What is your religion or lack therof?

[I am...]

Quote from acronym:

If there is an afterlife, doesnt it make logical sense there was a before-life?
Lending creedence to the principle of perpetual existence/reincarnation?

Exactly. This is the point that many fail to grasp. It must not be grasped if the intent is to perpetuate self-deception.

I speak of a "before-life" as "Reality", "Home", "perfection", "equality" with All That Is.

What we perceive of as this universe is the after-effect of an idea that Reality could be changed.

If Reality is everlasting Life unchanging, then a change would manifest as death.

But because death is not possible within Reality, it must be the appearance of death, resulting in a birth-death cycle.

The appearance of this cycle must persist until faith in it is withdrawn, and going Home becomes a priority.

Jesus

 

[Free Thinker]

Quote from libsrturckeys:

You think the bible is not evidence, but some website called whywon'tblahblah is? You must be one of the global warming scientists. Yeah, one of them that think the only evidence is their evidence and the only scientists are themselves. Dilusional nitwits.

The website is no evidence of anything. It is simply asking a question in a scientific way. Dave 74 put forth a book written by a woman who claims miraculous healing as evidence God exists. In order to be sure, based on claims God heals through prayer,that God exists we need to devise a test to filter out false claims or coincidence. The way we do that is to find an illness that cant be faked or misdiagnosed. Amputees are the perfect test because there is no doubt about the condition or the cure if there was one. When we test prayer in this way it fails 100% of the time.
Now if you are willing to put forth some kind of evidence to conteract the test the website ran we will be more than happy to review it.

 

[Free Thinker]

Quote from pattersb:

"God alone, or the necessary being, has the privilege of necessarily existing if he is possible. And since nothing can prevent the possibility of that which is without any limits, without any negation, and consequently, without any contradiction, this fact alone suffices to know the existence of God a priori. ("Monadology," Section 45) " Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz


http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/mattey/kant/LEIBNIZ.HTM


I suggest you compare the man's accomplishments against your own before making any feeble rebuttals. Having watched replays of the moon landing does not a personal accomplishment make.


http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/l/leib-met.htm

This man lived before the scientific method could examine claims of Gods. It is because scientists looked for God that they mostly all now disbelieve because held up to the light of scientific inquiry all gods are nothing but superstition.
I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.Thomas Jefferson

 

[I am...]

Quote from vhehn:

I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.Thomas Jefferson

Top ten superstitions perped by a hijacked version of the original gospel are:

1. God made this world ( Same as saying God made hell)
2. You began to exist at birth, because God put you in a body.
3. I am different from you, ie. me = God, you = man, me = special, you = sinner. In other words, not One.
4. The last judgment divides, sorts, selects, evaluates and condemns.
5. I died for your sins as some kind of sacrificial offering to an angry or "just" God.
6. Resurrection is for bodies...New earth is for bodies.
7. God is both loving and wrathful, punishing, and needing to be appeased.
8. Heaven is achieved upon death. All must die...at least once!
9. The devil is a powerful turncoat, hideously obvious in appearance, real, and forever a ravenous dog on a long leash that leads eventually to the hand of God.
10. You can never be equal with God, and must settle for adoption and second class citizenship in Heaven.


Grown men teach these things with straight faces standing behind ominous pulpits.

However, it is not different from kids making up stories while shining flashlights on their faces as they crouch under a blanket at night in their room.

These are misrepresentations, misunderstandings, mistakes, fearful beliefs...anything but the truth.

Why?

The truth would remove the blanket. That would be untimely while kids prefer to exchange ghost stories.

Jesus

 

[dave74]

Quote from LionTrader:

I'll just give you a little story on religion, I think it sums it up.

This is about my brother. Anyway, he wanted to baptize his daughter (pressure from my parents, it's a right thing to do etc.).
So he goes to the priest...and the priest says, "Well, I can't baptize your daughter, since you and your wife never really got married in church, so it would be kind of sin, blah blah blah".

My brother replies : " So, how bout for 100 Euros, think you can do it?"

Priest: "Sure, no problem...."

True story. I mean, take faith however you want it, but leave religion to bullshit peddlers and businessmen.

I'm sure your story is true, and it's sad. But saying that story sums up religion and that priest representing all people who have a faith is like saying all people of a particular race are the same. I think we all owe it to ourselves to find out the whole truth about Christianity, both the bad and the good.

 

[dave74]

Quote from stu:

With respect dave, this is not just like trading. Although often carried out through wishful thinking, I agree, trading decisions are based on reality, with outcomes becoming known in reality. But compared to trading, God and Bible decisions can only be based on an abstract notion toward various conjectured outcomes, supported by wishful thinking.The flipside to your comment is, no confirmation anywhere, throughout history, proves God and the Bible are things of truth.
If trying to disprove imaginary concepts like God is not all that smart, trying to prove them is no smarter.Would that be because you think those who try to prove God this case in a book, might somehow be smarter? You could always start with the reality and truth a trade, an empty coffee cup, or a baseball bat provides.

I never said faith is just like trading. Far from it. I said "it is just like in trading", meaning the research of faith is the same research people do in trading. The research is the same. It is the find the truth or reality. In a nutshell, it just means tons and tons of reading.

