SEVERAL QUESTIONS TO ATHEISTS
- Thread starter HERESY
- Start date
-HERESY, yes, I was/am "already dead".
Alot goes through your mind when you believe you will die. Every emotion you can imagine, from fear to hopelessness to regret to spirituality.
I did "embrace God" as I believed I would die, but I realized it was more out of a mix of cowardice, conformity, and expectancy. I went through a time in my life when I did not fear death. I was jumped, stabbed, and put myself in dangerous situations. Yet at this time I did not "look to God" as I did when I had cancer.
In the hospital I was preached to almost 24/7. Part of me feared hell, part of me was the Christianity I had been taught since youth resurfacing, and part of me was attempting to assuage my family. Before my last operation I decided that I would not make a rash emotional decision because of my situation, and I reconciled with the fact that I did not believe in the Christian God, and if that was a mistake, then so be it.
I came to the conclusion that spiritually, by my fruit I will be judged, not by some faith utterance in the last days. So my personal reality was a God sought out of fear and weakness. I can't say the same is true for all people, but that was my conclusion.
Alot goes through your mind when you believe you will die. Every emotion you can imagine, from fear to hopelessness to regret to spirituality.
I did "embrace God" as I believed I would die, but I realized it was more out of a mix of cowardice, conformity, and expectancy. I went through a time in my life when I did not fear death. I was jumped, stabbed, and put myself in dangerous situations. Yet at this time I did not "look to God" as I did when I had cancer.
In the hospital I was preached to almost 24/7. Part of me feared hell, part of me was the Christianity I had been taught since youth resurfacing, and part of me was attempting to assuage my family. Before my last operation I decided that I would not make a rash emotional decision because of my situation, and I reconciled with the fact that I did not believe in the Christian God, and if that was a mistake, then so be it.
I came to the conclusion that spiritually, by my fruit I will be judged, not by some faith utterance in the last days. So my personal reality was a God sought out of fear and weakness. I can't say the same is true for all people, but that was my conclusion.
I’m a little sleepy this morning, so bare with me HERESY…
Well, like I said before, when humans started thinking and developed self-consciousness, they began attempting to link things together, i.e. the sun and creation, the sun and life, the sun and death etc. etc. etc. They needed answers and somewhere along the line, the sun became the answer to everything. This of course was then taught from generation to generation.
Think of it this way HERESY, when did the concept of Jewelry come about? We had different civilizations across the globe that never met, and yet they all knew the concept of jewelry. There were tribes in America, Africa, Asia, mid-east, and Europe who all wore Jewelry. This not instinctive, nor is it essential for survival.
There are countless amounts of similarities between civilizations. Burials are another example. Many ancient tribes buried the dead. Where did they get this concept?
Well no, you’re wrong. The chimps do not need these tools to survive. They only use the tools to open certain kinds of nuts, which are not something they eat often; it’s more of a “delicacy” for them. 99% of their diet consists of vegetation and insects. The reason I brought up these chimps was to show you that using these tools are not instinctive for them nor is it essential for their survival; it is something they are taught. Somewhere along the lines, the concept of a rock opening up a certain kind of nut was introduced to one or multiple chimps. Since that point in time, this concept has been taught to generation to generation. Same goes for the tribe that uses wood. What’s interesting HERESY, is that each tribe specifically ONLY uses their own method, either a rock or a piece of wood. It is never both. This clearly shows us that it is because they were taught this. Same goes for the concept of jewelry, burials, fire, god etc.
If you were born on an Island with no contact to other humans, you would not know about fire, buildings, religion etc. You would have to learn on your own. Maybe you would consider a coconut tree as your god.
I don’t agree with this at all. One of the reasons that comes to mind is that there are plenty of cases where an individual does worship a god and later in life does not, and vice versa.
Ok, this is a difficult question. I’m not really going to get into it now for a couple of reasons. One, I’m at work and I cannot dedicate too much time to reply. Two, I’m tired as hell and three it will take away from the original topic. I will however briefly explain a couple of things.
