<p>There is no proof, only faith. Just decide what you prefer: faith or proof. Both sides have pros and cons.</p>
<p>Besides, God couldn't exist with proof, for proof denies faith and without faith, God is nothing.
see: The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (my Bible)</p>
<p>It's a question of whether you believe "ignorance is bliss" or not. If you believe in that, then most likely you also believe in god. If you want to accept the reality of the world, then most likely you don't. I love how when anyone questions the belief in the traditional god, people just say "you have to have faith, you don't understand." What a complete cop out....</p>
<p>with impractical use of the number '0' you can prove god exists...you can also prove that Winston Churchill was a carrot, and many other weird things</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Uh, you can't believe in both science and christianity because they are two mutually exclusive concepts. True scientists are reductionists. They seek to explain how the universe works through testable natural laws. The moment you say "Oh, this mechanism is too complicated to explain in terms of natural law, so it must have been devised by some supernatural deity" is the moment you go against scientific progression.</p>
<p>And what is this crap about someone who was stable for thousands of years? The way Christianity is today is vastly different from the way it was 1800 years ago. Science has become more precise about how the universe functions throughout the ages. Christianity has just become a more appealing bedtime story.</p>
<p>We have some of the most intelligent people on this forum yet you guys are unwilling to think outside the box and question if your religion actually has some strong logical arguments of if its just a collection of fallacies and distorted myths.</p>
<p>my issues with the bible are that its been so widely regarded and follwed for many years yet not many have challenged it, just like any another from of literature how do we know the bible wasn't written by some writer of the time period, or wasn't something written by some cult or organization which wanted to write rules for how society should act for the time period. </p>
<p>I personally don't believe in gos, and wouldn't want anyone to try and change my believe and neither will I, but i just ask people to question what they believe in, don't follow the general consenus,</p>
<p>Many of the basic church ideas are in opposition to the acquisition of knowledge. </p>
<p>Take--in the 1500s and 1600s--astronomers such as Galileo who were ridiculed and exiled because they questioned current religious beliefs--were they wrong? No...they were actually correct, why would the church want people to not know things? </p>
<p>Lucifer--literally the bringer of light--is the most evil being in the church. Somebody who bring light, who educates, is considered evil. In NO WAY am I a satanist, don't point that out, I just think that the name lucifer is just in another way the church trying to stop people from knowing things.</p>
<p>Furthermore, people discount religions such as that of the ancient greeks--why? It's because history--as well as religion--is written by the winners. Christianity has prevailed, therefore it is acceptable to believe that God throws lightning down from heaven, but Zeus definitely cannot. This is just another example of the ignorance of the population. They teach greek mythology as if it is a joke, but God--who is accountable for the same things as the Greek Gods--is revered. There is NO WAY God is fictitious like those people the Greeks believed in...NO WAY</p>
<p>Are there ANY Christians who have real explanations for any of the above? I seriously doubt it. I would love to hear what you all have to say, though.</p>
<p>Ok. I have been questioning my Christian faith for awhile, so at the moment i consider myself an agnostic.</p>
<p>but what i want to know, is WHY is there always so much Christian Bashing?? You rarely see people disputing Islamic, Buddhist, Daoist, etc. beliefs. just look at this thread. everything is revolving around the truth and existence of the Christian God.</p>
<p>can someone please tell me the answer.
and i have a feeling you guys will respond with "Because Christians are the ones always shoving the Bible down our throats."
which i know is true a lot of the time. but i know several Muslims who also act this way also.</p>
<p>Probably because, in America, for every 1 Muslim shoving a Koran down our throat there's at least 1000 Christians shoving a Bible down our throat, instead.</p>
<p>hey guys, dont make this exclusive to just Christians. the christian, muslim, and jewish God are one in the same. and you can be Christian and believe in science. The Bible was written by men, and therefore, it is fallible. I believe in the essence of the Bible's message, not the text itself.
