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warpcrafter wrote:Okay, the proverbial ten foot pole now has a point on it.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5547481422995115331#

As I started to watch this video, I was amazed at the amount of subliminal emotional visions that are presented. I made it to about 15 minutes in and had to stop because the video had already made some outrageous claims especially when trying to compare Jesus Christ to the ancient Egyptian god Horus. This same thing was propogated in Bill Mahrs movie religulous. I got to this part and I said…wait a minute what am I dealing with here. I thought this was a legitimate movie, but it turns out be nothing more than a politically motivated conspiracy movie aimed at linking the government with the 9/11 attacks. In that aim it made up a bunch of stuff, including trying to make a connection between Horus and Jesus.

The Zeitgeist movie makes these claims about the Egyptian god Horus:
• He was born on December 25th of a virgin (Isis Mary)
No mention in any egyptian literature ties isis with he name mary. In Egyptian literature Isis was not a virgin when Horus was born. She was the widow of Osirus, who conceived Horus with Isis. Horus was supposedly born during the month of Khoiak oct/nov (not decemeber). Besides the bible never claims that Jesus was born on December 25th. This just happens to be the day his birth is celebrated.

• A star in the East proclaimed his arrival
No mention of a star ion the east in Egyptian literature..this was blantantly made up.

• Three kings came to adore the new-born “savior”
3 kings didn’t come to visit Horus..another blatant,desperate lie.

• He became a prodigious teacher at age 12
Again nowhere is this to be found in Egyptian literature

• At age 30 he was “baptized” and began a “ministry” • Horus had twelve “disciples”
The only account of Horus and water is of him being cut up into 14 pieces, then scattered throughout the earth. Then isis found the pieces snad floated them in the nile. (No baptism)Horus had 4 semigods and 16 human followers (not 12)

• Horus was betrayed
Another flasehood
• He was crucified
Another falsehood, indeed crucifixion didn’t exist in 3,000 BC

• He was buried for three days
• He was resurrected after three days
More fabrication’s Horus was supposed to have been killed and brought back to life in the underworld by Isis, nothing points to a 3 day burial and physical resurrection.

It appears he got most of his info from sources that have been discredited before

Anyway it took me way to long to research and write all the above.

heres a couple of my sources if you want to research it yourself
http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/12/zeitgeist-of-zeitgeist-movie.html
http://www.gotquestions.org/zeitgeist-movie.html

GG



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cairnius wrote:I think the science versus faith debate really comes down to religion. When religious dogma conflicts with proven science, very often religion will cling to its dogma for fear of being proven wrong and thus having other tenants questioned, which loosens their control over the flock. This is when you get into "the dangers of faith," but really it's the danger of faith in a religion, not "faith" in its purest form..

Again if your talking about macro evolution and or big bang theory as "proven science" you would be wrong and "clinging" to scientific dogma.

Cairnius wrote:
Also, it's important to separate an ignorant person with faith and an educated person with faith. An ignorant person with faith may not believe in evolution because the Church says the world was created in a different way than what science suggests. An education person with faith may understand the Big Bang theory and evolution, but have faith that somehow God played a hand in setting all of that into motion.

It's also important to point out that educated people with faith, completely understand the modern interpretation of big bang and macro evolution, yet are able to see the assumptions and pitfalls in both theories.

GG

generalgrog wrote:
Again if your talking about macro evolution and or big bang theory as "proven science" you would be wrong and "clinging" to scientific dogma.

Just because no religion thread would be complete without this exchange:

Both are proven science. Claiming otherwise shows a certain level of ignorance with regard to the nature of proven science; especially with respect to the necessary veracity of such claims.

generalgrog wrote:
It's also important to point out that educated people with faith, completely understand the modern interpretation of big bang and macro evolution, yet are able to see the assumptions and pitfalls in both theories.

Assumptions aren't intrinsically bad. Human activity turns on assumptions. That's simply the way of epistemology.

dogma wrote:

generalgrog wrote:
Again if your talking about macro evolution and or big bang theory as "proven science" you would be wrong and "clinging" to scientific dogma.

Just because no religion thread would be complete without this exchange:

Both are proven science. Claiming otherwise shows a certain level of ignorance with regard to the nature of proven science; especially with respect to the necessary veracity of such claims.