First off, I’m a strong believer in the ‘Big Bang’ theory. Basically that means everything we now see or know about was once compacted into an unimaginably small blip that abruptly expanded in an enormous explosion, which created the very space and time it was expanding into.
So, we know that the universe is expanding. An interesting idea that seems logical is that eventually the universe will collapse back into this tiny compact blip, getting so dense that eventually it will explode again, thus repeating a continuous cycle of an expanding/collapsing universe. This connects to the “Fractal” thread and philosophy. This is justified scientifically by what is called “dark matter.” It appears that there is so much of this matter in the universe to create a gravitational field to bring everything in the universe back together into one black hole. If this is true, than this means there is no begging and no end. Existence is existence, reality is reality, and we are here because existence exists. At first this may seem like an absurd, completely simple way of explaining our universe, but in reality it is incredibly complex but at the same time coincides perfectly with what we know is true in our own planet and beyond- the laws of physics and mathematics.
This is a great thread HERESY. These kinds of discussions have been lacking on the siccness lately.
Well, like I said before, when humans started thinking and developed self-consciousness, they began attempting to link things together, i.e. the sun and creation, the sun and life, the sun and death etc. etc. etc. They needed answers and somewhere along the line, the sun became the answer to everything. This of course was then taught from generation to generation.
Think of it this way HERESY, when did the concept of Jewelry come about? We had different civilizations across the globe that never met, and yet they all knew the concept of jewelry. There were tribes in America, Africa, Asia, mid-east, and Europe who all wore Jewelry. This not instinctive, nor is it essential for survival.
There are countless amounts of similarities between civilizations. Burials are another example. Many ancient tribes buried the dead. Where did they get this concept?
Well no, you’re wrong. The chimps do not need these tools to survive. They only use the tools to open certain kinds of nuts, which are not something they eat often; it’s more of a “delicacy” for them. 99% of their diet consists of vegetation and insects. The reason I brought up these chimps was to show you that using these tools are not instinctive for them nor is it essential for their survival; it is something they are taught. Somewhere along the lines, the concept of a rock opening up a certain kind of nut was introduced to one or multiple chimps. Since that point in time, this concept has been taught to generation to generation. Same goes for the tribe that uses wood. What’s interesting HERESY, is that each tribe specifically ONLY uses their own method, either a rock or a piece of wood. It is never both. This clearly shows us that it is because they were taught this. Same goes for the concept of jewelry, burials, fire, god etc.
If you were born on an Island with no contact to other humans, you would not know about fire, buildings, religion etc. You would have to learn on your own. Maybe you would consider a coconut tree as your god.
I don’t agree with this at all. One of the reasons that comes to mind is that there are plenty of cases where an individual does worship a god and later in life does not, and vice versa.
Ok, this is a difficult question. I’m not really going to get into it now for a couple of reasons. One, I’m at work and I cannot dedicate too much time to reply. Two, I’m tired as hell and three it will take away from the original topic. I will however briefly explain a couple of things.
First off, I’m a strong believer in the ‘Big Bang’ theory. Basically that means everything we now see or know about was once compacted into an unimaginably small blip that abruptly expanded in an enormous explosion, which created the very space and time it was expanding into.
So, we know that the universe is expanding. An interesting idea that seems logical is that eventually the universe will collapse back into this tiny compact blip, getting so dense that eventually it will explode again, thus repeating a continuous cycle of an expanding/collapsing universe. This connects to the “Fractal” thread and philosophy. This is justified scientifically by what is called “dark matter.” It appears that there is so much of this matter in the universe to create a gravitational field to bring everything in the universe back together into one black hole. If this is true, than this means there is no begging and no end. Existence is existence, reality is reality, and we are here because existence exists. At first this may seem like an absurd, completely simple way of explaining our universe, but in reality it is incredibly complex but at the same time coincides perfectly with what we know is true in our own planet and beyond- the laws of physics and mathematics.
This is a great thread HERESY. These kinds of discussions have been lacking on the siccness lately.
BUMP
I CAN'T REPLY (IN DEPTH) TO THIS THREAD BUT IT'S VERY INTERESTING AND INFORMATIVE.
