? for everone who truly believes in god

[Crimson Sin]

Wow..This didn't end up ... I take that back.. Threads like this always go there don't they?

[tigersport14]

where did GOD come from then? was he just a fart in the wind?

don't bother with the GOD is GOD crap... if something does not come from nothing then how did "god" come from NOTHING?? if god can be a fart in the wind then why can't we?

the answer is simple. we all came from nothing... even god (if there really is one) and live life the best you can because no matter what you believe you as you are only here ONCE.

God always has been....

[jknelms]

to me I believe there is a higher being like I said before but as for as church go's I think it is a joke, people need to think what was a church before the bible came to be....church was a people to praise good but at the same time it was a business, people would trade and sell good's all day fast forward to today and it is still a business you have to give 8% or 10% of your pay check for what? a blessing? there is life in everything from the fly you want to swat to the rock's in your yard. And if you do beieve can God is something my uncle said to me and everytime I was in school and I wanted to start something I would ask......"Can God make something he can not lift? love to see someone answer that one...

Why would God even create something like that? What would be the need?

Anyway, church is for fellowship with other Christians. Also, for praise/worship and Bible studies. There were many "church" sessions in the Old Testament. I believe Ezra or Nehemiah talk about some of them. The 10%...or tithe, we don't give it expecting a blessing.

Many churches can be corrupt, or preach false teachings. If any one remembers in the new testament, the temple had become a place of money changers. The pharisees would inspect the sacrifice and tell a person if it was good enough...if it wasn't, they sold "perfect" sacrifices for a fee. One of the reasons Jesus went in there and whipped them.

[Mike Hawk]

as jesse ventura said as governor of MN...

"organized religion is for the weak minded"

religion, church and the teachings of god/the bible should be about the spirituality of life and doing well for yourself and others. It should not be filled with man made laws and sacrifices to prove your worthiness. Also just because you belong to a church that does not mean you live above the law (hence catholic molesters), if anything you should be held to a higher standard.

-If god does truly exist, and religion is about the expression of god, being honest, being open and doing great things for one another, than why does the vatican hide so much from the people? (such as, the many testaments missing from the bible, etc...)

-maybe jesus was really just the first successfull cult leader, in a time when people were weak and needed to be lead. (jesus did hang out with whores, homeless and criminals)

-all churchs/religion should be non-domination. Religion is the largest racist community ever. Its proven all throughout history into current times. If you believe something different than the strongest religous power, you will be either turned or destroyed.

-before you believe in god, would it not be best to believe in yourself first....???
if you cant believe in yourself, you cant do well for yourself, in order to do well for others.
People that fail to believe in themselves, starve for acceptance and to be lead. hence weak minded. Religion preys on these people. Yes some of churchs truly help these people and they go on to turn their life around, great. However most churches manipulate these people to aquire money they are forced to pay. This is why the vatican freaks out when something stirs the pot, hence a good book or movie like divincy code. If the religion loses its followers because they start asking questions, guess what, they lose money.

Cmon, a quote from Jesse Ventura of all people? hes not very credible.

- So Your saying the world wasnt weak and needed to be lead before Jesus? All of the kings and rulers of the world of those times could have easily had their own "Bible" and a god. Idol worship back then was huge, thousands would bow down to statues or animals or a stupid rock, so i would think that would constitute successful cults had already existed. Jesus brought something that no one else ever did and that was Love, and it shook the world apart and it still does today because it goes against the grain of society. We are all in sin and none of us want to accept love from Him because its not natural in our fallen state.

- The Vatican doesnt speak for all of Christianity, they speak for Catholics(who are Christians), which is their denomination, or way of worshiping God. And they do not hide the other Testaments, all of those books are published in the Greek Orthodox Bibles and used by the Roman Catholics as well. The reason they are not included in the Bible that me and you are familiar with is because it was put together from early Protestants to tell all about one central figure and that is Jesus. From the Old Testament and its prophecies that point to Jesus eventually coming to the New Testament that tells of his life it all flows well together and gets to the point of what is being written from book to book. Why would they insert a testament that, lets say, talks about ancient practices of lawn mowing? It would distract the reader from the central point what The Bible.

