Box you are right.

Good use of Dante as well, because he does a rather good job of explaing it in his own twisted way.

Regardless MG, dont worry, your faith is your faith, don't let anyone steer you away from your beliefs. Just imagine Rod as the devil ... resist!!!!

Ok..I was going to go deeper into that, but sadly i will get no answers. (i was going to ask if i had no religion growing up, and i wnated to believe in something, if every person from every religion was basically telling me they had the same evidence for their religion, and im jsut supposed to "believe" how i can be able to choose one religion over another)


Can someone at least tell me how the whole you gotta worship me im your creator or else you go to hell thing doesn't make God an egotistical jerk?

Rod is a devil....in bed

Ok, lol....so how can you worship someone who is so unfair?


@Eagle. AS if anyone could resist Rod....


:razz:

He doesn't say you have to. YOU choose whether or not you go to hell. I guess in some ways he can look like an "egotistical jerk"... but.. I can't think of what I'm trying to say. It's really hard to explain.

You are SO straight

Like I said earlier...if we were watching a science fiction movie in which someone creates some community, and if they rebel, no longer believe or care for their creator or something along the lines, they are severely punished. Even though they had the option to believe or not to believe, even if they did nothing else wrong, would we not think of that creator as the bad guy in the movie?


So what makes God the exception?

1) Religion is a system of thought that, like culture as a whole, was developed by human beings as, essentially, a means of surviving. It allowed for the human being to place him/herself within theu niverse in such a way as for him/her to understand the universe and his/her role in it. Religions differ on a slew on issues, but all of them, at their base, aim toward giving the life of the human being a meaning which it would not otherwise have, thus enriching it.

2) God as a being stands at the centre of many, if not, most religions, either in the form of one entity, as in Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, or as a set of beings, ploytheistic in nature, such as in Hinduism, among other faiths.

God as a being in effect serves the purpose of being an Other against which the human being can measure him/herself up against. Thus, the idea of God is profoundly shaped by ideas of what it is that that human being requires. Most famously, the desire to have a coherent universe has lead to the conception of a being, God, as almighty, having created everything and being the cause, and end, of everything. In addition, the being is perfect by definition, allowing the human being, who by definition is imperfect, to measure him/herself up against God. The association between God and the human being is crucial. In the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition, the human being is created in the image of God. Crucially, it is important to consider that God, in turn, is made in the image of the human being, and is, at base, a perfect representation thereof.


3) Essentially, to add to 2), the only reason why is because we have striven to seek an answer for why we were created. Science has offered some alternatives, but the problem is that science, as an attempt to understand the world, stresses that which can be proven, and disdains that which cannot be proven. Thus, science can only give those clues which can be grasped by human beings, and which can be proven empirically. When it comes to things which either cannot be proven, or, such as God, are by definition beyond the human capacity to comprehend, science is essentially useless. One may speculate, but that speculation is no more or less valid than speculation concerning God. We can speak of the theory of evolution, but it doesn't quite provide us with all the answers that a question like "What created us?", which not only seeks an answer, but a reason, necessitates. Science gives us facts, but we are left to interpret them. That step often forces us revert back to speculation, but that is no more or less a means of making sense of the world around us than the idea of God is.

4) Well, as stated above, our image of God is our creation as much as we view ourselves as His creation. Thus, He needs someone to worship Him because we need someone to worship to. In other words, we assign to Him those demands which we would like Him to have of us, which basically serve to enforce our uniqueness in this world. Stated othewise: "I'm so special as a human being that God, the Creator and Master of the universe, wants ME to worship Him."

We're basically very needy beings, and God is one type of answer. The genius of religion is that, unlike science, its base is by definition limitless: God has not limits, and unlike science, is beyond space and time. It's can't be proven by facts, and that's the trick of it: it requires a leap of faith.

Well... he's God. And I don't think it's him that's unfair, it's actually quite *easy* to get to heaven considering what people used to have to do before Jesus.

:laugh:

And what of the Coptics, MG?

