<p>o.o Whoa lots of people in here. ^__^ Some Catholic people are cool. Some are not. ><;;;;;;;</p>
<p>I think we can divide everyone here into two groups: people who like George Carlin and people who don't like George Carlin. :-)</p>
<p>o.O I'm back, after several monthes of taking Honors Biology, I've drawn the conclusion that you can believe in both. I also know more about universe and life. I'm not creationist, however I used to be a hardcore atheist, voici cet proof that it took a hardcore athiest like moi to believe in a supreme intelligent 'force'. Why?! The general theory of relativiy, on its own, cannot explain these features (of the universe) or answere many questions about the universe because of its prediction that the universe started offf with infinite density at the big bag singularity. At the singularity, general relativity and all the other physical laws would break down: one couldn't predict what will come out of the singularity. This means that one might as well cut the big bang, and any events vefore it, out of the theory, because they can have no effect on what we observe. Space-time would have a boundary-a beginning at the the big bang. Science seems to have uncovered a set of laws that, within the limits set by the uncertainty principle, tell us how the universe will develop with time, if we know its state at any one time. These laws may have originally been decreed by God, but it appears that he has since left the universe to evolve according to them and does not intervene in it. But how did he choose the initial state or configuration of the universe? What were the "boundary conditions" at the beginning of time? One possible answer is to say that God chose the initial configuration of the universe for reasons that we cannot hope to understand. This would certainly have been within the power of an omnipotent being.</p>
<p>Well...I'm Roman Catholic with two doctors as parents and a sister going into biological research. Go figure, there's some things religiously I don't believe in, but God is definitely something I do know exists (I know I said something. Deal. God is God. God is genderless, but God.) I'm always sick to death of people saying I'm unenlightened because I believe in God, and I'm always categorized with the "ohhh...you're <em>religious</em>" crowd whenever I bring up the fact that I am a practicing Catholic. I mean, I know the Earth itself wasn't created in seven days, or whatever. Creationism is different from believing in God. And I'm not into Deism. I just think that men wrote the Bible. Not God. So of COURSE there are going to be some very strange, weird stuffs in it. Right? I mean, look at LEVITICUS for goodness sake (all that stuff about mixed fibers? what in the world? and the bodily discharge laws. ew.) So yes. You can be both and I proudly am.</p>
<p>yea i do.....at first i loosely believed because i was told to...and ultimately became an atheist...but after a life changing experience...i came back stonger than ever!</p>
<p>Atheist. Somewhere between weak and strong, leaning toward strong.</p>
<p>Formerly Christian.</p>
<p>I'm Hindu (thus far), and I believe in god. I don't know if I'm particularly dedicated to my religion, but I believe in and love god, a lot. I'm not into sitting and chanting or reading religious texts but I'm interested in learning about meditation, yoga, reincarnation, and enlightenment, etc. I don't believe that blindly praying and chanting will get you anywhere. Also, i don't think its necessary to have a religion to believe in god. you can just believe. You also shouldn't pray only when you want a favor from god...thats just the wrong way of going about it.</p>
<p>I'm more into spirituality than religion, though. I am completely enamored by hinduism, buddhism, islam and christianity. I don't know much about judaism and other religions. But overall, I love the ideas that all these beautiful religions were founded upon. I think that religion is a wonderful, driving force in a person's life - but I think people interpret the religions wrongly. It's usually the people who are acting in some bad way that give their religion a bad name. Either they try to convert people or preach their religion, or they really dont understand what their own religion is all about and give everyone the wrong impression of it. To go to the extreme, people even go to war over matters of their religion, which is completely the wrong thing to do. Religion equals love and hope, not war. I feel that if you truly believe in your religion, you should be able to believe in god and love.</p>
<p>I used to be a hardcore atheist, I even wrote several papers on why the idea of God was...blah blah. The fact that it took a miracle for me to switch from hardcore atheist, to a Christian is enough evidence why God exists for me.</p>
<p>I'm the hardcore atheist biologist type. </p>
<p>(Which is really a pity, living in south Texas. It's insane. There was a Jewish chick in girl scouts when I was like nine who was quite seriously told she would go to hell on a daily basis; needless to say, I was smart enough to never divulge anything.)</p>
<p>christian, short questioning period, now strong christian.</p>
<p>I am a strong believer in God. For it is by him we are created and only by him. (got it, mr. darwin?)</p>
<p>lol seriously that is what I believe. God is the Alpha and the Omega. No one comes close to him.</p>
<p>Ladies and gentlemen, this is a debate that has gone on for centuries. Is not our having life proof enough of the existence of God? What about love? Is not the name of the game love? For God is love. </p>
<p>Think about the Bible and when it says all men have sinned and gone their own ways. This debate is living proof that we have all gone our own ways. We seek theories to justify to ourselves that there is no God because our conscious cannot live with our having wronged in God's presence. But that is exactly the point! No one, except Christ, is perfect! No one and I mean no one can save themselves! Who can honestly say they have never sinned and mean it in their hearts? No one. </p>
<p>In terms of the purpose of life, here it is: Prior to your birth, you made a promise to your Father that you would accept the challenges of a physical life. You would learn, make mistakes, and grow. You promised to make the most of it. Once you were born, you lost some of that knowledge you had before having been born. Why? Because if you would have retained that knowledge, probably you would do nothing i.e. miss out on the pleasures of a physical life. The point of living is to find your way back to your Father's house. And how can you do it? Christ clearly said that there were many ways of worshipping the Father. No question about it. He works through everyone in different ways. But the Word is also correct when he says, "There is no way to the Father but through me." </p>
<p>God is life, being, existence, love, Truth, the Word. All of these and more. We as humans pride ourselves in our finite knowledge while failing to miss the point. </p>
<p>Bring on the criticisms.</p>
<p>"Furthermore, the Bible does not even emphasize "doing good" as much as many other religions. It claims that the only way to heaven is through Jesus; in other words, you can believe in Jesus yet be a criminal and still go to heaven."</p>
<p>In response:
-We are not saved by good words but for good works.
-Basically your point about the criminal takes a stab at the "one saved, always saved" doctrine, very commonly found in the western hemisphere. Different Christian denominations have different takes on the subject; you might not want to generalize so quickly. Talk about Christians being stereotypical and too quick to generalize?</p>
<p>god is omnipotent, omnipresent.
god is formless.
god is energy. </p>
<p>dan brown puts it really well in angels and demons:
"god is the impluse that flows through our neurons."</p>
<p>god isnt a old white man, with a long beard</p>
<p>cliff hanger</p>
<p>"No one comes close to him."???</p>
<p>who said god is a he?huh?</p>
<p>Atheist. I was formerly a Christian, but then now I hate that religion more than anything else.</p>
<p>I haven't really decided whether or not I believe. At times I want to, but other times I find the existence of God hard to fathom.</p>
<p>what christian denomination is everyone a part of?</p>
<p>I don't particularly care too much for strongly organized religion.</p>
<p>I especially like Buddhism and Sufi Islam. The organized religions that I do like are Liberal Quakerism and Unitarian Universalism.</p>
<p>I prefer a more personal approach.</p>
<p>i go to a private catholic school even though im not a practicing catholic (in terms of my family).. i dont really agree with a lot of the catholic teachings. especially since i have had a couple nuns as teachers, the principal, etc i feel like there's a lot of hypocrisy within the catholic church or just catholics in general.</p>
<p>God.. most of the time i believe but there are some things i would like clarified that cant be clarified by anyone so. yeah..
organized religion im not really sure about either</p>