What RELIGION are you?

yo

what religion im from?

thats a personal question

i dont like to brag about my religion[/list]

lawyerguy said:

Israel born in a day? I can point to another country that was also born in a day. The united states.. July 4, 1776, when it declared its independence from England. Like the Israel of 1948, the United states was also a nation created by immigrants to its land. And like israel, american's statehood was only secured after conflict and war. Or how about Mexico? September 16, 1810? when it declared its independence from Spain? Mexico too was another country that was created by immigrants from europe (spanish settlers). Its not that uncommon for nation's to be "born in a day". How about Canda?, Iraq? all the countries in south america? India? Iran? and all the other countries who can claim to have been "born" on a specific date by declaring their independence from another country. It depends what your defintion of "born" is.

yeah, but still, what if Israel had gained independence from a result of a several month/ year war...that wouldn't have matched up with what the prophecy said about feeling labor pains after its birth...but what actually happened was that all the neighbouring nations attacked Israel the day after it was born. How could Isaiah have known that? Even a guess would be risky, there are lots of other things that could've happened. To really understand the odd's of this we'd have to figure out throughout all of world history up to the point Isaiah wrote the prophecy, how many nations could be said to have been born in a day, with "labor pains" after it's birth, and how many weren't. (Bear in mind that at the time, Isaiah didn't know about the events of July 4 1776 or September 16, 1810, or any other modern day example of countries being born in one day. We need to figure out how rare it was in his day) and as far as I can find out that was actually the opposite of what usually happened in Isaiah's day. Nation would fight against nation for a period of time and then gain victory and independence. So I'd say this prophecy may be more unlikely than I first thought. Cause, think about it, If Isaiah was just guessing, don't you think its quite a risky guess, considering that to Isaiah's best knowledge this prediction is very rare...he even say's it himself..."who has ever heard of such a thing? Who has ever seen such things?", plus all it would've taken for him to be proved wrong was for there to be, at some point in the last 2500 years a war to regain Israel, or for Israel to have simply been born in more than one day...how would Isaiah be sure that that wouldn't happen? He was putting God and the entire bible on the line.
another way of looking at it is that you could say Isaiah (and the rest of the prophets) made all these prophecies with the faith that some person or group of people would purposly go about trying to fulfill the prophecies at some point in the future. This seems a little far fetched to me but lets go with it...what would it take for a person or group of people to bring the nation of Israel back to life, in "one day", with no "labor pains" before, but with "labor pains" afterwards. That's a lot of work...especially arranging for all the neighbouring nations to attack the day after it was born. Possible, but still the odd's are pretty slim.
also, something else to note about 14th May 1948, is that several things all happened in the space of 24 hours...Israel declared its independence, a UN mandate expired ending British control of the land and America (plus I think some other nations) issued a statement recognizing Israels sovereignty. I'm not sure how common that is...I'd like to find out.

lawyerguy said:

And we're not even going to talk about all the "prophecies" in the bible that never came true.
LIke umm...Jesus saying the apocalypse will occur within the life time of some of his followers???

actually I'd quite like to hear of any prophecies you know of that didn't come true...cause that would prove that God isn't real. I suspect that when you anaylze the scripture correctly, none of the prophecies will be disproven. Considering 40% of the bible is made up of prophecy or things connected to prophecy I'd imagine there'll be a few tricky verses...like the one you stated above, I remember that jumping out at me when I first read it...but I think on closer inspection it's reasonably clear he's referring to the generation that witness's all the things he just described...that generation will not pass [matthew 24 right?][incedently, thats us...I think...from Israels reformation in 1948, we got about 70-80 years apparently? 2018-2028!!! sorry, don't mean to scare anyone..i'm gonna look further into it]
also, I don't wanna babble for too long but I'll just briefly add...
To cLavain,
...to quote from the link you provided..."Tyre consisted of two distinct parts, a rocky fortress on the shore, called "Old Tyre", and the city, built on a small, rocky island about half-a-mile distant from the shore. It was a place of great strength."...here's a map of Tyre - [link]
"He (nebuchadnezzer) will ravage your settlements on the mainland with the sword"...it didn't say he'd totally destroy Tyre, just ravage the mainland. "They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise" (note- "he" and "his" changes to "they" referring to the other nations").
It's hard to get a clear picture of what Tyre is exactly like today from Internet sources, but it seems that the Mainland part (renamed "old tyre" or "sur"?) is ruins and rocks, and the island offshore is just a small fishing village (i.e. a place to spread nets), and is far from the prosperous city that Tyre used to be. Plus, I think I read that there's a new city, named Tyre, about 15 miles down the coast...I'm not sure.

lawyerguy said:

Hmm During Ezekiels time, according to the Roman calendar, there were 355 days in a year. The 365 days calendar was not adopted until 48 BC. (and even that is different from the current gregorian calendar we use today) The correct dates of the creation of israel depends upon which calendars you use. The current calendar year of 365.25 days per year (roughly) was not adopted until centuries later.