Wow, Box, that was an incredible explanation! You are very good with words.

What?...? What are you even talking about?

That's beside the matter. What's important is that the basics are properly outlined. At the least, and we're none the worse for this, we know what Christianity stands for. You can then agree or disagree with it, but at least you'll know what you're talking about.

See, what I find funny about bickering within the Christian community rather than with external religions (or lack of), is the neverending heat between the Protestants and the Catholics.

"We are the right direction towards God!" "No, we are!" Strangely enough, I've never heard the words "Catholic" or "Protestant" in the Bible. Denominationalism soiled Christianity. If Jesus exists and is indeed the son of God, he's looking down and either laughing his ass off or weeping.

How can god be perfect anyway?


Would that not mean that he would have to exist in some non living kind of form? That maybe we have misunderstood what God is all along?

Dude, if you have no idea what the Coptics are, I'm gonna find debating with you a little frustrating.

John the Baptist formed the Coptic Church. I think there's a little section in the Bible that speaks of it, but I have way too much of a headache to go and search for it. It's the Christian denomination most prevalent in Egypt and parts of the Middle East, probably numbers at about 15 million followers.

So what makes Protestantism more valid than Catholicism? Or Oriental Orthodoxy? Or Coptic Christianity? Or non-denominationalism?

God isn't a human, just a superior being. "Perfect" in my religous definition is without sin.

Regardless of what denomonation you are, I think the most important thing to most christians is that all basically have the same underlying meaning....

I don't think I have read too in depth in that part of the Bible.

Self-correction, Mark the Evangelist founded Coptic Christianity, not John the Baptist.

EXACTLY. You nailed it. :grin:

Good, I can now terminate any further debate tonight before my migrane explodes. \:D/ :wink:

I'm not just going to give you 1 reason, ohno, I'll give you ten! Here they are:

1. Politics
2. Politics
3. Politics
4. Politics
5. Politics
6. Politics
7. Politics
8. Politics
9. Politics
10. Politics

That, in a nutshell, is why there are so many denominations. One way or another, whether the route is via economics, social (in)justice, or whatever else, politics stands at the centre.

There's a great question that Dostoevsky asks in The Brother Karamazov: Did the [Roman Catholic] Church swallow the [Roman] Empire, or did the Empire swallow the Church?

Basically, who gained the upper hand when those to, thanks to Constantine, came together? The answer, obviously, is neither, but the union basically ruined the 'purity' of the Church. It now had power, and it wielded it often thoughtlessly. Christian teachings were either grossly misinterpreted, or altogher ignored.

One of the ironic things about Christianity, and I would extend this to Islam, is that it's not meant to be in such a position of power, but rather, exist on a deeply personal level.

If you look at the New Testament, if Jesus were alive today, he wouldn't be in Rome. He'd be in Africa and in the grittiest neighbourhoods of the world, reaching out to prostitues, the sick, the old, the poor, and the needy. Christianity is a religion for, and of, ourcasts. That's why, in spite of the fact that it was the religion of their White persecutors, African slaves in America embraced it so warmly, and why it has been such a stunning success in Latin America.

Christianity's biggest problem is that it is simply too popular. Islam has a somewhat similar problem. Islamism, the revitalization and beckoning back to Islam which really began in the 20th century as a movement by the poor, the young, the sick, and the needy, was aimed towards resorting to the Qur'an as a means of escape, through communion with Allah. It was plunged into the political spotlight in the 1970s, especialyl in 1979 in Iran with the Ayatollah, and has been looked at in the West as dangerous fundamentalism. One of the worst representations of it was the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. As with Christianity, a religion that at its core is made for those who need it, in a position of power, becomes abused.

Then a table is perfect.

If he isn't human then would he also have no feelings? Wouldn't he basically be a robot?


Or, if we have misunderstood the meaning of a god, could God not be anything? Say...matter, for example?

Or, I don't know, what is he? He's not living? But he's all-knowing? What then? A Robot? machine?

Mine has just started