From my point of view believing unprovable assumptions is what creates ignorance. At the very least nonignorant people should say this or that is a belief based on assumption and therefore may not be in fact "a fact". And is a complete stretch of logic to call something based on assumptions as "proven science".

GG

generalgrog wrote:
From my point of view believing unprovable assumptions is what creates ignorance. At the very least nonignorant people should say this or that is a belief based on assumption and therefore may not be in fact "a fact".

Proof, belief, and assumption are all related tangentially. They aren't rigidly separated concepts. I believe my keyboard will allow me to type this message. This is based on the assumption that its previous ability to do so will carry forward into the future. The fact that my belief, and assumption, are proven correct repeatedly serves to strengthen my conviction. Anyway, that's why we have scientific theories; containing both uncertainty, and an element of rational proof.

generalgrog wrote:
And is a complete stretch of logic to call something based on assumptions as "proven science".

Not really, but that's only (well, partially, there's certainly some observation to underpin the Big Bang/Evolution) because science isn't the rational series of facts that we often assume it to be. Fact is part of science, but not the whole of it. You should look in to the Kuhn v. Popper debate. It explains a lot.

Cairnius wrote:I think the science versus faith debate really comes down to religion. When religious dogma conflicts with proven science, very often religion will cling to its dogma for fear of being proven wrong and thus having other tenants questioned, which loosens their control over the flock. This is when you get into "the dangers of faith," but really it's the danger of faith in a religion, not "faith" in its purest form.

Also, it's important to separate an ignorant person with faith and an educated person with faith. An ignorant person with faith may not believe in evolution because the Church says the world was created in a different way than what science suggests. An education person with faith may understand the Big Bang theory and evolution, but have faith that somehow God played a hand in setting all of that into motion.

This is undoubtedly the best post I have read from you Cairnius. You are right, that the Church has been afraid of science in the past. But most of the organized churches no longer have this fear of science, ie the Anglican Church, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, etc. Rather it is the more loosely organized and independent fundamentalist churches in the US and elsewhere around the globe that still fear the possibilities of science. I grew up in just such a household, but while attending a Baptist university I somehow converted to the Anglican Church while I was studying abroad in the UK. My parents didn't care for this at all, and my dad even told me that I let my head get in the way of my faith. To which I responded, "Galileo, a great man of God, declared that he did not believe that God had given him his intellect if he hadn't planned on him using it." Religion can be very dangerous, you will never hear me argue otherwise, but it isn't always the case. As far as the second half of your post, you are right again. Although the educated person who is religious doesn't tend to see God as having a hand in the Big Bang, but rather He is the instrument that sets it in motion. Thanks for a good post.

sebster wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

halonachos wrote:I bring you science AND religion:

Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, "why do airplanes fly?" on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof."

It's a great story, but unfortunately not true. snopes.com (http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/hell.asp) dates the story back to a humour piece from the 1920s that argued heaven was hotter than hell.

Yeah, I was looking it up to put it on here and lo and behold snopes came up saying that it was never written by a student, I still put it up here though, because its funny.


Although religion has created science, the catholic church once wanted it to be that souls had no mass and were instead vacuums, although vacuums get filled or have attempted fillings, souls were the only vacuum that went against science.



@Cairnius, I agree.
I believe in evolution and the big bang theory, but I believe that God set them into motion. Unlike alabama, where questions can be answered by "God did it or Because God made it so."

I'm going to have to disagree GG with your arguments about Horus and Jesus.

see tables on here

There's a long and well established and approved scholarly approach to this and indeed many other comparisons between Xtianity and other religions.

I suspect part of what might be confusing you is the many versions of Horus that are generally all rolled into one mass and this just isn't true at all. Best way i had it described to me was it being like Superman : ie you get the movie version, the many cartoon versions, the comic books and so on. All of them are about the same guy, with minor changed details here and there, but as to which is THE real version....


few other points you make..

crucifixion didn’t exist in 3,000 BC

pfft.. we don't know that one way or the other. There's references in the Torah (.. and Deut. ? ) about people having been secured to trees and left to die, but, be honest, i's not hard an idea to come up with is it. And we have always excelled at finding new ways to feth people up horribly.

