book Jesus comes across to me as a normal man and never indicates that he is God and even declares to his disciples who ask how he performs miracles that they can just as easily as he could.
The whole of modern Christianity to me seems based on word of mouth teachings of interpretations vastly out of sync with what is actually written.

Whatever is true or not in it, the bible is a remarkable document and surprising when you actually read it, for example Job, to me it read like a novel, very easy to read, a story with one clear obvious point. I asked a lifelong Christian once what the point of the book was and they clearly had no idea, they'd been bombarded with too many metaphors and hadn't actually just 'read' it.

... well I was going to have a bash at science and people 'faith' in that without any understanding but this post is already to big to bother to read...

observation:
"christian" has become such a controversial/loaded word. You can easily get made fun of or insulted for holding such a title.
I consider myself christian as in "follower of Christ". Why can't I practise my faith without constant criticism from atheists or practioners of other faiths.
I don't beat the bible on other people's heads. I don't preach that end is near. I don't threaten others with a fiery hell. I don't patronize others because of their beliefs. All I want to do is love. I am disliked for that.

My comment on Big Bang vs. God theory, altough leads to no proof against each other and can be easily objected (have to disclaim all my comments), is simply the fact that we try to prove existence on our own limited logic of understanding. We think things have to follow suit and purely scientific method does not allow "miracles." Thing is, obviously we have not learned the truth without a doubt of the existence of existence, therefore it us unruly to believe in God over the Big Bang theory (and most definetly vice versa). However, I'm more inclined to believe in God (and I'm not saying God as in christianity, but a sole being, but since I'm a follower of christianity, I believe the sole being to equal God...another disclaimer) such that He is more intelligent than we are currently and perfectly logically that some logic that I don't understand is behind the existence of existence. I don't believe in the Big Bang theory because there is no intelligence behind it, but rather a mere coincedence.

Don't get me wrong, I believe the Big Bang theory should be carefully studied and see where it goes, but until it actually disproves God without a doubt, I'll keep my 100% faith in Him.

Precisely. Nor can you prove it. Hence the whole "faith" thing. As you said, "the delicate design of religion", whether you meant by humans or by a godly figure, it fits perfectly. Now it's up to us whether we choose to believe or not to believe (in christian standards). There's no argument that can convince every body to convert to christianism and there's no argument to make all the christian's stop believing. It goes back to what was mentioned earlier that it goes to a person-by-person choice. It is a design of true free will. Hmmm...I feel like I'm a Yevon-nite or something...haha.

Erm...actually, since the expansion is accelerating, a big crunch isn't going to happen. Gravity lost that fight.

Instead, we get the heat death of the universe: The universe keeps expanding faster and faster until all the energy is spread so thin that it might as well not exist. All the matter will, of course, have been sucked into black holes by then, which themselves will gradually lose mass due to Hawking radiation until they disappear too.

In the end, the only thing left in the universe will be a barely noticeable background radiation.

It's a little less appealing than a big crunch.

Yeah, I read a little bit about that too. The Big Rip, right?

"Big Rip" sounds so painful
"Big Crunch" sounded so yummy...

I read somewhere that time seems to be accelerating or something like that, The end of all times could be over us in a few years!

Guess I was too careful earlier and missed out on a good discussion. I blame X-G for bullying me in the other forum thread.

One of the biggest reasons Jesus was persecuted and ultimately killed was because of his claims of divinity. Often in the Bible (particularly the Old Testament) God is referred to as "I AM." Jesus was quite explicit in his use of this phrase in John 8:58:

That's not a typo or mistaken grammar; Jesus was applying a name of God to himself.

Additionally, Thomas the Apostle addresses Jesus as "My Lord and my God!" in John 20:28, to which Jesus responds, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." If Jesus did not wish to be known as God, he would have corrected Thomas, rather than recognize him as a 'believer.'

Considering also that Jesus said, "I am the way the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me," it becomes clear that Jesus believed himself to be divine and the only way of access to God. Jesus either is who he says he is, or he is a liar, or a lunatic. There is no neutral position where he was a kindly wise man. Even if you consider many of Jesus' principles wise, the injustice he would have done by causing so much uproar and violence in instituting a false religion would far outweigh his wise principles, especially seeing that many if not most of his followers do not seem to take them the least bit seriously.

I agree with what you say about churches being out of touch with the Bible itself, though. I don't consider my knowledge of the Bible to be nearly adequate, yet in discussions with Christian friends they'll sometimes say to me "wow, you know so many verses." There is a definite emphasis in dogma over personally knowing the Bible in most churches, unfortunately.

I'll make a few comments on that...

Science does not have the answers to afterlife, but religion does. Science is the easy way to not believe in hell. Science basically has human answers, but I personally think we humans are stupid. However, I rather enjoy science and learning new things about ourselves, but religion is the answer to questions that matter when we are dead. All we've learned from science won't do us any good when we die.

Faith. Faith. Faith. If we we're all convinced, then that would almost (my oppinion) elminate having faith, which is necessary for the religion. I don't want God to let us know he's there for one reason...when he does do that, we all get judged that day. So even if you are a non-believer...you won't want him to confess he's 100% there.

You think you would be, but you might not. Think of all the people who did not get convinced when Jesus was running around. For all we know, someone like that is running around right now.

Why don't you think about that from a christian point of view. Just hypothetically. What can you come up with as an answer for that. I could tell you what I think, but that is merely what I think. Instead of just saying "he does nothing", why don't you question why "he does nothing".

You forget about the devil. He's the not so nice one and your choice is to blame...not god. You can't say, "I went to hell, it's god's fault." Sorry, but there's no condition for that to be true.

I still stand by what I said in the quoted quote as it still stands true.

Karadoc: enter the concept of the Soul.

It may sound a bit cold, but the 'Soul' is simply unnecessary in our understanding of ourselves. There is nothing in nature that requires the existence of a soul to explain, and putting a soul into our theories tells us nothing new.
The idea of a soul is much older than our understanding of neuroscience, with our new knowledge we no longer need souls to understand ourselves.
Like the ether is 'possible' but not necessary, so are souls. People only believed in the ether because they thought that light waves needed something to travel through, but more modern electro-magnetic theories make the ether unnecessary. The ether may or may not exist, but since we don't need it, and it explains nothing, we assume that it does not exist. While we are wielding Occum's Razor, we might as well slice off the idea of a soul in the same sort of way. Neurosciece has taken the place of explaining everything about what makes up an individual, the soul is unnecessary.

Most religious text were written a long time ago, so it shouldn't be supprising that they are full of out-dated ideas. It is undeniable that people know more about the universe now than they did back then, our level of technology proves it. Why not to apply our knowledge, gained from science, to the issues of souls and Gods in the same way as we apply our knowledge to other theories? The world is not flat!

I suppose you think your soul carries away all your knowledge, memories, and values after you die. Is that correct? If so, I have some more questions.

Oh, I forgot to address one of the counter-points. This isn't a big deal, but I'm a bit fond of my argument that this was referring to.

Can't God just bestow this faith upon us? In my other post I was talking about God knowing what it would take to make us believe, I'm saying pretty much the same thing here. God need not make it certain, but he could easily set the world up so that current non-believers would have faith in him. He knows now that the world is currently such that they will not have faith in him, and he has the power to change it. So my same argument still applies.