I read that the calender year was 360 days...but still, being able to predict an event between 2450-2550 years into the future is pretty unlikely. Ezekiel would require Israel to remain scattered and persecuted for 2450 years, and then keep his fingers tightly crossed that something would happen in that 100 year window to bring them back to Israel, otherwise God and the whole bible would be disproven. But that's not what I believe even happened...I reckon if you get the true figures and work it out you'd find that Ezekiel was actually bang on to the exact day.

@Itchy:

26:19 For thus saith the Lord GOD; When I shall make thee a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited; when I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and great waters shall cover thee;

26:21 I will make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no more: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord GOD.

Sounds pretty simple to me. God screwed up. Well, nobody's perfect!

Look:

7:24 And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house, and would have no man know it: but he could not be hid.

7:31 And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis.

Even Jesus himself visited this city that was "destroyed".

...and just like other seers, the prophets of the Bible must be interpreted in a specific way to sort of fit actual events. Wouldn't it be refreshing to hear a clear cut, detailed prophecy just for once? I mean, if you're all-powerful and everything surely a little detail wouldn't be too much to ask? If God really gave a shit, how about naming the next anti-christ so that we are prepared?

Clavain,

You can make it look like God is saying something he is not by picking and choosing versus and then putting them together.

Why don't you read the entire Book that Itchy is quoting from and see what its really saying.

As Itchy has clearly done.

Peacefinder said:

You can make it look like God is saying something he is not by picking and choosing versus and then putting them together.

What, and you're not!?

Christians have to cherry-pick information or it all falls apart, as you have repeatedly proven in this thread. If you want to make the Bible credible, then you can't have verses that contradict each other, it makes the whole thing look sloppy.

Have you ever read the entire Bible? without jumping around.

If you would, you would realize that there are no contradictions.

Look, it's quite simple:

1.God says that Tyre will be destroyed
2.Much later, Jesus visits Tyre

Maybe Ezekiel meant to say that God would only destroy parts of the city, but what kind of a prophecy is that? I'm pretty sure cities were besieged quite often in those days so it's not very impressive is it?

Maybe Ezekiel didn't mention when this would happen, which makes it even less impressive.

Oh, and if God wanted to let us know that Israel would be rebuilt in 1948 on the Gregorian calendar, why couldn't he just say so? Why is the Bible written in a way that only convinces those who desperately want to believe?


If you want to believe in a Creator then that is fine, because no one can prove or disprove it and it's a matter of faith. But, since this basic premise is in question, then going further by saying that the Bible is the word of God is an extraordinary assumption not based on any observable or logical evidence.

I thought this post was to share with others your religion and not to be belittled, ridiculed , or burned at the stake. It seems that everyone has very intelligent reasons for beliving what they believe and it should just be left at that.

Hasn't anyone realized that no matter what you write, will not change other's religious beliefs.
Even not believing is a riligion in and of itself. Like I have said many times, who in this world can prove the existence or non-existence of God? No one. We are free to search for the truth ourselfs and practice whatever religion we want, at least it is here in the USA; which in my opinion is the perfect society for God's people, freedom to choose.

This is not a bible study class. There is a big reason why people go to bible study classes, and we can very well see it in this post.

Anyway, this is the last time I will visit this post because people are just getting too nasty and can't accept that people have the right to choose whatever riligion they want.

Peacefinder said:

Have you ever read the entire Bible? without jumping around.

If you would, you would realize that there are no contradictions.

Before I say goodbye for good to this post, I want to say that I agree 100% with you peacefinder. Only by studying, really studying and not just getting a part from here and a part from there, and without taking into consideration the time period, or the purpose for the story will anyone ever find the truth. (this is my opinion only)

I didn't bother to read all of the posts in this thread. I read up to 8 pages. But what people wrote is interesting stuff.

