Do You Believe In God?

[cweb]

yeah, i think there's something more. i was raised Catholic, my mother's side of the family being into it (but not overzealous) and my father's side not really giving a hoot.

 

i think that God does exist, but it's not necessarily a guy or a girl or a being. i think it's probably an energy, something that has an ultimate control but is still innately linked to all of us. i'm not entirely sure of this, and i'm not out to set it as fact, it's just my best guess.

 

deist, atheist, whatever someone wants to think; it's all good. and as far as organized religion goes, there's a lot of bullshit in there. but there's also a lot of good being done. it just sucks how people aren't willing to stop and listen to others, but are quick to shout over the top of them. your faith (in whatever) should be measured by the good that you do, not by your exaggerations and performances yearning for attention.

 

(and it's kind of funny how Nine Inch Nails' "Heresy" came on shuffle while i was typing this.)

[Lauren]

i hate that song haha...

[Sparq]

Bah, it's a GREAT song.

 

(your god is dead, and no one cares

if there is a hell, I'll see you there)

 

Etc.

Edited July 27, 2007 by Sparq

[Hyphnip]

it is one of my favorites.

 

especially, "he dreamed a god up and called it Christianity"

[Lauren]

i don;t like people yelling religious things at me, sexy t-rez or not.

[Sparq]

Fair enough. One of my favourites as well, at least fron the NIN stable.

[Hyphnip]

i don;t like people yelling religious things at me, sexy t-rez or not.

I'm fine with it if it's religious things I agree with.

 

i hate it when people feel the need to tell me that I'm going to hell because even though I'm a good person, I don't believe in god.

[Lauren]

it bothers me when people make a big deal out of that. if someone tells you that, say okay. i'm glad you know your beliefs and get out of there. believe it or not, they are just trying to help. the way they see it, they have the cure for a caner we all have and they don't want you to die from it. they aren't trying to be annoying or invasive.

[matrix]

Whether they are trying to be helpful or not, they come off annoying. And, I really don't think they are trying to be helpful, they are trying to force you to see it their way, and the best way for them to do that, is to scare you by saying you're going to fry in hell. Apparently, for most religions, the tactic to get you to believe, or have faith in that particular religion is to scare you into it.

Edited July 27, 2007 by matrix

[Lauren]

its a bad method, thats for sure. and there are some people who just want to be right no matter what they are saying, but having spent a lot of time in religious groups, i can tell you from first-hand experience they really are just trying to help. its hard for one person, who sees something so clearly, to not understand why others can't see that same thing as clearly. i used to get in fights with my parents (about non-religious matters) because i thought i had something figured out and i thought that if they disagreed with me, it was because they didn't understand what i was saying because i thought that if they understood me, they would for sure agree with me. actually i still feel like that sometimes haha. the good christians (and there are quite a few, despite what the general populous thinks) just can't understand why you won't embrace their ways, especially in the face of fire and brimestone. hell is a sure thing for them... they just don't want you to be fucked in the ass.

[supercanuk]

its a bad method, thats for sure. and there are some people who just want to be right no matter what they are saying, but having spent a lot of time in religious groups, i can tell you from first-hand experience they really are just trying to help. its hard for one person, who sees something so clearly, to not understand why others can't see that same thing as clearly. i used to get in fights with my parents (about non-religious matters) because i thought i had something figured out and i thought that if they disagreed with me, it was because they didn't understand what i was saying because i thought that if they understood me, they would for sure agree with me. actually i still feel like that sometimes haha. the good christians (and there are quite a few, despite what the general populous thinks) just can't understand why you won't embrace their ways, especially in the face of fire and brimestone. hell is a sure thing for them... they just don't want you to be fucked in the ass.

What surprises me though is why they even bother.

Why do religious people, who feel they have the answers, constantly feel the need to "help".

O.K. i get the whole, they feel they have the answers thing, that in the end they think they're helping us. But with something as personal as what happens to you when you die, why do they assume that they can convince somebody one way or the other?