I urge you to read this book. You have nothing to be afraid of. If it's false, it's false. If it's true, it's true. If it's false, then I think you would be doing the world a service by exposing her as a fraud. The lady never argues for the existence of God. What happens in the book is miracle after miracle. If even 1% of the things in her book are true, then there is a God.

 

[bronks]

Quote from I am...:

...The body has been given a bad rap to some degree. Let us honor the body for the purpose it fulfills in bringing to your conscious recognition the fullest possible aspect of the experience that you have chosen to have.

Jesus

Yup. I agree.

Can't get from point A to point B without traversing the in between.

 

[anti ad hominem]

Quote from I am...:

Top ten superstitions perped by a hijacked version of the original gospel are:

1. God made this world ( Same as saying God made hell)
2. You began to exist at birth, because God put you in a body.
3. I am different from you, ie. me = God, you = man, me = special, you = sinner. In other words, not One.
4. The last judgment divides, sorts, selects, evaluates and condemns.
5. I died for your sins as some kind of sacrificial offering to an angry or "just" God.
6. Resurrection is for bodies...New earth is for bodies.
7. God is both loving and wrathful, punishing, and needing to be appeased.
8. Heaven is achieved upon death. All must die...at least once!
9. The devil is a powerful turncoat, hideously obvious in appearance, real, and forever a ravenous dog on a long leash that leads eventually to the hand of God.
10. You can never be equal with God, and must settle for adoption and second class citizenship in Heaven.


Grown men teach these things with straight faces standing behind ominous pulpits.

However, it is not different from kids making up stories while shining flashlights on their faces as they crouch under a blanket at night in their room.

These are misrepresentations, misunderstandings, mistakes, fearful beliefs...anything but the truth.

Why?

The truth would remove the blanket. That would be untimely while kids prefer to exchange ghost stories.

Jesus

J-man you should try on this level of clarity and concision all of the time & people might actually a) have a clue what it is you are usually raving on about b) take notice & ask themselves appropriate questions. Thanks for a well thought post absent the usual esoteria.

 

[stu]

Quote from dave74:

I never said faith is just like trading. Far from it. I said "it is just like in trading", meaning the research of faith is the same research people do in trading. The research is the same. It is the find the truth or reality. In a nutshell, it just means tons and tons of reading.

It is not and cannot be the same research. Research in trading will contain information and data in reality, verifiable as factual, separate from concept.You already confirmed that much.
Research in faith will contain information and data not verifiable in reality, nor verifiable as factual not separated from concept. Otherwise it would not be faith being researched.

We may all have faith in what answers are or might be, but that is not the same as reality, actually available in trading, which research can establish as true. ( except perhaps for a few chicken bones and certain special incantations )

What you did say was there is a yes or no to 3 questions and that this is just like trading, where decisions can be based on reality.
If you care to consider or research that a little more, I think you should find it is not so.

Quote from dave74:

What happens after we die?
Is there a heaven? Is there a hell?
Is there a God?

The fact is, there is a yes or no answer to all of this questions. Just because we want one or the other to be true won't make it so. This is just like in trading, where we are not to be biased, but make our decisions based on reality.
.....

What truth is. If there is truth. We spend countless hours trading and researching. We should at least spend a few hours on these very important questions.

The fact is.... it is not "just like trading”. or "just like in trading"

Doesn't trading start out on a base of reality as you say, producing an actual outcome which again can be examined for its reality and truth? Don't Yes or no answers apply?.

No researching of those "important questions" can be "..just like in trading"
Research on all of them cannot contain the reality in trading.Then the research is not the same and from its limitations will not be able to to contain the same standards of result.

The second items in your list start out as concepts only and cannot even come up to the measure of reality, which you confirm trading starts at.
With trading there actually is information and data in reality, verifiable as factual, separate from concept.
With heaven hell and God. there is nothing in reality verifiable as factual separate from concept. .. Unlike trading, they are no more than abstract concepts.

One item in the list, death, indeed is a confirmable reality just like trading. But it goes no further in your proposal.
What happens after we trade produces a reality where truth is made every bit apparent..
What happens after death only raises questions which any amount of reserach can only produce vague ideas of concepts where truth, reality and yes or no answers are never apparent. Like they are in trading.

Quote from dave74:

:"... just like in trading, where we are not to be biased, but make our decisions based on reality"[/i].
Can't be. There is not that base of reality to research "... just like in trading"

How can it facilitate truth by mixing those things like God heaven or hell, which are concepts, or emotion, or faith, or superstition or wishful thinking, or all those things, with other stuff that can be examined from that basis of reality you mentioned - like trading ?

The truth you indicated must be there, would not be just an idea, would require no covenant to verify itself, no kneeling or bowing of heads to justify. Just like in trading.

 

[Turok]

Dave:

Just ordered the book on Amazon. I will post my thoughts in a few weeks.

JB

Quote from dave74:

There is also an amazing book by a lady named Jackie Pullinger called "Chasing the Dragon." It's a pretty powerful book. I would be hard pressed to argue against the existence of God after reading that book. I would really encourage some people here to read it. You have nothing to fear. I would love to hear any comments about this book.