AS to the blog spot you link to...

hmm.. sorry, he talks more BS than a Fox anchor.

and explaining Christianity on the basis of a 'religions geschichte' sort of argument, which is to say a history of religions argument (this religion derived from that religion which derived from that religion

Whether you think it a myth or not is irrelevant, it IS a mixture of one building on the other.

we have no ancient sources on Zoroaster

hmmmm.. not quite. Pliny and his contemporaries were well aware of it, it was well established and well know. It does pre date Xtianity. I wonder if your guy might be mixing this up with the Cult of Mithra perhaps ? That is an oddly similar version of "the truth " ( which the Catholic church once declared a plot by Satan to lure people to sin) in a lot of ways and is from about the same time.

stress that Jews were not on the whole a myth-making people.

hmm.. say what now ? Crap of the highest order. Of course they are, there's whole books of it,

And when they used mythological images (like e.g. the image of the great sea monster Leviathan) they used them in historical ways.

..wait.. so now they ARE a myth using people. That's pathetic, shooting down your own argument scant sentences later.

Finally, you will notice as well that Mr. Joseph has not bothered to consult any expert

something about glass houses comes to mind here.

Frankly that post made about as much sense as this golden oldie

As for myself, I believe that science has proved that there has to be a creator (The best mathematicians, physicists, biologists, astronomers,etc all admit they cannot explain how the DNA data gets into each cell/gene and can only be put there by intelligent design. But a campaign of disinformation from the atheist scientific communtity was exposed on British TV (I have the documentary), that proves that even the atheists admitted in secret scientific unpublished journals that all organic life in the universe had to come from a designer creator, and cannot appear randomly. The documentary exposed these findings and carried the atheist scientists through to their final statement and conclusion (which was pretty weak) that all artificial intelligence can appear randomly, but they admit that all organic life has to have a creator. THAT WAS THE COVER UP! THIS WAS EXPOSED AND THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY WERE INFILTRATED BY OCCULT SECRET SOCIETIES AND PAID TO NOT PUBLISH THEIR FINDINGS. (MOSTLY HIGH RANKING FREEMASONS, ROSICRUCIANS, ORDER TEMPLAR ORIENTALIS,ETC). tHE DOCUMENTARY PART 2 STATES THAT 90% OF THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY DO NOT BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION BUT AGREE WITH CHRISTIANS SCIENTISTS THAT NATURAL SELECTION IS A CORRECT THESIS, BUT THEY CANNOT ADMIT THIS, BECAUSE THEIR FUNDS WILL BE STOPPED BY POWERFUL INSTITUTES CONTROLLED BY THESE OCCULT FREEMASONS/BUSINESSMEN WHO OWN MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS

which gets emailed round again every 3 months. I think it might be to do with sunspots.

I've no evidence to support that but that's how i feel and you CANNOT tell me I'm wrong !

I'm getting a headache, perhaps we could have an abridged portion where we skip facts and citations and just blurt out beliefs? That would make this funner.

halonachos wrote:I'm getting a headache, perhaps we could have an abridged portion where we skip facts and citations and just blurt out beliefs? That would make this funner.

Soylent Green is Made from PEOPLE!!!!

Nuns can fly.

halonachos wrote:I bring you science AND religion:

Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, "why do airplanes fly?" on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof."

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

"First, We postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave.

Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:

If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.
If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.
So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, "that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you" and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true...Thus, hell is exothermic."

this quote is made of pure win

Dogs can't look up.

generalgrog wrote:
From my point of view believing unprovable assumptions is what creates ignorance. At the very least nonignorant people should say this or that is a belief based on assumption and therefore may not be in fact "a fact". And is a complete stretch of logic to call something based on assumptions as "proven science".

Proven science = preponderance of evidence, GG. Science does not require 100% evidence because there's no such thing, like history can never perfectly recreate past events, it can only get as close to the truth as possible by constantly looking for more information and revising current understandings.

Evolution and the Big Bang theory are not based on assumptions. Hypothesis aren't assumptions, they are theories which are then tested against evidence, and if the evidence doesn't hold up, the hypothesis is disproven.

In the case of these two theories, the evidence holds up. It's proven science.

JEB_Stuart wrote:This is undoubtedly the best post I have read from you Cairnius.

It's funny how one's perspective on a post changes with how much one agrees with it.