I've had to deal with religious people my entire life (my whole family except me is fairly religious so family talks about god and jesus get really really awkward at times). And they don't go around trying to convince others of their personal truths. So it always struck me as odd that other christians did this, and to me at least, it seems to be coming from a few loud sectors of the christian community, i.e. Protestants in the south, Mormons, and Latter Day Saints.

I mean I NEVER have a Jewish person coming up to me telling me im going to hell if I don't believe in this that or the other. I don't even have Muslims knocking on my door telling me to accept Allah, so why just these Christians? Just because the Bible says spread the good word, doesn't mean you should, because the Bible also tells you to stone women if they adultresses, and we've stopped that now. (in some places).

[Guest Prosis]

What surprises me though is why they even bother.

Why do religious people, who feel they have the answers, constantly feel the need to "help".

O.K. i get the whole, they feel they have the answers thing, that in the end they think they're helping us. But with something as personal as what happens to you when you die, why do they assume that they can convince somebody one way or the other?

 

Same question could apply to non-smoking people who tell smokers that it's bad for them. Why do they do it? I don't know...I wonder if they expect the smoker to go "What???? What the fuck are you talking about, that's unhealthy???"

 

As far as religions go, that's one of the things I despise about them: imposing your beliefs to someone else...

 

To me there is an immense difference between religions and God.

 

Plus religions all have their part of discrimination which for starters makes me hate them (religions not religious people)

[matrix]

Same question could apply to non-smoking people who tell smokers that it's bad for them. Why do they do it? I don't know...I wonder if they expect the smoker to go "What???? What the fuck are you talking about, that's unhealthy???"

 

As far as religions go, that's one of the things I despise about them: imposing your beliefs to someone else...

 

To me there is an immense difference between religions and God.

 

Plus religions all have their part of discrimination which for starters makes me hate them (religions not religious people)

I feel the same way. For me, if someone asks for my help, I'll gladly give it, but I don't go around saying....smoking is bad for you, or you going to die in hell if you don't let the lord in your heart at this moment. Why do people feel the need to do that? The Catholics should be more embracing of people coming to them for answers instead of forcing it down others throats. (There are other religions that do this as well, so don't think I'm picking on Catholics...that's just the one that came to mind.)

[Seanathon]

I feel the same way. For me, if someone asks for my help, I'll gladly give it, but I don't go around saying....smoking is bad for you, or you going to die in hell if you don't let the lord in your heart at this moment. Why do people feel the need to do that? The Catholics should be more embracing of people coming to them for answers instead of forcing it down others throats. (There are other religions that do this as well, so don't think I'm picking on Catholics...that's just the one that came to mind.)

Other than wacko extremists you see on tv (or random crazies on the street) I've never ever experienced this at all. The only people I've had come to my door are Jehovah's.

 

And scare tactics aren't exclusive to religion; The current US administration says "hello".

 

Also, certainly there's more to the bitterness against religion some people seem to have than some people saying "god will save you".

[matrix]

I just find it hard to believe people can put so much faith in a book that they don't even know is real. More then that, that they live their live based on said book, and can't fully think for themselves. And, this is of course generalized towards the extremists of the religions, not towards the on and off again people who practice.

[sodamntired]

i thought of something at work, thinking about this thread....about heaven.

 

even you are in a state of eternal bliss for all eternity, that's still a very long time. boredom becomes a factor?

[matrix]

If there is an afterlife, which I don't entirely believe, but if there is one, I highly doubt that time is a factor. A minute would feel like an hour, and hour would feel like a minute....infinite would be finite, and finite would be infinite.

[Lauren]

i think that basically sums it up haha.

[hum-an-ole]

Time is an illusion anyways, in my opinion.

[matrix]

While the basic concept of time makes sense....I mean, we do all age, and so does the world, universe, etc. But, the current basis of time, does not. Minutes, hours, days? Never really understood it. And, how does fucking Leap Year fit in? Why 365 days in a year? Who decided 24 hours in a day? And, better yet, who the fuck made up daylight savings time? I still think that is a absolute waste of time. But, then, what really is time, and can you waste it? A question for an answer of a question.

