My views on religion

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Ah.

Bad logic thing makes sense. Some people definitely take the bible too strictly, though it is clear that if the bible holds the answers, some of it must be indirect, or it has already been proven wrong.

Religion is a good thing. It offers comfort and support and gives purpose and meaning to life.

Which is fair enough, so long as they keep it to themselves and don't try interfering in my life. Then it becomes a bad thing.

God's promises in the Bible have to be taken collectively and not just cherry-picked to get God's blessings. One positive promise plus three negative promises aren't going to end up with a positive outcome.

Nothing and no one is perfect except God Himself. The original documents that make up the Bible are closer to what God had in mind. What we have has gone through at least two translations by translators who were doing the best job they could.

The Bible has metaphor and allegory in it, but we can't always tell if God is being literal or not.

But the Bible isn't all we have to go on. That is our framework, but we flesh out what we are to do through divine guidance. The two forms of guidance don't contradict each other; it is the same Holy Spirit in both cases.

I became a Christian straight out of the Bible on a ship that was out of touch with land and had no Christians on it. The part I became a Christian through was the biographies of Jesus. If anyone wants to rattle my faith, they have to take on the gospel biographies. (Rotsa ruck!) Shortly after that I prayed for and received divine Word of Knowledge. The Bible and the divine guidance has stood me in good stead for 40 years.

What about the entire universe as god? We would be like a part of the whole. That is a common thread in most religions I think. Besides it makes me laugh to think of groups of people standing in hallways or on pathways restricting pedestrian traffic as colesterol glogging the veins of a larger body in which we reside.

Kind of sounds like Gaia theory on a much larger scale.

The only purpose to life if you believe in evolution is to reproduce. So are you are failure? Are you doing your job? Jesus offers everyone a hope and a reason for being.He is the way and the path. I don't know about you but I would rather die believing in God and be proven wrong. Than die not believing and be proven wrong. If I'm wrong I loose nothing. However if you are a unbeliever and are wrong good luck with satan.
froggo.

I'd rather be true to myself than try and play the odds. I can't exactly force myself to believe in something anyway.

If you are being true to yourself? .Then how many children have you produced? If you are not true to evolution theory, then you are decieving youself. It's one or the other. If you believe in evolution then as a aspie we should be dead. Evolution is all about the strongest. If the whole world was like this then anyone with a defect would be a burden and would be delt with accordingly. Jesus loves everyone even us. It sounds to me like you may read the bible but have no understanding. I was like you until I opened my heart to our Lord.Then and only then could I understand with the help of the Holy Spirit the true word of God.
froggo

First: I didn't have the concentration to take in all the veiws from the other posts and thats okay.

My view on religion is that its a kind of morality etc. Society has its own morality just like a religion. Its a combination of beleifs but they seem to be generally all the same. People base morality on their feelings and instincts.

For things to be organized based on the subject of morality is said to be a religion from my broad veiw of things. There are many religions out there as well.

The other thing that I have is the view of things that I read on this post of psychoactive substances. The kind that I agree with for myself is mild sedative herbs but only every once in a while. And when people claim that psychoactive substances enhance religious experiences, what they are doing in dividing themselves up between people. The same goes with a psychoactive that is said to cure or enhance someone. This idealogy happens all over the world in the form of psychiatry.

I beleive that life also has the personal evaluation as a beleif that life isn't worth living. One of the things important of religion and morality is finding meaning in life. Committing suicide is an alternate view of how valuable life is to someone and I wish to find a way to make it more in maturity as a part of who I am if I decide to do that, personally. I am entitled to end my life just as people are entitled to say that there is something wrong with someones' psychological problems and there is a cure for them. I am entitled to just as the many religious beleifs have their say on what is good and what is evil.

The statement was about Mitch8817 being to true to her/himself, not to evolution, so your speculation about the latter's reproductive status is irrelevant and unnecessary, though the original argument itself had a certain appeal to a longterm celibate like myself. However I am already Christian. Actually, evolution does not purport to give a purpose for living, merely an account of life's purported origins, so I am not sure how strong your argument is. In your interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, how do you differentiate between the work of the Holy Spirit within you and your subjective emotional responses to the text? Is not your other argument (concerning the consequences of belief and non belief in the event of the former being true or false) drawn from Blaise Pascal?

Your refutation of the application of Survival of the Fittest is interesting, though deriving ethical consequences from a scientific theory was always going to be suspect. The scientific method does not purport to reveal moral truth, but rather to test propositional claims to truth through observation and experiment.

I will say it again. The purpose of evolution is to reproduce the species. The strongest survives to reproduce and the weaker is chased away or killed. Civilisation and society is the result of a single species becoming dominant due superior inteligence. What they make, design or invent including various religions is the result of their evolution and status on the food chain. There is no other reason for life except this or there is a God who made us for his own purpose.
Many times I have heard the who made the maker theory, this is often the claim of evolution theorists. I however pose a harder question to answer. Who made the foundation of the whole periodic table? Where did the building blocks of the universe come from? Did they just appear one day. Why are they so organised? Why do the combinations of various elements make another different element? Why is it so perfect? Was it all made to a plan? Even Einstine believed in Jesus. He worked until the day he died on the theory. This was his greatest work and caused him to loose his creditability with his peers & fellow scientists.
So I hate to say that if you don't believe in God and our lord Jesus, then you have to be living an empty life where your only purpose is to produce as many offspring as you can before you die. The society, ego's, wealth, lives that we have made are just part of our inability to admit to ourselves that this is all there is! Unless you believe.