All my posts are excellent. Most are just much more full of muckrake than that one you enjoyed. *grin*

generalgrog wrote:
From my point of view believing unprovable assumptions is what creates ignorance.

:( Assumptions that are unprovable? Like assuming there is a god? This is not provable at all.

generalgrog wrote:
At the very least nonignorant people should say this or that is a belief based on assumption and therefore may not be in fact "a fact". And is a complete stretch of logic to call something based on assumptions as "proven science".

Or how about "proven faith"? Shouldn't you say therefore that god may not exist and that the holy spirit is not a fact by that point? (the only sin according to that bible that is not forgivable?)

yeah,

dogma wrote:Nuns can fly.

Not according to RAW.
PAnic...

Nuns don't fly. Their prayers are answered and god moves the earth under them.

And dogs can look anyway they please... so there.

frgsinwntr wrote:

halonachos wrote:I bring you science AND religion:

Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, "why do airplanes fly?" on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof."

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

"First, We postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave.

Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:

If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.
If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.
So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, "that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you" and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true...Thus, hell is exothermic."

this quote is made of pure win

+1

frgsinwntr wrote:

generalgrog wrote:
From my point of view believing unprovable assumptions is what creates ignorance.

:( Assumptions that are unprovable? Like assuming there is a god? This is not provable at all.

generalgrog wrote:
At the very least nonignorant people should say this or that is a belief based on assumption and therefore may not be in fact "a fact". And is a complete stretch of logic to call something based on assumptions as "proven science".

Or how about "proven faith"? Shouldn't you say therefore that god may not exist and that the holy spirit is not a fact by that point? (the only sin according to that bible that is not forgivable?)

I'm not assuming there is a God. I know there is one, because I have a personal relationship with him, through Jesus Christ.

Let me repeat this, I am not making any type of assumption, I know that God exists and that Jesus Christ exists not merely becuase His creation is a testement to Him but becuase I have a personal relationship with Him. and I'm not the only one either. :-)

All of the attempts by sceptics to "disprove" the existance of God are based on self serving assumptions, so thay they have an "excuse" to not worship or obey Him. That is what it really comes down to IMO.

GG


Automatically Appended Next Post:

reds8n wrote: I'm going to have to disagree GG with your arguments about Horus and Jesus.

I'll read up on your stuff and get back with you later.

It's becoming a full time job refuting you people. :-)

edit...that religious tolerance link you gave is relying heavily on a book written by a Tom Harpur, The Pagan Christ; Recovering the Lost Light,"

It was fairly easy to google a few refutations..you can read along with me if you like.
http://www.tektonics.org/harpur01.html
http://www.canadianchristianity.com/cgi-bin/na.cgi?nationalupdates/040623was

GG

generalgrog wrote:I'm not assuming there is a God. I know there is one, because I have a personal relationship with him, through Jesus Christ.

Let me repeat this, I am not making any type of assumption, I know that God exists and that Jesus Christ exists not merely becuase His creation is a testement to Him but becuase I have a personal relationship with Him. and I'm not the only one either. :-)

All of the attempts by sceptics to "disprove" the existance of God are based on self serving assumptions, so thay they have an "excuse" to not worship or obey Him. That is what it really comes down to IMO.

I respect the fact that you have found within yourself.

For me, even if there was a beginning (which I am not sure there was, in a literal sense at least), and there was a force that sparked that beginning, I see no reason that "being" would be around anymore. Perhaps in one form God is, and in another God is not, just like a void being there, a space being there, only when you are there with it.

I see depth in nothing, and through this I do identify with a "higher power", but I know I am in a universe comprised of many things that inevitably carry more of an impact than I do. Perhaps God is only what you define as such, perhaps not. I am not sure, and as I mentioned before, this question can vary quite a bit from person to person, individual to individual, and most definitely from group to group.

*tenets - sorry to nitpick, man.

generalgrog wrote:
edit...that religious tolerance link you gave is relying heavily on a book

heavily, but not entirely. And surely you must see there are similaritires between god X/T/U of whatever faith.