You said "religion is the largest racist community ever, its proven all throughout history into current times". Can you please elaborate on this and what was proven? There are many different denominations because people like to worship Jesus in different ways, it doesnt make them better than other Christians, just different worship styles. Some have live bands for worship some have no instruments, just voices. Some say you have to dress up for church, some say you can wear what the heck you want, it doesnt make someone less that the other in the eyes of God, its all for Him when you get down to it. When you say the word "religion" you are summing up each and every "viewpoint" of some belief in the world, you cant bundle up a Jew and Muslim as the same, they are very different. I am talking about Jesus Christ who i believe is the savior, who i believe we all need, and will eventually come back and it is the "religion" i follow.

-You say churches "force people to pay"? Ive never been to a church and had someone force me to pay anything, i give because i want to and giving money helps out churches to pay bills, help missionaries, etc etc, and it keeps them functioning in order to tell others about The Lord. Sure the Vatican or other Christian authorities freak out when something like the Davinci code comes out because its based on false accusations like Jesus was married to Mary etc etc, that kind of stuff can lead new Christians and others in the wrong direction about Jesus and cause a misunderstanding of Christianity. You are passionate about LS1 vehicles right? what if Ford started publishing that their base model mustang can smoke a Trans-am, you know and many others know that that is crap and you would be mad because it leads people the wrong way. Same thing there.

People like televangelist pastor Jim Baker back in the 80s when he swindled money from people on T.V. have given Christianity and the Church a bad wrap, its goin to happen, there are false people out there that will hurt the name of Christ and his purpose for their gain. I can assure you that everything you posted is not how a true follower of Christ is or acts.

[chiller2484]

i grew up in a methodist church. the belief in god was put into my brain from the start. then my mom died when i was 11. boy did that set me back a ways. why would god take such a wonderful woman? even people i've never met that knew her say how great she was. i still attended church throughout my teenage years but haven't really gone lately due to not finding one locally to us now that we like. i still believe in god and heaven, but have to think that it's definitely a possibility that it was just stuff made up long long ago to scare people into doing the right thing. like someone said before "putting the fear of god in you". maybe people back then needed someone to blame for the bad things that happened, so they created god and satan. i don't know.

i started taking online classes at liberty university which is a predominately christian school and i seem to be a bit more confused now than ever.

[jknelms]

i grew up in a methodist church. the belief in god was put into my brain from the start. then my mom died when i was 11. boy did that set me back a ways. why would god take such a wonderful woman? even people i've never met that knew her say how great she was. i still attended church throughout my teenage years but haven't really gone lately due to not finding one locally to us now that we like. i still believe in god and heaven, but have to think that it's definitely a possibility that it was just stuff made up long long ago to scare people into doing the right thing. like someone said before "putting the fear of god in you". maybe people back then needed someone to blame for the bad things that happened, so they created god and satan. i don't know.

i started taking online classes at liberty university which is a predominately christian school and i seem to be a bit more confused now than ever.

I've never read a theory before that stated human beings created the idea of "morality." It takes a lot of faith that humans by themselves could create the idea of "good vs. evil." Something I've been trying to investigate lately. From a non-christian perspective, if God didn't exist....where does the idea that something is "bad" come from. Are we suggesting that humans, by themselves, innately have a moral absolution? We teach children the difference between good and bad....what makes something good, what makes something bad?

then again, it takes a lot of faith to believe in Evolution.

[Tonik]

I've never read a theory before that stated human beings created the idea of "morality." It takes a lot of faith that humans by themselves could create the idea of "good vs. evil." Something I've been trying to investigate lately. From a non-christian perspective, if God didn't exist....where does the idea that something is "bad" come from. Are we suggesting that humans, by themselves, innately have a moral absolution? We teach children the difference between good and bad....what makes something good, what makes something bad?

then again, it takes a lot of faith to believe in Evolution.

Evolution hasn't been proven... but there is a LOT of evidence in it's favor, much more than a supreme beings unfathomable power.

In my opinion, of course.

EDIT:

[gwballin]

I've never read a theory before that stated human beings created the idea of "morality." It takes a lot of faith that humans by themselves could create the idea of "good vs. evil." Something I've been trying to investigate lately. From a non-christian perspective, if God didn't exist....where does the idea that something is "bad" come from. Are we suggesting that humans, by themselves, innately have a moral absolution? We teach children the difference between good and bad....what makes something good, what makes something bad?

Keep reading, "morality" is an exercise of an evolutionary behavior developed for the continued existence of the species.

then again, it takes a lot of faith to believe in Evolution.