@ ALREADY DEAD I RESPECT YOUR ANSWER. BTW I'VE BEEN GOING TO MT.DIABLO MEDICAL CENTER WITH MY SISTER FOR THE PAST 3 MONTHS. SHE HAS CANCER. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TREATED THERE OR THE CANCER CENTER IN OAKLAND (I FORGET THE NAME)?
MY IN DEPTH RESPONSE/QUESTIONS WILL COME LATER.
:HGK:
PS @2-0-6 IN VARIOUS RELIGIONS AND CULTURES "THE GODS" OR "ANGELS" SHOWED MAN HOW TO MAKE AND WEAR JEWLERY
I CAN'T REPLY (IN DEPTH) TO THIS THREAD BUT IT'S VERY INTERESTING AND INFORMATIVE.
@ ALREADY DEAD I RESPECT YOUR ANSWER. BTW I'VE BEEN GOING TO MT.DIABLO MEDICAL CENTER WITH MY SISTER FOR THE PAST 3 MONTHS. SHE HAS CANCER. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TREATED THERE OR THE CANCER CENTER IN OAKLAND (I FORGET THE NAME)?
MY IN DEPTH RESPONSE/QUESTIONS WILL COME LATER.
:HGK:
PS @2-0-6 IN VARIOUS RELIGIONS AND CULTURES "THE GODS" OR "ANGELS" SHOWED MAN HOW TO MAKE AND WEAR JEWLERY
I neglected to read through every single post in the thread so if someone has said this then just ignore my post. . .
In a sociology class I took my teacher explained to us that family structure is just one part of the 5 basic principles of every society ( Religion, Education, Government, Family, and another one buried in notes somewhere) but basically he explained that as each one evolves the idea of religion is a reflection of the rigors of daily life, he gave many examples of ancient cultures and how simple the idea of religion really is, sand people, who nomadically hunted in the worst conditions the desert could face had a harsh and unforgiving god because to those people thats how life was etc.
MY Theory is that christianity today is the height of Americas love with itself, and our gluttonous egotistic ways, The WHITE image of a MAN as GOD and CREATOR - PROVIDING - this is the reason there wont be a president that is NOT a WHITE MALE CHRISTIAN -
In a sociology class I took my teacher explained to us that family structure is just one part of the 5 basic principles of every society ( Religion, Education, Government, Family, and another one buried in notes somewhere) but basically he explained that as each one evolves the idea of religion is a reflection of the rigors of daily life, he gave many examples of ancient cultures and how simple the idea of religion really is, sand people, who nomadically hunted in the worst conditions the desert could face had a harsh and unforgiving god because to those people thats how life was etc.
MY Theory is that christianity today is the height of Americas love with itself, and our gluttonous egotistic ways, The WHITE image of a MAN as GOD and CREATOR - PROVIDING - this is the reason there wont be a president that is NOT a WHITE MALE CHRISTIAN -
In the simplicity of seeking to learn more about ourselves and our relationship with matter, space energy and time, hence the physical universe there is common ground between theists and atheists whether or not scientific. At some point however there is a split between believing we are spiritual vs we are matter.
I beleive in Ockham's or occam's razor: A rule in science and philosophy stating that entities should not be multiplied needlessly. This rule is interpreted to mean that the simplest of two or more competing theories is preferable and that an explanation for unknown phenomena should first be attempted in terms of what is already known....So i'll believe in God when 1+1=5.
So to sum this up in Laymen's terms, "Gods" were created from wishful thinking.
Is there a certain religion or god you are looking for? because people have devoted their lives to that question and have not found an answer to the deep array of questions.
I beleive in Ockham's or occam's razor: A rule in science and philosophy stating that entities should not be multiplied needlessly. This rule is interpreted to mean that the simplest of two or more competing theories is preferable and that an explanation for unknown phenomena should first be attempted in terms of what is already known....So i'll believe in God when 1+1=5.
So to sum this up in Laymen's terms, "Gods" were created from wishful thinking.
Is there a certain religion or god you are looking for? because people have devoted their lives to that question and have not found an answer to the deep array of questions.