To clarify : I'm not for one moment claiming that jesus et al is some Brownesque meets the X files cover up as such, merely that anything out of that region and schools of thought is inevitably going to be a bit of a .. er... "blend" isn't quite the right word but it'll have to do for now, of all the various factions and idealogies.. Just like Xtiniaty fodled existing pagan dates and ceremonies into its structures at a later date.

reds8n wrote:

generalgrog wrote:
edit...that religious tolerance link you gave is relying heavily on a book

heavily, but not entirely. And surely you must see there are similaritires between god X/T/U of whatever faith.

To clarify : I'm not for one moment claiming that jesus et al is some Brownesque meets the X files cover up as such, merely that anything out of that region and schools of thought is inevitably going to be a bit of a .. er... "blend" isn't quite the right word but it'll have to do for now, of all the various factions and idealogies.. Just like Xtiniaty fodled existing pagan dates and ceremonies into its structures at a later date.

On the other hand I believe it was the Pagans that folded a corrupted knowledge of God into their religious systems, since I believe he and his teachings existed from before the beginning of the world.

generalgrog wrote:
I'm not assuming there is a God. I know there is one, because I have a personal relationship with him, through Jesus Christ.

Let me repeat this, I am not making any type of assumption, I know that God exists and that Jesus Christ exists not merely becuase His creation is a testement to Him but becuase I have a personal relationship with Him. and I'm not the only one either. :-)

All of the attempts by sceptics to "disprove" the existance of God are based on self serving assumptions, so thay they have an "excuse" to not worship or obey Him. That is what it really comes down to IMO.

GG

what do you mean by a personal relationship? Do you get calls at night? Are there voices in your head? Are you simply attributing things to a higher power that can be explained in simpler logical ways? I'm not sure what you mean here and would like some clarification on what this relationship entails.

there can't be an attempt to disprove god. Not sure you understand Arkhams razor, but since it can't be tested, it is disregarded as a possible explanation. However, If you are so inclined, then go ahead and prove his existence in a testable way.

The proof of his/her existence is your job being the person who claims it to be true.

frgsinwntr wrote:

generalgrog wrote:
I'm not assuming there is a God. I know there is one, because I have a personal relationship with him, through Jesus Christ.

Let me repeat this, I am not making any type of assumption, I know that God exists and that Jesus Christ exists not merely becuase His creation is a testement to Him but becuase I have a personal relationship with Him. and I'm not the only one either. :-)

All of the attempts by sceptics to "disprove" the existance of God are based on self serving assumptions, so thay they have an "excuse" to not worship or obey Him. That is what it really comes down to IMO.

GG

what do you mean by a personal relationship? Do you get calls at night? Are there voices in your head? Are you simply attributing things to a higher power that can be explained in simpler logical ways? I'm not sure what you mean here and would like some clarification on what this relationship entails.

there can't be an attempt to disprove god. Not sure you understand Arkhams razor, but since it can't be tested, it is disregarded as a possible explanation. However, If you are so inclined, then go ahead and prove his existence in a testable way.

The proof of his/her existence is your job being the person who claims it to be true.

This would become a case of picking holes in each others evidence to prove or disprove God's existence. I have scriptures, prophecies from these scriptures that have come true, personal feelings and experiences in my life and witnessing his influence in other people's lives that prove God's existence to me.
It comes down a lot to faith, and there is a saying that "faith preceeds the miracle". I can see where you're coming from because I was there and not long ago would have been writing the same things you are and gotten genuinly pissed at what I saw as willful ignorance of religious people.
I don't know how much Bible reading or exploring of religion you've done, but if you haven't, I'd say give it a go with an open attitude and try it for a month or so by way of experiment. The open attitude is the key, because if you go into it with a pre-concieved outcome, the experiment is already hosed.
Another thing to remember is not to let what you percieve as hypocrites influence you. Just because people are jacked doesn't mean God is.

God is (by various definitions) above people and their "pettiness". There is no real need to attribute human aspects onto such a form. Comparing the two seems relatively unnecessary to me.

Clouds are also above me, in many more ways than the obvious. I see no reason to compare myself to them, and I feel the same way about faith. Faith is, and that is enough for me. What intrigues me though, is the varying degrees and form that faith takes.

I practice faith by getting out of bed every day, although this is the first step among many that I take. Keep in mind that although I have faith, I do still view myself as agnostic.