Anyway, I think in this discussion of which belief system is good or bad, people are ignoring an important principal of logic: Occam's Razor. It'll clear up a lot of confusion I guarantee. There are certain theories that are just better to believe in and certain theories that are not. The Occam's Razor Principal deals with this problem. What is Occam's Razor? I quote wikipedia:

wikipedia said:

In its simplest form, Occam's Razor states that one should make no more assumptions than is needed.

For example, after a storm you notice that a tree has fallen. Based on the evidence of the storm and the fallen tree, a reasonable hypothesis would be that the storm blew down the tree — a hypothesis that requires you to suspend your disbelief very little, as there exist strong logical connections binding what you already know to this solution (seeing and hearing storms does indeed tend to indicate the existence of storms; storms are more than capable of felling trees). A rival hypothesis claiming that the tree was knocked over by marauding 200-metre tall space aliens requires several additional assumptions, with various logical weaknesses resulting from inconsistencies with what is already known (concerning the very existence of aliens, their ability and desire to travel interstellar distances, their ability and desire to (un-)intentionally knock down trees and the alien biology that allows them to be 200 metres tall in terrestrial gravity), and is therefore less preferred.

see full article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

If you think the logic is flawed about that principal, feel free to attack it, but if you agree with it, you'd also have to agree that some belief systems are just better than others.

So for example, if you agree with Occam's Razor you'd deduce that Christianity isn't a good theory to explain the world. Because needless assumptions are abundant in Christianity: "a metaphysical being called God exists" is an assumption that can't be proved objectively. "God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient" - three more assumptions that you can't prove. "God is benevolent" - yet _another_ assumption. And the list goes on.

I agree with MarCPatt's post in that the debate got viscious at times. And that's bad. We're supposed to have fun when arguing. And we shouldn't attack the people expressing their views. We should only attack the arguments and theories.[/b][/quote]

Scrabbl said:

I agree with MarCPatt's post in that the debate got viscious at times. And that's bad. We're supposed to have fun when arguing. And we shouldn't attack the people expressing their views. We should only attack the arguments and theories.

Hi there Scrabbl,

We are having fun!

If you think this debate has been nasty then I would advice you not to visit other forums on the internet. :wink: I have seen some really ugly threads out there!
I sincerely believe this thread has been fairly clean. Sure, some heat is unavoidable, but part of the problem is that some people are not used to having their claims questioned. If someone are offended when I have the audacity to criticise their belief that other people are going to Hell or that the world is about to end, then so be it.

This whole debate was, I suppose, started by me when I made an analogy to someone's claim that their belief needed no other proof than his own assertions. His arguments were so flawed that I just couldn't stop myself! My post was countered by more unsupported claims, and the ball started rolling. 8)

I used to be Russian Orthodox -- Moscow Patriarchate -- so I am well-familiar with Orthodox eschatology: "The terror of God is love outside that would be love inside." This is exactly what the good father said in his discussion with Alyosha. This is also the description of "hell" provided by Neo-Platonist Christians such as St. Gregory of Nyssa. They do NOT believe in divine penalties for the violation of divine law, or divine discrimination.

If you are interested in this theology, then consider reading the essay: "The River of Fire" by Dr. Kalimiros:

http://www.orthodoxpress.org/parish/river_of_fire.htm

"God is love. If we really believe this truth, we know that God never hates, never punishes, never takes vengeance. ... This is hell: the negation of love; the return of hate for love; bitterness at seeing innocent joy; to be surrounded by love and to have hate in one's heart. This is the eternal condition of all the damned. They are all dearly loved. They are all invited to the joyous banquet. They are all living in God's Kingdom, in the New Earth and the New Heavens. No one expels them. Even if they wanted to go away they could not flee from God's New Creation, nor hide from God's tenderly loving omnipresence. Their only alternative would be, perhaps, to go away from their brothers and search for a bitter isolation from them, but they could never depart from God and His love. And what is more terrible is that in this eternal life, in this New Creation, God is everything to His creatures."

cLavain said:

This whole debate was, I suppose, started by me when I made an analogy to someone's claim that their belief needed no other proof than his own assertions. His arguments were so flawed that I just couldn't stop myself! My post was countered by more unsupported claims, and the ball started rolling. 8)

I see. :wink:

religion is the biggest pile of crap ever.it just causes more stress,hate and then anything else.i was force fed christianity at primary school and it messes with your mind.telling a 5 year old that if they do anything wrong god will shun them is cruel. and you carry that with you.the only one that makes sense is buddhism.

papa said:

telling a 5 year old that if they do anything wrong god will shun them is cruel. and you carry that with you..

