I don't understand how people believe.

If you don't know those things, you might qualify your bold assertions a little. Matter could be created by the conversion of two photons (light) or other bosns into fermions, for example an electon-positron pair, under the law of conservation of momentum.

 

I didn't stop believing til i was 15. But that was because i was just spritual til i was 13 and then i got a bunch of religion garbage crammed down my throat. I hate organized religion with a passion. I think its possible for a god to exist, just not the Christian God.

 

I do not understand what you mean there. What does "you might want to qualify your bold assertions a little" in others words describe.

I have done some research and so far I have found what I said was still irrefutable. Can you please direct me to something that I may find interesting about this, that may further my understanding and give me more control over my future, with ease.

 

Because we all view that of which is "divine" differently. If we all held divinity in the same regard then there would not be much individuality involved in it, and it'd be less unique. Besides we truly don't know the answers to the most "significant" questions, so rather than admitting we don't know many resort to convincing themselves and others that they do. After all, we fear the unknown too much.

There's many different fields to be intelligent in, some people may be extremely intelligent in many but rather "lacking" in others. We humans have a nack of convincing ourselves that the truth is what we'd like to be or have been taught to see rather than what it really is...and even then that's relative.

I was raised Catholic, and once I fully realized I didn't believe what I had been taught to I was sort of militant about contradicting it....the whole "I was force feed bullshit" mentality. Then I came to the realization that it's just another part of our reality....the fact that people tend to create their own realities within the one ultimate reality.

All in all, we don't need to understand things like "why are we here? etc..." it's not really essential to our current existence. The future will unfold itself in due time and the past is behind us. Learn from the past so that you may "better" the future, but live for the present. Simply be aware that existing is enough and just be.

 

What i meant by matter was that it does not have the quality of arising out of nothing. Arising out of intention would count as nothing, such as a miracle would arise from nothing. Energy can be transformed into matter this is true and vice versa. However, all energy and matter cannot be destroyed or created.

I think we had a difference in what 'matter' meant. To me matter, as a word and sound, included energy, as equally as matter. I was using it to describe everything that potentially exists.

 

I really didn't want to be insulting, man. I don't know how old you are, or where you're coming from. But you posted a rather strong assertion of proof that there is no God, based on a mechanistic materialistic model that shows lack of awareness of modern physics, especially quantum mechanics and Einstein's theories of relativity. These are major revolutionary developments in physics, and when you ask basic questions about them, as though you never heard of them, I don't know where to begin. "Closed system" is an important parameter to the Second Law of Thermodynamis, and "special relativity" refers to Einsteins' theory by that name. I'm not saying that QM or relativity prove God or even provide evidence for God. I'm just saying the argument you put forward doesn't hold water in light of these developments.

Okay, what you say seems to be common sense, but Stenger, a leading atheist physicist, flatly states the opposite, and even cites another nobel prize winning physicist to back him up! In fact, they both say there's an inherent tendency for nothing to become something! At which point, I've just gotta say this stuff is beyond my comprehension. Deep down inside, I think you and I are right, and those geniuses are nuts! But what do we know? It makes my head hurt!

 

I assume that miscommunication was at fault for our misunderstanding. A few words got mixed up there that should have been clarified. Now that they are, yes I agree that this idea that 'something' come from 'no-thing' can be easily set as simply a lack of understanding.


Ironically, this is what fooled, me and some people when they talk about god and godly experiences and it occurs like the scientists when they cannot explain circumstance with the tools that we have in our world. Ie. A guy walks into a room with no smell in it, lights a cigarette and the room explodes. Later he finds out that the room was filled with an flammable gas that we simply have no cognitive capacity to detect through the nose. Years later a scientists who imagine that this was not a supernatural occurrence, finds a way to detect this gas. Of course this is after the large number of times the guy with the cigarette endlessly tried to convince people that he had supernatural powers and/or god wanted him dead. The point here is that these physicists most likely cannot measure how it is that 'something' which came from nothing, came to be transformed into that position with that quality and thus must claim that it comes from nothing. Another example of this is when I was in the hospital and a group of Christians came into my room and formed a circle by joining hands. They claimed to have prayed to god and shortly after I healed against the doctors prediction that I would die soon. My mom strongly believes in GOD because of this experience, when in retrospect I believe that we simply do not understand just how thought and intention impacts the physical world and that it was not some being in the sky listening to these people and healing me because they believed in him....The same applies to those physicists that claim that nothing turned into something, they just do not have the capacity to understand the exact processes behind it and imagine that 'nothing' turned into something. In retrospect, I would conclude that they are right, nothing turned into something, nothing, no process they yet are aware of turned into something. After all what is something that we cannot yet bring our awareness too? Something or nothing? In that answer lies the basic premise to my communication about this subject.

I would also enjoy some of that research if possible. Where can I find it?

 

I can relate to this.

I used to believe in God and tried to get into Christianity but nothing about that shit made sense. I had to actually become a full fledged atheist, then return to God in order to find lil sprinkles of Truth in the Bible.

Christianity is the #1 religion that turns people away from God. I been noticed that. I wouldn't go as far as to say I hate Christianity but I can say it's the religion I respect the least.

 

What about Islam?

 

Or Zen? Or Buddhism?

 

From what I know about Islam, I respect it and it's followers a lot more than Christianity and its followers.

 

Really? Why?

 

Because from what I see, Muslims stand by their beliefs a lot more than Christians do. Christians bend the rules of the Bible to fit the lifestyle they want to live. For the most part, Muslims follow the rules they set forth no matter what.

You have something against Muslims?

 

Man, some of them sure do! Those suicide bombers and the ones who beat up women for uncovering their faces sure stick to their convictions! But there are lots of Christians who are just as stupid and narrow minded in "standing by their beliefs". Oklahoma is full of them. You outta come out here, man; You'd love it!

Not at all. I spent some time last month living with a bunch of them in Morocco. Great folks, pretty much like us. People are people. The ones I liked the best were the ones who are more flexible about their beliefs like me. You'd hate them!

 

I'm with you on that. There is very little foundational basis for liberal christianity. It is all pragmatism.

 

Well, maybe not all, but a good deal of it. That's one thing it has going for it!Besides, the original statement "Christians bend the rules" was an exaggeration. Christian fundamentalists tend not to do that. They are as rigid as the Orthodox Jews, Muslim fundamentalists, and Hindu fundamentalists who cause so much misery and hatred in the world.

 

Yeah, perhaps it is as simple the other way around as well. It's not trying to believe, you believe in (a) god or you don't. That some people follow a religion is not only a matter of believing of course, it's joining a group that helps you understanding or for experiencing together, etc. etc.

 

Even the most extreme fundamentalists pick and choose what they want to follow. Example: Exodus chapter 21, immediately following the Ten Commandments. That section covers detailed rules for slavery. How many fundamentalists have that chapter framed, hanging on their wall at home? Zero. How many congregations sanction men who fuck women on their periods? Zero.

And most christians aren't fundamentalists.

The main problem with liberal christianity comes down to this: Christianity is centered on Jesus Christ, and nearly everything we know about him comes from the bible. Without an accurate, reliable, and literally true bible, what do you really know about Jesus? The entire religion goes down like a house of cards.

 

And thats it

What has god to do with christianity?
Nothing objective

Roo

 

To be fair, the burqa et al have very little to do with the religion, if anything at all. They're more a product of social conservatism that has led to a resurgence in older/more "traditional" practices in as little as the last 30-40 years.