The topic of religion

Like early Islam


and i kinda hate how the Buddhists started to worship Buddha as a god...

perhaps, Jesus had the same fate (i don't remember him claiming that he was the Son of God and the Messiah)


and um... i've been to Bible study once (after that, a game of basketball with friends... that was what i came for anyway), it was kinda interesting
makes me wanna try studying Theology :P

Religion is like a durian to me. I'm sure it's fine for some people, they may even get a lot of good out of it, but it smells a little off to me =). Too much of either and people start looking at you funny.

Whatever gets you through the day, just don't push it on others too strongly.

"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence."

Or so I've been told. =P

Which is what I acknowledged in my last post. >_>

Let's try to remember that it's people who are corrupt, not the ideals themselves. That being said, you think a scientist has never, ever in the history of the whole world lied or altered data to prove his own theories?

A religious man could make up something and expect people to believe it just because they've been around for a while, but a scientist could also make something up and expect people to believe him just because he's a scientist. Either of those two guys can spew a bunch of stuff and people will think "I'm not sure what he meant, but it sure sounded impressive, so it must be true".

Science can be just as much of a crutch as religion. I suppose my idea of the perfect society is one powered by pure science but tempered with the morality of an ethical religion. I try to find the balance in my own life, probably fail miserably haha, but at least I try eh?

The thing is, religion is mindlessly followed. Scientists, which are occasionally corrupt, find proof that supports their claim. Sure, there is no concrete theory of how we came to be, but with rational thinking, the idea of some omnipotent, omniscient being that is everywhere and nowhere at the same time is ludicrous. And there is a small bit of evidence piling into the side that is the Big Bang theory. Which is more than religion has going for it. Sure, people are allowed to believe in whatever they want to. That's what's shiny about America. Besides, someone has to be wrong, right?

Peer review, verifiable data, repeatable experiments, etc.

Did you review him? Verify his data? Repeat his experiments? If you didn't then aren't you just taking his word for it? Even if you do all that, how do you know you're interpreting the data the right way? Another scientist may have a different view. I'm not necessarily saying science is wrong, I'm saying people's interpretation of it can be flawed, just like with religion.

some religion needs a little cleanup...
there's a lot of crap left over by politics and radical fanatics
people tend to forget about the real purpose of someone's teachings
(it's sad, really...)

and some atheists need to loosen up too :P


most scientists (the well-known at least) aren't atheists you know, they're open-minded after all


balance is good too

Philosophers have proven God's existence and non-existence using logic for centuries. In this case, rational thinking will not lead you to the conclusion that god exists/does not exist. Rather, rational thinking will try to find a argument that already supports what you already believe in.



Yes. Einstein was deeply religious. Theories _hint_ at having a god that doesn't run the universe riles him up (some aspects of quantum theories pissed him off).

Stephen Hawkings, probably the most famous physicist alive, was likely a deist.

If anybody understands the nature of the universe, its them. Or maybe the smartest people who have ever lived are simply incapable of rational thought.

makes me think like "random or inexplainable thought process" XD


and watching anime actually got me out of being cynical and atheist :P
[size=8]since my past is a little different from normal people with normal families (the fact doesn't bother me at all anyway), i got out of a sad life this way[/h]

god i believe not that only i believe in him i also have the faith for him coz he had done many great things in my life

Growing up, my religious experiences- if you could even call them that- were very limited. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been in a church (a wedding and four funerals). My family didn't practice anything with a name, and with the exception of the occasional "amen" at the dinner table, prayer wasn't a regular practice. In contrast, where I lived ensured I met and fraternized with many people who were passionate devotees to some creed or another.

Personally, I'm rather aloof about my personal beliefs. They're like a patchwork quilt: I believe in karma, heaven and hell, ghosts, reincarnation, fasting as a means of purification, and a slew of other things that don't seem to mesh. Overall, however, I prefer to emphasize spirituality over religion.

QFT!

A very wise man once said:
"If the flaws in Christianity was a pussy there wouldn't be a dick big enough to fill it"

Huh...mixed bag here.

Here's what I think.

I believe there MIGHT be a god. If there is, good, great. He's been around so long he's probably given up on the whole "Pious" thing, and lets people in/not in to heaven based upon how much of a docuhe they were when they were alive.

If there isn't, the soul might still be real. I'm personally mortally afraid of simply...not being.

Scares the shit out of me.

So, I spent months cutting school looking up as many books, old and new, that deal with death, god, the afterlife, and such.

The most recent one I dug out has been "Ghost Hunters", which is a biography of research undertaken in the 1800s and early 1900s by the British SPR, or Society of Psychical Research. (Yes, they were, and are, real. Proof: http://www.spr.ac.uk/expcms/)

They had so many proofs and contacts with the dearly departed that I'm almost convinced SOMETHING lives on post-mortem.

My own idea?

Self-awareness is what we call the soul, and that survives.

No other animal out there possess self awareness.

This does not mean we are "Godly" or "Teh Chosen" or whatever, simply that there might be something...un-normal about us.

This Self-Awareness, Soul, Energizer Battery, whatever, would be what gives us conscious life. As we die, it flees the living body, and floats around bored, or goes off somewhere, or chats with other floating intelligences.

When it gets tired, it resets itself by sinking into a newly-born body, "Animating" it by giving it the potential to grow into a self-aware human being.

That's what I think, currently anyway.