It takes no faith at all to believe in evolution since the preponderance of the evidence shows evolution to be the way we came into existence. To suggest otherwise is to demonstrate that you don't know the definition of faith.

[gwballin]

Why would God even create something like that? What would be the need?

The same need that inspired god to create anything… That is to say there is no need.

[!!!FAST!!!]

I'm kinda in limbo right now about God. I used to believe and then my life went a route I didn't want it to and I couldn't stop it. I got divorced from the person I thought I would be with forever because she was cheating, she ran with the kids across the U.S. (literally) while I was deployed, and started a new life right away with the guy. So I blamed God. The good thing about that was, you can't be angry with God and not believe in him. However it did open me up for thought. I started thinking about "Why's, What if's, and How could it be's." And some of my religous friends would be the target I shot my questions at. I don't want to pull anybodies religion from them and I always say I wish I still did believe because there is no more terminal feeling than believeing that when you die thats it. One of the questions I asked was: "If one of, or the only, unforgivable sin is not believeing in god(depending on your demoniation) than that basically means that even if I am a saint (other than the fact that I don't believe in god) I'm still going to hell. But If Hitler repented at the end of his life, and actually meant it, he would go to heaven. Even though he was responsible for the deaths of over 6 million of gods children.

[jknelms]

Evolution hasn't been proven... but there is a LOT of evidence in it's favor, much more than a supreme beings unfathomable power.

In my opinion, of course.

well, the word "proven" is a very complicated word in science. A theory is very powerful, no doubt about it. to become a theory, you do need a lot of evidence in support of your hypothesis.

There is a lot of evidence against the idea of Evolution as well...which is probably why Evolution isn't law.

I think Intelligent Design has a lot of support in the scientific world as well. the creation of a cell is a very complicated issue. The universe creating itself is another complicated issue. Although...I have seen theories to suggest the Universe has always been, and the idea of multiple parallel universe theory/string theory as the creation of the Big Bang. Compared to all those theories....yeah, I think Intelligent Design is quite believable.

We could all be Empedocles...full of our selves and our own theories, and be rightfully wrong. I'm not sure what theories will continue for the next 1000 years. but Intelligent design has been around for quite some time. And some scientist suggest that Darwinian theory might be on it's way out of Biology....that natural selection, in it's entirety...not only cannot explain a lot of animal phenomenon...but at times is a contradiction to the variations that exist today. Of course, natural selection will probably always hold a place in social sciences. But idk...A theory is only as good until a better one comes along.

[jknelms]

Keep reading, "morality" is an exercise of an evolutionary behavior developed for the continued existence of the species.



It takes no faith at all to believe in evolution since the preponderance of the evidence shows evolution to be the way we came into existence. To suggest otherwise is to demonstrate that you don't know the definition of faith.

I do continue to read. I only find theories that support it in "social groups." well...there had to be some sort of morality to exist before "social groups" through an evolutionary model.

It takes faith to believe in evolution....it takes faith to believe in gravity, imo.

[SiggyZ]

I believe all sin is the same, in the eyes of God. Sin is separation from God.

I'm kinda in limbo right now about God. I used to believe and then my life went a route I didn't want it to and I couldn't stop it. I got divorced from the person I thought I would be with forever because she was cheating, she ran with the kids across the U.S. (literally) while I was deployed, and started a new life right away with the guy. So I blamed God. The good thing about that was, you can't be angry with God and not believe in him. However it did open me up for thought. I started thinking about "Why's, What if's, and How could it be's." And some of my religous friends would be the target I shot my questions at. I don't want to pull anybodies religion from them and I always say I wish I still did believe because there is no more terminal feeling than believeing that when you die thats it. One of the questions I asked was: "If one of, or the only, unforgivable sin is not believeing in god(depending on your demoniation) than that basically means that even if I am a saint (other than the fact that I don't believe in god) I'm still going to hell. But If Hitler repented at the end of his life, and actually meant it, he would go to heaven. Even though he was responsible for the deaths of over 6 million of gods children.

[jknelms]

The same need that inspired god to create anything… That is to say there is no need.

Oh...there is a need. Or we wouldn't be where we are today. Do I precisely know that need? no...I have a lot of questions myself. There are a lot of things that happen outside of human understanding.

[Tonik]

There is a lot of evidence against the idea of Evolution as well...which is probably why Evolution isn't law.