Although, I went to Jesuit school for four years and if you know anything about Jesuits, it's not surprising that I think this way.</p>
<p>Yeah it's just because this is America and the majority of people are Christians. Christians also tend to be more extreme than Buddhists and Daoists and all those types.</p>
<p>"It's a question of whether you believe "ignorance is bliss" or not. If you believe in that, then most likely you also believe in god."</p>
<p>Not at all. I understand that ignorance is bliss, I just chose to face cold, harsh, reality.</p>
<p>Okay, my point was that if you subconsciouly are led towards "ignorance is bliss" then you will believe in god. If you consciously believe it then it's a different story. I also consciously believe it and also choose to face the harsh reality</p>
<p>i agree. my mother believes in "ignorance is bliss" and she is very strong in her faith. many times she chooses to not to look at the bad things in life, and what appears to be the "fallacies" in the Bible. she takes everything in the Bible word for word without even considering that there is even the slightest possibility that it is not true.</p>
<p>my brother on the other hand, who had used to be like my mom, is now looking deeping into things, and is realizing that maybe the Bible isn't all that it really is. because he's gone into the more "intellectual" side of things, he has abandoned his faith.</p>
<p>In my experience, the current Catholic viewpoint is the way to go. I tend to think that if some of you guys just opened your eyes a bit more, you might change your viewpoint, too. Perhaps you could even catch a glimpse of the "truth" that motivates us "believers."</p>
<p>Quixote- do you mean Roman Catholic? I was a Catholic, but quit because I can't support the political positions The Church takes. But I am quite fond of Catholic traditions, and Catholic teaching too.</p>
<p>I like idea that it takes faith and good works to be saved, what Catholicism teaches. It seems to me that conservative Protestants get into a lot of trouble because of their tenet that one only needs to have faith to be saved. I don't have anything against Protestants, I just think that view gets them into a lot of problems with modern philosophy, science and politics.</p>
<p>I find that non-believers often want some kind of instant gratification for belief. You have to accept that faith isn't something you can develop overnight. It's taken me a long time to get to where I am, and even then I still don't understand a lot of issues. You think that faith isn't "intellectual" and that those two domains are mutually exclusive when they really aren't. Just like there is more than one type of christian, there is more than one type of believer. It can take a great deal of strength and intellect to discover what faith means to you if you are the type of person who does question it, as I have been doing my entire life. There are those who follow blindly and take the Bible word for word, but that doesn't mean we all do. </p>
<p>Just as somebody said before, you can't prove that God exists, because His power comes from faith. I've always remembered a discussion we had at camp one summer...</p>
<p>What if you are a Christian for your entire life and when you die there is no heaven? What have you lost? Sure, you might have been able to be more wild or more materialistic. But if you just die, and that is it, the end, you won't be able to think about anything you would have lost and your life would have been hopefully lived with good values (community, love, etc... not the way extremists and politicians view the world, I hope you make this distinction).</p>
<p>Now, consider the alternative.</p>
<p>What if you are not a Christian and when you die your soul parts with your body only for you do discover that there is a heaven and you are not going there? The comparative loss is inconceivable. This is what is so bad about hell... the utter horror of having to sit and think for eternity about what you could have done and what cannot be changed.</p>
<p>If there is a chance that the afterlife does exist, wouldn't you want to take that chance? </p>
<p>Faith is powerful. You might deny the existance of God, but the "proof" of his existance is all around you in the people that do follow Him.</p>
<p>^oh gosh, you sound like one those jehovas witnesses..j/k</p>
<p>^Pascal uses a similar argument in his Pens</p>
<p>Except I don't stand in people's doorways wearing scary black suits. Grey is just a better color for me. ;) </p>
<p>I wanted to thank you for proving my point about how non-believers try to generalize and put all christians into categories because they themselves cannot accept that faith is a grey area. You tell us to question it, so why don't you? You challenge us to prove the existance of God, I challenge you to prove He doesn't exist. Provide me with some logical arguments. It's ironic how many non-believers are so confident in their apathy while they mock those trying to find an answer. Religion isn't all black and white, despite the images its symbolism may project.</p>
<p>Ahh.. Pascal's wager. Interesting argument. Then again, those are the only possible consequences in the context of Christianity. Let's explore some other equally possible scenarios.</p>
<ol>
<li>You don't believe in God, and God exists. After death, you are infinitely rewarded.</li>
<li>You believe in God, and God exists. After death, you suffer for eternity.</li>
</ol>
<p>Counter intuitive? Maybe. Possible? Of course. After all, isn't this God supposed to be so great that we cannot fathom what he's thinking? Maybe he's more devious than people would like to imagine.</p>
<p>But wait! Isn't he supposed to be perfect? Perhaps, but how can you draw that conclusion? You can be perfect without being the creator of the universe and you can be the creator of the universe without being perfect. These definitions aren't necessarily mutually inclusive.</p>
<p>Furthermore, how can you draw the conclusion that life after death is terminal- meaning that there's no transitions after that? What if it takes 5 deaths to reach a terminal point? What if this life isn't even the first stage of transition? If we're talking metaphysics, there's no way you can definitively counter these questions.</p>