[Lauren]

the earth in orbit decides all those times. we just observed them and then use them.

[sodamntired]

While the basic concept of time makes sense....I mean, we do all age, and so does the world, universe, etc. But, the current basis of time, does not. Minutes, hours, days? Never really understood it. And, how does fucking Leap Year fit in? Why 365 days in a year? Who decided 24 hours in a day? And, better yet, who the fuck made up daylight savings time? I still think that is a absolute waste of time. But, then, what really is time, and can you waste it? A question for an answer of a question.

taken from the booklet of the album Survival Sickness by The (International) Noise Conspiracy

 

The Perception Of Time:

 

The timeline, hours chopped into minutes into seconds into the very measurement on living.  Life lived on the basis of time consumed.  The standardization of time in the 19th century was well in tune with the industrialization's maximum usage of labor power, the the need to increase the profit.  We learn to accept the fact that days are nothing but blocks of time to be consumed.  The schematics of living is nurtured from the institutionalized learning facilities also known as schools, also known as breeding ground for future slaves.

 

i wasn't a socialist when i first read this in High School, but it rocked my world.

[ToadMan]

While the basic concept of time makes sense....I mean, we do all age, and so does the world, universe, etc. But, the current basis of time, does not. Minutes, hours, days? Never really understood it. And, how does fucking Leap Year fit in? Why 365 days in a year? Who decided 24 hours in a day? And, better yet, who the fuck made up daylight savings time? I still think that is a absolute waste of time. But, then, what really is time, and can you waste it? A question for an answer of a question.

The base unit of time, the second is defined as: "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom." (http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html) This is in-fact a derivative definition of the existing definition. The origins of hour minute second relate back to the Greeks and (as Lauren pointed out) where defined on the basis of the mean solar day). Which is then divided into units. Further to that in 1956 the second was defined in terms of solar orbital time (for those of you who use UNIX will be familiar with the `date +%s` which reports seconds since the epoch). The cesium cycle is equivalent to the new definition.

 

All of the subdivisions are based on historical treatment of time. It is not a socialist conspiracy.

 

DST was invented in 1905 and in use by 1918 as a method of conserving coal.

 

I prefer to think of time at the flow that carries us from one moment to the next. It is well proven in theoretical physics that time isn't uniform, and can be made to change speed based on how objects are acting. It stands that two atomic clocks can be made to differ in their recording of time if they are subjected to the right forces.

[matrix]

I'm not argueing the fact that time relates to how long it takes for the earth to revolve around the sun, my main point is that some trival numbers were made up to signify this. Why where some trival numbers made up for this...so that people can understand, because we simply cannot live with out understanding, and it's not even understanding it, it's using simple numbers so we can 'comprehend' it.

 

Which goes back to God. Man made up God so he could comprehend what he doesn't understand. I believe Mr. Good summed it up best.....Man makes god, so god can make man....man makes the devil so that he can understand.

[Azalroth]

Time is relative to the perception of the human viewing it.

 

 

Bible Thumper Story:

 

This story if from one of my house mates and is absolutely hilarious.

 

 

One day two of my house mates were home and some strange woman knocked on the door. So the one answers it and she's trying to push her political views. This went well considering he's an atheist and strongly believes in God not existing. He tells her no and closes the door, which is about when he got the idea to grab a laptop and bring up a 7-8min video illustrating some very compelling facts against Religion and the reality of God. He tried to get her to view it and chased her down the hall with it, harassing her like she was harassing everyone in the building by going door to door.

 

Her response was a typical as someone who doesn't want to be fed the bullshit that she was peddling. Apparently she looked fearful of even seeing that video and would not even look at the laptop to see another perspective, remaining naive and ignorant of someone else's views while trying to peddle her own views on other people.