I was reading up a bit on the subject and noticed this argument before...

Answer

Evolution is not real. People think it's real but it's not. But the problem is other people think it's real because science said so. The truth is that there are things people have found that prove evolution to be false.The reason why some believe evolution is because science said they have proved it. I'm not against science but evolution is not science. I used to believe that God made evolution. Now I know God made us in 7 days. Evolution is not science.

What evidence are you referring to? I did find this video...
http://www.decimation.com/markw/2007...peanut-butter/
Which I would say is complete and utter stupidity considering the first thing we learned about the Theory of Evolution is that it take millions of years... not the age of your peanut butter.

EDIT: I found this video though...

Good stuff.

[Mike Hawk]

I'm kinda in limbo right now about God. I used to believe and then my life went a route I didn't want it to and I couldn't stop it. I got divorced from the person I thought I would be with forever because she was cheating, she ran with the kids across the U.S. (literally) while I was deployed, and started a new life right away with the guy. So I blamed God. The good thing about that was, you can't be angry with God and not believe in him. However it did open me up for thought. I started thinking about "Why's, What if's, and How could it be's." And some of my religous friends would be the target I shot my questions at. I don't want to pull anybodies religion from them and I always say I wish I still did believe because there is no more terminal feeling than believeing that when you die thats it. One of the questions I asked was: "If one of, or the only, unforgivable sin is not believeing in god(depending on your demoniation) than that basically means that even if I am a saint (other than the fact that I don't believe in god) I'm still going to hell. But If Hitler repented at the end of his life, and actually meant it, he would go to heaven. Even though he was responsible for the deaths of over 6 million of gods children.

Yes, if Hitler repented "truly" and asked Jesus into his life on his deathbed "and he meant it" without just saying it to say it, then he would be in Heaven, God knows if you say something with reservations or not. Sure its hard to swallow something like that but that is the beauty of God and his grace, no matter what kind of life you have lived if you truly want to follow Jesus and ask him to be in your life and take control of it then you will go to Heaven and be with him. Its that simple, you dont have to give money, you dont have to go to church every sunday, you dont have to do "things" to be saved, you just ask, but i guarantee that when you do sincerely ask then you will have no doubt about His presence in your life and wonder why you went so long without Him. And i will tell you that when you do follow Him you will want to give money to your church , you will want to go to church alot to learn and worship Him, i know this because it happend to me and its great.

[gwballin]

It takes faith to believe in evolution....it takes faith to believe in gravity, imo.

Care to share your definition of faith so there is no confusion? Based on your posts, I am lead to believe that your definition differs from the widely accepted one.

Given that faith is a belief in something for which there is no proof, evidence, etc., the fact is (by definition) that it takes no faith to believe in evolution or gravity. Sorry to say this but facts trump your opinion.

[jknelms]

I was reading up a bit on the subject and noticed this argument before...



What evidence are you referring to? I did find this video...
http://www.decimation.com/markw/2007...peanut-butter/
Which I would say is complete and utter stupidity considering the first thing we learned about the Theory of Evolution is that it take millions of years... not the age of your peanut butter.

Well, for me personally, I'm not contesting the idea of it taking millions and millions of years for the creation of the universe, earth...whatever else. even life on the planet earth could have been going on millions and millions of years before humans were around. people always talk about how the earth was made in seven days (not that the Bible says that...but it's what ppl assume). The Bible plainly states " in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." My question has always been...why would God use and earthly time scale (day) to create things. Since, most Christians believe He lives outside of time. Also, it is mentioned through out the Bible that a day to him is like a thousand years to us, figuratively suggesting that what is an eternity to us is only a short time to him.

but it is a good point about the peanut butter....if it was sitting there for millions of years...do you think it's possible for life to be obtained? if we set out a petree dish with all the atomic make up to create proteins, amino acids... could it possibly create a single cell...and then duplicate? even if it set there for millions of years.

[67CamaroRSSS]

I do continue to read. I only find theories that support it in "social groups." well...there had to be some sort of morality to exist before "social groups" through an evolutionary model.

It takes faith to believe in evolution....it takes faith to believe in gravity, imo.

IMHO: God is a fairy tale and evolution is a theory but gravity is a fact!

[gwballin]

even life on the planet earth could have been going on millions and millions of years before humans were around.

Could have been? Do you really have any doubt about it?