You don't have to believe in God to have a purpose.

Thankyou AlexandertheSolitary, your understanding and communicating of the message I was trying to convey is appreciated.

FROGGO, in evolution, man defines his own life, he doesn't have a God telling him what is right and wrong. Yes, we have a biological purpose, but if one is content in merely fulfilling such an intrinsic function then they are missing the point of life. Existence being finite makes it all the more precious.

Plus, I am a moral, caring, kind and generous person. If God knows all, then he can verify this. Further, if God knows all then he knows that I cannot will myself to believe in something I find so difficult - blind faith has no part in my rational, logical mind. And if God truly was responsible for creating me, then I am the way he has intended and expected. Surely I cannot be punished for this.

And as to your questions of which no man can answer, think of where we were 200 years ago. No cars, no computers, we didn't know the universe like we do now. Technology evolves at a rapid rate and the more we learn, the less space your God has to claim. He used to be responsible for the planet's turning, but now we know otherwise and he has lost this power; the power of man's ignorance. Every day science converges on the space traditionally reserved as God's domain.

You prove that God is real and then I shall disprove him.

Humans were given their own mind to choose. This is the crux of the issue. I'm not saying that you cannot make up your own purpose for life. What I'm saying is the begining of the world was a random act of non-intention if you believe in evolution. This then means life on earth was a fluke, a chance of many probable outcomes. This means your life is not intentional. It does not matter if you live or die.
Why do we have a concience? Is this also a fluke? This is evidently a human trait only. Why do we have a inbuilt meter of whats good and whats evil. God created us with a free mind to choose for ourselves our destiny. God then told us how we should live if we choose to follow him. These rules are the basis of all that we call western society today. Morality also follows these rules that you say you follow mitch8817. These are commonly known as the ten commandments.
God does know all and I'm sure he knows you are a good person and he made you exactly as he planned. However he also gave you a free mind to choose, because if he made us to all do as he wanted how boring would that be to hang around with a bunch of puppets for eternity. God knows that you choose not to follow him as he asks, so you will suffer for this choice because it is your choice.
I have aspergers just the same and a blind leap of faith does not compute with me either. It is just not possible for me to act in such a random way. Evolution is full of random chance. Everything had to fall randomly in the correct way to produce life. We still know that God is responsible for the planets turning. The same as he is responsible for the universe we live in, and Alpha centure the next universe etc, he made it this way.
The great scientific minds ie Einstein and Newton were believers and are often quoted by non-believers! More modern scientists like Dr David Suzukie have come to the same dead ends with evolution and a growing number of scientists are begining to recognise the perfection and orderly manner to the universe and thus life cannot be random.
I've made an informed decision, where I have carefully weighed up the evidence and decided to follow our Lord Jesus Christ. Read the works of historians such as Tacitus and Suetonius who were romans and saw Jesus in person. They have no need to lie about what they wrote.

C.S.Lewis wrote,
"a man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would be a great moral teacher. He would either be insane or else he would be the devil of hell! You must make your choice " he writes. "Either Jesus was and is the Son of God or else he was insane or evil, but let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

Froggo.

That's awfully close minded. If I believe in evolution, why do I have to subscribe to every single one of its assertions? There are about 100 different evolution/universe origin theories out there anyway, not just this one you keep referring to.

You seem to also be forgetting that evolution also has a purpose, meaning that life and death are indeed important. Crucial, in fact.



Evolution my good sir. I can only make assumptions, but I would say that we have evolved intelligence to make us live longer, adapt better and function more highly to facilitate breeding opportunities. Evolution is always a step up.



'Good' and 'evil' are religious notions. In (some) evolution ideas it's selfish and altruistic that are the binaries. Further, does everyone have the same exact ideas on good and evil? Even within Chrisianity there is a division over abortion, for example. Good and evil are relative and essentially meaningless.



Does the indoctrinated child have a free mind to choose?



Well, whoever wrote the Bible asserts that.



They are common sense. Hardly anything 'divine'.



My point was that how can we have 'free will' if God knows everything that we will do. If he sees into the future then it has already been done, has it not? What choice do I have if I'm just following a single line along?

Further, as children, we always believe what our parents tell us. It's all really just a gamble as to where and when you are born. If you were born in a Muslim household you would be saying the exact same things, albeit about a different God. Chance.



And I believe that religion is all about chance. Who is right? Apparently I go to Hell for my beliefs, while you get off more easily for mine.



So? Unlike Christianity, I don't persecute others for their beliefs, nor try to convert them to my own. Live and let live - people can believe what they want in my books, so long as they know exactly what that belief entails.



Again, take a look into indoctrination.



He was the son of the Lord of the universe, who wouldn't say that they saw him?