Relapse wrote:
This would become a case of picking holes in each others evidence to prove or disprove God's existence. I have scriptures, prophecies from these scriptures that have come true, personal feelings and experiences in my life and witnessing his influence in other people's lives that prove God's existence to me.
It comes down a lot to faith, and there is a saying that "faith preceeds the miracle". I can see where you're coming from because I was there and not long ago would have been writing the same things you are and gotten genuinly pissed at what I saw as willful ignorance of religious people.
I don't know how much Bible reading or exploring of religion you've done, but if you haven't, I'd say give it a go with an open attitude and try it for a month or so by way of experiment. The open attitude is the key, because if you go into it with a pre-concieved outcome, the experiment is already hosed.
Another thing to remember is not to let what you percieve as hypocrites influence you. Just because people are jacked doesn't mean God is.

I'm genuinely interested tho in this personal relation ship... I'd like to know what it was.

as far as my experience? 12 years of catholic school reading the bible every year since i was able to. I've listened to lectures by many people on the topic. I have had classes on both eastern and western faiths. And I have had classes in Physics/Astronomy/Chemistry/Biology. I have a Degree in Environmental Science (Geology) and Physics.

Could these personal experiences and feelings be attributed to other events that are not divine is the question i am really asking you tho Relapse. If they can then we should really assume the simplest explanation is the true one and can be reproduced... therefore are not god and not evidence

reds8n wrote:And surely you must see there are similarities between god X/T/U of whatever faith.

That's true with everything though.

generalgrog wrote:
I'm not assuming there is a God. I know there is one, because I have a personal relationship with him, through Jesus Christ.

You're assuming that you haven't been deluded by either yourself, or some other being which is not God. This is a reasonable assumption as it correctly regards the absence of evidence against a principle as distinct from evidence for that principle.

generalgrog wrote:
Let me repeat this, I am not making any type of assumption, I know that God exists and that Jesus Christ exists not merely becuase His creation is a testement to Him but becuase I have a personal relationship with Him. and I'm not the only one either. :-)

Respectfully, that's an exceptionally disingenuous stance to take given your history of dismissing evolution, the big bang, et al due to their reliance on the very type of assumptions that you've plainly made.

generalgrog wrote:
All of the attempts by sceptics to "disprove" the existance of God are based on self serving assumptions, so thay they have an "excuse" to not worship or obey Him. That is what it really comes down to IMO.

GG

No one, that I'm aware of, has ever made any attempt to disprove the existence of God (no one reputable anyway). Rather, the dialectic has emanated from the absence of empirically verifiable evidence for the existence of God.

Wrexasaur wrote:God is (by various definitions) above people and their "pettiness". There is no real need to attribute human aspects onto such a form. Comparing the two seems relatively unnecessary to me.

Clouds are also above me, in many more ways than the obvious. I see no reason to compare myself to them, and I feel the same way about faith. Faith is, and that is enough for me. What intrigues me though, is the varying degrees and form that faith takes.

I practice faith by getting out of bed every day, although this is the first step among many that I take. Keep in mind that although I have faith, I do still view myself as agnostic.

I had a college professor for "Religions of China" say this every day : )


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dogma wrote:

generalgrog wrote:
I'm not assuming there is a God. I know there is one, because I have a personal relationship with him, through Jesus Christ.

You're assuming that you haven't been deluded by either yourself, or some other being which is not God. This is a reasonable assumption as it correctly regards the absence of evidence against a principle as distinct from evidence for that principle.

generalgrog wrote:
Let me repeat this, I am not making any type of assumption, I know that God exists and that Jesus Christ exists not merely becuase His creation is a testement to Him but becuase I have a personal relationship with Him. and I'm not the only one either. :-)

Respectfully, that's an exceptionally disingenuous stance to take given your history of dismissing evolution, the big bang, et al due to their reliance on the very type of assumptions that you've plainly made.

generalgrog wrote:
All of the attempts by sceptics to "disprove" the existance of God are based on self serving assumptions, so thay they have an "excuse" to not worship or obey Him. That is what it really comes down to IMO.

GG

No one, that I'm aware of, has ever made any attempt to disprove the existence of God (no one reputable anyway). Rather, the dialectic has emanated from the absence of empirically verifiable evidence for the existence of God.

Albeit textbook like, that was more clearly stated than i could ever do myself. +1

Orkeosaurous has earned a bonus point. I saved that picture to show harry potter fans who hate starwars.