I am sincerely sorry this happened to you. 🙁 Just try to do better with yours. Tell small children that the whole thing is a vicious lie.

Zosima said:

EVIL EXISTS !!!

As what? A physical particle? A mystical energy? The dark side of the force? No, of course not, evil is just an adjective.

For us as a species, certain things horrify us because they are excessively destructive. When we see brutal, unprovoked violence many of us can feel empathy with the victim, because we know it could happen to us. It is in our own best interest that violence in our society is kept to a minimum. We will, however, do 'evil' things if we feel justified. You see, very few people would actually describe their own actions as evil. Hitler honestly thought he was doing the right thing, so do most baby killers. In their mind they justify their own actions. As recently seen in the war in Jugoslavia, many of us has the potential to be excessively destructive under the right circumstances.

I hope this answers your question.

Zosima said:

But do you think that Hitler was doing the right thing ?! - And can you explain why not ? Do you think that Hitler was doing the wrong thing ? - Why ? That Hitler was deluded doesn't prove the non-existence of evil; it merely demonstrates that Hitler's logic was flawed.

Hmmm. I'm unsure what this evil is supposed to be. It would be easier to argue if I knew what the existence of evil actually means in practical terms. Can it be measured as the color green can be measured as a specific frequency of light?
Let me try anyway:
I do not wish pain on other people unless they have tried to hurt me in some way, and it makes me uneasy to know that atrocities occur. I suppose this is what you're getting at. Where does this sentiment come from? And it's a good question. However, before we jump to improbable conclusions, is it not wise to consider more likely explanations?
A certain amount of empathy hardwired in the brain can be seen as an evolutionary advantage. A species caring for its offspring and other members of its flock will improve the species' chances of survival as opposed to a species mercilessly killing its own kind. Dogs, for example, will usually only fight until one of them surrenders. There will be exceptions among different creatures, I'm sure, but this could very well explain reluctance to use more violence than necessary for survival in some animals. In the case of humans, this is probably more complicated as we have evolved a brain that can override its own instincts and even act against its own best interest.

Is the Holocaust wrong in a universal sense? No, I think not. I could be wrong, but I see no evidence that the universe as such cares if we annihilate each other. But if there was less violence in the world then the world would be safer for me and other members of my species, so I consider such a thing a worthy goal.


Just one more thing. I know I don't speak for everyone, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong or right. :wink: I would like to hear some arguments that explain why violence is a good thing for us as individuals and as a species.

Hi,
I think I may have misunderstood you somewhat, yes! Sorry about that.

Zosima said:

Evil is that which is the infliction by humans of undesired physical/mental pain/harm on other sentient beings, without the justification that this pain/harm will prevent greater pain/harm.

Sounds reasonable.

Zosima said:

Good is that which promotes physical/mental pleasure/well-being in sentient beings, without causing physical/mental pain/harm in the process.

Again, I find this reasonable.

These are good basic definitions, but I fear that in practise there will often be disagreements, especially as to what will "prevent greater pain/harm".
But that is what public debate is for! And, sure, if we define a term then the term "exists".

Zosima said:

Why do you have to bring God & the Universe & Darth Vader into it ??! Let's base our conceptions of good & evil on what is beneficial or harmful to Man & Beast !

You know, I'm so glad to hear you say that! Agreed, from now on I will not mention Darth Vader again. I'm not really a Star Wars fan, anyway! :lol:

Zosima said:

Well since you ask, we evolved through survival of the fittest, & many people would like to keep to that path; but I agree that it is time for the human race to rise above violence & that is why we should have defined concepts of good & evil, & why we should, as a species, try to adhere to them !!

Yes, natural selection is a brutal force, and one could argue that our species would benefit by weeding out the "weak" from the gene pool. However, I feel that we were given an opportunity by nature when we developed "free" will. With our ingenuity we can shape our own future and prevent, for example, certain medical conditions from occuring in the first place. And another thing we can do is to agree on a "social contract", on a definition of good & evil, as you say. I absolutely agree that bringing religion into it will bring nothing beneficial to the table.

Hey,guys,people always become so violent when religion is considered. There's no religion anyway,there is only God,Christ,Holy Spirit and His book,the Bible. It's not a religion,it's the truth. No,don't be angry yet,there are proofs! Christ has changed people's lives all over the world and if you read the Bible you will see that it's not a common book,it's the world's wisdom. And there are many facts,but anyway,clavain,if you want to be sure ask from God to reveal himself to you,I know people that have tried this. Don't be afraid,just do it! 😮